Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Month of birth, atopic disease, and sensitization to common aeroallergens in Greece

The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of the month of birth on the development of atopic disease and the rate of sensitization to common environmental allergens in Greece. Analysis of the month of birth of 1755 individuals with atopic disease (asthma, rhinitis, atopic dermatitis), out of whom 771 had positive skin tests/RAST to Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus and mixed grasses, in comparison to total live births (2 877 733) in Greece during 1968–88, was performed and showed significant correlation (p < 0.001) between month of birth and development of atopic disease in general. Months of birth May to August correlated best with bronchial asthma (p < 0.05) and rhinitis (p < 0.05), and July to August with atopic dermatitis (p < 0.05). Significantly greater than the expected frequency was found for D. pteronyssinus sensitivity for months of birth May to August (p < 0.01), for mixed grass pollen March to August (p < 0.01), and for Olea europaea pollen mainly March (p < 0.05). Our results indicate that in Greece high‐risk birth months for development of atopy are May to August, whereas for sensitization to common aeroallergens they are March for O. europaea, March to August for mixed grasses, and May to August for D. pteronyssinus.
Scalable conditional induction variables (CIV) analysis

Subscripts using induction variables that cannot be expressed as a formula in terms of the enclosing-loop indices appear in the low-level implementation of common programming abstractions such as Alter, or stack operations and pose significant challenges to automatic parallelization. Because the complexity of such induction variables is often due to their conditional evaluation across the iteration space of loops we name them Conditional Induction Variables (CIV). This paper presents a flow-sensitive technique that summarizes both such CIV-based and affine subscripts to program level, using the same representation. Our technique requires no modifications of our dependence tests, which is agnostic to the original shape of the subscripts, and is more powerful than previously reported dependence tests that rely on the pairwise disambiguation of read-write references. We have implemented the CIV analysis in our parallelizing compiler and evaluated its impact on five Fortran benchmarks. We have found that that there are many important loops using CIV subscripts and that our analysis can lead to their scalable parallelization. This in turn has led to the parallelization of the benchmark programs they appear in.
Latent concepts and the number orthogonal factors in latent semantic analysis

We seek insight into Latent Semantic Indexing by establishing a method to identify the optimal number of factors in the reduced matrix for representing a keyword. This method is demonstrated empirically by duplicating all documents containing a term t, and inserting new documents in the database that replace t with t'. By examining the number of times term t is identified for a search on term t' (precision) using differing ranges of dimensions, we find that lower ranked dimensions identify related terms and higher-ranked dimensions discriminate between the synonyms.
Ruminal Prevotella spp. May Play an Important Role in the Conversion of Plant Lignans into Human Health Beneficial Antioxidants

Secoisolariciresinol diglucoside (SDG), the most abundant lignan in flaxseed, is metabolized by the ruminal microbiota into enterolignans, which are strong antioxidants. Enterolactone (EL), the main mammalian enterolignan produced in the rumen, is transferred into physiological fluids, with potentially human health benefits with respect to menopausal symptoms, hormone-dependent cancers, cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis and diabetes. However, no information exists to our knowledge on bacterial taxa that play a role in converting plant lignans into EL in ruminants. In order to investigate this, eight rumen cannulated cows were used in a double 4×4 Latin square design and fed with four treatments: control with no flax meal (FM), or 5%, 10% and 15% FM (on a dry matter basis). Concentration of EL in the rumen increased linearly with increasing FM inclusion. Total rumen bacterial 16S rRNA concentration obtained using Q-PCR did not differ among treatments. PCR-T-RFLP based dendrograms revealed no global clustering based on diet indicating between animal variation. PCR-DGGE showed a clustering by diet effect within four cows that had similar basal ruminal microbiota. DNA extracted from bands present following feeding 15% FM and absent with no FM supplementation were sequenced and it showed that many genera, in particular Prevotella spp. , contributed to the metabolism of lignans. A subsequent in vitro study using selected pure cultures of ruminal bacteria incubated with SDG indicated that 11 ruminal bacteria were able to convert SDG into secoisolariciresinol (SECO), with Prevotella spp. being the main converters. These data suggest that Prevotella spp. is one genus playing an important role in the conversion of plant lignans to human health beneficial antioxidants in the rumen.
The F-actin bundler α-actinin Ain1 is tailored for ring assembly and constriction during cytokinesis in fission yeast

