Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biphasic modulation of protein kinase C and enhanced cell toxicity by amyloid beta peptide and anoxia in neuronal cultures

A major feature of Alzheimer's disease is the deposition of the amyloid beta peptide (Aβ) in the brain by mechanisms which remain unclear. One hypothesis suggests that oxidative stress and Aβ aggregation are interrelated processes. Protein kinase C, a major neuronal regulatory protein is activated after oxidative stress and is also altered in the Alzheimer's disease brain. Therefore, we examined the effects of Aβ1−40 peptide on the protein kinase C cascade and cell death in primary neuronal cultures following anoxic conditions. Treatment with Aβ1−40 for 48 h caused a significant increase in the content and activity of Ca2+‐dependent and Ca2+‐independent protein kinase C isoforms. By 72 h various protein kinase C isoforms were down‐regulated. Following 90 min anoxia and 6 h normoxia, a decrease in protein kinase C isoforms was noticed, independent of Aβ1−40 treatment. A combination of Aβ1−40 and 30‐min anoxia enhanced cytotoxicity as noticed by a marked loss in the mitochondrial ability to convert 3‐(4,5‐dimethylthiazol‐2‐yl)‐2,5‐diphenyl‐tetrazolium bromide and by enhanced 4′,6‐diamidino‐2‐phenylindole nuclear staining. Phosphorylation of two downstream protein kinase C substrates of apparent molecular mass 80 and 43 kDa, tentatively identified as the mirystoyl alanine‐rich C‐kinase substrate (MARCKS), were gradually elevated up to 72 h upon incubation with Aβ1−40. Anoxia followed by 30 min normoxia enhanced MARCKS phosphorylation in the membrane but not in the cytosolic fraction. In the presence of Aβ1−40, phosphorylation of MARCKS was reduced. After 6 h normoxia, MARCKS phosphorylability was diminished possibly because of protein kinase C down‐regulation. The data suggest that a biphasic modulation of protein kinase C and MARCKS by Aβ1−40 combined with anoxic stress may play a role in Alzheimer's disease pathology. 1
Pro-Inflammatory Cytokines, IFNγ and TNFα, Influence Immune Properties of Human Bone Marrow and Wharton Jelly Mesenchymal Stem Cells Differentially

Background Wharton's jelly derived stem cells (WJMSCs) are gaining attention as a possible clinical alternative to bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSCs) owing to better accessibility, higher expansion potential and low immunogenicity. Usage of allogenic mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) could be permissible in vivo only if they retain their immune properties in an inflammatory setting. Thus the focus of this study is to understand and compare the immune properties of BMMSCs and WJMSCs primed with key pro-inflammatory cytokines, Interferon-γ (IFNγ) and Tumor Necrosis Factor-α (TNFα). Methodology/Principal Findings Initially the effect of priming on MSC mediated suppression of alloantigen and mitogen induced lymphoproliferation was evaluated in vitro. Treatment with IFNγ or TNFα, did not ablate the immune-suppression caused by both the MSCs. Extent of immune-suppression was more with WJMSCs than BMMSCs in both the cases. Surprisingly, priming BMMSCs enhanced suppression of mitogen driven lymphoproliferation only; whereas IFNγ primed WJMSCs were better suppressors of MLRs. Further, kinetic analysis of cytokine profiles in co-cultures of primed/unprimed MSCs and Phytohematoagglutinin (PHA) activated lymphocytes was evaluated. Results indicated a decrease in levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Interestingly, a change in kinetics and thresholds of Interleukin-2 (IL-2) secretion was observed only with BMMSCs. Analysis of activation markers on PHA-stimulated lymphocytes indicated different expression patterns in co-cultures of primed/unprimed WJMSCs and BMMSCs. Strikingly, co-culture with WJMSCs resulted in an early activation of a negative co-stimulatory molecule, CTLA4, which was not evident with BMMSCs. A screen for immune suppressive factors in primed/unprimed WJMSCs and BMMSCs indicated inherent differences in IFNγ inducible Indoleamine 2, 3-dioxygenase (IDO) activity, Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and Prostaglandin E-2 (PGE2) levels which could possibly influence the mechanism of immune-modulation. Conclusion/Significance This study demonstrates that inflammation affects the immune properties of MSCs distinctly. Importantly different tissue derived MSCs could utilize unique mechanisms of immune-modulation.
Active Learning Literature Survey

