Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Abrogation of Prostaglandin E2/EP4 Signaling Impairs the Development of rag1+ Lymphoid Precursors in the Thymus of Zebrafish Embryos1

PGE2 is involved in a wide variety of physiological and pathological processes; however, deciphering its role in early mammalian development has been difficult due to the maternal contribution of PGE2. To overcome this limitation we have investigated the role of PGE2 during T cell development in zebrafish. In this study, we show that zebrafish ep4a, a PGE2 receptor isoform of EP4, is expressed at 26 h postfertilization in the dorsal aorta-posterior cardinal vein joint region, which has a high homology with the mammal aorta-gonad-mesonephros area and where definitive hemopoiesis arises. Furthermore, it is expressed in the presumptive thymus rudiment by 48 h postfertilization. Supplementation of PGE2 results in a strong increase in rag1 levels and cell proliferation in the thymus. In contrast, the inhibition of PGE2 production, as well as EP4 blockade, abrogates the expression of rag1 in the thymus and that of the lymphoid precursor marker ikaros, not only in the dorsal aorta-posterior cardinal vein joint region but also in the newly identified caudal hemopoietic tissue without affecting early hemopoietic (scl, gata2) and erythropoietic (gata1) markers. These results identify ep4a as the earliest thymus marker and define a novel role for the PGE2/EP4 pathway in controlling T cell precursor development in zebrafish.
A simple but tough-to-beat baseline for the Fake News Challenge stance detection task

Identifying public misinformation is a complicated and challenging task. An important part of checking the veracity of a specific claim is to evaluate the stance different news sources take towards the assertion. Automatic stance evaluation, i.e. stance detection, would arguably facilitate the process of fact checking. In this paper, we present our stance detection system which claimed third place in Stage 1 of the Fake News Challenge. Despite our straightforward approach, our system performs at a competitive level with the complex ensembles of the top two winning teams. We therefore propose our system as the 'simple but tough-to-beat baseline' for the Fake News Challenge stance detection task.
Scratching below the Surface: Wound Healing and Alanine Mutagenesis Provide Unique Insights into Interactions between Eristostatin, Platelets and Melanoma Cells

To study the molecular mechanism of the disintegrin eristostatin, cellular functional studies were performed using ten recombinant alanine mutants. ADP-induced platelet aggregation revealed critical contributions of seven residues within the ‘RGD loop’ (R24, R27, G28, N31) and C-terminus (W47, N48, G49) of this disintegrin. Using an in vitro scratch wound healing assay, four human melanoma cell lines yielded similar results when exposed to wildtype eristostatin. All eristostatin-treated cells healed less of the wounded area than control conditions. This phenomenon was reproduced when using fibronectin as the matrix. C8161 cells showed significant delay in wound closure with the N-terminal mutant P4A but not with R24A or G28A. Evidence from our laboratory and others suggests neither alpha IIb, alpha 4 nor alpha 5 integrins are directly involved in eristostatin’s interactions. Eristostatin did not affect the number of melanoma cells in culture after 24 h or the development of apoptosis. However, phosphorylation studies performed after these melanoma cells were exposed to eristostatin revealed changes in several tyrosine phosphorylated molecules.
Recent Progress of Experiment on DC Superconducting Power Transmission Line in Chubu University

A test stand of a DC superconducting power transmission cable was finished to construct in October 2006 in Chubu University, Japan, and three cooling cycles were carried out to measure the properties of the cable. Critical current of HTS tapes in the cable was measured at every cooling cycle and shows the similar temperature dependence; conclusively, the HTS tapes suffered no damage after cooling and heating process between the each cycle. Peltier current leads were partly installed in the test stand, and it was measured that the temperatures of the feedthrough near to the liquid nitrogen were decreased in spite of a current feeding.
Sclerosing Disorders of the Skin: An Overview With Focus on Histopathological Features

