Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polysynaptic regulation of glutamate receptors and mitochondrial enzyme activities in the basal ganglia of rats with unilateral dopamine depletion

After nigrostriatal dopaminergic denervation, the output nuclei of the basal ganglia, the medial globus pallidus and substantia nigra pars reticulata (Snr), become overactive, in part, because of increased activity of excitatory afferents from the subthalamic nucleus (STN). Because STN uses glutamate as a transmitter, we examined whether there are regulatory changes in glutamate receptor binding in the basal ganglia. Rats received unilateral 6-hydroxydopamine lesions of the medial forebrain bundle and substantia nigra pars compacta that were confirmed by apomorphine-induced rotation and 3H-GBR-12935 binding. As an indirect index of relative synaptic activity, succinate dehydrogenase and cytochrome oxidase activities were assayed histochemically in sections adjacent to those used for receptor binding. There were increases in enzymatic activity in entopeduncular nucleus (EP; the rodent homolog of medial globus pallidus), SNr, and globus pallidus (GP, the rodent homolog of lateral globus pallidus) in the lesioned hemisphere, suggesting increased synaptic activity, perhaps due to increased firing of the STN. Ipsilateral to the lesion, and postsynaptic to the STN, there were profound decreases in the binding of 3H-AMPA (alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole propionic acid) in EP and SNr (45% and 30%, respectively); there were no alterations in the striatum, globus pallidus, or STN, and binding throughout the unlesioned hemisphere was equivalent to that in unlesioned control animals. In contrast, 3H-MK-801 binding to the NMDA receptor ion channel was not reduced in SNr, and was too low to be measured reliably in EP and STN. 3H-MK-801 binding was reduced by 6% in striatum and 39% in globus pallidus. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Stochasticity, Bistability and the Wisdom of Crowds: A Model for Associative Learning in Genetic Regulatory Networks

It is generally believed that associative memory in the brain depends on multistable synaptic dynamics, which enable the synapses to maintain their value for extended periods of time. However, multistable dynamics are not restricted to synapses. In particular, the dynamics of some genetic regulatory networks are multistable, raising the possibility that even single cells, in the absence of a nervous system, are capable of learning associations. Here we study a standard genetic regulatory network model with bistable elements and stochastic dynamics. We demonstrate that such a genetic regulatory network model is capable of learning multiple, general, overlapping associations. The capacity of the network, defined as the number of associations that can be simultaneously stored and retrieved, is proportional to the square root of the number of bistable elements in the genetic regulatory network. Moreover, we compute the capacity of a clonal population of cells, such as in a colony of bacteria or a tissue, to store associations. We show that even if the cells do not interact, the capacity of the population to store associations substantially exceeds that of a single cell and is proportional to the number of bistable elements. Thus, we show that even single cells are endowed with the computational power to learn associations, a power that is substantially enhanced when these cells form a population.
Learning Increases Intrinsic Excitability of Hippocampal Interneurons

Learning-related intrinsic excitability changes of pyramidal neurons via modulation of the postburst afterhyperpolarization (AHP) have been repeatedly demonstrated in multiple brain regions (especially the hippocampus), after a variety of learning tasks, and in multiple species. While exciting and important, the changes in pyramidal neurons are only a part of the neural circuitry involved in successful learning. For a more complete picture of the dynamic learning-related changes in the neural network, changes in inhibitory circuitry must also be systematically examined and characterized. Here we show in young adult rats and mice that learning the hippocampus-dependent trace eyeblink conditioning task induces enhanced inhibition onto CA1 pyramidal neurons mediated, in part, by an increase in intrinsic excitability of somatostatin-positive inhibitory neurons (SOMs). Furthermore, both CA1 pyramidal and SOM interneurons shared a common cellular mechanism (reduction in SK channel-mediated AHP) that led to the learning-induced increased intrinsic excitability.
Utility Values in Singapore Chinese Adults With Primary Open-Angle and Primary Angle-Closure Glaucoma

