Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early discharge of preterm infants followed by domiciliary nursing care: parents' anxiety, assessment of infant health and breastfeeding

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of early discharge of preterm infants, followed by domiciliary nursing care, on the parents'anxiety, their assessment of infant health and breastfeeding. Seventy‐five families including 88 preterm infants who were physiologically stable but in need of further special care, such as gavage feeding, were allocated to an early discharge group (EDG) that was offered home visits (n= 40), or to a control group offered standard neonatal care (CG) (n= 35). Seventy families (37 in the EDG and 33 in the CG) completed the study to the 1‐y follow‐up. Data were collected by means of questionnaires on three occasions: in the EDG, at hospital discharge, on completion of the domiciliary care programme and after 1 y, and in the CG at the corresponding points in time, which were during hospitalization, at hospital discharge and after 1 y. No statistical differences were observed between the groups in emotional well‐being, except that mothers in the EDG had a lower level of situational anxiety at the time of hospital discharge compared with CG mothers whose infants remained in hospital. One year after the birth, the EDG mothers said they had felt better prepared to take responsibility for the care of their babies after completion of the domiciliary care programme, in contrast to CG mothers. However, no statistical differences were observed in the recollection of anxiety, confidence in handling the baby and periods of mental imbalance. No statistical difference was observed in breastfeeding rates between the groups. Fathers in the EDG group tended to perceive their babies as being healthier, compared with CG fathers.
The maternal lifestyle study: cognitive, motor, and behavioral outcomes of cocaine-exposed and opiate-exposed infants through three years of age.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the direct effects of prenatal cocaine exposure and prenatal opiate exposure on infant mental, motor, and behavioral outcomes longitudinally between 1 and 3 years old. METHODS As part of a prospective, longitudinal, multisite study, the Bayley Scales of Infant Development II were administered to 1227 infants who were exposed to cocaine (n = 474), opiates (n = 50), cocaine and opiates (n = 48), and neither substance (n = 655) at 1, 2, and 3 years of corrected age by certified, masked examiners. Hierarchic linear modeling of the 1-, 2-, and 3-year scores was conducted using cocaine and opiate exposure as predictors with and without controlling for covariates. RESULTS Overall retention was 88.4% and did not differ by cocaine or opiate exposure. Overall (at 1, 2, and 3 years), cocaine-exposed infants scored 1.6 Mental Development Index points below infants who were not exposed to cocaine. Opiate-exposed infants scored 3.8 Psychomotor Development Index points below infants who were not exposed to opiates. Neither the cocaine nor the opiate effect remained significant after controlling for covariates. Neither cocaine nor opiate exposure was associated with the Behavioral Record Score during the examination. Low birth weight and indices of nonoptimal caregiving were associated with lower Mental Development Index, Psychomotor Development Index, and Behavioral Record Score scores for all groups of infants. CONCLUSIONS In the largest at-risk sample observed longitudinally to date, infant prenatal exposure to cocaine and to opiates was not associated with mental, motor, or behavioral deficits after controlling for birth weight and environmental risks.
Antennal SNMPs (sensory neuron membrane proteins) of Lepidoptera define a unique family of invertebrate CD36-like proteins.

SNMP1-Apol is an antennal-specific protein of the wild silk moth Antheraea polyphemus; the protein is abundantly expressed and localized to the receptor membranes of sex-pheromone specific olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs). SNMP1-Apol is thought to function in odor detection based on its olfactory-specific expression, localization within OSNs, developmental time of expression, and apparent homology to the CD36 family of membrane-bound receptor proteins. In the current study, SNMP1-Apol homologues were identified from the moths Bombyx mori, Heliothis virescens, and Manduca sexta. These species posses antennal mRNAs encoding proteins with amino acid sequence identities ranging from 75-80%; these proteins are collectively designated SNMP1. A second M. sexta SNMP homologue, previously identified and partially sequenced [Robertson et al.: Insect Mol Biol 8:501-518, 1999] was fully sequenced and characterized. The encoded protein shares only 26-27% sequence identity with the SNMP1 proteins, and is thus designated SNMP2-Msex. The SNMP sequences were used to identify 14 and four possible homologues in Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans genome databases, respectively; thus, greatly expanding CD36 family membership among the invertebrate lineages. Despite their sequence difference, SNMP1-Msex and SNMP2-Msex expression is localized to OSNs and occurs simultaneously with the onset of olfactory function. These findings suggest that SNMPs play a central role in odor detection in insects, and that the CD36 gene family is widely represented among animal phyla. The SNMPs are the only identified neuronal members of the CD36 family, and as such expand the activities of this gene family into roles influencing brain function and behavioral action.
Current Progress in computational metabolomics

