Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Geminivirus-Mediated Gene Silencing from Cotton Leaf Crumple Virus Is Enhanced by Low Temperature in Cotton1[C][OA]

A silencing vector for cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) was developed from the geminivirus Cotton leaf crumple virus (CLCrV). The CLCrV coat protein gene was replaced by up to 500 bp of DNA homologous to one of two endogenous genes, the magnesium chelatase subunit I gene (ChlI) or the phytoene desaturase gene (PDS). Cotyledons of cotton cultivar ‘Deltapine 5415’ bombarded with the modified viral vectors manifested chlorosis due to silencing of either ChlI or PDS in approximately 70% of inoculated plants after 2 to 3 weeks. Use of the green fluorescence protein gene showed that replication of viral DNA was restricted to vascular tissue and that the viral vector could transmit to leaves, roots, and the ovule integument from which fibers originate. Temperature had profound effects on vector DNA accumulation and the spread of endogenous gene silencing. Consistent with reports that silencing against viruses increases at higher temperatures, plants grown at a 30°C/26°C day/night cycle had a greater than 10-fold reduction in viral DNA accumulation compared to plants grown at 22°C/18°C. However, endogenous gene silencing decreased at 30°C/26°C. There was an approximately 7 d delay in the onset of gene silencing at 22°C/18°C, but silencing was extensive and persisted throughout the life of the plant. The extent of silencing in new growth could be increased or decreased by changing temperature regimes at various times following the onset of silencing. Our experiments establish the use of the CLCrV silencing vector to study gene function in cotton and show that temperature can have a major impact on the extent of geminivirus-induced gene silencing.
FinFET-a self-aligned double-gate MOSFET scalable to 20 nm

MOSFETs with gate length down to 17 nm are reported. To suppress the short channel effect, a novel self-aligned double-gate MOSFET, FinFET, is proposed. By using boron-doped Si/sub 0.4/Ge/sub 0.6/ as a gate material, the desired threshold voltage was achieved for the ultrathin body device. The quasiplanar nature of this new variant of the vertical double-gate MOSFETs can be fabricated relatively easily using the conventional planar MOSFET process technologies.
Knowledge and experience with Alzheimer's disease. Relationship to resuscitation preference.

BACKGROUND Previous studies suggest that 20% to 67% of patients would desire cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) even if they had advanced Alzheimer's disease. These preferences were not affected by education about CPR. We hypothesized that CPR preferences in scenarios involving Alzheimer's disease are influenced more by knowledge of or experience with Alzheimer's disease than by knowledge of CPR and its outcomes. METHODS We performed a random digit-dialing telephone survey of adult Kentuckians in June 1993. A total of 661 persons responded. We asked respondents whether they have had a friend or family member with Alzheimer's disease and whether they had cared for that person at home. We then assessed basic knowledge of Alzheimer's disease and CPR. We read to one half of respondents an educational paragraph describing CPR and its outcomes. Finally, we asked respondents their CPR preference if they were to develop Alzheimer's disease. RESULTS Overall, 22% of respondents would probably or definitely want CPR if they had Alzheimer's disease. With the use of simultaneous multiple linear regression, predictors of refusing CPR in scenarios involving Alzheimer's disease included knowledge of or experience with Alzheimer's disease (P < .001), older age (P < .001), greater income (P < .004), female sex (P < .01), and nonwhite race (P < .04). Baseline knowledge of CPR did not affect CPR preferences, nor did being read the educational paragraph. CONCLUSIONS Cardiopulmonary resuscitation preferences in scenarios involving Alzheimer's disease are strongly associated with knowledge of or experience with Alzheimer's disease more so than with knowledge of CPR. These findings suggest that in eliciting patients' CPR preferences in an advanced directive, care must be taken that patients understand the condition presented in the scenario (eg, Alzheimer's disease).
Axonal guidance on patterned free-standing nanowire surfaces

