Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Targeted deletion of AKAP7 in dentate granule cells impairs spatial discrimination

Protein Kinase A (PKA) mediates synaptic plasticity and is widely implicated in learning and memory. The hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG) is thought to be responsible for processing and encoding distinct contextual associations in response to highly similar inputs. The mossy fiber (MF) axons of the dentate granule cells convey strong excitatory drive to CA3 pyramidal neurons and express presynaptic, PKA-dependent forms of plasticity. Here, we demonstrate an essential role for the PKA anchoring protein, AKAP7, in mouse MF axons and terminals. Genetic ablation of AKAP7 specifically from dentate granule cells results in disruption of MF-CA3 LTP directly initiated by cAMP, and the AKAP7 mutant mice are selectively deficient in pattern separation behaviors. Our results suggest that the AKAP7/PKA complex in the MF projections plays an essential role in synaptic plasticity and contextual memory formation. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.20695. 001
El papel de la "confianza" en los conflictos socioambientales

Social research on risk has shown that its possible effects on human health or the environment are not the main cause underlying social opposition towards a technology. Moreover, three decades of risk research have led to a unanimous agreement that social conflicts are mainly due to the relationship between the population at risk and risk managers and regulators. Thus, trust is a crucial element in the social response to a technological risk. This paper reviews various theoretical approaches to the concept of “trust” in the context of technological risk management. Next, it includes an analysis of four case studies on technological risks perception. The main goal is to investigate in each of them the different dimensions of trust identified in the literature. Results highlight the need to consider the different risk singularities and social contexts when addressing trust building processes, and underline the significance of trust for a suitable management of technological risks.
Vehicle Routing with Time Windows using Genetic Algorithms

In vehicle routing problems with time windows (VRPTW), a set of vehicles with limits on capacity and travel time are available to service a set of customers with demands and earliest and latest time for servicing. The objective is to minimize the cost of servicing the set of customers without being tardy or exceeding the capacity or travel time of the vehicles. As finding a feasible solution to the problem is NP-complete, search methods based upon heuristics are most promising for problems of practical size. In this paper we describe GIDEON, a genetic algorithm heuristic for solving the VRPTW. GIDEON consists of a global customer clustering method and a local post-optimization method. The global customer clustering method uses an adaptive search strategy based upon population genetics, to assign vehicles to customers. The best solution obtained from the clustering method is improved by a local post-optimization method. The synergy a between global adaptive clustering method and a local route optimization method produce better results than those obtained by competing heuristic search methods. On a standard set of 56 VRPTW problems obtained from the literature the GIDEON system obtained 41 new best known solutions.
Astaxanthin, a dietary carotenoid, protects retinal cells against oxidative stress in-vitro and in mice in-vivo.

We have investigated whether astaxanthin exerted neuroprotective effects in retinal ganglion cells in-vitro and in-vivo. In-vitro, retinal damage was induced by 24-h hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) exposure or serum deprivation, and cell viability was measured using a WST assay. In cultured retinal ganglion cells (RGC-5, a rat ganglion cell-line transformed using E1A virus), astaxanthin inhibited the neurotoxicity induced by H2O2 or serum deprivation, and reduced the intracellular oxidation induced by various reactive oxygen species (ROS). Furthermore, astaxanthin decreased the radical generation induced by serum deprivation in RGC-5. In mice in-vivo, astaxanthin (100 mg kg(-1), p.o. , four times) reduced the retinal damage (a decrease in retinal ganglion cells and in thickness of inner plexiform layer) induced by intravitreal N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) injection. Furthermore, astaxanthin reduced the expressions of 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE)-modified protein (indicator of lipid peroxidation) and 8-hydroxy-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG; indicator of oxidative DNA damage). These findings indicated that astaxanthin had neuroprotective effects against retinal damage in-vitro and in-vivo, and that its protective effects may have been partly mediated via its antioxidant effects.
Experience of Using SVM for the Triage Task in TREC 2004 Genomics Track