Being a relatively new addition to the 'omics' field, metabolomics is still evolving its own computational infrastructure and assessing its own computational needs. Due to its strong emphasis on chemical information and because of the importance of linking that chemical data to biological consequences, metabolomics must combine elements of traditional bioinformatics with traditional cheminformatics. This is a significant challenge as these two fields have evolved quite separately and require very different computational tools and skill sets. This review is intended to familiarize readers with the field of metabolomics and to outline the needs, the challenges and the recent progress being made in four areas of computational metabolomics: (i) metabolomics databases; (ii) metabolomics LIMS; (iii) spectral analysis tools for metabolomics and (iv) metabolic modeling.
Correlação do equilíbrio e funcionalidade no hemiparético – influencia da propriocepção

A manutencao do corpo em equilibrio e um fenomeno complexo e dependente de multiplos mecanismos. Esta funcao se faz possivel com a interacao do sistema nervoso central, sistema motor, sistema somatossensorial, vestibular e visual. O componente somatossensorial tambem se mostra importante na realizacao das atividades de vida diaria do individuo. Apos um Acidente Vascular Encefalico (AVE), o hemiparetico pode apresentar alteracoes nas componentes do equilibrio. Assim, Esse trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar o equilibrio, mobilidade e funcionalidade em hemipareticos e correlacionar as alteracoes da componente somatossensorial do equilibrio e as escalas de Berg, Barthel modificado e Rivermead. A amostra foi constituida por 10 pacientes hemipareticos com idade entre 42 e 68 anos que foram avaliados por meio da Posturografia Dinâmica e dos testes de funcionalidade. Os resultados apontam influencia somatossensorial positiva no equilibrio e na funcionalidade do individuo, por meio da correlacao entre as avaliacoes de funcionalidade do teste de Berg (p=0,0001) e Rivermead (p=0,0345). Ja para o teste de Barthel modificado (p=0,0523) a correlacao nao foi significativa. A componente somatossensorial do equilibrio apresentou correlacao positiva com os Indices de Berg, Barthel Modificado e Rivermead, demonstrando a importância dessa componente frente aos desempenhos de mobilidade e funcionalidade nos individuos com hemiplegia.
A comparison of machine learning techniques for handwritten |Xam word recognition

