Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Opioid‐Inhibited Adenylyl Cyclase in Rat Brain Membranes: Lack of Correlation with High‐Affinity Opioid Receptor Binding Sites

Abstract: Opioid agonists bind to GTP‐binding (G‐protein)‐coupled receptors to inhibit adenylyl cyclase. To explore the relationship between opioid receptor binding sites and opioid‐inhibited adenylyl cyclase, membranes from rat striatum were incubated with agents that block opioid receptor binding. These agents included irreversible opioid agonists (oxymorphone‐p‐nitrophenylhydrazone), irreversible antagonists [naloxonazine, β‐funaltrexamine, and β‐chlornaltrexamine (β‐CNA)], and phospholipase A2. After preincubation with these agents, the same membranes were assayed for high‐affinity opioid receptor binding [3H‐labeled D‐alanine‐4‐N‐methylphenylalanine‐5‐glycine‐ol‐enkephalin (μ), 3H‐labeled 2‐D‐serine‐5‐L‐leucine‐6‐L‐threonine enkephalin (δ), and [3H]ethylketocylazocine (EKC) sites] and opioid‐inhibited adenylyl cyclase. Although most agents produced persistent blockade in binding of ligands to high‐affinity μ, δ, and EKC sites, no change in opioid‐inhibited adenylyl cyclase was detected. In most treated membranes, both the IC50 and the maximal inhibition of adenylyl cyclase by opioid agonists were identical to values in untreated membranes. Only β‐CNA blocked opioid‐inhibited adenylyl cyclase by decreasing maximal inhibition and increasing the IC50 of opioid agonists. This effect of β‐CNA was not due to nonspecific interactions with Gi, Gs, or the catalytic unit of adenylyl cyclase, as neither guanylylimido‐diphosphate‐inhibited, NaF‐stimulated, nor forskolin‐stimulated activity was altered by β‐CNA pretreatment. Phospholipase A2 decreased opioid‐inhibited adenylyl cyclase only when the enzyme was incubated with brain membranes in the presence of NaCl and GTP. These results confirm that the receptors that inhibit adenylyl cyclase in brain do not correspond to the high‐affinity μ, δ, or EKC sites identified in brain by traditional binding studies.
Cognitive-behavioural group treatment for a range of functional somatic syndromes: randomised trial.

BACKGROUND Many specialty-specific functional somatic syndrome diagnoses exist to describe people who are experiencing so-called medically unexplained symptoms. Although cognitive-behavioural therapy can be effective in the management of such syndromes, it is rarely available. A cognitive-behavioural therapy suitable for group treatment of people with different functional somatic syndromes could address this problem. AIMS To test the efficacy of a cognitive-behavioural therapy (Specialised Treatment for Severe Bodily Distress Syndromes, STreSS) designed for patients with a range of severe functional somatic syndromes. METHOD A randomised controlled trial (clinicaltrials.gov, NCT00132197) compared STreSS (nine 3.5 h sessions over 4 months, n = 54) with enhanced usual care (management by primary care physician or medical specialist, n = 66). The primary outcome was improvement in aggregate score on subscales of the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (physical functioning, bodily pain and vitality) at 16 months. RESULTS Participants receiving STreSS had a greater improvement on the primary outcome (adjusted mean difference 4.0, 95% CI 1.4-6.6, P = 0.002) and on most secondary outcomes. CONCLUSIONS In the management of functional somatic syndromes, a cognitive-behavioural group treatment was more effective than enhanced usual care.
Cytogenetic findings and their prognostic impact in myelodysplastic syndrome patients

Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) represents a group o f clonal hematological disorders characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis and an increased risk for transformation into acute leukemia. Our aim was to identify the chromosomal abnormalities in patients with m yelodysplastic syndrome and to evaluate the prognos tic value of cytogenetic findings. Twenty-five patients from the Hematology Clinics in Tg.Mure ș, newly diagnosed with MDS, were included in the study. We carried ou t bone marrow cultures according to standard method s. We successfully analyzed the karyotype of 24 patients (96%) and identified 15 (62.5%) cases with chromoso mal abnormalities. According to the cytogenetic risk stat us, 13 patients have been classified in the good, 7 in the intermediate and 4 in the poor risk group. Patients with abnormal karyotype exhibited a high tendency to ev olve into the leukemic phase (33%), as compared with those wi th normal karyotype. There were significant differe nc s in overall survival (OS) noted among patients who had a normal karyotype and patients who had chromosomal abnormalities (p=0.012). Taking into account our resu lt we consider that patients with an abnormal kary otype had a shorter survival and higher risk of leukemic tran sformation than those with a normal karyotype. In c o clusion, cytogenetic results have an important role in the d iagnosis and identification of prognostic subgroups of MDS.
Reducing Lexical Features in Parsing by Word Embeddings

The high-dimensionality of lexical features in parsing can be memory consuming and cause over-fitting problems. We propose a general framework to replace all lexical feature templates by low-dimensional features induced from word embeddings. Applied to a near state-of-the-art dependency parser (Huang et al., 2012), our method improves the baseline, performs better than using cluster bit string features, and outperforms a recent neural network based parser. A further analysis shows that our framework has the effect hypothesized by Andreas and Klein (2014), namely (i) connecting unseen words to known ones, and (ii) encouraging common behaviors among invocabulary words.
Mutation in Apolipoprotein B Associated with Hypobetalipoproteinemia Despite Decreased Binding to the Low Density Lipoprotein Receptor*

Mutations in apolipoprotein B (APOB) may reduce binding of low density lipoprotein (LDL) to the LDL receptor and cause hypercholesterolemia. We showed that heterozygotes for a new mutation in APOB have hypobetalipoproteinemia, despite a reduced binding of LDL to the LDL receptor. APOB R3480P heterozygotes were identified among 9,255 individuals from the general population and had reduced levels of apoB-containing lipoproteins. Most surprisingly, R3480P LDL bound with lower affinity to the LDL receptor than non-carrier LDL in vitro, and these results were confirmed by turnover studies of LDL in vivo. In very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) turnover studies, the amount of VLDL converted to LDL in R3480P heterozygotes was substantially reduced, suggesting that this was the explanation for the hypobetalipoproteinemia observed in these individuals. Our findings emphasized the importance of combining in vitro studies with both human in vivo and population-based studies, as in vitro studies often have focused on very limited aspects of complex mechanisms taken out of their natural context.
Enabling Advanced Loading Strategies for Data Intensive Web Services

Improving performance of Web services interactions is an important factor to burst the adoption of SOAin mission-critical applications, especially when they deal with large business objects whose transfer time is not negligible. Designing messages dynamic granularity (offloading) is a key challenge for achieving good performances. This requires the server being able to predict the pieces of data actually used by clients in order to send only such data. However, exact prediction is not easy, and consequently lazy interactions are needed to transfer additional data whenever the prediction fails. To preserve semantics, lazy accesses to the results of a Web service interaction need to work on a dedicated copy of the business object stored as application state. Thus, dynamic offloading can experience an overhead due to a prediction failure, which is the sum of round-trip and storage access delays, which could compromise the benefits of the technique. This paper improves our previous work enabling dynamic offloading for both IN and OUT parameters, and analyses how attributes copies impact on the technique, by comparing the overheads introduced by different storage technologies in a real implementation of a Web services framework that extends CXF. More specifically, we quantitatively characterize the execution contexts that make dynamic offloading effective, and the expected accuracy of the predictive strategy to have a gain in term of response time compared to plain services invocations. Finally, the paper introduces the Attribute Loading Delegation technique that enables optimized data-transfers for those applications where data-intensive multiple-interactions take place.
Response of Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors to Changes in Body Fat during Diet-Induced Weight Reduction in Japanese Obese Men: A Pilot Study

