Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A G protein-gated K channel is activated via beta 2-adrenergic receptors and G beta gamma subunits in Xenopus oocytes

In many tissues, inwardly rectifying K channels are coupled to seven- helix receptors via the Gi/Go family of heterotrimeric G proteins. This activation proceeds at least partially via G beta gamma subunits. These experiments test the hypothesis that G beta gamma subunits activate the channel even if released from other classes of heterotrimeric G proteins. The G protein-gated K channel from rat atrium, KGA/GIRK1, was expressed in Xenopus oocytes with various receptors and G proteins. The beta 2-adrenergic receptor (beta 2AR), a Gs-linked receptor, activated large KGA currents when the alpha subunit, G alpha s, was also overexpressed. Although G alpha s augmented the coupling between beta 2AR and KGA, G alpha s also inhibited the basal, agonist-independent activity of KGA. KGA currents stimulated via beta 2AR activated, deactivated, and desensitized more slowly than currents stimulated via Gi/Go-linked receptors. There was partial occlusion between currents stimulated via beta 2AR and the m2 muscarinic receptor (a Gi/Go-linked receptor), indicating some convergence in the mechanism of activation by these two receptors. Although stimulation of beta 2AR also activates adenylyl cyclase and protein kinase A, activation of KGA via beta 2AR is not mediated by this second messenger pathway, because direct elevation of intracellular cAMP levels had no effect on KGA currents. Experiments with other coexpressed G protein alpha and beta gamma subunits showed that (a) a constitutively active G alpha s mutant did not suppress basal KGA currents and was only partially as effective as wild type G alpha s in coupling beta 2AR to KGA, and (b) beta gamma subunits increased basal KGA currents. These results reinforce present concepts that beta gamma subunits activate KGA, and also suggest that beta gamma subunits may provide a link between KGA and receptors not previously known to couple to inward rectifiers.
Rehabilitation in Prison and the Role of Creative Art

With the numerous calls for reform of prison in the twenty-first century it is vital that the use of rehabilitation in prisons is given careful consideration. This study explores the development of prisons and the uses of rehabilitation for prisoners. In particular it examines creative art as a tool for rehabilitation, through a review of existing literature, analysis of case studies and primary qualitative research. It argues that creative art can have enormously positive impact in the prison system; it has the ability to aid a prisoner’s rehabilitation and alleviate some of the problems which prisons face today. Recommendations are made based on these findings which include the implementation of further arts programs, the exhibition of prisoner artwork, and the development of a body to oversee the running art programs for prisoners.
The influence of family process and structure on delinquency in adolescence—An examination of theory and research

ABSTRACT This article describes three different realms of theories examining the relationship of the family to youth delinquency. The first approach focuses on the psychological processes and interactions between children and their parents. The second considers the role of family structure. The final approach considers economic factors that relate to family functioning and delinquency. Research in each theoretical area uniformly showed that attachment between parents and their adolescents makes a difference in the adolescent’s participation in delinquency.
The influence of teaching strategies and behaviours in the EFL classroom on student motivation and anxiety

Although the research area of motivation and anxiety in language learning has experienced a surge in the last two decades, the relationship between teacher use of motivational strategies and behaviours, and student motivation and anxiety from the perspective of both teachers and students is under-researched. This longitudinal study, with two interventions four months apart, investigated the influence of teaching strategies and behaviours in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom on student motivation and anxiety in senior high schools in Limassol (Cyprus). It aimed to establish (1) which teaching strategies and behaviours students find motivating (2) which teaching strategies and behaviours positively influence student motivation and (3) which teaching strategies and behaviours negatively affect FL classroom anxiety. Using a case-study approach with both qualitative and quantitative data and a range of analytical and interpretative methods, this study primarily utilised tailor-made questionnaires and bottom-up interpretive methods of qualitative data. Quantitative data from questionnaires were analysed using the statistical software programme SPSS 21 to produce both descriptive and inferential statistics. Thematic analysis was used to analyse further qualitative data from focus groups and interviews. Consulting both learners and teachers using a mixed methods approach, permitted triangulation of data from different perspectives, which together worked to enhance the integrity and credibility of the results. Results showed that respect, support, awareness of students' needs and validation of progress and achievement were associated with increased motivation throughout the year. Unclear instructions and negative feedback were among factors associated with foreign language anxiety (FLA). The findings provide important resources for teachers and researchers in the field to build on in their own educational settings, and have relevance for other foreign language classrooms in similar cultural settings.
Development of Synaptic Boutons in Layer 4 of the Barrel Field of the Rat Somatosensory Cortex: A Quantitative Analysis

