Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Persistence of cccDNA during the natural history of chronic hepatitis B and decline during adefovir dipivoxil therapy.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Hepatitis B virus (HBV) covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) is a unique episomal replicative intermediate responsible for persistent infection of hepatocytes. Technical constraints have hampered the direct study of cccDNA maintenance and clearance mechanisms in patients. The aim of this study was to develop a sensitive and specific assay for quantifying cccDNA in biopsy samples from chronic hepatitis B patients during different natural history phases and in patients undergoing antiviral therapy. METHODS Intrahepatic cccDNA levels were quantified by a specific real-time PCR assay. Ninety-eight liver biopsy samples from patients in the major phases of the natural history of chronic hepatitis B and 32 pairs of samples from patients receiving adefovir dipivoxil (ADV) therapy were assessed. RESULTS cccDNA was detected, at levels ranging over 3 orders of magnitude, in patients in different phases of the natural history of chronic hepatitis B. cccDNA levels were strongly correlated with levels of total intracellular HBV DNA and serum HBV DNA. Forty-eight weeks of ADV therapy resulted in a significant 0.8 log decrease in cccDNA copies/cell. Changes in cccDNA were correlated with a similar reduction in serum HBsAg titer but not with a decrease in the number of HBV antigen-positive cells during ADV treatment. CONCLUSIONS cccDNA persists throughout the natural history of chronic hepatitis B, even in patients with serologic evidence of viral clearance. Long-term ADV therapy significantly decreased cccDNA levels by a primarily noncytolytic mechanism.
Estudo de ideação suicida em adolescentes de 15 a 19 anos

Assessing suicide ideation among adolescents in general population was the goal of this study. The research included 730 youngsters between 13 and 19 years old, from Porto Alegre and Erechim towns, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. Individuals were female (57.3%) and male (42.7%) youngsters attending public and private schools within the studied towns. Instruments used included a sociodemographic data sheet, Beck's Scale of Suicide Ideation (BSI) and Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI). Data were surveyed in the studied schools. Out of the 730 adolescents surveyed, 253 (34.7%) have shown suicide ideation, i.e., more than one third of the sample, 176 (69.6%) being female. The research has also found a significant association (p<0,001) between depression and suicide ideation. Among the studied variables, depression and female gender were those more associated to suicide ideation.
Optimal index tracking under transac-tion costs and impulse control

We apply impulse control techniques to a cash management problem within a mean-variance framework. We consider the strategy of an investor who is trying to minimise both fixed and proportional transaction costs, whilst minimising the tracking error with respect to an index portfolio. The cash weight is constantly fluctuating due to the stochastic inflow and outflow of dividends and liabilities. We show the existence of an optimal strategy and compute it numerically.
Disturbance Driven Colony Fragmentation as a Driver of a Coral Disease Outbreak

In September of 2010, Brewer's Bay reef, located in St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands), was simultaneously affected by abnormally high temperatures and the passage of a hurricane that resulted in the mass bleaching and fragmentation of its coral community. An outbreak of a rapid tissue loss disease among coral colonies was associated with these two disturbances. Gross lesion signs and lesion progression rates indicated that the disease was most similar to the Caribbean coral disease white plague type 1. Experiments indicated that the disease was transmissible through direct contact between colonies, and five-meter radial transects showed a clustered spatial distribution of disease, with diseased colonies being concentrated within the first meter of other diseased colonies. Disease prevalence and the extent to which colonies were bleached were both significantly higher on unattached colony fragments than on attached colonies, and disease occurred primarily on fragments found in direct contact with sediment. In contrast to other recent studies, disease presence was not related to the extent of bleaching on colonies. The results of this study suggest that colony fragmentation and contact with sediment played primary roles in the initial appearance of disease, but that the disease was capable of spreading among colonies, which suggests secondary transmission is possible through some other, unidentified mechanism.
The role of contact area spread rate in haptic discrimination of softness

Many applications in teleoperation and virtual reality call for the implementation of effective means of displaying to the human operator information on the softness and other mechanical properties of objects being touched. The ability of humans to detect softness if different objects by tactual exploration is intimately related to both kinesthetic and cutaneous perception, and haptic displays should be designed so as to address such multimodal perceptual channel. In this paper we investigate the possibility of surrogating detailed tactile information for softness discrimination, with information on the rate of spread of the contact area between the finger and the specimen. Devices for implementing this new perceptual channel are described, and some preliminary psychophysical test results reported, validating the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed approach.
Cardiac Sympathetic Rejuvenation: A Link Between Nerve Function and Cardiac Hypertrophy