Purpose:To evaluate utility values in Chinese glaucoma patients. Patient and Methods:Singapore Chinese residents (n = 213) with primary open-angle glaucoma or primary angle-closure glaucoma were recruited from a single tertiary ophthalmic center. Standard face-to-face interviews were conducted to ask about utility values (time trade-off and standard gamble for both death and blindness). Ocular information, including current visual acuity, intraocular pressure, visual field defect, and cup-disc ratio were also obtained. Results:The mean time trade-off utility value was 0.88 (95% confidence interval 0.85, 0.91), and standard gamble for death and blindness were 0.94 (95% confidence interval 0.93, 0.96) and 0.95 (95% confidence interval 0.93, 0.97), respectively. Only 35.7% of patients were willing to trade time, and 34.3% willing to risk blindness in return for perfect vision. Both primary angle-closure glaucoma and primary open-angle glaucoma patients had similar utility values. After adjusting for age, gender, language spoken, educational level, and diagnosis, patients with better eye visual field PSD > 10 were 2.52 times (95% confidence interval 1.13, 5.61) more willing to trade time. In a multivariate model, the odds ratio of willingness to risk blindness for a complete hypothetical glaucoma cure was 9.88 (95% confidence interval 1.65, 59.23) for patients who had only visited an ophthalmologist 15 years or more ago, and 0.53 (95% confidence interval 0.27, 1.02) for patients who had previous trabeculectomy. Conclusion:Most Chinese glaucoma patients in Singapore are not willing to trade time or risk blindness. Patients with worse visual fields in the better-seeing eye are more willing to trade time; whereas patients who have not seen an ophthalmologist for at least 15 years or who had no history of a previous trabeculectomy are more willing to risk blindness.
Optimal selection of manipulator impedance for contact tasks

This paper addresses position and force control of robotic manipulators that are in contact with environments that exhibit mechanical impedances covering a large continuous range, from very soft to very stiff. For robot programming, automation, teleoperation and haptics, such environments enforce a trade-off between position and force control, which can be accommodated by impedance controllers. In this work, we extend the concept of duality and consider impedance matching in order to optimise a combined position and force trajectory error metric. The analysis of numerical optimisation results provides clear guidance on the choice of target impedance parameters, based on environment and manipulator dynamics.
Node Classification Based on Functionality in Energy-Efficient and Reliable Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy efficiency and reliability are two important factors when we design a wireless sensor network (WSN). In this paper, we proposed an energy-efficient and reliable hierarchical mechanism for WSNs. We utilized clustering structure to decrease energy consumption. Because cluster head plays an important role in WSN, we designed a substitute of cluster head (SCH) in order to guarantee the data propagation reliability. Based on different functionalities of sensor nodes we creatively classify sensor nodes into five categories: branch node (BN), cluster head (CH), substitute of cluster head (SCH), intermedium node (IN), and normal node. By adopting different MAC and network strategies for different node categories, energy consumption can be greatly reduced and data reliability can be significantly increased in the proposed WSN mechanism. The simulation results showed that this proposed mechanism realized the objective in aspects of energy efficiency and reliability.
Patterns of Work and Family Involvement among Single and Dual Earner Couples: Two Competing Analytical Approaches.

Abstract : This study analyzes the intersection of work and family at the individual level (i.e. segmented, compensatory, and spillover models) and at the couple level (i.e. independent, all roles symmetric, all roles asymmetric, symmetric family - asymmetric work, and asymmetric family - symmetric work patterns). Dual earner couples (136) and housewives couples (103) were characterized according to each spouse's family and work involvement, attitudes, and behavior. At the individual level some support for each of the three models was found but no one model accounts for all the relationships studied and no subpopulation (i.e. employed women, men with employed women, men with housewives) can be said to follow any particular model than another. The results at the couples' level suggest that at least among dual-earner couples, family dynamics account for some of the variance in individuals' work and family attitudes and behaviors. Dual earner couples were characterized by six significant patterns of work and family involvement and single earner couples by four significant patterns. (Author)
Activation and Deactivation of a Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Drug by a Single Enzyme: Adenosine Deaminase Catalyzes Two Consecutive Deamination Reactions

ABSTRACT Ribavirin is an approved broad-spectrum antiviral drug. A liver-targeting prodrug of ribavirin, viramidine, is in clinical trial in an attempt to provide a better therapeutic index. The conversion of viramidine to ribavirin, and of ribavirin to an inactive metabolite through adenosine deaminase, is reported. Kinetic analysis indicates that adenosine deaminase is likely involved in activation of viramidine in vivo, and the process is highly pH sensitive. The differential activities of two consecutive deamination reactions are kinetically studied and interpreted based on adenosine deaminase structural information. A comprehensive understanding of the viramidine and ribavirin deamination mechanism should help in designing better nucleoside therapeutics in the future.
Changing Business Dynamism: Volatility of Shocks vs. Responsiveness to Shocks?