Understanding the structural and functional mechanisms underlying the development of individual brain microcircuits is critical for elucidating their computational properties. As synapses are the key structures defining a given microcircuit, it is imperative to investigate their development and precise structural features. Here, synapses in cortical layer 4 were analyzed throughout the first postnatal month using high-end electron microscopy to generate realistic quantitative 3D models. Besides their overall geometry, the size of active zones and the pools of synaptic vesicles were analyzed. At postnatal day 2 only a few shaft synapses were found, but spine synapses steadily increased with ongoing corticogenesis. From postnatal day 2 to 30 synaptic boutons significantly decreased in size whereas that of active zones remained nearly unchanged despite a reshaping. During the first 2 weeks of postnatal development, a rearrangement of synaptic vesicles from a loose distribution toward a densely packed organization close to the presynaptic density was observed, accompanied by the formation of, first a putative readily releasable pool and later a recycling and reserve pool. The quantitative 3D reconstructions of synapses will enable the comparison of structural and functional aspects of signal transduction thus leading to a better understanding of networks in the developing neocortex.
Different MicroRNA Expression Levels in Gastric Cancer Depending on Helicobacter pylori Infection

Background/Aims This study was conducted to identify microRNAs (miRNAs) that are differentially expressed in Helicobacter pylori-infected patients with an intestinal type of gastric cancer using miRNA microarray and to confirm the candidate miRNA expression levels. Methods Total RNA was extracted from the cancerous and noncancerous regions of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues of H. pylori-positive (n=8) or H. pylori-negative (n=8) patients with an intestinal type of gastric cancer. RNA expression was analyzed using a 3,523 miRNA profiling microarray based on the Sanger miRBase. Validation analysis was performed using TaqMan miRNA assays. Results A total of 219 miRNAs in the aberrant miRNA profiles across the miRNA microarray showed at least a 2-fold change differential expression in H. pylori-positive and H. pylori-negative cancer tissues. After candidate miRNAs were selected using online miRNA databases, TaqMan miRNA assays confirmed that three miRNAs (miR-99b-3p, miR-564, and miR-638) were significantly increased in three H. pylori-positive cancer tissues compared to the H. pylori-negative cancer tissues. Additionally, four miRNAs (miR-204-5p, miR-338-5p, miR-375, and miR-548c-3p) were significantly increased in H. pylori-negative cancer tissues compared to H. pylori-positive cancer tissues. Conclusions miRNA expression in the intestinal type of H. pylori infection-dependent gastric cancer suggests that different gastric cancer pathogenesis mechanisms could exist between H. pylori-positive and H. pylori-negative gastric cancer. Additional functional studies are required.
Intersection Vehicle Cooperative Eco-Driving in the Context of Partially Connected Vehicle Environment

Vehicles with communication functionality are appearing on the roads and transition towards a fully connected vehicle environment will be gradual. Infra-vehicle communication can play a major role in promoting traffic performance in a partially connected vehicle environment. This paper addresses such a real traffic context to present a vehicle control system for eco-driving based on intersection vehicle cooperation. More specifically, the proposed system measures the state of the preceding vehicle by own sensors, and receives information from upcoming intersection signal that exists within the communication range. Next, based on the predicted behavior of the preceding vehicle in a look forward horizon and traffic signal timing, the optimal acceleration of the vehicle is generated in a model predictive control framework. The velocity of the vehicle is dynamically tuned to reduce or avoid idling in red signals either by speeding up or slowing down early, considering constraint imposed by any unconnected preceding vehicles. The proposed eco-driving system is evaluated through microscopic simulation.
Sero-prevalence of HIV infection among tuberculosis patients in a rural tuberculosis referral clinic in northern Nigeria

