Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Unique haplotypes of cacao trees as revealed by trnH-psbA chloroplast DNA

Cacao trees have been cultivated in Mesoamerica for at least 4,000 years. In this study, we analyzed sequence variation in the chloroplast DNA trnH-psbA intergenic spacer from 28 cacao trees from different farms in the Soconusco region in southern Mexico. Genetic relationships were established by two analysis approaches based on geographic origin (five populations) and genetic origin (based on a previous study). We identified six polymorphic sites, including five insertion/deletion (indels) types and one transversion. The overall nucleotide diversity was low for both approaches (geographic = 0.0032 and genetic = 0.0038). Conversely, we obtained moderate to high haplotype diversity (0.66 and 0.80) with 10 and 12 haplotypes, respectively. The common haplotype (H1) for both networks included cacao trees from all geographic locations (geographic approach) and four genetic groups (genetic approach). This common haplotype (ancient) derived a set of intermediate haplotypes and singletons interconnected by one or two mutational steps, which suggested directional selection and event purification from the expansion of narrow populations. Cacao trees from Soconusco region were grouped into one cluster without any evidence of subclustering based on AMOVA (FST = 0) and SAMOVA (FST = 0.04393) results. One population (Mazatán) showed a high haplotype frequency; thus, this population could be considered an important reservoir of genetic material. The indels located in the trnH-psbA intergenic spacer of cacao trees could be useful as markers for the development of DNA barcoding.
Effect of Hybrid Talc-Basalt Fillers in the Shell Layer on Thermal and Mechanical Performance of Co-Extruded Wood Plastic Composites

Hybrid basalt fiber (BF) and Talc filled high density polyethylene (HDPE) and co-extruded wood-plastic composites (WPCs) with different BF/Talc/HDPE composition levels in the shell were prepared and their mechanical, morphological and thermal properties were characterized. Incorporating BFs into the HDPE-Talc composite substantially enhanced the thermal expansion property, flexural, tensile and dynamic modulus without causing a significant decrease in the tensile and impact strength of the composites. Strain energy estimation suggested positive and better interfacial interactions of HDPE with BFs than that with talc. The co-extruded structure design improved the mechanical properties of WPC due to the protective shell layer. The composite flexural and impact strength properties increased, and the thermal expansion decreased as BF content increased in the hybrid BF/Talc filled shells. The cone calorimetry data demonstrated that flame resistance of co-extruded WPCs was improved with the use of combined fillers in the shell layer, especially with increased loading of BFs. The combined shell filler system with BFs and Talc could offer a balance between cost and performance for co-extruded WPCs.
Effects of personal meaning among patients in primary and specialized care: Associations with psychosocial and physical outcomes

Personal meaning is thought to serve as an important resource among individuals adapting to the demands of illness. However, some work in this area has been marked by vague conceptualization, or use of assessment instruments that are confounded by well-being. This investigation evaluated relationships between psychosocial and physical outcomes and one theoretically important dimension of attained global meaning – perceptions of life purpose and commitment. Study 1 evaluated 175 patients followed in a primary care gynaecological practice. Study 2 assessed 104 cancer patients in a specialized stem cell transplantation centre. In both samples, personal meaning was concurrently associated with reduced emotional distress, enhanced coping efficacy, and closer intimate relationships, after controlling for social desirability bias and relevant demographic and medical covariates. Associations with lower distress and improved coping efficacy remained significant after additionally controlling for other psychosocial resource variables (i.e. social support, religiousness, emotional control). Personal meaning appears to be independently related to concurrent psychosocial adjustment in a range of medical settings.
Potential Role of Nuclear Factor κB in Diabetic Cardiomyopathy

Diabetic cardiomyopathy entails the cardiac injury induced by diabetes independently of any vascular disease or hypertension. Some transcription factors have been proposed to control the gene program involved in the setting and development of related processes. Nuclear factor-kappa B is a pleiotropic transcription factor associated to the regulation of many heart diseases. However, the nuclear factor-kappa B role in diabetic cardiomyopathy is under investigation. In this paper, we review the nuclear factor-kappa B pathway and its role in several processes that have been linked to diabetic cardiomyopathy, such as oxidative stress, inflammation, endothelial dysfunction, fibrosis, hypertrophy and apoptosis.
Build them up and break them down

