Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychosocial developmental theory in relation to anxiety and its disorders.

We must advance beyond the simple ‘stimulus charting’ of fears in youth if we are to truly understand their significance in development and their long-term impact on adjustment Ollendick, King & Frary, 1989, p. 26 Introduction Epidemiological and clinical studies have indicated that the prevalence of the different anxiety disorders is related to age, and that the average age-at-intake and age-at-onset also differ for the various anxiety disorders. At the same time, however, virtually any anxiety disorder may occur in any age cohort. This chapter addresses the question whether the differences both between and within age cohorts may be explained in terms of general theories of psycho-social development. The following age pattern was observed for nonphobic anxiety disorders (Kashani & Orvaschel, 1990; Last et al., 1987; Westenberg et al., 1999; see also American Psychiatric Association (APA), 1987, 1994): (a) separation anxiety disorder (SAD) occurs most frequently in childhood, (b) overanxious disorder (OAD) ismost characteristic of adolescence and (c) panic disorder (PD) appears most frequent in late adolescence and (young) adulthood. Yet, SAD may also occur in adolescence, and PD may occur even in childhood (Ollendick, 1998). DSM-IV no longer includes OAD, and merged this classification with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD; APA, 1994). However, the core criteria and the clinical features of OAD are highly similar to those in children with GAD (see APA, 1994). Tracey et al. (1997) observed that ‘DSM–IV GAD criteria are identifying the same sample as the DSM–III–R OAD criteria’ (p. 409).
A Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm Using Gaussian Process-Based Inverse Modeling

To approximate the Pareto front, most existing multiobjective evolutionary algorithms store the nondominated solutions found so far in the population or in an external archive during the search. Such algorithms often require a high degree of diversity of the stored solutions and only a limited number of solutions can be achieved. By contrast, model-based algorithms can alleviate the requirement on solution diversity and in principle, as many solutions as needed can be generated. This paper proposes a new model-based method for representing and searching nondominated solutions. The main idea is to construct Gaussian process-based inverse models that map all found nondominated solutions from the objective space to the decision space. These inverse models are then used to create offspring by sampling the objective space. To facilitate inverse modeling, the multivariate inverse function is decomposed into a group of univariate functions, where the number of inverse models is reduced using a random grouping technique. Extensive empirical simulations demonstrate that the proposed algorithm exhibits robust search performance on a variety of medium to high dimensional multiobjective optimization test problems. Additional nondominated solutions are generated a posteriori using the constructed models to increase the density of solutions in the preferred regions at a low computational cost.
Natural transmission of Streptococcus sobrinus in rats: saliva and serum antibody responses to colonization

One hundred and twenty weanling rats fed diet NIH 2000 that were free of Streptococcus sobrinus and other mutans streptococci were employed in this study. Sixty rats were inoculated orally with S. sobrinus 6715. Each infected rat (donor) was paired and housed with an uninfected recipient. Saliva and serum samples were collected from 24 (12 donor and 12 recipient) rats at the baseline (day 0) and from groups of 12 recipients sacrificed on days 10, 24, 38, and 52, and the level of infection with S. sobrinus was monitored. Salivary immunoglobulin A (IgA) and IgG and serum IgM and IgG antibodies reactive with whole cells (WC), glucosyltransferase (GTF), and the serotype carbohydrate (g) of S. sobrinus were measured by an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Although the rats were free of S. sobrinus and other mutans streptococci at baseline, they exhibited salivary IgA and serum IgM antibodies reactive with S. sobrinus WC, GTF, and g and serum IgG antibodies reactive with WC and GTF. Infection of recipients with S. sobrinus did not induce salivary antibodies reactive with WC, GTF, or g. In contrast, increases in serum IgM and IgG antibodies reactive with WC and serum IgM antibodies reactive with g were observed.
Current Treatment of Leishmaniasis: A Review