Co-infection with Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis the causative agent of Tuberculosis (TB), has been referred to as the “cursed duet” as a result of the attendant morbidity and mortality due to their synergistic actions. This study was carried out to determine the prevalence of HIV infection among Tuberculosis (TB) confirmed patients on admission at a TB referral centre. The association of HIV prevalence with gender and age as risk factors was also determined. Blood samples were collected by venipuncture from 257 TB patients and their HIV status determined. Viral antibody detection was carried out using ELISA kits which detected both HIV-1 and HIV-2 and confirmed by Western blot. Of the 257 patients screened, 44.20% (106) were HIV positive. The prevalence of co-infection was higher among the female (44.82%) than the male (38.30%) patients and highest among those aged 21-40 years old (45.30%). Co-infection was found to be statistically highly associated with gender and age (p<0.05). A very high prevalence of HIV infection was reported in this study among patients that were on admission on the grounds that they had only TB. It is therefore important to screen for HIV among all TB patients.
A usage-aware scheduler for improving MapReduce performance in heterogeneous environments

Big data cannot be efficiently dealt with using most relational database management systems, as usually it requires parallel execution on a large amount of servers. MapReduce is suitable for processing large data sets, however, most traditional MapReduce schedulers assume that system is homogeneous and all tasks are executed equally in time. In reality, the completion time of a MapReduce job may be delayed due to slower tasks. This paper presents a usage-aware MapReduce scheduler to deal with the system heterogeneity by including task execution time in scheduling. Inspiration from the ideas of both the Fair scheduler and LATE scheduler, our usage-aware scheduler is able to reduce the overall completion time of MapReduce applications. Experimental results show that a reduction of up to 30% of job execution time is attainable.
Working with a small dataset - semi-supervised dependency parsing for Irish

We present a number of semi-supervised parsing experiments on the Irish language carried out using a small seed set of manually parsed trees and a larger, yet still relatively small, set of unlabelled sentences. We take two popular dependency parsers ‐ one graph-based and one transition-based ‐ and compare results for both. Results show that using semisupervised learning in the form of self-training and co-training yields only very modest improvements in parsing accuracy. We also try to use morphological information in a targeted way and fail to see any improvements.
Kinetics of Carboxylmethylation of the Charge Isoforms of Myelin Basic Protein by Protein Methyltransferase II

Abstract: The charge isoforms (C1‐C5) of bovine myelin basic protein (MBP) were used as substrates for the rat brain enzyme protein carboxylmethyltransferase (PM II). The objective of these experiments was to ascertain whether the kinetic behavior of the MBP isoforms reflected differences in the structures of this molecular family. Initial velocity plots as a function of the MBP‐isoform concentration showed significnt differences (p > 0.05) among the assayed isoforms except for isoforms C2 and C4. Under the conditions of our experiment all the curves exhibited a consistent sigmoidicity. The kinetic data were best fitted by a model, previously described for the enzyme D‐β‐hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase, in which two independent sites must be randomly occupied before any catalytic activity can occur. This mechanism is substantially different from that proposed by other investigators for similar PM II enzymes and other substrates. The differences in the rates of isoform carboxylmethylation are largely accounted for by the different apparent dissociation constants Ks and is explained on the basis of inherent structural differences among the charge isoforms.
One Ring to Rule Them All ... and in the Darkness Bind Them

