Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correlation between disease severity and presence of ocular autoantibodies in juvenile idiopathic arthritis-associated uveitis.

PURPOSE The pathogenesis of juvenile idiopathic arthritis-associated uveitis (JIAU) is undefined. This study intended to analyze the presence of antiocular autoantibodies in serum and their correlation with disease course. METHODS Serum samples from children with JIAU (n = 47); JIA without uveitis (n = 67); idiopathic anterior uveitis (IAU; n = 12); and healthy controls (n = 52) were collected. The binding patterns of serum antibodies to ocular cryosections from swine eyes were analyzed by indirect immunohistochemistry, and were correlated to epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory test results. RESULTS The patient groups differed with respect to their presence of antibody binding to the sections: JIAU (94%), JIA (75%), IAU (75%), and healthy controls (29%) to uveal and/or retinal structures. Serum antibodies of JIAU patients predominantly bound at iris (74%), and ciliary body (79%). Iris/ciliary body positive staining correlated with the presence of uveitis complications (P < 0.005) in JIAU patients, but not with positivity of serum antinuclear antibodies (ANA), rheumatoid factor (RF), or HLA-B27, and was independent from uveitis activity or type of anti-inflammatory therapy. CONCLUSIONS In JIAU patients, antiocular serum antibodies can be detected more frequently than in control groups. Binding patterns to ocular tissue correlate with complicated uveitis course but not with uveitis activity and anti-inflammatory treatment. Antibody binding is not specific for this uveitis entity, and does not correlate with ANA positivity.
Thiamine deficiency results in downregulation of the GLAST glutamate transporter in cultured astrocytes

Pyrithiamine‐induced thiamine deficiency (TD) is a well‐established model of Wernicke's encephalopathy in which a glutamate‐mediated excitotoxic mechanism may play an important role in determining selective vulnerability. In order to examine this possibility, cultured astrocytes were exposed to TD and effects on glutamate transport and metabolic function were studied. TD led to decreases in cellular levels of thiamine and thiamine diphosphate (TDP) after 24 h of treatment and decreased activities of the TDP‐dependent enzymes α‐ketoglutarate dehydrogenase and transketolase after 4 and 7 days, respectively. TD treatment for 10 days led to a reversible decrease in the uptake of [3H]‐D‐aspartate, a nonmetabolizable analogue of glutamate. Kinetic analysis revealed that the uptake inhibition was caused by a 47% decrease in the Vmax for uptake of [3H]‐D‐aspartate, with no change in the Km value. Immunoblotting showed that this decrease in uptake was due to an 81% downregulation of the astrocyte‐specific GLAST glutamate transporter. Loss of uptake activity and GLAST protein were blocked by treatment with the protein kinase C inhibitor H7, while exposure to DCG IV, a group II metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR) agonist, resulted in improvement of [3H]‐D‐aspartate uptake and a partial reversal of transporter downregulation. These results are consistent with our recent in vivo findings of a loss of astrocytic glutamate transporters in TD and provide evidence that TD conditions may increase phosphorylation of GLAST, contributing to its downregulation. In addition, manipulation of group II mGluR activity may provide an important strategy in the treatment of this disorder. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
INDOLE‐3‐ACETIC ACID INDUCIBLE 17 positively modulates natural leaf senescence through melatonin‐mediated pathway in Arabidopsis

