Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
downregulation promotes melanoma progression and invasion in 3-dimensional models and in zebrafish

CD271 is a neurotrophin receptor variably expressed in melanoma. While contradictory data are reported on its role as a marker of tumor initiating cells, little is known on its function in tumor progression. CD271 expression was higher in spheroids derived from freshly isolated cells of primary melanomas and in primary WM115 and WM793-B cell lines, while it decreased during progression to advanced stages in cells isolated from metastatic melanomas and in metastatic WM266-4 and 1205Lu cell lines. Moreover, CD271 was scarcely detected in the highly invasive spheroids (SKMEL28 and 1205Lu). CD271, originally expressed in the epidermis of skin reconstructs, disappeared when melanoma started to invade the dermis. SKMEL8 CD271 − cells showed greater proliferation and invasiveness in vitro, and were associated with a higher number of metastases in zebrafish, as compared to CD271 + cells. CD271 silencing in WM115 induced a more aggressive phenotype in vitro and in vivo. On the contrary, CD271 overexpression in SKMEL28 cells reduced invasion in vitro, and CD271 overexpressing 1205Lu cells was associated with a lower percentage of metastases in zebrafish. A reduced cell-cell adhesion was also observed in absence of CD271. Taken together, these results indicate that CD271 loss is critical for melanoma progression and metastasis.
Results of a State Incentive Program on the Supply and Distribution of National Board Certified Teachers

Investment in state incentive policies to support National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) prompt consideration of their distribution and retention. This study examines the results of a state’s incentive program for NBCTs, including a targeted bonus for those working in high-poverty schools. A quantitative analysis was conducted of state data using a longitudinal, multi-year design. The analysis included a comparison of NBCTs in high-poverty schools and in schools not identified for an additional bonus. Findings suggest that the proportion and overall supply of NBCTs in high-poverty schools increased over the three-year period. Policy implications regarding the use of incentives are discussed.
Associations between neuropeptide Y nerve terminals and intraparenchymal microvessels in rat and human cerebral cortex

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) can influence local brain perfusion, possibly via direct relationships with the microvascular bed. To evaluate this possibility, the authors quantitatively analyzed by light and electron microscopy the morphological associations between immunostained NPY neuronal elements and intraparenchymal microvessels in the rat and human cerebral cortex. At the light microscopic level in the rat frontoparietal cortex, about 16% of NPY neurons and large proximal processes as well as a subset of nerve terminals not affected by double sympathectomy were associated with penetrating arterioles and local microvessels. In human temporal cortex, a dense network of NPY nerve fibers was observed, many of which approached and/or contacted intracortical vessels. At the ultrastructural level, 14% of NPY axonal varicosities in the rat cerebral cortex were considered perivascular and associated with capillaries (∼70%) or microarterioles (∼30%). They were particularly enriched in the immediate vicinity (<0.25 μm) of the microvessels, where the perivascular astrocytic leaflets represented a frequent target. In human cerebral cortex, NPY varicosities were observed in proximity to microvessels corresponding primarily to capillaries. Perivascular NPY varicosities never established synaptic junctions with vascular or astroglial elements. The results show that central NPY nerve terminals associate with microvessels and perivascular astroglial cells in the rat and human cerebral cortex. Thus, NPY released from these nerves could possibly influence (via a parasynaptic mode of action) vascular and/or astrocytic functions depending on the distribution of NPY receptors in these cellular compartments. These results provide morphological support for the effects of NPY on brain perfusion and homeostasis. J. Comp. Neurol. 388:444–453, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Small Field Size for Secure Network Coding

In network coding, information transmission often encounters wiretapping attacks. Secure network coding is introduced to prevent information from being leaked to adversaries. For secure linear network codes (SLNCs), the required field size is a very important index, because it largely determines the computational and space complexities of an SLNC, and it is also very important for the process of secure network coding from theoretical research to practical applications. In this letter, we further discuss the required field size of SLNCs, and obtain a new lower bound. This bound shows that the field size of SLNCs can be reduced further, and much smaller than the known results for almost all cases.
A short geometric proof that Hausdorff limits are definable in any o-minimal structure

The aim of this note is to give yet another proof of the following theorem: given an arbitrary o-minimal structure on the ordered field of real numbers R and any definable family A of definable nonempty compact subsets of R, then the closure of A in the sense of the Hausdorff metric (or, equivalently, in the Vietoris topology) is a definable family. In particular, any limit in the sense of the Hausdorff metric of a convergent sequence of subsets of a definable family is definable in the same o-minimal structure. The original proofs by Brocker [1], Marker and Steinhorn [7], Pillay [11] (see also van den Dries [15]) were based on model theory. Lion and Speissegger [6] gave a geometric proof of the theorem. Our proof below is based on the idea of Lipschitz cell decompositions.
Intense Loyalty in Organizations: A Case Study of College Athletics.