We construct all eleven-dimensional, three-charge BPS solutions that preserve a fixed, standard set of supersymmetries. Our solutions include all BPS three-charge rotating black holes, black rings, supertubes, as well as arbitrary superpositions of these objects. We find very large families of black rings and supertubes with profiles that follow arbitrary closed curves in the spatial R^4 transverse to the branes. The black rings copiously violate black hole uniqueness. The supertube solutions are completely regular, and generically have small curvature. They also have the same asymptotics as the three-charge black hole; and so they might be mapped to microstates of the D1-D5-p system and used to explain the entropy of this black hole.
Rosenthal's theorem for subspaces of noncommutative $L_p$

We show that a reflexive subspace of the predual of a von Neumann algebra embeds into a noncommutative Lp space for some p>1. This is a noncommutative version of Rosenthal's result for commutative Lp spaces. Similarly for 1 < q < 2, an infinite dimensional subspace X of a noncommutative Lq space either contains lq or embeds in Lp for some q < p < 2. The novelty in the noncommutative setting is a double sided change of density.
Towards the Rational Design of a Candidate Vaccine against Pregnancy Associated Malaria: Conserved Sequences of the DBL6ε Domain of VAR2CSA

Background Placental malaria is a disease linked to the sequestration of Plasmodium falciparum infected red blood cells (IRBC) in the placenta, leading to reduced materno-fetal exchanges and to local inflammation. One of the virulence factors of P. falciparum involved in cytoadherence to chondroitin sulfate A, its placental receptor, is the adhesive protein VAR2CSA. Its localisation on the surface of IRBC makes it accessible to the immune system. VAR2CSA contains six DBL domains. The DBL6ε domain is the most variable. High variability constitutes a means for the parasite to evade the host immune response. The DBL6ε domain could constitute a very attractive basis for a vaccine candidate but its reported variability necessitates, for antigenic characterisations, identifying and classifying commonalities across isolates. Methodology/Principal Findings Local alignment analysis of the DBL6ε domain had revealed that it is not as variable as previously described. Variability is concentrated in seven regions present on the surface of the DBL6ε domain. The main goal of our work is to classify and group variable sequences that will simplify further research to determine dominant epitopes. Firstly, variable sequences were grouped following their average percent pairwise identity (APPI). Groups comprising many variable sequences sharing low variability were found. Secondly, ELISA experiments following the IgG recognition of a recombinant DBL6ε domain, and of peptides mimicking its seven variable blocks, allowed to determine an APPI cut-off and to isolate groups represented by a single consensus sequence. Conclusions/Significance A new sequence approach is used to compare variable regions in sequences that have extensive segmental gene relationship. Using this approach, the VAR2CSA DBL6 domain is composed of 7 variable blocks with limited polymorphism. Each variable block is composed of a limited number of consensus types. Based on peptide based ELISA, variable blocks with 85% or greater sequence identity are expected to be recognized equally well by antibody and can be considered the same consensus type. Therefore, the analysis of the antibody response against the classified small number of sequences should be helpful to determine epitopes.
Cancer Mortality Pattern in Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos, Nigeria

Background. Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and about 70% of all cancer deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries. The cancer mortality pattern is quite different in Africa compared to other parts of the world. Extensive literature research showed little or no information about the overall deaths attributable to cancer in Nigeria. Aims and Objectives. This study aims at providing data on the patterns of cancer deaths in our center using the hospital and autopsy death registers. Methodology. Demographic, clinical data of patients who died of cancer were extracted from death registers in the wards and mortuary over a period of 14 years (2000–2013). Results. A total of 1436 (4.74%) cancer deaths out of 30287 deaths recorded during the period. The male to female ratio was 1 : 2.2 and the peak age of death was between 51 and 60 years. Overall, breast cancer was responsible for most of the deaths. Conclusion. The study shows that the cancers that accounted for majority of death occurred in organs that were accessible to screening procedures and not necessary for survival. We advise regular screening for precancerous lesions in these organs so as to reduce the mortality rate and burden of cancer.
Cagney and Lacey: reading character structurally and politically