Abstract:Sclerosing disorders of the skin consist of a heterogeneous spectrum of entities that share in common cutaneous sclerosis with excessive local accumulation of collagen and/or other extracellular matrix components in the dermis, subcutaneous tissue, and/or underlying soft tissues. The clinical course of these diseases varies from benign disease with a localized skin involvement to systemic, life-threatening disorders. Thus, a correct diagnosis is extremely significant as these disorders are very different in terms of pathogenesis, course, treatment, and outcome. Although they have sclerosis as an overlapping feature, other histopathological features, such as sclerosis depth, hyalinization, mucin deposition, sclerotic bodies, and fibroblastic proliferation, may provide clues to a more specific diagnosis. In doubtful cases, clinicopathologic correlation, immunohistochemical staining, and other laboratory data may be required to arrive at a proper diagnosis.
Potential Predictors of College Women Meeting Strength Training Recommendations: Application of the Integrated Behavioral Model.

PURPOSE Due to numerous health benefits, national recommendations call Americans to participate in muscle-strengthening activities at least 2 days/week. However, college-aged women tend to fall short of recommendations. This study sought to examine correlates of college women meeting strength training recommendations using the Integrated Behavioral Model (IBM). METHODS Undergraduate women (n = 421) completed surveys measuring strength training, demographics, and IBM constructs. Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analyses were conducted using SPSS 19. RESULTS Respondents were on average 20.1 years old, 79.3% were white, and 66.3% did not meet strength training recommendations. Bivariate correlations revealed significant relationships (P ≤ .01) between strength training and attitude, descriptive norms, perceived behavioral control, self-efficacy, intention, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. A logistic regression model revealed self-efficacy, intention, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity were predictive of college women meeting U.S. strength training recommendations. CONCLUSION This study supports using the IBM to understand strength training behavior among college women. Further research is needed to better understand mediating effects among IBM constructs.
Effects of Methamphetamine Administration on Information Gathering during Probabilistic Reasoning in Healthy Humans

Jumping to conclusions (JTC) during probabilistic reasoning is a cognitive bias repeatedly demonstrated in people with schizophrenia and shown to be associated with delusions. Little is known about the neurochemical basis of probabilistic reasoning. We tested the hypothesis that catecholamines influence data gathering and probabilistic reasoning by administering intravenous methamphetamine, which is known to cause synaptic release of the catecholamines noradrenaline and dopamine, to healthy humans whilst they undertook a probabilistic inference task. Our study used a randomised, double-blind, cross-over design. Seventeen healthy volunteers on three visits were administered either placebo or methamphetamine or methamphetamine preceded by amisulpride. In all three conditions participants performed the “beads” task in which participants decide how much information to gather before making a probabilistic inference, and which measures the cognitive bias towards jumping to conclusions. Psychotic symptoms triggered by methamphetamine were assessed using Comprehensive Assessment of At-Risk Mental States (CAARMS). Methamphetamine induced mild psychotic symptoms, but there was no effect of drug administration on the number of draws to decision (DTD) on the beads task. DTD was a stable trait that was highly correlated within subjects across visits (intra-class correlation coefficients of 0.86 and 0.91 on two versions of the task). The less information was sampled in the placebo condition, the more psychotic-like symptoms the person had after the methamphetamine plus amisulpride condition (p = 0.028). Our results suggest that information gathering during probabilistic reasoning is a stable trait, not easily modified by dopaminergic or noradrenergic modulation.
The triple helix perspective of innovation systems

Alongside the neo-institutional model of networked relations among universities, industries, and governments, the triple helix can be provided with a neo-evolutionary interpretation as three selection environments operating upon one another: markets, organisations and technological opportunities. How are technological innovation systems different from national ones? The three selection environments fulfil social functions: wealth creation, organisation control and organised knowledge production. The main carriers of this system – industry, government and academia – provide the variation both recursively and by interacting among them under the pressure of competition. Empirical case studies enable us to understand how these evolutionary mechanisms can be expected to operate in historical instances. The model is needed for distinguishing, for example, between trajectories and regimes.
Global-Scale Location Prediction for Social Images Using Geo-Visual Ranking