The World Health Organization has classified the leishmaniasis as a major tropical disease. An effective vaccine against leishmaniasis is not available and chemotherapy is the only effective way to treat all forms of disease. However, current therapy is toxic, expensive and the resistance has emerged as a serious problem, which has compelled the search for new antileishmanial agents. The aim of this article is to review the current aspects of the pharmacology of leishmaniasis, giving an overview from current agents clinically used to new compounds under development. Pentavalent antimonials are still the first choice among drugs used for the treatment of leishmaniasis. Alternatively, amphotericin B, pentamidine, miltefosine and paromomycin can be used. The search for new drugs is a perpetual process; including synthetic products and compounds isolated from natural sources. The current scenario of antileishmanial drugs constitute the results of effort by academics, researchers and sponsorships in order to obtain drugs available, efficient and less toxic to people infected by Leishmania parasites.
Ablation of atrial fibrillation in patients ≥75 years: long-term clinical outcome and safety.

AIMS The prevalence of atrial fibrillation (AF) increases with age. Catheter ablation is an established treatment option for patients with symptomatic AF. We sought to determine the safety and long-term clinical efficacy of AF ablation in patients ≥75 years. METHODS AND RESULTS Patients ≥75 years with symptomatic, drug-refractory AF were included in the study. Circumferential pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) was performed in all patients, extended to ablation of complex fractionated atrial electrograms, and/or linear lesions in PVI non-responders. Retrospective follow-up (FU) was based on routine outpatient clinic visits and regular telephone interviews. A total of 94 patients (54 male, age 78 ± 2 years, and left atrium diameter 46 ± 6 mm) with drug-refractory AF [55/94 (59%) paroxysmal AF (PAF), 29/94 (31%) persistent AF, and 10/94 (11%) long-standing persistent AF] underwent ablation. Follow-up was obtained in 93/94 (99%) patients. Following a single procedure, 35/93 (38%) patients were in stable sinus rhythm (SR; 46% PAF, 31% persistent AF, and 10% long-standing persistent AF) after a mean FU of 37 ± 20 months. After a mean of 1.5 ± 0.6 procedures, 55/93 (59%) patients were ultimately in stable SR (76% PAF, 41% persistent AF, and 20% long-standing persistent AF). In a total of 137 procedures, 8 major (5.8%) and 26 minor (19%) complications occurred. CONCLUSIONS Catheter ablation in patients ≥75 years is associated with a favourable clinical long-term outcome in patients with PAF, while results are less promising in persistent or long-standing persistent patients. The safety profile of AF ablation in patients ≥75 years is comparable with patients of younger age.
Pyrimethamine and WR99210 exert opposing selection on dihydrofolate reductase from Plasmodium vivax

Plasmodium vivax is a major public health problem in Asia and South and Central America where it is most prevalent. Until very recently, the parasite has been effectively treated with chloroquine, but resistance to this drug has now been reported in several areas. Affordable alternative treatments for vivax malaria are urgently needed. Pyrimethamine-sulfadoxine is an inhibitor of dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) that has been widely used to treat chloroquine-resistant Plasmodium falciparum malaria. DHFR inhibitors have not been considered for treatment of vivax malaria, because initial trials showed poor efficacy against P. vivax. P. vivax cannot be grown in culture; the reason for its resistance to DHFR inhibitors is unknown. We show that, like P. falciparum, point mutations in the dhfr gene can cause resistance to pyrimethamine in P. vivax. WR99210 is a novel inhibitor of DHFR, effective even against the most pyrimethamine-resistant P. falciparum strains. We have found that it is also an extremely effective inhibitor of the P. vivax DHFR, and mutations that confer high-level resistance to pyrimethamine render the P. vivax enzyme exquisitely sensitive to WR99210. These data suggest that pyrimethamine and WR99210 would exert opposing selective forces on the P. vivax population. If used in combination, these two drugs could greatly slow the selection of parasites resistant to both drugs. If that is the case, this novel class of DHFR inhibitors could provide effective and affordable treatment for chloroquine- and pyrimethamine-resistant vivax and falciparum malaria for many years to come.
A study on polynomial regression and Gaussian process global surrogate model in hierarchical surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm

