Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Research contribution of different world regions in the top 50 biomedical journals (1995–2002)

We evaluated all articles published by different world regions in the top 50 biomedical journals in the database of the Journal Citation Reports‐Institute for Scientific Information for the period between 1995 and 2002. The world was divided into 9 regions [United States of America (the U.S.), Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Asia, Oceania, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Africa] based on a combination of geographic, economic and scientific criteria. The number of articles published by each region, the mean impact factor, and the product of the above two parameters were our main indicators. The above numbers were also adjusted for population size, gross national income per capita of each region, and other factors. Articles published from the U.S. made up about two‐thirds of all scientific papers published in the top 50 biomedical journals between 1995 and 2002. Western Europe contributed approximately a quarter of the published papers while the remaining one‐tenth of articles came from the rest of the world. Canada, however, ranked second when number of articles was adjusted for population size. The U.S. is by far the highest‐ranking country/region in publications in the top 50 biomedical journals even after adjusting for population size, gross national product, and other factors. Canada and Western Europe share the second place while the rest of the world is far behind. — Soteriades, E. S. , Rosmarakis, E. S. , Paraschakis, K. , Falagas, M. E. Research contribution of different world regions in the top 50 biomedical journals (1995–2002). FASEB J. 20, 29–34 (2005)
Peroxynitrite Irreversibly Inactivates the Human Xenobioticmetabolizing Enzyme Arylamine N-Acetyltransferase 1 (NAT1) in Human Breast Cancer Cells

Arylamine N-acetyltransferases (NATs) play an important role in the detoxification and metabolic activation of a variety of aromatic xenobiotics, including numerous carcinogens. Both of the human isoforms, NAT1 and NAT2, display interindividual variations, and associations between NAT genotypes and cancer risk have been established. Contrary to NAT2, NAT1 has a ubiquitous tissue distribution and has been shown to be expressed in cancer cells. Given that the activity of NAT1 depends on a reactive cysteine that can be a target for oxidants, we studied whether peroxynitrite, a highly reactive nitrogen species involved in human carcinogenesis, could inhibit the activity of endogenous NAT1 in MCF7 breast cancer cells. We show here that exposure of MCF7 cells to physiological concentrations of peroxynitrite and to a peroxynitrite generator (3-morpholinosydnonimine N-ethylcarbamide, or SIN1) leads to the irreversible inactivation of NAT1 in cells. Further kinetic and mechanistic analyses using recombinant NAT1 showed that the enzyme is rapidly (kinact = 5 × 104 m–1·s–1) and irreversibly inactivated by peroxynitrite. This inactivation is due to oxidative modification of the catalytic cysteine. We conclude that the reducing cellular environment of MCF7 cells does not sufficiently protect NAT1 from peroxynitrite-dependent inactivation and that only high concentrations of reduced glutathione could significantly protect NAT1. Thus, cellular generation of peroxynitrite may contribute to carcinogenesis and tumor progression by weakening key cellular defense enzymes such as NAT1.
The experience of social support at a camp for siblings of children with cancer

The Experience of Social Support at a Camp for Siblings of Children with Cancer. (August 2008) Samuel George Roberson, Sr., B.S., Weber State University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Peter A. Witt Childhood cancer has obvious impacts on the children themselves, but also has impacts on their families and siblings. While studies have been conducted on the impacts of cancer on children and their parents, there has been limited consideration of the impacts of cancer on healthy siblings. Some studies have suggested that siblings of children with cancer are the most emotionally disregarded and distressed of all family members as a result of their sibling having cancer. Exposure to stress has a negative impact on the immune system and places siblings at risk for health problems. Thus, finding mechanisms to ameliorate stress are critical. Early intervention and treatment may serve as protective factors against risky behavior and lead to more normative child development and well-being. One method of improving the psychosocial adjustment of siblings of children with cancer has been through interventions such as camp experiences that include opportunities for campers to experience social support. There is a need to better understand the efficacy of intervention programs designed to reduce stress across a variety of settings. The focus of this study was if campers experience
Improved Delay-Dependent Stability for a Class of Linear Systems with Time-Varying Delay and Nonlinear Perturbations

