Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Light-induced modulation of coupling between AII amacrine cells in the rabbit retina

Abstract The rod-driven, AII amacrine cells in the mammalian retina maintain homologous gap junctions with one another as well as heterologous gap junctions with on-cone bipolar cells. We used background illumination to study whether changes in the adaptational state of the retina affected the permeabilities of these two sets of gap junctions. To access changes in permeability, we injected single AII amacrine cells with the biotinylated tracer, Neurobiotin, and measured the extent of tracer coupling to neighboring AII cells and neighboring cone bipolar cells. We also measured the center-receptive field size of All cells to assess concomitant changes in electrical coupling. Our results indicate that in well dark-adapted retinas, AII cells form relatively small networks averaging 20 amacrine cells and covering about 75 μm. The size of these networks matched closely to the size of AII cell on-center receptive fields. However, over most of their operating range, AII cells formed dramatically larger networks, averaging 326 amacrine cells, which corresponded to an increased receptive-field size. As the retina was light adapted beyond the operating range of the AII cells, they uncoupled to form networks comparable in size to those seen in well dark-adapted retinas. Our results, then, indicate that the adaptational state of the retina has a profound effect on the extent of electrical coupling between AII amacrine cells. Although we observed light-induced changes in the number of tracer-coupled cone bipolar cells, these appeared to be an epiphenomenon of changes in homologous coupling between AII amacrine cells. Therefore, in contrast to the robust changes in AII–AII coupling produced by background illumination, our data provided no evidence of a light-induced modulation of coupling between AII cells and on-cone bipolar cells.
High Fat Diet with a High Monounsaturated Fatty Acid and Polyunsaturated/Saturated Fatty Acid Ratio Suppresses Body Fat Accumulation and Weight Gain in Obese Hamsters

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a high fat diet with experimental oil consisting of 60% MUFAs (monounsaturated fatty acids) with a P/S ratio of 5 on fat deposition and lipid metabolism in obese hamsters. Hamsters were randomly assigned to a control group and a diet-induced obesity group for nine weeks. Then an additional eight-week experimental period began, during which obese hamsters were randomly divided into three groups and fed different amounts of the experimental oil mixture in their diets as follows: 5%, 15%, and 20% w/w (OB-M5, OB-M15, and OB-M20 groups, respectively). The results showed that the OB-M15 and OB-M20 groups had significantly lower blood cholesterol and higher insulin levels. Compared to the control group, the three obese groups exhibited higher hepatic fatty acid synthase activity; however, the acyl-CoA oxidase activities were also enhanced. Although dietary fat content differed, there were no differences in energy intake, final body weights, and epididymal fat weights among the four groups. These results suggest that regardless of whether the specimens had a high fat intake or not, dietary fat containing high MUFAs with a high P/S ratio had beneficial effects on maintaining blood lipid profiles and may not result in body fat accumulation in obese hamsters, possibly by promoting lipolytic enzyme activities.
Undersampled Sparse Phase Retrieval via Majorization–Minimization

In the undersampled phase retrieval problem, the goal is to recover an <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> $N$</tex-math></inline-formula>-dimensional complex-valued signal from only <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> $M<N$</tex-math></inline-formula> intensity measurements without phase information. This inverse system is not only nonconvex, but also underdetermined. In this paper, we propose to exploit the sparsity in the original signal and develop two low-complexity algorithms with superior performance based on the majorization–minimization framework. The proposed algorithms are preferred to existing benchmark methods, since at each iteration a simple convex surrogate problem is solved with a closed-form solution that monotonically decreases the objective function value. When the unknown signal is sparse in the standard basis, the first algorithm C-PRIME can produce a stationary point of the corresponding nonconvex phase retrieval problem. When the unknown signal is not sparse in the standard basis, the second algorithm SC-PRIME can find a coordinatewise stationary point of the more challenging phase retrieval problem through sparse coding. Experimental results validate that the proposed algorithms have higher successful recovery rate and less normalized mean square error than existing up-to-date methods under the same setting.
Student Midwives' Experience of bullying

Aim. To define and examine the nature and manifestations of bullying in midwifery as experienced by a cohort of student midwives in the UK.Method. A self-administered survey questionnaire developed from the literature review and the findings of the concept analysis and administered to 400 student midwives.Findings. The findings report the existence of bullying in both the practice and to a lesser extent, the university settings and highlight the permissive culture that underpins this phenomenon. Half of the 164 student midwives who responded hadeither witnessed or experienced bullying. Most often the bully was a midwife or the mentor. However, university lecturers and personal tutors were also identified as bullies.Implications. It is imperative that awareness of bullying in the workplace is raised at all levels within the profession. Key stakeholders need to acknowledge the presence of bullying within the profession and seek ways to minimise its existence.Key words: Bullying in midwifery, student midwives, bullying in the workplace, horizontal violence, evidence-based midwifery
Evidence that the retroviral DNA integration process triggers an ATR-dependent DNA damage response