Neuronal function and innervation density is regulated by target organ-derived neurotrophic factors. Although cardiac hypertrophy drastically alternates the expression of various growth factors such as endothelin-1, angiotensin II, and leukemia inhibitory factor, little is known about nerve growth factor expression and its effect on the cardiac sympathetic nerves. This study investigated the impact of pressure overload-induced cardiac hypertrophy on the innervation density and cellular function of cardiac sympathetic nerves, including kinetics of norepinephrine synthesis and reuptake, and neuronal gene expression. Right ventricular hypertrophy was induced by monocrotaline treatment in Wistar rats. Newly developed cardiac sympathetic nerves expressing β3-tubulin (axonal marker), GAP43 (growth-associated cone marker), and tyrosine hydroxylase were markedly increased only in the right ventricle, in parallel with nerve growth factor upregulation. However, norepinephrine and dopamine content was paradoxically attenuated, and the protein and kinase activity of tyrosine hydroxylase were markedly downregulated in the right ventricle. The reuptake of [125I]-metaiodobenzylguanidine and [3H]-norepinephrine were also significantly diminished in the right ventricle, indicating functional downregulation in cardiac sympathetic nerves. Interestingly, we found cardiac sympathetic nerves in hypertrophic right ventricles strongly expressed highly polysialylated neural cell adhesion molecule (PSA-NCAM) (an immature neuron marker) as well as neonatal heart. Taken together, pressure overload induced anatomical sympathetic hyperinnervation but simultaneously caused deterioration of neuronal cellular function. This phenomenon was explained by the rejuvenation of cardiac sympathetic nerves as well as the hypertrophic cardiomyocytes, which also showed the fetal form gene expression.
On Nearest Neighbor Classification Using Adaptive Choice of k

Nearest neighbor classification is one of the simplest and popular methods for statistical pattern recognition. It classifies an observation x to the class, which is the most frequent in the neighborhood of x. The size of this neighborhood is usually determined by a predefined parameter k. Normally, one uses cross-validation techniques to estimate the optimum value of this parameter, and that estimated value is used for classifying all observations. However, in classification problems, in addition to depending on the training sample, a good choice of k depends on the specific observation to be classified. Therefore, instead of using a fixed value of k over the entire measurement space, a spatially adaptive choice of k may be more useful in practice. This article presents one such adaptive nearest neighbor classification technique, where the value of k is selected depending on the distribution of competing classes in the vicinity of the observation to be classified. The utility of the proposed method has been illustrated using some simulated examples and well-known benchmark datasets. Asymptotic optimality of its misclassification rate has been derived under appropriate regularity conditions.
Electrophysiological and Morphological Characteristics and Synaptic Connectivity of Tyrosine Hydroxylase-Expressing Neurons in Adult Mouse Striatum

Whole-cell recordings were obtained from tyrosine hydroxylase-expressing (TH+) neurons in striatal slices from bacterial artificial chromosome transgenic mice that synthesize enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) selectively in neurons expressing TH transcriptional regulatory sequences. Stereological cell counting indicated that there were ∼2700 EGFP–TH+ neurons/striatum. Whole-cell recordings in striatal slices demonstrated that EGFP–TH+ neurons comprise four electrophysiologically distinct neuron types whose electrophysiological properties have not been reported previously in striatum. EGFP–TH+ neurons were identified in retrograde tracing studies as interneurons. Recordings from synaptically connected pairs of EGFP–TH+ interneurons and spiny neurons showed that the interneurons elicited GABAergic IPSPs/IPSCs in spiny neurons powerful enough to significantly delay evoked spiking. EGFP–TH+ interneurons responded to local or cortical stimulation with glutamatergic EPSPs. Local stimulation also elicited GABAA IPSPs, at least some of which arose from identified spiny neurons. Single-cell reverse transcription-PCR showed expression of VMAT1 in EGFP–TH+ interneurons, consistent with previous suggestions that these interneurons may be dopaminergic as well as GABAergic. All four classes of interneurons were medium sized with modestly branching, varicose dendrites, and dense, highly varicose axon collateral fields. These data show for the first time that there exists in the normal rodent striatum a substantial population of TH+/GABAergic interneurons comprising four electrophysiologically distinct subtypes whose electrophysiological properties differ significantly from those of previously described striatal GABAergic interneurons. These interneurons are likely to play an important role in striatal function through fast GABAergic synaptic transmission in addition to, and independent of, their potential role in compensation for dopamine loss in experimental or idiopathic Parkinson's disease.
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Visual Analog Scales : A Web Experiment

can be found at: Social Science Computer Review Additional services and information for http://ssc.sagepub. com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts: http://ssc.sagepub. com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub. com/journalsReprints.nav Reprints: http://www.sagepub. com/journalsPermissions.nav Permissions: http://ssc.sagepub. com/cgi/content/refs/24/2/227 SAGE Journals Online and HighWire Press platforms): (this article cites 16 articles hosted on the Citations
An Analysis of the Short- and Long-Run Relationships between South Asian and Developed Equity Markets

