Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preventive but not late amiloride therapy reduces morbidity and mortality of lung disease in betaENaC-overexpressing mice.

RATIONALE Increased airway Na(+) absorption mediated by epithelial Na(+) channels (ENaC) is a characteristic abnormality in the pathogenesis of cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease. However, inhalation therapy with the ENaC blocker amiloride did not have therapeutic benefits in patients with CF with established lung disease. OBJECTIVES We hypothesized that preventive inhibition of increased Na(+) absorption in a structurally normal lung may be required for effective therapy of CF lung disease in vivo, and that therapeutic effects of late amiloride intervention may be impeded by the chronic disease process. METHODS To test this hypothesis in vivo, we used the betaENaC-overexpression mouse as a model of CF lung disease and determined therapeutic effects of preventive versus late amiloride therapy on survival, airway mucus plugging, chronic bronchitis, and airway remodeling. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS We show that early intervention, i.e., from the first day of life, with the intranasal administration of amiloride significantly reduced pulmonary mortality, airway mucus obstruction, epithelial necrosis, goblet cell metaplasia, and airway inflammation in betaENaC-overexpressing mice. In contrast, consistent with previous human trials in patients with CF, amiloride administration did not have benefits if treatment was started after the development of CF-like lung disease in betaENaC-overexpressing mice. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that preventive inhibition of increased airway Na(+) absorption provides an effective therapy for CF-like lung disease in vivo. These results suggest that amiloride therapy may be an effective preventive therapy for patients with CF if initiated early in life before the onset of lung disease.
Effects of Regeneration on Hydrology and Water Quality of a Managed Pine Forest

Intensive forest management practices such as drainage, harvesting, site preparation, regeneration, and fertilization have been frequently blamed for problems related to excessive nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment in receiving waters. Two 25 ha experimental watersheds (D1 – control; D2 – treatment) on a pine plantation in eastern North Carolina have been monitored since 1988 to study the hydrologic and water quality effects of various silvicultural and water management treatments using a paired watershed approach. Data from a two-year calibration period (1988-90) and a four-year regeneration period (2000-03) were used for the analysis. This study period recorded both the highest (2330 mm in 2003) and lowest (850 mm in 2001) rainfall of the 16-years (1988-2003) of record at this site. Nearly seven years after planting, water table elevations returned back to pre-treatment conditions. However, peak flow rates and consequently annual outflows were generally higher on the treatment watershed D2 compared to the control watershed (D1), indicating that the outflows on the treatment watershed may not have completely returned back to base line conditions. Average outflow nutrient (NO3-N, TKN, and Total-P) concentrations for the treatment (D2) watershed for the period from 2000 to 2003 were, however, similar or somewhat lower than their expected values. Although sediment concentration seems to have slightly increased compared to the calibration period, regeneration did not seem to have any effect by the third year after planting, The water quality concentrations were also much lower than the data reported for agricultural lands in the same region. These results will be evaluated and reported soon in the context of prior data after harvesting in 1995 and planting in 1997 to detect the actual effects of regeneration.
Coexistence of Trichome Variation in a Natural Plant Population: A Combined Study Using Ecological and Candidate Gene Approaches

The coexistence of distinct phenotypes within populations has long been investigated in evolutionary ecology. Recent studies have identified the genetic basis of distinct phenotypes, but it is poorly understood how the variation in candidate loci is maintained in natural environments. In this study, we examined fitness consequences and genetic basis of variation in trichome production in a natural population of Arabidopsis halleri subsp. gemmifera. Half of the individuals in the study population produced trichomes while the other half were glabrous, and the leaf beetle Phaedon brassicae imposed intensive damage to both phenotypes. The fitness of hairy and glabrous plants showed no significant differences in the field during two years. A similar result was obtained when sibling hairy and glabrous plants were transplanted at the same field site, whereas a fitness cost of trichome production was detected under a weak herbivory condition. Thus, equivalent fitness of hairy and glabrous plants under natural herbivory allows their coexistence in the contemporary population. The pattern of polymorphism of the candidate trichome gene GLABROUS1 (GL1) showed no evidence of long-term maintenance of trichome variation within the population. Although balancing selection under fluctuating biotic environments is often proposed to explain the maintenance of defense variation, the lack of clear evidence of balancing selection in the study population suggests that other factors such as gene flow and neutral process may have played relatively large roles in shaping trichome variation at least for the single population level.
To breed or not to breed: a seabird's response to extreme climatic events

