Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The α and Δ Isoforms of CREB1 Are Required to Maintain Normal Pulmonary Vascular Resistance

Chronic hypoxia causes pulmonary hypertension associated with structural alterations in pulmonary vessels and sustained vasoconstriction. The transcriptional mechanisms responsible for these distinctive changes are unclear. We have previously reported that CREB1 is activated in the lung in response to alveolar hypoxia but not in other organs. To directly investigate the role of α and Δ isoforms of CREB1 in the regulation of pulmonary vascular resistance we examined the responses of mice in which these isoforms of CREB1 had been inactivated by gene mutation, leaving only the β isoform intact (CREBαΔ mice). Here we report that expression of CREB regulated genes was altered in the lungs of CREBαΔ mice. CREBαΔ mice had greater pulmonary vascular resistance than wild types, both basally in normoxia and following exposure to hypoxic conditions for three weeks. There was no difference in rho kinase mediated vasoconstriction between CREBαΔ and wild type mice. Stereological analysis of pulmonary vascular structure showed characteristic wall thickening and lumen reduction in hypoxic wild-type mice, with similar changes observed in CREBαΔ. CREBαΔ mice had larger lungs with reduced epithelial surface density suggesting increased pulmonary compliance. These findings show that α and Δ isoforms of CREB1 regulate homeostatic gene expression in the lung and that normal activity of these isoforms is essential to maintain low pulmonary vascular resistance in both normoxic and hypoxic conditions and to maintain the normal alveolar structure. Interventions that enhance the actions of α and Δ isoforms of CREB1 warrant further investigation in hypoxic lung diseases.
Availability of a Diversely Avid CD8+ T Cell Repertoire Specific for the Subdominant HLA-A2-Restricted HIV-1 Gag p2419–27 Epitope1

HLA-A2-restricted CTL responses to immunodominant HIV-1 epitopes do not appear to be very effective in the control of viral replication in vivo. In this study, we studied human CD8+ T cell responses to the subdominant HLA-A2-restricted epitope TV9 (Gag p2419–27, TLNAWVKVV) to explore the possibility of increasing its immune recognition. We confirmed in a cohort of 313 patients, infected by clade B or clade C viruses, that TV9 is rarely recognized. Of interest, the functional sensitivity of the TV9 response can be relatively high. The potential T cell repertoires for TV9 and the characteristics of constituent clonotypes were assessed by ex vivo priming of circulating CD8+ T cells from healthy seronegative donors. TV9-specific CTLs capable of suppressing viral replication in vitro were readily generated, suggesting that the cognate T cell repertoire is not limiting. However, these cultures contained multiple discrete populations with a range of binding avidities for the TV9 tetramer and correspondingly distinct functional dependencies on the CD8 coreceptor. The lack of dominant clonotypes was not affected by the stage of maturation of the priming dendritic cells. Cultures primed by dendritic cells transduced to present endogenous TV9 were also incapable of clonal maturation. Thus, a diffuse TCR repertoire appeared to be an intrinsic characteristic of TV9-specific responses. These data indicate that subdominance is not a function of poor immunogenicity, cognate TCR repertoire availability, or the potential avidity properties thereof, but rather suggest that useful responses to this epitope are suppressed by competing CD8+ T cell populations during HIV-1 infection.
How much is said in a microblog?: A multilingual inquiry based on Weibo and Twitter

This paper presents a multilingual study on, per single post of microblog text, (a) how much can be said, (b) how much is written in terms of characters and bytes, and (c) how much is said in terms of information content in posts by different organizations in different languages. Focusing on three different languages (English, Chinese, and Japanese), this research analyses Weibo and Twitter accounts of major embassies and news agencies. We first establish our criterion for quantifying "how much can be said" in a digital text based on the openly available Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the translated subtitles from TED talks. These parallel corpora allow us to determine the number of characters and bits needed to represent the same content in different languages and character encodings. We then derive the amount of information that is actually contained in microblog posts authored by selected accounts on Weibo and Twitter. Our results confirm that languages with larger character sets such as Chinese and Japanese contain more information per character than English, but the actual information content contained within a microblog text varies depending on both the type of organization and the language of the post. We conclude with a discussion on the design implications of microblog text limits for different languages.
Ocular Hypertensive Response to Topical Dexamethasone Ointment in Children

