Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Large-Conductance Calcium-Activated Potassium Channels Facilitate Transmitter Release in Salamander Rod Synapse

Large-conductance calcium-activated potassium (BK) channels are colocalized with calcium channels at sites of exocytosis at the presynaptic terminals throughout the nervous system. It is expected that their activation would provide negative feedback to transmitter release, but the opposite is sometimes observed. Attempts to resolve this apparent paradox based on alterations in action potential waveform have been ambiguous. In an alternative approach, we investigated the influence of this channel on neurotransmitter release in a nonspiking neuron, the salamander rod photoreceptors. Surprisingly, the BK channel facilitates calcium-mediated transmitter release from rods. The two presynaptic channels form a positive coupled loop. Calcium influx activates the BK channel current, leading to potassium efflux that increases the calcium current. The normal physiological voltage range of the rod is well matched to the dynamics of this positive loop. When the rod is further depolarized, then the hyperpolarizing BK channel current exceeds its facilitatory effect, causing truncation of transmitter release. Thus, the calcium channel-BK channel linkage performs two functions at the synapse: nonlinear potentiator and safety brake.
Deep Sclerectomy with Goniosynechiolysis Ab Interno for Chronic Glaucoma Associated with Peripheral Anterior Synechiae

Purpose. To report one-year results of phacoemulsification combined with deep sclerectomy and goniosynechiolysis ab interno for chronic glaucoma associated with peripheral anterior synechiae (PAS). Methods. We retrospectively analyzed medical charts of 16 patients (20 eyes) treated by one-site combined phacoemulsification and deep sclerectomy with goniosynechiolysis ab interno. PAS were transected by a spatula introduced into the anterior chamber through a paracentesis. To account for the correlation of right and left eyes a linear mixed model with unstructured covariance structure was calculated. Results. The mean preoperative intraocular pressure (IOP) was 20.3 ± 5.2 mmHg with 2.4 ± 1.0 medications. One year postoperatively, the mean IOP was 15.3 ± 3.3 mmHg (P = 0.004, paired t-test) with 0.6 ± 1.0 medications. A postoperative IOP of ≤21 mmHg without medication was achieved in 17 of 19 eyes (89.5%) and in 12/19 eyes (63.2%) at 3 and 12 months after surgery, respectively. In the remaining eyes (10.5% at 3 months and 36.8% at 12 months), additional medication led to an IOP ≤21 mmHg or the target pressure. No case required further glaucoma surgery. In one eye, conversion of the surgery to trabeculectomy was necessary due to Descemet's window rupture. Conclusions. With goniosynechiolysis ab interno, effective and safe nonpenetrating glaucoma surgery is possible in presence of PAS.
Banks' Incentives and the Quality of Internal Risk Models

This paper investigates the incentives for banks to bias their internally generated risk estimates. We are able to estimate bank biases at the credit level by comparing bank-generated risk estimates within loan syndicates. The biases are positively correlated with measures of regulatory capital, even in the presence of bank fixed effects, consistent with an effort by low-capital banks to improve regulatory ratios. At the portfolio level, the difference in borrower probability of default is as large as 100 basis points, which can improve the typical loan portfolio’s Tier 1 capital ratio by as much as 33 percent. Congruent with a regulatory motive, the sensitivity to capital is greater for larger, riskier, and more opaque credits. In addition, we find that low-capital banks’ risk estimates have less explanatory power than those of high-capital banks with regard to the prices set on loans, indicating that low-capital banks not only have downward-biased risk estimates but that they also incorporate less information.
Empathy, Open-mindedness, and Political Ideology: Conservative and Liberal Trends

While current research is sparse, the area of positive psychology is blossoming and represents a new and exciting field. Positive psychology is the "scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive" (Seligman, 2007). Among others, positive psychology identifies empathy and open-mindedness as two strengths that help individuals to succeed. Empathy is a unique characteristic that encompasses the emotional and intuitive aspects of an individual. Empathy is understood as the capability to recognize or understand another's state of mind or emotion. More specifically, it is the process of observing something from another person's point of view, or putting oneself in another's shoes (Detert, Treviño, & Sweitzer, 2008). While empathy does not necessarily mean that the empathic individual experiences compassion for another individual, present research has shown that empathy has strong correlations with sympathetic emotions and other positive outcomes. Open-mindedness is understood to be the process of showing receptiveness to new or different ideas. Based on these definitions of empathy and open-mindedness, it is clear that the two are drastically similar. Both involve understanding another person's ideas or state of mind, and perhaps as a consequence, gaining some form of acceptance from this understanding. While interesting findings have been produced in relation to each of these traits, little information is available which describes how they interact with each other, or with other personality traits. The construct of the multicultural personality, first proposed by Ramirez (1991), was established to better understand the traits that allow people to effectively function in the multicultural setting. Since its initial introduction, various studies have been conducted, and most recently this construct has been adapted to fit within
Protecting artificial team-mates: more seems like less