Intermittent breeding is an important life-history strategy that has rarely been quantified in the wild and for which drivers remain unclear. It may be the result of a trade-off between survival and reproduction, with individuals skipping breeding when breeding conditions are below a certain threshold. Heterogeneity in individual quality can also lead to heterogeneity in intermittent breeding. We modelled survival, recruitment and breeding probability of the red-footed booby (Sula sula), using a 19 year mark–recapture dataset involving more than 11 000 birds. We showed that skipping breeding was more likely in El-Niño years, correlated with an increase in the local sea surface temperature, supporting the hypothesis that it may be partly an adaptive strategy of birds to face the trade-off between survival and reproduction owing to environmental constraints. We also showed that the age-specific probability of first breeding attempt was synchronized among different age-classes and higher in El-Niño years. This result suggested that pre-breeders may benefit from lowered competition with experienced breeders in years of high skipping probabilities.
Scene-Independent Group Profiling in Crowd

Groups are the primary entities that make up a crowd. Understanding group-level dynamics and properties is thus scientifically important and practically useful in a wide range of applications, especially for crowd understanding. In this study we show that fundamental group-level properties, such as intra-group stability and inter-group conflict, can be systematically quantified by visual descriptors. This is made possible through learning a novel Collective Transition prior, which leads to a robust approach for group segregation in public spaces. From the prior, we further devise a rich set of group property visual descriptors. These descriptors are scene-independent, and can be effectively applied to public-scene with variety of crowd densities and distributions. Extensive experiments on hundreds of public scene video clips demonstrate that such property descriptors are not only useful but also necessary for group state analysis and crowd scene understanding.
Efficient Broadcast Indexing Scheme for Location-dependent Queries in Multi Channels Wireless Environment

Data dissemination scheme has been of great interest due to its scalability. In mobile environment, the advantage of such scheme is significant considering the inherent limitations of wireless environment. The application of broadcast indexing scheme in a wireless broadcast environment is necessary to help mobile clients to find the desired data instances efficiently. In this paper, we present a novel index structure called global indexing scheme for location-dependent queries. The proposed scheme is applied in a multi channel wireless environment and designed to serve queries efficiently in which the queries result depend on the mobile clients' current location. We develop a simulation model to find out the access time, tuning time and power consumption performance of global indexing scheme as compared to non-global indexing scheme. Additionally, we analyse the efficiency of valid scope used in the global index scheme as compared with an existing valid scope. It is found that global index performs substantially better than the existing indexing concept.
Oxygen and nitrogen abundances in Virgo and field spirals

The oxygen and nitrogen abundances in the H ii regions of the nine Virgo spirals of the sample from Skillman et al. (1996) and in nine field spiral galaxies are re-determined with the recently suggested P –method. We confirm that there is an abundance segregation in the sample of Virgo spirals in the sense that the H i deficient Virgo spirals near the core of the cluster have higher oxygen abundances in comparison to the spirals at the periphery of the Virgo cluster. At the same time both the Virgo periphery and core spirals have counterparts among field spirals. Some field spirals have H i to optical radius ratios, similar to that in H i deficient Virgo core spirals. We conclude that if there is a difference in the abundance properties of the Virgo and field spirals, this difference appears to be small and masked by the observational errors.
Temperatures recorded by cosmogenic noble gases since the last glacial maximum in the Maritime Alps

Abstract While proxy records have been used to reconstruct late Quaternary climate parameters throughout the European Alps, our knowledge of deglacial climate conditions in the Maritime Alps is limited. Here, we report temperatures recorded by a new and independent geochemical technique—cosmogenic noble gas paleothermometry—in the Maritime Alps since the last glacial maximum. We measured cosmogenic 3He in quartz from boulders in nested moraines in the Gesso Valley, Italy. Paired with cosmogenic 10Be measurements and 3He diffusion experiments on quartz from the same boulders, the cosmogenic 3He abundances record the temperatures these boulders experienced during their exposure. We calculate effective diffusion temperatures (EDTs) over the last ∼22 ka ranging from 8°C to 25°C. These EDTs, which are functionally related to, but greater than, mean ambient temperatures, are consistent with temperatures inferred from other proxies in nearby Alpine regions and those predicted by a transient general circulation model. In detail, however, we also find different EDTs for boulders from the same moraines, thus limiting our ability to interpret these temperatures. We explore possible causes for these intra-moraine discrepancies, including variations in radiative heating, our treatment of complex helium diffusion, uncertainties in our grain size analyses, and unaccounted-for erosion or cosmogenic inheritance.
The evolution from females to hermaphrodites results in a sexual conflict over mating in androdioecious nematode worms and clam shrimp

The nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans and the clam shrimp Eulimnadia texana are two well‐studied androdioecious species consisting mostly of self‐fertilizing hermaphrodites and few males. To understand how androdioecy can evolve, a simple two‐step mathematical model of the evolutionary pathway from a male–female species to a selfing‐hermaphrodite species is constructed. First, the frequency of mutant females capable of facultative self‐fertilization increases if the benefits of reproductive assurance exceed the cost. Second, hermaphrodites become obligate self‐fertilizers if the fitness of selfed offspring exceeds one‐half the fitness of outcrossed offspring. Genetic considerations specific to C. elegans and E. texana show that males may endure as descendants of the ancestral male–female species. These models combined with an extensive literature review suggest a sexual conflict over mating in these androdioecious species: selection favours hermaphrodites that self and males that outcross. The strength of selection on hermaphrodites and males differs, however. Males that fail to outcross suffer a genetic death. Hermaphrodites may never encounter a rare male, and those that do and outcross only bear less fecund offspring. This asymmetric sexual conflict results in an evolutionary stand‐off: rare, but persistent males occasionally fertilize common, but reluctant hermaphrodites. A consequence of this stand‐off may be an increase in the longevity of the androdioecious mating system.
Nuclear reprogramming and stem cell creation

The transplantation of a somatic cell nucleus to an enucleated egg results in a major reprogramming of gene expression and switch in cell fate. We review the efficiency of nuclear reprogramming by nuclear transfer. The serial transplantation of nuclei from defective first-transfer embryos and the grafting of cells from such embryos to normal host embryos greatly increases the proportion of nuclei that can be seen to have been reprogrammed. We discuss possible reasons for the early failure of most nuclear transfers from differentiated cells and describe the potential value of growing oocytes, rather than unfertilized eggs, as a source of nuclear reprogramming molecules and for the eventual identification of these molecules. Nuclear transfer provides a possible route for the creation of stem cells from adult somatic cells.
Brain and Spinal Cord Interaction: Protective Effects of Exercise Prior to Spinal Cord Injury

We have investigated the effects of a spinal cord injury on the brain and spinal cord, and whether exercise provided before the injury could organize a protective reaction across the neuroaxis. Animals were exposed to 21 days of voluntary exercise, followed by a full spinal transection (T7–T9) and sacrificed two days later. Here we show that the effects of spinal cord injury go beyond the spinal cord itself and influence the molecular substrates of synaptic plasticity and learning in the brain. The injury reduced BDNF levels in the hippocampus in conjunction with the activated forms of p-synapsin I, p-CREB and p-CaMK II, while exercise prior to injury prevented these reductions. Similar effects of the injury were observed in the lumbar enlargement region of the spinal cord, where exercise prevented the reductions in BDNF, and p-CREB. Furthermore, the response of the hippocampus to the spinal lesion appeared to be coordinated to that of the spinal cord, as evidenced by corresponding injury-related changes in BDNF levels in the brain and spinal cord. These results provide an indication for the increased vulnerability of brain centers after spinal cord injury. These findings also imply that the level of chronic activity prior to a spinal cord injury could determine the level of sensory-motor and cognitive recovery following the injury. In particular, exercise prior to the injury onset appears to foster protective mechanisms in the brain and spinal cord.
How muscle fiber lengths and velocities affect muscle force generation as humans walk and run at different speeds

SUMMARY The lengths and velocities of muscle fibers have a dramatic effect on muscle force generation. It is unknown, however, whether the lengths and velocities of lower limb muscle fibers substantially affect the ability of muscles to generate force during walking and running. We examined this issue by developing simulations of muscle–tendon dynamics to calculate the lengths and velocities of muscle fibers from electromyographic recordings of 11 lower limb muscles and kinematic measurements of the hip, knee and ankle made as five subjects walked at speeds of 1.0–1.75 m s−1 and ran at speeds of 2.0–5.0 m s−1. We analyzed the simulated fiber lengths, fiber velocities and forces to evaluate the influence of force–length and force–velocity properties on force generation at different walking and running speeds. The simulations revealed that force generation ability (i.e. the force generated per unit of activation) of eight of the 11 muscles was significantly affected by walking or running speed. Soleus force generation ability decreased with increasing walking speed, but the transition from walking to running increased the force generation ability by reducing fiber velocities. Our results demonstrate the influence of soleus muscle architecture on the walk-to-run transition and the effects of muscle–tendon compliance on the plantarflexors' ability to generate ankle moment and power. The study presents data that permit lower limb muscles to be studied in unprecedented detail by relating muscle fiber dynamics and force generation to the mechanical demands of walking and running.
What Accounts for the Variation in Retirement Wealth Among U.S. Households?

