Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Viscoelastic interaction between intraocular microrobots and vitreous humor: A finite element approach

Vitreous humor exhibits complex biomechanical properties and determination of these properties is essential for designing ophthalmic biomedical microdevices. In this paper, the viscoelastic properties of porcine vitreous humor were studied based on ex vivo creep experiments, in which a microrobot was magnetically actuated inside the vitreous. A three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model was proposed to simulate the viscoelastic interaction between the microrobot and porcine vitreous humor. An optimization-based method was employed to estimate the viscoelastic parameters of the vitreous humor. The proposed model successfully validated the experimental measurements. The estimated parameters were compared with published data in literature. The model was then used to study the shape-dependent interaction of the microrobot with the vitreous humor. The methods presented in this paper can be used for the optimization of ophthalmic microrobots and microsurgical tools.
Adventitial Alterations Are the Main Features in Pulmonary Artery Remodeling due to Long-Term Chronic Intermittent Hypobaric Hypoxia in Rats

Long-term chronic intermittent exposure to altitude hypoxia is a labor phenomenon requiring further research. Using a rat model, we examined whether this type of exposure differed from chronic exposure in terms of pulmonary artery remodeling and other features. Rats were subjected to chronic hypoxia (CH, n = 9) and long-term intermittent hypoxia (CIH2x2; 2 days of hypoxia/2 days of normoxia, n = 10) in a chamber (428 Torr, 4,600 m of altitude) for 46 days and compared to rats under normoxia (NX, n = 10). Body weight, hematocrit, and right ventricle ratio were measured. Pulmonary artery remodeling was assessed using confocal microscopy of tissues stained with a nuclear dye (DAPI) and CD11b antibody. Both hypoxic conditions exhibited increased hematocrit and hypertrophy of the right ventricle, tunica adventitia, and tunica media, with no changes in lumen size. The medial hypertrophy area (larger in CH) depicted a significant increase in smooth muscle cell number. Additionally, CIH2x2 increased the adventitial hypertrophy area, with an increased cellularity and a larger prevalence of clustered inflammatory cells. In conclusion, CIH2x2 elicits milder effects on pulmonary artery medial layer muscularization and subsequent right ventricular hypertrophy than CH. However, CIH2x2 induces greater and characteristic alterations of the adventitial layer.
A GaAs Junction Varactor With a Continuously Tunable Range of 9 : 1 and an $OIP_{3}$ of 57 dBm

In this letter, a junction varactor is presented with a large capacitance tuning range, while providing very high linearity. Such varactors are extremely useful in adaptive RF applications, which directly benefit from passive components with high tuning range and high linearity. Using a preproduction GaAs process technology and third-order intermodulation (IM 3) cancellation techniques, a very linear device is created with a capacitance tuning range as large as 9 : 1 over a control voltage range from 0 to 15 V. Its third-order output intercept point is 57 dBm; the average quality factor is ~ 50, and the breakdown voltage is 28 V. These measured results represent the current state-of-the-art in tuning range, linearity, and quality factor among all existing continuously tunable elements.
Integration of Motor Imagery and Physical Practice in Group Treatment Applied to Subjects With Parkinson’s Disease

Background and Purpose. The application of motor imagery practice in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a novel treatment approach for improving motor function. The purpose of this study was to compare group treatment using a combination of physical and motor imagery practice with group treatment using only physical practice in subjects with PD. Methods. Of 23 patients with idiopathic PD, 12 received combined therapy, whereas 11 received physical therapy alone. Exercises for both groups were applied during 1-h sessions held twice a week for 12 weeks. Comparable motor tasks provided to both groups included callisthenic exercises, functional tasks, and relaxation exercises. However, the experimental group was treated with both imagery and real practice, whereas the control group received only physical exercises. Outcome measures included the time required to complete sequences of movements, the performance of balance tasks, impairment and functional scores on the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), and specific cognitive abilities (Stroop and clock drawing tests). Results. Following the intervention, the combined treatment group exhibited significantly faster performance of movement sequences than the control group. In addition, the experimental subjects demonstrated higher gains in the mental and motor subsets of the UPDRS and in the cognitive tests. Both groups improved on the activities of daily living scale. Conclusions. The combination of motor imagery and real practice may be effective in the treatment of PD, especially for reducing bradykinesia. The implementation of this treatment regimen allows for the extension of practice time with negligible risk and low cost.
Serotonin Promoter Polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) Predicts Biased Attention for Emotion Stimuli