Previous research on conversational, competitive, and cooperative systems suggests that people respond differently to humans and AI agents in terms of perception and evaluation of observed team-mate behavior. However, there has not been research examining the relationship between participants' protective behavior toward human/AI team-mates and their beliefs about their behavior. A study was conducted in which 32 participants played two sessions of a cooperative game, once with a "presumed" human and once with an AI team-mate; players could "draw fire" from a common enemy by "yelling" at it. Overwhelmingly, players claimed they "drew fire" on behalf of the presumed human more than for the AI team-mate; logged data indicates the opposite. The main contribution of this paper is to provide evidence of the mismatch in player beliefs about their actions and actual behavior with humans or agents and provides possible explanations for the differences.
The cost of injury and trauma care in low- and middle-income countries: a review of economic evidence.

INTRODUCTION Injuries are a significant cause of mortality and morbidity, of which more than 90% occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Given the extent of this burden being confronted by LMICs, there is need to place injury prevention at the forefront of public health initiatives and to understand the costs associated with injury. The aim of this article is to describe the extent to which injury-related costing studies have been conducted in LMICs. METHODS A review of literature was performed to explore costing data available for injury and/or trauma care in LMICs. Study quality was described using recommendations from the Community Guide's quality assessment tool for economic evaluations. RESULTS The review identified 68 studies, of which 13 were full economic evaluations. Cost of injury varied widely with mean costs ranging from US$14 to US$17 400. In terms of injury-prevention interventions, cost per disability adjusted life year averted for injury-prevention interventions ranged from US$10.90 for speed bump installation to US$17 000 for drunk driving and breath testing campaigns in Africa. The studies varied in quality, ranging from very good to unsatisfactory. DISCUSSION There is a lack of injury-related economic evidence from LMICs. Current costing research has considerable variability in the costs and cost descriptions of injury and associated prevention interventions. The generalizability of these studies is limited. Yet the economic burden of injury is high, suggesting significant potential for cost savings through injury prevention. A standardized approach to economic evaluation of injury in LMICs is needed to further prioritize investing in injury prevention.
Antioxidant Capacity of the Leaf Extract Obtained from Arrabidaea chica Cultivated in Southern Brazil

Arrabidaea chica leaf extract has been used by people as an anti-inflammatory and astringent agent as well as a remedy for intestinal colic, diarrhea, leucorrhea, anemia, and leukemia. A. chica is known to be a good producer of phenolics. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated its antioxidant activity. The phenolic composition of A. chica leaves was studied by liquid chromatography coupled to diode array detection (LC–DAD) and liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (LC–ESI-MS/MS), and isoscutellarein, 6-hydroxyluteolin, hispidulin, scutellarein, luteolin, and apigenin were identified. The extract from leaves of A. chica was tested for antioxidant activity using the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method, β-carotene bleaching test, and total reactive antioxidant potential (TRAP) method. The crude extract quenched DPPH free radicals in a dose-dependent manner, and the IC50 of the extract was 13.51 µg/mL. The β-carotene bleaching test showed that the addition of the A. chica extract in different concentrations (200 and 500 µg/mL) prevented the bleaching of β-carotene at different degrees (51.2% ±3.38% and 94% ±4.61%, respectively). The TRAP test showed dose-dependent correlation between the increasing concentrations of A. chica extract (0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 µg/mL) and the TRAP values obtained by trolox (hydro-soluble vitamin E) 0.4738±0.0466, 1.981±0.1603, and 6.877±1.445 µM, respectively. The 2 main flavonoids, scutellarein and apigenin, were separated, and their antioxidant activity was found to be the same as that of the plant extract. These 2 flavonoids were quantified in the plant extract by using a validated HPLC-UV method. The results of these tests showed that the extract of A. chica had a significant antioxidant activity, which could be attributed to the presence of the mixture of flavonoids in the plant extract, with the main contribution of scutellarein and apigenin.
Computation of optimal flow control policies of a manufacturing system with multiple production rates