We would like to thank Jean Blocker for help during the data-gathering portion of this research and Charles Gallmeier, Peter Manning, John Van Maanen, and the editors and anonymous ASO reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Address correspondence to Dr. Peter Adler, Department of Sociology, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208. In this paper we examine a type of organizational loyalty, intense loyalty, that is more profound than the type of organizational loyalty traditionally portrayed as a rather mild attachment of individuals to a group, based on their satisfaction with their economic rewards, authority relations, or occupational self-fulfillment. Using data gathered over a five-year participant-observation study, we use the case of college athletics to illustrate this previously undiscussed form of organizational loyalty. We suggest that there are five elements essential to the development of intense loyalty in organizations: domination, identification, commitment, integration, and alignment. Through their experiences with each of these organizational dimensions, athletes develop feelings that lead to the development of intense loyalty. We conclude by contrasting the structural characteristics of organizations that generate intense loyalty with those of more ordinary work organizations. '
Language Control in the Bilingual Brain

How does the bilingual brain distinguish and control which language is in use? Previous functional imaging experiments have not been able to answer this question because proficient bilinguals activate the same brain regions irrespective of the language being tested. Here, we reveal that neuronal responses within the left caudate are sensitive to changes in the language or the meaning of words. By demonstrating this effect in populations of German-English and Japanese-English bilinguals, we suggest that the left caudate plays a universal role in monitoring and controlling the language in use.
Will You Be on Our Board of Directors? We Need Help

Over the last two decades, media companies have faced profound environmental changes, including corporate consolidation and media convergence. Research in other industries has shown that corporations facing environmental changes often respond by altering the composition of their board of directors. This article, using a twenty-year longitudinal study of seventeen corporations, found that to some degree, media companies use their boards to gain access to resources, including financial capital and industry knowledge, to deal with environmental change.
Quantum fluctuations of a nearly critical Heisenberg spin glass

We describe the interplay of quantum and thermal fluctuations in the infinite-range Heisenberg spin glass. This model is generalized to SU(N) symmetry, and we describe the phase diagram as a function of the spin S and the temperature T. The model is solved in the large N limit and certain universal critical properties are shown to hold to all orders in 1/N. For large S, the ground state is a spin glass, but quantum effects are crucial in determining the low T thermodynamics: we find a specific heat linear in T and a local spectral density of spin excitations linear in frequency for a spin glass state which is marginally stable to fluctuations in the replicon modes. For small S, the spin-glass order is fragile, and a spin-liquid state dominates the properties over a significant range of temperatures and frequencies. We argue that the latter state may be relevant in understanding the properties of strongly-disordered transition metal and rare earth compounds.
Partnership and Extended Family Relationship Quality Moderate Associations Between Lifetime Psychiatric Diagnoses and Current Depressive Symptoms in Midlife

Adult close relationships, both in marriage and extended family, are hypothesized to be foremost among potential supports and influences on adult development, and the quality of these close relationships has been associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety. In a socioeconomically diverse sample of 182 midlife Black/African American and White/European American men and women, we examined whether close relationship quality moderated the association between lifetime diagnosis of mood and/or anxiety disorder and current symptoms of depression and anxiety. Results supported a buffering hypothesis, such that adults with these lifetime diagnoses and higher quality, supportive, and reciprocal extended family relationships had low depressive symptoms, comparable to those who had no lifetime history of mood/anxiety disorders. Further evidence for a buffering effect of close relationships was seen when both marital and extended family relationships were examined together. When the three risk factors were consi.
A functional analysis and treatment of the irrational and rational statements of an elderly woman with Alzheimer's disease

Speech problems are a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Although often attributed to neurological damage common to the disease speech problems have been successfully treated through the use of behavior analytic techniques. This study was a replication and extension of that line of research. The participant in this study was an elderly woman diagnosed with Alzheimer's who was referred for services due to frequent irrational statements and infrequent rational statements. Both standard functional analysis and modified functional analysis conditions were conducted. It appeared the irrational statements were controlled by social reinforcement. Several treatment packages consisting of differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors and extinction components were implemented in an ABCDEAE treatment design. Results of the study suggest the intervention successfully increased rational statements but had no effect on irrational statements. These results indicate the need for further research on the conditions under which behavior analysis techniques will be most effective. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Perception of Japanese Temporally-cued Contrasts by American English Listeners