Abstract This note deals with the robust stability analysis for time-delay systems with nonlinear perturbations. Firstly, a new class of Lyapunov functional candidate is proposed to develop some new criteria by considering the additional useful terms and introducing some free-weighting matrices. Then, an augmented Lyapunov functional is introduced to establish a novel improved stability condition. All results obtained are given in terms of linear matrix inequalities. A numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
Value priorities and religiosity in four Western religions.

Theological, sociological, and psychological analyses of religion suggest that religiosity associates positively with values that enhance transcendence, preserve the social order, and protect individuals against uncertainty, and negatively with values that emphasize self-indulgence and favor intellectual or emotional openness to change. On this basis, an integrated set of hypotheses was generated to relate religiosity to the importance that individuals attribute to 10 basic types of human values across religious groups. Hypotheses were largely confirmed in educated adult samples of Israeli Jews (n = 635), Spanish Roman Catholics (n = 478), Dutch Calvinist Protestants (n = 217), and Greek Orthodox (n = 400). Hypotheses also were largely confirmed in a representative West German sample (n = 1,807) with different measures of religiosity and values. The pattern of correlations was robust across subsamples divided by age, gender, education, and income, and for Lutheran Protestants and Roman Catholics.
Dairy products and plasma cholesterol levels

Cholesterol synthesized in the body or ingested is an essential lipid component for human survival from our earliest life. Newborns ingest about 3–4 times the amount per body weight through mother's milk compared to the dietary intake of adults. A birth level of 1.7 mmol/L plasma total cholesterol will increase to 4–4.5 mmol/L during the nursing period and continue to increase from adulthood around 40% throughout life. Coronary artery disease and other metabolic disorders are strongly associated with low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol as well as triacylglycerol concentration. Milk fat contains a broad range of fatty acids and some have a negative impact on the cholesterol rich lipoproteins. The saturated fatty acids (SFAs), such as palmitic acid (C16:0), myristic acid (C14:0), and lauric acid (C12:0), increase total plasma cholesterol, especially LDL, and constitute 11.3 g/L of bovine milk, which is 44.8% of total fatty acid in milk fat. Replacement of dairy SFA and trans-fatty acids with polyunsaturated fatty acids decreases plasma cholesterol, especially LDL cholesterol, and is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. Available data shows different effects on lipoproteins for different dairy products and there is uncertainty as to the impact a reasonable intake amount of dairy items has on cardiovascular risk. The aim of this review is to elucidate the effect of milk components and dairy products on total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and the LDL/HDL quotients. Based on eight recent randomized control trials of parallel or cross-over design and recent reviews it can be concluded that replacement of saturated fat mainly (but not exclusively) derived from high-fat dairy products with low-fat dairy products lowers LDL/HDL cholesterol and total/HDL cholesterol ratios. Whey, dairy fractions enriched in polar lipids, and techniques such as fermentation, or fortification of cows feeding can be used to produce dairy products with more beneficial effects on plasma lipid profile.
Knowledge Management in Designing and Developing ICT Consulting Services

The demand for ICT services is increasing among SME’s as well as large corporations in Finland. Nevertheless, many ICT service providers are still more product than service oriented in their businesses. The movement from product business to service business is not so straightforward as one might think. This paper examines the role of knowledge management in the design and development of ICT consulting services through seven practical cases. First some well known existing knowledge management frameworks and models are combined into a new model. Second, this new model will be used to examine the empirical material collected during seven practical cases of ICT consulting service design and development. Finally some managerial as well as academic implications are drawn concerning knowledge management.
Dissecting Wnt/β-catenin signaling during gastrulation using RNA interference in mouse embryos