This paper reports our knowledge-ignorant machine learning approach to the triage task in TREC2004 genomics track, which is actually a text categorization problem. We applied Support Vector Machine (SVM) and found that information-gain based feature selection is helpful. Although we achieved decent performance in leave-one-out cross-validation experiments, the evaluation result on the test data turned out to be surprisingly poor. Further experiments revealed that there is a chasm between the training and test data distributions. It seems that more aggressive feature selection can partially alleviate the trouble caused by distribution change.
Genome Sequence of the Plant Pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. panici LMG 2367

ABSTRACT Pseudomonas syringae pv. panici is a phytopathogenic bacterium causing brown stripe disease in economically important crops worldwide. Here, we announce the draft genome sequence of Pseudomonas syringae pv. panici LMG2367 to provide further valuable insights for comparison of the pathovars among species Pseudomonas syringae.
Phase Coherent Timing of RX J0806.3+1527 with ROSAT and Chandra

RX J0806.3+1527 is an ultracompact, double-degenerate binary with the shortest known orbital period (321.5 s). Hakala et al. have recently reported new optical measurements of the orbital frequency of the source indicating that the frequency has increased over the ≈9 yr since the earliest ROSAT observations. They find two candidate solutions for the long-term change in the frequency: ≈ 3 or 6 × 10-16 Hz s-1. Here we present the results of a phase coherent timing study of the archival ROSAT and Chandra data for RX J0806.3+1527 in the light of these new constraints. We find that the ROSAT-Chandra timing data are consistent with both of the solutions reported by Hakala et al. but that the higher = 6.1 × 10-16 Hz s-1 solution is favored at the ≈97% level. This large can be accommodated by an ≈1 M☉ detached double-degenerate system powered in the X-ray by electrical energy (Wu et al.). With such a large , the system provides a unique opportunity to explore the interaction of gravitational radiation and electromagnetic torques on the evolution of an ultracompact binary.
Artificial trans fat in popular foods in 2012 and in 2014: a market basket investigation in six European countries

Objective To minimise the intake of industrially produced trans fat (I-TF) and thereby decrease the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), nearly all European countries rely on food producers to voluntarily reduce the I-TF content in food. The objective of this study was to monitor the change in presence of I-TF in biscuits/cakes/wafers in six countries in South-eastern Europe from 2012 to 2014, including two members of the European Union (Slovenia and Croatia). Design Three large supermarkets were visited in each of the six capitals in 2012. Pre-packaged biscuits/cakes/wafers were bought if the products contained more than 15 g of total fat per 100 g of product and if partially hydrogenated oil or a similar term was disclosed at the beginning of the ingredients list. These same supermarkets were revisited in 2014 and the same collection procedure was followed. All foods were subsequently analysed for total fat and trans fat in the same laboratory. Results The number of packages bought in the six countries taken together was 266 in 2012 and 643 in 2014. Some were identical, and therefore only 226 were analysed in 2012 and 434 in 2014. Packages with less than 2% of fat from I-TF went up from 69 to 235, while products with more than 2% (illegal in Denmark) doubled from an average of 33 to an average of 68 products for the six countries, with considerable variation across countries. The per cent of I-TF in total fat decreased slightly, from a mean (SD) of 22 (13) in 2012 to 18 (9) in 2014. Conclusions The findings suggest that voluntary reduction of I-TF in foods with high amounts is an ineffective strategy in several European countries. Alternative strategies both within and outside the European Union are necessary to protect all subgroups of the populations against an increased risk of CHD.
An Information Theoretic Criterion for Image Quality Assessment Based on Natural Scene Statistics

Measurement of visual quality is crucial for various image and video processing applications. Traditional measurements convert the spatial data into some feature domain, such as the Fourier domain, and detect the similarity, such as mean square distance or Minkowsky distance, between the test data and the reference or perfect data. In this paper we approach image quality assessment by presenting a novel information theoretic criterion based on natural scene statistics. Using Gaussian scale mixture model in an information theoretic framework, we design an algorithm to compute the minimum perceptual information contained in the images and evaluate the image quality in the form of entropy. Finally, our algorithm is validated with a database set containing 982 images.
N-acetyl cysteine in clomiphene citrate resistant polycystic ovary syndrome: A review of reported outcomes