The pace of business dynamism as measured by indicators such as job reallocation has declined in the U.S. in recent decades, but this decline has not been monotonic for all sectors. For the High Tech sector, business dynamism as measured by the pace of job reallocation rose through the 1990s but then declined sharply in the post-2000 period. This is in contrast with the Retail Trade sector, which exhibited a sharp decline in dynamism in the 1990s. In this paper we ask whether the observed patterns in the High Tech sector reflect changes in the volatility of idiosyncratic TFP shocks or rather the response of businesses to those shocks. We focus on the High Tech sector since it is an important sector for innovation and productivity growth. Using plant-level data from the High Tech U.S. manufacturing sector, we document rising dispersion in idiosyncratic TFP shocks across plants and little change in the persistence of such shocks. This suggests the patterns of rising and then declining reallocation are not being driven by changes in the volatility of shocks. Instead, we find changes in the marginal effects of idiosyncratic plant-level productivity shocks on growth and survival that mimic the patterns of reallocation in the High Tech sector. During the 1990s, the responsiveness of growth and survival increased in the High Tech sector for young businesses. In contrast, during the 2000s responsiveness declined because of accelerating decline in the responsiveness of both young and mature businesses. These changes in the responsiveness yield substantial changes in the contribution of reallocation to aggregate (industry-level) productivity growth. During the 1990s, the increased responsiveness yields an increase in the contribution of reallocation to productivity growth of as much as half a log point per year. During the post-2000 period, responsiveness declines in an accelerated fashion implying as much as a two log point per year reduction in the contribution of reallocation to industry-level productivity growth.
Neurodevelopmental Disruption of Cortico-Striatal Function Caused by Degeneration of Habenula Neurons

Background The habenula plays an important role on cognitive and affective functions by regulating monoamines transmission such as the dopamine and serotonin, such that its dysfunction is thought to underlie a number of psychiatric conditions. Given that the monoamine systems are highly vulnerable to neurodevelopmental insults, damages in the habenula during early neurodevelopment may cause devastating effects on the wide-spread brain areas targeted by monoamine innervations. Methodology/Principal Findings Using a battery of behavioral, anatomical, and biochemical assays, we examined the impacts of neonatal damage in the habenula on neurodevelopmental sequelae of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and associated behavioral deficits in rodents. Neonatal lesion of the medial and lateral habenula by ibotenic acid produced an assortment of behavioral manifestations consisting of hyper-locomotion, impulsivity, and attention deficit, with hyper-locomotion and impulsivity being observed only in the juvenile period, whereas attention deficit was sustained up until adulthood. Moreover, these behavioral alterations were also improved by amphetamine. Our study further revealed that impulsivity and attention deficit were associated with disruption of PFC volume and dopamine (DA) receptor expression, respectively. In contrast, hyper-locomotion was associated with decreased DA transporter expression in the NAcc. We also found that neonatal administration of nicotine into the habenula of neonatal brains produced selective lesion of the medial habenula. Behavioral deficits with neonatal nicotine administration were similar to those caused by ibotenic acid lesion of both medial and lateral habenula during the juvenile period, whereas they were different in adulthood. Conclusions/Significance Because of similarity between behavioral and brain alterations caused by neonatal insults in the habenula and the symptoms and suggested neuropathology in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), these results suggest that neurodevelopmental deficits in the habenula and the consequent cortico-striatal dysfunctions may be involved in the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of ADHD.
New Bounds for Frameproof Codes

Frameproof codes are used to fingerprint digital data. They can prevent copyrighted materials from unauthorized use. In this paper, we study upper and lower bounds for <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$w$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-frameproof codes of length <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$ </tex-math></inline-formula> over an alphabet of size <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$q$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. The upper bound is based on a combinatorial approach and the lower bound is based on a probabilistic construction. Both bounds can improve one of the previous results when <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$q$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is small compared with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$w$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, say <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$cq\leq w$ </tex-math></inline-formula> for some constant <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$c\leq q$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. Furthermore, we pay special attention to binary frameproof codes. We show a binary <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$w$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-frameproof code of length <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$ </tex-math></inline-formula> cannot have more than <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$ </tex-math></inline-formula> codewords if <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N<\binom {w+1}{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>.
Continuous cuff-less blood pressure monitoring based on the pulse arrival time approach: The impact of posture

There is an unmet need for cuff-less blood pressure (BP) monitoring especially, in personal healthcare applications. The pulse arrival time (PAT) approach might offer a suitable solution to enable comfortable BP monitoring even at beat-level. However, the methodology is based on hemodynamic surrogate measures, which are sensitive to patient activities such as posture changes, not necessarily related to blood pressure variations. In this paper, we analyze the impact of posture on the PAT measure and related hemodynamic parameters such as the pre-ejection period in well-defined procedures. Additionally, the PAT of a monitored subject is investigated in an unsupervised scenario illustrating the complexity of such a measurement. Our results show the failure of blood pressure inference based on simple calibration strategies using the PAT measure only. We discuss opportunities to compensate for the observed effects towards the realization of wearable cuff-less blood pressure monitoring. These findings emphasize the importance of accessing context information in personal healthcare applications, where vital sign monitoring is typically unsupervised.
Perception of dim targets on dark backgrounds in MRI