Differential gene regulation integrated in time and space drives developmental programs during embryogenesis. To understand how the program of gastrulation is regulated by Wnt/β-catenin signaling, we have used genome-wide expression profiling of conditional β-catenin mutant embryos. Known Wnt/β-catenin target genes, known components of other signaling pathways, as well as a number of uncharacterized genes were downregulated in these mutants. To further narrow down the set of differentially expressed genes, we used whole-mount in situ screening to associate gene expression with putative domains of Wnt activity. Several potential novel target genes were identified by this means and two, Grsf1 and Fragilis2, were functionally analyzed by RNA interference (RNAi) in completely embryonic stem (ES) cell-derived embryos. We show that the gene encoding the RNA-binding factor Grsf1 is important for axial elongation, mid/hindbrain development and axial mesoderm specification, and that Fragilis2, encoding a transmembrane protein, regulates epithelialization of the somites and paraxial mesoderm formation. Intriguingly, the knock-down phenotypes recapitulate several aspects of Wnt pathway mutants, suggesting that these genes are components of the downstream Wnt response. This functional genomic approach allows the rapid identification of functionally important components of embryonic development from large datasets of putative targets.
A biased activation theory of the cognitive and attentional modulation of emotion

Cognition can influence emotion by biasing neural activity in the first cortical region in which the reward value and subjective pleasantness of stimuli is made explicit in the representation, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). The same effect occurs in a second cortical tier for emotion, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Similar effects are found for selective attention, to for example the pleasantness vs. the intensity of stimuli, which modulates representations of reward value and affect in the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortices. The mechanisms for the effects of cognition and attention on emotion are top-down biased competition and top-down biased activation. Affective and mood states can in turn influence memory and perception, by backprojected biasing influences. Emotion-related decision systems operate to choose between gene-specified rewards such as taste, touch, and beauty. Reasoning processes capable of planning ahead with multiple steps held in working memory in the explicit system can allow the gene-specified rewards not to be selected, or to be deferred. The stochastic, noisy, dynamics of decision-making systems in the brain may influence whether decisions are made by the selfish-gene-specified reward emotion system, or by the cognitive reasoning system that explicitly calculates reward values that are in the interests of the individual, the phenotype.
Neurobiology of Value Integration: When Value Impacts Valuation

Everyday choice options have advantages (positive values) and disadvantages (negative values) that need to be integrated into an overall subjective value. For decades, economic models have assumed that when a person evaluates a choice option, different values contribute independently to the overall subjective value of the option. However, human choice behavior often violates this assumption, suggesting interactions between values. To investigate how qualitatively different advantages and disadvantages are integrated into an overall subjective value, we measured the brain activity of human subjects using fMRI while they were accepting or rejecting choice options that were combinations of monetary reward and physical pain. We compared different subjective value models on behavioral and neural data. These models all made similar predictions of choice behavior, suggesting that behavioral data alone are not sufficient to uncover the underlying integration mechanism. Strikingly, a direct model comparison on brain data decisively demonstrated that interactive value integration (where values interact and affect overall valuation) predicts neural activity in value-sensitive brain regions significantly better than the independent mechanism. Furthermore, effective connectivity analyses revealed that value-dependent changes in valuation are associated with modulations in subgenual anterior cingulate cortex–amygdala coupling. These results provide novel insights into the neurobiological underpinnings of human decision making involving the integration of different values.
Short-Lived IFN-γ Effector Responses, but Long-Lived IL-10 Memory Responses, to Malaria in an Area of Low Malaria Endemicity