Clomiphene citrate (CC) has been the gold-standard drug for ovulation induction in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), but still CC resistance is seen in approximately 15-40% in women with PCOS. N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), a safe and cheap drug available in the market many years ago as mucolytic agent, was found to have a role in infertility management. Recently, some reports discussed the possible beneficial effects of NAC on ovulation. The biological properties of the NAC make this drug a potential candidate for its use in the infertility treatment, especially in the PCOS in inducing or augmenting ovulation. An updated electronic search was performed through PUBMED, MEDLINE, and COCHRANE and focused on peer-reviewed, full text, randomized controlled trials, and observational cohort or case-control studies for role of NAC in CC-resistant PCOS. Thorough search through all the clinical studies showed mixed results. Studies with positive results showed improvement in induction of ovulation as compared to negative studies showing contrary results. More randomized clinical trials are still needed to establish its definitive role in CC-resistant PCOS.
Family Formation and Raising Children Among Same-sex Couples

Proportionally fewer same-sex couples are raising children today than in 2006, and their families reflect greater racial/ethnic and socioeconomic diversity than often represented in the media and academic research. Notably, childrearing is substantially higher among racial/ethnic minorities. Also, among individuals in same-sex couples who did not finish high school, 43% are raising children, and 20% of children raised by same-sex couples live in poverty. The decrease in the proportion of couples raising children may be due to decreases in parenting by lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) individuals who had children at a relatively young age while in a relationship with a different-sex partner. Declining social stigma toward LGB people may mean that more are coming out earlier in life and are becoming less likely to have children with different-sex partners. Despite the proportional declines in parenting, analyses also show that adoptive parenting is clearly increasing. Among couples with children, the proportion of same-sex couples who have adopted children has nearly doubled from 10% to 19% between 2000 and 2009. Despite the decline, the number of same-sex couples raising children is still much higher today than ten years ago since many more couples are reporting themselves in Census Bureau data. In 2000, the Census reported about 63,000 couples raising children. Today, the figure is now more than 110,000.
TIME-OF-DAY EFFECTS ON FATIGUE DURING A SUSTAINED ANAEROBIC TEST IN WELL-TRAINED CYCLISTS

The aim of this study was to evaluate time-of-day effects on fatigue during a sustained anaerobic cycling exercise. Sixteen healthy male competitive cyclists were asked to perform a 60 s Wingate test against a braking load of 0.087 kg.kg body mass−1 during two experimental sessions, which were set up either at 06:00 or 18:00 h in counterbalanced order. There was only one session per day with a recovery period of at least 36 h between the two sessions. Each subject was trained to perform the test. The body mass used to determine the braking load was that of the first test session for each subject and remained constant throughout the two test periods. During the test, peak power (PP), mean power during the first 30 s (MP30 s) and the full 60 s of the test (MP60 s), and fatigue (i.e., the decrease in power output values throughout the exercise) were analyzed. Results confirmed the existence of diurnal variation in anaerobic power output. PP, MP30 s, and MP60 s were significantly higher at 18:00 than 06:00 h, with gains equal to 8.2, 7.8, and 7.8%, respectively. Moreover, all the power output values recorded in the evening were higher than those recorded in the morning, indicating that fatigue induced by this exercise is not affected by time-of-day in male competitive cyclists. It is hypothesized that the freedom and complexity of pedalling could allow adaptations in movement patterns, as a function of time-of-day, in order to maintain higher performance in the evening. For practical considerations, the more complex the movements required to perform a sport, the more the time-of-day effect can be taken into account and adapted to by the trained athlete, particularly in cyclic sporting disciplines such as swimming, running, rowing, and kayaking. (Author correspondence: damien.davenne@unicaen.fr)
Oxidative stability and sensory evaluation of microencapsulated flaxseed oil