American listeners’ perception of Japanese contrasts of vowel length (e.g., kiro vs. kiiro), consonant length (e.g., kite vs. kitte) and syllable number/length (e.g., kjoo vs. kijoo) was examined. Stimuli consisted of sentence-length utterances produced by a native Japanese talker; five minimal pairs of each contrast type were included. Questions were: a) can American listeners with no Japanese experience discriminate these contrasts, b) are there differences in relative difficulty of the three contrast types, and c) do instructions and other task variables affect performance accuracy? A categorial AXB discrimination task was used in two studies: Study 1 tested the three contrast types presented in separate blocks with detailed instructions about what to listen for; Study 2 tested the contrast types presented randomly intermixed with no specific instructions about the nature of the contrasts. Results indicated that naïve American listeners could discriminate all three contrast types well above chance, and that there were no significant overall differences in relative difficulty across contrast types. Performance was significantly poorer in Study 2 where listeners’ attention had not been directed to the nature of the contrasts. In both studies, there was significant and large variability in accuracy across different minimal pairs of each contrast type.
Innovations in Disaster Mental Health: Psychological First Aid

Professional psychologists are called upon to deal with a broad array of crises and traumatic events. However, training and expertise in crisis response varies widely among practitioners, and there has been considerable controversy about the value of widely disseminated mental health crisis intervention protocols that include “debriefing” as an essential feature. This article gives an overview of the developmental process, guiding principles, and core actions of the Psychological First Aid Field Operations Guide (PFA Guide), which provides guidance for practitioners in responding to immediate mental health needs of children, adults, and families who have recently experienced a disaster or terrorist event. Issues in training, provider self-care, and evaluation research are also presented. The PFA Guide presents approaches thought to be most consistently supported by current research and practice so that they can be taught, used, and evaluated in field settings. Although we expect further refinement as more systematic research becomes available, the PFA Guide represents a sustained collaborative effort to define current evidence-informed best practices that can be utilized now by practitioners involved in disaster mental health responses.
Audição e percepção da perda auditiva em idosos

PURPOSE: To evaluate the hearing of elderly individuals and their perception regarding their hearing condition. METHODS: A descriptive and exploratory research was developed using as subjects 40 students from a University for the Third Age located in Salvador, Bahia (Brazil), being 34 female and 6 male, with ages ranging from 61 to 88 years. The evaluation used the Hearing Handicap Inventory for Elderly - HHIE, and an audiometric assessment was carried out. Data analysis considered the following variables: gender, age and the answers computed in the HHIE. RESULTS: From the subjects, 37.5% had normal hearing and 62.5% presented hearing loss (30% asymmetric and 32.5% symmetric hearing loss). From the 25 subjects with hearing loss, only 3 (12%) were aware of it, according to the HHIE, scoring higher than ten points. In addition, 22 subjects (88%) had a score lower than ten. Regarding gender, 8% of the male subjects and 4% of the female subjects scored over ten at the HHIE; 16% of the male and 72% of the female scored under ten points. There was a predominance of the descendent audiometric configuration in 88% of the individuals. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of the subjects studied had hearing loss, which increased with age. Proportionally, hearing loss occurred mostly in men, although few of them were aware of its existence.
Pharmacokinetics of nelarabine and 9-beta-D-arabinofuranosyl guanine in pediatric and adult patients during a phase I study of nelarabine for the treatment of refractory hematologic malignancies.

PURPOSE To characterize the pharmacokinetics of nelarabine (506U78), the water-soluble prodrug of 9-beta-D-arabinofuranosyl guanine (ara-G), and ara-G in pediatric and adult patients with refractory hematologic malignancies. Ara-G is phosphorylated within leukemic cells to form ara-G triphosphate (ara-GTP), which acts to terminate DNA chain elongation, resulting in cell death. PATIENTS AND METHODS The pharmacokinetics of nelarabine and/or ara-G were evaluated in 71 patients (25 pediatric and 46 adult patients) on the first day of therapy. Blood was collected at specified times for the determination of plasma nelarabine and ara-G concentrations. RESULTS There were no statistically significant differences in the pharmacokinetics of nelarabine between any of the groups of patients. The harmonic mean half-life (t1/2) of nelarabine in pediatric and adult patients was 14.1 minutes and 16.5 minutes, respectively. The maximum concentrations (C(max)) of ara-G occurred at or near the end of the nelarabine infusion. The C(max) of ara-G ranged from 11.6 micromol/L to 308.7 micromol/L at nelarabine doses of 5 to 75 mg/kg and was linearly related to the nelarabine dose. No statistically significant differences were noted for the pharmacokinetic parameter estimates of ara-G between adult male and female patients. In children versus adults, the dose-normalized C(max), time of the C(max), and the steady-state volume of distribution of ara-G were similar. However, the clearance of ara-G was higher in pediatric patients (0.312 L.h(-1). kg(-1)) as compared with adult patients (0. 213 L.h(-1). kg(-1)) (P <.001). The t1/2 of ara-G was shorter in pediatric patients as compared with adult patients (2.1 hours v 3.0 hours; P <.01). CONCLUSION Nelarabine is an effective prodrug of ara-G, allowing systemic concentrations of ara-G that result in clinical activity.
A Coordinated MDP Approach to Multi-Agent Planning for Resource Allocation, with Applications to Healthcare