We address the problem of nding optimal hedging points of a production ow controller, in the sense of Bielecki and Kumar (1988). We model the dynamics of the controller by using generalized semi-Markov processes (GSMP); the GSMP framework lets us work with multiple states, and not only with exponential distribution but with fairly general distributions. Utilizing the GSMP representation, the sensitivity estimates of cost functions, consisting of inventory and backlog costs, with respect to hedging points are computed. We then discuss how these sensitivity estimates are used together with sample-path optimization , a recent simulation-based optimization method, for nding optimal hedging points.
On Search for Tailoring Functions: Empirical Findings and Design Concepts

The design of the user interface plays a major role in encouraging users to tailor an application. In this paper, we focus on a particular design issue. It is the question how to support users in finding those functions, which allow tailoring an application. An empirical investigation shows that this is a major problem when trying to tailor generic applications. To tackle this problem we develop the concept of direct activation, which eases finding a tailoring function when another function needs modification.
Sojourn time of elastic flows under perturbation of unresponsive traffic

Motivated by the need to develop simple models to obtain qualitative results for evaluating the impact of unresponsive traffic on elastic flows, we assume that transmission capacity is offered to elastic flows in a processor sharing fashion as function of the unresponsive traffic and quantified by means of a perturbation parameter e. For such a system, we analyze the impact of the perturbation on the mean sojourn time of an elastic flow, which represents a useful measure for the transfer delay of digital documents. Specifically, we derive the first two terms of the power series expansion in e of the mean sojourn time. The first order term is consistent with the reduced service rate (RSR) approximation, which corresponds to the service rate for elastic flows being constant and equal to the mean value of the perturbed service rate. The complexity of the expansion increases for the second order term and correlations created by the unresponsive traffic appear. Qualitative results show that variability in the service rate degrades the performance of elastic flows
Sarcospan-Deficient Mice Maintain Normal Muscle Function

ABSTRACT Sarcospan is an integral membrane component of the dystrophin-glycoprotein complex (DGC) found at the sarcolemma of striated and smooth muscle. The DGC plays important roles in muscle function and viability as evidenced by defects in components of the DGC, which cause muscular dystrophy. Sarcospan is unique among the components of the complex in that it contains four transmembrane domains with intracellular N- and C-terminal domains and is a member of the tetraspan superfamily of proteins. Sarcospan is tightly linked to the sarcoglycans, and together these proteins form a subcomplex within the DGC. Stable expression of sarcospan at the sarcolemma is dependent upon expression of the sarcoglycans. Here we describe the generation and analysis of mice carrying a null mutation in the Sspngene. Surprisingly, the Sspn-deficient muscle maintains expression of other components of the DGC at the sarcolemma, and no gross histological abnormalities of muscle from the mice are observed. The Sspn-deficient muscle maintains sarcolemmal integrity as determined by serum creatine kinase and Evans blue uptake assays, and the Sspn-deficient muscle maintains normal force and power generation capabilities. These data suggest either that sarcospan is not required for normal DGC function or that theSspn-deficient muscle is compensating for the absence of sarcospan, perhaps by utilizing another protein to carry out its function.
A biophysical protein folding model accounts for most mutational fitness effects in viruses

Fitness effects of mutations fall on a continuum ranging from lethal to deleterious to beneficial. The distribution of fitness effects (DFE) among random mutations is an essential component of every evolutionary model and a mathematical portrait of robustness. Recent experiments on five viral species all revealed a characteristic bimodal-shaped DFE featuring peaks at neutrality and lethality. However, the phenotypic causes underlying observed fitness effects are still unknown and presumably, are thought to vary unpredictably from one mutation to another. By combining population genetics simulations with a simple biophysical protein folding model, we show that protein thermodynamic stability accounts for a large fraction of observed mutational effects. We assume that moderately destabilizing mutations inflict a fitness penalty proportional to the reduction in folded protein, which depends continuously on folding free energy (ΔG). Most mutations in our model affect fitness by altering ΔG, whereas based on simple estimates, ∼10% abolish activity and are unconditionally lethal. Mutations pushing ΔG > 0 are also considered lethal. Contrary to neutral network theory, we find that, in mutation/selection/drift steady state, high mutation rates (m) lead to less stable proteins and a more dispersed DFE (i.e., less mutational robustness). Small population size (N) also decreases stability and robustness. In our model, a continuum of nonlethal mutations reduces fitness by ∼2% on average, whereas ∼10–35% of mutations are lethal depending on N and m. Compensatory mutations are common in small populations with high mutation rates. More broadly, we conclude that interplay between biophysical and population genetic forces shapes the DFE.
Relevance of chronic stress and the two faces of microglia in Parkinson’s disease

