Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Two Divergent Members of a Tobacco 4-Coumarate:Coenzyme A Ligase (4CL) Gene Family (cDNA Structure, Gene Inheritance and Expression, and Properties of Recombinant Proteins)

Several cDNA clones encoding 4-coumarate:coenzyme A ligase (4CL) were isolated from a tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) cDNA library and grouped into two classes. Sequencing of one cDNA from each class showed that the clones were similar to other 4CL genes and about 80% identical with each other. Genomic Southern blots using DNA from Nicotiana sylvestris, Nicotiana tomentosiformis, and N. tabacum demonstrated the presence of both classes of 4CL sequences (4CL1 and 4CL2) in the progenitor species and in tobacco. Northern blots indicated that 4CL mRNA transcripts are highest in old stems and higher in the unpigmented corolla tubes than in the pigmented limbs of tobacco flowers. The 4CL genes are developmentally regulated and are wound and methyl jasmonate inducible. The relative abilities of recombinant 4CL1 and 4CL2 proteins to utilize 4-coumarate, ferulate, and caffeate as substrates were similar and comparable with that of 4CL in tobacco stem extracts. Surprisingly, both recombinant 4CL proteins utilized cinnamate as a substrate, an activity not observed in stem extracts. This activity was inhibited by a heat-labile, high-molecular-weight factor found in tobacco stem extracts, suggesting that the substrate specificity of 4CL is, in part, determined by the activity of proteinaceous cellular components.
Spatial Distribution of Nerve Fiber Pathology and Vasculitis in Microscopic Polyangiitis-Associated Neuropathy

We analyzed the 3-dimensional distribution of pathologic findings in 8 autopsied cases of neuropathy associated with microscopic polyangiitis. Necrotizing vasculitis was commonly and diffusely present in the epineurium of the sciatic/tibial and median nerves. Although findings of vasculitis were distributed diffusely in proximalto distal segments of the nerve trunks, marked loss of myelinated fibers occurred only from the middle to distal segments of thesenerves. Neurons of the sensory and sympathetic ganglia were well preserved, as were myelinated fibers of the anterior and posterior spinal roots. Central fascicular nerve fiber degeneration, suggesting direct ischemic damage, occurred in restricted segments of the proximal-middle portion of the sciatic/tibial and median nerve trunks. Vasculitis was also seen in various visceral organs in all patients, but its distribution differed among individual patients; the severity of vasculitis in the other organs did not correlate with that inthe peripheral nerves. The distinct spatial distribution pattern of nerve fiber degeneration, in contrast to the ubiquitous presence of vasculitis, suggested that the ischemic zone that directly damages nerve fibers is present in the proximal-middle portion of peripheral nerve trunks in microscopic polyangiitis.
A vision system for observing and extracting facial action parameters

We describe a computer vision system for observing the "action units" of a face using video sequences as input. The visual observation (sensing) is achieved by using an optimal estimation optical flow method coupled with a geometric and a physical (muscle) model describing the facial structure. This modeling results in a time-varying spatial patterning of facial shape and a parametric representation of the independent muscle action groups, responsible for the observed facial motions. These muscle action patterns may then be used for analysis, interpretation, and synthesis. Thus, by interpreting facial motions within a physics-based optimal estimation framework, a new control model of facial movement is developed. The newly extracted action units (which we name "FACS+") are both physics and geometry-based, and extend the well-known FACS parameters for facial expressions by adding temporal information and non-local spatial patterning of facial motion. <<ETX>>
Flexible Intramedullary Nailing in Children: Nail to Medullary Canal Diameters Optimal Ratio