The highly dynamic bundling activity of fission yeast α-actinin SpAin1 was biochemically characterized, and its importance for contractile ring formation in vivo was tested. Investigation of a mutant with higher bundling activity, SpAin1(216E), revealed that dynamic SpAin1-mediated bundling is crucial for proper ring assembly and constriction.
Design and Effects of Information Feedback in Continuous Combinatorial Auctions

Advancements in information technologies offer opportunities for designing and deploying innovative market mechanisms. For example, combinatorial auctions, in which bidders can bid on combinations of goods, can increase the economic efficiency of a trade when goods have complementarities. However, lack of real-time bidder support tools has been a major obstacle preventing this mechanism from reaching its full potential. This study uses novel feedback mechanisms to aid bidders in formulating bids in real-time to facilitate participation in continuous combinatorial auctions. Laboratory experiments examine the effectiveness of our feedback mechanisms; the study is the first to examine how bidders behave in such information-rich environments. Our results indicate that feedback results in higher efficiency and higher seller’s revenue compared to the baseline case where bidders are not provided feedback. Furthermore, contrary to conventional wisdom, even in complex economic environments, individuals effectively integrate rich information in their decision making.
Optimizing Reliability of Digital Inclinometer and Flexicurve Ruler Measures of Spine Curvatures in Postmenopausal Women with Osteoporosis of the Spine: An Illustration of the Use of Generalizability Theory

The study illustrates the application of generalizability theory (G-theory) to identify measurement protocols that optimize reliability of two clinical methods for assessing spine curvatures in women with osteoporosis. Triplicate measures of spine curvatures were acquired for 9 postmenopausal women with spine osteoporosis by two raters during a single visit using a digital inclinometer and a flexicurve ruler. G-coefficients were estimated using a G-study, and a measurement protocol that optimized inter-rater and inter-trial reliability was identified using follow-up decision studies. The G-theory provides reliability estimates for measurement devices which can be generalized to different clinical contexts and/or measurement designs.
A Chloroplast Phosphate Transporter, PHT2;1, Influences Allocation of Phosphate within the Plant and Phosphate-Starvation Responses Article, publication date, and citation information can be found at www.plantcell.org/cgi/doi/10.1105/tpc.002220.

The uptake and distribution of Pi in plants requires multiple Pi transport systems that must function in concert to maintain homeostasis throughout growth and development. The Pi transporter PHT2;1 of Arabidopsis shares similarity with members of the Pi transporter family, which includes Na+/Pi symporters of fungal and animal origin and H+/Pi symporters of bacterial origin. Sequence comparisons between proteins of this family revealed that plant members possess extended N termini, which share features with chloroplast transit peptides. Localization of a PHT2;1–green fluorescent protein fusion protein indicates that it is present in the chloroplast envelope. A Pi transport function for PHT2;1 was confirmed in yeast using a truncated version of the protein lacking its transit peptide, which allowed targeting to the plasma membrane. To assess the in vivo role of PHT2;1 in phosphorus metabolism, we identified a null mutant, pht2;1-1. Analysis of the mutant reveals that PHT2;1 activity affects Pi allocation within the plant and modulates Pi-starvation responses, including the expression of Pi-starvation response genes and the translocation of Pi within leaves.
Efficient In Vitro Labeling Rabbit Bone Marrow-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells with SPIO and Differentiating into Neural-Like Cells

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can differentiate into neural cells to treat nervous system diseases. Magnetic resonance is an ideal means for cell tracking through labeling cells with superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO). However, no studies have described the neural differentiation ability of SPIO-labeled MSCs, which is the foundation for cell therapy and cell tracking in vivo. Our results showed that bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) labeled in vitro with SPIO can be induced into neural-like cells without affecting the viability and labeling efficiency. The cellular uptake of SPIO was maintained after labeled BM-MSCs differentiated into neural-like cells, which were the basis for transplanted cells that can be dynamically and non-invasively tracked in vivo by MRI. Moreover, the SPIO-labeled induced neural-like cells showed neural cell morphology and expressed related markers such as NSE, MAP-2. Furthermore, whole-cell patch clamp recording demonstrated that these neural-like cells exhibited electrophysiological properties of neurons. More importantly, there was no significant difference in the cellular viability and [Ca2+]i between the induced labeled and unlabeled neural-like cells. In this study, we show for the first time that SPIO-labeled MSCs retained their differentiation capacity and could differentiate into neural-like cells with high cell viability and a good cellular state in vitro.
C3EL: A Joint Model for Cross-Document Co-Reference Resolution and Entity Linking