Household survey data consistently depict large variations in saving and wealth among households with similar socio-economic characteristics. Within the context of the life" cycle hypothesis, families with identical lifetime resources might choose to accumulate" different levels of wealth for a variety of reasons, including variation in time preference rates risk tolerance, exposure to uncertainty, relative tastes for work and leisure at advanced ages income replacement rates, and so forth. These factors can be divided into a small number of" classes, each with a distinctive implication concerning the relation between accumulated wealth" and the shape of the consumption profile. By examining this relation empirically for the presence or absence of these particular explanations for differences in wealth. Using" the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Consumer Expenditure Survey little support for life cycle models that rely on the above factors to explain wealth variation. " The data are, however, consistent with rule of thumb' or mental accounting' theories of" wealth accumulation.
Seasonal variations of water characteristics in three urban ponds with different management practices at Kolkata of West Bengal, India

The present study was carried out from January 2014 to June 2014 to make a comparative ecological assessment of three urban ponds of Kolkata, West Bengal, India with different management practices. The average value of water temperature in P-1, P-2 and P-3 ponds were 29.6, 30.0 and 29.8 ̊C respectively, the average value of water pH was the highest in the P-2 (7.32). The maximum average DO value was found in P-2 (5.66 mg l-1), average value of free CO2 was maximum in the P-3 (38.08 mg l1). The highest value of alkalinity was found in P-3 (314 mg l-1). The maximum concentration of BOD and COD were recorded in P-3 accordingly (3.07 mg l-1) and (75.16 mg l-1). The highest average value of Phosphate-phosphorous was recorded in P-2 (0.23 mg l-1) and the Nitrate-nitrogen concentration was recorded maximum in P-3 (1.49 mg l-1). The average value of conductivity was highest in P-3(1.97 mS/cm) followed by P-1(1.41 mS/cm) and P-2 (0.77 mS/cm). The present finding established that, the well managed pond (P-2) showed better ecological conditions compare to unmanaged ponds.
Design and Validation of a Three-Dimensional Printed Flexible Canine Otoscopy Teaching Model

Introduction A teaching model was sought to improve canine otoscopy skill and reduce use of teaching dogs. Methods An otoscopy teaching model was printed in a flexible medium on a desktop three-dimensional printer from a magnetic resonance image of a canine external ear canal. The model was mounted in a polyvinyl dog mannequin. Validation of the teaching model was sought from student, faculty, and dog perspective. Student perception of prelaboratory training was assessed using a survey regarding their experience. Otoscopy skill was assessed by faculty grading the ear anatomy visualized as well as the time required to prepare for and perform otoscopy and the time to the dog's first sign of aversion. The time data were used to assess whether there was a reduction in use of teaching dogs. Data from students exposed to the otoscopy model as part of their prelaboratory training (n = 20) were compared with those that were not exposed to the model (n = 19). Results The students found prelaboratory training with the model significantly more helpful than prelaboratory training without the model in all aspects of otoscopy (P < 0.05). Use of the model did not alter otoscopy skill (structures seen or time taken) or decrease dog use. Conclusions The students found the model helpful, but the best that can be said is the model did not negatively impact their otoscopy skill acquisition. Although the outcome of the study did not indicate a reduction in teaching dog use, the model has replaced live dog otoscopy in the institute's teaching program for initial canine otoscopy exposure.
Image Quality in Digital Mammography

The substitution of digital representations for standard film/screen mammography analog images provides access to methods for digital storage and transmission and enables the use of a variety of digital image processing techniques, including enhancement and computer assisted detection and classification of abnormalities. Lossy image compression can further improve the efficiency of transmission and storage and can facilitate subsequent image processing. Digitization, digital acquisition, lossy compression, and enhancement and highlighting schemes all alter an image from its traditional form and it is critically important that any such alteration be clearly demonstrated to improve or at least not damage the utility of the image. The primary goal of this project was the development of a clinical experimental protocol for evaluating the comparative quality of analog, digital, and lossy compressed digital mammograms in a manner not suffering from the fundamental flaws of traditional receiver operating characteristic (ROC) methods. Such a protocol was developed and implemented in a pilot experiment involving 59 patients and 6 radiologist judges interpreting original, 12 bits per pixel (bpp) digitized, and lossy compressed digital mammograms down to . 15 bpp. The protocol, experiment, and results are described along with related algorithms for compression and combined compression and