This review is aimed to highlight the importance of stress and glucocorticoids (GCs) in modulating the inflammatory response of brain microglia and hence its potential involvement in Parkinson’s disease (PD). The role of inflammation in PD has been reviewed extensively in the literature and it is supposed to play a key role in the course of the disease. Historically, GCs have been strongly associated as anti-inflammatory hormones. However, accumulating evidence from the peripheral and central nervous system have clearly revealed that, under specific conditions, GCs may promote brain inflammation including pro-inflammatory activation of microglia. We have summarized relevant data linking PD, neuroinflamamation and chronic stress. The timing and duration of stress response may be critical for delineating an immune response in the brain thus probably explain the dual role of GCs and/or chronic stress in different animal models of PD.
The Effects of Lidocaine and Mefenamic Acid on Post-Episiotomy Pain: A Comparative Study

Background: Most women suffer pain following an episiotomy and oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are commonly used for pain relief. Due to the gastrointestinal side effects of oral drugs, it seems that women are more accepting of topical medications for pain relief. Objectives: Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the effects of lidocaine and mefenamic acid on post-episiotomy pain. Patients and Methods: This clinical trial was carried out in 2011. It involved sixty women with singleton pregnancy who were given an episiotomy at 38 to 42 weeks of gestation. The participants were randomly divided into two groups. One group received 2% lidocaine cream (n = 30), while the other group received 250 mg of mefenamic acid (n = 30). The data were collected via a questionnaire and a visual analog scale. Pain intensity was compared from the first complaint by the mother and at 6, 12, and 24 hours after the delivery in both groups. The data were analyzed using SPSS (version 16), the t-test, and the paired t-test, and a P value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: The mean intensity of pain at the first compliant was 4.92 ± 1.9 in the lidocaine group and 4.90 ± 1.5 in the mefenamic acid group, and the difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.20). Additionally, there was no significant difference in the mean intensity of post-episiotomy pain between the two groups at 6 (P = 0.05), 12 (P = 0.36), and 24 (P = 0.98) hours after childbirth. Conclusions: The effects of the lidocaine cream and mefenamic acid were similar in terms of the relief of post-episiotomy pain. Lidocaine cream therefore represents a good alternative to mefenamic acid, which is commonly used to reduce pain following an episiotomy, especially in women who are breastfeeding and who wish to avoid oral analgesic drugs being secreted in their milk. © 2016, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences.
Descriptive epidemiology of blood pressure in a rural adult population in Northern Ghana.

INTRODUCTION There are limited data on blood pressure (BP) levels in rural populations in sub-Saharan Africa. This is a cause for concern considering high BP contributes to a substantial public health burden in this population. METHODS Blood pressure levels were measured in a representative rural sample from Kassena-Nankana District of Northern Ghana, West Africa, and associations with anthropometric indices, age, sex, and time of BP measurement were assessed. This cross-sectional survey was made on a random sample drawn from a population register and included 207 males and 367 females aged between 18 and 65 years. Data collection consisted of anthropometric and blood pressure measurements after questionnaire interviews. Household salt consumption was also measured in 20 randomly selected households. RESULTS Overall prevalence of casual high BP was 19.3% (111/574). Age-adjusted mean (standard deviation) systolic BPs (SBPs) and diastolic BPs (DBPs) were 124.25 (18.67) and 69.92 (12.09) mmHg in males and 122.07 (22.01) and 72.11 (12.35) mmHg in females. Mean body mass index (BMI) was 21.78 (3.09) kg/m2; 21.13 (2.27) for males and 22.15 (3.41) kg/m2 for females (p > 0.05). Blood pressures increased with age, 4 and 3 mmHg per decade for SBP and DBP, respectively (p < 0.000). Regression analyses showed that SBP was significantly associated with age, BMI, waist circumference and time of BP measurement (p < 0.000). In multiple regression analyses, age and BMI were independently associated with SBP and DBP in women (p < 0.001). Time of BP measurement was independently associated with SBP but only in men (p < 0.001). There was no increase in BMI with age. Repeat measurements in 89 subjects yielded a regression dilution factor of 0.57 for SBP. Salt consumption per individual was estimated as equivalent to 12.5 g of pure salt/day. CONCLUSION Average BPs are not notably high in this predominantly lean rural West African population. Blood pressures do, however, increase as expected with age and BMI. Population-wide approaches need to be developed, appropriate to the level of medical provision, in order to address vascular disease risks resulting from higher than optimal BPs. These should include programs to reduce salt consumption.