Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Context, time, and memory retrieval in the interference paradigms of Pavlovian learning.

In this article I review research and theory on the "interference paradigms" in Pavlovian learning. In these situations (e.g., extinction, counterconditioning, and latent inhibition), a conditioned stimulus (CS) is associated with different unconditioned stimuli (USs) or outcomes in different phases of the experiment; retroactive interference, proactive interference, or both are often observed. In all of the paradigms, contextual stimuli influence performance, and when information is available, so does the passage of time. Memories of both phases are retained, and performance may depend on which is retrieved. Despite the similarity of the paradigms, conditioning theories tend to explain them with separate mechanisms. They also do not provide an adequate account of the context's role, fail to predict the effects of time, and overemphasize the role of learning or storage deficits. By accepting 4 propositions about animal memory (i.e., contextual stimuli guide retrieval, time is a context, different memories are differentially dependent on context, and interference occurs at performance output), a memory retrieval framework can provide an integrated account of context, time, and performance in the various paradigms.
Circadian Variations in Plasma Melatonin, FSH, LH, and Prolactin and Testosterone Levels in Infertile Men

Circadian patterns of plasma melatonin, FSH, LH, prolactin, and testosterone were studied in 10 healthy men, 20 men with oligozoospermia, and 8 men with azoosper‐mia. Circadian rhythms were found in concentrations of melatonin and prolactin, with higher values at night in comparison with daytime levels. In patients with oligozoospermia and azoospermia an elevation in melatonin levels was observed, and an increase in melatonin concentrations occurred before onset of darkness (i. e., at 2000 h). Levels of FSH, LH, and prolactin were elevated in infertile patients. The possibilities that an increase in melatonin concentrations is either the primary feature that leads to the regression of the seminiferous epithelium or is secondary and depends on elevated gonadotropins and/or prolactin levels are discussed.
Effect of high-altitude exposure in the elderly: the Tenth Mountain Division study.

BACKGROUND More than 5 million people/year over age 60 visit high altitude, which may exacerbate underlying cardiac or pulmonary disease. We hypothesized that the elderly would exhibit an impaired functional capacity at altitude, with increased myocardial ischemia compared with sea level (SL). METHODS AND RESULTS Twenty veterans (68+/-3 years) were studied at (1) SL, (2) acute simulated altitude to 2500 m, and (3) after 5 days of acclimatization to 2500 m. With acute altitude, PaO2 and oxyhemoglobin saturation decreased and pulmonary artery pressure increased 43%, associated with sympathetic activation. VO2peak decreased 12% acutely but normalized after acclimatization. The best predictor of VO2peak with acute altitude was VO2peak at SL (r=.94). The double product that induced 1-mm ST depression during exercise with acute altitude was 5% less than SL but normalized after acclimatization. One patient with severe coronary disease sustained a myocardial infarction after an exercise test. CONCLUSIONS Moderate altitude exposure in the elderly is associated with hypoxemia, sympathetic activation, and pulmonary hypertension resulting in a reduced exercise capacity that is predictable based on exercise performance at SL. Patients with coronary artery disease who are well compensated at SL do well at moderate altitude, although acutely ischemia may be provoked at modestly lower myocardial and systemic work rates. The elderly acclimatize well with normalization of SL performance after 5 days. A prudent policy would be for elderly individuals, particularly those with coronary artery disease, to limit their activity during the first few days at altitude to allow this acclimatization process to occur.
Physical interactions between Ets and NF-kappaB/NFAT proteins play an important role in their cooperative activation of the human immunodeficiency virus enhancer in T cells

