Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sting-Jet Windstorms over the North Atlantic: Climatology and Contribution to Extreme Wind Risk

AbstractExtratropical cyclones with damaging winds can have large socioeconomic impacts when they make landfall. During the last decade, studies have identified a mesoscale transient jet, the sting jet, that descends from the tip of the hooked cloud head toward the top of the boundary layer in the dry intrusion region as a cause of strong surface winds, and especially gusts, in some cyclones. While many case studies have focused on the dynamics and characteristics of these jets, there have been few studies that assess the climatology of the associated cyclones and their importance for wind risk. Here the climatological characteristics of North Atlantic cyclones are determined in terms of the possibility that they had sting jets using a previously published sting-jet precursor diagnostic applied to ERA-Interim data over 32 extended winter seasons from 1979 to 2012. Of the 5447 cyclones tracked, 32% had the precursor (42% in the 22% of cyclones that developed explosively). Precursor storms have a more south.
Superior Cross-Species Reference Genes: A Blueberry Case Study

The advent of affordable Next Generation Sequencing technologies has had major impact on studies of many crop species, where access to genomic technologies and genome-scale data sets has been extremely limited until now. The recent development of genomic resources in blueberry will enable the application of high throughput gene expression approaches that should relatively quickly increase our understanding of blueberry physiology. These studies, however, require a highly accurate and robust workflow and make necessary the identification of reference genes with high expression stability for correct target gene normalization. To create a set of superior reference genes for blueberry expression analyses, we mined a publicly available transcriptome data set from blueberry for orthologs to a set of Arabidopsis genes that showed the most stable expression in a developmental series. In total, the expression stability of 13 putative reference genes was evaluated by qPCR and a set of new references with high stability values across a developmental series in fruits and floral buds of blueberry were identified. We also demonstrated the need to use at least two, preferably three, reference genes to avoid inconsistencies in results, even when superior reference genes are used. The new references identified here provide a valuable resource for accurate normalization of gene expression in Vaccinium spp. and may be useful for other members of the Ericaceae family as well.
Liquidity Constraint Tightness and Consumer Responses to Fiscal Stimulus Policy

The marginal interest rate is the price at which a household can access additional liquidity. Consumption theory posits that variation in marginal interest rates across consumers predicts differences in the propensity to spend a stimulus payment. This hypothesis is tested in the context of a Danish 2009 stimulus policy that transformed illiquid pension wealth into liquid wealth. Marginal interest rates are constructed from administrative records with account level information and merged with survey data measuring the spending response to the stimulus policy. The data reveal substantial variation in marginal interest rates across consumers, and these interest rates predict spending responses. (JEL D14, D15, E21, E43, E62)
Identification of mammalian target of rapamycin as a direct target of fenretinide both in vitro and in vivo

N-(4-hydroxyphenyl) retinamide (4HPR, fenretinide) is a synthetic retinoid that has been tested in clinical trials as a cancer therapeutic and chemopreventive agent. Although 4HPR has been shown to be cytotoxic to many kinds of cancer cells, the underlying molecular mechanisms are only partially understood. Until now, no direct cancer-related molecular target has been reported to be involved in the antitumor activities of 4HPR. Herein, we found that 4HPR inhibited mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) kinase activity by directly binding with mTOR, which suppressed the activities of both the mTORC1 and the mTORC2 complexes. The predicted binding mode of 4HPR with mTOR was based on a homology computer model, which showed that 4HPR could bind in the ATP-binding pocket of the mTOR protein through hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions. In vitro studies also showed that 4HPR attenuated mTOR downstream signaling in a panel of non-small-cell lung cancer cells, resulting in growth inhibition. Moreover, knockdown of mTOR in cancer cells decreased their sensitivity to 4HPR. Results of an in vivo study demonstrated that i.p. injection of 4HPR in A549 lung tumor-bearing mice effectively suppressed cancer growth. The expression of mTOR downstream signaling molecules in tumor tissues was also decreased after 4HPR treatment. Taken together, our results are the first to identify mTOR as a direct antitumor target of 4HPR both in vitro and in vivo, providing a valuable rationale for guiding the clinical uses of 4HPR.
Evolutionary Plasticity of Polycomb/Trithorax Response Elements in Drosophila Species