Caffeine is an efficient inhibitor of cellular DNA repair, likely through its effects on ATM (ataxia telangiectasia mutated) and ATR (ATM and Rad3-related) kinases. Here, we show that caffeine treatment causes a dose-dependent reduction in the total amount of HIV-1 and avian sarcoma virus retroviral vector DNA that is joined to host DNA in the population of infected cells and also in the number of transduced cells. These changes were observed at caffeine concentrations that had little or no effect on overall cell growth, synthesis, and nuclear import of the viral DNA, or the activities of the viral integrase in vitro. Substantial reductions in the amount of host-viral-joined DNA in the infected population, and in the number of transductants, were also observed in the presence of a dominant-negative form of the ATR protein, ATRkd. After infection, a significant fraction of these cells undergoes cell death. In contrast, retroviral transduction is not impeded in ATM-deficient cells, and addition of caffeine leads to the same reduction that was observed in ATM-proficient cells. These results suggest that activity of the ATR kinase, but not the ATM kinase, is required for successful completion of the viral DNA integration process and/or survival of transduced cells. Components of the cellular DNA damage repair response may represent potential targets for antiretroviral drug development.
Clustering from Labels and Time-Varying Graphs

We present a general framework for graph clustering where a label is observed to each pair of nodes. This allows a very rich encoding of various types of pairwise interactions between nodes. We propose a new tractable approach to this problem based on maximum likelihood estimator and convex optimization. We analyze our algorithm under a general generative model, and provide both necessary and sufficient conditions for successful recovery of the underlying clusters. Our theoretical results cover and subsume a wide range of existing graph clustering results including planted partition, weighted clustering and partially observed graphs. Furthermore, the result is applicable to novel settings including time-varying graphs such that new insights can be gained on solving these problems. Our theoretical findings are further supported by empirical results on both synthetic and real data.
Personalized gait detection using a wrist-worn accelerometer

Wrist-worn devices, such as smartwatches and smart bands, have brought about the unprecedented opportunity to continuously monitor gait during daily routines. However, the use of a single wrist-worn unit for gait analysis is challenging for a variety of reasons. Indeed, the signal collected at the user's wrist is subject to a significant “noise” with respect to other body positions (e.g. waist), mainly due to the arm swing while walking and other unpredictable hand movements. The aim of this paper is to investigate the design and evaluation of a lightweight and reliable gait detection technique for wrist-worn devices. To this end, the proposed method creates a personalized model of the user's gait patterns. The model is created through an automatic training phase, which requires the temporary use of an additional device (smartphone) to gather true gait segments. After, anomaly detection is used to distinguish gait from other activities. Gait data from 20 volunteers have been collected to test and evaluate the proposed technique. Volunteers were asked to walk at different pace, with their normal arm swing or placing the hand inside of a pocket. Results show that the proposed method can reliably distinguish gait from spurious hand movements.
Further investigation of capacitation of sperm and fertilization of mouse eggs in vitro.

Mouse eggs obtained from oviducts 14–16 hours after an injection of HCG were inseminated in vitro with fresh epididymal sperm in the presence of heated bovine follicular fluid. When examined one to eight hours later the proportion of sperm without acrosome increased, the proportion of eggs penetrated by sperm increased from 2 to 79%, and that of eggs undergoing fertilization increased from 13% at two hours to 67% at eight hours after insemination. Although the average number of sperm that had penetrated into each egg increased progressively until five hours after insemination, the number of sperm that had entered the vitellus did not increase during this time, showing the existence of a block mechanism in the vitelline membrane. When fresh epididymal sperm were pre-incubated in the presence of bovine follicular fluid for three to four hours and used for insemination, sperm penetration occurred 20 minutes later and the proportion of eggs penetrated by sperm increased from 17% at 20 minutes to 90% at two hours after insemination, showing a requirement of capacitation of mouse sperm. When eggs were inseminated with pre-incubated sperm, sperm penetration appeared to occur sooner and the proportion of polyspermic eggs was higher in the eggs without follicular cells (17–35%) than in the eggs with follicular cells (3–23%).
Long-Term Survival of Composite Hemiface/Mandible/Tongue Allografts Correlates With Multilineage Chimerism Development in the Lymphoid and Myeloid Compartments of Recipients