Background: Postoperative axial deviations and delayed unions are possible complications after flexible intramedullary nailing (FIN). The goals of this study were to determine if a correlation exists between occurrence of the above complications and the ratio of the diameter between nail and medullary canal [nail diameter (ND)/MCD ratio], to study the interobserver variability in the measurement of MCD, and to define a threshold to be respected to optimize the results. Methods: Eighty-one consecutive diaphyseal fractures treated by means of FIN were evaluated. The ND/MCD ratios were determined by 2 independent observers. Axial deviations were defined as 5-degree angulation or more observed before bone union. Absence of bone union at 3 months was considered as delayed union. Statistical analysis was made for interobserver variability of MCD, dependency between occurrence of complications and ND/MCD ratio and eventual confounding variables (age, weight, sex, and fracture location). Results: Of the 81 fractures, 14 presented with an axial deviation and 3 with a delayed union. Interobserver variability of MCD diameter was excellent (intraclass correlation: 0.96). Occurrence of the above complications was significantly associated with a low ND/MCD ratio (P=0.0002) but with none of the examined confounding variables. Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed absence of complications with a ND/MCD ratio >35% with a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 89%. Related with the MCD measurements variability, a safe threshold of 40% can be suggested. Conclusions: In FIN, ND>40% to the MCD should be chosen to avoid complications, besides respecting the technical principles. Measuring the medullary canal diameter in order to choose correct nail size is reproducible between different observers. In adolescents with a medullary canal diameter of >10 mm in femur or tibia fractures, alternative methods of osteosynthesis than FIN should be considered. Significance: This work statistically confirms that a ND/MCD ratio of >40% must be respected to avoid some complications in FIN. Level of Evidence: Level III.
Obstructive nephropathy in the rat: possible roles for the renin-angiotensin system, prostaglandins, and thromboxanes in postobstructive renal function.

Relief of unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) of 24 h duration in rats is followed by severe renal vasoconstriction in the postobstructive kidney (POK). The present study examined possible roles of renal prostaglandins (PG) and thromboxanes (TX), as well as the renin-angiotensin system, in this vasoconstriction. Administration of the cyclooxygenase inhibitor indomethacin, which blocks both PG and TX production, failed to improve POK hemodynamics in UUO rats. To explore the possible role of the TX compounds, which include the potent vasoconstrictor thromboxane A2 (TXA2), UUO rats were infused with imidazole, an agent that blocks synthesis of TX, but not of PG. Imidiazole led to two- to threefold increases in the clearance of both inulin and rho-aminohippuric acid by the POK. This effect of imidazole was abolished by indomethacin, suggesting that the amelioration of POK vasoconstriction by imidazole was a result of inhibition of vasoconstrictor TX synthesis (e.g. TXA2), with PG vasodilators (e.g. PGE2 or PG12) still active. Urea, infused in a solution whose osmolality and volume were identical to the imidazole infusion, failed to improve hemodynamics in the POK, making it unlikely that nonspecific effects of volume expansion or osmotic diuresis mediated the beneficial effect of imidazole. Further studies examined the possible role of the renin-angiotensin systems in the vasoconstriction of the POK. UUO rats infused with the angiotensin II antagonist, Saralasin, exhibited no significant improvement in POK function, a finding that might be at least partly attributable to agonist/vasoconstrictor properties of Saralasin. In other experiments, treatment of UUO rats with the angiotensin-converting enzyme blocker SQ 14225 (Captopril), in order to inhibit angiotensin II formation, led to at least twofold increases in the clearance of both inulin and rho-aminohippuric acid in the POK. It is unlikely that Captopril exerted this beneficial effect by potentiating the vasodilator kinins, because the effect was not diminished by administration of either carboxypeptidase B (which destroys the kinins) or Trasylol (which blocks kinin synthesis). Thus, these results suggest that both angiotensin II, as well as metabolites of the PG-TX system, may be important determinants of postobstructive renal hemodynamics in the rat.
Party Control and Perverse Effects in Majority-Minority Districting: Replication Challenges When Using DW-NOMINATE