We propose an automatic method that addresses the challenge of predicting the geo-location of social images using only the visual content of those images. Our method is able to generate a geo-location prediction for an image globally . In this respect, it contrasts with other existing approaches, specifically with those that generate predictions restricted to specific cities, landmarks, or an otherwise pre-defined set of locations. The essence and the main novelty of our ranking-based method is that for a given query image a geo-location is recommended based on the evidence collected from images that are not only geographically close to this geo-location, but also have sufficient visual similarity to the query image within the considered image collection. Our method is evaluated experimentally on a public dataset of 8.8 million geo-tagged images from Flickr, released by the MediaEval 2013 evaluation benchmark. Experiments show that the proposed method delivers a substantial performance improvement compared to the existing related approaches, particularly for queries with high numbers of neighbors . In addition, a detailed analysis of the method's performance reveals the impact of different visual feature extraction and image matching strategies, as well as the densities and types of images found at different locations, on the prediction accuracy.
Insight into Familial and Sporadic Parkinson’s Disease: α-Synuclein Mutant Analysis in a Fission Yeast Model

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, affecting six million people worldwide. It results from the specific loss of substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons, which accumulate large filamentous structures called Lewy bodies composed mostly of one misfolded and aggregated protein called � -synuclein. The aggregation and membrane phospholipid binding ability of � -synuclein are both linked to cellular toxicity in familial and sporadic forms of PD, but their relative contributions are not resolved. This thesis utilized a Schizosaccharomyces pombe (fission yeast) model to get further insight into the nature of � -synuclein toxicity in these two forms of PD and the data was comparatively evaluated with previous studies done in budding yeast. Three studies were conducted. First, for insight into familial PD, we tested the hypothesis that the newest mutant E46K � -synuclein is toxic in fission yeast, but instead found it to be surprisingly slightly toxic. This lack of major toxicity correlated with extensive � -synuclein aggregation and the lack of plasma membrane localization. In contrast, in budding yeast, E46K is known to be toxic, membrane localized, and not aggregated. Next, for insight into sporadic Parkinson’s disease, we first tested the hypothesis that alanine-76 in � -synuclein as a major contributor to a-synuclein’s aggregation and found that an A76E mutant was indeed less aggregated in fission yeast. This finding supports past budding yeast work where A76E � -synuclein is less plasma membrane localized. Lastly, we tested the hypothesis that posttranslational modifications in � -synuclein contribute to its aggregation and to its known higher migration when run on protein gels. Surprisingly, phosphorylationdeficient (S87A and S129A) and nitrosylation-deficient mutants (Y39F and Y125F) of � -synuclein remained aggregated and their migration size on gels was unchanged. In contrast, these mutants are significantly toxic to budding yeast and maintain membrane localization. We suggest that fission yeast is more resistant than budding yeast to � -synuclein toxicity possibly because membrane localization contributes toxicity, while aggregation protects. It is also possible that fission yeast more efficiently suppresses � synuclein toxicity by thus far unknown mechanisms. Importantly, the mutants studied in both models demonstrate that � -synuclein intrinsically regulates its ability to aggregate and bind membrane phospholipids, providing new insight into the toxicity seen in both sporadic and familial PD.
Audio-driven facial animation by joint end-to-end learning of pose and emotion

We present a machine learning technique for driving 3D facial animation by audio input in real time and with low latency. Our deep neural network learns a mapping from input waveforms to the 3D vertex coordinates of a face model, and simultaneously discovers a compact, latent code that disambiguates the variations in facial expression that cannot be explained by the audio alone. During inference, the latent code can be used as an intuitive control for the emotional state of the face puppet. We train our network with 3--5 minutes of high-quality animation data obtained using traditional, vision-based performance capture methods. Even though our primary goal is to model the speaking style of a single actor, our model yields reasonable results even when driven with audio from other speakers with different gender, accent, or language, as we demonstrate with a user study. The results are applicable to in-game dialogue, low-cost localization, virtual reality avatars, and telepresence.
Crystal‐induced neutrophil activation. VII. Involvement of Syk in the responses to monosodium urate crystals