cis-Regulatory DNA elements contain multiple binding sites for activators and repressors of transcription. Among these elements are enhancers, which establish gene expression states, and Polycomb/Trithorax response elements (PREs), which take over from enhancers and maintain transcription states of several hundred developmentally important genes. PREs are essential to the correct identities of both stem cells and differentiated cells. Evolutionary differences in cis-regulatory elements are a rich source of phenotypic diversity, and functional binding sites within regulatory elements turn over rapidly in evolution. However, more radical evolutionary changes that go beyond motif turnover have been difficult to assess. We used a combination of genome-wide bioinformatic prediction and experimental validation at specific loci, to evaluate PRE evolution across four Drosophila species. Our results show that PRE evolution is extraordinarily dynamic. First, we show that the numbers of PREs differ dramatically between species. Second, we demonstrate that functional binding sites within PREs at conserved positions turn over rapidly in evolution, as has been observed for enhancer elements. Finally, although it is theoretically possible that new elements can arise out of nonfunctional sequence, evidence that they do so is lacking. We show here that functional PREs are found at nonorthologous sites in conserved gene loci. By demonstrating that PRE evolution is not limited to the adaptation of preexisting elements, these findings document a novel dimension of cis-regulatory evolution.
How Risky Do I Invest: The Role of Risk Attitudes, Risk Perceptions, and Overconfidence

Our study analyzes the determinants of investors' risk-taking behavior. We find that investors' risk-taking behavior is affected by their subjective risk attitude in the financial domain and by the risk and return of an investment alternative. Our results also suggest that, consistent with previous findings in the literature, the objective, or historical, return and volatility of a stock are worse predictors of risk-taking behavior than subjective risk and return measures. Moreover, we illustrate that overconfidence, or more precisely, miscalibration, has an impact on risk behavior as predicted by theoretical models. However, our results regarding the effect of various determinants on risk-taking behavior heavily depend on the content domain in which the respective determinant is elicited. We interpret this as an indication for an extended content domain specificity. In particular, with regard to the Markets of Financial Instruments Directive, we believe practitioners could improve on their investment advising process by incorporating some of the determinants that, by our argument, influence investment behavior.
New Roles for School Psychologists: Addressing the Social and Emotional Learning Needs of Students

Abstract The importance of addressing social and emotional skills for youth has been well documented within the literature. These skills are becoming increasingly critical as young people face difficult challenges at school and in their personal lives. Research also indicates that psychologically competent young people are more likely to avoid high-risk activities that can have dangerous consequences for their health and well-being. Schools have the potential to reach students with these important life lessons, and school psychologists can provide the leadership to enhance these educational experiences. This article reviews the literature on school-based social and emotional skill development and examines the relevance of this area to the work of the school psychologist. Suggestions are made for ways in which school psychologists can improve the social and emotional climates of their schools in areas such as prevention and health promotion, professional development, and collaboration with other professionals and organizations. Recommendations are also made for ways in which school psychology preparation programs can better train students to take on these new roles.
The high-resolution crystal structure of a parallel intermolecular DNA G-4 quadruplex/drug complex employing syn glycosyl linkages