Background. To maximize aesthetic and functional outcomes for complex craniofacial defects, application of composite tissue allografts opens unique one-stage reconstructive option. We have assessed role of different components of the hemiface/mandible/tongue allograft on induction and maintenance of donor-specific chimerism, in correlation with allograft survival. Methods. Twenty-two composite hemiface/mandible/tongue transplantations were performed in three groups: group 1 (n=8)—isotransplantations between Lewis (LEW) rats (RT11)—served as controls. Group 2 (n=8)—allograft rejection controls—hemiface/mandible/tongue transplants performed across major histocompatibility complex (MHC) barrier between semiallogeneic LEW-Brown-Norway (RT11+n) donors and LEW (RT1l) recipients without immunosuppression. Allografts in group 3 (n=6) received tapered cyclosporine A monotherapy. Assessments included monitoring of rejection, flow cytometry for donor-specific chimerism of major histocompatibility complex class I (RT1n) antigen, immunohistochemistry for engraftment of donor-origin cells into lymphoid organs and bone marrow (BM) compartment, and histology for hemiface/mandible/tongue architecture. Results. Isograft controls survived indefinitely; in allografts without treatment, rejection started within 5 to 7 days. Treated hemiface/mandible/tongue allotransplants survived up to 385 days, without signs of rejection or graft loss. Flap angiography confirmed intact vascularity, and computer tomography scan and histology confirmed bone viability. Donor-specific chimerism at day 125 was present for T cells (3.3% CD4/RT1n, 1.1% CD8/RT1n) and B cells (6.7% CD45RA/RT1n). Engraftment of donor-origin cells was confirmed into BM compartment and lymphoid organs of recipients. Conclusions. We introduced a new multitissue model of composite hemiface/mandible/tongue allograft containing lymphoid and vascularized BM components. Long-term allograft survival correlated with development and maintenance of donor-specific chimerism in lymphoid organs and BM compartment.
Emotional Intelligence and Occupational Stress among the Faculty Members of Private Medical and Engineering Colleges of Uttar Pradesh: A Comparative Study

Prior studies have revealed that emotional intelligence (EI) helps in managing the stress in personal as well as professional life. But the scope of the earlier studies was mostly limited to corporate sector and in the field of education they were limited to the stress in the school teachers. This study tries to find the correlation between emotional intelligence (EI) and occupational stress in the faculty members of private medical and engineering colleges, as the courses related to these two fields are considered to be the most stressful. The purpose is also to see if there is any organizational and gender difference in the two variables under study. Better stress management leads to better efficiency in any field of work. Hence it can be assumed that if the faculty members have better EI, they will feel less stressed and will eventually have better teaching performance especially when we talk about private colleges where the demand and expectations of the students, parents and management are very high. The present study revealed a strong correlation between emotional intelligence and occupational stress of the faculty members. It also revealed a significant difference in the EI of the medical and engineering faculty members with latter having higher EI but the difference in their occupational stress index (OSI) scores was insigni-ficant. Gender wise difference on the scores of OSI and EI was also not significant.
Access to care for children of migratory agricultural workers: factors associated with unmet need for medical care.

OBJECTIVE To assess the correlates of unmet need for medical care among migrant children. DESIGN AND SETTING A cross-sectional household survey used multistage sampling to identify migrant families in eastern North Carolina. PARTICIPANTS Three hundred adult caretakers of 1 (per household) randomly selected child <13 years old. RESULTS Fifty-three percent of the children had an unmet medical need. The most common reasons for unmet medical need were lack of transportation (80%) and lack of knowledge of where to go for care (20%). Unmet medical need was associated inversely with less than very good health (odds ratio [OR]: 0.31; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.16-0.61) and less than high school caretaker education (OR: 0.62; 95% CI: 0.39-0.98) and was associated directly with 1) having bed-days due to illness (OR: 2.46; 95% CI: 1.42-4.26), 2) lacking an annual well examination (OR:1.89; 95% CI: 1.12-3.20), 3) transportation dependence (OR:1.97; 95% CI: 1.24-3.13), 4) female gender (OR: 1.69; 95% CI: 1.07-2.67), 5) preschool age (OR: 2.24; 95% CI: 1.28-3.92), and 6) very high caretaker work pressure (OR: 5.01; 95% CI: 2.98-8.42). Adjustment using multiple logistic regression reveals unmet medical need to be independently associated with preschool age (OR: 2.08; 95% CI: 1.05-4.13) and very high caretaker pressure to work (OR: 5.93; 95% CI: 3.24-10.85). Of sampled children, 27% were preschool aged, and 40% had caretakers categorized with high work pressure. CONCLUSIONS Medical-access barriers among migrant children are largely nonfinancial. Preschool-aged migrant children disproportionately experience unmet medical need. Decreasing forgone care among migrant children will likely require a combination of individual, health-system, and labor-policy modifications.
Thalidomide in advanced mastocytosis

