Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bioremediation of lead by lead-resistant microorganisms, isolated from industrial sample

Lead contamination in water is a widespread problem throughout the world and results from industrial use and processing of lead ore. Bio-availability of lead can be hazardous for children and causes mental retardation. The use of lead free petrol is one measure to check this pollution, but this heavy metal is also present in industrial effluents and need to be removed before these effluents are discharged to natural land or water and as well as to the environment. Using bioremediation, bacteria could render lead non-bioavailable would provide an alternative option for detoxifying this contaminant in the environment. The property of some species of bacteria and algae, to extract metals from their surroundings, has been utilized to purify industrial effluents. The first step in devising a bioremediation strategy is to identify candidate bacterial strains capable of modifying the contaminant. Biotechnological approaches are recommended for extraction of metal forms can be grown in ponds where effluents (rich in heavy metals) are discharged. The microbes will extract the heavy metals and sequester them inside their cell membranes. The goal of the present study was to examine the capacity of lead resistant bacteria and bioremediation of lead contaminated water.
Pollinex Quattro: An innovative four injections immunotherapy In allergic rhinitis

The prevalence of seasonal allergic rhinitis in the western world is high and increasing. Besides considerably affecting physical and psychosocial aspects of patients’ lives, allergic rhinitis is often associated with allergic asthma and may aggravate this condition over time. Specific immunotherapy is currently the only approved therapy that can modify the underlying disease process and induce long-term tolerance to allergens. Pollinex Quattro is a subcutaneous four injections immunotherapy consisting of tyrosine-absorbed specific allergoids and enhanced with the adjuvant monophosphoryl lipid A (MPL®). MPL® induces a significant Th1-type immune response, characterized by an increase of allergen-specific IgG antibody levels and dampening of the IgE response during allergen exposure. Due to this dual action of stimulating the immune system, Pollinex Quattro is clinically effective after only four injections given pre-seasonally. A large clinical program has demonstrated efficacy and tolerability of Pollinex Quattro in children, adolescents and adults with grass and tree pollen allergy. A health economics study concluded that an immunotherapy with only 4 injections might be more cost-beneficial than other application forms of immunotherapy.
Epidemiology of Caries in 12-Year-Olds in Slovenia 1987-2013.

PURPOSE The first large-scale epidemiological survey on dental caries in the Republic of Slovenia was conducted in 1987 and repeated in 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013, using the same methodology. The aim of the study was to describe the trend of caries in 12-year-olds in Slovenia from 1987 to 2013. MATERIALS AND METHODS The method applied in all six surveys was the National Oral Pathfinder Survey using WHO combined oral health and treatment need assessment forms. The surveys were performed in ten towns in all nine geographical regions of Slovenia. One randomly selected primary school in each town participated in the surveys. In each subject selected from the respective class of 12-year-old children, the caries experience and sealant data were recorded, using artificial light, a plane mirror and a sharp explorer. For statistical analysis of the results, the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used. RESULTS The mean DMFT decreased significantly from 5.1 in 1987 to less than 1.7 in 2008 (p < 0.0001), but afterwards began to increase and reached a mean value of almost 1.9 in 2013 (p > 0.05). The percentage of sealed teeth increased from 6% in 1987 to 92% in 2013. CONCLUSION The substantial caries decline in 12-year-olds was evaluated as being due to the preventive measures implemented. However, in the last survey, the caries decline had stopped.
Metal-ceramic failure in noble metal crowns: 7-year results of a prospective clinical trial in private practices.