Immunity to malaria is widely believed to wane in the absence of reinfection, but direct evidence for the presence or absence of durable immunological memory to malaria is limited. Here, we analysed malaria-specific CD4+ T cell responses of individuals living in an area of low malaria transmission in northern Thailand, who had had a documented clinical attack of P. falciparum and/or P. vivax in the past 6 years. CD4+ T cell effector memory (CD45RO+) IFN-γ (24 hours ex vivo restimulation) and cultured IL-10 (6 day secretion into culture supernatant) responses to malaria schizont antigens were detected only in malaria-exposed subjects and were more prominent in subjects with long-lived antibodies or memory B cells specific to malaria antigens. The number of IFN-γ-producing effector memory T cells declined significantly over the 12 months of the study, and with time since last documented malaria infection, with an estimated half life of the response of 3.3 (95% CI 1.9–10.3) years. In sharp contrast, IL-10 responses were sustained for many years after last known malaria infection with no significant decline over at least 6 years. The observations have clear implications for understanding the immunoepidemiology of naturally acquired malaria infections and for malaria vaccine development.
Real-time PCR quantification of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in oysters using an alternative matrix.

This study examined the relationship between levels of total Vibrio parahaemolyticus found in oyster tissues and mantle fluid with the goal of using mantle fluid as a template matrix in a new quantitative real-time PCR assay targeting the thermolabile hemolysin (tlh) gene for the enumeration of total V. parahaemolyticus in oysters. Oysters were collected near Mobile Bay, Ala. , in June, July, and September and tested immediately after collection and storage at 26 degrees C for 24 h. Initial experiments using DNA colony hybridization targeting tlh demonstrated that natural V. parahaemolyticus levels in the mantle fluid of individual oysters were strongly correlated (r = 0.85, P < 0.05) with the levels found in their tissues. When known quantities of cultured V. parahaemolyticus cells were added to real-time PCR reactions that contained mantle fluid and oyster tissue matrices separately pooled from multiple oysters, a strong linear correlation was observed between the real-time PCR cycle threshold and the log concentration of cells inoculated into each PCR reaction (mantle fluid: r = 0.98, P < 0.05; and oyster: r = 0.99, P < 0.05). However, the mantle fluid exhibited less inhibition of the PCR amplification than the homogenized oyster tissue. Analysis of natural V. parahaemolyticus populations in mantle fluids using both colony hybridization and real-time PCR demonstrated a significant (P < 0.05) but reduced correlation (r = -0.48) between the two methods. Reductions in the efficiency of the real-time PCR that resulted from low population densities of V. parahaemolyticus and PCR inhibitors present in the mantle fluid of some oysters (with significant oyster-to-oyster variation) contributed to the reduction in correlation between the methods that was observed when testing natural V. parahaemolyticus populations. The V. parahaemolyticus-specific real-time PCR assay used for this study could estimate elevated V. parahaemolyticus levels in oyster mantle fluid within 1 h from sampling time.
Reversal of muscle insulin resistance by weight reduction in young, lean, insulin-resistant offspring of parents with type 2 diabetes

To examine the role of intramyocellular lipid (IMCL) accumulation as well as circulating cytokines, branched-chain amino acids and acylcarnitines in the pathogenesis of muscle insulin resistance in healthy, young, lean insulin-resistant offspring of parents with type 2 diabetes (IR offspring), we measured these factors in plasma and used 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy to assess IMCL content and hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamps using [6,6-2H2] glucose to assess rates of insulin-stimulated peripheral glucose metabolism before and after weight reduction. Seven lean (body mass index < 25 kg/m2), young, sedentary IR offspring were studied before and after weight stabilization following a hypocaloric (1,200 Kcal) diet for ∼9 wks. This diet resulted in an average weight loss of 4.1 ± 0.6 kg (P < 0.0005), which was associated with an ∼30% reduction of IMCL from 1.1 ± 0.2% to 0.8 ± 0.1% (P = 0.045) and an ∼30% improvement in insulin-stimulated muscle glucose uptake [3.7 ± 0.3 vs. 4.8 ± 0.1 mg/(kg–min), P = 0.01]. This marked improvement in insulin-stimulated peripheral insulin responsiveness occurred independently of changes in plasma concentrations of TNF-α, IL-6, total adiponectin, C-reactive protein, acylcarnitines, and branched-chain amino acids. In conclusion, these data support the hypothesis that IMCL accumulation plays an important role in causing muscle insulin resistance in young, lean IR offspring, and that both are reversible with modest weight loss.
Predictive relationship between depression and physical functioning after coronary surgery.

