Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endplate channel block by guanidine derivatives

The effects of the n-alkyl derivatives of guanidine on the frog neuromuscular junction were studied using the two-microelectrode voltage clamp and other electrophysiological techniques. Methyl-, ethyl- , and propylguanidine stimulated the nerve-evoked release of transmitter. However, amyl-and octylguanidine had no apparent presynaptic action. All of the derivatives blocked the postsynaptic response to acetylcholine, the potency sequence being octyl-greater than amyl-greater than propyl-, methyl-greater than ethylguanidine. Methyl- and octylguanidine did not protect the receptor from alpha- bungarotoxin block, suggesting that these compounds do not bind to the receptor but probably block the ionic channel. Methyl-, ethyl-, and propylguanidine shortened inward endplate currents but prolonged outward currents. Amylguanidine prolonged both inward and outward endplate currents, and the currents became biphasic at negative membrane potentials. Octylguanidine increased the rate of decay of endplate currents at all potentials. All of the derivatives blocked inward endplate currents more markedly than outward currents, resulting in a highly nonlinear current-voltage relation. Methyl-, ethyl-, and propylguanidine reversed the voltage dependence of endplate current decay, while amyl-and octylguanidine reduced the voltage dependence of endplate current decay. Octylguanidine appears to block the ionic channel in both the open and the closed state. The block of the open channel follows pseudo-first-order kinetics with a forward rate constant of 4-6 X 10(7) M-1 s-1.
Surface Gravities of Metal-Poor Stars Derived from HIPPARCOS Parallaxes

Surface gravities of metal-poor stars have been derived from the basic relations g / M=R and R / L=Te 4 using Hipparcos parallaxes to determine luminosities. The method has been applied to 54 metal-poor stars with [Fe/H] < 1:0 and ( )= < 0:2 selected from the photometric study of Schuster & Nissen (1989). Te is determined from the Str omgren color index (b y) and the mass is derived by tting 14 Gyr isochrones to the distribution of the stars in theMV Te plane. The gravities have statistical errors (log g) < 0:20 dex and systematic errors within 0:10 dex. Comparison with gravities, derived from the requirement that Fe i and Fe ii lines should provide the same iron abundance, shows that such `spectroscopic' gravities are often in error by a factor of 2 to 3. The importance of the parallax-based gravities for setting the metallicity scale of metal-poor stars and for deriving accurate abundances of key elements in nucleosynthesis studies is emphasized.
Studying Age-Related Macular Degeneration Using Animal Models

ABSTRACT Over the recent years, there have been tremendous advances in our understanding of the genetic and environmental factors associated with the development of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Examination of retinal changes in various animals has aided our understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease. Notably, mouse strains, carrying genetic anomalies similar to those affecting humans, have provided a foundation for understanding how various genetic risk factors affect retinal integrity. However, to date, no single mouse strain that develops all the features of AMD in a progressive age-related manner has been identified. In addition, a mutation present in some background strains has clouded the interpretation of retinal phenotypes in many mouse strains. The aim of this perspective was to describe how animals can be used to understand the significance of each sign of AMD, as well as key genetic risk factors.
Home tracheotomy mechanical ventilation in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: causes, complications and 1-year survival

Background Home tracheotomy mechanical ventilation (HTMV) can prolong survival in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) when non-invasive ventilation (NIV) fails, but knowledge about HTMV is scarce. The aim of this study was to determine the causes of tracheotomy and the main issues of 1-year HTMV in a cohort of patients with ALS. Methods A prospective study of all patients needing HTMV was performed in a referral respiratory care unit (RCU) from April 2001 to January 2010. Patients' informed decisions about HTMV were fully respected. Caregivers were trained and could telephone the RCU. Hospital staff made home visits. Results All patients (n=116) agreed to participate and a tracheotomy was needed for 76, mainly due to bulbar dysfunction. Of the 38 who had a tracheotomy, in 21 it was performed in an acute setting and in 17 as a non-emergency procedure. In 19 patients the tracheotomy was related to the inadequacy of mechanically assisted coughing (MAC) to maintain normal oxygen saturation. During HTMV, 19 patients required hospitalisation, 12 with respiratory problems. The 1-year survival rate was 78.9%, with a mean survival of 10.39 months (95% CI 9.36 to 11.43). Sudden death was the main cause of death (n=9) and only one patient died from respiratory causes. No predictive factors for survival were found. Conclusions Besides NIV inadequacy, the ineffectiveness of mechanically assisted coughing appears to be a relevant cause of tracheotomy for patients with ALS with severe bulbar dysfunction. Patients choosing HTMV provided by a referral RCU could have a good 1-year survival rate, respiratory problems being the main cause of hospitalisation but not of death.
Diversité d’itinéraires professionnels : influences de l’immigration en France et spécificités de genre