The Bleek and Lloyd collection contains 19th century handwritten notebooks that document the language and culture of the |Xam-speaking people who lived in Southern Africa. Access to this rich data could be enhanced by transcriptions of the text; however, the complex diacritics used in the notebooks complicate the process of transcription. Machine learning techniques could be used to perform this transcription, but it is not known which techniques would produce the best results. This paper thus reports on a comparison of 3 popular techniques applied to this problem: artificial neural networks (ANN); hidden Markov models (HMM); and support vector machines (SVM). It was found that an SVM-based classifier using histograms of oriented gradients as features resulted in the best word recognition accuracy of 58.4%. Furthermore, it was found that most feature extraction parameters did not have a large effect on recognition accuracy and that the SVM-based recognisers outperform both ANN- and HMM-based recognisers.
Copper-zinc superoxide dismutase prevents the early decrease of apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease and subsequent DNA fragmentation after transient focal cerebral ischemia in mice.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE DNA damage and its repair mechanism are thought to be involved in ischemia/reperfusion injury in the brain. We have previously shown that apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease (APE/Ref-1), a multifunctional protein in the DNA base excision repair pathway, rapidly decreased after transient focal cerebral ischemia (FCI) before the peak of DNA fragmentation. To further investigate the role of reactive oxygen species in APE/Ref-1 expression in vivo, we examined the expression of APE/Ref-1 and DNA damage after FCI in wild-type and transgenic mice overexpressing copper-zinc superoxide dismutase. METHODS Transgenic mice overexpressing copper-zinc superoxide dismutase and wild-type littermates were subjected to 60 minutes of transient FCI by intraluminal blockade of the middle cerebral artery. APE/Ref-1 protein expression was analyzed by immunohistochemistry and Western blot analysis. DNA damage was evaluated by gel electrophoresis and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated uridine 5'-triphosphate-biotin nick end-labeling (TUNEL). RESULTS A similar level of APE/Ref-1 was detected in the control brains from both groups. APE/Ref-1 was significantly reduced 1 hour after transient FCI in both groups, whereas the transgenic mice had less reduction than that seen in wild-type mice 1 and 4 hours after FCI. DNA laddering was detected 24 hours after FCI and was decreased in transgenic mice. Double staining with APE/Ref-1 and TUNEL showed that the neurons that lost APE/Ref-1 immunoreactivity became TUNEL positive. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that reactive oxygen species contribute to the early decrease of APE/Ref-1 and thereby exacerbate DNA fragmentation after transient FCI in mice.
Evolution of gremlin 2 in cetartiodactyl mammals: gene loss coincides with lack of upper jaw incisors in ruminants

Understanding the processes that give rise to genomic variability in extant species is an active area of research within evolutionary biology. With the availability of whole genome sequences, it is possible to quantify different forms of variability such as variation in gene copy number, which has been described as an important source of genetic variability and in consequence of phenotypic variability. Most of the research on this topic has been focused on understanding the biological significance of gene duplication, and less attention has been given to the evolutionary role of gene loss. Gremlin 2 is a member of the DAN gene family and plays a significant role in tooth development by blocking the ligand-signaling pathway of BMP2 and BMP4. The goal of this study was to investigate the evolutionary history of gremlin 2 in cetartiodactyl mammals, a group that possesses highly divergent teeth morphology. Results from our analyses indicate that gremlin 2 has experienced a mixture of gene loss, gene duplication, and rate acceleration. Although the last common ancestor of cetartiodactyls possessed a single gene copy, pigs and camels are the only cetartiodactyl groups that have retained gremlin 2. According to the phyletic distribution of this gene and synteny analyses, we propose that gremlin 2 was lost in the common ancestor of ruminants and cetaceans between 56.3 and 63.5 million years ago as a product of a chromosomal rearrangement. Our analyses also indicate that the rate of evolution of gremlin 2 has been accelerated in the two groups that have retained this gene. Additionally, the lack of this gene could explain the high diversity of teeth among cetartiodactyl mammals; specifically, the presence of this gene could act as a biological constraint. Thus, our results support the notions that gene loss is a way to increase phenotypic diversity and that gremlin 2 is a dispensable gene, at least in cetartiodactyl mammals.
Interleukin-1 Enhances the ATP-Evoked Release of Arachidonic Acid from Mouse Astrocytes

During neuropathological states associated with inflammation, the levels of cytokines such as interleukin-1β (IL-1β) are increased. Several studies have suggested that the neuronal damage observed in pathogenesis implicating IL-1β are caused by an alteration in the neurochemical interactions between neurons and astrocytes. We report here that treating striatal astrocytes in primary culture with IL-1β for 22–24 hr enhances the ATP-evoked release of arachidonic acid (AA) with no effect on the ATP-induced accumulation of inositol phosphates. The molecular mechanism responsible for this effect involves the expression of P2Y2 receptors (a subtype of purinoceptor activated by ATP) and cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2, an enzyme that mediates AA release). Indeed, P2Y2 antisense oligonucleotides reduce the ATP-evoked release of AA only from IL-1β-treated astrocytes. Further, both the amount of cPLA2 (as assessed by Western blotting) and the release of AA resulting from direct activation of cPLA2 increased fourfold in cells treated with IL-1β. We also report evidence indicating that the coupling of newly expressed P2Y2 receptors to cPLA2 is dependent on PKC activity. These results suggest that during inflammatory conditions, IL-1β reveals a functional P2Y2 signaling pathway in astrocytes that results in a dramatic increase in the levels of free AA. This pathway may thus contribute to the neuronal loss associated with cerebral ischemia or traumatic brain injury.
Quantity Discrimination in Domestic Rats, Rattus norvegicus