Mastocytosis is an acquired orphan disease characterized by the abnormal accumulation of mast cells responsible for organ failure and systemic symptoms. Cytoreductive drugs have been shown to be effective, but have rarely resulted in complete or long‐term remission. We report two patients with advanced systemic mastocytosis (SM) who were treated successfully with thalidomide, given at the maximal tolerated dosage. B and C‐findings as well as clinical symptoms rapidly improved. After a follow‐up of more than 1 year, the patients remained in partial remission. Thalidomide seems to be an active drug in advanced SM. However, clinical trials are warranted to define its efficacy and safety profiles.
Replaying history: learning world history through playing civilization iii

Digital games is an emerging entertainment medium that an increasing number of educators are examining as tools for engaging learners. Yet, few models exist for how to use contemporary gaming media in formal learning environments. A commercial historical computer strategy game such as Civilization III is an intriguing artifact to examine in classroom contexts because of its wide appeal, design sophistication, and unique affordances as a world history simulation. Civilization III represents world history not as a story of colonial domination or western expansion, but as an emergent process arising from overlapping, interrelated factors. The purpose of this study is to explore what happens when Civilization III, a complex computer game developed in entertainment contexts enters formal learning environments. This dissertation presents three naturalistic case studies in which Civilization III was used as the basis for a unit on world history in urban learning environments. I examine how the game engaged players, the social interactions that occur, how understandings emerge, and what role game play serves in mediating students' understandings. In all three cases, engagement was a complex process of appropriation and resistance, whereby the purposes of game play was negotiated among students' identities, classroom goals, and the affordances of Civilization III. Civilization III engaged each student in unique ways, and this engagement affected the kinds of questions students asked of their games, the kinds of conceptual understandings that arose through game play, and the interpretations they made about history. History and geography became tools for game play and successful students developed conceptual understandings across world history, geography, and politics. These cases suggest the potential for using simulation games in world history education, but also the significant, unsolved challenges in integrating such a complex game within classroom settings.
Face-based Hermite Subdivision Schemes

Interpolatory and non-interpolatory multivariate Hermite type subdivision schemes are introduced in [8, 7]. In their applications in free-form surfaces, symmetry properties play a fundamental role: one can essentially argue that a subdivision scheme without a symmetry property simply cannot be used for the purpose of modelling free-form surfaces. The symmetry properties deflned in the article [8] are formulated based on an underlying conception that Hermite data produced by the subdivision process is attached exactly to the vertices of the subsequently reflned tessellations of the Euclidean space. As such, certain interesting possibilities of symmetric Hermite subdivision schemes are disallowed under our vertex-based symmetry deflnition. In this article, we formulate new symmetry conditions based on the conception that Hermite data produced in the subdivision process is attached to the faces instead of vertices of the subsequently reflned tessellations. New examples of symmetric faced-based schemes are then constructed. Similar to our earlier work in vertex-based interpolatory and non-interpolatory Hermite subdivision schemes, a key step in our analysis is that we make use of the strong convergence theory of reflnement equation to convert a prescribed geometric condition on the subdivision scheme { namely, the subdivision scheme is of Hermite type { to an algebraic condition on the subdivision mask. Our quest for face-based schemes in this article leads also to a reflned result in this direction.
miRNA-dis: microRNA precursor identification based on distance structure status pairs.

MicroRNA precursor identification is an important task in bioinformatics. Support Vector Machine (SVM) is one of the most effective machine learning methods used in this field. The performance of SVM-based methods depends on the vector representations of RNAs. However, the discriminative power of the existing feature vectors is limited, and many methods lack an interpretable model for analysis of characteristic sequence features. Prior studies have demonstrated that sequence or structure order effects were relevant for discrimination, but little work has explored how to use this kind of information for human pre-microRNA identification. In this study, in order to incorporate the structure-order information into the prediction, a method called "miRNA-dis" was proposed, in which the feature vector was constructed by the occurrence frequency of the "distance structure status pair" or just the "distance-pair". Rigorous cross-validations on a much larger and more stringent newly constructed benchmark dataset showed that the miRNA-dis outperformed some state-of-the-art predictors in this area. Remarkably, miRNA-dis trained with human data can correctly predict 87.02% of the 4022 pre-miRNAs from 11 different species ranging from animals, plants and viruses. miRNA-dis would be a useful high throughput tool for large-scale analysis of microRNA precursors. In addition, the learnt model can be easily analyzed in terms of discriminative features, and some interesting patterns were discovered, which could reflect the characteristics of microRNAs. A user-friendly web-server of miRNA-dis was constructed, which is freely accessible to the public at the web-site on http://bioinformatics.hitsz. edu.cn/miRNA-dis/.