This paper presents a study on hierarchical surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm (HSAEA) using different global surrogate models for solving computationally expensive optimization problems. In particular, we consider the use of Gaussian process (GP) and polynomial regression (PR) methods for approximating the global fitness landscape in the surrogate-assisted evolutionary search. The global surrogate model serves to pre-screen the EA population for promising individuals. Subsequently, these potential individuals undergo a local search in the form of Lamarckian learning using online local surrogate models. Numerical results are presented on two multimodal benchmark test functions. The results obtained show that both PR-HSAEA and GP-HSAEA converge to good designs on a limited computational budget. Further, our study also shows that the GP model is suitable for global surrogate modeling in HSAEA if the evaluation function is very expensive in computations. On moderately expensive problems, the PR method may serve to generate better efficiency than using GP.
PAC nearest neighbor queries: Approximate and controlled search in high-dimensional and metric spaces

In high-dimensional and complex metric spaces, determining the nearest neighbor (NN) of a query object q can be a very expensive task, because of the poor partitioning operated by index structures-the so-called "curse of dimensionality". This also affects approximately correct (AC) algorithms, which return as results a point whose distance from q is less than (1+/spl epsiv/) times the distance between q and its true NN. In this paper we introduce a new approach to approximate similarity search, called PAC-NN queries, where the error bound /spl epsiv/ can be exceeded with probability /spl delta/ and both /spl epsiv/ and /spl delta/ parameters can be tuned at query time to trade the quality of the result for the cost of the search. We describe sequential and index-based PAC-NN algorithms that exploit the distance distribution of the query object in order to determine a stopping condition that respects the error bound. Analysis and experimental evaluation of the sequential algorithm confirm that, for moderately large data sets and suitable /spl epsiv/ and /spl delta/ values, PAC-NN queries can be efficiently solved and the error controlled. Then, we provide experimental evidence that indexing can further speed-up the retrieval process by up to 1-2 orders of magnitude without giving up the accuracy of the result.
An Autonomic Peer-to-Peer Architecture for Hosting Stateful Web Services

In this paper we present an autonomic Web services architecture that manages both the performance of service containers and the interconnection of those containers into a service overlay network. The advantages of this approach include the easing of management tasks through the autonomic systems ability to self-configure, self-optimise and self-heal. We also benefit from improved resilience and anticipate an improvement in overall performance. In our architecture we incorporate a structured distributed hash table peer-to-peer overlay network within our autonomic Web services container. Our architecture is inherently non-hierarchical, widely distributed and enables SLA compliant deployment of WSRF services. We have simplified the management of such a system by adhering to autonomic principles, and we maintain the performance of the system by tightly integrating SLA compliance and migrating services between containers to preserve QoS. We have developed a workable system for both service deployment and migration without the need for global state.
In vitro efficacy of immuno-chemotherapy with anti-EGFR human Fab-Taxol conjugate on A431 epidermoid carcinoma cells

The aims of this study were to generate a human Fab fragment against EGFR; conjugate it to paclitaxel (Taxol) as an immuno-chemotherapy agent; and investigate its in vitro anti-tumor efficacy on A431 epidermoid carcinoma cells. A431 cells (EGFR-positive), NIH 3T3 cells (EGFR-negative), and purified EGFR were used for subtractive panning on a human naïve Fab phage library to generate a human anti-EGFR Fab fragment that binds the EGFR extracellular domain in native conformation and subsequently internalizes it into the cytosol. The Fab was then conjugated with the chemotherapeutic Taxol, and cell proliferation inhibition and apoptosis (TUNEL) assays were conducted to determine the effect of this Fab-drug conjugate on A431 cells. The specificity and internalization property of this Fab were characterized by immunoprecipitation, fluorescence staining, flow cytometry, and Hum-Zap assay. The binding affinity to purified EGFR was 30 nM. The Fab-Taxol conjugate inhibited A431 cell proliferation at low concentrations and in a dose-responsive manner; more than 70% inhibition was observed at 52 pM. Furthermore, almost 100% of cells underwent apoptosis after treatment with Fab-Taxol at 26 pM for 48 hours. Our findings suggest that this Fab-Taxol conjugate could be a potential immuno-chemotherapeutic drug for clinical treatment of EGFR-overexpressing tumors.
Investigating perception and attention to emotional expressions in the autism spectrum

