Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Flower power: its association with bee power and floral functional morphology in papilionate legumes.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS A test was made of the hypothesis that papilionate legume flowers filter pollinators according to their ability to exert strength to open flowers to access rewards. In addition, interactions with pollen vectors were expected to explain the structural complexity of the architecture of these flowers since operative flower strength may be determined by a combination of morphological traits which form part of an intrafloral functional module. METHODS Six papilionate species were studied: Collaea argentina, Desmodium uncinatum, Galactia latisiliqua, Lathyrus odoratus, Spartium junceum and Tipuana tipu. Measurements were made of the strength needed to open keels and the strength that pollinators were capable of exerting. Morphological traits of all petals were also measured to determine which of them could be either mutually correlated or correlated with operative strength and moment of strength and participated in a functional module. KEY RESULTS It was observed that pollinators were capable in all cases of exerting forces higher and often several times higher than that needed to access floral rewards, and no association could be detected between floral operative strength and strength exerted by the corresponding pollinators. On the other hand, strong and significant correlations were found among morphometric traits and, of these, with operative strength and moment. This was particularly evident among traits of the keel and the wings, presumably involved in the functioning of the floral moveable mechanism. CONCLUSIONS Though visitors are often many times stronger than the operative strength of the flowers they pollinate, exceptionally weak bees such as Apis mellifera cannot open the strongest flowers. On the other hand, strong correlations among certain petal morphometric traits (particularly between the keel and wings) give support to the idea that an intrafloral module is associated with the functioning of the mechanism of these legume flowers. In addition, the highly significant correlations found across petals support the view of functional phenotypic integration transcending the ontogenetic organization of flower structure.
Transcriptome Analysis in Prenatal IGF1-Deficient Mice Identifies Molecular Pathways and Target Genes Involved in Distal Lung Differentiation

Background Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 (IGF1) is a multifunctional regulator of somatic growth and development throughout evolution. IGF1 signaling through IGF type 1 receptor (IGF1R) controls cell proliferation, survival and differentiation in multiple cell types. IGF1 deficiency in mice disrupts lung morphogenesis, causing altered prenatal pulmonary alveologenesis. Nevertheless, little is known about the cellular and molecular basis of IGF1 activity during lung development. Methods/Principal Findings Prenatal Igf1−/− mutant mice with a C57Bl/6J genetic background displayed severe disproportional lung hypoplasia, leading to lethal neonatal respiratory distress. Immuno-histological analysis of their lungs showed a thickened mesenchyme, alterations in extracellular matrix deposition, thinner smooth muscles and dilated blood vessels, which indicated immature and delayed distal pulmonary organogenesis. Transcriptomic analysis of Igf1−/− E18.5 lungs using RNA microarrays identified deregulated genes related to vascularization, morphogenesis and cellular growth, and to MAP-kinase, Wnt and cell-adhesion pathways. Up-regulation of immunity-related genes was verified by an increase in inflammatory markers. Increased expression of Nfib and reduced expression of Klf2, Egr1 and Ctgf regulatory proteins as well as activation of ERK2 MAP-kinase were corroborated by Western blot. Among IGF-system genes only IGFBP2 revealed a reduction in mRNA expression in mutant lungs. Immuno-staining patterns for IGF1R and IGF2, similar in both genotypes, correlated to alterations found in specific cell compartments of Igf1−/− lungs. IGF1 addition to Igf1−/− embryonic lungs cultured ex vivo increased airway septa remodeling and distal epithelium maturation, processes accompanied by up-regulation of Nfib and Klf2 transcription factors and Cyr61 matricellular protein. Conclusions/Significance We demonstrated the functional tissue specific implication of IGF1 on fetal lung development in mice. Results revealed novel target genes and gene networks mediators of IGF1 action on pulmonary cellular proliferation, differentiation, adhesion and immunity, and on vascular and distal epithelium maturation during prenatal lung development.
Task-induced stress and motivation decrease foveation-period durations in infantile nystagmus syndrome.