Simple Summary Quantity discrimination involves distinguishing which of two quantities is greater. This discrimination between larger and smaller quantities has only been demonstrated in rats post extensive training. We tested whether domestic rats could perform quantity discrimination without explicit training. We found that rats could distinguish the greater amount in comparisons of 1 vs. 2, 2 vs. 3, 3 vs. 5, 3 vs. 8, 4 vs. 6, and 4 vs. 8. Rats could not distinguish between 3 vs. 4, 4 vs. 5 and 5 vs. 6. We also found that as the ratio between quantities became finer the choice of the larger quantity decreased. We conclude that rats can perform quantity discrimination without extensive training and that their quantity discrimination ability is influenced by the ratio between quantities. Abstract Quantity discrimination is a basic form of numerical competence where an animal distinguishes which of two amounts is greater in size. Whilst quantity discrimination in rats has been investigated via training paradigms, rats’ natural quantity discrimination abilities without explicit training for a desired response have not been explored. This study investigated domestic rats’ ability to perform quantity discrimination. Domestic rats (n = 12) were examined for their ability to distinguish the larger amount under nine quantity comparisons. One-sample t-tests identified a significant preference for the larger quantity in comparisons of 1 vs. 2, 2 vs. 3, 3 vs. 5, 3 vs. 8, 4 vs. 6, and 4 vs. 8. No preference between quantities was found for comparisons of 3 vs. 4, 4 vs. 5 and 5 vs. 6. Overall, this study drew two key conclusions. Firstly, that domestic rats are capable of performing quantity discrimination without extensive training. Secondly, as subjects adhered to Weber’s law, it was concluded that the approximate number system underpins domestic rats’ ability to perform spontaneous quantity discrimination.
Appendix A : Background Information for Chlorpyrifos

Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphorus insecticide. It belongs to the phosphorothioate (also called phosphorothionate) group, composed of organophosphorus compounds that contain the P=S substructure. Other organophosphorus insecticides in this group include diazinon, methyl parathion, parathion, fenthion, and fenitrothion. These compounds require metabolic activation to their oxon analogs (compounds in which the =S is replaced by =O) for anticholinesterase activity. The structures of chlorpyrifos and its toxic metabolite, chlorpyrifos oxon, are provided in Appendix D. As of 2000, chlorpyrifos was one of the most widely used organophosphorus insecticides in the United States, for both agricultural and residential purposes. Registered uses included food crops, turf and ornamental plants, indoor pest control (including crack and crevice treatment), termite control, mosquito control, and pet collars. It was registered for use in a wide variety of buildings, including residential, 2000c). Many uses of chlorpyrifos are being phased out (see Section A.4). A study of urinary pesticide metabolites during the third trimester in 386 pregnant women from East Harlem indicated that exposure to chlorpyrifos was prevalent (42% of the women had detectable levels of the chlorpyrifos metabolite), was higher than the median in NHANES III, did not show seasonal variation, and did not change during the time period of the study (1998–2001) (Berkowitz et al. 2003). The exposure of these women was thought to be primarily indoor, due to household use and pesticide exterminator application, and also dietary. A study of nine homes and 18 adult residents, 2/home, conducted in the Lower Rio Grande Valley concluded that indoor dust and air were the primary exposure media for the residents of those households, based on monitoring of those media, as well as outdoor soil and air, food, and a characteristic urinary metabolite of chlorpyrifos (as a biomarker of exposure) (Buckley et al. 1997). A.1 Toxicokinetics Chlorpyrifos is known to be absorbed through the respiratory tract in humans and animals, but quantitative estimates were not available (ATSDR 1997; FAO/WHO 1999). 65 Chlorpyrifos is readily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. Based on the percent of administered dose excreted in the urine, absorption of chlorpyrifos in humans was about 70% in a single-dose oral study (Nolan et al. 1984), and in rats ranged from 84–90% in single-dose gavage studies (ATSDR 1997; EPA 2000b). Dermal absorption of chlorpyrifos (in dipropylene glycol methyl ether) in humans was about 1.3% of the administered dose within 48 hours (Nolan et al. 1984). Dermal absorption in …
CB6F1-rasH2 Mouse: Overview of Available Data