In this paper, I conduct a detailed, large sample analysis of the short- and long-run relationships between the South Asian markets of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and the major developed markets during July 1997 - December 2003. Using a multivariate cointegration framework and vector error-correction modeling I find that the Indian market is influenced by the US, UK and Japan and that this influence has persisted following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. For Pakistan and Sri Lanka I find that these markets are relatively isolated from the major developed markets during the entire sample period. I also find that the three South Asian equity markets are becoming more integrated with each other but at a relatively slow pace.
Functional Characterization of ABCB4 Mutations Found in Low Phospholipid-Associated Cholelithiasis (LPAC)

Multidrug resistance 3 (MDR3) is expressed on the canalicular membrane of the hepatocytes and plays an important role in protecting the liver from bile acids. Altered ABCB4 gene expression can lead to a rare hepatic disease, low phospholipid-associated cholelithiasis (LPAC). In this study, we characterized 3 ABCB4 mutations in LPAC patients using various in vitro assay systems. We first measured the ability of each mutant to transport paclitaxel and then the mechanisms by which these mutations might change MDR3 transport activity were determined using immunoblotting, cell surface protein biotinylation, and immunofluorescence. Through a membrane vesicular transport assay, we observed that the uptake of paclitaxel was significantly reduced in membrane vesicles expressing 2 ABCB4 mutations, F165I and S320F. Both mutants showed significantly decreased total and cell surface MDR3 expression. These data suggest two missense mutations of ABCB4 may alter function of MDR3 and ultimately can be determined as LPAC-causing mutations.
Possible Health Implications and Low Vitamin D Status during Childhood and Adolescence: An Updated Mini Review

Vitamin D deficiency is common in the developing countries and exists in both childhood and adult life. The great importance of Vitamin D is the moderation of calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) homeostasis as well as the absorption of Ca. While insufficiency of vitamin D is a significant contributing factor to risk of rickets in childhood, it is possible that a more marginal deficiency of vitamin D during life span contribute to osteoporosis as well as potentially to the development and various other chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes. This paper reviews the metabolism, epidemiology, and treatment of vitamin D and calcium insufficiency as well as its relation to various diseases during childhood and adolescence.
Efficiency, Profitability and Quality of Banking Services

This paper develops a general framework for combining strategic benchmarking with efficiency benchmarking of the services offered by bank branches. In particular, the service-profit chain is cast as a cascade of efficiency benchmarking models. Three models—based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)—are developed in order to implement the framework in the practical setting of a bank’s branches: an operational efficiency mode, a quality efficiency model and a profitability efficiency model. The use of the models is illustrated using data for the branches of a commercial Bank. Empirical results indicate that superior insights can be obtained by analyzing operations, service quality, and profitability simultaneously than the information obtained from benchmarking studies of these three dimensions separately. Some relations between operational efficiency and profitability, and between operational efficiency and service quality are investigated.
Gaze-Supported Gaming: MAGIC Techniques for First Person Shooters

MAGIC--Manual And Gaze Input Cascaded-pointing techniques have been proposed as an efficient way in which the eyes can support the mouse input in pointing tasks. MAGIC Sense is one of such techniques in which the cursor speed is modulated by how far it is from the gaze point. In this work, we implemented a continuous and a discrete adaptations of MAGIC Sense for First-Person Shooter input. We evaluated the performance of these techniques in an experiment with 15 participants and found no significant gain in performance, but moderate user preference for the discrete technique.
Kinetic study of the isomerization for endotetrahydrodicyclopentadiene over AlCl3 catalyst

The isomerization of endo-tetrahydrodicyclopentadiene (THDCPD) to exo-THDCPD over AlCl3 catalyst has been studied in a batch reactor. The effects of temperature, catalyst loading, and the type and amount of solvent on the isomerization rate were investigated. Under the conditions of removing both internal and external diffusion effects, a kinetic model was established and the model parameters were developed. The results showed that the endo- to exo- isomerization of THDCPD can be treated as a first-order reaction. The activation energy E0 and pre-exponential factor obtained from Arrhenius plot are 116 kJ / mol and 3.39×1013 respectively. The simulation results agreed well with the experimental data.
Weakly Supervised Top-down Salient Object Detection