The focus of this doctoral thesis is the study of pathways leading to different levels of participation in the French labour market amongst various immigrant groups and the general population resident in France. Data from several surveys are used to this end: Histoire de vie – Construction des identites [Life histories and identity construction] (INSEE, 2003), Mobilite geographique et insertion sociale [Geographical mobility and social integration] (INED, INSEE, 1992) et Parcours et profils des migrants [Trajectories and profiles of migrants, survey with one-year follow-up] (DREES, 2 vagues : 2006, 2007). The originality of the approach used is in the comparative perspective, according to migratory status and gender category, throughout the occupational trajectory in France and also the consideration of occupational experience before migration and changes observed at certain key moments of the migration process (on arrival in France, on obtaining a first “lasting” residence permit and on the acquisition of French nationality, when this occurred). The results obtained firstly reveal the importance of entering the labour market in France on later economic participation of women and men, the level of participation depending in turn on the conditions of migration and subsequent experiences. Although the moment of arrival in France often constitutes a turning point in occupational histories, its influence could to be considered in relative terms, notably in comparison with other life history events experienced by women (in particular, family-related event). The gender dimension is shown to be crucial in understanding the processes under study.
C‐Reactive Protein Identifies Low‐Risk Metabolically Healthy Obese Persons: The European Prospective Investigation of Cancer–Norfolk Prospective Population Study

Background Conflicting data exist about the cardiovascular risk of metabolically healthy obese persons. The prognostic value of C‐reactive protein (CRP) in this intriguing group is unknown. We assessed the association between CRP levels and the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in metabolically healthy persons with abdominal obesity. Methods and Results In the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer–Norfolk prospective cohort, CRP levels and information on metabolic syndrome criteria were available for 7279 participants, of whom 825 (11%) developed CHD during a follow‐up period of 10.9±1.8 years. There was a trend toward a higher multivariable‐adjusted hazard ratio for CHD in metabolically healthy obese participants with CRP levels >2 mg/L compared with <2 mg/L (hazard ratio 1.59, 95% CI 0.97–2.62, P=0.066). Metabolically unhealthy obese participants had significantly higher CHD risk compared with metabolically healthy obese participants with CRP levels <2 mg/L (hazard ratio 1.88, 95% CI 1.20–2.94, P=0.006). Most important, we found that the risk of CHD among metabolically healthy obese persons with CRP levels <2 mg/L was comparable to that of metabolically healthy nonobese persons (hazard ratio 0.91, 95% CI 0.60–1.39, P=0.674). Conclusions Among metabolically healthy obese persons, low CRP levels were associated with a CHD risk comparable to that of metabolically healthy nonobese persons. CRP appears to be an easy and widely available method for identifying a low‐risk subpopulation among metabolically healthy obese persons.
Effect of amount of milk fed, weaning age and starter protein level on growth performance in Holstein calves

The objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of amount of milk fed, weaning age and difference of starter protein levels on growth performance of female Holstein Friesian calves. Forty Holstein calves were housed in individual boxes. Calves were divided into 2 groups (n=20); first group was fed with whole milk with the amount of 10 % of their body weight (BW), while the second group was fed with whole milk with the amount of 8 % of their BW. These 2 groups were divided into sub-groups of calves (n=10 for each) again. One of the sub-groups was fed with whole milk for a period of 8 weeks, while the other group was fed with whole milk for a period of 5 weeks. Once again the sub-groups were divided into 2 groups (n=5 for each). One of these groups was fed with starter diet containing 22 % crude protein (CP), while the other group was fed with starter diet containing 18 % CP ad libitum as the starting feed. After an 8-week period, Calves which were fed by the whole milk of %10 of their BW were defined to be heavier than those which were fed by %8 whole milk of their BW. The effect of weaning age and protein level of starter on BW was not statistically significant. The results showed that the body weight gains of the calves receiving milk at 10 % of BW were better, early weaning tended to increase feed consumption and the protein levels did not affect the performance of calves.
Inner and Inter Label Propagation: Salient Object Detection in the Wild

In this paper, we propose a novel label propagation-based method for saliency detection. A key observation is that saliency in an image can be estimated by propagating the labels extracted from the most certain background and object regions. For most natural images, some boundary superpixels serve as the background labels and the saliency of other superpixels are determined by ranking their similarities to the boundary labels based on an inner propagation scheme. For images of complex scenes, we further deploy a three-cue-center-biased objectness measure to pick out and propagate foreground labels. A co-transduction algorithm is devised to fuse both boundary and objectness labels based on an inter propagation scheme. The compactness criterion decides whether the incorporation of objectness labels is necessary, thus greatly enhancing computational efficiency. Results on five benchmark data sets with pixelwise accurate annotations show that the proposed method achieves superior performance compared with the newest state-of-the-arts in terms of different evaluation metrics.
Observation of Shot Noise in Phosphorescent Organic Light-Emitting Diodes