This article presents data from short-term carcinogenicity studies of compounds tested in the CB6F1-rasH2 transgenic mouse as part of the International Life Sciences Institutes' (ILSI) Health and Environmental Sciences' (HESI) Alternative to Carcinogenicity Testing (ACT) project. Additionally, data from other studies that were not conducted as part of the ILSI program, but used comparable or slightly modifi ed protocols, are included here. A signifi cant number (3 of 4) of the genotoxic carcinogens tested were positive in the rasH2 mouse; the other compound was equivocally positive. The positive control, N-Methyl-N-nitrosurea (MNU), gave reproducible responses across all participating laboratories with tumors noted at multiple sites in the animal. The immunosuppressive human carcinogen, Cyclosporin A, was equivocal. Two hormones that are human tumorigens, Diethylstilbestrol and 17β-Estradiol, gave positive and negative results, respectively. Of the twelve additional compounds tested that are classifi ed as non-genotoxic rodent carcinogens and putative human non-carcinogens, only the two peroxisome proliferators (clofi brate and diethylhexylphthalate(DEHP)) produced a positive response (liver effects). The three non-genotoxic non-carcinogens that were tested also gave negative responses in the rasH2 model. This result provides confi dence that the model is likely to have a low false-positive rate.
Predicting Physical Activity in Arab American School Children

Theoretically grounded research on the determinants of Arab American children’s physical activity is virtually nonexistent. Thus, the purpose of our investigation was to evaluate the ability of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and social cognitive theory (SCT) to predict Arab American children’s moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Children (N = 348, ages 10–14) completed questionnaires assessing the TPB and SCT constructs as well as MVPA. Using multiple regression analyses we were able to account for 9% of the variance in MVPA. Based on standardized beta-weights, variance accounted for, and the significance of F change, we concluded that SCT variables were better predictors of MVPA compared with the TPB constructs. In particular, barrier self-efficacy was the most critical variable within SCT and supports the potentially valuable role that efficacy cognitions play in promoting MVPA in Arab American children.
The Role of the Theory of Planned Behavior in Therapists’ Involvement of Parents in Youth Treatment

The theory of planned behavior has been studied in a wide variety of health related research. One area that has not evaluated the relevance of the TPB is that of therapists’ attitudes for involving parents in treatment. The current study examined the feasibility of Ajzen’s (1985) Theory of Planned Behavior for explaining whether or not therapists include parents in treatment. Participants in this study were therapists with at least one-year experience in treating youth under the age of 11. It was hypothesized that all of the variables of the TPB would be significant predictors of therapists’ intention to include parents in treatment. Overall, results of this study provided support for the role of the Theory of Planned Behavior in predicting therapists’ inclusion of parents in youth treatment although subjective norm was not a significant predictor of intention and subsequent inclusion of parents in youth treatment. Results of posthoc analyses reveal that there are several therapist demographic characteristics that are related to TPB constructs. Specifically, coursework and training in Family Systems was found to be related to positive attitudes about involving parents in treatment. Also, therapists in practice settings were much more likely to intend to include parents in youth treatment than those in school settings. In addition, therapists’ estimate of the percentage of the