Autism spectrum condition (ASC) is a lifelong developmental condition. Along with restricted interests and deficits in social imagination, people with ASC have difficulty understanding the social world. Evidence suggests that ASC individuals have difficulty understanding the emotional expressions of others, particularly when these expressions have negative valence. It is suggested that ASC is not a discrete phenomenon. Instead research has shown that traits associated with autism are seen in varying levels throughout the general population. It is believed that ASC is a spectrum, with those who have the most difficulty obtaining a diagnosis. The traits of autism present in the general population are seen to be qualitatively similar to those seen in ASC. It is therefore suggested that the ASC can be explored and further understood by assessing people in the Wider Autism Spectrum (WAS) of ASC-traits who do not hold a diagnosis. This research contributes to the understanding of the WAS and how ASC-traits manifest in the general population. Additionally, the differences between ASC and the WAS can be assessed by comparing the performance of people with a diagnosis to those in the WAS who have high ASC-traits. Through understanding the differences between these populations we are better able to understand what drives the clinical impairments associated with ASC. The current thesis assesses facial emotion processing in people with ASC and those in the WAS in order to understand the differences and similarities that exist. This was conducted using several cognitive tasks that assess the underlying brain mechanisms associated with facial emotion processing. Directed by the social motivation theory of autism, the current work used visual adaptation paradigms to assess how the brain represents emotional expression information in those with ASC and people with high and low ASC-traits. Additionally, the dot-probe paradigm was employed to explore attentional orienting for emotional expressions in ASC and the WAS. Results found that WAS participants with high ASC-traits do not represent negative emotional expressions in the same way as those with fewer ASC-traits. When assessing attention mechanisms those with high autism-traits were more likely to bias attention towards emotional expression information. Results suggests that WAS individuals with high ASC-traits process emotional faces differently from their low ASC-trait counterparts and also have a different way of selecting which emotions to attend to in their environment. People with ASC had deficits in mental representation of emotional expression but did not show the same pattern of attention to emotional expressions seen in high ASC-trait WAS individuals. These results do not suggest the autism spectrum is linear. Results are discussed suggesting that those with high traits of autism have a profile of behaviour that cannot be explained by the social motivation theory whereas ASC results do follow predictions this theory makes.
Yeast Clk-1 Homologue (Coq7/Cat5) Is a Mitochondrial Protein in Coenzyme Q Synthesis*

Mutations in the clk-1 gene result in slower development and increased life span in Caenorhabditis elegans. The Saccharomyces cerevisiae homologueCOQ7/CAT5 is essential for several metabolic pathways including ubiquinone biosynthesis, respiration, and gluconeogenic gene activation. We show here that Coq7p/Cat5p is a mitochondrial inner membrane protein directly involved in ubiquinone biosynthesis, and that the defect in gluconeogenic gene activation in coq7/cat5null mutants is a general consequence of a defect in respiration. These results obtained in the yeast model suggest that the effects on development and life span in C. elegans clk-1 mutants may relate to changes in the amount of ubiquinone, an essential electron transport component and a lipid soluble antioxidant.
Suppressive effect of antibody on processing of T cell epitopes

Immunoglobulins drive efficient antigen capture by antigen presenting cells for processing and presentation on class II MHC-molecules. High affinity antibody/antigen interactions are stable at endosomal/lysosomal pH thus altering the substrate for antigen processing. We show that this can result in strong suppression of presentation of some T cell epitopes. This effect was observed when the antibody specificity was a B cell surface Ig, or formed part of an immune complex. In the latter case the presence of the suppressing antibody boosts presentation of other T cell epitopes through enhanced uptake into Fc receptor bearing cells. The influence of bound antibodies on the outcome of antigen processing may influence with T cell epitopes dominate T cell responses and may change the focus of the response with time.
Sliver removal by lattice refinement