We have determined the X-ray structure of the complex between the DNA quadruplex d(5′-GGGG-3′)4 and daunomycin, as a potential model for studying drug–telomere interactions. The structure was solved at 1.08 Å by direct methods in space group I4. The asymmetric unit comprises a linear arrangement of one d(GGGG) strand, four daunomycin molecules, a second d(GGGG) strand facing in the opposite direction to the first, and Na and Mg cations. The crystallographic 4-fold axis generates the biological unit, which is a 12-layered structure comprising two sets of four guanine layers, with four layers each of four daunomycins stacked between the 5′ faces of the two quadruplexes. The daunomycin layers fall into two groups which are novel in their mode of self assembly. The only contacts between daunomycin molecules within any one of these layers are van der Waals interactions, however there is substantial π–π stacking between successive daunomycin layers and also with adjacent guanine layers. The structure differs significantly from all other parallel d(TGGGGT)4 quadruplexes in that the 5′ guanine adopts the unusual syn glycosyl linkage, refuting the widespread belief that such conformations should all be anti. In contrast to the related d(TGGGGT)/daunomycin complex, there are no ligand–quadruplex groove insertion interactions.
Second Order Derivatives for Network Pruning: Optimal Brain Surgeon

We investigate the use of information from all second order derivatives of the error function to perform network pruning (i.e., removing unimportant weights from a trained network) in order to improve generalization, simplify networks, reduce hardware or storage requirements, increase the speed of further training, and in some cases enable rule extraction. Our method, Optimal Brain Surgeon (OBS), is Significantly better than magnitude-based methods and Optimal Brain Damage [Le Cun, Denker and Solla, 1990], which often remove the wrong weights. OBS permits the pruning of more weights than other methods (for the same error on the training set), and thus yields better generalization on test data. Crucial to OBS is a recursion relation for calculating the inverse Hessian matrix H-1 from training data and structural information of the net. OBS permits a 90%, a 76%, and a 62% reduction in weights over backpropagation with weight decay on three benchmark MONK's problems [Thrun et al., 1991]. Of OBS, Optimal Brain Damage, and magnitude-based methods, only OBS deletes the correct weights from a trained XOR network in every case. Finally, whereas Sejnowski and Rosenberg [1987] used 18,000 weights in their NETtalk network, we used OBS to prune a network to just 1560 weights, yielding better generalization.
Mineralocorticoid receptor–Rac1 activation and oxidative stress play major roles in salt-induced hypertension and kidney injury in prepubertal rats

Objectives: To elucidate the roles that renal mineralocorticoid receptor–Rac1 interactions and oxidative stress play in salt-induced hypertension and renal injury in prepubertal rats. Methods: Three-week-old male Sprague Dawley rats were uninephrectomized (UNx) and fed a high-salt (8% NaCl) diet for 4 weeks. Five were left untreated, whereas the remaining rats were administered an mineralocorticoid receptor blocker (n = 5), a Rac1 inhibitor (n = 5), a Rho-kinase inhibitor (n = 5), or the superoxide dismutase mimetic tempol (n = 5). A control group of young UNx rats (n = 5) was fed a normal-salt (0.5% NaCl) diet. The rats were sacrificed after a 4-week experimental period. Blood pressure, urinary protein, histological morphology, and renal serum-regulated and glucocorticoid-regulated kinase (Sgk) 1 and Rac1 expression were evaluated. The effect of adrenalectomy with dexamethasone supplementation in young salt-loaded UNx rats (n = 5) was also evaluated. Results: Excessive salt intake induced hypertension and proteinuria in the young UNx rats, whose kidneys showed marked histological injury, Sgk1 overexpression and Rac1 activation. Both mineralocorticoid receptor blockade and Rac1 inhibition markedly prevented these abnormalities associated with a reduction in renal Rac1 expression. Adrenalectomy, but not Rho-kinase inhibition, also prevented salt-induced renal injury. Interestingly, tempol inhibited renal Rac1 activation and renal injury. Conclusions: These findings suggest that Rac1-related mineralocorticoid receptor activation contributed to salt-induced hypertension and kidney injury in young UNx rats. Furthermore, as adrenalectomy abrogated salt-induced proteinuria, Rac1 may be an enhancer of aldosterone-induced mineralocorticoid receptor activation. Oxidative stress may also modify the interaction between Rac1 and mineralocorticoid receptor.
Remediation of Rare Earth Element Pollutants by Sorption Process Using Organic Natural Sorbents

