Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 is expressed in cultured rat Sertoli cells.

Sertoli cells secrete plasminogen activators (PAs) on both sides of the blood-testis barrier, i.e., in the basal and apical compartments of the seminiferous tubules, whereas peritubular cells secrete plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), a fast-acting and specific PA inhibitor. While it is likely that PAI-1 produced by peritubular cells counteracts the basal secretion of PA, the nature of the PA inhibitor acting in the apical compartment remains to be demonstrated. In the present study, we showed that Sertoli cells recovered from 20-day-old rats and cultured contained a transcript of 3-3.2 kilobases, which hybridized specifically to a PAI-1 cDNA probe (Northern blot). We verified that the observed PAI-1 transcript could not result solely from the peritubular cells (weakly contaminating the Sertoli cell cultures), by comparing PAI-1 mRNA levels of Sertoli and peritubular cells recovered from 20-day-old rats and cultured. We also demonstrated that cultured Sertoli cells secreted a protein that complexed with tissue-type PA (zymography), indicating that it was biologically active. This protein comigrated with purified PAI-1 as a doublet of 46 and 49 kDa (Western blot). The trophic hormone FSH decreased PAI-1 messenger RNA as well as immunoreactive PAI-1 protein (probably via the cAMP protein kinase A pathway), whereas transforming growth factor ss1 and basic fibroblast growth factor (in a nanomolar concentration) increased both of these. These observations support the hypothesis that PAI-1 is expressed by Sertoli cells and is under a complex hormonal (FSH) and paracrine and/or autocrine control exerted at least by basic fibroblast growth factor and transforming growth factor ss1.
EGFR Exon 19 Insertions: A New Family of Sensitizing EGFR Mutations in Lung Adenocarcinoma

Purpose: Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) genotyping is now standard in the management of advanced lung adenocarcinoma, as this biomarker predicts marked benefit from treatment with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI). EGFR exon 19 insertions are a poorly described family of EGFR mutations, and their association with EGFR-TKI sensitivity in lung adenocarcinoma is uncertain. Experimental Design: Patients with lung cancers harboring EGFR exon 19 insertions were studied. The predicted effects of the insertions on the structure of the EGFR protein were examined, and EGFR exon 19 insertions were introduced into Ba/F3 cells to assess oncogenicity and in vitro sensitivity to EGFR-TKIs. In patients receiving TKI, response magnitude was assessed with serial computed tomographic (CT) measurement. Results: Twelve tumors harboring EGFR exon 19 insertions were identified; patients were predominately female (92%) and never-smokers (75%). The 11 specimens available for full sequencing all showed an 18-bp insertion that resulted in the substitution of a Pro for Leu at residue 747. The mutant EGFR transformed the Ba/F3 cells, which were then sensitive to EGFR-TKI. Six patients with measurable disease received TKI and five had a response on serial CT. Conclusions: EGFR exon 19 insertions are a newly appreciated family of EGFR-TKI–sensitizing mutations, and patients with tumors harboring these mutations should be treated with EGFR-TKI. While these mutations may be missed through the use of some mutation-specific assays, the addition of PCR product size analysis to multigene assays allows sensitive detection of both exon 19 insertion and deletion mutations. Clin Cancer Res; 18(6); 1790–7. ©2011 AACR.
Changes in extracellular dopamine during cocaine self‐administration in squirrel monkeys

Environmental cues are thought to play a role in drug craving, leading to the high relapse rate observed in cocaine abusers. Cocaine‐paired cues can reinstate cocaine‐maintained behavior in rodents and nonhuman primates and can induce changes in dopamine levels in the rodent striatum. In the present study, squirrel monkeys were trained to self‐administer cocaine under a second‐order schedule, and then were implanted with guide cannulae targeted at the caudate nucleus. Caudate dopamine levels were measured while the animals performed the behavioral task, self‐administering cocaine or saline under extinction conditions. In addition, animals received noncontingent (passive) cocaine infusions yoked to the drug self‐administration sessions. Cocaine administration increased dopamine levels 2‐fold, but a leftward shift was seen in the peak effect in animals self‐administering cocaine as compared to animals passively receiving cocaine. Moreover, dopamine levels began to decline during the experimental session when animals were self‐administering cocaine, even though they continued to receive cocaine injections. In contrast, dopamine levels declined below baseline during the session when animals were given access to saline. The results suggest that the environmental context associated with drug self‐administration can modulate cocaine‐induced elevations in extracellular dopamine. Synapse 56:129–134, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Medicare Part D’s Impact on Antipsychotic Drug Use and Costs Among Elderly Patients Without Prior Drug Insurance