Melatonin (N‐acetyl‐5‐methoxytryptamine) functions as a ubiquitous modulator in multiple plant developmental processes and various stress responses. However, the involvement of melatonin in natural leaf senescence and the underlying molecular mechanism in Arabidopsis remain unclear. In this study, we found that the endogenous melatonin level was significantly induced in a developmental stage‐dependent manner, and exogenous melatonin treatment delayed natural leaf senescence in Arabidopsis. The expression level of AUXIN RESISTANT 3 (AXR3)/INDOLE‐3‐ACETIC ACID INDUCIBLE 17 (IAA17) was significantly downregulated by exogenous melatonin treatment and decreased with developmental age in Arabidopsis. Further investigation indicated that AtIAA17‐overexpressing plants showed early leaf senescence with lower chlorophyll content in rosette leaves compared with wild‐type plants, while AtIAA17 knockout mutants displayed delayed leaf senescence with higher chlorophyll content. Notably, exogenous melatonin‐delayed leaf senescence was largely alleviated in AtIAA17‐overexpressing plants, and AtIAA17‐activated senescence‐related SENESCENCE 4 (SEN4) and SENESCENCE‐ASSOCIATED GENE 12 (SAG12) transcripts might have contributed to the process of natural leaf senescence. Taken together, the results indicate that AtIAA17 is a positive modulator of natural leaf senescence and provides direct link between melatonin and AtIAA17 in the process of natural leaf senescence in Arabidopsis.
Teacher Licensure Tests and Student Achievement: Is Teacher Testing An Effective Policy?

T he research on the effects of racial/ethnic role models on students O test score achievem ent is m ixed (E hrenberg et al. 1995; D ee 2004). It is not clear the extent to w hich the exclusion of m inority teachers m ight affect minor ity students , bu t it is evident that us ing licens ure tests to deter mine eligibility to teach m akes the task of having a teacher labor force that is repr esentative of the student population m ore difficult. F urtherm ore, if there w ere no relationship betw een teacher perform ance on tests and student achievement, pr os pective minor ity teachers w ould be dispropor tionately and unjus tifiably excluded from the pr of ession. T he extent to w hich teacher testing serves its intended purpose is determ ined by the strength of the relations hip between licens ure tests and teacher quality
A Universal Catalyst for First-Order Optimization

We introduce a generic scheme for accelerating first-order optimization methods in the sense of Nesterov, which builds upon a new analysis of the accelerated proximal point algorithm. Our approach consists of minimizing a convex objective by approximately solving a sequence of well-chosen auxiliary problems, leading to faster convergence. This strategy applies to a large class of algorithms, including gradient descent, block coordinate descent, SAG, SAGA, SDCA, SVRG, Finito/MISO, and their proximal variants. For all of these methods, we provide acceleration and explicit support for non-strongly convex objectives. In addition to theoretical speed-up, we also show that acceleration is useful in practice, especially for ill-conditioned problems where we measure significant improvements.
Nostalgie et relations des consommateurs aux marques : contributions théoriques et implications manageriales

La nostalgie est un concept complexe qu'in convient de clarifier. Si elle est desormais largement employee par les praticiens du marketing, peu de chercheurs ont procede a son examen systematique. Pour autant saisir son fonctionnement et ses consequences en termes de relations a la marque est indispensable car son utilisation n'est pas exempte de dangers ( Robert-Demontrond et Boulbry, 2003). C'est pourquoi, l'objet de ce travail doctoral est double, a la fois conceptuel et managerial. Conceptuel, car il vise a comprendre en profondeur la nostalgie, via l'identification des invariants de significations qui structurent les relations des consommateurs aux marques. Managerial, car il contribue a identifier les variables d'action pertinentes d'une strategie de marque fondee sur la nostalgie. Pour ce faire, trois etudes distinctes ont ete engagees. Les deux premieres satisfont une approche comprehensive (etudes qualitatives 1 & 2). L'etude 1 apprehende la stabilite des souvenirs associes aux marques et aux objets nostalgiques via une analyse longitudinale en trois temps (duree : vingt-huit mois). Elle souligne l'ancrage des produits et des marques evocatrices de nostalgie, dans la construction identitaire des participants et constitue un prealable necessaire a la conduite de l'etude 2. L'etude 2 s'interesse aux significations que revet la nostalgie et met en evidence deux classifications de moments et de profils de consommateurs nostalgiques. L'etude 3 s'inscrit dans une approche manageriale (etude quantitative). Elle montre que les marques percues comme nostalgiques creent des relations plus fortes avec leurs consommateurs que les marques qui ne le sont pas et aboutit a la formulation d'un certain nombre de recommandations.
Adenovirus E1a proteins repress expression from polyomavirus early and late promoters