We demonstrate high-fidelity guidance of axons using rows of nanowires. The axons are prevented from crossing the rows, making it possible to guide and sort a large number of axons as opposed to when chemical patterns are used. Focal adhesion forms at the nanowires establishing a possible site of information transfer between the surface and the cells. Rows of gallium phosphide (GaP) nanowires were epitaxially grown on GaP(111) substrates in patterns defined by electron beam lithography.
Outage probability analysis of distributed reception with hard decision exchanges

This paper considers the problem of jointly decoding binary messages from a single distant transmitter to a cooperative receive cluster. The nodes in the receive cluster exchange information to decode messages from the transmitter. The outage probability of distributed reception with binary hard decision exchanges is compared with the outage probability of ideal receive beamforming with unquantized observation exchanges. Low-dimensional analysis and numerical results show, via two simple but surprisingly good approximations, that the outage probability performance of distributed reception with hard decision exchanges is well-predicted by the SNR of ideal receive beamforming after subtracting a hard decision penalty of slightly less than 2 dB. These results, developed in non-asymptotic regimes, are consistent with prior asymptotic results (for a large number of nodes and low per-node SNR) on hard decisions in binary communication systems.
Early Region 1 Transforming Functions Are Dispensable for Mammary Tumorigenesis by Human Adenovirus Type 9

ABSTRACT Some human adenoviruses are tumorigenic in rodents. Subgroup A and B human adenoviruses generally induce sarcomas in both male and female animals, and the gene products encoded within viral early region 1 (E1 region) are both necessary and sufficient for this tumorigenicity. In contrast, subgroup D human adenovirus type 9 (Ad9) induces estrogen-dependent mammary tumors in female rats and requires the E4 region-encoded ORF1 oncoprotein for its tumorigenicity. Considering the established importance of the viral E1 region for tumorigenesis by adenoviruses, we investigated whether this viral transcription unit is also necessary for Ad9 to generate mammary tumors. The nucleotide sequence of the Ad9 E1 region indicated that the gene organization and predicted E1A and E1B polypeptides of Ad9 are closely related to those of other human adenovirus E1 regions. In addition, an Ad9 E1 region plasmid demonstrated focus-forming activity in both low-passage-number and established rat embryo fibroblasts, whereas a large deletion within either the E1A or E1B gene of this plasmid diminished transforming activity. Surprisingly, we found that introducing the same transformation-inactivating E1A and E1B deletions into Ad9 results in mutant viruses that retain the ability to elicit mammary tumors in rats. These results are novel in showing that Ad9 represents a unique oncogenic adenovirus in which the E4 region, rather than the E1 region, encodes the major oncogenic determinant in the rat.
Improved Establishment of Embryonic Stem (ES) Cell Lines from the Chinese Kunming Mice by Hybridization with 129 Mice

Chinese Kunming mice (Mus musculus Km), widely used as laboratory animals throughout China, remain very refractory for embryonic stem (ES) cell isolation. The present study was aimed to evaluate the effects of hybridization with 129/Sv mice, and culture media containing fetal bovine serum (FBS) or Knockout serum replacement (KSR) on ES cell isolation from Kunming mice. The results demonstrated that ES cells had been effectively isolated from the hybrid embryos of Kunming and 129/Sv mice using all three media containing 15% FBS, 15% KSR and their mixture of 14% KSR and 1% FBS, individually. These isolated ES cells had maintained in vitro undifferentiated for a long time, exhibiting all features specific for mouse ES cells. In addition, the rates of ES cell isolation in the medium containing 14% KSR and 1% FBS, was 46.67% and significantly higher than those in another two media containing only FBS or KSR (p < 0.05). Contrarily, no ES cell line had been established from Kunming mouse inbred embryos using the same protocols. These results suggested that ES cells with long-term self-renewal ability could be efficiently generated from hybrid embryos of Kunming and 129/Sv mice, and a small volume of FBS was necessary to isolate ES cells in the KSR medium when embryos and early ES cells cultured.
Effects of Biggest Loser exercise depictions on exercise-related attitudes.