We employed a cross correlation method to study current noise in phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes. The noise spectra revealed two frequency-dependent components. The first component displays \({1/f}^{1.3}\) dependence and correlates with the light emission of the devices. The second component is dominant in low-bias regime and varies as \({1/f}^{2.8}\) . It is attributed to inhomogeneities of the barrier height at metal/organic interface. The extended bandwidth of the method allowed us to resolve frequency-independent term in the noise power, which was dominated by the shot noise. At bias voltages from 2.4 to 2.5 V, the Fano factor characterizing shot noise is close to one, confirming that the electron transport in this regime is limited by the carrier injection across metal/organic interface. At higher biases, in the regime where the transport is bulk-limited, the Fano factors drops to 0.5. Possible physical reasons for such behavior are discussed.
Meta-Analysis of Evidence from the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index

The Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) is a National Quality Forum nursing care performance standard with sizable global evidence about nurse practice environments. This research synthesis includes qualitative integration (meta-synthesis) and quantitative integration (meta-analysis). A multinomial meta-analysis was used to model multiple classes of like outcomes for which separate coefficients were estimated. One hundred nineteen articles utilizing the PES-NWI, published from 2002 through 2014, were reviewed and 22 were included in the meta-analysis. Most articles linked practice environments to nurse job outcomes, to nurse-reported assessments of quality, safety, and frequency of adverse events and patient outcomes from administrative data, to organizational outcomes, or to a combination of these outcomes. The preliminary meta-analysis showed strong associations between nursing practice environment and patient safety outcomes. There is also a strong association between practice environment and nurse job outcomes, including dissatisfaction, burnout, and intent to leave. Keywords Organizational and Workforce Issues, Methods – Qualitative, Quantitative, and Community-based participatory research Disciplines Business This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/spur/3 Sanders 1 Title: Meta-Analysis of Evidence from the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index Author: Jordan Sanders Faculty Advisor: Eileen T. Lake, PhD, RN, FAAN Jessie M. Scott Term Chair in Nursing and Health Policy Associate Professor of Sociology Associate Director, Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research Chair, Graduate Group in Nursing Email: sanej@wharton.upenn. edu elake@nursing.upenn. edu Sanders 2 ABSTRACT The Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) is a National Quality Forum nursing care performance standard with sizable global evidence about nurse practice environments. This research synthesis includes qualitative integration (meta-synthesis) and quantitative integration (meta-analysis). A multinomial meta-analysis was used to model multiple classes of like outcomes for which separate coefficients were estimated. One hundred nineteen articles utilizing the PES-NWI, published from 2002 through 2014, were reviewed and 22 were included in the meta-analysis. Most articles linked practice environments to nurse job outcomes, to nurse-reported assessments of quality, safety, and frequency of adverse events and patient outcomes from administrative data, to organizational outcomes, or to a combination of these outcomes. The preliminary meta-analysis showed strong associations between nursing practice environment and patient safety outcomes. There is also a strong association between practice environment and nurse job outcomes, including dissatisfaction, burnout, and intent to
Role of the b 1 Subunit in Large-Conductance Ca 2 1 -activated K 1 Channel Gating Energetics Mechanisms of Enhanced Ca 2 1 Sensitivity

Over the past few years, it has become clear that an important mechanism by which large-conductance Ca 2 1 -activated K 1 channel (BK Ca ) activity is regulated is the tissue-speciﬁc expression of auxiliary b subunits. The ﬁrst of these to be identiﬁed, b 1, is expressed predominately in smooth muscle and causes dramatic effects, increasing the apparent afﬁnity of the channel for Ca 2 1 10-fold at 0 mV, and shifting the range of voltages over which the channel activates 2 80 mV at 9.1 m M Ca 2 1 . With this study, we address the question: which aspects of BK Ca gating are altered by b 1 to bring about these effects: Ca 2 1 binding, voltage sensing, or the intrinsic energetics of channel opening? The approach we have taken is to express the b 1 subunit together with the BK Ca a subunit in Xenopus oocytes, and then to compare b 1’s steady state effects over a wide range of Ca 2 1 concentrations and membrane voltages to those predicted by allosteric models whose parameters have been altered to mimic changes in the aspects of gating listed above. The results of our analysis suggest that much of b 1’s steady state effects can be accounted for by a reduction in the intrinsic energy the channel must overcome to open and a decrease in its voltage sensitivity, with little change in the afﬁnity of the channel for Ca 2 1 when it is either open or closed. Interestingly, however, the small changes in Ca 2 1 binding afﬁnity suggested by our analysis (K c 7.4 m M ﬁ 9.6 m M; K o 5 0.80 m M ﬁ 0.65 m M) do appear to be functionally important. We also show that b 1 affects the mSlo conductance–voltage relation in the essential absence of Ca 2 1 , shifting it 1 20 mV and reducing its apparent gating charge 38%, and we develop methods for distinguishing between alterations in Ca 2 1 binding and other aspects of BK Ca channel gating that may be of general use. The likelihood of each individual observation was calculated from the expected value under the model at the appropriate condition and the estimated variance of the mean at each point. Model performance was compared using a likelihood ratio test that assumed normal errors, and allowed for heterogeneity of variance. The test was implemented with S-PLUS 2000 software (Mathsoft), and it gave a chi-square value of 38.236 on ﬁve degrees of freedom.
Classification of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Using Significance Analysis of Microarray-Gene Set Reduction Algorithm