Cross-document co-reference resolution (CCR) computes equivalence classes over textual mentions denoting the same entity in a document corpus. Named-entity linking (NEL) disambiguates mentions onto entities present in a knowledge base (KB) or maps them to null if not present in the KB. Traditionally, CCR and NEL have been addressed separately. However, such approaches miss out on the mutual synergies if CCR and NEL were performed jointly. This paper proposes C3EL, an unsupervised framework combining CCR and NEL for jointly tackling both problems. C3EL incorporates results from the CCR stage into NEL, and vice versa: additional global context obtained from CCR improves the feature space and performance of NEL, while NEL in turn provides distant KB features for already disambiguated mentions to improve CCR. The CCR and NEL steps are interleaved in an iterative algorithm that focuses on the highest-confidence still unresolved mentions in each iteration. Experimental results on two different corpora, news-centric and web-centric, demonstrate significant gains over state-of-the-art baselines for both CCR and NEL.
Assessing treatment response to interferon-β

Objective: Interferon-β (IFN-β) has been shown to reduce relapse rates in multiple sclerosis; however, the clinical response appears to vary among individuals. Can early MRI be used to identify those patients who have a poor response to treatment? Methods: A systematic review of studies examining differential treatment response and clinical endpoints in groups defined as responders or nonresponders to IFN-β was performed. Meta-analytic techniques were used to combine study results where appropriate. Results: Patients with MRI evidence of poor response to IFN-β treatment as defined by either ≥2 new hyperintense T2 lesions or new gadolinium-enhancing lesions had significantly increased risk of both future relapses and progression as defined by the Expanded Disability Status Scale. There appeared to be an increased risk of poor outcomes 16 years after treatment initiation in those with an initial poor response to treatment. Previous evidence has shown this not to be the case in placebo arms of clinical trials. Conclusions: For those patients starting IFN-β, early MRI, within 6 to 24 months after starting treatment, has the potential to provide important information when counseling patients about the likelihood of future treatment failure. This can inform treatment decisions before clinical relapses or disease progression.
Upregulation of ligand, receptor system, and amidating activity of adrenomedullin in left ventricular hypertrophy of severely hypertensive rats: effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and diuretic

Object We investigated the pathophysiological role of the cardiac adrenomedullin (AM) system, including the ligand, receptor and amidating activity in the hypertrophied heart in severe hypertension. Method We studied the following four groups: control Wistar–Kyoto rats (WKY), spontaneously hypertensive stroke-prone rats (SHR-SP), 8 weeks captopril-treated SHR-SP, and 8 weeks trichlormethiazide-treated SHR-SP. AM precursor is converted to inactive glycine-extended AM (AM-Gly) and subsequently AM-Gly is converted to active mature AM (AM-m) by enzymatic amidation. We measured AM-m, AM-total (AM-T; AM-T = AM-m + AM-Gly), and atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) in the plasma and left ventricle (LV) by immunoradiometric assay. We also measured gene expression of AM and ANP was and gene expression and protein levels of AM receptor system components such as calcitonin receptor-like receptor (CRLR), receptor-activity modifying protein (RAMP) 2 and RAMP3. Results At 7 weeks old, SHR-SP had higher blood pressure and ANP mRNA levels and lower plasma AM-T compared with WKY, however, there were no differences in other indices between the two groups. At 17 weeks old, SHR-SP had increased blood pressure, LV weight, plasma and LV ANP levels and mRNA levels of ANP compared with WKY. AM-m and AM-T levels in plasma (AM-m: + 31%; AM-T: + 56%) and the LV (AM-m: + 84%; AM-T: + 31%) were significantly higher in SHR-SP than in WKY. The LV tissue AM-m/AM-T ratio was significantly higher in SHR-SP (93.2%) than in WKY. The mRNA levels of AM, CRLR, and RAMP2 in the LV were significantly higher in SHR-SP than in WKY. Captopril and trichlormethiazide similarly decreased blood pressure and LV hypertrophy with the reduction of the LV AM-m and AM-T levels and mRNA abundance of AM and its receptor component. Conclusion These results suggest that cardiac AM system is upregulated in the hypertrophied heart in this hypertension model. Considering that AM acts as an anti-remodeling autocrine and/or paracrine factor, upregulation of the AM system may modulate the pathophysiology in LV hypertrophy.
Blocking type I interferon signaling enhances T cell recovery and reduces HIV-1 reservoirs