Abstract Cold pressed flaxseed oil was microencapsulated by spray drying using an emulsion containing modified starch. The fatty acid composition, moisture, water activity, wettability, water holding capacity, water solubility, crystallinity, and particle size distribution of the microcapsules were determined. The stability of the microcapsules and the crude oil were assessed. An acceptance test was used for the sensory evaluation of a powdered supplement containing the microcapsules. The fatty acid composition was not significantly affected by the microencapsulation. The moisture, water activity, wettability, water solubility and crystallinity were appropriate for dry powders. The microcapsules had no cracks and showed better oxidative stability compared with the crude oil. Storage under vacuum prevented oxidation of the microcapsules. In sensory evaluation, all quality scores of the supplement containing microcapsules were mid-range or higher. The microencapsulation improved the oxidative stability of the oil and this procedure was satisfactorily applied in powdered food.
Dental and periodontal health status in children affected by cystic fibrosis in a southern Italian region.

AIM The aim of this study was to record the oral health status through the mean value of the DMFT/dmft index, the CPITN values and the DDE modified index in children affected by cystic fibrosis (CF). STUDY DESIGN Observational study. METHODS A group of 54 CF patients, aged 7 to 12 years, was selected and their data were compared to those of the same age healthy control group of 101 children. RESULTS AND STATISTICS CF patients showed a mean DMFT (1.5 +/- 2.17) and dmft (0.42 +/- 0.9) significantly lower than control subjects (respectively 3.70 +/- 3.92 and 2.96 +/- 3.30). Moreover, in the CF subjects a high prevalence (55.6%) of enamel defects and a better periodontal health were found, despite the low presence of calculus in both groups. CONCLUSION The low caries experience and the high prevalence of enamel defects in CF patients could be due to the metabolic disease, and above all to the long-term pharmacological therapies (antibiotics and pancreatic enzymes) that they take.
Assessing the Long-Term Impact of Treating Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)-Infected People Who Inject Drugs in the UK and the Relationship between Treatment Uptake and Efficacy on Future Infections

Objective The prevalence of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains high amongst people who inject drugs (PWID) and accounts for the majority of newly acquired infections. This study aims to quantify the value of treatment amongst PWID with more efficacious treatments and at increased uptake rates, with respect to the avoidance of future infections and subsequent long-term complications of HCV. Methods A dynamic HCV transmission and disease progression model was developed, incorporating acute and chronic infection and their long-term complications (decompensated cirrhosis, cancer, liver transplant and mortality), with the potential for HCV transmission to other PWID prior to successful treatment. The model was populated with prevalence and therapy data from a UK setting. Scenarios of current standard of care (SoC) treatment efficacy and uptake were compared to anticipated sustained virologic response (SVR) rates of 90–100% and increased uptake over varied horizons. Results SoC led to modest reductions in prevalence; >5% after 200 years. New treatments achieving 90% SVR could reduce prevalence below 5% within 60 years at current uptake rates or within 5 years if all patients are treated. Amongst 4,240 PWID, chronic HCV infections avoided as a result of increasing treatment uptake over the period 2015–2027 ranged from 20–580 and 34–912 with SoC and 90% SVR rates respectively. The reduction in downstream HCV infections due to increasing treatment uptake resulted in an approximate discounted gain of 300 life-years (from avoiding reduced life expectancy from HCV infection) and a gain of 1,700 QALYs (from avoiding the disutility of HCV infection and related complications), with a projected £5.4 million cost saving. Conclusion While improved SVR profiles led to reductions in modelled prevalence, increased treatment uptake was the key driver of future infections avoided. Increased treatment among PWID with new more efficacious therapies could significantly change the future dynamics, cost and health burden of HCV-related disease.
A modified harmonic current vector method for harmonic contribution determination

This paper deals with the determination of customer contributions to harmonic distortion at the point of connection to the utility network. The approach proposed in this paper is derived from the common power factor practice where a load should be fully compensated at the fundamental frequency and therefore seen as resistive from the network. This principle can be expanded to the whole frequency spectrum claiming the load to be resistive at all harmonic frequencies. The presented solution is based on the harmonic current vectors method where resistance is introduced as the customer reference impedance. The resistance value is calculated from measurements data. The presented method allows calculation of customer side harmonic sources without knowing the actual impedances; it enables the evaluation of unsuitable impedances, e.g. resonance conditions causing the amplification of harmonics.
Mendelian-inherited heart disease: a gateway to understanding mechanisms in heart disease Update on work done at the University of Stellenbosch