We have examined the effects of the E1a products of adenovirus types 5 and 12 on the expression of polyomavirus early and late promoters. In cotransfection experiments in HeLa cells, plasmids expressing the E1a region of adenovirus type 5 or 12 repressed both the early and late promoters of polyomavirus, and deletion analysis indicates that the polyomavirus enhancers were the target of the E1a repression. With mutants lacking enhancer sequences, the polyomavirus early promoter but not the late promoter was trans-activated by E1a. Chimeric mutant plasmids with deletions in the regulatory region that contained either the A enhancer or the B enhancer were repressed to the same extent, indicating that E1a can repress both elements. Polyomavirus variant plasmids with rearrangements in the regulatory region conferring activity in embryonal carcinoma stem cells were repressed by E1a as was the wild type, suggesting that the repressor function is quite general. We discuss a model in which the influence of E1a on the transcriptional activity of a gene is the sum of positive and negative effects on promoter and enhancer elements and discuss possible mechanisms of negative regulation of enhancer function.
Validez diagnóstica de la Self-Rating Depression Scale de Zung en pacientes de atención primaria

INTRODUCTION: Although the Spanish version of the Zung's Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) is widely used, there are no studies about its validity as a diagnostic test in primary health care patients. METHODS: In a first phase, a sample of 350 consecutive primary care patients was assessed with the SDS. In a second phase, a subsample composed by all the positive test results and 1/3 of the negatives selected at random, was assessed with the modules of current Major Depressive Episode and Dysthymia of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. Specific methods to avoid verification bias were used. Prevalence, sensitivity and specificity, predictive values, Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve, and Stratum Specific Likelihood Ratios (SSLR) were calculated. RESULTS: Prevalence estimations of major depression and dysthymia were 14,7% (IC95%: 10,7-18,7%) and 4,6% (IC95%: 2,4%-6,8%) respectively. Sensitivity and specificity to detect both diagnoses were 0,95 (IC95%: 0.87-1) and 0,74 (IC95%: 0,68-0,79). Area under ROC curve was 0,93. SSLR for scoring 69 the SSLR generated a post-test probability of 0.96. Less conclusive results were obtained by intermediate strata. CONCLUSIONS: The SDS is effective in primary care patients and shows operating characteristics comparable to other depression assessment scales. SSLR provides practical information to estimate the probability of suffer a depressive disorder in individual patients.
The Small Regulatory RNA SyR1/PsrR1 Controls Photosynthetic Functions in Cyanobacteria[C][W]

This work describes the role of a small noncoding RNA in the regulation of photosynthetic gene expression in cyanobacteria. Advanced computational target prediction combined with extensive experimental data reveal the photosynthesis regulatory RNA 1 as a key modulator of photosynthetic functions upon high-light exposure. Little is known so far about RNA regulators of photosynthesis in plants, algae, or cyanobacteria. The small RNA PsrR1 (formerly SyR1) has been discovered in Synechocystis sp PCC 6803 and appears to be widely conserved within the cyanobacterial phylum. Expression of PsrR1 is induced shortly after a shift from moderate to high-light conditions. Artificial overexpression of PsrR1 led to a bleaching phenotype under moderate light growth conditions. Advanced computational target prediction suggested that several photosynthesis-related mRNAs could be controlled by PsrR1, a finding supported by the results of transcriptome profiling experiments upon pulsed overexpression of this small RNA in Synechocystis sp PCC 6803. We confirmed the interaction between PsrR1 and the ribosome binding regions of the psaL, psaJ, chlN, and cpcA mRNAs by mutational analysis in a heterologous reporter system. Focusing on psaL as a specific target, we show that the psaL mRNA is processed by RNase E only in the presence of PsrR1. Furthermore, we provide evidence for a posttranscriptional regulation of psaL by PsrR1 in the wild type at various environmental conditions and analyzed the consequences of PsrR1-based regulation on photosystem I. In summary, computational and experimental data consistently establish the small RNA PsrR1 as a regulatory factor controlling photosynthetic functions.
Review of energy harvesting techniques and applications for microelectronics (Keynote Address)