Despite the efficient suppression of HIV-1 replication that can be achieved with combined antiretroviral therapy (cART), low levels of type I interferon (IFN-I) signaling persist in some individuals. This sustained signaling may impede immune recovery and foster viral persistence. Here we report studies using a monoclonal antibody to block IFN-&agr;/&bgr; receptor (IFNAR) signaling in humanized mice (hu-mice) that were persistently infected with HIV-1. We discovered that effective cART restored the number of human immune cells in HIV-1–infected hu-mice but did not rescue their immune hyperactivation and dysfunction. IFNAR blockade fully reversed HIV-1–induced immune hyperactivation and rescued anti–HIV-1 immune responses in T cells from HIV-1–infected hu-mice. Finally, we found that IFNAR blockade in the presence of cART reduced the size of HIV-1 reservoirs in lymphoid tissues and delayed HIV-1 rebound after cART cessation in the HIV-1–infected hu-mice. We conclude that low levels of IFN-I signaling contribute to HIV-1–associated immune dysfunction and foster HIV-1 persistence in cART-treated hosts. Our results suggest that blocking IFNAR may provide a potential strategy to enhance immune recovery and reduce HIV-1 reservoirs in individuals with sustained elevations in IFN-I signaling during suppressive cART.
$W^{s,p}$-approximation properties of elliptic projectors on polynomial spaces, with application to the error analysis of a Hybrid High-Order discretisation of Leray-Lions problems

In this work we prove optimal $W^{s,p}$-approximation estimates (with $p\in[1,+\infty]$) for elliptic projectors on local polynomial spaces. The proof hinges on the classical Dupont--Scott approximation theory together with two novel abstract lemmas: An approximation result for bounded projectors, and an $L^p$-boundedness result for $L^2$-orthogonal projectors on polynomial subspaces. The $W^{s,p}$-approximation results have general applicability to (standard or polytopal) numerical methods based on local polynomial spaces. As an illustration, we use these $W^{s,p}$-estimates to derive novel error estimates for a Hybrid High-Order discretization of Leray--Lions elliptic problems whose weak formulation is classically set in $W^{1,p}(\Omega)$ for some $p\in(1,+\infty)$. This kind of problems appears, e.g., in the modelling of glacier motion, of incompressible turbulent flows, and in airfoil design. Denoting by $h$ the meshsize, we prove that the approximation error measured in a $W^{1,p}$-like discrete norm scales as $h^{\frac{k+1}{p-1}}$ when $p\ge 2$ and as $h^{(k+1)(p-1)}$ when $p<2$.
Lens Gap Junctions: a Structural Hypothesis for Nonregulated Low-resistance Intercellular Pathways

