Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hypobaric hypoxia-mediated protein expression in plasma of susceptible & tolerant rats

Background & objectives: Low availability of oxygen at high altitudes has a great impact on the human life processes. There is a widespread interest and need to find out protein(s) that are possibly involved in mediating tolerance to hypobaric hypoxia. We undertook this study to identify and characterize protein expression in plasma of hypoxia susceptible and tolerant rats. Methods: Male albino Sprague Dawley rats were segregated into susceptible and tolerant groups on the basis of their gasping time when exposed to simulated hypobaric hypoxia of 32,000 ft (9,754 m) at 32°C. Comparative proteome profiling of blood plasma of hypoxia susceptible and tolerant individuals was performed using 2-dimentional (2-D) gel electrophoresis. Results: Three proteins with higher expression levels were selected separately from tolerant and susceptible samples. Characterization of these proteins from tolerant sample using MALDI-TOF/TOF and MASCOT search indicated their homology with two different super-families viz. NADB-Rossmann superfamily (Rab GDP dissociation inhibitor β) and Transferrin superfamily (two Serotransferrins), having potential role in imparting tolerance against hypoxia. Three high level upregulated proteins were characterized from blood plasma of hypoxia susceptible animals showing similarity with threonine tRNA ligase (mitochondrial), carbohydrate sulphotransferase 7 and aspartate tRNA ligase (cytoplasmic) that play a role in ATP binding, carbohydrate metabolism and protein biosynthesis, respectively. Interpretation & conclusions: Our results indicated that rats segregated into hypoxia sensitive and tolerant based on their gasping time showed differential expression of proteins in blood plasma. Characterization of these differentially expressed proteins will lead to better understanding of molecular responses occurring during hypoxia and subsequently development of biomarkers for categorization of hypoxia susceptible and tolerant individuals.
A Dose-Determining Trial of Heparinase-I (Neutralase™) for Heparin Neutralization in Coronary Artery Surgery

Heparinase-I, a specific heparin-degrading enzyme, may represent an alternative to protamine. We explored the dose of heparinase-I for efficacy and safety in patients undergoing coronary artery surgery. At the conclusion of cardiopulmonary bypass, subjects received 5, 7, or 10 &mgr;g/kg of open-label heparinase-I instead of protamine. Activated clotting time (ACT) and its difference from a contemporaneous heparin-free sample (&Dgr;ACT) at 3 min before and 3, 6, and 9 min after heparinase-I determined reversal efficacy. After surgery, we recorded hourly chest tube drainage. Systemic and pulmonary arterial blood pressure and cardiac output measurements before and immediately after heparinase-I were used to evaluate hemodynamic safety. Coagulation measurements included anti-factor Xa and anti-factor IIa activities. Forty-nine patients from seven institutions participated: 12 received 5 &mgr;g/kg, 21 received 7 &mgr;g/kg, 4 received two doses of 7 &mgr;g/kg, 8 received 10 &mgr;g/kg, and 4 received two doses of 10 &mgr;g/kg. Treatment groups did not differ demographically. Median &Dgr;ACT 9 min later was 11, 7, and 4 s for the 5, 7, and 10 &mgr;g/kg groups, respectively. No adverse hemodynamic changes occurred with heparinase-I administration. The authors conclude that heparinase-I effectively restored the ACT after cardiopulmonary bypass. This effect appeared to be dose dependent.
Predictive torque and flux control of an induction machine fed by an indirect matrix converter with reactive power minimization

A predictive torque and flux control method for an induction machine fed by an indirect matrix converter is presented in this paper. The control scheme selects the switching state that minimizes the error in the torque and flux predictions according to their reference values and, at the same time, the control scheme is enhanced by including a reactive power minimization strategy with the goal to have unity power factor in the input side of the converter. The control objectives are accomplished by using a prediction horizon of one sample time and a very intuitive control law. The proposed control scheme is validated trough simulation results where is shown that the predictive approach can be implemented simply with a good tracking of the torque and flux to their respective references and input currents with unity power factor.
Profile Protected area Hell ’ s Canyon National Recreation Area & Gesäuse National Park Mountain range The Seven Devils Mountains & the Alps Country U .