I present an algorithm that can provably eliminate slivers in the interior of a tetrahedral mesh, leaving only tetrahedra with dihedral angles between 30 and 135 degrees and radius-edge ratios of at most 1.368, except near the boundary. In comparison, previous bounds on dihedral angles were microscopic. The final mesh can respect specified input vertices and a user-defined sizing function. The algorithm comes with a bound on the sizes of the features it creates, and can provably grade from small to large tetrahedra.
Dietary amino acid and vitamin complex protects honey bee from immunosuppression caused by Nosema ceranae

Microsporidium Nosema ceranae is well known for exerting a negative impact on honey bee health, including down-regulation of immunoregulatory genes. Protein nutrition has been proven to have beneficial effects on bee immunity and other aspects of bee health. Bearing this in mind, the aim of our study was to evaluate the potential of a dietary amino acid and vitamin complex “BEEWELL AminoPlus” to protect honey bees from immunosuppression induced by N. ceranae. In a laboratory experiment bees were infected with N. ceranae and treated with supplement on first, third, sixth and ninth day after emergence. The expression of genes for immune-related peptides (abaecin, apidaecin, hymenoptaecin, defensin and vitellogenin) was compared between groups. The results revealed significantly lower (p<0.01 or p<0.001) numbers of Nosema spores in supplemented groups than in the control especially on day 12 post infection. With the exception of abacein, the expression levels of immune-related peptides were significantly suppressed (p<0.01 or p<0.001) in control group on the 12th day post infection, compared to bees that received the supplement. It was supposed that N. ceranae had a negative impact on bee immunity and that the tested amino acid and vitamin complex modified the expression of immune-related genes in honey bees compromised by infection, suggesting immune-stimulation that reflects in the increase in resistance to diseases and reduced bee mortality. The supplement exerted best efficacy when applied simultaneously with Nosema infection, which can help us to assume the most suitable period for its application in the hive.
ALS-Linked P56S-VAPB Mutation Impairs the Formation of Multinuclear Myotube in C2C12 Cells

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects upper and lower motor neurons. Since motor neurons target skeletal muscles, the maintenance system of muscles is disturbed in ALS; however, the mechanism by which this occurs is unknown. In the present study, we investigated the effects of ALS-associated P56S-vesicle-associated membrane protein-associated protein B (VAPB) (P56S-VAPB) on the IRE1-XBP1 pathway, which is involved in the unfolded protein response (UPR) of the mouse myoblast cell line (C2C12 cells). Experiments with C2C12 cells transfected with wild-type wt-VAPB and P56S-VAPB expression vectors showed reduced myotube formation and aberrant myonuclear position in cells expressing P56S-VAPB. Activity of the IRE1-XBP1 pathway in the cells visualized with the ERAI system revealed that the pathway was disrupted in cells expressing P56S-VAPB, whereas the IRE1-XBP1 pathway activity was enhanced in the differentiation process of normal C2C12 cells. These results suggest that disruption of the IRE1-XBP1 pathway is a cause for the reduced myotube formation in P56S-VAPB-expressing cells. The expression level of the VAPB protein has been reported to be reduced in the neurons of patients with ALS. Therefore, it is expected that the IRE1-XBP1 pathway is also impaired in muscle tissues of patients with ALS, which causes a disturbance in the muscle maintenance system.
Bridging the gap between extractive and abstractive summaries: Creation and evaluation of coherent extracts from heterogeneous sources

Coherent extracts are a novel type of summary combining the advantages of manually created abstractive summaries, which are fluent but difficult to evaluate, and low-quality automatically created extractive summaries, which lack coherence and structure. We use a corpus of heterogeneous documents to address the issue that information seekers usually face – a variety of different types of information sources. We directly extract information from these, but minimally redact and meaningfully order it to form a coherent text. Our qualitative and quantitative evaluations show that quantitative results are not sufficient to judge the quality of a summary and that other quality criteria, such as coherence, should also be taken into account. We find that our manually created corpus is of high quality and that it has the potential to bridge the gap between reference corpora of abstracts and automatic methods producing extracts. Our corpus is available to the research community for further development.