Every 10 years, states set about redrawing the lines of their Congressional districts. Scholars in political science have long been interested in the strategic behavior and representational outcomes of this process. While majority-minority districts are intended to provide a constraint on strategic party behavior in order to ensure substantive representation of minority interests, researchers have noted a perverse effect that results in potentially less-representative political outcomes. In 2003, Kenneth Shotts, David Lublin, and D. Stephen Voss debated the veracity of the perverse effects claim, but Shotts’ critique was missing a key interaction between partisanship and the liberalizing effect of majority-minority districts. In the course of performing this necessary extension on Shotts’ work, we found that our results have an unexpected, and important, methodological implication for Congress scholars. Specifically, we were unable to replicate his results precisely due to sublte changes in DW-NOMINATE estimates that result from periodic updating of the database. Further-more, after substantially expanding the dataset, we continue to find the same null results and the evidence supporting the interaction is statistically ambiguous. Though these null results do not prove or disprove the perverse-effects hypothesis, they do undermine Shotts’ evidence of a liberalizing effect of majority-minority districting. While we lack sufficient precision to estimate whether majority-minority districting has a positive, negative, or truly no effect on minority representation (and the conditional effect of party control), it is more concerning that small changes to DW-NOMINATE would prevent the replication of these past results, given the abundance of studies that use it to measure legislator ideology.
The chromatic parameters of isoluminant chromatic motion examined with dissimilarity judgements

A moving edge or contrast between equiluminant colours produces a weaker motion percept than that defined by luminance contrast. However, the specific contrasts that determine chromatic motion have not been explored systematically. Here, rivalrous chromatic motion displays were produced by superimposing two gratings, one drifting from left to right and the other in the opposite direction. Each grating oscillated between equiluminant endpoints chosen from a pool of 16 colours. The rivalrous ambiguity resolved spontaneously for each display as the more‐dissimilar colour pair dominated the less‐dissimilar pair, and produced a percept of motion in the corresponding direction. These dissimilarity judgements were analysed with multidimensional scaling to represent ‘motion salience’ as distances in a colour map, to gauge whether chromatic motion is enhanced or weakened if the oscillation aligns with particular directions in the colour plane. Judgements were compared with other control judgements involving standard subjective dissimilarities between the same stimuli. Notably, chromatic motion was strongest when grating endpoints were separated along an orange‐blue direction. This does not coincide with either cardinal axis of cone space, (L‐M) or S0, but rather is a direction that would arise if motion is computed from a combination of the (L‐M) and S0 signals.
Distinct tau PET imaging patterns in typical and atypical Alzheimer's disease.

This scientific commentary refers to ‘Tau PET patterns mirror clinical and neuroanatomical variability in Alzheimer’s disease’, by Ossenkoppele et al. (doi:10.1093/brain/aww027). Specific protein inclusions define most neurodegenerative diseases at the pathological level. Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by abnormal extracellular amyloid-β deposits associated with intraneuronal tau aggregation in the cell body (neurofibrillary tangles), in the dendrites (neuropil threads) or in the axons of the senile plaque corona. In typical Alzheimer’s disease, the progression of cognitive deficits is consistent with the extension of tau pathology from the medial temporal regions (entorhinal cortex, parahippocampal gyrus and hippocampal formation) through the neocortical associative areas, resulting in early progressive impairment of episodic memory followed by aphasia, apraxia and agnosia. Aside from this common presentation, some patients with a diagnosis confirmed at post-mortem present with atypical clinical symptoms such as primary progressive aphasia, usually of the logopenic type, visuo-spatial deficits (posterior cortical atrophy), or predominant dysexecutive (frontal) syndrome (Alladi et al. , 2007). In addition, age of onset influences the clinical presentation. In early onset Alzheimer’s disease, temporo-parietal cortical damage is predominant with relative sparing of episodic memory, whereas greater medial temporal lobe atrophy and severe amnesia have been observed in late onset Alzheimer’s disease (Hamelin et al. , 2015). In this issue of Brain , Ossenkoppele et al. (2016) study the heterogeneity of tau deposition in patients with clinical variants of Alzheimer’s disease by using molecular PET imaging to examine the underlying biological mechanisms in vivo . Recent advances in Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers provide information about the pathophysiological process associated with the disease, and make it possible to go beyond the clinical diagnosis. Biomarkers are classified into two major categories: (i) biomarkers of amyloid-β accumulation, namely high tracer retention on amyloid PET imaging and low CSF amyloid-β; and (ii) biomarkers of neuronal degeneration …
Schools and health: a district-level evaluation of school health education in Ghana