The key idea behind active learning is that a machine learning algorithm can achieve greater accuracy with fewer labeled training instances if it is allowed to choose the data from which is learns. An active learner may ask queries in the form of unlabeled instances to be labeled by an oracle (e.g., a human annotator). Active learning is well-motivated in many modern machine learning problems, where unlabeled data may be abundant but labels are difﬁcult, time-consuming, or expensive to obtain. This report provides a general introduction to active learning and a survey of the literature. This includes a discussion of the scenarios in which queries can be formulated, and an overview of the query strategy frameworks proposed in the literature to date. An analysis of the empirical and theoretical evidence for active learning, a summary of several problem setting variants, and a discussion of related topics in machine learning research are also presented.
Exploring Massive, Genome Scale Datasets with the GenometriCorr Package

We have created a statistically grounded tool for determining the correlation of genomewide data with other datasets or known biological features, intended to guide biological exploration of high-dimensional datasets, rather than providing immediate answers. The software enables several biologically motivated approaches to these data and here we describe the rationale and implementation for each approach. Our models and statistics are implemented in an R package that efficiently calculates the spatial correlation between two sets of genomic intervals (data and/or annotated features), for use as a metric of functional interaction. The software handles any type of pointwise or interval data and instead of running analyses with predefined metrics, it computes the significance and direction of several types of spatial association; this is intended to suggest potentially relevant relationships between the datasets. Availability and implementation: The package, GenometriCorr, can be freely downloaded at http://genometricorr.sourceforge. net/. Installation guidelines and examples are available from the sourceforge repository. The package is pending submission to Bioconductor.
Estimating Complementarity between Education and Training

In this paper, we formulate and estimate a structural model of post-schooling training that explicitly allows for possible complementarity between initial schooling levels and returns to training. Precisely, the wage outcome equation depends on accumulated schooling and on the incidence of training. The effect of training on wage growth depends on individual permanent endowments as well as on education. We find evidence of statistically significant complementarity, i.e. the higher educated receive the highest return to the MBA-type training considered here.
Dynamic Management of Water Storage for Flood Control in a Wetland System: A Case Study in Texas

In this study, we assess the costs and benefits of dynamic management of water storage to improve flood control in a system of wetlands. This management involves releasing water from wetlands ahead of (e.g., a few hours or days before) a rainfall event that is forecasted to produce flooding. Each project site may present different challenges and topographical conditions, however as long as there is a relatively small hydraulic gradient between the wetland water surface and the drainage ditch (e.g., >0.9 m), wetlands can be engineered for the purpose of flood control. We present a case study for a system comprised of four wetland areas encompassing 925 acres in the coastal plain south of Houston, Texas. The benefit–cost analysis shows that, in general, the benefits of wetland ecosystems far surpass the costs of construction and maintenance for all considered periods of analysis and assumed degrees of dynamic management of wetland storage. The analysis also shows that the benefit/cost ratios increase over the period of analysis. Considering flood protection only (e.g., not considering the value of other ecosystem services), as long as dynamic management of wetland storage increases flood protection by about 50% compared to that with no management (e.g., a typical wetland with no controlled release of water), the construction of a wetland system would have a benefit/cost ratio of at least 1.9.
Pharmacotherapy in chronic kidney disease patients presenting with acute coronary syndrome: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is frequently encountered among patients presenting with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Recent data from the National Cardiovascular Data Registry–Acute Coronary Treatment and Intervention Outcomes Network (NCDR-ACTION) reported CKD (defined as estimated creatinine clearance [CrCl] <60 mL·min−1·1.73 m−2) prevalence rates of 30.5% among patients presenting with ST-segment–elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and 42.9% among patients presenting with non–ST-segment–elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). 1 The presence of CKD among patients presenting with ACS has been associated with worse outcomes, including higher rates of mortality and bleeding.2–4 Despite the increased risk for adverse outcomes, CKD patients presenting with ACS are less likely to receive evidence-based therapies, including medications.1 In addition, patients with CKD have been underrepresented in randomized controlled trials of ACS pharmacotherapy.5,6 Thus, the net effect is a relative lack of evidence and potential for uncertainty in selecting medications in this high-risk population. The purpose of this scientific statement is to provide a comprehensive review of the published literature and provide recommendations on the use of evidence-based pharmacotherapies in CKD patients presenting with ACS. It has been appreciated now for more than a decade that CKD is a powerful independent predictor of cardiovascular morbidity, cardiovascular mortality, and all-cause mortality. The systematic classification of CKD in large part is based on the efforts of Andrew Levey and colleagues, who published the K/DOQI (Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative) clinical practice guidelines for CKD.7 The original schema somewhat arbitrarily defined stages 1 to 5 CKD on the basis of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) in the following manner: Stage 1, eGFR ≥90 mL·min−1·1.73 m−2 (with evidence of kidney damage present, such as albuminuria); stage 2, eGFR <90 but ≥60 (with evidence of kidney damage such as albuminuria); stage 3, …
Privacy in instant messaging: an impression management model