This paper considers a novel approach to scalable multiagent resource allocation in dynamic settings. We propose an approximate solution in which each resource consumer is represented by an independent MDP-based agent that models expected utility using an average model of its expected access to resources given only limited information about all other agents. A global auction-based mechanism is proposed for allocations based on expected regret. We assume truthful bidding and a cooperative coordination mechanism, as we are considering healthcare scenarios. We illustrate the performance of our coordinated MDP approach against a Monte-Carlo based planning algorithm intended for large-scale applications, as well as other approaches suitable for allocating medical resources. The evaluations show that the global utility value across all consumer agents is closer to optimal when using our algorithms under certain time constraints, with low computational cost. As such, we offer a promising approach for addressing complex resource allocation problems that arise in healthcare settings.
Iterative Splits of Quadratic Bounds for Scalable Binary Tensor Factorization

Binary matrices and tensors are popular data structures that need to be efficiently approximated by low-rank representations. A standard approach is to minimize the logistic loss, well suited for binary data. In many cases, the number m of non-zero elements in the tensor is much smaller than the total number n of possible entries in the tensor. This creates a problem for large tensors because the computation of the logistic loss has a linear time complexity with n. In this work, we show that an alternative approach is to minimize the quadratic loss (root mean square error) which leads to algorithms with a training time complexity that is reduced from O(n) to O(m), as proposed earlier in the restricted case of alternating least-square algorithms. In addition, we propose and study a greedy algorithm that partitions the tensor into smaller tensors, each approximated by a quadratic upper bound. This technique provides a time-accuracy tradeoff between a fast but approximate algorithm and an accurate but slow algorithm. We show that this technique leads to a considerable speedup in learning of real world tensors.
Possible role of scavenger receptor SRCL in the clearance of amyloid‐βin Alzheimer's disease

Accumulation of β‐amyloid protein (Aβ) in the brain is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and Aβ‐mediated pathogenesis could result from increased production of Aβ or insufficient Aβ clearance by microglia, astrocytes, or the vascular system. Cell‐surface receptors, such as scavenger receptors, might play a critical role in the binding and clearing of Aβ; however, the responsible receptors have yet to be identified. We show that scavenger receptor with C‐type lectin (SRCL), a member of the scavenger receptor family containing coiled‐coil, collagen‐like, and C‐type lectin/carbohydrate recognition domains, is expressed in cultured astrocytes and microglia. In contrast to the low expression of SRCL in the wild‐type mouse brain, in a double transgenic mouse model of AD (Tg‐APP/PS1), immunohistochemistry showed that SRCL was markedly induced in Aβ‐positive astrocytes and Aβ‐positive vascular/perivascular cells, which are associated closely with cerebral amyloid angiopathy. In patients with AD, the distribution of SRCL was similar to that seen in the Tg‐APP/PS1 temporal cortex. The presence of a large number of SRCL/Aβ double‐positive particles in the intracellular compartments of reactive astrocytes and vascular/perivascular cells in Tg‐APP/PS1 mice and AD patients suggests a role for SRCL in Aβ clearance. Moreover, CHO‐K1 cells transfected with SRCL isoforms were found to bind fibrillar Aβ1–42. These findings suggest that SRCL could be the receptor involved in the binding or clearing of Aβ by glial and vascular/perivascular cells in AD. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
[Nutrition in pregnancy - Practice recommendations of the Network "Healthy Start - Young Family Network"].

Nutrition, physical activity and lifestyle in pregnancy influence maternal and child health. The "Healthy start - Young Family Network" supported by the German Government with the national action plan IN FORM developed recommendations on nutrition in pregnancy. Energy needs increase by only ≈10 % by the end of pregnancy whereas micronutrient needs increase much more. Normal weight should preferably be achieved before pregnancy. Dietary recommendations follow those for the general population. Folic acid supplements (400 µg/day) should be started before pregnancy and continue for at least the first trimester. Iodine rich foods and salt and an iodine supplement (100-150 µg/day) are recommended. Long-chain omega-3 fatty acids should be provided with ≥ 1 weekly portion of oily sea fish, or a DHA-supplement if regular fish consumption is avoided. Vitamin D supplementation is advisable unless there is regular exposure to sunlight. Health care professions should lead parents to health-promoting lifestyles. Subjects of part 2 of the article are practice recommendations on nutrition in pregnancy, especially vegetarian diets, recommendations on micronutrient supplementation, risk reduction of listeriosis and toxoplasmosis, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and physical activity in pregnancy.