A number of studies have found an association between attentional bias for negative stimuli and variation in the serotonin transporter promoter region polymorphism (5-HTTLPR). The current project examined whether a positive social environment mitigates this association. More specifically, we examined the relationship among attentional bias on the dot-probe task, variation in the 5-HTTLPR, and current social support among a community sample of adults (N = 216). Consistent with prior research, the S/LG homozygotes were more likely than the other genotype groups to have a negative attention bias. However, social support moderated the association between 5-HTTLPR variation and attentional bias. The S/LG homozygote group was particularly likely to exhibit greater attentional bias toward negative stimuli at low levels of social support. However, as social support improved, negative attention bias decreased. Findings suggest that supportive environments may attenuate genetic associations with negative attention bias.
Nonlinear Optimal Control via Occupation Measures and LMI-Relaxations

We consider the class of nonlinear optimal control problems (OCPs) with polynomial data, i.e., the differential equation, state and control constraints, and cost are all described by polynomials, and more generally for OCPs with smooth data. In addition, state constraints as well as state and/or action constraints are allowed. We provide a simple hierarchy of LMI- (linear matrix inequality)-relaxations whose optimal values form a nondecreasing sequence of lower bounds on the optimal value. Under some convexity assumptions, the sequence converges to the optimal value of the OCP. Preliminary results show that good approximations are obtained with few moments.
Patient-Physician Communication: Why and How

Abstract Patient-physician communication is an integral part of clinical practice. When done well, such communication produces a therapeutic effect for the patient, as has been validated in controlled studies. Formal training programs have been created to enhance and measure specific communication skills. Many of these efforts, however, focus on medical schools and early postgraduate years and, therefore, remain isolated in academic settings. Thus, the communication skills of the busy physician often remain poorly developed, and the need for established physicians to become better communicators continues. In this article, the authors briefly review the why and how of effective patient-physician communication. They begin by reviewing current data on the benefits of effective communication in the clinical context of physicians caring for patients. The authors then offer specific guidance on how to achieve effective communication in the patient-physician relationship.
Corporate Control in The Market for News , Tunneling Problems and Corruption ∗

This paper analyzes the relationship between corruption in the public sector and concentration of media firms’ ownership structures. In doing so, it brings into the analysis corporate governance theory. The paper provides novel theoretical and empirical results that identify the channels through which ownership concentration affects corruption. It also shows that the relation between concentration and corruption is non-monotonic i.e. increasing for low values of concentration and decreasing for high ones. In this respect, cases of intermediate concentration are the worst to promote accountability in the media and in the public sector. JEL Code: D72, H4
Personality in the context of social networks

There is great interest in environmental effects on the development and evolution of animal personality traits. An important component of an individual's environment is its social environment. However, few studies look beyond dyadic relationships and try to place the personality of individuals in the context of a social network. Social network analysis provides us with many new metrics to characterize the social fine-structure of populations and, therefore, with an opportunity to gain an understanding of the role that different personalities play in groups, communities and populations regarding information or disease transmission or in terms of cooperation and policing of social conflicts. The network position of an individual is largely a consequence of its interactive strategies. However, the network position can also shape an individual's experiences (especially in the case of juveniles) and therefore can influence the way in which it interacts with others in future. Finally, over evolutionary time, the social fine-structure of animal populations (as quantified by social network analysis) can have important consequences for the evolution of personalities—an approach that goes beyond the conventional game-theoretic analyses that assumed random mixing of individuals in populations.
Clathrin and coated vesicles.

supply from the cold room. As a result, my yield of tubulin was zero, but I did obtain a tiny pellet of material for observation in the electron microscope; I desperately hoped to see microtubules but found spherical objects like sliced tomatoes instead. As a biochemist, trained to purify enzymes, almost anything I saw on the screen was cause for excitement. Fortunately, colleagues took a few pictures for me. For the next few months, my tubulin preparations were more successful but I still remained intrigued by the curious objects which were always present amongst the microtubules on my electron micrographs. A 180-kd protein, as well as the 55-kd tubulin bands, appeared on
Construction from Mu d1 (lac Apr) lysogens of lambda bacteriophage bearing promoter-lac fusions: isolation of lambda ppheA-lac

Bacteriophage Mu d1 (lac Aprr) was used to obtain strains of Escherichia coli K-12 in which the lac genes are expressed from the promoter of pheA, the structural gene for the enzyme chorismate mutase P-prephenate-dehydratase. A derivative of bacteriophage lambda which carries the pheA-lac fusion was prepared; the method used is generally applicable for the construction, from Mu dl lysogens, of specialized transducing lambda phage carrying the promoter-lac fusions. A restriction enzyme cleavage map of lambda ppheA-lac for the enzymes HindIII and PstI is presented.
Oral anticoagulation with coumarin derivatives and antiplatelet effects of clopidogrel.