Based on the assumption that history and cultural backgrounds form human perception, this study compared mountain landscape preferences and landscape perceptions between protected area visitors in Austria and in eastern Oregon, United States. On-site visitors to the Hell’s Canyon National Recreation Area in eastern Oregon (n = 100) and the Gesäuse National Park in Austria (n = 100) were queried about their landscape preferences and perceptions. Perceptions were assessed through use of the information-processing theory (Kaplan & Kaplan 1989). The respondents rated the same set of eight images depicting mountain landscapes with various intensities of human impact. Differences in landscape preferences were found, with higher preferences of the eastern Oregon sample for more intensively used landscapes. The results demonstrated a strong explanatory power of the informational predictor variables, in particular for the Austrian sample. Mystery was a consistent predictor for preferences, while legibility was not. Thus, landscape preferences and perceptions are not homogenous between the samples, despite their similar cultural background. Management implications are included. 35 Research eco.mont Volume 5, Number 2, December 2013 ISSN 2073-106X pr int vers ion ISSN 2073-1558 onl ine vers ion: ht tp://epub.oeaw. ac.at/eco.mont
Stimulus-Dependent Changes in Spike Threshold Enhance Feature Selectivity in Rat Barrel Cortex Neurons

Feature selectivity is a fundamental property of sensory cortex neurons, yet the mechanisms underlying its genesis are not fully understood. Using intracellular recordings in vivo from layers 2-6 of rat barrel cortex, we studied the selectivity of neurons to the angular direction of whisker deflection. The spike output and the underlying synaptic response decreased exponentially in magnitude as the direction of deflection diverged from the preferred. However, the spike output was more sharply tuned for direction than the underlying synaptic response amplitude. This difference in selectivity was attributable to the rectification imposed by the spike threshold on the input-output function of cells. As in the visual system, spike threshold was not constant and showed trial-to-trial variability. However, here we show that the mean spike threshold was direction dependent and increased as the direction diverged from the preferred. Spike threshold was also related to the rate of rise of the synaptic response, which was direction dependent and steepest for the preferred direction. To assess the impact of the direction-dependent changes in spike threshold on direction selectivity, we applied a fixed threshold to the synaptic responses and calculated a predicted spike output. The predicted output was more broadly tuned than the obtained spike response, demonstrating for the first time that the regulation of the spike threshold by the properties of the synaptic response effectively enhances the selectivity of the spike output.
Early development of the porcine embryo

Understanding the cell signalling events that govern cell renewal in porcine pluripotent cells may help improve culture conditions and allow for establishment of bona fide porcine embryonic stem cells (pESC) and stable porcine induced pluripotent stem cells (piPSC). This review investigates cell signalling in the porcine preimplantation embryo containing either the inner cell mass or epiblast, with particular emphasis on fibroblast growth factor, SMAD, WNT and Janus tyrosine kinases/signal transducers and activators of transcription signalling. It is clear that key differences exist in the cell signalling events that govern pluripotency in this species compared with similar embryonic stages in mouse and human. The fact that bona fide pESC have still not been produced and that piPSC cannot survive in culture following the silencing or downregulation of the reprogramming transgenes suggest that culture conditions are not optimal. Unravelling the factor/s that regulate pluripotency in porcine embryos will pave the way for future establishment of stable pluripotent stem cell lines. Additional keywords: cell signalling, embryo, FGF pathway, JAK/STAT pathway, pluripotent stem cells, porcine, preimplantation, SMAD pathway, WNT pathway.
Promoting the use of personally relevant stimuli for investigating patients with disorders of consciousness

Sensory stimuli are used to evaluate and to restore cognitive functions and consciousness in patients with a disorder of consciousness (DOC) following a severe brain injury. Although sophisticated protocols can help assessing higher order cognitive functions and awareness, one major drawback is their lack of sensitivity. The aim of the present review is to show that stimulus selection is crucial for an accurate evaluation of the state of patients with disorders of consciousness as it determines the levels of processing that the patient can have with stimulation from his/her environment. The probability to observe a behavioral response or a cerebral response is increased when her/his personal history and/or her/his personal preferences are taken into account. We show that personally relevant stimuli (i.e., with emotional, autobiographical, or self-related characteristics) are associated with clearer signs of perception than are irrelevant stimuli in patients with DOC. Among personally relevant stimuli, music appears to be a promising clinical tool as it boosts perception and cognition in patients with DOC and could also serve as a prognostic tool. We suggest that the effect of music on cerebral processes in patients might reflect the music’s capacity to act both on the external and internal neural networks supporting consciousness.
Coup and contre-coup injury: observations on the mechanics of visible brain injuries in the rhesus monkey.