OBJECTIVES To examine whether participants who watched an exercise-related segment of The Biggest Loser television program would have different explicit and implicit affective exercise-related attitudes than those of control participants. METHODS University students (N=138) watched a clip of The Biggest Loser or American Idol, then completed a Go/No-go Association Task, a thought-listing task, and questionnaires measuring explicit attitudes, activity level, and mood. RESULTS Participants who watched The Biggest Loser had significantly lower explicit, but not implicit, attitudes towards exercise than did control participants. CONCLUSIONS There is a need to examine the influence of popular media depictions of exercise.
Myocardial flow reserve parametric map, assessed by first‐pass MRI compartmental analysis at the chronic stage of infarction

Regional myocardial flow and flow reserve (MFR) were assessed by compartmental analysis of Gd‐enhanced MRI first‐pass data in 7 patients with atypical chest pain, and in 15 patients with previous transmural myocardial infarction. The FE product (Flow × Extraction coefficient), derived from the modified Kety equation, was measured in regions corresponding to the Tetrofosmine‐SPECT fixed defect and in remote normal regions. The FE product at rest and hyperemic FE product were similar in healed revascularized tissues (70.5 ± 15.6 and 112.5 ± 19.5ml/mn/100g, respectively) and in normal myocardium (76.2 ± 18.3 and 142.2 ± 33.0, respectively). In contrast, the FE index (48.8 ± 15.2 and 60.7 ± 18.0, respectively, P < 0.01 versus the two previous groups) and the MFR (1.27 ± 0.20 vs. 1.91 ± 0.29 in normal regions) were reduced in healed fibrotic tissues when the infarct‐related artery remained occluded. Myocardial flow reserve maps allowed correct identification of regions corresponding to an occluded infarct‐related artery. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2001;13:352–360. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The impact of bariatric surgery on renal and cardiac functions in morbidly obese patients.

BACKGROUND Cardiac adaptation to obesity includes both structural and functional alterations in the heart. The kidneys also suffer the consequence of excessive increase of body weight. This study aims to assess the functional, cardiac and renal changes in a cohort of morbidly obese patients, as well as changes after bariatric surgery-the last therapeutic option for these patients. METHODS Patients referred for bariatric surgery were prospectively included. In each case, transthoracic echocardiography and a blood test were performed before the procedure and repeated 1 year after surgery. The estimation of the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) was addressed by the Cockroft-Gault lean body weight formula. RESULTS Sixty-one patients completed the 1-year follow-up. Of these, 81.9% were female. The mean age was 41.1 ± 9.8 years and the mean body mass index was 47.4 ± 5 kg/m(2), decreasing to 30.5 ± 5.07 kg/m(2) after the procedure. Before surgery, the estimated GFR was 92.7 ± 25.4 mL/min, with hyperfiltration being present in 14.8% of patients, whereas an impaired GFR was detected in 8.3%. Patients showed preserved systolic function and cardiac remodelling. Diastolic function was abnormal in 27.9% of patients. At the 1-year follow-up, favourable changes in the left ventricular geometry and related haemodynamic status were observed. There was no significant change in the estimated GFR in the overall group, although hyperfiltration was ameliorated in 9.8% and a poor GFR was improved in 3.3. %. The improvement was not associated with changes in either blood pressure or the BMI. However, in this group of patients the amelioration of the GFR was associated with an increased stroke volume and improvement in diastolic function. CONCLUSIONS In morbidly obese patients, GFR is usually normal and only a small percentage of them show hyperfiltration or a reduced GFR. Bariatric surgery has a favourable impact on renal function in only a reduced group of patients who also experience an improvement in cardiac performance.
Influence of Selection Bias on the Test Decision