Purpose To investigate the rate and the degree of the ocular hypertensive response to dexamethasone ointment in children undergoing eyelid surgery. Methods Dexamethasone ointment (Dexcosil®) was applied three times a day for the first week and twice a day for the second to third week postoperatively to children undergoing epiblepharon surgery. Intraocular pressure (IOP) was measured on the day before surgery, postoperative day 1, 7, 14, 21, 28 and 2 weeks thereafter until the IOP reached preoperative levels. Peak IOP, IOP net increase and time to reach a peak IOP were analyzed. Dexamethasone ointment was discontinued if the IOP was 25 mmHg or more. Results A total of 96 children (mean age, 6.5±2.7 years) were included. Preoperative mean IOP was 13.6±2.9 mmHg (range 7-19). After dexamethasone ointment treatment, the children showed a significant rise in IOP as compared with the preoperative values. The peak IOP was 20.6±4.9 mmHg (range 11-39) and the time to reach peak IOP was 8.5±5.9 days. The low responders (delta IOP ≤5 mmHg) of our group comprised 35.4% (34/96) of patients, intermediate responders (delta IOP 6-15 mmHg) comprised 56.3% (54/96) of patients and high responders (delta IOP≥16) comprised 8.3% (8/96) of patients. A net increase in IOP was significantly higher in children 5 years old or less as compared with those older than 5 years (age ≤5, 9.4±7.5 mmHg vs age >5, 6.3±4.4 mmHg; p=0.015, unpaired t-test). Conclusions Ocular hypertensive response after dexamethasone ointment to the eyelids occurred frequently in children, especially those 5 years old or younger.
Telepsychiatry in psychogeriatric service: a pilot study

A pilot study on telepsychiatry was conducted in which a videoconferencing link was established between a regional hospital and a care and attention home. Using this system, a psychogeriatric outreach team provided 149 psychiatric assessments to 45 residents of the care and attention home over 11 months. Videoconferencing was found to be highly feasible. It was acceptable to staff and patients and more cost‐effective than on‐site visits. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Laser iridotomy and the corneal endothelium: a systemic review

This study aims to systemically review the effect of laser iridotomy on the corneal endothelium. Searches were performed for studies that either compared corneal endothelial cell density/count, corneal thickness and morphology pre‐ and postiridotomy, or evaluated the postiridotomy development of corneal decompensation. There were 26 eligible studies. Our review shows that the effect of laser iridotomy on the corneal endothelium has been investigated with varying results. Although it has been demonstrated to be a relatively safe procedure, there is still the potential long‐term risk of corneal decompensation, for which a corneal transplantation may be indicated eventually. The longest interval between laser iridotomy and corneal decompensation reported was 8 years. Mechanisms proposed for endothelial damage include direct focal injury, thermal damage, mechanical shock waves, iris pigment dispersion, transient rise in intraocular pressure, inflammation, turbulent aqueous flow, time‐dependent shear stress on endothelium, chronic breakdown of blood–aqueous barrier and damage from bubbles that settled onto the endothelium. Inherent risk factors identified were iridotrabecular contact, current or prior acute angle closure, pigmented irides, small iris‐to‐endothelium distance, pre‐existing endothelial disease and diabetes. Intervention‐related risk factors include laser type, delivery and quantity. The significance of the risk factors and their direct association with the development of corneal decompensation remain to be determined. Understanding these risk factors may allow physicians to counsel their patients better. They may offer opportunities for preventive strategies, allowing us to ensure that a procedure performed to prevent disease progression and visual loss does not cause further morbidity.
Glossina dynamics in and around the sleeping sickness endemic Serengeti ecosystem of northwestern Tanzania

ABSTRACT We investigated the dynamics of Glossina spp. and their role in the transmission of trypanosomiasis in the sleeping sickness endemic Serengeti ecosystem, northwestern Tanzania. The study investigated Glossina species composition, trap density, trypanosome infection rates, and the diversity of trypanosomes infecting the species. Tsetse were trapped using monopyramidal traps in the mornings between 06:00 to 11:00 and transported to the veterinary laboratory in Serengeti National Park where they were sorted into species and sex, and dissected microscopically to determine trypanosome infection rates. Age estimation of dissected flies was also conducted concurrently. Tsetse samples positive for trypanosomes were subjected to PCR to determine the identity of the detected trypanosomes. Out of 2, 519 tsetse trapped, 1, 522 (60.42%) were G. swynnertoni, 993 (39.42%) were G. pallidipes, three (0.12%) were G. m. morsitans, and one (0.04%) was G. brevipalpis. The trap density for G. swynnertoni was between 1.40 and 14.17 while that of G. pallidipes was between 0.23 and 9.70. Out of 677 dissected G. swynnertoni, 63 flies (9.3%) were infected, of which 62 (98.4%) were females. A total of 199 G. pallidipes was also dissected but none was infected. There was no significant difference between the apparent densities of G. swynnertoni compared to that of G. pallidipes (t = 1.42, p = 0.18). Molecular characterization of the 63 infected G. swynnertoni midguts showed that 19 (30.2%) were trypanosomes associated with suid animals while nine (14.3%) were trypanosomes associated with bovid animals and five samples (7.9%) had T. brucei s.l genomic DNA. Thirty (47.6%) tsetse samples could not be identified. Subsequent PCR to differentiate between T. b. brucei and T. b. rhodesiense showed that all five samples that contained the T. brucei s.l genomic DNA were positive for the SRA molecular marker indicating that they were T. b. rhodesiense. These results indicate that G. swynnertoni plays a major role in the transmission of trypaniosomiasis in the area and that deliberate and sustainable control measures should be initiated and scaled up.
Factors influencing lymphocyte reconstitution after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in children