The effects of the sorption of environmental applications by various source materials of natural organic matter, i.e., bone powder, was examined. Sorption capacities and subsequent rare earth element retention characteristics of all metals tested were markedly increased by ionic task-specific. In this study, the abilities of three models’ isotherms widely were used for the equilibrium sorption data: Langmuir, Freundlich and Redlich-Peterson. For all studied metal ions the maximum adsorption capacity is close to those experimentally determined. The characteristic parameters for each isotherm and related coefficients of determination have been determined. The experimental data achieved excellent fits within the following isotherms in the order: Langmuir > Redlich-Peterson > Freundlich, based on their coefficient of determination values. The bone powder has developed higher adsorption performance in the removal process of Nd(III), Eu(III), La(III) from aqueous solutions than in the case of the removal process of Cs(I), Sr(II) and Tl(I) from aqueous solutions. The described relationships provide direct experimental evidence that the sorption-desorption properties of bone powder are closely related to their degree of the type of the metal. The results suggest a potential for obtaining efficient and cost-effective engineered natural organic sorbents for environmental applications.
The Elusive Old Population of the Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy Leo I

We report the discovery of a significant old population in the dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxy Leo I as a result of a wide-area search with the ESO New Technology Telescope. Studies of the stellar content of Local Group dwarf galaxies have shown the presence of an old stellar population in almost all of the dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The only exception was Leo I, which alone appeared to have delayed its initial star formation episode until just a few gigayears ago. The color-magnitude diagram of Leo I now reveals an extended horizontal branch, unambiguously indicating the presence of an old, metal-poor population in the outer regions of this galaxy. Yet we find little evidence for a stellar population gradient, at least outside R > 2′ (0.16 kpc), since the old horizontal branch stars of Leo I are radially distributed as their more numerous intermediate-age helium-burning counterparts. The discovery of a definitely old population in the predominantly young dwarf spheroidal galaxy Leo I points to a sharply defined first epoch of star formation common to all of the Local Group dSph galaxies as well as to the halo of the Milky Way.
Surgical treatment for pseudo-occlusion of the internal carotid artery.

OBJECTIVES Carotid artery pseudo-occlusion is a rare condition and its natural history and clinicopathological characteristics are not well defined. We reported our 7-year experience in the surgical treatment of carotid artery pseudo-occlusion to determine the real benefit of the surgical option. METHODS From January 2006 to December 2013, 1414 patients were treated for high-grade stenosis of the internal carotid artery, 33 (2.3%) presented with a carotid pseudo-occlusion (26 males and 7 females, mean age: 70 ± 10). Nineteen patients were symptomatic, and 14 asymptomatic. Carotid artery pseudo-occlusion was identified by duplex scan (segmental occlusion at the origin of internal carotid artery with very thin distal flow) and the diagnostic confirmation was obtained by angio-computed-tomography (CT) scan. The operation was performed under general anaesthesia and constant Electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring. The follow-up was performed by duplex scan at discharge, 30 days, 6 months and yearly. RESULTS Politetrafluoroetilene (PTFE) patch endarterectomy, eversion endarterectomy and carotid bypass were performed in 20 (61%), 10 (30%) and 3 patients (9%), respectively. No mortality or stroke was observed in postoperative period. Four patients presented with an asymptomatic postoperative thrombosis of the internal carotid artery. No restenosis was observed. CONCLUSIONS Surgical treatment for carotid artery pseudo-occlusion is safe and effective.
Bystander effect and adaptive response in C 3 H 10 T K cells