PURPOSE The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical performance of metal-ceramic crowns placed in 10 private practices. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this prospective clinical trial, 95 patients were provided with 190 noble-metal metal-ceramic single crowns. RESULTS The 7-year survival rates of the crowns were 95.5% (target event: any removal), 99.5% (target event: removal because of defective veneer), and 92.4% (target event: metal-ceramic complication of any kind). No significant explanatory variables for metal-ceramic complications could be detected by bivariate and multivariate testing. The consequences resulting from metal-ceramic defects were of minor clinical significance in most cases. CONCLUSION The findings support previous claims that metal-ceramic restorations perform very well clinically, including in practices outside academic environments.
A Market-Based Approach to Sector Risk Determinants and Transmission in the Euro Area

In a panel data framework applied to Portfolio Distance-to-Default series of corporate sectors in the euro area, this paper evaluates systemic and idiosyncratic determinants of default risk and examines how distress is transferred in and between the financial and corporate sectors since the early days of the euro. This approach takes into account observed and unobserved common factors and the presence of different degrees of cross-section dependence in the form of economic proximity. This paper contributes to the financial stability literature with a contingent claims approach to a sector-based analysis with a less dominant macro focus while being compatible with existing stress-testing methodologies in the literature. A disaggregated analysis of the different corporate and financial sectors allows for a more detailed assessment of specificities in terms of risk profile, i.e. heterogeneity of business models, risk exposures and interaction with the rest of the macro environment.
Determining Optimal Location and Size of Distributed Generation Resources Considering Harmonic and Protection Coordination Limits

In this paper, a new optimization problem is proposed to determine the maximum distributed generation (DG) penetration level by optimally selecting types, locations and sizes of utility owned DG units. The DG penetration level could be limited by harmonic distortion because of the nonlinear current injected by inverter-based DG units and also protection coordination constraints because of the variation in fault current caused by synchronous-based DG units. Hence the objective of the proposed problem is to maximize DG penetration level from both types of DG units, taking into account power balance constraints, bus voltage limits, total and individual harmonic distortion limits specified by the IEEE-519 standard, over-current relay operating time limits, and protection coordination constraints. The DG penetration study is formulated as a nonlinear programming (NLP) problem and tested on the IEEE-30 bus looped distribution network with ten load and DG scenarios. Similarly, feasibility assessment of customer owned DG unit installations considering power quality and protection coordination is also studied. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach, which can serve as an efficient planning tool for utility operators.
Induction of Neuronal and Tumor-Related Genes by Adenovirus Type 12 E1A

ABSTRACT Adenovirus type 12 (Ad12) E1A protein (E1A-12) contains a unique 20-amino-acid spacer region between the second and third conserved regions. Substitution of a single amino acid in the spacer is able to abrogate Ad12 tumorigenesis. To investigate the function of the spacer, microarray analysis was performed on cells transformed by tumorigenic and nontumorigenic Ad12s that differ only by one amino acid in the spacer. Fewer than 0.8% of approximately 8,000 genes in the microarray exhibited differential expression of threefold and higher. Of these, more than half of the known genes with higher expression in the wild-type Ad12-transformed cells have neuronal-specific functions. Some of the other differentially expressed genes are involved in the regulation of the cell cycle, transcription, cell structure, and tumor invasiveness. Northern blot analyses of a subset of the neuronal genes, including Robo1, N-MYC, and α-internexin, confirmed their strong expression in multiple Ad12 tumorigenic cell lines. In contrast, these neuronal genes displayed only minor or negligible expression in cells transformed by spacer-mutated Ad12. Significantly, stable introduction of E1A-12 into nontumorigenic Ad5-transformed cells induced neuronal gene expression. We found that the neuron-restrictive silencer factor, which serves as a master repressor of neuronal genes, was inactivated in both Ad12- and Ad5-transformed cells via cytoplasmic retention, though only Ad12-transformed cells exhibited neuronal gene induction. Mutational analyses of the α-internexin promoter demonstrated that E1A-12-mediated neuronal gene induction further required the activation of neuronal promoter E-box elements. These results indicate that the spacer is involved in mediating neuronal and tumor-related genes.
Risk for suicidal ideation in the U.S. Air Force: an ecological perspective.