Abstract Medicare part D’s implementation improved access to and affordability of prescription drugs for the elderly without prior drug insurance. Effects for specific drugs and drug classes are less well understood. We assessed part D’s impact on antipsychotic medication (APM) utilization and out-of-pocket costs among elderly without prior drug insurance. Retail pharmacy claims from 3 nationwide pharmacy chains were used to analyze 2 time-series designs: (1) a policy model, to obtain a policymaker’s perspective: what was the overall impact of part D on APM use and costs among elderly without drug insurance in 2005 with the opportunity to enroll? And (2) a clinical model, to obtain a clinician’s perspective: what would happen to elderly without drug insurance in 2005 who did enroll in part D─would they be able to get APMs? At what cost? Subgroup analyses among part D enrollees evaluated potentially different effects for patients who received a subsidy and patients who used antidementia drugs. In the policy model, part D implementation was associated with a 5% increase in APM use and a 37% reduction in out-of-pocket costs, suggesting a modest need for APMs among all previously uninsured elderly. Patients who did enroll in part D (clinical model) had a 97% increase in APM use and a 62% decrease in out-of-pocket costs, suggesting that patients who needed APMs were able to access them at low cost through the part D program. Part D implementation was associated with increased use and affordability of APMs for the elderly without prior drug insurance.
The Effect of Visual Feedback on Learning Dive in Volleyball among Stduents of Physical Education in Jordan University

The aim of the study was to identify the influence of visual feedback, video display, and exhibiting ideal performance on learning dive in volleyball, also, to identify the effect of feedback by modeling and explanation methods on learning dive in volleyball, between the experimental group and the control group in the first semester of 2009 - 2010. Forty Physical Education College students at Jordan university participated in the study, They were randomly selected from those who successfully passed volleyball course(2), they were divided into two groups, Experimental group (17) students , And control group (23) students. The result of the study revealed that there were statistical significant differences between the pre and post measurements in both groups, in favor of Post measures which were better pertaining to dive in volleyball skill performance, There was, Also, Significant difference in the level of dive in volleyball skill performance between the two groups in favor of experimental group. The researcher recommended the need of utilization the visual feedback technique in addition to teaching aids, It’s recommended to investigate more volleyball skills and other team sports.
Microwave Vacuum Dryer Setup and Preliminary Drying Studies on Strawberries Carrots

A laboratory scale microwave vacuum dryer with the ability to record temporal variation of mass and temperature of a drying product was designed and built. The initial study was set up to investigate the effect of the position of a vacuum pressure control valve at two vacuum pressure levels, 6.5 and 13.3 kPa, with a fixed microwave power input of 1.5 W/g. Then, strawberry halves and carrot cubes (10 x 10 x 10 mm) were used for a preliminary study to investigate the effect on drying product temperature and the effect of input microwave powers (1, 1.5 and 2 W/g) at a fixed level of vacuum pressure (6.5 kPa). The position of the valve which allows air to pass through the vacuum container was found to provide shorter drying time and reduced the occurrence of water vapor condensation. The product temperature at the end stage of drying under continuous microwave mode was too high to ensure quality for both dried strawberry halves and carrot cubes.
Cooperativity of HIV-Specific Cytolytic CD4 T Cells and CD8 T Cells in Control of HIV Viremia