PURPOSE To investigate the effect of visual demand, task-related physiological stress, and motivation on the nystagmus waveform of 19 subjects with infantile nystagmus syndrome (INS). METHODS Subjects viewed a Landolt C of varying orientation and size, and indicated its orientation via arrow keys on a keyboard. Mental arithmetic was performed in conjunction with the visual task. Subjects then underwent a reward-penalty paradigm. Eye movements and heart rates were recorded during all experiments. RESULTS Task-related physiological stress and motivation were reflected in an increase in heart rate and led to an increase in the amplitude, frequency, and intensity of the nystagmus waveform and a decrease in foveation-period durations. Changes in heart rate did not correlate with changes in waveform parameters for all experiments. CONCLUSIONS The results show, for the first time, the negative impact of task-induced stress and/or motivation on the characteristics of INS. This finding has important implications for individuals with INS, because stress may arise in everyday situations, such as driving or when undertaking an examination.
From Sampling to Model Counting

We introduce a new technique for counting models of Boolean satisfiability problems. Our approach incorporates information obtained from sampling the solution space. Unlike previous approaches, our method does not require uniform or near-uniform samples. It instead converts local search sampling without any guarantees into very good bounds on the model count with guarantees. We give a formal analysis and provide experimental results showing the effectiveness of our approach.
Robustness of a Rhythmic Circuit to Short- and Long-Term Temperature Changes

Recent computational and experimental work has shown that similar network performance can result from variable sets of synaptic and intrinsic properties. Because temperature is a global perturbation that differentially influences every biological process within the nervous system, one might therefore expect that individual animals would respond differently to temperature. Nonetheless, the phase relationships of the pyloric rhythm of the stomatogastric ganglion (STG) of the crab, Cancer borealis, are remarkably invariant between 7 and 23°C (Tang et al., 2010). Here, we report that, when isolated STG preparations were exposed to more extreme temperature ranges, their networks became nonrhythmic, or “crashed”, in a reversible fashion. Animals were acclimated for at least 3 weeks at 7, 11, or 19°C. When networks from the acclimated animals were perturbed by acute physiologically relevant temperature ramps (11–23°C), the network frequency and phase relationships were independent of the acclimation group. At high acute temperatures (>23°C), circuits from the cold-acclimated animals produced less-regular pyloric rhythms than those from warm-acclimated animals. At high acute temperatures, phase relationships between pyloric neurons were more variable from animal to animal than at moderate acute temperatures, suggesting that individual differences across animals in intrinsic circuit parameters are revealed at high temperatures. This shows that individual and variable neuronal circuits can behave similarly in normal conditions, but their behavior may diverge when confronted with extreme external perturbations.
Sexual dysfunction in diabetic women: prevalence and differences in type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus

Background The aim of this work was to evaluate the impact of diabetes on female sexuality and to highlight any differences between sexuality in the context of type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). Methods The subjects selected were 49 women with type 1 DM, 24 women with type 2 DM, and 45 healthy women as controls. Each participant was given the nine-item Female Sexual Function Index questionnaire to complete. The metabolic profile was evaluated by body mass index and glycosylated hemoglobin assay. Results The prevalence of sexual dysfunction (total score ≤30) was significantly higher in the type 1 DM group (25/49, 51%; 95% confidence interval [CI] 18–31) than in the control group (4/45, 9%; 95% CI 3–5; P=0.00006); there were no significant variations in the type 2 DM group (4/24, 17%; 95% CI 3–4) versus the control group (P=0.630, not statistically significant). The mean total score was significantly lower in the type 1 DM group (30.2±6.9) versus the control group (36.5±4.9; P=0.0003), but there was no significant difference between the type 2 DM group and the control group (P=0.773). With regard to specific questionnaire items, the mean values for arousal, lubrication, dyspareunia, and orgasm were significantly lower only in the type 1 DM group versus the control group. The mean values for desire were reduced in type 1 and type 2 DM groups versus control group. Conclusion Type 1 DM is associated with sexual dysfunction. This may be due to classic neurovascular complications or to the negative impact of the disease on psychosocial factors. Larger and ideally longitudinal studies are necessary to better understand the relationship between DM and sexual dysfunction.
Spectral Analysis of Nonuniformly Sampled Data: A New Approach Versus the Periodogram