OBJECTIVE Suicidal members of the U.S. military often fail to disclose their suicidal urges and behaviors. Military suicide prevention efforts may therefore be enhanced if they also target less stigmatized psychosocial factors that may decrease risk of suicidality. In keeping with Bronfenbrenner's (1977, 1994) model, this study simultaneously examined 4 ecological levels (i.e., individual, family, workplace, and community) of factors variously associated with increased or decreased risk for suicidal ideation. METHOD Active-duty U.S. Air Force members (N = 52,780; 79.3% male; 79.2% non-Hispanic White; mean age = 31.78 years, SD = 7.38) completed the 2006 Community Assessment survey (a biennial, anonymous survey conducted at 82 U.S. Air Force bases worldwide), including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (2008) 5-item measure of past-year suicidality along with scales assessing an array of potential predictors. RESULTS The 1-year rate of suicidal ideation, defined as (a) more than rarely thinking about suicide or (b) ever seriously considering suicide, was approximately 4%. In multivariate models, for men and women, individual- (depressive symptoms and alcohol problems), family- (relationship satisfaction and intimate partner victimization), workplace- (hours worked), and community-level (social support) variables were retained in the final model. However, some sex differences in retained predictors were noted (e.g., men: dissatisfaction with the U.S. Air Force way of life; women: workplace relationship satisfaction and financial stressors). CONCLUSIONS Addressing depressive symptoms and alcohol use, facilitating healthy relationship functioning, and increasing job satisfaction and social support may aid military suicide prevention efforts. These findings illustrate the importance of attending to multiple levels of potential influence when designing integrated suicide prevention and intervention programs.
Practical Implications of Understanding the Influence of Motivations on Commitment to Voluntary Urban Conservation Stewardship

Although the word commitment is prevalent in conservation biology literature and despite the importance of people's commitment to the success of conservation initiatives, commitment as a psychological phenomenon and its operation in specific conservation behaviors remains unexplored. Despite increasing calls for conservation psychology to play a greater role in meeting conservation goals, applications of the psychological sciences to specific conservation behaviors, illustrating their utility to conservation practice, are rare. We examined conservation volunteers’ motivations and commitment to urban conservation volunteering. We interviewed key informant volunteers and used interview findings to develop psychometric scales that we used to assess motivations and commitment to volunteer. We surveyed 322 urban conservation volunteers and used factor analysis to reveal how volunteers structure their motivations and commitment to volunteer for urban conservation activities. Six categories of motivations and 2 categories of commitment emerged from factor analysis. Volunteers were motivated by desires to help the environment, defend and enhance the ego, career and learning opportunities, escape and exercise, social interactions, and community building. Two forms of commitment, affective and normative commitment, psychologically bind people to urban conservation volunteerism. We used linear‐regression models to examine how these categories of motivations influence volunteers’ commitment to conservation volunteerism. Volunteers’ tendency to continue to volunteer for urban conservation, even in the face of fluctuating counter urges, was motivated by personal, social, and community functions more than environmental motivations. The environment, otherwise marginally important, was a significant motivator of volunteers’ commitment only when volunteering met volunteers’ personal, social, and community‐building goals. Attention to these personal, social, and community‐building motivations may help enhance volunteers’ commitment to conservation stewardship and address the pressing challenge of retaining urban conservation volunteers.
Wilderness Values in America: Does Immigrant Status or Ethnicity Matter?

Little is known about the values immigrant groups or U.S.-born racial and ethnic minorities attribute to wilderness. However, the views of these groups are important to wilderness preservation because of increasing diversity along ethnic, cultural, and racial lines in the United States. We examine the proposition that wilderness is a social construction (valued primarily by U.S.-born Whites) by comparing wilderness values for immigrants and U.S.-born minority respondents to Whites. Results from 10 wilderness value items show immigrants are significantly less likely to indicate on-site use value. Among U.S.-born racial/ethnic groups, Black respondents were least likely to indicate values associated with visitation and off-site use but as likely as Whites to indicate a value for continued existence of wilderness. U.S.-born Asians and Latinos were also less likely than Whites to indicate values relating to wilderness on-site use. Implications of findings for wilderness as social construction are discussed.
Cupidin, an Isoform of Homer/Vesl, Interacts with the Actin Cytoskeleton and Activated Rho Family Small GTPases and Is Expressed in Developing Mouse Cerebellar Granule Cells