Objective: Serial measurements were used to examine the response of coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors to regional fat changes during weight reduction. Methods: Nine Japanese obese men participated in a diet-induced weight loss program. Regional fat masses, abdominal visceral fat area (VFA), subcutaneous fat area (SFA) and CHD risk factors, including total (TC), high (HDLC)- and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLC), triglycerides (TG), fasting plasma glucose, immunoreactive insulin, homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), and glycosylated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) were assessed at baseline and after 1, 2 and 3 months. Results: Meanweight reduction during the study was –11.9 ± 4.2 kg, which was associated with a gradual, significant decrease (p < 0.05) in arm, leg and trunk fat masses, VFA and SFA. The levels of TC, LDLC and TG decreased significantly within 1 month and remained at these values, whereas HDLC, HOMA-IR, and HbA1c did not change. There was no significant correlation between changes in regional fat masses and CHD risk factors in any period studied. Conclusions: CHD risk factors do not necessarily respond in the same manner as changes in body fat during diet-induced moderate weight reduction.
Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio as a sensitive marker in diagnosis of celiac disease

Celiac disease (CD) is a small intestinal mucosal disease leading to malabsorbtion due to inflammatory reaction to gluten [1-4]. CD has a prevelance of approximately 1% of the population. But, it is estimated that up to 90% are undiagnosed due to subclinical presentations [5]. Also, diverse clinical manifestations can lead to delays in diagnosis [4]. Laboratory indices and biomarkers used in daily general medical practice are important in detecting new cases of CD, otherwise a delayed diagnosis can lead to development of important complications such as osteoporosis [6-9]. Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) was introduced as a useful index for diagnosis or prognosis of different diseases [7]. We hypothesized that NLR might change in patients with CD as an inflammatory disease. Blood count changes such as anemia, leukopenia are well-known but there is no data for NLR in CD [8,9]. In this regard, we prospectively checked the diagnostic role of the NLR in 76 patients with CD (M:26, F:50) at the time of diagnosis. Diagnosis of study patients was based on celiac antibodies (anti-gliadin, anti-endomysium and tissue transglutaminase), and duodenal biopsy [1,10]. Eighty-six patients with functional dyspepsia (M:33, F:53), all of whom had a normal complete blood cell count, C-reactive protein (CRP), and negative serology for anti-gliadin and anti-endomysium antibodies were recruited as control group. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 17.0. Chi-square test was used for comparison of categorical variables. A P-value 0.05). NLR was significantly higher in patients with CD (2.42±1.24) when compared to control group (1.92±0.58) (P<0.019). The success of NLR in diagnosing CD was statistically remarkable when tested with ROC analysis (Fig. 1). The cut-off value of NLR was 2.32. According to this cut-off value, sensitivity was 80% and specificity 41%. Figure 1 The receiver-operating characteristic curve of neutrophil-to- lymphocyte ratio for predicting celiac disease Neutrophils and lymphocytes are the cells that play a major role in inflammatory processes. Therefore, counts of neutrophils and lymphocytes temporarily change in inflammation. Cellular immunity obviously plays a major role in intestinal damage in CD [1,2,8]. The main pathogenesis of CD is believed to be related to a gluten-specific T-lymphocyte-mediated response resulting in an overexpression of interferon-γ in the epithelial compartment [1]. Inflammation is not confined to duodenum but also involves other gastrointestinal mucosa. Accordingly, surface lymphocytic infiltration of the stomach and colon can also be seen [9]. NLR change seems to be linked with this inflammation and cytokines. In conclusion, NLR might be used as a sensitive laboratory index in screening and diagnosis of CD.
Does son preference matter? A study from urban Maharashtra.

Research Questions: Does son preference and number of children affect contraceptive practices? Setting: A community based study was conducted in the field practice area of Urban Health Centre Solapur Maharashtra. Study Design: Cross-sectional. Participants: Married women in 15-45 years of age group. Methodology: Houses selected by random sampling were visited by a Medical doctor and a Medical Social Worker. Information was recorded by face to face interview. This study included 384 married women. Statistical Analysis: Chi-square test. Results: Acceptance of contraception was more in those with no daughter - 39.8% as compared to those with no son - 15%. Desire for more children and sons were the main reasons of non-acceptance of contraception. Acceptance of sterilization increased from 15% in those with no son to 84.8% in those with three or more sons. This difference was statistically significant. Conclusions: A disparity between boys and girls is prevalent at the family and community level. Needs based services can be planned for developing countries from the possible reasons.
Reduction of Maximum Entropy Models to Hidden Markov Models