The inflammatory response in acute gouty arthritis is in large part a result of the interaction between neutrophils and monosodium urate (MSU) crystals. The tyrosine kinase Syk, which has been largely associated with the phagocytic response by Fc receptors and with spreading mediated by integrins, has been identified as one of the major proteins tyrosine‐phosphorylated in human neutrophils upon stimulation by MSU crystals and is known to be mediated in part by the Fc receptor, CD16. This has led to the present examination of the implication of Syk in the activation pathways used by MSU crystals. The tyrosine‐phosphorylation patterns induced by MSU crystals and by the ligation of CD16 were inhibited by piceatannol, which, conversely, only slightly delayed but did not diminish the peak of tyrosine phosphorylation induced by cross‐linking CD32 or by the addition of fMet‐Leu‐Phe. Moreover, piceatannol inhibited the activity of Syk as monitored by in vitro kinase assays, by its in situ tyrosine phosphorylation, and by its activity toward exogenous substrates after stimulation by MSU crystals. We also measured the impact of piceatannol on the mobilization of calcium, the production of superoxide anions, and the activity of PLD stimulated by MSU crystals. We noted a distinct inhibition of all these responses by piceatannol. Finally, the morphological changes observed in neutrophils as characteristic of MSU crystal internalization were diminished significantly by piceatannol. The results obtained show that Syk plays a critical and central role in the signal‐transduction pathways called upon by MSU crystals subsequent to their interaction with human neutrophils.
Characterization of t(6;11)(p21;q12) in a renal‐cell carcinoma of an adult patient

Renal‐cell carcinoma (RCC) constitutes a heterogeneous group of tumors with specific chromosome aberrations. Recently, a new small group of RCC, occurring in children and young adults, has been described as characterized by t(6;11)(p21;q12). It has been shown that this translocation results in the fusion of the 5′ portion of the ALPHA gene (11q12) with the transcription factor gene TFEB (6p21). Herewith, we report the first complete cytogenetic and molecular characterization of a t(6;11)‐positive RCC of an adult patient, a 54‐year‐old woman. The tumor was histologically defined as RCC with peculiar features and it was negative for epithelial markers and positive for melanocytic markers. Chromosome QFQ banding analysis of short‐term cultured cells from the RCC showed t(6;11)(p21;q12) as the sole cytogenetic abnormality. The translocation was confirmed by FISH analysis. RT‐PCR analysis, performed on total RNA isolated from both neoplastic and normal tissue samples, revealed an ALPHA–TFEB chimeric transcript in the tumor sample; sequencing of the RT‐PCR product defined a novel TFEB gene breakpoint cluster region, broader than the one reported thus far. Western blot analysis showed a band at the expected size of wild‐type TFEB in the neoplastic tissue compared to the normal sample, supporting that the fusion gene does not encode for a chimeric protein but it causes an upregulation of the wild‐type TFEB. Our data contribute to define better this rare RCC type, which is typical not only of childhood but can also be found in adulthood. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The glia/neuron ratio: How it varies uniformly across brain structures and species and what that means for brain physiology and evolution