A developmentally regulated Homer/Vesl isoform, Cupidin (Homer 2a/Vesl-2Δ11), was isolated from postnatal mouse cerebellum using a fluorescent differential display strategy. The strongest expression of Cupidin was detected in the cerebellar granule cells at approximately postnatal day 7. Cupidin was enriched in the postsynaptic density fraction, and its immunoreactivity was concentrated at glomeruli of the inner granular layer when active synaptogenesis occurred. Cupidin protein could be divided into two functional domains: the N-terminal portion, which was highly conserved among Homer/Vesl family proteins, and the C-terminal portion, which consisted of a putative coiled-coil structure, including several leucine zipper motifs. The N-terminal fragment of Cupidin, which was able to associate with metabotropic glutamate receptor 1 (mGluR1), also interacted with F-actin in vitro. In keeping with this, F-actin immunocytochemically colocalized with Cupidin in cultured cerebellar granule cells, and a Cupidin–mGluR1–actin complex was immunoprecipitated from crude cerebellar lysates using an anti-Cupidin antibody. On the other hand, the C-terminal portion of Cupidin bound to Cdc42, a member of Rho family small GTPases, in a GTP-dependent mannerin vitro, and Cupidin functionally interacted with activated-Cdc42 in a heterologous expression system. Together, our findings indicate that Cupidin may serve as a postsynaptic scaffold protein that links mGluR signaling with actin cytoskeleton and Rho family proteins, perhaps during the dynamic phase of morphological changes that occur during synapse formation in cerebellar granule cells.
Senescence-initiated Reversal of Drug Resistance

The present study was undertaken to verify whether induction of senescence could be sufficient to reverse drug resistance and, if so, to determine the underlying mechanism(s). Our findings indicated that cotreatment of drug-resistant neuroblastoma cells with doxorubicin, at sublethal concentrations, in combination with the pan-caspase inhibitor, Q-VD-OPH, elicited a strong reduction of cell viability that occurred in a caspase-independent manner. This was accompanied by the appearance of a senescence phenotype, as evidenced by increased p21/WAF1 expression and senescence-associated β-galactosidase activity. Experiments using specific inhibitors of major cellular proteases other than caspases have shown that inhibition of cathepsin L, but not proteasome or cathepsin B, was responsible for the senescence-initiated reversal of drug resistance. This phenomenon appeared to be general because it was valid for other drugs and drug-resistant cell lines. A nonchemical approach, through cell transfection with cathepsin L small interfering RNA, also strongly reversed drug resistance. Further investigation of the underlying mechanism revealed that cathepsin L inhibition resulted in the alteration of intracellular drug distribution. In addition, in vitro experiments have demonstrated that p21/WAF1 is a substrate for cathepsin L, suggesting that inhibition of this enzyme may result in p21/WAF1 stabilization and its increased accumulation. All together, these findings suggest that cathepsin L inhibition in drug-resistant cells facilitates induction of senescence and reversal of drug resistance. This may represent the basis for a novel function of cathepsin L as a cell survival molecule responsible for initiation of resistance to chemotherapy.
Edinburgh Explorer Airways inflammation and treatment during acute exacerbations of COPD