We begin by revisiting the periodogram to explain why arguably the plain least-squares periodogram (LSP) is preferable to the ldquoclassicalrdquo Fourier periodogram, from a data-fitting viewpoint, as well as to the frequently-used form of LSP due to Lomb and Scargle, from a computational standpoint. Then we go on to introduce a new enhanced method for spectral analysis of nonuniformly sampled data sequences. The new method can be interpreted as an iteratively weighted LSP that makes use of a data-dependent weighting matrix built from the most recent spectral estimate. Because this method is derived for the case of real-valued data (which is typically more complicated to deal with in spectral analysis than the complex-valued data case), it is iterative and it makes use of an adaptive (i.e., data-dependent) weighting, we refer to it as the real-valued iterative adaptive approach (RIAA). LSP and RIAA are nonparametric methods that can be used for the spectral analysis of general data sequences with both continuous and discrete spectra. However, they are most suitable for data sequences with discrete spectra (i.e., sinusoidal data), which is the case we emphasize in this paper.
SiC versus Si—Evaluation of Potentials for Performance Improvement of Inverter and DC–DC Converter Systems by SiC Power Semiconductors

Switching devices based on wide bandgap materials such as silicon carbide (SiC) offer a significant performance improvement on the switch level (specific on resistance, etc.) compared with Si devices. Well-known examples are SiC diodes employed, for example, in inverter drives with high switching frequencies. In this paper, the impact on the system-level performance, i.e., efficiency, power density, etc., of industrial inverter drives and of dc-dc converter resulting from the new SiC devices is evaluated based on analytical optimization procedures and prototype systems. There, normally on JFETs by SiCED and normally off JFETs by SemiSouth are considered.
Dysregulation of Gene Expression in the Artificial Human Trisomy Cells of Chromosome 8 Associated with Transformed Cell Phenotypes

A change in chromosome number, known as aneuploidy, is a common characteristic of cancer. Aneuploidy disrupts gene expression in human cancer cells and immortalized human epithelial cells, but not in normal human cells. However, the relationship between aneuploidy and cancer remains unclear. To study the effects of aneuploidy in normal human cells, we generated artificial cells of human primary fibroblast having three chromosome 8 (trisomy 8 cells) by using microcell-mediated chromosome transfer technique. In addition to decreased proliferation, the trisomy 8 cells lost contact inhibition and reproliferated after exhibiting senescence-like characteristics that are typical of transformed cells. Furthermore, the trisomy 8 cells exhibited chromosome instability, and the overall gene expression profile based on microarray analyses was significantly different from that of diploid human primary fibroblasts. Our data suggest that aneuploidy, even a single chromosome gain, can be introduced into normal human cells and causes, in some cases, a partial cancer phenotype due to a disruption in overall gene expression.
In situ bioremediation: A network model of diffusion and flow in granular porous media

In situ bioremediation is a potentially expedient, permanent and cost- effective means of waste site decontamination. However, permeability reductions due to the transport and deposition of native fines or due to excessive microorganism populations may severely inhibit the injection of supplemental oxygen in the contamination zone. To help understand this phenomenon, we have developed a micro-mechanical network model of flow, diffusion and particle transport in granular porous materials. The model differs from most similar models in that the network is defined by particle positions in a numerically-generated particle array. The model is thus widely applicable to computing effective transport properties for both ordered and realistic random porous media. A laboratory-scale apparatus to measure permeability reductions has also been designed, built and tested.
HapBoost: A Fast Approach to Boosting Haplotype Association Analyses in Genome-Wide Association Studies