This study evaluated Ghana's school health education programme, policy guidelines, curriculum topics and evaluation methods at the district level. A modified version of the Health Education District Questionnaire, a self-administered instrument developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was used to collect data from the country's 110 district school health education programme co-ordinators. The response rate was 80 per cent. Information was also gathered through in-depth interviews with the national co-ordinator and her staff and by reviewing programme documents. The results indicated that the programme is focused on building life skills by using participatory teaching methods. However, although the programme guidelines require the use of two strategies-the unit course approach and the integrated/infusion approach-fully to cover health topics within the curriculum, the extent of actual coverage of the topics as reported by the district co-ordinators varied (ranging from 52.3 per cent for consumer health to 98.9 per cent for personal hygiene). In addition, less than 40 per cent of the co-ordinators reported having conducted any formal or informal evaluation of key aspects of the programme at the district level. The findings of this study have implications for Ghana's school health education programme. These are discussed, along with some recommendations. African Journal of Social Work Vol.18(2) 2003: 105-120
EXPLAINING THE LINK BETWEEN HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES AND INNOVATION PERFORMANCE: THE ROLE OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING PROCESSES*

This theoretical paper makes a preliminary attempt to integrate the – so far usually disconnected – literatures on: (i) linking human resource (HR) practices and innovation performance, (ii) assessing organizational learning (capability) (OL/C), (iii) linking HR practices and OL(C), or (iv) linking OL(C) and innovation. We clearly distinguish between policy-based variables (a system of innovation-triggering HR practices) and processual, mediating ones of a behavioural nature (a system of knowledge-optimizing OL processes), all of them eventually impacting on innovation performance (composed by innovation efficacy and innovation efficiency). The proposed framework is expected to facilitate further (theoretical and empirical) research into the HR-OL-innovation connections.
Parens Patriae And Livy's Camillus1

The titles Parens Patriae and Pater Patriae seem to have been employed controversially in ideological battles of the late Republic, especially from the consulship of Cicero onwards. It seems clear that, among other ideas, these polyvalent titles were capable of evoking the traditional Greek antithesis between the good king (who behaves as a gentle father to his people) and the tyrant, but whereas it is the tyrant who kills citizens in Greek thought, at Rome there was an understanding that the father could execute grown-up dependants who were threatening the state. This ambiguity both complicated and energised debates about the autocratic behaviour of the leading men of the late Republic. In other words, the father analogy was intended as a positive characterisation of the warlords and other leaders but its prominence in the first century BCE shows how anxious the Romans were about limiting and justifying the killing of citizens only as a last resort for the good of the state. Noticeably, Julius Caesar advertises the title Parens Patriae on his coins, and he was evidently invoked as Parens in the Forum cult which flourished for a time after his death. When Cicero speaks of his behaviour in 63 BCE and the positive interpretations put upon it by his friends, he tends to use the terms parens and pater synonymously. We ought to follow this cue and think that there is a fair degree to which the two can be synonymous. On the other hand, Caesar's supporters might have intended a contrast with his ideological rival Cicero, who had executed the Catilinarian conspirators without a trial. Their aim might have been to emphasise connotations of state benefactor and saviour rather than coercive aspects to do with patria potestas and the ius uitae necisque. The form Parens Patriae appears on the face of it to be less potentially threatening than Pater Patriae and more inclined to stress ideas of lifegiving, nurturing, and the like.
Protein C and protein S in homozygous sickle cell disease: does hepatic dysfunction contribute to low levels?