Introduction: Inﬂ ammation is a core feature of acute chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. It is important to focus on inﬂ ammation since it gives insight into the pathological changes causing an exacerbation, thereby possibly providing directions for future therapies which modify inﬂ ammation. Objectives: To provide a cell-by-cell overview of the inﬂ ammatory processes during COPD exacerbations. To evaluate cell activation, and cytokine production, cellular interactions, damaging effects of inﬂ ammatory mediators to tissue, and the relation to symptoms at the onset of COPD exacerbations. To speculate on future therapeutic options to modify inﬂ ammation during COPD exacerbations. Results: During COPD exacerbations, there is increased airway wall inﬂ ammation, with pathophysiological inﬂ ux of eosinophils, neutrophils, and lymphocytes. Although links have been suggested between the increase in eosinophils and lymphocytes and a viral etiology of the exacerbation, and between the increase in neutrophils and a bacterial aetiology, these increases in both inﬂ ammatory cell types are not limited to the respective aetiologies and the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Conclusion: Further research is required to fully understand the inﬂ ammatory mechanisms in the onset and development of COPD exacerbations. This might make inﬂ ammatory pathway-speciﬁ c intervention possible, resulting in a more effective treatment of COPD exacerbations with fewer side effects.
Extracorporeal elimination in acute valproic acid poisoning

Introduction. Valproic acid (VPA) is an antiepileptic drug that is now used for a variety of neurological and psychiatric indications. Clinical manifestations of severe VPA poisoning include central nervous system depression, hypotension, electrolyte and acid–base disturbances, and hyperammonemia. Although extracorporeal methods have been used to enhance VPA elimination, the indications for and effectiveness of these methods have not been fully characterized. Methods. A systematic literature search was performed, which identified 31 reports of the use of extracorporeal elimination in VPA poisoning. Results. VPA has a low molecular weight of 144 Da and a low volume of distribution, but at therapeutic concentrations, it is highly protein bound (85–95%). Protein-binding studies during hemodialysis demonstrate that at high VPA concentrations protein binding is saturated, allowing substantial clearance of the free VPA fraction. Case reports consistently show that during hemodialysis the elimination half-life of VPA can be reduced to around 2 h and the enhanced VPA clearance is often associated with improvement clinically. Hemoperfusion also enhances VPA elimination, but its effectiveness may be limited by column saturation. “In-series” hemodialysis and hemoperfusion have been used, but the combination offers little benefit over hemodialysis alone. Continuous renal replacement techniques are increasingly being used although continuous venovenous hemofiltration and continuous venovenous hemodiafiltration do not appear to be as effective as hemodialysis. No controlled trials are available comparing clinical outcomes with or without extracorporeal elimination in VPA poisoning. Novel techniques such as slow low-efficiency dialysis with filtration and supplementation of the dialysate with albumin are being evaluated. Indications. Extracorporeal methods of elimination should be considered in patients with features of severe VPA poisoning (coma or hemodynamic compromise) and plasma VPA concentration >850 mg/L (coma is more likely to be present at concentrations >850 mg/L), particularly if severe hyperammonemia and electrolyte and acid–base disturbances are present. Conclusions. Based on limited anecdotal evidence, hemodialysis appears to be the extracorporeal method of choice to enhance VPA elimination in acute poisoning. Controlled, randomized trials are required to better characterize the effect of extracorporeal treatment on clinical outcome.
Selecting between‐sample RNA‐Seq normalization methods from the perspective of their assumptions

&NA; RNA‐Seq is a widely used method for studying the behavior of genes under different biological conditions. An essential step in an RNA‐Seq study is normalization, in which raw data are adjusted to account for factors that prevent direct comparison of expression measures. Errors in normalization can have a significant impact on downstream analysis, such as inflated false positives in differential expression analysis. An underemphasized feature of normalization is the assumptions on which the methods rely and how the validity of these assumptions can have a substantial impact on the performance of the methods. In this article, we explain how assumptions provide the link between raw RNA‐Seq read counts and meaningful measures of gene expression. We examine normalization methods from the perspective of their assumptions, as an understanding of methodological assumptions is necessary for choosing methods appropriate for the data at hand. Furthermore, we discuss why normalization methods perform poorly when their assumptions are violated and how this causes problems in subsequent analysis. To analyze a biological experiment, researchers must select a normalization method with assumptions that are met and that produces a meaningful measure of expression for the given experiment.