✓ The distribution of coup and contre-coup contusions and subdural hematomas after frontal and occipital impacts has been studied in the rhesus monkey. The effect of skull fracture on these lesions is noted, and the data compared to known postmortem observations in man. The translation/cavitation theory for brain injury as presently conceived is not supported by these data. The skull distortion and head rotation hypothesis offers opportunities for developing a better theory for brain injury by direct as well as indirect impact. The significance of these observations for design of protective devices is briefly discussed.
Binding of the auxiliary subunit TRIP8b to HCN channels shifts the mode of action of cAMP

Hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide–regulated cation (HCN) channels generate the hyperpolarization-activated cation current Ih present in many neurons. These channels are directly regulated by the binding of cAMP, which both shifts the voltage dependence of HCN channel opening to more positive potentials and increases maximal Ih at extreme negative voltages where voltage gating is complete. Here we report that the HCN channel brain-specific auxiliary subunit TRIP8b produces opposing actions on these two effects of cAMP. In the first action, TRIP8b inhibits the effect of cAMP to shift voltage gating, decreasing both the sensitivity of the channel to cAMP (K1/2) and the efficacy of cAMP (maximal voltage shift); conversely, cAMP binding inhibits these actions of TRIP8b. These mutually antagonistic actions are well described by a cyclic allosteric mechanism in which TRIP8b binding reduces the affinity of the channel for cAMP, with the affinity of the open state for cAMP being reduced to a greater extent than the cAMP affinity of the closed state. In a second apparently independent action, TRIP8b enhances the action of cAMP to increase maximal Ih. This latter effect cannot be explained by the cyclic allosteric model but results from a previously uncharacterized action of TRIP8b to reduce maximal current through the channel in the absence of cAMP. Because the binding of cAMP also antagonizes this second effect of TRIP8b, application of cAMP produces a larger increase in maximal Ih in the presence of TRIP8b than in its absence. These findings may provide a mechanistic explanation for the wide variability in the effects of modulatory transmitters on the voltage gating and maximal amplitude of Ih reported for different neurons in the brain.
Old World Fossil Record of Modern-Type Hummingbirds

I report on tiny skeletons of stem-group hummingbirds from the early Oligocene of Germany that are of essentially modern appearance and exhibit morphological specializations toward nectarivory and hovering flight. These are the oldest fossils of modern-type hummingbirds, which had not previously been reported from the Old World. The findings demonstrate that early hummingbird evolution was not restricted to the New World. They further suggest that bird–flower coevolution dates back to the early Oligocene and open another view on the origin of ornithophily in Old World plants.
Culture moderates changes in linguistic self-presentation and detail provision when deceiving others

Change in our language when deceiving is attributable to differences in the affective and cognitive experience of lying compared to truth telling, yet these experiences are also subject to substantial individual differences. On the basis of previous evidence of cultural differences in self-construal and remembering, we predicted and found evidence for cultural differences in the extent to which truths and lies contained self (versus other) references and perceptual (versus social) details. Participants (N = 320) of Black African, South Asian, White European and White British ethnicity completed a catch-the-liar task in which they provided genuine and fabricated statements about either their past experiences or an opinion and counter-opinion. Across the four groups we observed a trend for using more/fewer first-person pronouns and fewer/more third-person pronouns when lying, and a trend for including more/fewer perceptual details and fewer/more social details when lying. Contrary to predicted cultural differences in emotion expression, all participants showed more positive affect and less negative affect when lying. Our findings show that liars deceive in ways that are congruent with their cultural values and norms, and that this may result in opposing changes in behaviour.
A hybrid formulation of map migration and wave-equation-based migration using curvelets

Recently, curvelets have been introduced in the field of applied harmonic analysis and shown to optimally sparsify smooth functions away from singularities along smooth curves. In addition, it has been shown that curvelets allow a sparse representation of wave propagators. Since the wavefronts in seismic data lie mainly along smooth surfaces (or curves in two dimensions) and since the imaging operator belongs to the class of operators that is sparsified by curvelets, curvelets are plausible candidates for simultaneous sparse representation of both the seismic data and the imaging operator. Here, the first curvelet-based seismic imaging method is presented, using common-offset time-migration as an example. It is shown that with curvelets the leading-order approximation (in angular frequency, horizontal wavenumber, and migrated location) to such migration becomes a simple transformation of the coordinates of the curvelets in the data, combined with amplitude scaling. This transformation is calculated using common-offset (CO) map time-migration, which uses the local slopes provided by the curvelet decomposition of the data. The accuracy of the method is verified using numerical examples that indicate that using the leading-order approximation only, provides a good approximation to CO time-migration. Even though the current work treats constant media only, the essence of the presented leading-order derivation applies to pre-stack depth-migration also. The combination of map migration with curvelets, as presented in this work, unifies the finite-frequency character of curvelets with the ability of map migration to handle caustics. Because wave-equation-based migration is not troubled by the presence of caustics and honors the finite-frequency character of the data, this work can be viewed as a hybrid formulation of map migration and waveequation-based migration. Author’s note: Part of this work has previously been reported as Douma and de Hoop, ”On common-offset pre-stack time migration with curvelets” (CWP510), in the 2005 project review book. It is included here to present all material in a coherent and complete fashion.
Brown and polar bear Y chromosomes reveal extensive male-biased gene flow within brother lineages.