Summary Summary The presence of founder effects in South Africa for many single-gene diseases, which include heart diseases such as progressive familial heart block types I and II, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and the long QT syndromes, afforded us the opportunity to identify causal genes and associated mutations through genetic mapping and positional cloning. From finding the genes, the emphasis has shifted to elucidating how primary defects cause disease and recognising factors that could explain the often pronounced phenotypic variability seen in persons carrying the same inherited defect. In some of these diseases, sudden unexpected death has been a frequent occurrence in young, apparently healthy individuals who had not been aware that they had inherited an underlying risk. Herein, we review progress in identifying genes, mutations and risk factors associated with the diseases mentioned.
CD4pos, NK1.1pos T cells promptly produce interleukin 4 in response to in vivo challenge with anti-CD3

Injection of anti-CD3 antibodies causes prompt expression of interleukin (IL)-4, IL-2, and interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) mRNA among spleen cells. The optimal dose of anti-CD3 for such induction was 1.33 microgram/animal; lymphokine mRNA was first observed at 30 min, peaked at 90 min, and was undetectable (for IL-4) or had declined markedly by 4 h. Cells harvested from spleens of mice injected with anti-CD3 90 min earlier secreted IL-4, IL-2, and IFN-gamma without further stimulation. By contrast, in vitro stimulation with anti-CD3 of spleen cell suspensions or splenic fragments from noninjected donors failed to cause prompt production of IL-4 and, even after 24 h of stimulation, the amount of IL-4 produced in such cells was substantially less than that secreted within 1 h by spleen cell suspensions or splenic fragments from mice injected with anti-CD3 90 min earlier. Production of IL-4 by spleen cells from anti-CD3-injected mice was not inhibited by pretreatment with anti-IL-4 antibody or with IFN-gamma or tumor growth factor beta nor enhanced by treatment with IL-4. By contrast, CTLA-4 immunoglobulin (Ig) treatment clearly diminished IL-4 production in response to in vivo anti-CD3, indicating that cellular interactions involving CD28 (or related molecules) were important in stimulation. Cell sorting analysis indicated that the cells that produced IL-4 in response to in vivo injection of anti-CD3 were highly enriched in CD4pos cells with the phenotype leukocyte cell adhesion molecule-1 (LECAM-1)dull, CD44bright, CD45RBdull, NK1.1pos. Indeed, the small population of CD4pos, NK1.1pos cells had the great majority of the IL-4- producing activity of this population. Injection with Staphylococcal enterotoxin B also caused prompt induction of IL-4 mRNA; the cells that were principally responsible for production also had the phenotype of CD4pos, NK1.1pos. These results suggest that possibility that this rare population of T cells may be capable of secreting IL-4 at the outset of immune responses and thus may act to regulate the pattern of priming of naive T cells, by providing a source of IL-4 to favor the development of T cell helper 2-like IL-4-producing cells.
Interpolating Convex and Non-Convex Tensor Decompositions via the Subspace Norm

We consider the problem of recovering a low-rank tensor from its noisy observation. Previous work has shown a recovery guarantee with signal to noise ratio $O(n^{\lceil K/2 \rceil /2})$ for recovering a $K$th order rank one tensor of size $n\times \cdots \times n$ by recursive unfolding. In this paper, we first improve this bound to $O(n^{K/4})$ by a much simpler approach, but with a more careful analysis. Then we propose a new norm called the subspace norm, which is based on the Kronecker products of factors obtained by the proposed simple estimator. The imposed Kronecker structure allows us to show a nearly ideal $O(\sqrt{n}+\sqrt{H^{K-1}})$ bound, in which the parameter $H$ controls the blend from the non-convex estimator to mode-wise nuclear norm minimization. Furthermore, we empirically demonstrate that the subspace norm achieves the nearly ideal denoising performance even with $H=O(1)$.