Top-down saliency models produce a probability map that peaks at target locations specified by a task/goal such as object detection. They are usually trained in a fully supervised setting involving pixel-level annotations of objects. We propose a weakly supervised top-down saliency framework using only binary labels that indicate the presence/absence of an object in an image. First, the probabilistic contribution of each image region to the confidence of a CNN-based image classifier is computed through a backtracking strategy to produce top-down saliency. From a set of saliency maps of an image produced by fast bottom-up saliency approaches, we select the best saliency map suitable for the top-down task. The selected bottom-up saliency map is combined with the top-down saliency map. Features having high combined saliency are used to train a linear SVM classifier to estimate feature saliency. This is integrated with combined saliency and further refined through a multi-scale superpixel-averaging of saliency map. We evaluate the performance of the proposed weakly supervised top-down saliency against fully supervised approaches and achieve state-of-the-art performance. Experiments are carried out on seven challenging datasets and quantitative results are compared with 36 closely related approaches across 4 different applications.
Multisensory Integration in the Virtual Hand Illusion with Active Movement

Improving the sense of immersion is one of the core issues in virtual reality. Perceptual illusions of ownership can be perceived over a virtual body in a multisensory virtual reality environment. Rubber Hand and Virtual Hand Illusions showed that body ownership can be manipulated by applying suitable visual and tactile stimulation. In this study, we investigate the effects of multisensory integration in the Virtual Hand Illusion with active movement. A virtual xylophone playing system which can interactively provide synchronous visual, tactile, and auditory stimulation was constructed. We conducted two experiments regarding different movement conditions and different sensory stimulations. Our results demonstrate that multisensory integration with free active movement can improve the sense of immersion in virtual reality.
Compensation Models in Distance Education: National Survey Questionnaire Revisited.

Distance education (DE) is now closer to being main stream than many faculty and administrators in universities thought it would be. No longer is DE considered to be novel, or only for the technologically savvy. BlackBoardTM and WebCTTM, the two most widely used online course management systems, have made it easier for faculty to reach out to students at any time, in any place. And yet, Bradburn (2002) reported data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty in the fall of 1998 that showed only six percent of instructional faculty and staff who reported teaching for-credit classes indicated they taught at least one distance education class. While the data was from 1998, the sample included 980 postsecondary institutions and a total of 18,000 returned and usable faculty questionnaires. Granted in 1998 easy access and use of the World Wide Web through web browsers was still relatively fresh. The Web was in the process of changing the nature of communication and educational opportunities, and asynchronous learning networks were being established in many institutions. So, while it may not be remarkable that only 6% of faculty reported teaching through distance education in 1998, it is an important benchmark for current thinking and planning.
Gated-type polling systems with walking and switch-in times

We consider models of polling systems where switching times between channels are composed of two parts:walking times required to move from one channel (station) to another, and switch-in times that are incurred only when the server enters a station to render service. We analyze three Gated-type systems:(i) Cyclic polling with Gated regime, (ii) Cyclic polling with Globally-Gated regime, and (iii) Elevator-type polling with Globally-Gated regime. In all systems, the server visits station i if and only if the number of customers (jobs) present there at the gating instant is greater than or equal to given threshold K>0. For all schemes we derive formulae for the multi-dimensional generating functions of the number of jobs in the various queues at polling instants, and derive bounds on mean waiting times, mean cycle times and mean number of jobs present in the system. For the Elevator scheme we further show that if switch-in times, as well as arrival rates, are equal among channels, then jobs' mean waiting ti.
Learning to see by learning to draw: A longitudinal analysis of the relationship between representational drawing training and visuospatial skill.

A growing body of correlational research has revealed systematic relationships between various aspects of visuospatial processing and representational drawing ability. However, very few studies have sought to examine the longitudinal development of the relation between drawing and visuospatial ability. The current investigation explored change in drawing and visuospatial skill in art students taking a foundational drawing course (n = 42) in a longitudinal design. Measures of representational drawing skill, dispositional traits, and visuospatial skill were taken at three time points over the course of five months. The findings reveal improvements in representational drawing, mental rotation, disembedding figures, and attentional switching. However, individual differences in change over time on one task did not predict change in another, revealing implications for domain-specific and domain-general aspects of art and design expertise.
Recent Development of Plasmonic Resonance-Based Photocatalysis and Photovoltaics for Solar Utilization

Increasing utilization of solar energy is an effective strategy to tackle our energy and energy-related environmental issues. Both solar photocatalysis (PC) and solar photovoltaics (PV) have high potential to develop technologies of many practical applications. Substantial research efforts are devoted to enhancing visible light activation of the photoelectrocatalytic reactions by various modifications of nanostructured semiconductors. This review paper emphasizes the recent advancement in material modifications by means of the promising localized surface plasmonic resonance (LSPR) mechanisms. The principles of LSPR and its effects on the photonic efficiency of PV and PC are discussed here. Many research findings reveal the promise of Au and Ag plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs). Continual investigation for increasing the stability of the plasmonic NPs will be fruitful.