Brown and polar bears have become prominent examples in phylogeography, but previous phylogeographic studies relied largely on maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) or were geographically restricted. The male-specific Y chromosome, a natural counterpart to mtDNA, has remained underexplored. Although this paternally inherited chromosome is indispensable for comprehensive analyses of phylogeographic patterns, technical difficulties and low variability have hampered its application in most mammals. We developed 13 novel Y-chromosomal sequence and microsatellite markers from the polar bear genome and screened these in a broad geographic sample of 130 brown and polar bears. We also analyzed a 390-kb-long Y-chromosomal scaffold using sequencing data from published male ursine genomes. Y chromosome evidence support the emerging understanding that brown and polar bears started to diverge no later than the Middle Pleistocene. Contrary to mtDNA patterns, we found 1) brown and polar bears to be reciprocally monophyletic sister (or rather brother) lineages, without signals of introgression, 2) male-biased gene flow across continents and on phylogeographic time scales, and 3) male dispersal that links the Alaskan ABC islands population to mainland brown bears. Due to female philopatry, mtDNA provides a highly structured estimate of population differentiation, while male-biased gene flow is a homogenizing force for nuclear genetic variation. Our findings highlight the importance of analyzing both maternally and paternally inherited loci for a comprehensive view of phylogeographic history, and that mtDNA-based phylogeographic studies of many mammals should be reevaluated. Recent advances in sequencing technology render the analysis of Y-chromosomal variation feasible, even in nonmodel organisms.
Cognitive MIMO Relaying Networks With Primary User's Interference and Outdated Channel State Information

In this paper, we propose transmit antenna selection with maximal ratio combining (TAS/MRC) in dual-hop decode-and-forward spectrum-sharing relaying networks with the primary user's interference and outdated channel state information (CSI). In this network, a single antenna that maximizes the received SNR is selected at the secondary transmitter, and the MRC is adopted at the secondary receiver. To efficiently evaluate the impact of key parameters on the system performance, we derive the exact analytical expression for the outage probability of the secondary network in a Rayleigh fading channel. Moreover, we present simple asymptotic expressions for the outage probability in a high SNR regime, which reveal practical insights on the achievable diversity order and coding gain. The findings suggest that whether the outdated CSI concerning the secondary transmission links has significant impact on the outage probability of the system depends on the interference power constraint at primary receivers. Specifically, under the proportional interference power constraint, the achievable diversity order is affected by imperfect CSI regarding the secondary transmission links, and the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff is independent of the primary network. However, under the fixed interference power constraint, the error floor is displayed, and the achievable diversity order reduces to zero regardless of the CSI concerning the secondary transmission links.
Yeast OMICS System for Environmental Toxicology

Bioassays are used for the assessment of environmental pollution and risk assessment of environmental stresses. In bioassay systems, harmless is estimated by monitoring biological responses to environmental stress. An extensive literature exists on bioassay systems that include tests by Ames, Microtox, Umu, and others. These traditional bioassays did contribute to prevent adverse effect of chemicals in environment. However, the information that can be estimated from traditional bioassay is limited to the degree of toxicity or mutagenicity. For advanced control of environmental toxicology, our challenging is now how extract the information concern to character of toxicity from bioassay. Recent advance of biotechnology established OMICS technology. OMICS technology is made up of genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. Genomics enables genome-wide analyses of cellular responses at the transcriptional levels, proteomics inform those of protein levels, and metabolomics of metabolite levels. These technologies may contribute a great opportunity for understanding mechanisms of action by chemicals and environmental stress. It was suggested that genomics and proteomics often result in conflicting features, however, genomics and metabolomics did not show conflicting but supplementing each other. Here, we would like to show that genomics and metabolomics suggest the different aspects and thus genomics and metabolomics are not parallel technology but should be integrated. Keyword: OMICS, genomics, metabolomics, yeast, toxicity
Nonunit Protection of HVDC Grids With Inductive DC Cable Termination

This paper deals with nonunit protection of HVDC grids by proposing a set of parameters that characterizes the open protection zones together with an efficient method to determine the thresholds on these parameters. Selective HVDC grid protection schemes must detect and discriminate faults within the first milliseconds of the fault transient and consequently differ considerably from existing ac protection schemes. Due to the accompanying speed requirement, primary protection is expected to be based on open protection zones as communication delay impedes fast operation. In this paper, the principles of the nonunit protection scheme are developed based on reflection of a traveling wave at an inductive termination. Next, the method to obtain the protection scheme thresholds is elaborated. The method accurately calculates the thresholds for HVDC grids with an arbitrary topology. A sensitivity analysis of these thresholds toward grid and fault parameters demonstrates the applicability of the proposed protection scheme in cable-based HVDC grids with inductive cable termination. The results obtained with the reduced grid model are validated by comparison against simulations using a detailed model implemented in PSCAD.