Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Monoacylglycerol Lipase Limits the Duration of Endocannabinoid-Mediated Depolarization-Induced Suppression of Excitation in Autaptic Hippocampal Neurons

Depolarization-induced suppression of excitation (DSE) is a major form of cannabinoid-mediated short-term retrograde neuronal plasticity and is found in numerous brain regions. Autaptically cultured murine hippocampal neurons are an architecturally simple model for the study of cannabinoid signaling, including DSE. The transient nature of DSE—tens of seconds—is probably determined by the regulated hydrolysis of the endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG). No less than five candidate enzymes have been considered to serve this role: fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), monoacylglycerol lipase (MGL), and α/β-hydrolase domain (ABHD) 6 and 12. We previously found that FAAH and COX-2 do not have a role in determining the duration of autaptic DSE. In the current study, we found that two structurally distinct inhibitors of MGL [N-arachidonoyl maleimide and 4-nitrophenyl 4-(dibenzo[d][1,3]dioxol-5-yl(hydroxy)methyl)piperidine-1-carboxylate (JZL184)] prolong DSE in autaptic hippocampal neurons, whereas inhibition of ABHD6 by N-methyl-N-[[3-(4-pyridinyl)phenyl]methyl]-4′-(aminocarbonyl)[1,1′-biphenyl]-4-yl ester, carbamic acid (WWL70) had no effect. In addition, we developed antibodies against MGL and ABHD6 and determined their expression in autaptic cultures. MGL is chiefly expressed at presynaptic terminals, optimally positioned to break down 2-AG that has engaged presynaptic CB1 receptors. ABHD6 is expressed in two distinct locations on autaptic islands, including a prominent localization in some dendrites. In summary, we provide strong pharmacological and anatomical evidence that MGL regulates DSE in autaptic hippocampal neurons and, taken together with other studies, emphasizes that endocannabinoid signaling is terminated in temporally diverse ways.
How does ryanodine modify ion handling in the sheep cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+)-release channel?

Under appropriate conditions, the interaction of the plant alkaloid ryanodine with a single cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+)-release channel results in a profound modification of both channel gating and conduction. On modification, the channel undergoes a dramatic increase in open probability and a change in single-channel conductance. In this paper we aim to provide a mechanistic framework for the interpretation of the altered conductance seen after ryanodine binding to the channel protein. To do this we have characterized single-channel conductance with representative members of three classes of permeant cation; group 1a monovalent cations, alkaline earth divalent cations, and organic monovalent cations. We have quantified the change in single-channel conductance induced by ryanodine and have expressed this as a fraction of conductance in the absence of ryanodine. Fractional conductance seen in symmetrical 210 mM solutions is not fixed but varies with the nature of the permeant cation. The group 1a monovalent cations (K+, Na+, Cs+, Li+) have values of fractional conductance in a narrow range (0.60- 0.66). With divalent cations fractional conductance is considerably lower (Ba2+, 0.22 and Sr2+, 0.28), whereas values of fractional conductance vary considerably with the organic monovalent cations (ammonia 0.66, ethylamine 0.76, propanolamine 0.65, diethanolamine 0.92, diethylamine 1.2). To establish the mechanisms governing these differences, we have monitored the affinity of the conduction pathway for, and the relative permeability of, representative cations in the ryanodine-modified channel. These parameters have been compared with those obtained in previous studies from this laboratory using the channel in the absence of ryanodine and have been modeled by modifying our existing single-ion, four-barrier three-well rate theory model of conduction in the unmodified channel. Our findings indicate that the high affinity, essentially irreversible, interaction of ryanodine with the cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+)-release channel produces a conformational alteration of the protein which results in modified ion handling. We suggest that, on modification, the affinity of the channel for the group 1a monovalent cations is increased while the relative permeability of this class of cations remains essentially unaltered. The affinity of the conduction pathway for the alkaline earth divalent cations is also increased, however the relative permeability of this class of cations is reduced compared to the unmodified channel. The influence of modification on the handling by the channel of the organic monovalent cations is determined by both the size and the nature of the cation. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Channel modeling based on random propagation graphs for high speed railway scenarios

In this paper, a channel modeling method based on random-propagation-graph is elaborated, validated, and applied to characterizing time-variant channels observed in typical environments for high-speed railway wireless communications. The advantage of the proposed method is that the frequency-tempo-spatial channel coefficients, as well as the multi-dimensional channel impulse responses in delay, Doppler frequency, direction of arrival (i.e. azimuth and elevation of arrival) and direction of departure are calculated analytically for specific environments. The validation of the proposed method is performed by comparing the statistics of two large-scale parameters obtained with those described in the well-established standards. Finally, stochastic geometry-based models in the same format as the well-known spatial channel model enhanced (SCME) are generated by using the proposed method for the high-speed scenarios in the rural, urban, and suburban environments.
Predictable Dual-View Hashing