Tight junctions (TJs) of cells expressing simple epithelial polarity have been extensively studied, but less is known about TJs of cells expressing complex polarity. In this paper we analyzed, TJs of four different lines, that form bile canaliculi (BC) and express typical hepatocyte polarity; WIF-B9, 11–3, Can 3–1, Can 10. Striking differences were observed in claudin expression. None of the cell lines produced claudin-1. WIF-B9 and 11–3 expressed only claudin-2 while Can 3–1 and Can 10 expressed claudin-2,-3,-4,-5. TJs of these two classes of lines differed in their ultra-stucture, paracellular permeability, and robustness. Lines expressing a large claudin repertoire, especially Can 10, had complex and efficient TJs, that were maintained when cells were depleted in calcium. Inversely, TJs of WIF-B9 and 11–3 were leaky, permissive and dismantled by calcium depletion. Interestingly, we found that during the polarization process, TJ proteins expressed by all lines were sequentially settled in a specific order: first occludin, ZO-1 and cingulin, then JAM-A and ZO-2, finally claudin-2. Claudins expressed only in Can lines were also sequentially settled: claudin-3 was the first settled. Inhibition of claudin-3 expression delayed BC formation in Can10 and induced the expression of simple epithelial polarity. These results highlight the role of claudins in the settlement and the efficiency of TJs in lines expressing typical hepatocyte polarity. Can 10 seems to be the most promising of these lines because of its claudin repertoire near that of hepatocytes and its capacity to form extended tubular BC sealed by efficient TJs.
Efficient language model adaptation through MDI estimation

This paper presents a method for n-gram language model adaptation based on the principle of minimum discrimination information. A background language model is adapted to fit constraints on its marginal distributions that are derived from new observed data. This work gives a different derivation of the model by Kneser et al. (1997) and extends its application to interpolated language models. The proposed method has been evaluated on an Italian 60K-word broadcast news task.
Prevalence of human herpesvirus 6 variant A and B infections in bone marrow transplant recipients as determined by polymerase chain reaction and sequence-specific oligonucleotide probe hybridization

An oligotyping methodology was devised by using the polymerase chain reaction and sequence-specific oligonucleotide probe hybridization in order to discriminate the A and B variants of human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6). Comparative DNA sequence analysis of portions of the U1102 (variant A) and Z29 (variant B) genomes revealed polymorphic regions which allowed for the synthesis of variant-specific and consensus oligonucleotide probes. These probes were found to hybridize exclusively to their respective HHV-6 variants. This strategy was then further tested by evaluating 16 clinical isolates derived from patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation to determine the subtype prevalence of HHV-6 infection in these patients. All clinical isolates were documented to be of variant B, indicating that the majority of bone marrow transplantation patients may be preferentially infected with this HHV-6 subtype. This oligotyping strategy may be useful in defining the relative prevalence of HHV-6A and HHV-6B infections in patient populations potentially at risk for HHV-6 disease.
Clinical experience with paroxetine in social anxiety disorder

&NA; Paroxetine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) with proven efficacy in the treatment of depression, panic disor‐ der and obsessive‐compulsive disorder. Evidence that paroxetine may be effective in social anxiety disorder (social phobia) first arose from open‐label studies. More recently, three multicentre, randomized, placebo‐controlled trials have been per‐ formed, each lasting 12 weeks, to assess the efficacy and tolerability of paroxetine in the treatment of social anxiety disorder, and these studies are reviewed here. The data from all three studies consistently demonstrated that paroxetine was effective in reducing both the symptoms of anxiety and the disability and impairment of social anxiety disorder. Paroxetine performed significantly better than placebo on all primary (Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, Clinical Global Impression) and secondary (Social Avoidance and Distress Scale, Sheehan Disability Scale) outcome measures. Adverse events were restricted to those already known to be associated with SSRIs, no serious adverse events associated with medication were experienced, and the numbers withdrawing from the studies were not significantly different in the paroxetine and control groups. Taken together, these studies confirm that paroxetine is an effective and well tolerated treatment for patients with social anxiety disorder.
Pyrazinamide: the importance of uncovering the mechanisms of action in mycobacteria

Pyrazinamide (PZA) is still one of the key drugs used in current therapeutic regimens for tuberculosis (TB). Despite its importance for TB therapy, the mode of action of PZA remains unknown. PZA has to be converted to its active form pyrazinoic acid (POA) by the nicotinamidase PncA and is then excreted by an unknown efflux pump. At acidic conditions, POA is protonated to HPOA and is reabsorbed into the cell where it causes cellular damage. For a long time, it has been thought that PZA/POA has no defined target of action, but recent studies have shown that both PZA and POA have several different targets interfering with diverse biochemical pathways, especially in the NAD+ and energy metabolism. PZA resistance seems to depend not only on a defective pyrazinamidase but is also rather a result of the interplay of many different enzyme targets and transport mechanisms.
The SPLASH-2 programs: characterization and methodological considerations