Instant messaging (IM) has evolved into an important tool for collaborative work. It supports informal near-synchronous communication and fosters awareness of the online presence of one's communication partners. Like all awareness systems, IM runs into concerns regarding privacy. Drawing upon prior literature and exploratory interviews, we postulate a model that posits impression management as an underlying cause for privacy desires of IM users. We verify our hypotheses using linear structural modelling on data from a large online survey of IM users across the US. The model establishes that the desire for privacy in IM arises due to the desire for impression management (both directly, as well as indirectly through the desire for visibility of one's impression to oneself). Based on this model, we suggest that IM systems could support privacy needs of users better by providing them with more knowledge and control over aspects that affect their IM-conveyed impression on others (i.e. by making impression management functionality available). Specifically, to help convey and sustain appropriate impressions on IM contacts, IM systems should allow for increased visibility of one's actions to oneself, facilitate easy comparison of one's practices with those of others, and allow one to view oneself from the perspective of others and to make finer-grained adjustments to IM settings than is possible today.
Deep Sequencing of Pyrethroid-Resistant Bed Bugs Reveals Multiple Mechanisms of Resistance within a Single Population

A frightening resurgence of bed bug infestations has occurred over the last 10 years in the U.S. and current chemical methods have been inadequate for controlling this pest due to widespread insecticide resistance. Little is known about the mechanisms of resistance present in U.S. bed bug populations, making it extremely difficult to develop intelligent strategies for their control. We have identified bed bugs collected in Richmond, VA which exhibit both kdr-type (L925I) and metabolic resistance to pyrethroid insecticides. Using LD50 bioassays, we determined that resistance ratios for Richmond strain bed bugs were ∼5200-fold to the insecticide deltamethrin. To identify metabolic genes potentially involved in the detoxification of pyrethroids, we performed deep-sequencing of the adult bed bug transcriptome, obtaining more than 2.5 million reads on the 454 titanium platform. Following assembly, analysis of newly identified gene transcripts in both Harlan (susceptible) and Richmond (resistant) bed bugs revealed several candidate cytochrome P450 and carboxylesterase genes which were significantly over-expressed in the resistant strain, consistent with the idea of increased metabolic resistance. These data will accelerate efforts to understand the biochemical basis for insecticide resistance in bed bugs, and provide molecular markers to assist in the surveillance of metabolic resistance.
Stellar mass loss and the intracluster medium in Galactic globular clusters: a deep radio survey for H i and oH