We propose a Predictable Dual-View Hashing (PDH) algorithm which embeds proximity of data samples in the original spaces. We create a cross-view hamming space with the ability to compare information from previously incomparable domains with a notion of 'predictability'. By performing comparative experimental analysis on two large datasets, PASCAL-Sentence and SUN-Attribute, we demonstrate the superiority of our method to the state-of-the-art dual-view binary code learning algorithms.
The significance of coagulase-negative staphylococci bacteremia in a low resource setting.

INTRODUCTION Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) are a group of micro-organisms that are increasingly implicated as a cause of significant infection and the leading cause of bloodstream infection (BSI). One important predictor of true BSI is the isolation of CoNS from multiple blood cultures, presuming that the isolates represent the same species. Thus the objective of this study was to determine the significance of repeated CoNS isolated from blood cultures. METHODOLOGY This was a prospective laboratory study which was initiated in June 2007 and lasted until July 2008. CoNS isolates were obtained from patients who had two positive blood cultures within a 14-day interval. CoNS were identified to the species level using an API-Staph, and antibiotics susceptibility testing was performed according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute specifications. Strain relatedness was confirmed using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. RESULTS During the study period, 202 CoNS-positive samples were isolated from 101 patients. The most common species isolated was Staphylococcus epidermidis (59.0%), and 83.2% of the patients isolated the same species of CoNS from repeated blood cultures. Among the isolates of the same species, only 40.7% had the same antibiogram. CoNS with the same species and antibiogram had 93.3% probability of belonging to the same strain. Most (65.5%) of the patients were treated with antibiotics, primarily from the glycopeptides group. CONCLUSION Speciation and antibiogram of CoNS from repeated blood cultures are adequate in determining the significance of repeated CoNS isolated from blood cultures.
Sensorless Indirect Field Oriented Control of induction motors with rotor resistance adaptation

This paper presents a controller for speed-sensorless induction motors which is adaptive with respect to the rotor resistance. The non-adaptive solution presented by the authors in Automatica, vol. 42, no. 10, October 2006 is revised to plug-in a rotor resistance adaptation mechanism. The solution presented in this paper provides local asymptotic speed and flux amplitude tracking together with local asymptotic field orientation and asymptotic convergence of rotor resistance and load torque estimation, under assumptions of unknown and constant rotor resistance and load torque and provided that a physically meaningful persistency of excitation condition is satisfied. No simplifying hypothesis such as the knowledge of stator fluxes, pure integration of the stator flux dynamics or stator current differentiation are introduced. The speed-flux controller is based on the Improved Indirect Field Oriented Control approach, while the speed is estimated by a high-gain reduced-order speed observer. The rotor resistance adaptation law is designed taking into account the peculiarities of the original non-adaptive solution. The achievable performances are tested by simulation.
Gender differences in time perception and its relation with academic performance: non-linear dynamics in the formation of cognitive systems

Non-linear dynamics is probably much more common in the epigenetic dynamics of living beings than hitherto recognized. Here we report a case of global bifurcation triggered by gender that affects higher cognitive functions in humans. We report a cross-cultural study showing deviations in time perception, as assessed by estimating the duration of brief sounds, according to their durations and to the gender of the perciver. Results show that the duration of sounds lasting less than 10 s were on average overestimated, whereas those lasting longer were underestimated; estimates of sounds shorter than 1 s were extremely inaccurate. Females consistently gave longer estimates than males. Accuracy in time estimation was correlated to academic performance in disciplines requiring mathematical or scientific skills in male, but not in female students. This difference in correlation however had nothing to do with overall skills in mathematics. Both sexes scored similarly in scientific and technical disciplines, but females had higher grades than males in languages and lower ones in physical education. Our results confirm existing evidence for gender differences in cognitive processing, hinting to the existence of different "mathematical intelligences" with different non-linear relationships between natural or biological mathematical intuition and time perception.
Learning continuous-valued word representations for phrase break prediction