The aim of this study was to confirm reports of low protein C (PC) and S (PS) concentrations in steady‐state patients with homozygous sickle cell (SS) disease when compared to a racially matched normal haemoglobin (AA) control group and to examine the mechanisms of this reduction with respect to hepatic function, coagulation activation and haematological indices.
Correlations between physiological variables and performance in high level cross country off road cyclists

Objectives: To examine the relations between maximal and submaximal indices of aerobic fitness and off road cycling performance in a homogeneous group of high level mountain bikers. Methods: 12 internationally competitive mountain bikers completed the study. Maximum oxygen uptake (V˙o2max), peak power output (PPO), power output (PO), and oxygen uptake (V˙o2) at first (VT) and second (RCT) ventilatory thresholds were measured in the laboratory, and correlated with race time during a cross country circuit race. Results: The only physiological indices of aerobic fitness correlated with off road cycling performance were PO and V˙o2 at RCT when normalised to body mass (r = −0.63 and r = −0.66, respectively; p<0.05). VT, V˙o2max, and PPO were not correlated to performance in this homogeneous group of high level mountain bikers. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that submaximal indices of aerobic fitness such as PO and V˙o2 at RCT are more important determinants of off road cycling performance than maximal indices such as PPO and V˙o2max. This study confirms the importance of body mass for mountain biking performance. As aerobic fitness explained only 40% of the variance, other physiological and technical factors should be investigated, as they may be important determinants of cross country performance among elite mountain bikers.
A new test of advanced theory of mind: The “Strange Stories Film Task” captures social processing differences in adults with autism spectrum disorders

Real‐life social processing abilities of adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can be hard to capture in lab‐based experimental tasks. A novel measure of social cognition, the “Strange Stories Film task’ (SSFt), was designed to overcome limitations of available measures in the field. Brief films were made based on the scenarios from the Strange Stories task (Happé) and designed to capture the subtle social‐cognitive difficulties observed in ASD adults. Twenty neurotypical adults were recruited to pilot the new measure. A final test set was produced and administered to a group of 20 adults with ASD and 20 matched controls, alongside established social cognition tasks and questionnaire measures of empathy, alexithymia and ASD traits. The SSFt was more effective than existing measures at differentiating the ASD group from the control group. In the ASD group, the SSFt was associated with the Strange Stories task. The SSFt is a potentially useful tool to identify social cognitive dis/abilities in ASD, with preliminary evidence of adequate convergent validity. Future research directions are discussed. Autism Res 2017. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Autism Res 2017, 10: 1120–1132. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Book Review: Assassination, Anarchy, and Terrorism: A Sociological Analysis

essay ‘‘Drug Courts as Communicative Punishment’’ explains, Duff’s theory is adaptable to numerous types of punishments because its focus is on how punishment is communicated to the offender while using retributive and proportionality principals. Another attempt to theoretically inform current sentencing practices is written by Richard S. Frase in his essay ‘‘Can Above-desert Penalties Be Justified by Competing Deontological Theories. ’’ In that essay, Frase conceives a Rawlsian approach to criminal punishment which develops proportionality arguments by comparing the rights of the offender in society with the rights of the crime victim. Jan W. De Keijser’s presents the Dutch dual model of sentencing in his essay, ‘‘Never Mind the Pain, It’s a Measure! Justifying Measures as Part of the Dutch Bifurcated System of Sanctions. ’’ Both Tonry and Von Hirsch discuss the suitability of this model for the United States, which includes sentencing based on classic notions of desert as well as sentencing that considers the protection of society. Another theorist, Douglas Husak, discusses the compatibility of retributivist philosophy with restorative justice in ‘‘Retributivism, Proportionality, and the Challenge of the Drug Court Movement. ’’ In all, enough sentencing theorists answered Tonry’s call to present an optimistic future for the desert model and its ability to inform current sentencing practices. The book is worth reading because it takes the reader from conceptualizing criminal sentencing in terms of overly simplistic notions of traditional retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation to the more sophisticated theoretical precepts of the contemporary ‘‘desert model. ’’