We present the results of a survey, the deepest to date, for H i emission at 21 cm and OH emission at 18 cm (lines at 1612, 1665, 1667 and 1720 MHz) in the direction towards the Galactic globular clusters M15, M2, NGC6934, NGC7006 and Pal13. The aim is to measure the amount of hydrogen in the intra-cluster medium (ICM), and to find OH masers in the circumstellar envelopes of globular cluster red giants. We present a tentative detection of 0.3 M⊙ of neutral hydrogen in M15 and possible detections of neutral hydrogen in M2 and Pal13. We derive upper limits to the neutral hydrogen content of NGC6934 and NGC7006. No OH emission is detected. We also present deep H i data of the northern tip of the Magellanic Stream behind Pal13.
Predicting subgrid variability of soil water content from basic soil information

Knowledge of unresolved soil water content variability within model grid cells (i.e., subgrid variability) is important for accurate predictions of land‐surface energy and hydrologic fluxes. Here we derived a closed‐form expression to describe how soil water content variability depends on mean soil water content (σθ()) using stochastic analysis of 1‐D unsaturated gravitational flow based on the van Genuchten‐Mualem (VGM) model. A sensitivity analysis showed that the n parameter strongly influenced both the shape and magnitude of the maximum of σθ(). The closed‐form expression was used to predict σθ() for eight data sets with varying soil texture using VGM parameters obtained from pedotransfer functions that rely on available soil information. Generally, there was good agreement between observed and predicted σθ() despite the obvious simplifications that were used to derive the closed‐form expression. Furthermore, the novel closed‐form expression was successfully used to inversely estimate the variability of hydraulic properties from observed σθ() data.
Myocardium Extending from the Left Atrium onto the Pulmonary Veins: A Comparison Between Subjects with and Without Atrial Fibrillation

TAGAWA, M. , et al.: Myocardium Extending from the Left Atrium onto the Pulmonary Veins: A Comparison Between Subjects with and Without Atrial Fibrillation. Rapid discharges from the myocardium extending from the left atrium onto the pulmonary vein (PV) have been shown to initiate AF, and AF may be eradicated by the catheter ablation within the PV. However, if there is any difference in the distribution patterns of the myocardial sleeve onto the PV between the subjects with and without AF is to be determined. Twenty‐one autopsied hearts were examined. Eleven patients previously had AF before death and another 10 patients had normal sinus rhythm as confirmed from the medical records including ECGs before death. After exposing the heart, the distance to the peripheral end of the myocardium was measured from the PV‐atrial junction in each PV. Then, the PVs were sectioned and stained and the distal end of myocardium and the distribution pattern were studied. The anteroposterior diameter of the left atrium was also measured. In 74 of 84 PVs, the myocardium extended beyond the PV‐atrial junction. The myocardium was localized surrounding the vascular smooth muscle layer forming a myocardial sleeve. The peripheral end of the myocardial sleeve was irregular and the maximal and minimal distances were measured in each PV. The myocardium extended most distally in the superior PVs compared to the inferior ones and the maximal distance to the peripheral end was similar between the AF and non‐AF subjects (8.4 ± 2.8 vs 8.7 ± 4.4 mm for the left superior and 6.5 ± 3.5 vs 5.1 ± 3.9 mm for the right superior PV, respectively). A significant difference was found in the maximal distance in the inferior PVs: 7.3 ± 4.6 vs 3.3 ± 2.8 mm for the left (P < 0.05) and 5.7 ± 2.4 vs 1.7 ± 1.9 mm for the right inferior PV (P < 0.001) in the subjects with and without AF, respectively. The diameter of left atrium was slightly dilated in AF patients but insignificantly (4.1 ± 0.1 vs 3.6 ± 0.1 cm, P > 0.07). The myocytes on the PV were less uniform and surrounded by more fibrosis in patients with AF compared to those without AF. In conclusion, the myocardium extended beyond the atrium‐vein junction onto the PVs. The distribution patterns of the myocardium was almost similar between subjects with and without AF, but the histology suggested variable myocytes in size and fibrosis in patients with AF.
On the redundancy of optimum fixed-to-variable length codes