The SPLASH-2 suite of parallel applications has recently been released to facilitate the study of centralized and distributed shared-address-space multiprocessors. In this context, the paper has two goals. One is to quantitatively characterize the SPLASH-2 programs in terms of fundamental properties and architectural interactions that are important to understand them well. The properties we study include the computational load balance, communication to computation ratio and traffic needs, important working set sizes, and issues related to spatial locality, as well as how these properties scale with problem size and the number of processors. The other, related goal is methodological: to assist people who will use the programs in architectural evaluations to prune the space of application and machine parameters in an informed and meaningful way. For example, by characterizing the working sets of the applications, we describe which operating points in terms of cache size and problem size are representative of realistic situations, which are not, and which re redundant. Using SPLASH-2 as an example, we hope to convey the importance of understanding the interplay of problem size, number of processors, and working sets in designing experiments and interpreting their results.
Re-ranking search results using document-passage graphs

We present a novel passage-based approach to re-ranking documents in an initially retrieved list so as to improve precision at top ranks. While most work on passage-based document retrieval ranks a document based on the query similarity of its constituent passages, our approach leverages information about the centrality of the document passages with respect to the initial document list. Passage centrality is induced over a bipartite document-passage graph, wherein edge weights represent document-passage similarities. Empirical evaluation shows that our approach yields effective re-ranking performance. Furthermore, the performance is superior to that of previously proposed passage-based document ranking methods.
Targeting of mTORC 1 / 2 by the mTOR kinase inhibitor PP 242 induces apoptosis in AML cells under conditions mimicking the bone marrow microenvironment

Departments of 1Leukemia and 2Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX; 3Intellikine, La Jolla, CA; 4Institute for Immunology and 5Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA; and 6Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Age differences in the intrinsic functional connectivity of default network subsystems

Recent work suggests that the default mode network (DMN) includes two core regions, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and several unique subsystems that are functionally distinct. These include a medial temporal lobe (MTL) subsystem, active during remembering and future projection, and a dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) subsystem, active during self-reference. The PCC has been further subdivided into ventral (vPCC) and dorsal (dPCC) regions that are more strongly connected with the DMN and cognitive control networks, respectively. The goal of this study was to examine age differences in resting state functional connectivity within these subsystems. After applying a rigorous procedure to reduce the effects of head motion, we used a multivariate technique to identify both common and unique patterns of functional connectivity in the MTL vs. the dmPFC, and in vPCC vs. dPCC. All four areas had robust functional connectivity with other DMN regions, and each also showed distinct connectivity patterns in both age groups. Young and older adults had equivalent functional connectivity in the MTL subsystem. Older adults showed weaker connectivity in the vPCC and dmPFC subsystems, particularly with other DMN areas, but stronger connectivity than younger adults in the dPCC subsystem, which included areas involved in cognitive control. Our data provide evidence for distinct subsystems involving DMN nodes, which are maintained with age. Nevertheless, there are age differences in the strength of functional connectivity within these subsystems, supporting prior evidence that DMN connectivity is particularly vulnerable to age, whereas connectivity involving cognitive control regions is relatively maintained. These results suggest an age difference in the integrated activity among brain networks that can have implications for cognition in older adults.
Classical van der Waals heat flow between oscillators and between half-spaces

We find the steady-state heat flow P between two classical harmonic oscillators having natural frequency ω0, dynamically identical, damped, and acted on by Langevin forces appropriate, respectively, to temperatures T1 and T2 (with kBT1,2 ≫ ℏω0). Retardation and relativistic effects are disregarded. Considered individually, each of the two normal modes of the joint system behaves as if it were in equilibrium at the average temperature (T1 + T2)/2, but the modes are correlated, and it is these correlations that govern P. From P one readily calculates the classical heat flow per unit area between two Drude-modelled half-spaces. It emerges that, by contrast to equilibrium statistical mechanics, theories of such steady-state systems must generally specify the mechanism they envisage for enforcing the nominally prescribed temperatures.
The Distribution of Wealth and the Marginal Propensity to Consume

We present a macroeconomic model calibrated to match both microeconomic and macroeconomic evidence on household income dynamics. When the model is modified in a way that permits it to match empirical measures of wealth inequality in the U.S., we show that its predictions (unlike those of competing models) are consistent with the substantial body of microeconomic evidence which suggests that the annual marginal propensity to consume (MPC) is much larger than the 0. 02_0. 04 range implied by commonly-used macroeconomic models. Our model also (plausibly) predicts that the aggregate MPC can differ greatly depending on how the shock is distributed across categories of households (e.g., low-wealth versus high-wealth households). JEL Classification: D12, D31, D91, E21
Heart Failure Predictors in a Group of Patients with Myocardial Infarction