We show that maximum entropy (maxent) models can be modeled with certain kinds of HMMs, allowing us to construct maxent models with hidden variables, hidden state sequences, or other characteristics. The models can be trained using the forward-backward algorithm. While the results are primarily of theoretical interest, unifying apparently unrelated concepts, we also give experimental results for a maxent model with a hidden variable on a word disambiguation task; the model outperforms standard techniques.
Assessment and diagnosis of mild traumatic brain injury, posttraumatic stress disorder, and other polytrauma conditions: burden of adversity hypothesis.

OBJECTIVE/METHOD Military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have been exposed to physical and emotional trauma. Challenges related to assessment and intervention for those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or history of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) with sequelae are discussed, with an emphasis on complicating factors if conditions are co-occurring. Existing literature regarding cumulative disadvantage is offered as a means of increasing understanding regarding the complex symptom patterns reported by those with a history of mild TBI with enduring symptoms and PTSD. IMPLICATIONS The importance of early screening for both conditions is highlighted. In addition, the authors suggest that current best practices include treating symptoms regardless of etiology to decrease military personnel and veteran burden of adversity.
The Role of Cytochrome c on Apoptosis Induced by Anagrapha falcifera Multiple Nuclear Polyhedrosis Virus in Insect Spodoptera litura Cells

There are conflicting reports on the role of cytochrome c during insect apoptosis. Our previous studies have showed that cytochrome c released from the mitochondria was an early event by western blot analysis and caspase-3 activation was closely related to cytochrome c release during apoptosis induced by baculovirus in Spodoptera litura cells (Sl-1 cell line). In the present study, alteration in mitochondrial morphology was observed by transmission electron microscopy, and cytochrome c release from mitochondria in apoptotic Sl-1 cells induced with Anagrapha falcifera multiple nuclear polyhedrosis virus (AfMNPV) has further been confirmed by immunofluoresence staining protocol, suggesting that structural disruption of mitochondria and the release of cytochrome c are important events during Lepidoptera insect cell apoptosis. We also used Sl-1 cell-free extract system and the technique of RNA interference to further investigate the role of cytochrome c in apoptotic Sl-1 cells induced by AfMNPV. Caspase-3 activity in cell- free extracts supplemented with exogenous cytochrome c was determined and showed an increase with the extension of incubation time. DsRNA-mediated silencing of cytochrome c resulted in the inhibition of apoptosis and protected the cells from AfMNPV-induced cell death. Silencing of expression of cytochrome c had a remarkable effect on pro-caspase-3 and pro-caspase-9 activation and resulted in the reduction of caspase-3 and caspase-9 activity in Sl-1 cells undergoing apoptosis. Caspase-9 inhibitor could inhibit activation of pro-caspase-3, and the inhibition of the function of Apaf-1 with FSBA blocked apoptosis, hinting that Apaf-1 could be involved in Sl-1 cell apoptosis induced by AfMNPV. Taken together, these results strongly demonstrate that cytochrome c plays an important role in apoptotic signaling pathways in Lepidopteran insect cells.
Dengue Virus Structural Differences That Correlate with Pathogenesis

ABSTRACT The understanding of dengue virus pathogenesis has been hampered by the lack of in vitro and in vivo models of disease. The study of viral factors involved in the production of severe dengue, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), versus the more common dengue fever (DF), have been limited to indirect clinical and epidemiologic associations. In an effort to identify viral determinants of DHF, we have developed a method for comparing dengue type 2 genomes (reverse transcriptase PCR in six fragments) directly from patient plasma. Samples for comparison were selected from two previously described dengue type 2 genotypes which had been shown to be the cause of DF or DHF. When full genome sequences of 11 dengue viruses were analyzed, several structural differences were seen consistently between those associated with DF only and those with the potential to cause DHF: a total of six encoded amino acid charge differences were seen in the prM, E, NS4b, and NS5 genes, while sequence differences observed within the 5′ nontranslated region (NTR) and 3′ NTR were predicted to change RNA secondary structures. We hypothesize that the primary determinants of DHF reside in (i) amino acid 390 of the E protein, which purportedly alters virion binding to host cells; (ii) in the downstream loop (nucleotides 68 to 80) of the 5′ NTR, which may be involved in translation initiation; and (iii) in the upstream 300 nucleotides of the 3′ NTR, which may regulate viral replication via the formation of replicative intermediates. The significance of four amino acid differences in the nonstructural proteins NS4b and NS5, a presumed transport protein and the viral RNA polymerase, respectively, remains unknown. This new approach to the study of dengue virus genome differences should better reflect the true composition of viral RNA populations in the natural host and permit their association with pathogenesis.
Neonatal ascites and oligohydramnios: the role of kidney