There has been much interest in recent years in bounds on the redundancy of Huffman codes, given only partial information about the source word distribution, such as the probability of the most likely source. This work determines upper and lower bounds for the redundancy of Huffman codes of source words which are binomially distributed. Since the complete distribution is known, it is possible to determine bounds which are much tighter than other bounds in the literature, given only p, the probability of the most likely symbol of the binary source, and K, where there are 2/sup K/ source words. The upper and lower bounds will be shown to converge to the same value as K becomes large, resulting in a simple approximation which can be used to predict the redundancy of the Huffman code, given p and K, without constructing the code. <<ETX>>
Exploring the Structure and Functions of Sana’a’s Linguistic Landscape

Abstract:This paper investigates the monolingual and multilingual signs in the linguistic landscape of Sana’a. Linguistic landscape (LL) is a recent linguistic field of research which refers to “the visibility of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory”. Following a LL approach, the capital city of Sana’a is taken as a representative case study. More than 1500 signs recorded via a digital camera are analyzed to explore the LL in Yemen, a country which is still classified as a relatively more conservative community with regard to the process of modernization and globalization. The main findings of this research show that Arabic is the predominant language (either with or without English) in more than 97% of the LL items studied within four main streets and localities in the capital city of Sana’a. English ranks in the second position with nearly 53% of all items, and no considerable space for any other foreign languages in the LL of Sana’a. The presence of English on 53% of the signs is competing and may be equivalent or exceeding that of Arabic in the near future due to the increasing tendency amongst the present generation in using and learning English. This phenomenon is really stimulating, especially when we realize that the shop owners and private institution runners are usually free in their choice of the languages displayed on their shop signs. At the same time, language planners, on the part of local authorities, can hardly interfere due to the absence of the official regulations in this regard. The cultural and folkloric function of LL is another salient finding of the study. About 76 signs (5%) of the corpus contain names and expressions working as mnemonic devices that hark back to the earlier Arabic and Islamic heritage and culture.
Variation in decisions to forgo life-sustaining therapies in US ICUs.

BACKGROUND The magnitude and implication of variation in end-of-life decision-making among ICUs in the United States is unknown. METHODS We reviewed data on decisions to forgo life-sustaining therapy (DFLSTs) in 269,002 patients admitted to 153 ICUs in the United States between 2001 and 2009. We used fixed-effects logistic regression to create a multivariable model for DFLST and then calculated adjusted rates of DFLST for each ICU. RESULTS Patient factors associated with increased odds of DFLST included advanced age, female sex, white race, and poor baseline functional status (all P < .001). However, associations with several of these factors varied among ICUs (eg, black race had an OR for DFLST from 0.18 to 2.55 across ICUs). The ICU staffing model was also found to be associated with DFLST, with an open ICU staffing model associated with an increased odds of a DFLST (OR = 1.19). The predicted probability of DFLST varied approximately sixfold among ICUs after adjustment for the fixed patient and ICU effects and was directly correlated with the standardized mortality ratios of ICUs (r = 0.53, 0.41-0.68). CONCLUSION Although patient factors explain much of the variability in DFLST practices, significant effects of ICU culture and practice influence end-of-life decision-making. The observation that an ICU's risk-adjusted propensity to withdraw life support is directly associated with its standardized mortality ratio suggests problems with using the latter as a quality measure.
SPECIFIC HETEROLOGOUS ENHANCEMENT OF IMMUNE RESPONSES

The mixing of two histoincompatible human lymphocyte cell lines generated the release of a soluble factor which was capable of nonspecifically enhancing the in vitro immune response of normal mouse spleen cells against sheep erythrocytes. When active supernates were subjected to exclusion chromatography on Sephadex G-150 and BioGel P-150, the active principle eluted with molecules of approximately 35,000 mol wt. Column aliquots from similarly treated supernates from independent cultures of each lymphoid cell line were inactive. The human enhancing factor was concentrated and purified by ammonium sulfate fractionation, followed by Sephadex gel filtration and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.