The trends in technology allow the decrease in both size and power consumption of complex digital systems. This decrease in size and power gives rise to new paradigms of computing and use of electronics, with many small devices working collaboratively or at least with strong communication capabilities. Examples of these new paradigms are wearable devices and wireless sensor networks. Currently, these devices are powered by batteries. However, batteries present several disadvantages: the need to either replace or recharge them periodically and their big size and weight compared to high technology electronics. One possibility to overcome these power limitations is to extract (harvest) energy from the environment to either recharge a battery, or even to directly power the electronic device. This paper presents several methods to design an energy harvesting device depending on the type of energy avaliable.
Risk of post-discharge venous thromboembolism in patients with rheumatoid arthritis undergoing knee or hip arthroplasty. Is prolonged thromboprophylaxis warranted or dangerous?

Venous thromboembolism (VTE)—that is, deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE)—are common complications after major hip or knee surgery. Without thromboprophylaxis, the incidence of DVT in patients undergoing major orthopaedic surgery is more than 50%, and fatal PE is reported to occur in 1–6% of these patients.1 These data are based on investigations in which predominantly osteoarthritis (OA) patients were studied. Only a few (small) studies were performed in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients: Abernethy reports an incidence of DVT of more than 70% and overall incidence of PE of approximately 2% in RA patients who have undergone a knee arthroplasty,2 and Kelly reports, in his review,3 an incidence of fatal PE of approximately 1% in RA patients undergoing total hip replacement and not receiving thromboprophylaxis (table 1). The risk of developing DVT seems to be similar for RA patients undergoing total hip replacement and those undergoing knee replacement surgery.4 View this table: Table 1 Inhospital venous thromboembolism, without thromboprophylaxis, in major orthopaedic surgery patients Data are conflicting regarding the risk for developing VTE for RA patients in comparison with OA patients undergoing major orthopaedic surgery. Similar incidences of VTE have been reported for OA patients undergoing major orthopaedic surgery,5 6 whereas one large retrospective study indicated a possibly lower rate of thromboembolic complications in RA patients (table 1). 7 In this investigation, inhospital morbidity and mortality of 721 RA patients and 8859 OA patients, who underwent an elective hip replacement operation, were analysed retrospectively. The incidence of thromboembolic events was 0.3% in the RA group versus 1.2% in the OA group (p = 0.07). At first sight, these very low incidences of VTE are remarkable, but they are probably related to a very short observation period and underdiagnosing, by only observing clinical VTE. Hence, the incidence of VTE …
Representation of refugees and asylum seekers in UK newspapers: Towards a corpus-based analysis.

This paper reports work on an ongoing project on the representation of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press. In recent years, the issue of refugees and asylum seekers entering the UK has has attracted intense media and political discussion. As the representation of these groups in the press can influence the way in which readers perceive them, the discourses surrounding these, and related, groups have been the focus of linguistic studies (e.g. Greenslade, 2005; ter Wal, 2002). Although the project combines approaches within critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, the aim of this paper is to exemplify how corpus-based techniques can contribute to CDA (cf. Hardt-Mautner, 1995; Orpin, 2005; Sotillo & Wang-Gempp, 2004; Wilson, 1993). The study uses a corpus of 150 million words, comprising articles relevant to refugees and asylum seekers from 12 national and 3 local UK newspapers, spanning the last ten years. Following Baker & McEnery (2005), the paper analyses collocational networks surrounding the terms refugee(s) and asylum seeker(s), that is, the linguistic units which tend to co-occur statistically significantly with these terms in the corpus. The study also makes use of the notions of semantic prosody: the "consistent aura of meaning with which a form is imbued by its collocates" (Louw, 1993: 157), and, more significantly, Stubbs' expanded notion of discourse prosody: â��a feature which extends over more than one unit in a linear string. â�¦ [P]rosodies often express the speakerâ��s reason for making the utterance, and therefore identify functional discourse unitsâ�� (2001: 111-112). Through the examination of frequent collocates for patterns and systematic associations, elements of the underlying discourses related to, and, arguably, constructing the identities of, the two groups can be revealed. The paper will also compare the corresponding discourses in broadsheets and tabloids.
Wavelet-Based ECG Delineation on a Wearable Embedded Sensor Platform