Genome-wide association study (GWAS) has been successful in identifying genetic variants that are associated with complex human diseases. In GWAS, multilocus association analyses through linkage disequilibrium (LD), named haplotype-based analyses, may have greater power than single-locus analyses for detecting disease susceptibility loci. However, the large number of SNPs genotyped in GWAS poses great computational challenges in the detection of haplotype associations. We present a fast method named HapBoost for finding haplotype associations, which can be applied to quickly screen the whole genome. The effectiveness of HapBoost is demonstrated by using both synthetic and real data sets. The experimental results show that the proposed approach can achieve comparably accurate results while it performs much faster than existing methods.
A MIMO-BICM Scheme Using a Convolutional Interleaver for Delay-Sensitive Applications

In this paper, we propose the use of a convolutional interleaver employing a variety of block delay parameters as the bit interleaver in a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) bit-interleaved coded-modulation (BICM) scheme. The associated iterative decoding-detection algorithm is proposed, and the design criteria for the outer convolutional code are derived. The cases for both the perfect channel-state information (CSI) and the estimated CSI are investigated. In the proposed MIMO-BICM scheme, the MIMO detector and the channel estimator utilize the soft information passed from the sliding-window convolutional decoder within the same iteration, and hence, the convergence speed can be increased. Compared with the conventional scheme using various interleaver designs, the proposed scheme not only achieves better error performance for the first iteration but also has lower decoding latency. Consequently, the proposed scheme is suitable for delay-sensitive applications.
Short Term Synaptic Depression Imposes a Frequency Dependent Filter on Synaptic Information Transfer

Depletion of synaptic neurotransmitter vesicles induces a form of short term depression in synapses throughout the nervous system. This plasticity affects how synapses filter presynaptic spike trains. The filtering properties of short term depression are often studied using a deterministic synapse model that predicts the mean synaptic response to a presynaptic spike train, but ignores variability introduced by the probabilistic nature of vesicle release and stochasticity in synaptic recovery time. We show that this additional variability has important consequences for the synaptic filtering of presynaptic information. In particular, a synapse model with stochastic vesicle dynamics suppresses information encoded at lower frequencies more than information encoded at higher frequencies, while a model that ignores this stochasticity transfers information encoded at any frequency equally well. This distinction between the two models persists even when large numbers of synaptic contacts are considered. Our study provides strong evidence that the stochastic nature neurotransmitter vesicle dynamics must be considered when analyzing the information flow across a synapse.
The Palaeolithic of the Avon valley : a geoarchaeological approach to the hominin colonisation of Britain

This thesis presents the results of a geoarchaeological investigation into the Palaeolithic occupation of the Avon valley, Hampshire. In this area, the Palaeolithic archaeological record is dominated by three large concentrations of lithic artefacts, found at Bemerton, Milford Hill and Woodgreen, against a background scatter of isolated finds. These prolific assemblages are amongst the largest concentrations of Palaeolithic finds in Britain. Their contribution to the understanding of hominin presence and behaviour in northwest Europe has though remained largely obscured due to the complex depositional context of Pleistocene fluvial terraces and limited age constraints of these sites. This thesis discusses the current knowledge of the Pleistocene palaeogeography and hominin occupation of Britain and how a geoarchaeological reinvestigation into the Avon valley archaeological record can contribute to the understanding of the British Palaeolithic. The study of seven Pleistocene fluvial terrace exposures, sedimentological analysis, and examination of environmental indicators provide information about terrace formation and Pleistocene landscape evolution in the valley and the depositional context of the three main Palaeolithic sites. Optically stimulated luminescence dating of fine-grained sediments from a sequence of six different terraces is used to create a chronometric framework for landscape evolution and the archaeological record. The results indicate that hominins were present in the Avon valley between MIS 10 and 8, in a period that has previously been characterised by a general decline in Palaeolithic sites in Britain relative to MIS 13-10. The work demonstrates that hominins continued to reach the Avon valley, suggesting adaptive and cognitive developments to cope with colder climates and palaeogeographic changes in the Channel region. Furthermore, a comparison of the assemblages from Bemerton, Milford Hill and Woodgreen based on primary data gathered, shows that these assemblages are in ‘proximal context’ and represent the accumulation of lithic artefacts produced, used and left at these sites during repeated revisits over a considerable length of time, throughout all habitable phases of a glacial-interglacial or stadial-interstadial cycle. The location of these focal places within the river valley changed over time, either through transformations in the local environment and resource availability, through a difference in hominin landscape use and behaviour or through an interplay between these factors.
Vertebral Endplate Cyst as a Predictor of Nonunion After Lumbar Interbody Fusion: Comparison of Titanium and Polyetheretherketone Cages