Some diagnostic tasks in MRI involve determining the presence of a faint feature (target) relative to a dark background. In MR images produced by taking pixel magnitudes it is well known that the contrast between faint features and dark backgrounds is reduced due to the Rician noise distribution. In an attempt to enhance detection we implemented three different MRI reconstruction algorithms: the normal magnitude, phase-corrected real, and a wavelet thresholding algorithm designed particularly for MRI noise suppression and contrast enhancement. To compare these reconstructions, we had volunteers perform a two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) signal detection task. The stimuli were produced from high-field head MRI images with synthetic thermal noise added to ensure realistic backgrounds. Circular targets were located in regions of the image that were dark, but next to bright anatomy. Images were processed using one of the three reconstruction techniques. In addition we compared a channelized Hotelling observer (CHO) to the human observers in this task. We measured the percentage correct in both the human and model observer experiments. Our results showed better performance with the use of magnitude or phase-corrected real images compared to the use of the wavelet algorithm. In particular, artifacts induced by the wavelet algorithm seem to distract some users and produce significant inter-subject variability. This contradicts predictions based only on SNR. The CHO matched the mean human results quite closely, demonstrating that this model observer may be used to simulate human response in MRI target detection tasks.
Greedy Batch-Based Minimum-Cost Flows for Tracking Multiple Objects

Minimum-cost flow algorithms have recently achieved state-of-the-art results in multi-object tracking. However, they rely on the whole image sequence as input. When deployed in real-time applications or in distributed settings, these algorithms first operate on short batches of frames and then stitch the results into full trajectories. This decoupled strategy is prone to errors because the batch-based tracking errors may propagate to the final trajectories and cannot be corrected by other batches. In this paper, we propose a greedy batch-based minimum-cost flow approach for tracking multiple objects. Unlike existing approaches that conduct batch-based tracking and stitching sequentially, we optimize consecutive batches jointly so that the tracking results on one batch may benefit the results on the other. Specifically, we apply a generalized minimum-cost flows (MCF) algorithm on each batch and generate a set of conflicting trajectories. These trajectories comprise the ones with high probabilities, but also those with low probabilities potentially missed by detectors and trackers. We then apply the generalized MCF again to obtain the optimal matching between trajectories from consecutive batches. Our proposed approach is simple, effective, and does not require training. We demonstrate the power of our approach on data sets of different scenarios.
Use of a novel sediment exposure to determine the effects of triclosan on estuarine benthic communities

Triclosan (5‐chloro‐2‐[2,4‐dichlorophenoxy]phenol) is a relatively new, commonly used antimicrobial compound found in many personal care products. Triclosan is toxic to marine organisms at the micrograms per liter level, can photodegrade to a dioxin, can accumulate in humans, and has been found to be stable in marine sediments for over 30 years. To determine the effects of triclosan on marine benthic communities, intact sediment cores were brought into the laboratory and held under flowing seawater conditions. A 2‐cm layer of triclosan‐spiked sediment was applied to the surface, and after a two‐week exposure the meio‐ and macrofaunal communities were assessed for differences in composition relative to nonspiked cores. A high triclosan treatment (180 mg/kg dry wt) affected both the meio‐ and the macrobenthic communities. There were no discernible differences with a low‐triclosan treatment (14 mg/kg dry wt). This exposure method is effective for testing the benthic community response to sediment contaminants, but improvements should be made with regard to the amount and method of applying the overlying sediment to prevent smothering of fragile benthic organisms. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2013;32:384–392. © 2012 SETAC
Association of hemoglobin with ankle-brachial index in general population

OBJECTIVES: Previous studies have demonstrated that both low and high hemoglobin concentrations are predictive of adverse cardiovascular outcomes in various populations. However, an association of hemoglobin with the ankle-brachial index, which is widely used as a screening test for peripheral arterial disease, has not yet been identified. METHODS: We examined 786 subjects (236 women and 550 men) who received routine physical check-ups. The ankle-brachial index and several hematological parameters, including the hemoglobin level, hematocrit and red blood cell count and other demographic and biochemical characteristics were collected. Univariate and multivariate linear regression analyses were performed to assess the relationships between the ankle-brachial index and the independent determinants. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was conducted to calculate the cut-off level of hemoglobin for a relatively low ankle-brachial index (less than 20% of all subjects, which was 1.02). RESULTS: The hemoglobin level, hematocrit and red blood cell count were correlated with the ankle-brachial index in the males (r=-0.274, r=-0.224 and r=-0.273, respectively, p<0.001 for all), but these associations were not significant in the females. Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that the independent determinants of the ankle-brachial index included age, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and the white blood cell count for the females and age, hypertension, total cholesterol and hemoglobin (β=-0.001, p<0.001) for the males after adjusting for confounding factors. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed that the cut-off level of hemoglobin for predicting a low ankle-brachial index was 156.5 g/L in the males. CONCLUSIONS: A high hemoglobin concentration was independently correlated with a low ankle-brachial index in the healthy males, indicating that an elevation in this level may be associated with an increased atherosclerosis risk.