Purpose: To address the relationship between the bystander effect and the adaptive response that can compete to impact on the dose– response curve at low doses. Materials and methods: A novel radiation apparatus, where targeted and non-targeted cells were grown in close proximity, was used to investigate these phenomena in C3H 10TK cells. It was further examined whether a bystander effect or an adaptive response could be induced by a factor(s) present in the supernatants of cells exposed to a high or low dose of X-rays, respectively. Results: When non-hit cells were co-cultured for 24 h with cells irradiated with 5 Gy a-particles, a significant increase in both cell killing and oncogenic transformation frequency was observed. If these cells were treated with 2 cGy X-rays 5 h before co-culture with irradiated cells, approximately 95% of the bystander effect was cancelled out. A 2.5-fold decrease in the oncogenic transformation frequency was also observed. When cells were cultured in medium donated from cells exposed to 5 Gy X-rays, a significant bystander effect was observed for clonogenic survival. When cells were cultured for 5 h with supernatant from donor cells exposed to 2 cGy and were then irradiated with 4 Gy X-rays, they failed to show an increase in survival compared with cells directly irradiated with 4 Gy. However, a twofold reduction in the oncogenic transformation frequency was seen. Conclusions: An adaptive dose of X-rays cancelled out the majority of the bystander effect produced by a-particles. For oncogenic transformation, but not cell survival, radioadaption can occur in unirradiated cells via a transmissible factor(s).
Different antipsychotics elicit different effects on magnocellular oxytocinergic and vasopressinergic neurons as revealed by Fos immunohistochemistry

Acute administration of antipsychotics elicits regionally distinct patterns of Fos expression in the rat brain. Stimulation of oxytocin (OXY) and vasopressin (AVP) release in the hypothalamic paraventricular (PVN) and supraoptic (SON) nuclei indicates that antipsychotics may play a role in autonomic, neuroendocrine, and behavioral processes. This study was focused to reveal the responsiveness of hypothalamic OXY‐ and AVP‐ producing magnocellular neurons, in terms of quantitative and topographical distinctions, to antipsychotics displaying different pharmacological profiles. Naive male Wistar rats were injected intraperitoneally with haloperidol (1 mg/kg), clozapine (30 mg/kg), olanzapine (30 mg/kg), risperidone (2mg/kg), and vehicle (5% chremophor) and were sacrificed 60 min later by a fixative. Fos, Fos/OXY, and Fos/AVP labelings were visualized by immunohistochemistry in the SON, 5 accessory (ACS) cell groups, and 4 distinct PVN subdivisions using a computerized light microscope. Most apparent activation of single Fos, Fos/OXY, and Fos/AVP cells was induced by clozapine and olanzapine; effects of risperidone and haloperidol were substantially lower; no colocalizations were revealed in naive or vehicle treated control rats. The data indicate the existence of a substantial diversity in the stimulatory effect of the selected antipsychotics on quantity of Fos, Fos/OXY, and Fos/AVP immunostainings with the preferential action of the atypicals clozapine over olanzapine and little effects of risperidone and haloperidol. Variabilities in Fos distribution in the PVN, SON, and ACS induced by antipsychotics may be helpful to understand more precisely the extent of their extra‐forebrain actions with possible presumption of their functional impact and side effect consequences. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Kawasaki disease: late cardiovascular sequelae

Purpose of review Kawasaki disease was first described in Japanese in 1967, and the first English language report appeared in 1974. Consequently, only recently have Kawasaki disease patients reached adulthood and come to the attention of adult cardiologists. As children with Kawasaki disease grow up, adult cardiologists are likely to see increasing numbers of these patients with cardiovascular complications. The purpose of this review is to highlight recent advances in our understanding of the late cardiac sequelae of Kawasaki disease. Recent findings Patients with persistent or remodeled coronary aneurysms after Kawasaki disease have a high rate of complications including thrombosis or stenosis leading to myocardial infarction. Whether patients with Kawasaki disease are at risk of accelerated atherosclerosis remains controversial, but there may be persistent inflammation in the arterial wall of coronary aneurysms long after Kawasaki disease, and myofibroblasts likely play a central role in the arterial remodeling process. Summary The vasculopathy of Kawasaki disease appears to be distinct from that of atherosclerosis, and optimal management strategies for the two conditions differ. Patients with persistent or remodeled coronary aneurysms or regressed aneurysms after Kawasaki disease are at increased risk and require long-term follow-up by cardiologists knowledgeable about management issues in this patient population.