Summary Background: Selection bias arises in clinical trials by reason of selective assignment of patients to treatment groups. Even in randomized clinical trials with allocation concealment this phenomenon can occur if future assignments can be predicted due to knowledge of former allocations. Objectives: Considering unmasked randomized clinical trials with allocation concealment the impact of selection bias on type I error rate under permuted block randomization is investigated. We aimed to extend the existing research into this topic by including practical assumptions concerning misclassification of patient characteristics to get an estimate of type I error close to clinical routine. To establish an upper bound for the type I error rate different biasing strategies of the investigator are compared first. In addition, the aspect of patient availability is considered. Methods: To evaluate the influence of selection bias on type I error rate under several practical situations, different block sizes, selection effects, biasing strategies and success rates of patient classification were simulated using SAS. Results: Type I error rate exceeds 5 percent significance level; it reaches values up to 21 percent. More cautious biasing strategies and misclassification of patient characteristics may diminish but cannot eliminate selection bias. The number of screened patients is about three times larger than the needed number for the trial. Conclusions: Even in unmasked randomized clinical trials using permuted block randomization with allocation concealment the influence of selection bias must not be disregarded evaluating the test decision. It should be incorporated when designing and reporting a clinical trial.
A Generalized Linear Integrate-and-Fire Neural Model Produces Diverse Spiking Behaviors

For simulations of neural networks, there is a trade-off between the size of the network that can be simulated and the complexity of the model used for individual neurons. In this study, we describe a generalization of the leaky integrate-and-fire model that produces a wide variety of spiking behaviors while still being analytically solvable between firings. For different parameter values, the model produces spiking or bursting, tonic, phasic or adapting responses, depolarizing or hyperpolarizing after potentials and so forth. The model consists of a diagonalizable set of linear differential equations describing the time evolution of membrane potential, a variable threshold, and an arbitrary number of firing-induced currents. Each of these variables is modified by an update rule when the potential reaches threshold. The variables used are intuitive and have biological significance. The model's rich behavior does not come from the differential equations, which are linear, but rather from complex update rules. This single-neuron model can be implemented using algorithms similar to the standard integrate-and-fire model. It is a natural match with event-driven algorithms for which the firing times are obtained as a solution of a polynomial equation.
The relationship between personality and forgiveness of sexual infidelity in marriage

Discovery of sexual infidelity is often accompanied by a strong desire for infidelity relevant information (Peluso, 2007). This study explored how information and conceptualization of situational factors affects forgiveness in a spouse who discovers the extramarital sexual activity of his or her spouse. The current study focused on knowledge of details and how such knowledge affected rumination and motivations of revenge, avoidance, and benevolence. Popular literature currently promotes a process of healing that begins with a revelation of the details associated with the extramarital behaviors of the offending spouse. A unique objective of this study was consideration of the specific features of discovery of sexual infidelity on motivations of forgiveness. It was hypothesized that increasing amounts of infidelity relevant information would be reflected by increasing levels of rumination and diminishing levels of forgiveness. The results of this study fail to support the contention that acquisition of infidelity relevant information has a statistically significant relationship to healing or forgiveness. Results indicate a statistically significant negative relationship between forgiveness and rumination. Motivations for revenge and avoidance were statistically, negatively associated with the single item forgiveness question on the questionnaire. Benevolence was statistically significant and positively associated with the single item forgiveness question. No statistically significant results were found for details and related effects on rumination or forgiveness.
Beliefs about language learning and foreign language anxiety : a study of university students learning English as a foreign language in mainland China