Background Immune reconstitution (IR) after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) reduces transplantation-related complications such as infection and improves HSCT outcomes. Methods We retrospectively analyzed IR of lymphocyte subpopulations in 38 pediatric patients for hematologic malignant diseases after allogeneic HSCT from April 2006 to July 2008. T-cell-, B-cell-, and natural killer (NK) cell-associated antigens were assayed in peripheral blood by flow cytometry analysis of 5 lymphocyte subsets, CD3+, CD3+/CD4+, CD4+/CD8+, CD16+/CD56+, and CD19+, before and 3 and 12 months after transplantation. Results Reconstitutions of CD16+/CD56+ and CD3+/CD8+ lymphocytes were achieved rapidly, whereas that of CD3+/CD19+ lymphocytes occurred later. Age was not related to reconstitution of any lymphocyte subset. Total body irradiation (TBI) and anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) administration were related to delayed reconstitution of total lymphocytes and CD3+ lymphocytes, respectively. Reconstitutions of CD3+/CD4+ lymphocytes and CD3+/CD8+ lymphocytes were significantly delayed in patients who received umbilical cord blood stem cells. In patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD), recovery of the total lymphocyte count and CD19+ lymphocytes at 3 months post-transplant were significantly delayed. However, acute GVHD (aGVHD) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) reactivation did not influence the IR of any lymphocyte subset. Further, delayed reconstitution of lymphocyte subsets did not correspond to inferior survival outcomes in this study. Conclusion We observed that some lymphocyte reconstitutions after HSCT were influenced by the stem cell source and preparative regimens. However, delayed CD19+ lymphocyte reconstitution may be associated with cGVHD.
Calorimeter for adsorption energies of larger molecules on single crystal surfaces

A calorimeter for measuring heats of adsorption of large molecules on single crystal surfaces is described. It extends previous instrumentation for single crystal adsorption calorimetry by adding the capability for measuring larger (lower vapor pressure) molecules. This is achieved using a chopped and collimated (∼4 mm diameter) molecular beam capable of stable 100 ms pulses of low vapor pressure substances, and a line-of-sight modification of the King and Wells method for measuring their sticking probabilities at the single crystal’s surface. The heat input to the single crystal due to adsorption is detected using a pyroelectric polymer ribbon pressed against the back of the single crystal, following our previous calorimeter design. Measurements of benzene adsorption on Pt(111) prove the capability to produce a highly stable beam of flux ∼2×1014 molecules/(cm2 s) and measure adsorption energies with an absolute accuracy of ∼5% and a pulse-to-pulse standard deviation of 2 kJ/mol.
The effects of population size and selection intensity in selection for a quantitative character in Drosophila. 3. Analyses of the lines.

1. In order to determine the nature of the genetic variation causing the response to selection in our lines (Jones et al. 1968), various analyses were performed. 2. There was no consistent change in heritability, estimated from half-sib correlation or from the phenotypic correlation between the bristle numbers of two abdominal segments, after 10 to 20 generations of selection. 3. Realized heritabilities over the 10 generations subsequent to the heritability estimations were less than in the early generations but bore little relationship to the estimated values. 4. Six lines contained recessive lethals with appreciable effects on bristle number as indicated by high variances, large regression on relaxation and large response to reverse selection. 5. Reverse selection lines taken from the main lines at generation 40 indicated that genetic variation was still present in almost all of the lines. Only one line failed to respond to further forward or to reverse selection. 6. The three highest lines were crossed in pairs and reselected. Two of the three possible crosses gave further response, exceeding the higher parent after one and three generations, but the other cross failed to pass the highest parent line. 7. A combination of large gene effects, linkage, and gene interaction effects have been suggested as the cause of irregularities in the response of the lines. It has not been possible to determine the relative importance of these effects.
A magneto-quasi-static surface formulation to calculate the impedance of 3D interconnects with arbitrary cross-section