BACKGROUND Depression is a prevalent condition in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) and is often associated with a less favorable health status. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between depression and physical functioning in patients undergoing CABG. METHODS The analyses were based on a sample of 883 consecutive subjects (aged 35-93 years; 19.8% women) undergoing CABG. Depression was assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ); the subscale "physical functioning" was taken from the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey. Questionnaires were administered 1 to 3 days before surgery (T1) and 2 months (T2) and 1 year (T3) after surgery. RESULTS A cross-lagged path analytic model showed that an increase in depressive symptoms predicted a decrease in physical functioning (β(T)₁₋(T)₂ = -0.15 [P < . 001]; β(T)₂₋(T)₃= -0.17 [P < . 001]), but not the other way around. Multigroup comparisons revealed one moderator effect: in patients with systolic heart failure (left ventricular ejection fraction [LVEF], ≤45%), the effect of depression on physical functioning from T2 to T3 was significantly stronger than in patients with preserved LVEF (β(T)₂₋(T)₃= -0.30 [P < . 001] vs β(T)₂₋(T)₃= -0.14 [P < . 001]; χ²(diff) = 3.885 [P = . 049]). CONCLUSIONS More attention should be paid to diagnosis and treatment of depression in patients undergoing CABG. After surgery, patients with systolic heart failure and depressive symptoms in particular seem at risk of a deterioration of their physical functioning.
Adult rat and human bone marrow stromal cells differentiate into neurons

Bone marrow stromal cells exhibit multiple traits of a stem cell population. They can be greatly expanded in vitro and induced to differentiate into multiple mesenchymal cell types. However, differentiation to non‐mesenchymal fates has not been demonstrated. Here, adult rat stromal cells were expanded as undifferentiated cells in culture for more than 20 passages, indicating their proliferative capacity. A simple treatment protocol induced the stromal cells to exhibit a neuronal phenotype, expressing neuron‐specific enolase, NeuN, neurofilament‐M, and tau. With an optimal differentiation protocol, almost 80% of the cells expressed NSE and NF‐M. The refractile cell bodies extended long processes terminating in typical growth cones and filopodia. The differentiating cells expressed nestin, characteristic of neuronal precursor stem cells, at 5 hr, but the trait was undetectable at 6 days. In contrast, expression of trkA, the nerve growth factor receptor, persisted from 5 hr through 6 days. Clonal cell lines, established from single cells, proliferated, yielding both undifferentiated and neuronal cells. Human marrow stromal cells subjected to this protocol also differentiated into neurons. Consequently, adult marrow stromal cells can be induced to overcome their mesenchymal commitment and may constitute an abundant and accessible cellular reservoir for the treatment of a variety of neurologic diseases. J. Neurosci. Res. 61:364–370, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Creativity in Machine Learning

Recent machine learning techniques can be modified to produce creative results. Those results did not exist before; it is not a trivial combination of the data which was fed into the machine learning system. The obtained results come in multiple forms: As images, as text and as audio. This paper gives a high level overview of how they are created and gives some examples. It is meant to be a summary of the current work and give people who are new to machine learning some starting points.
Academic-social climate in social work departments. The case of Israel

This study focuses on the academic and social climate of departments or schools of social work in academic institutions in Israel. The study examined the affect of student attributes (individual demographic and academic variables) on the academic and social climate in social work departments in four academic institutions in Israel. There is great significance in studying the academic and social climate in social work departments that are characterized by a unique organizational structure, and provide practical training to students. The present study also examined which of the variables under investigation constitute criteria for discriminating between the academic institutions. On a whole, do the academic and social climates in these departments, which are a function of student profiles, reflect a binary system of higher education characterized by a clear division of labour between the various institutions that target different audiences, or do the data on academic and social climates point to a monistic system characterized by a similarity between academic institutions?