Structural evidence is presented which suggests that gap junctions between lens fibers are adapted to remain in a low-resistance physiological state, under conditions which switch gap junctions in other tissues to a high-resistance state. The lens gap junction subunits (connexons) do not crystallize in the membrane plane in response to fixation, anoxia, lens damage, or homogenization and isolation. Rapid freezing experiments (Raviola et al. 59 j suggest connexon crystallization in other nonlens tissues to be a morfihological consequence of the switch to high resistance. Freshly homogenized liver cytoplasm does not contain an assayable factor which am crystallize connexons in lens gap junctions. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of enriched preparations of isolated lens junctions reveals a 27 ±2 kilodalton principal polypeptide which is similar in electrophoretic mobility to one of the principal polypeptides resolved in gels of isolated hepatocyte gap junctions. These results indicate that the whole lens may be extremely vulnerable to surface injury, perhaps even to injury of a single lens fiber. ie mammalian lens provides a unique system to study the role of metabolic cooperation at the organ level. Being an avascular cyst of prismatic cells, the lens receives all its metabolites from the aqueous humor, a specialized secretion product of the ciliary epi-thelium. 80 Metabolites from the aqueous humor must passively diffuse out of the lens, back to the aqueous humor, to be removed from the anterior chamber by the canal of Schlemm and uveoscleral route. The lens epithelium, which covers only the anterior surface of the lens, contains the usual complement of organelles necessary for oxidative phosphorylation, 45 ' 55 and biochemical analysis has revealed the epithelium to be the major lenticular site for these oxida-tive processes. 41 ' 69 The remaining bulk of the lens, which is devoid of organelles, notably mitochondria, metabolizes glycolytically with monosaccharides principally used as sub-strate and excretes lactic acid. 40 ' 50< 65 ' 68 Intercellular spaces between the prismatic lens cells (fibers) are narrow, reflecting the organ's epithelial embryonic origin. 14 ' 45j 54 Diffusion of low-molecular-weight extracel-lular tracers such as fluorescein and Procion, is slow into intact, encapsulated lenses, 37 ' 57 suggesting that the paracellular route for diffusion of metabolites into the lens may be accompanied by other pathways. The lens fibers are electrotonically cou
Sleep Restriction Enhances the Daily Rhythm of Circulating Levels of Endocannabinoid 2-Arachidonoylglycerol.

STUDY OBJECTIVES Increasing evidence from laboratory and epidemiologic studies indicates that insufficient sleep may be a risk factor for obesity. Sleep curtailment results in stimulation of hunger and food intake that exceeds the energy cost of extended wakefulness, suggesting the involvement of reward mechanisms. The current study tested the hypothesis that sleep restriction is associated with activation of the endocannabinoid (eCB) system, a key component of hedonic pathways involved in modulating appetite and food intake. METHODS In a randomized crossover study comparing 4 nights of normal (8.5 h) versus restricted sleep (4.5 h) in healthy young adults, we examined the 24-h profiles of circulating concentrations of the endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) and its structural analog 2-oleoylglycerol (2-OG). We concomitantly assessed hunger, appetite, and food intake under controlled conditions. RESULTS A robust daily variation of 2-AG concentrations with a nadir around the middle of the sleep/overnight fast, followed by a continuous increase culminating in the early afternoon, was evident under both sleep conditions but sleep restriction resulted in an amplification of this rhythm with delayed and extended maximum values. Concentrations of 2-OG followed a similar pattern, but with a lesser amplitude. When sleep deprived, participants reported increases in hunger and appetite concomitant with the afternoon elevation of 2-AG concentrations, and were less able to inhibit intake of palatable snacks. CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that activation of the eCB system may be involved in excessive food intake in a state of sleep debt and contribute to the increased risk of obesity associated with insufficient sleep. COMMENTARY A commentary on this article appears in this issue on page 495.
Effects of Temporal Congruity Between Auditory and Visual Stimuli Using Rapid Audio-Visual Serial Presentation

Goal: Combining visual and auditory stimuli in event-related potential (ERP)-based spellers gained more attention in recent years. Few of these studies notice the difference of ERP components and system efficiency caused by the shifting of visual and auditory onset. Here, we aim to study the effect of temporal congruity of auditory and visual stimuli onset on bimodal brain-computer interface (BCI) speller. Methods: We designed five visual and auditory combined paradigms with different visual-to-auditory delays (-33 to +100 ms). Eleven participants attended in this study. ERPs were acquired and aligned according to visual and auditory stimuli onset, respectively. ERPs of Fz, Cz, and PO7 channels were studied through the statistical analysis of different conditions both from visual-aligned ERPs and audio-aligned ERPs. Based on the visual-aligned ERPs, classification accuracy was also analyzed to seek the effects of visual-to-auditory delays. Results: The latencies of ERP components depended mainly on the visual stimuli onset. Auditory stimuli onsets influenced mainly on early component accuracies, whereas visual stimuli onset determined later component accuracies. The latter, however, played a dominate role in overall classification. Significance: This study is important for further studies to achieve better explanations and ultimately determine the way to optimize the bimodal BCI application.