Among non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), adenocarcinoma (AC), and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) are two major histology subtypes, accounting for roughly 40% and 30% of all lung cancer cases, respectively. Since AC and SCC differ in their cell of origin, location within the lung, and growth pattern, they are considered as distinct diseases. Gene expression signatures have been demonstrated to be an effective tool for distinguishing AC and SCC. Gene set analysis is regarded as irrelevant to the identification of gene expression signatures. Nevertheless, we found that one specific gene set analysis method, significance analysis of microarray-gene set reduction (SAMGSR), can be adopted directly to select relevant features and to construct gene expression signatures. In this study, we applied SAMGSR to a NSCLC gene expression dataset. When compared with several novel feature selection algorithms, for example, LASSO, SAMGSR has equivalent or better performance in terms of predictive ability and model parsimony. Therefore, SAMGSR is a feature selection algorithm, indeed. Additionally, we applied SAMGSR to AC and SCC subtypes separately to discriminate their respective stages, that is, stage II versus stage I. Few overlaps between these two resulting gene signatures illustrate that AC and SCC are technically distinct diseases. Therefore, stratified analyses on subtypes are recommended when diagnostic or prognostic signatures of these two NSCLC subtypes are constructed.
The Intra-Host Evolutionary and Population Dynamics of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1: A Phylogenetic Perspective

The intra-host evolutionary and population dynamics of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), the cause of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, have been the focus of one of the most extensive study efforts in the field of molecular evolution over the past three decades. As HIV-1 is among the fastest mutating organisms known, viral sequence data sampled over time from infected patients can provide, through phylogenetic analysis, significant insights about the tempo and mode of evolutionary processes shaped by complex interaction with the host milieu. Five main aspects are discussed: the patterns of HIV-1 intra-host diversity and divergence over time in relation to different phases of disease progression; the impact of selection on the temporal structure of HIV-1 intra-host genealogies inferred from longitudinally sampled viral sequences; HIV-1 intra-host sub-population structure; the potential relationship between viral evolutionary rate and disease progression and the central evolutionary role played by recombination occurring in super-infected cells.
Protein metabolism and the gut

Abstract This paper reviews the recent literature concerning the importance of the gut in extraintestinal protein metabolism. A growing body of evidence suggests that the gut modulates amino acid flux and inter‐organ relationships in various metabolic states. This may be particularly true during the absorptive period, when the gut: (1) controls amino acid absorption; (2) may modulate catabolism and uptake for synthesis of absorbed amino acid; and (3) consequently influences the availability of liver and extrasplanchnic amino acids, as well as their pattern and kinetics through portal flow delivery.
Inhibition of histone deacetylase activity by trichostatin A modulates gene expression during mouse embryogenesis without apparent toxicity.

Remodeling of the chromatin template by inhibition of histone deacetylase (HDAC) activities represents a major goal for transcriptional therapy in neoplastic diseases. Recently, a number of specific and potent HDAC-inhibitors that modulate in vitro cell growth and differentiation have been developed. In this study we analyzed the effect of trichostatin A (TSA), a specific and potent HDAC-inhibitor, on mouse embryos developing in vivo. When administered i.p. to pregnant mice (at a concentration of 0.5-1 mg/kg) at postimplantation stages (embryonic day 8 to embryonic day 10), TSA was not toxic for the mother and did not cause any obvious malformation during somitogenesis or at later stages of development. Treated embryos were born at similar frequency and were indistinguishable from control animals, developed normally, and were fertile. Interestingly, embryos from TSA-treated mice killed during somitogenesis were modestly but consistently larger than control embryos and presented an increased (+2 to +6) number of somites. This correlated with an increased acetylation of histone H4, the number of somites expressing the myogenic factor Myf-5, and the expression of Notch, RARalpha2, and RARbeta2 mRNAs. These data indicate that the effects of TSA on transcription: (a) are not toxic for the mother; (b) transiently accelerated growth in mouse embryos without perturbing embryogenesis; and (c) do not result in teratogenesis, at least in rodents. Thus, TSA might represent a nontoxic and effective agent for the transcriptional therapy of neoplasia.