Posterior urethral valve pathologies are the most frequent childhood obstructive uropathy reported, and we infer their presence on diagnosing foetal ascites and oligohydramnios. Early action is vital to determine the long-term development and the degree of impairment of renal function. We report a newborn male 34 weeks of gestation with a prenatal diagnosis of foetal ascites, fluid on the loose in renal fossa and oligohydramnios. Subsequent studies have shown the presence of posterior urethral valves with associated significant vesicoureteral reflux. There was no secondary renal damage. Intrauterine decompression of the urinary tract seems to have exerted a protective role against kidney damage. This finding supports the role of foetal decompression surgery in early and severely obstructive forms to improve the prognosis of renal function in the long term.
Competition and Financial Stability

Competition policy in the banking sector is complicated by the necessity of maintaining financial stability. Greater competition may be good for (static) efficiency, but bad for financial stability. From the point of view of welfare economics, the relevant question is: what are the efficient levels of competition and financial stability? We use a variety of models to address this question and find that different models provide different answers. The relationship between competition and stability is complex: sometimes competition increases stability. In addition, in a second-best world, concentration may be socially preferable to perfect competition and perfect stability may be socially undesirable.
Visual motor integration as a screener for responders and non-responders in preschool and early school years: implications for inclusive assessment in Oman

ABSTRACT Visual motor integration (VMI) is the ability of the eyes and hands to work together in smooth, efficient patterns. In Oman, there are few effective methods to assess VMI skills in children in inclusive settings. The current study investigated the performance of preschool and early school years responders and non-responders on a VMI test. The full range test of visual motor integration (FRTVMI) was administered to a sample of 359 children from preschool and elementary school settings in Oman. A two-way analysis of variance showed that there are statistically significant differences in VMI between preschool and early school non-responders. Gender did not show any effect on preschool children's performance on the FRTVMI, whereas it had an effect on elementary school children's performance. Results of the study are discussed in relation to the use of VMI assessment in screening for responders and non-responders in preschool and elementary school settings. Implications for psycho-educational assessment of children who struggle academically in inclusive settings are presented.
Polymorphisms of ADIPOR1 and ADIPOR2 are associated with phenotypes of type 2 diabetes in Koreans

Objective Adiponectin receptors 1 and 2 (ADIPOR1 and ADIPOR2) are considered as candidate genes for type 2 diabetes because they mediate the metabolic effects of adiponectin on target tissues. We investigated whether common polymorphisms of ADIPOR1 and ADIPOR2 are associated with type 2 diabetes or its related phenotypes in Koreans.
The Rich Event Ontology

In this paper we describe a new lexical semantic resource, The Rich Event On-tology, which provides an independent conceptual backbone to unify existing semantic role labeling (SRL) schemas and augment them with event-to-event causal and temporal relations. By unifying the FrameNet, VerbNet, Automatic Content Extraction, and Rich Entities, Relations and Events resources, the ontology serves as a shared hub for the disparate annotation schemas and therefore enables the combination of SRL training data into a larger, more diverse corpus. By adding temporal and causal relational information not found in any of the independent resources, the ontology facilitates reasoning on and across documents, revealing relationships between events that come together in temporal and causal chains to build more complex scenarios. We envision the open resource serving as a valuable tool for both moving from the ontology to text to query for event types and scenarios of interest, and for moving from text to the ontology to access interpretations of events using the combined semantic information housed there.