ABSTRACT CD4+ T cells play a pivotal role in the control of chronic viral infections. Recently, nontraditional CD4+ T cell functions beyond helper effects have been described, and a role for cytolytic CD4+ T cells in the control of HIV infection has been suggested. We define here the transcriptional, phenotypic, and functional profiles of HIV-specific cytolytic CD4+ T cells. Fluidigm BioMark and multiparameter flow cytometric analysis of HIV-specific cytolytic CD4+ T cells revealed a distinct transcriptional signature compared to Th1 CD4+ cells but shared similar features with HIV-specific cytolytic CD8+ T cells. Furthermore, HIV-specific cytolytic CD4+ T cells showed comparable killing activity relative to HIV-specific CD8+ T cells and worked cooperatively in the elimination of virally infected cells. Interestingly, we found that cytolytic CD4+ T cells emerge early during acute HIV infection and tightly follow acute viral load trajectory. This emergence was associated to the early viral set point, suggesting an involvement in early control, in spite of CD4 T cell susceptibility to HIV infection. Our data suggest cytolytic CD4+ T cells as an independent subset distinct from Th1 cells that show combined activity with CD8+ T cells in the long-term control of HIV infection. IMPORTANCE The ability of the immune system to control chronic HIV infection is of critical interest to both vaccine design and therapeutic approaches. Much research has focused on the effect of the ability of CD8+ T cells to control the virus, while CD4+ T cells have been overlooked as effectors in HIV control due to the fact that they are preferentially infected. We show here that a subset of HIV-specific CD4+ T cells cooperate in the cytolytic control of HIV replication. Moreover, these cells represent a distinct subset of CD4+ T cells showing significant transcriptional and phenotypic differences compared to HIV-specific Th1 cells but with similarities to CD8+ T cells. These findings are important for our understanding of HIV immunopathology.
Survey on association between Mycoplasma hominis endocervical infection and spontaneous abortion using Polymerase Chain Reaction

Background: Mycoplasma infections are suggested as etiology of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of Mycoplasma hominis (M. hominis) infection and spontaneous abortion among pregnant women. Materials and Methods: In this case-control study that was conducted from August 2012 to January 2013, totally, 109 women were included with spontaneous abortion with gestational ages of 10-20 weeks (Cases), and 109 women with normal pregnancy with gestational ages between 20-37 weeks (Controls) in Sanandaj, Iran. Using specific primers and extracted DNA from endocervical swabs, a PCR test was conducted for detection of M. hominis infection in women. For comparison of qualitative and quantitative variables, independent Fisher tests were used and p<0.05 was considered significant. Results: The total frequency of M. hominis infection was 6 (2.75%) in women. The frequency of M. hominis infection was 2 (1.83%) in the case group (spontaneous abortion) and 4 (3.66%) in the control group, respectively. In both case and control groups, no association was seen between M.hominis infection and spontaneous abortion (OR=0. 49, CI 95%: 0.08-2.73, p=0. 683). Conclusion: M. hominis was positive in the genital tract of some pregnant women, but it was not associated with spontaneous abortion. However, to prevent adverse pregnancy outcomes in women, foetus and neonate, routine screening and treatment for the genital Mycoplasma is recommended.
Efficient quantization of color sift for image classification

The local feature (e.g. SIFT) and Bag of Words (BOW) model play key roles in achieving a state-of-the-art performance for image classification. Although we realize that utilizing extra color information will undoubtedly boost the local feature, there still have not been any research that have carefully focused on how to efficiently transfer this color boosted local feature into a boosted BOW. In this paper, a channel-wise separate quantization is newly proposed to replace the traditional multi-channel combined quantization for color SIFT. Dozens of experiments conducted on common data sets have consistently proven that the latter is noticeably worse than the former. We attribute this to a larger quantization error induced by the unreasonable assumption of identical feature distributions in multiple channels. In addition, we compare the distinctness of the intensity and color components separately, and the experimental results are beyond our expectations. Our experiments also show that the accuracy is noticeably enhanced when we take the top N nearest neighbors in soft assignment into account.
Activation of Visual Pigments by Light and Heat