The analysis of the electrocardiogram (ECG) is widely used for diagnosing many cardiac diseases. Since most of the clinically useful information in the ECG is found in characteristic wave peaks and boundaries, a significant amount of research effort has been devoted to the development of accurate and robust algorithms for automatic detection of the major ECG characteristic waves (i.e., the QRS complex, P and T waves), so-called ECG wave delineation. One of the most salient ECG wave delineation algorithms is based on the wavelet transform (WT). This work is dedicated to the sensible optimization and porting of this WT-based ECG wave delineator to an actual wearable embedded sensor platform with limited processing and storage resources. The porting was successful and the implementation was extensively validated using a standard manually annotated database. Interestingly, our results show that, despite the limitations of the embedded sensor platform, careful optimization allows to achieve comparable or even better delineation results than the original offline algorithm.
The mangrove forests as nursery habitats for the ichthyofauna of Mida Creek (Kenya, East Africa)

This study investigated the presumed nursery function of mangroves for the ichthyofauna in East African swamp forests, Mida Creek. The species and size composition of the fish fauna and their trophic interactions were studied for five stations. Samples were collected during 5–6 consecutive days close to spring tide in mid-July 2011. Fish were caught using different types of passive fishing gear, such as large and small fyke nets, gill nets and, additionally, beach seines. All individuals were identified to species level, measured and preserved for further analyses. Stomach content analysis was applied to provide information about their diet. Stable isotope analysis was used to detect whether the source of primary production for the higher trophic levels is mangrove-related or not. A total of 27 fish species was recorded in a catch of 938 teleost specimens. Our analyses showed that a majority of fish belonged to the zoobenthivorous/omnivorous trophic mode, since they were partially feeding on invertebrates and on various other food sources. Two species (Sphyraena barracuda and Synodus variegatus) exhibited a mixed diet, with a piscivorous preference. Results concerning the population structure suggested that the fish community of Mida mainly consists of transient species. Juveniles were numerically more abundant in the whole Creek than adults. These findings support the hypothesis of a nursery function of the mangrove forests, Mida Creek.
Therapeutic antitumor response after immunization with a recombinant adenovirus encoding a model tumor-associated antigen.

Recombinant adenovirus (rAd), deleted of critical genes that enable viral replication and replaced with genes encoding heterologous proteins, has been shown to be a safe and effective vector in gene therapy studies. To evaluate a potential role for rAd as an immunogen, we used two different replication-defective type 2 rAds encoding the model Ag, beta-galactosidase (beta-gal). To determine whether rAd elicited the kind of immune responses therapeutic in an anti-tumor setting, the beta-gal-expressing adenocarcinoma, CT26.CL25, was used. Splenocytes from BALB/c mice immunized with 1 x 10(7) infectious units (iu) of rAd demonstrated anti-beta-gal activity after in vitro culture with the relevant L(d) beta-gal peptide. Adoptive transfer of these same splenocytes produced dramatic regression of established pulmonary metastases. However, when tumor-bearing mice were treated with 1 x 10(7) iu of rAd, no reduction in established disease was observed even when rAd was given with exogenous IL-2. To increase the viral dose delivered to each animal, we used an E1-E4-deleted rAd that could be grown to much higher titers. Significant reduction occurred with 10-fold more rAd (1 x10(8) iu) was administered. Exogenous IL-2 administration with 1 x 10(8) iu of rAd resulted in augmentation of this anti-tumor effect. These findings demonstrate that when using a nonreplicating virus, the viral dose is directly related to the immune response generated. These data constitute the first reported use of rAd in the treatment of an established experimental cancer and may have implication for the treatment of human cancer.