It is a widespread notion that the proportion of glial to neuronal cells in the brain increases with brain size, to the point that glial cells represent “about 90% of all cells in the human brain. ” This notion, however, is wrong on both counts: neither does the glia/neuron ratio increase uniformly with brain size, nor do glial cells represent the majority of cells in the human brain. This review examines the origin of interest in the glia/neuron ratio; the original evidence that led to the notion that it increases with brain size; the extent to which this concept can be applied to white matter and whole brains and the recent supporting evidence that the glia/neuron ratio does not increase with brain size, but rather, and in surprisingly uniform fashion, with decreasing neuronal density due to increasing average neuronal cell size, across brain structures and species. Variations in the glia/neuron ratio are proposed to be related not to the supposed larger metabolic cost of larger neurons (given that this cost is not found to vary with neuronal density), but simply to the large variation in neuronal sizes across brain structures and species in the face of less overall variation in glial cell sizes, with interesting implications for brain physiology. The emerging evidence that the glia/neuron ratio varies uniformly across the different brain structures of mammalian species that diverged as early as 90 million years ago in evolution highlights how fundamental for brain function must be the interaction between glial cells and neurons. GLIA 2014;62:1377–1391
Quantitative Analyses of Cryptochrome-mBMAL1 Interactions

The mammalian cryptochromes mCRY1 and mCRY2 act as transcriptional repressors within the 24-h transcription-translational feedback loop of the circadian clock. The C-terminal tail and a preceding predicted coiled coil (CC) of the mCRYs as well as the C-terminal region of the transcription factor mBMAL1 are involved in transcriptional feedback repression. Here we show by fluorescence polarization and isothermal titration calorimetry that purified mCRY1/2CCtail proteins form stable heterodimeric complexes with two C-terminal mBMAL1 fragments. The longer mBMAL1 fragment (BMAL490) includes Lys-537, which is rhythmically acetylated by mCLOCK in vivo. mCRY1 (but not mCRY2) has a lower affinity to BMAL490 than to the shorter mBMAL1 fragment (BMAL577) and a K537Q mutant version of BMAL490. Using peptide scan analysis we identify two mBMAL1 binding epitopes within the coiled coil and tail regions of mCRY1/2 and document the importance of positively charged mCRY1 residues for mBMAL1 binding. A synthetic mCRY coiled coil peptide binds equally well to the short and to the long (wild-type and K537Q mutant) mBMAL1 fragments. In contrast, a peptide including the mCRY1 tail epitope shows a lower affinity to BMAL490 compared with BMAL577 and BMAL490(K537Q). We propose that Lys-537mBMAL1 acetylation enhances mCRY1 binding by affecting electrostatic interactions predominantly with the mCRY1 tail. Our data reveal different molecular interactions of the mCRY1/2 tails with mBMAL1, which may contribute to the non-redundant clock functions of mCRY1 and mCRY2. Moreover, our study suggests the design of peptidic inhibitors targeting the interaction of the mCRY1 tail with mBMAL1.
Characterization of a Novel Interaction between Bcl-2 Members Diva and Harakiri

Interactions within proteins of the Bcl-2 family are key in the regulation of apoptosis. The death-inducing members control apoptotic mechanisms partly by antagonizing the prosurvival proteins through heterodimer formation. Structural and biophysical studies on these complexes are providing important clues to understand their function. To help improve our knowledge on protein-protein interactions within the Bcl-2 family we have studied the binding between two of its members: mouse Diva and human Harakiri. Diva has been shown to perform both prosurvival and killing activity. In contrast, Harakiri induces cell death by interacting with antiapoptotic Bcl-2 members. Here we show using ELISA and NMR that Diva and Harakiri can interact in vitro. Combining the NMR data with the previously reported three-dimensional structure of Diva we find that Harakiri binds to a specific region in Diva. This interacting surface is equivalent to the known binding area of prosurvival Bcl-2 members from the reported structures of the complexes, suggesting that Diva could function at the structural level similarly to the antiapoptotic proteins of the Bcl-2 family. We illustrate this result by building a structural model of the heterodimer using molecular docking and the NMR data as restraints. Moreover, combining circular dichroism and NMR we also show that Harakiri is largely unstructured with residual (13%) α-helical conformation. This result agrees with intrinsic disorder previously observed in other Bcl-2 members. In addition, Harakiri constructs of different length were studied to identify the region critical for the interaction. Differential affinity for Diva of these constructs suggests that the amino acid sequence flanking the interacting region could play an important role in binding.