Thermal activation of visual pigments involves the same chromophore-isomerization reaction as does light activation. Vision begins with photoisomerization of visual pigments. Thermal energy can complement photon energy to drive photoisomerization, but it also triggers spontaneous pigment activation as noise that interferes with light detection. For half a century, the mechanism underlying this dark noise has remained controversial. We report here a quantitative relation between a pigment’s photoactivation energy and its peak-absorption wavelength, λmax. Using this relation and assuming that pigment activations by light and heat go through the same ground-state isomerization energy barrier, we can predict the relative noise of diverse pigments with multi–vibrational-mode thermal statistics. The agreement between predictions and our measurements strongly suggests that pigment noise arises from canonical isomerization. The predicted high noise for pigments with λmax in the infrared presumably explains why they apparently do not exist in nature.
Endotoxin‐stimulated macrophages decrease bile acid uptake in WIF‐B cells, a rat hepatoma hybrid cell line

Endotoxemia leads to cytokine‐mediated alterations of the hepatocellular sodium‐taurocholate‐cotransporting polypeptide (ntcp). We hypothesized that stimulated macrophages are essential transducers for down‐regulating hepatocellular bile salt uptake in response to endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide [LPS]) exposure. Using an in vitro model, we exposed mouse macrophages (IC‐21 cell line) to LPS for 24 hours. Concentrations of cytokines tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α), interleukin (IL)‐1β, and IL‐6 increased 10.6‐fold, 12.5‐fold, and 444‐fold, respectively, in LPS‐conditioned IC‐21 medium (CM) versus unconditioned IC‐21 medium (UM). WIF‐B rat hepatoma hybrid cells were incubated with either CM or UM or treated directly with medium containing recombinant TNF‐α, IL‐1β, and IL‐6. [3H]Taurocholate ([3H]TC) uptake decreased in WIF‐B cells exposed to either TNF‐α (54% of control), IL‐1β (78%), IL‐6 (55%) as single additives, or in triple combination (TCC) (43%). A virtually identical decrease was observed after exposing WIF‐B cells to CM (52%, P < .001). LPS had no direct effect on [3H]TC uptake. CM treatment did not decrease L‐alanine transport in WIF‐B cells. Blocking antibodies against TNF‐α, IL‐1β, and IL‐6 restored the diminished [3H]TC uptake in cells exposed to TCC and CM to 87% and 107% of controls, respectively. Northern blotting revealed that ntcp messenger RNA (mRNA) expression was significantly reduced in WIF‐B cells after exposure to CM, and in primary rat hepatocytes exposed to CM or TNF‐α (68%, 14%, and 29% of control, respectively). We conclude that macrophages and their ability to secrete the cytokines TNF‐α, IL‐1β, and IL‐6 may be essential in mediating the endotoxin‐induced cholestatic effect of decreased hepatocellular bile salt uptake.
Electrical modeling for laser testing with different pulse durations

This paper presents a simple electrical model of laser-induced currents in a single MOS transistor for different laser pulse durations. This model is validated by mixed-mode device simulations of a laser-induced fault in an SRAM cell for different laser pulse durations ranging from 100fs to 10ns. This model can be used for netlist level simulation of pulsed laser online testing in the context of radiation hardening, semi-invasive attacks, or more generally, hardware level fault injection techniques.
Thrombophilia in venous leg ulcers: a comparative study in early and later onset.