Analyse semiotique d'une «dramatique» televisee americaine: «Cagney and Lacey», l'histoire de deux policiers modele programmee sur la chaine CBS en fevrier 1985. Le probleme de la representation des personnages de fiction a la television est aborde a partir de cet exemple et analyse selon les criteres et les methodes structuralistes
Curcumin potentiates antitumor activity of cisplatin in bladder cancer cell lines via ROS-mediated activation of ERK1/2

Resistance of bladder cancer to cisplatin is a major obstacle to successful treatment. In the current study, we investigated the apoptotic effects of curcumin and cisplatin co-treatment in 253J-Bv(p53 wild-type) and T24(p53 mutant) bladder cancer. We found that curcumin and cisplatin co-treatment primarily targets reactive oxygen species(ROS) and extracellular regulated kinase(ERK) signaling during the apoptosis induction in bladder cancer. The apoptosis rate in 253J-Bv and T24 cells co-treated with curcumin and cisplatin was increased compared to that in cells exposed to single-agent treatment conditions. Also, caspase-3 activation and ROS production were observed in both cells treated with curcumin and cisplatin, together with upregulation of p-MEK and p-ERK1/2 signaling. NAC(ROS scavenger) and U0126(ERK inhibitor) inhibited apoptosis induced by curcumin and cisplatin. In addition, when 253J-Bv cells were co-treated with curcumin and cisplatin, p53 and p21 expression levels were markedly increased when compared to controls. Unlike 253J-Bv cells, T24 cells were co-treated with curcumin and cisplatin revealed an induction of apoptosis through decreased p-signal transducer and activator of transcription 3(STAT3) expression. Moreover, pretreatment with U0126 suppressed curcumin and cisplatin-induced upregulation of p53, p21, and p-STAT3 and downregulation of survival proteins in both cells. In conclusion, co-treatment with curcumin and cisplatin synergistically induced apoptosis through ROS-mediated activation of ERK1/2 in bladder cancer.
The APOE Genotype in Idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus

Introduction Amyloid plaque has been reported in brain biopsies from patients with idiopathic normal-pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) and proposed as a significant feature of the pathophysiology. Presence of the apolipoprotein E ε4 (APOE ε4) allele is associated with increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Aims To compare the distribution of APOE genotype in iNPH patients with an age-matched population-based control group and with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients. Methods APOE genotype frequencies were determined in 77 iNPH patients (50 men and 27 women, mean age 71.7 years) diagnosed with iNPH, a sample of 691 AD patients and 638 age-matched population controls (299 men and 339 women) from the INTERGENE cohort. Results The APOE distribution did not differ significantly between the iNPH patients and the control population. The per e4-allele odds-ratio (OR) of iNPH was given by OR = 0.90, 95% confidence interval (CI) = (0.50, 1.60) that was considerably smaller than the per-allele OR of AD, OR = 5.34 (4.10, 7.00). Conclusion The results suggest that the APOE-related risk of AD in patients with iNPH is not higher than in the general population.
Should Good Girls Like Bad Sex: Depictions of Kink in Cosmo

Kink has become a more widely discussed sexual practice over time. Recent pop culture releases like the publication of Fifty Shades of Grey have increased this discussion. Cosmopolitan magazine (Cosmo) is one of the most well-known women’s magazines in the world and its sexual advice is one of its defining characteristics. Using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, I examine Cosmo’s depictions of kink from 1996 to 2014. Cosmo was more likely to mention kink in later years than in earlier ones, and its mentions of kink in later years were more likely to be positive. These mentions were most common the year after Fifty Shades of Grey was published. However, though the magazine bills itself as edgy and boundary pushing, Cosmo’s sexual advice over the study period tended to reinforce the existing status quo that prioritizes male sexuality and tasked women with fulfilling their partner’s sexual needs. INDEX WORDS: Kink, BDSM, Content analysis, Lifestyle magazine, Popular media, Gender SHOULD GOOD GIRLS LIKE BAD SEX? : REPRESENTATIONS OF KINK IN COSMO