This paper presents a surface formulation to calculate the impedance of 3D interconnects with arbitrary cross-section under the magneto-quasi-static assumption. The proposed formulation combines the 2D differential surface admittance operator for conductors of arbitrary shape with the electric field integral equation to calculate the impedance. The proposed formulation avoids any volumetric discretization of the conductors, which results in faster computation times and lower memory consumption compared to other methods.
The Left and Right Context of a Word: Overlapping Chinese Syllable Word Segmentation with Minimal Context

Since a Chinese syllable can correspond to many characters (homophones), the syllable-to-character conversion task is quite challenging for Chinese phonetic input methods (CPIM). There are usually two stages in a CPIM: 1. segment the syllable sequence into syllable words, and 2. select the most likely character words for each syllable word. A CPIM usually assumes that the input is a complete sentence, and evaluates the performance based on a well-formed corpus. However, in practice, most Pinyin users prefer progressive text entry in several short chunks, mainly in one or two words each (most Chinese words consist of two or more characters). Short chunks do not provide enough contexts to perform the best possible syllable-to-character conversion, especially when a chunk consists of overlapping syllable words. In such cases, a conversion system often selects the boundary of a word with the highest frequency. Short chunk input is even more popular on platforms with limited computing power, such as mobile phones. Based on the observation that the relative strength of a word can be quite different when calculated leftwards or rightwards, we propose a simple division of the word context into the left context and the right context. Furthermore, we design a double ranking strategy for each word to reduce the number of errors in Step 1. Our strategy is modeled as the minimum feedback arc set problem on bipartite tournament with approximate solutions derived from genetic algorithm. Experiments show that, compared to the frequency-based method (FBM) (low memory and fast) and the conditional random fields (CRF) model (larger memory and slower), our double ranking strategy has the benefits of less memory and low power requirement with competitive performance. We believe a similar strategy could also be adopted to disambiguate conflicting linguistic patterns effectively.
"Early attachment behavior in mother-infant dyad: a study on Maternal Physical Engagement"

The purpose of this study, is to compare the extent and types of physical proximity and contact between mothers and infants across different countries during the early child stage of life, and to discuss how those activities are modulated by contrasting cultural styles. We have compared the way in which mothers are physical engaged with their children in different societies, to investigate similarities and differences in the physical and proximal maternal behaviors, selecting 5 different countries belonging to the Western (Italy and USA), Eastern (Korea and Japan) and Developing countries (Kenya). Moreover, the research analyzed how those early maternal activities are related to the child’s subsequent development, examining how experiences during early life could affect his future growth. The results are discussed in light of the culture-universal as well as culture-specific aspects of parenting. Three studies have been developed: the first examines and compares the ways in which mothers physically engage their very young infants in Italy and the USA, and asks whether they differ in the proximal and physical response to infant vocalizations; the second proposes a wider analysis of the maternal physical engagement across different countries, and investigates similarities and differences in the physical and proximal maternal behaviors in countries belonging to the Western (Italy and USA), Eastern (Korea and Japan) and Developing countries (Kenya); the third evaluates the influence of maternal physical engagement on the development of infant play, adaptive behavior, and child emotion availability, in the Italian sample. Finally, in the Appendix, is reported a study on a particular form of attachment behavior presented in mammalian (the Transport Response (TR)), in mice genetically modified who show deficits in attachment behavior. The study corroborates the importance of investigating the genetic basis of attachment behavior in order to better understand the affiliative relationship in higher mammals.
Perception of Emotion: Differences in Mode of Presentation, Sex of Perceiver, and Race of Expressor.

A 2x2x4 factorial design was utilized to investigate the effects of sex of perceiver, race of expressor (Negro and white), and mode of presentation of stimuli (audio/Visual, visual/Only, audio/only and still pictures) on perception of emotion (POE). Perception of seven emotions (anger, happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, pain and sadness) was analyzed in terms of three dependent variables: total accuracy scores, correct perception of individual emotion scores, and, erroneous perception of individual emotion scores. Results indicate a main effect for sensory modality: emotions are most accurately perceived in audio/Visual, followed by visual/Only, audio/only and still pictures respectively. There was also main effect for sex of perceiver: females were superior to males in overall POE. Contradictory results for main effect of race of expressor were obtained; Negroes were more accurately perceived in the expression of anger and sadness, whereas whites were more accurately perceived in the expression of happiness and fear.
Issues in imaging-guided tumor ablation in children versus adults.

OBJECTIVE Despite the growing use of percutaneous imaging-guided tumor ablation in adults, few reports describe its use in children except for osteoid osteoma. Our objective is to describe how tumor ablation in children and adults may differ, both to facilitate dialogue on pediatric tumor ablation and to increase awareness and use of this valuable technique. CONCLUSION There are numerous indications for which various ablative techniques may be safe and effective for treatment of pediatric tumors. Nonetheless, important differences between the pediatric and adult populations warrant consideration.