Phrase break prediction is the ﬁrst step in modeling prosody for text-to-speech systems (TTS). Traditional methods of phrase break prediction have used discrete linguistic representations (like POS tags, induced POS tags, word-terminal syllables) for modeling these breaks. However these discrete representations suffer from a number of issues such as ﬁxing the number of discrete classes and also such a representation does not capture the co-occurrence statistics of the words. As a result, the use of continuous valued word representation was proposed in lit-erature. In this paper, we propose a neural network dictionary learning architecture to induce task speciﬁc continuous valued word representations, and show that these task speciﬁc features perform better at phrase break prediction as compared to continuous features derived using Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA).
Distinct Contributions of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal and Orbitofrontal Cortex during Emotion Regulation

The lateral prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices have both been implicated in emotion regulation, but their distinct roles in regulation of negative emotion remain poorly understood. To address this issue we enrolled 58 participants in an fMRI study in which participants were instructed to reappraise both negative and neutral stimuli. This design allowed us to separately study activations reflecting cognitive processes associated with reappraisal in general and activations specifically related to reappraisal of negative emotion. Our results confirmed that both the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) contribute to emotion regulation through reappraisal. However, activity in the DLPFC was related to reappraisal independently of whether negative or neutral stimuli were reappraised, whereas the lateral OFC was uniquely related to reappraisal of negative stimuli. We suggest that relative to the lateral OFC, the DLPFC serves a more general role in emotion regulation, perhaps by reflecting the cognitive demand that is inherent to the regulation task.
Analyses of Brucella Pathogenesis, Host Immunity, and Vaccine Targets using Systems Biology and Bioinformatics

Brucella is a Gram-negative, facultative intracellular bacterium that causes zoonotic brucellosis in humans and various animals. Out of 10 classified Brucella species, B. melitensis, B. abortus, B. suis, and B. canis are pathogenic to humans. In the past decade, the mechanisms of Brucella pathogenesis and host immunity have been extensively investigated using the cutting edge systems biology and bioinformatics approaches. This article provides a comprehensive review of the applications of Omics (including genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics) and bioinformatics technologies for the analysis of Brucella pathogenesis, host immune responses, and vaccine targets. Based on more than 30 sequenced Brucella genomes, comparative genomics is able to identify gene variations among Brucella strains that help to explain host specificity and virulence differences among Brucella species. Diverse transcriptomics and proteomics gene expression studies have been conducted to analyze gene expression profiles of wild type Brucella strains and mutants under different laboratory conditions. High throughput Omics analyses of host responses to infections with virulent or attenuated Brucella strains have been focused on responses by mouse and cattle macrophages, bovine trophoblastic cells, mouse and boar splenocytes, and ram buffy coat. Differential serum responses in humans and rams to Brucella infections have been analyzed using high throughput serum antibody screening technology. The Vaxign reverse vaccinology has been used to predict many Brucella vaccine targets. More than 180 Brucella virulence factors and their gene interaction networks have been identified using advanced literature mining methods. The recent development of community-based Vaccine Ontology and Brucellosis Ontology provides an efficient way for Brucella data integration, exchange, and computer-assisted automated reasoning.
The effectiveness of a computer-assisted math learning program

Computer-assisted instruction CAI programs are considered as a way to improve learning outcomes of students. However, little is known on the schools who implement such programs as well as on the effectiveness of similar information and communication technology programs. We provide a literature review that pays special attention to the existing causal evidence of computer-assisted programs on learning outcomes. The paper relies on a rich data set consisting of i pupil-level information on the use of a Dutch computer-assisted program and ii detailed school-level information on, among others, outcomes on national exams. The results suggest that schools with lower educational attainments use more frequently CAI programs. This suggests that they use CAI programs to catch up on learning outcomes. Moreover, using an instrumental variable design, we argue that given the participation in the CAI program, making more exercises leads to higher test results. Working with a CAI program seems therefore effective.
Endings and beginnings : a thematic analysis of client and psychotherapist experience of an imposed change of psychotherapist

This study explores a phenomenon that has over the years attracted little systematic investigation and has never been addressed from the dual perspectives of client and therapist in a working therapeutic dyad. This original contribution provides knowledge on how an imposed change of therapist can impact individuals, relational dynamics and therapeutic outcome. The research took place in a substance misuse agency with four therapeutic dyads composed of client and replacement therapist. A thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews was used to capture individual client and therapist experiences of the phenomenon, then paired client and therapist interviews were analysed for dyad material. The client experience of the imposed ending and change to a different therapist involved the activation of the attachment system and the possibility of change in substance use or the fear of relapse. For clients there was an accumulation of losses linked to the relationship with the departing therapist, the work done in that relationship and the hope of an outcome from that work. The experience of the therapist working with an imposed change client is documented in their approach to working as the replacement therapist and a presence in the relationship of the first therapist. In the four dyad accounts the findings from individuals are seen to shape the development and trajectory of this second relationship and therapy outcome. From the findings, the importance of acknowledging and working with this phenomenon is discussed and recommendations are made for both practitioners and organisations to benefit client, therapist and organisation. The data not only fills a gap in knowledge but also opens the way for further investigation into the relationship that ended due to the therapist’s departure and the phenomenon’s impact in different clinical settings.
Long-term fiscal implications of subsidizing in-vitro fertilization in Sweden: A lifetime tax perspective