BACKGROUND Several studies found that the patients with chronic venous ulcers (CVU) have an increased prevalence of thrombophilia (44-75%), similar to that observed in deep vein thrombosis (DVT). The patients who develop CVU before their 50 th birthday appear to represent a distinct group in terms of etiology, natural history and prognosis. AIM To analyze the nature and prevalence of thrombophilia in patients with early onset of CVU (before 50-years old) compared with a group of patients with later onset. METHODS Twenty-seven consecutive patients of each group were studied. They underwent clinical assessment and blood testing for factor V Leiden, prothrombin G20210A, methyltetrahydrofolate reductase C677T, plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 (PAI-1) mutations, antithrombin, proteins C and S levels, and also antiphospholipid antibodies (anticardiolipin antibodies and lupus anticoagulant), cryoglobulins and cryoagglutinins. RESULTS All the patients had at least one thrombophilia. The prevalences of single, 2 and ≥3 thrombophilias were 29.6%, 40.7% and 29.6%, respectively, in the early onset group, compared with 33.3%, 59.2% and 7.4% in the later onset group. The PAI-1 4G/4G homozygous mutation was significantly more common in patients with early onset of ulcer. The prevalences of factor V Leiden, prothrombin G20210A, elevated titer of antiphospholipid antibodies and the presence of cryoglobulins were higher in the early onset group, although the differences were not statistically significant. CONCLUSION Our study brings evidence of a higher thrombophilic risk among the patients with early onset of the CVU as they had significantly higher prevalence of multiple (≥3) thrombophilias (P=0.03), homozygous mutations (P=0.03) and family history of leg ulcer (P=0.02) when compared with patients with later onset. Thrombophilia screening is important in patients with CVU before the age of 50 in order to stratify the thrombotic risk and to allow an appropriate prophylactic and therapeutic management.
Performance optimizations of virtual keyboards for stroke-based text entry on a touch-based tabletop

Efficiently entering text on interactive surfaces, such as touch-based tabletops, is an important concern. One novel solution is shape writing - the user strokes through all the letters in the word on a virtual keyboard without lifting his or her finger. While this technique can be used with any keyboard layout, the layout does impact the expected performance. In this paper, I investigate the influence of keyboard layout on expert text-entry performance for stroke-based text entry. Based on empirical data, I create a model of stroking through a series of points based on Fitts's law. I then use that model to evaluate various keyboard layouts for both tapping and stroking input. While the stroke-based technique seems promising by itself (i.e., there is a predicted gain of 17.3% for a Qwerty layout), significant additional gains can be made by using a more-suitable keyboard layout (e.g., the OPTI II layout is predicted to be 29.5% faster than Qwerty).
Asymptotic theory for the correlated gamma-frailty model

The frailty model is a generalization of Cox's proportional hazard model, where a shared unobserved quantity in the intensity induces a positive correlation among the survival times. Murphy showed consistency and asymptotic normality of the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator (NPMLE) for the shared gamma-frailty model without covariates. In this paper we extend this result to the correlated gamma-frailty model, and we allow for covariates. We discuss the definition of the nonparametric likelihood function in terms of a classical proof of consistency for the maximum likelihood estimator, which goes back to Wald. Our proof of the consistency for the NPMLE is essentially the same as the classical proof for the maximum likelihood estimator. A new central limit theorem for processes of bounded variation is given. Furthermore, we prove that a consistent estimator for the asymptotic variance of the NPMLE is given by the inverse of a discrete observed information matrix.
A Novel Multiresistant Streptococcus pneumoniae Serogroup 19 Clone from Washington State Identified by Pulsed-Field Gel Electrophoresis and Restriction Fragment Length Patterns

ABSTRACT In 1997, a cluster of multiresistant invasive serogroup 19 pneumococcus infections, including two fatalities, was reported in Washington State. Further investigation identified other cases. Fourteen Washington Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates, four from Alaska, and eight isolates from eastern Canada with reduced penicillin susceptibility (MIC of ≥1 μg/ml) were included in the study. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) with ApaI,SacII, and SmaI restriction enzymes and IS1167 and mef restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) pattern analysis were performed. Twenty of the 26 isolates had identical or related PFGE patterns, with two or all three enzymes, and identical or related IS1167 RFLP patterns, indicating that they were genetically related. These 20 isolates contained the mef gene conferring erythromycin resistance and had identical mef RFLP patterns. The PFGE and RFLP patterns were distinct from those of six multiresistant clones previously described and suggest that a new multiresistant clone has appeared in Washington, Alaska, and eastern Canada. This newly characterized clone should be included in the Pneumococcal Molecular Epidemiology Network.