AIMS A relevant proportion of patients receiving aspirin and clopidogrel after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) also require oral anticoagulation with a coumarin derivative such as phenprocoumon. Both clopidogrel and phenprocoumon are metabolized by the hepatic cytochrome P450 system and a drug-drug interaction may exist at this level. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of phenprocoumon on the antiplatelet effects of clopidogrel in patients with coronary artery disease. METHODS AND RESULTS Patients (n = 1223) eligible for this study were under dual maintenance antiplatelet treatment with aspirin and clopidogrel. Adenosine diphosphate-induced platelet aggregation (in AU*min) was measured with multiple electrode platelet aggregometry on a Multiplate analyzer (Dynabyte, Munich, Germany). From the entire study population, 124 (10.1%) patients were under concomitant phenprocoumon treatment at the time point of platelet function testing. Platelet aggregation (median [interquartile range]) was significantly higher in patients with (n = 124) concomitant phenprocoumon treatment compared with patients without (n = 1099) phenprocoumon treatment (308 [190-493] AU*min vs. 224 [145-390] AU*min; P = 0.0001, adjusted P = 0.002). CONCLUSION Phenprocoumon significantly attenuates the antiplatelet effects of clopidogrel. The impact of this interaction on the risk of thrombotic and bleeding events after PCI requires further investigations.
ExoCarta as a resource for exosomal research

Exosomes are a class of extracellular vesicles that are secreted by various cell types. Unlike other extracellular vesicles (ectosomes and apoptotic blebs), exosomes are of endocytic origin. The roles of exosomes in vaccine/drug delivery, intercellular communication and as a possible source of disease biomarkers have sparked immense interest in them, resulting in a plethora of studies. Whilst multidimensional datasets are continuously generated, it is difficult to harness the true potential of the data until they are compiled and made accessible to the biomedical researchers. Here, we describe ExoCarta (http://www.exocarta.org), a manually curated database of exosomal proteins, RNA and lipids. Datasets currently present in ExoCarta are integrated from both published and unpublished exosomal studies. Since its launch in 2009, ExoCarta has been accessed by more than 16,000 unique users. In this article, we discuss the utility of ExoCarta for exosomal research and urge biomedical researchers in the field to deposit their datasets directly to ExoCarta.
Tracking multiple people using laser and vision

We present a novel system that aims at reliably detecting and tracking multiple people in an open area. Multiple single-row laser scanners and one video camera are utilized. Feet trajectory tracking based on registration of distance information from multiple laser scanners and visual body region tracking based on color histogram are combined in a Bayesian formulation. Results from tests in a real environment are reported to demonstrate that the system can detect and track multiple people simultaneously with reliable and real-time performance.
In vivo NAD assay reveals the intracellular NAD contents and redox state in healthy human brain and their age dependences

Significance Decline in NAD+ availability and abnormal NAD+/NADH redox state are tightly linked to age-related metabolic diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. To better understand the roles of NAD metabolism and redox state in health and disease, it is important to assess the intracellular NAD and redox state in situ. We report herein the first in vivo NAD assay, to our knowledge, that is capable of noninvasively and simultaneously measuring intracellular NAD+ and NADH concentrations and NAD+/NADH ratio in the human brain and detecting the age-dependent changes in NAD contents and redox state associated with the normal aging. This method can potentially be applied to study various metabolic and neurodegenerative disorders by monitoring the NAD and redox state changes associated with disease progression or treatment in human patients. NAD is an essential metabolite that exists in NAD+ or NADH form in all living cells. Despite its critical roles in regulating mitochondrial energy production through the NAD+/NADH redox state and modulating cellular signaling processes through the activity of the NAD+-dependent enzymes, the method for quantifying intracellular NAD contents and redox state is limited to a few in vitro or ex vivo assays, which are not suitable for studying a living brain or organ. Here, we present a magnetic resonance (MR) -based in vivo NAD assay that uses the high-field MR scanner and is capable of noninvasively assessing NAD+ and NADH contents and the NAD+/NADH redox state in intact human brain. The results of this study provide the first insight, to our knowledge, into the cellular NAD concentrations and redox state in the brains of healthy volunteers. Furthermore, an age-dependent increase of intracellular NADH and age-dependent reductions in NAD+, total NAD contents, and NAD+/NADH redox potential of the healthy human brain were revealed in this study. The overall findings not only provide direct evidence of declined mitochondrial functions and altered NAD homeostasis that accompany the normal aging process but also, elucidate the merits and potentials of this new NAD assay for noninvasively studying the intracellular NAD metabolism and redox state in normal and diseased human brain or other organs in situ.
On the Origin of De Novo Genes in Arabidopsis thaliana Populations