Aims: In Sweden approximately 3% of annual births are conceived using assisted reproductive technologies (ART). In light of increasing use of ART in Sweden we estimate the lifetime future tax revenues of a child conceived by in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to establish whether public subsidy of IVF represents sound fiscal policy. Methods: A modified generational accounting model was developed to calculate the net present value (NPV) of average investment costs required to achieve an IVF-conceived child. The model simulates direct lifetime financial interactions between the child and the Swedish government. Within the model we assume average direct financial transfers are made to the individual (eg, child allowance, education, health care, pension, etc). In return, the individual transfers resources to the government through taxation based on anticipated average earnings. The difference between direct transfers and gross taxes paid equals the net-tax contribution. Individual tax contributions were held constant in the model. Results: Based on average life-expectancy an individual born in 2005 will pay an undiscounted 32.5 million SEK in taxes to the Swedish government and receive 20.9 million SEK in direct financial transfers over their lifetime. When these figures are discounted and IVF costs are included in the analysis we obtain a lifetime NPV of 254,000 SEK with a break-even point at age 41 (the age of achieving a positive NPV) for an individual conceived through IVF. Conclusions: Based on results presented here we conclude that State-funded IVF in Sweden does not negatively impact the long run fiscal budget. Conversely, over an average lifetime an IVF offspring returns a positive net value to the State.
Three Regions within Acta Promote Arp2/3 Complex-Mediated Actin Nucleation and Listeria monocytogenes Motility

The Listeria monocytogenes ActA protein induces actin-based motility by enhancing the actin nucleating activity of the host Arp2/3 complex. Using systematic truncation analysis, we identified a 136-residue NH2-terminal fragment that was fully active in stimulating nucleation in vitro. Further deletion analysis demonstrated that this fragment contains three regions, which are important for nucleation and share functional and/or limited sequence similarity with host WASP family proteins: an acidic stretch, an actin monomer–binding region, and a cofilin homology sequence. To determine the contribution of each region to actin-based motility, we compared the biochemical activities of ActA derivatives with the phenotypes of corresponding mutant bacteria in cells. The acidic stretch functions to increase the efficiency of actin nucleation, the rate and frequency of motility, and the effectiveness of cell–cell spread. The monomer-binding region is required for actin nucleation in vitro, but not for actin polymerization or motility in infected cells, suggesting that redundant mechanisms may exist to recruit monomer in host cytosol. The cofilin homology sequence is critical for stimulating actin nucleation with the Arp2/3 complex in vitro, and is essential for actin polymerization and motility in cells. These data demonstrate that each region contributes to actin-based motility, and that the cofilin homology sequence plays a principal role in activation of the Arp2/3 complex, and is an essential determinant of L. monocytogenes pathogenesis.
A Self-Report Critical Incident Assessment Tool for Army Night Vision Goggle Helicopter Operations

Objective: The present study sought to examine the utility of a self-report tool that was designed as a partial substitute for a face-to-face cognitive interview for critical incidents involving night vision goggles (NVGs). Background: The use of NVGs remains problematic within the military environment, as these devices have been identified as a factor in a significant proportion of aircraft accidents and incidents. The self-report tool was structured to identify some of the cognitive features of human performance that were associated with critical incidents involving NVGs. The tool incorporated a number of different levels of analysis, ranging from specific behavioral responses to broader cognitive constructs. Method: Reports were received from 30 active pilots within the Australian Army using the NVG Critical Incident Assessment Tool (NVGCIAT). Results: The results revealed a correspondence between specific types of NVG-related errors and elements of the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS). In addition, uncertainty emerged as a significant factor associated with the critical incidents that were recalled by operators. Conclusion: These results were broadly consistent with previous research and provide some support for the utility of subjective assessment tools as a means of extracting critical incident-related data when face-to-face cognitive interviews are not possible. Application: In some circumstances, the NVGCIAT might be regarded as a substitute cognitive interview protocol with some level of diagnosticity.