The purpose of this study was to investigate foreign language anxiety and beliefs about language learning of university students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) in mainland China. In addition, the relationship between foreign language anxiety and students7 beliefs about language learning was studied. A total of 175 first and second year university students participated in the study. A set of questionnaires consisting of the Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (Honvitz, 1987), Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Honvitz, 1983) and a background questionnaire were translated into Chinese and administered to the subjects. Several similarities and differences were observed between the Chinese subjects7 responses to the BALLI and those of American foreign language students (Honvitz, 1988), Taiwanese EFL students (Yang, 1992), Korean EFL students (Truitt, 1995), American students of French (Kern, 1995), American students of Japanese (Oh, 1996), and Turkish-speaking students of English (Kunt, 1997). The Chinese subjects in this study reported higher levels of foreign language anxiety than the subjects in previous studies. Two BALLI factors were found to be significantly correlated with foreign language anxiety: "the difficulty about language learning" (r = .544 p< .01) and "beliefs about foreign language aptitude" (r = -.255 p< .01), suggesting that Chinese EFL students who believe English is not a very difficult language and perceive themselves as having higher language aptitude in language learning tend to have lower levels of language anxiety. This study contributes to the understanding of EFL students7 beliefs about language learning, and the frustrations and difficulties they experience in foreign language classrooms. Supervisor: Dr. Robert Anthony, (Department of Curriculum and Instruction) TABLE OF CONTENTS . Abstract. , i i . Table of
Learning to Rank Answers on Large Online QA Collections

This work describes an answer ranking engine for non-factoid questions built using a large online community-generated question-answer collection (Yahoo! Answers). We show how such collections may be used to effectively set up large supervised learning experiments. Furthermore we investigate a wide range of feature types, some exploiting NLP processors, and demonstrate that using them in combination leads to considerable improvements in accuracy.
Primary Intestinal and Vertebral Chordomas in Laboratory Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Chordomas are uncommon neoplasms arising from notochord remnants, most commonly occurring in the axial skeleton. Extraskeletal soft tissue chordomas are rare primary tumors, and primary alimentary tract chordomas have not been reported. Herein we report 24 cases of spontaneous primary intestinal chordomas in zebrafish, as well as 9 spontaneous vertebral chordomas. Both intestinal and vertebral tumors showed invasive behavior, although more commonly in the latter. In all cases of primary intestinal chordomas, there was no axial or peripheral skeletal or other nonvisceral involvement. Although uncommon, intestinal chordomas represent a unique background lesion in aged zebrafish.
Quantum Algorithms for Hidden Nonlinear Structures

Attempts to find new quantum algorithms that outperform classical computation have focused primarily on the nonAbelian hidden subgroup problem, which generalizes the central problem solved by Shor's factoring algorithm. We suggest an alternative generalization, namely to problems of finding hidden nonlinear structures over finite fields. We give examples of two such problems that can be solved efficiently by a quantum computer, but not by a classical computer. We also give some positive results on the quantum query complexity of finding hidden nonlinear structures.
Secreted Progranulin Is a Homodimer and Is Not a Component of High Density Lipoproteins (HDL)*

Background: Progranulin is a secreted, anti-inflammatory glycoprotein, suggested to be a component of high density lipoproteins (HDL). Results: Studies in cells and plasma revealed secreted progranulin exists as a homodimer, does not bind lipids, and is not detected on HDL. Conclusion: Secreted progranulin exists as a homodimer and is not an HDL component. Significance: These data provide insights into the molecular properties of secreted progranulin. Progranulin is a secreted glycoprotein, and the GRN gene is mutated in some cases of frontotemporal dementia. Progranulin has also been implicated in cell growth, wound healing, inflammation, and cancer. We investigated the molecular nature of secreted progranulin and provide evidence that progranulin exists as a homodimer. Although recombinant progranulin has a molecular mass of ∼85 kDa by SDS-PAGE, it elutes in fractions corresponding to ∼170–180 kDa by gel-filtration chromatography. Additionally, recombinant progranulin can be intermolecularly cross-linked, yielding a complex corresponding to a dimer (∼180 kDa), and progranulins containing different epitope tags physically interact. In plasma, progranulin similarly forms complexes of ∼180–190 kDa. Although progranulin partially co-fractionated with high density lipoproteins (HDL) by gel-filtration chromatography, we found no evidence that progranulin in mouse or human plasma is a component of HDL either by ultracentrifugation or by lipid binding assays. We conclude that circulating progranulin exists as a dimer and is not likely a component of HDL.