Study Design. The bone union rate after lumbar interbody fusion (LIF) using titanium (Ti) or polyetheretherketone (PEEK) cages was investigated retrospectively. Objective. To assess whether the PEEK cage is superior to the Ti cage in terms of bone union after LIF. Summary of Background Data. We previously reported that the formation of vertebral endplate cysts is useful for predicting nonunion after LIF using Ti cages. Methods. We examined 144 levels in 117 patients treated from March 2005 to July 2012 with transforaminal LIF using Ti (93 levels in 77 patients) or PEEK cages (51 levels in 40 patients) with pedicle screw fixation. Using computed tomography, vertebral endplate cyst (cyst sign) was evaluated at 3 months, and bone union status was evaluated at 1 and 2 years postoperatively. The relationship between cyst sign and union status was analyzed statistically. The bone union rate and the accuracy of the cyst sign were compared between the two groups. Results. The postoperative bone union rate was 75.2% and 74.5% at 1 year, and 82.8% and 80.4% at 2 years for Ti and PEEK groups, respectively. The rate of positive cyst sign was 17.2% and 13.7%, respectively. The nonunion rate with positive cyst sign was 100% and 100% at 1 year, and 56.2% and 71.4% at 2 years, respectively. Calculated for the cyst sign and union status, the sensitivity was 69.6% and 53.8%, and the specificity was 100% and 100%, respectively. There were no significant differences in bone union rate, rate of positive cyst sign, nonunion rate with positive cyst sign, sensitivity, and specificity between the two groups. Conclusion. The cyst sign was useful for predicting nonunion after LIF using PEEK or Ti cages. The bone union rate after LIF did not differ significantly between the two groups. Level of Evidence: 3
Carboxylic acid derivatives of histone deacetylase inhibitors induce full length SMN2 transcripts: a promising target for spinal muscular atrophy therapeutics

Introduction Proximal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a common autosomal recessively inherited neuromuscular disorder. It is caused by homozygous absence of the survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) gene. SMN2, which modulates the severity of the disease, represents a major target for therapy. The aim of this study was to investigate whether SMN2 expression can be increased by caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid and curcumin, which are designed by modifications of the carboxylic acid class of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors. Material and methods Using quantitative real-time PCR, we analysed the levels of full-length SMN2 and Δ7SMN2 mRNA. We performed LDH cytotoxicity assay to analyse whether SMN2 activating concentrations of caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid and curcumin were cytotoxic to fibroblasts. Results We found that caffeic acid and curcumin were more efficient than chlorogenic acid and increased full-length SMN2 mRNA levels 1.5 and 1.7-fold, respectively. Δ7SMN2 mRNA levels were measured to investigate alternative splicing of exon 7. We also found that cytotoxicity was not observed at SMN2 activating concentrations. Conclusions Our data suggest that carboxylic acid derivatives including phenolic structure and symmetry could be a good candidate for SMA treatment.