AIM: The present study considers of the prevalence of heart failure (HF) in patients suffering from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in the University Hospital Centre of Tirana (UHCT) “Mother Theresa”; the demographic and clinical characteristics of the sample during hospitalization; and the main predictors of heart failure occurrence inside the group of patients suffering an AMI. MATERIAL AND METHODS: During a period of study from 2013-2015 we studied demographic and clinical data from 587 consecutive patients presenting with AMI; Framingham criteria were adopted for classifying patients with HF upon admission. RESULTS: A Killip class ≥ 2 was the main diagnostic criterion of HF during hospitalisation. HF was identified in 156 patients (26.6%). The subgroup with HF had significant differences when compared with the other patients with regard to age, sex (male), heart rate upon admission, systolic blood pressure on admission, previous episodes of AMI, glycemia on admission, previous antihypertensive treatment, previous revascularization procedures, peripheral vascular disease, chronic renal disease, ejection fraction (EF), anemia, and atrial fibrillation presence. Independent predictors for HF occurrence in the logistic regression model were EF, previous revascularization, peripheral vascular disease, age, sex, previous AMI, systolic blood pressure upon admission, and anaemia. CONCLUSION: As a conclusion, HF seems to be a common occurrence after AMI, in spite of changes in the epidemiological profile of the acute coronary syndrome. An increase in the incidence is registered as well, parallel to a decrease in the mortality following AMI. Attention must be shown for highly risked subpopulations, aged persons, patients with the previous coronary disease, and concomitant conditions.
A stability-based mechanism for hysteresis in the walk–trot transition in quadruped locomotion

Quadrupeds vary their gaits in accordance with their locomotion speed. Such gait transitions exhibit hysteresis. However, the underlying mechanism for this hysteresis remains largely unclear. It has been suggested that gaits correspond to attractors in their dynamics and that gait transitions are non-equilibrium phase transitions that are accompanied by a loss in stability. In the present study, we used a robotic platform to investigate the dynamic stability of gaits and to clarify the hysteresis mechanism in the walk–trot transition of quadrupeds. Specifically, we used a quadruped robot as the body mechanical model and an oscillator network for the nervous system model to emulate dynamic locomotion of a quadruped. Experiments using this robot revealed that dynamic interactions among the robot mechanical system, the oscillator network, and the environment generate walk and trot gaits depending on the locomotion speed. In addition, a walk–trot transition that exhibited hysteresis was observed when the locomotion speed was changed. We evaluated the gait changes of the robot by measuring the locomotion of dogs. Furthermore, we investigated the stability structure during the gait transition of the robot by constructing a potential function from the return map of the relative phase of the legs and clarified the physical characteristics inherent to the gait transition in terms of the dynamics.
Ondansetron and seizures

Experimental studies suggest that 5‐hydroxytryptamine (5‐HT) receptors play a role in epileptogenesis and seizure propagation. Ondansetron, a 5‐HT3 receptor antagonist, has been reported to have proconvulsant and anticonvulsant effects in animals. We describe three patients who developed seizures after receiving ondansetron. There were two females and one male. Ages ranged from 38–56 years. None had a previous or family history of seizures. Four milligrams (mg) of ondansetron was given intravenously for severe nausea and vomiting in association with migraine, gastritis, and diabetic ketoacidosis. A generalized tonic–clonic seizure occurred in each patient—12, 15, and 22 min after injection. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) were normal in all patients. Although no antiepileptic drugs were given, none had seizure recurrence subsequently. The temporal relationship between ondansetron administration and seizures, lack of EEG or MRI abnormalities, and absence of seizure recurrence suggest that the seizures were causally related to ondansetron in our patients.
The Alignment Of Organizational Incentives with Organizational Goals Across IT Adoption Stages

This paper presents a framework to plan organizational incentives for aligning usage behavior with organizational objectives across various IT adoption stages. Our framework is motivated by the introduction of incentive alignment as another dimension in Information Systems design (Ba et al., 2001) and is based on technology diffusion models presented in the literature. We focus in particular on the usage of technology that is discretionary in nature. In addition, the user group is limited to internal users of the technology at the operational level. The framework integrates key issues on motivation and incentives in order to understand how organizations can induce desired user behaviors congruent with the goals of the organization. We conclude with the use of an illustrative example to show how the framework can be used in an academic environment. This framework will help researchers and practitioners understand how to better manage and align the incentive structures for internal users across IT adoption stages.