Abstract De novo genes, which originate from ancestral nongenic sequences, are one of the most important sources of protein-coding genes. This origination process is crucial for the adaptation of organisms. However, how de novo genes arise and become fixed in a population or species remains largely unknown. Here, we identified 782 de novo genes from the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and divided them into three types based on the availability of translational evidence, transcriptional evidence, and neither transcriptional nor translational evidence for their origin. Importantly, by integrating multiple types of omics data, including data from genomes, epigenomes, transcriptomes, and translatomes, we found that epigenetic modifications (DNA methylation and histone modification) play an important role in the origination process of de novo genes. Intriguingly, using the transcriptomes and methylomes from the same population of 84 accessions, we found that de novo genes that are transcribed in approximately half of the total accessions within the population are highly methylated, with lower levels of transcription than those transcribed at other frequencies within the population. We hypothesized that, during the origin of de novo gene alleles, those neutralized to low expression states via DNA methylation have relatively high probabilities of spreading and becoming fixed in a population. Our results highlight the process underlying the origin of de novo genes at the population level, as well as the importance of DNA methylation in this process.
Prevention and management of obesity in nonpregnant women and adolescents: beliefs and practices of U.S. obstetricians and gynecologists.

OBJECTIVE To describe associations between dissemination of educational materials and U.S. obstetrician/gynecologists' prevention and management of obesity in nonpregnant patients. METHODS Cross-sectional surveys mailed to 806 and 787 members of the American College of Obstetrician and Gynecologists (ACOG) Collaborative Ambulatory Research Network in February-April 2005 and March-May 2007, respectively, before and after dissemination of ACOG Committee Opinions. RESULTS Compared with participants in 2005 (n = 437), the proportion of participants in 2007 (n = 433) who reported they would screen nonpregnant adult patients using body mass index (BMI), counsel patients most of the time about physical activity, and ever prescribed weight loss medications increased from 84% to 91%, 48% to 55%, and 40% to 48%, respectively (p < 0.05 for all comparisons). In contrast, reported frequencies of counseling or referring nonpregnant patients for weight control were not significantly different (p > 0.05). In 2007, 33% reported counseling most of the time, and 70% reported referral at least sometimes. A lower proportion of 2007 participants indicated it was likely or very likely that patients would follow advice about physical activity or diet or they can help patients lose weight (p < 0.01 for all comparisons). For adolescent patients, 43% and 24% of participants reported counseling most of the time about physical activity and sedentary activity, respectively. Reported frequency of counseling patients about activity, counseling adult patients about weight control, and prescribing medications was higher among obstetrician/gynecologists who reported reading the Committee Opinions. CONCLUSIONS Despite decreased optimism about the likelihood of patients following advice, modest improvements occurred in some obstetrician/gynecologists' obesity prevention practices between 2005 and 2007.
A mutation in POLE predisposing to a multi-tumour phenotype

Somatic mutations in the POLE gene encoding the catalytic subunit of DNA polymerase ɛ have been found in sporadic colorectal cancers (CRCs) and are most likely of importance in tumour development and/or progression. Recently, families with dominantly inherited colorectal adenomas and colorectal cancer were shown to have a causative heterozygous germline mutation in the proofreading exonuclease domain of POLE. The highly penetrant mutation was associated with predisposition to CRC only and no extra-colonic tumours were observed. We have identified a mutation in a large family in which the carriers not only developed CRC, they also demonstrate a highly penetrant predisposition to extra-intestinal tumours such as ovarian, endometrial and brain tumours. The mutation, NM_006231. 2:c.1089C>A, p.Asn363Lys, also located in the proofreading exonuclease domain is directly involved in DNA binding. Theoretical prediction of the amino acid substitution suggests a profound effect of the substrate binding capability and a more severe impairment of the catalytic activity compared to the previously reported germline mutation. A possible genotype to phenotype correlation for deleterious mutations in POLE might exist that needs to be considered in the follow-up of mutation carriers.
HACKADEMICS AT THE CHALKFACE

The field of journalism studies is growing globally, and the training of journalists is increasingly conducted within higher education institutions at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, even in countries that previously eschewed university education of journalists. Journalism studies goes beyond the training and education of journalists to encompass scholarly inquiry into journalism. Much teaching of journalism within universities is now conducted by journalists who have switched to the academy and become known as “hackademics”. This article explores the extent to which such journalists-turned-journalism-educators also contribute to a deeper understanding of journalism by engaging in scholarly research. It is based on an empirical study of 65 hackademics in the United Kingdom and Ireland, whose experiences of academic research into journalism will be discussed within the context of the international literature.