The transcriptional regulatory elements of many inducible T-cell genes contain adjacent or overlapping binding sites for the Ets and NF-kappaB/NFAT families of transcription factors. Similar arrays of functionally important NF-kappaB/NFAT and Ets binding sites are present in the transcriptional enhancers of human immunodeficiency viruses types 1 and 2 (HIV-1 and HIV-2), suggesting that this pattern of nuclear protein binding sites reflects an evolutionarily conserved mechanism for regulating inducible T-cell gene expression that has been co-opted during HIV evolution. Despite these findings, the molecular mechanisms by which Ets and NF-kappaB/NFAT proteins cooperatively regulate inducible T-cell gene expression remained unknown. In the studies described in this report, we demonstrated a physical interaction between multiple Ets and NF-kappaB/NFAT proteins both in vitro and in activated normal human T cells. This interaction is mediated by the Ets domain of Ets proteins and the C-terminal region of the Rel homology domains of NF-kappaB/NFAT proteins. In addition, the Ets-NF-kappaB/NFAT interaction requires the presence of DNA binding sites for both proteins, as it is abolished by the DNA intercalating agents propidium iodide and ethidium bromide and enhanced by the presence of synthetic oligonucleotides containing binding sites for Ets and NF-kappaB proteins. A dominant-negative mutant of NF-kappaB p50 that binds DNA but fails to interact with Ets proteins inhibits the synergistic activation of the HIV-1 and HIV-2 enhancers by NF-kappaB (p50 + p65) and Ets-1, suggesting that physical interaction between Ets and NF-kappaB proteins is required for the transcriptional activity of the HIV-1 and HIV-2 enhancers. Taken together, these findings suggest that evolutionarily conserved physical interactions between Ets and NF-kappaB/NFAT proteins are important in regulating the inducible expression of T-cell genes and viruses. These interactions represent a potential target for the development of novel immunosuppressive and antiviral therapies.
Correlation of serum ferritin levels with hepatic MRI T2 and liver iron concentration in nontransfusion beta-thalassemia intermediate patients: A contemporary issue

ABSTRACT Background: Beta-thalassemia intermediate is a genetic disease that is milder than beta-thalassemia major. The T2* magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique is currently the gold standard for iron load detection. However, it is expensive and needs an expert radiologist to report findings. Therefore, we conducted this study to determine an optimal cut-off value of ferritin in proportion to T2 MRI of liver and measurement of liver iron concentration for early detection of hepatic iron overload in Beta-thalassemia intermediate patients. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 108 patients with Beta-thalassemia intermediate who referred to tertiary hospital, Shiraz, Iran. Serum ferritin, hepatic T2 MRI, and liver iron concentration were assessed. Receiver operator characteristic was used to determine the sensitivity and specificity of cut-off value. Results: Serum ferritin levels showed a statistically significant negative correlation with T2 hepatic MRI (r = −0.290, p value =.003) and positive correlation with liver iron concentration (r = 0.426, p value <.001) in the patients with Beta-thalassemia intermediate. According to the receiver operator characteristic, the best cut-off value for ferritin to show early diagnosis of liver iron overload was 412 ng/mL. Calculated sensitivities and specificities were 0.78 and 0.82 for T2 MRI and 0.76 and 0.86 for liver iron concentration, respectively. Conclusion: Serum ferritin levels of around 450 ng/mL might be considered as a cut-off point to evaluate hepatic iron overload before using expensive, not readily available T2 MRI. This level of serum ferritin could be considered for starting iron chelation therapy in patients with Beta-thalassemia intermediate in areas where T2 MRI is not available.
Long-Term Clinical Evaluation of Bracket Failure with a Self-Etching Primer: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective A long-term comparison of the failure rates of orthodontic brackets bonded with either a self-etching primer (SEP) or conventional etch and primer (AE). Design Prospective randomized controlled clinical trial. Setting UK district general hospital with one operator, 2003–6. Participants Hospital waiting list patients needing fixed appliances (n=60). Method Experimental (SEP) group patients (n=30) received pre-adjusted edgewise brackets (n=438) bonded with Transbond Plus following manufacturer's instructions. Control (AE) group patients (n=30, brackets n=433) were bonded using a 15-second conventional etch and primer (Transbond XT). In both groups brackets were light-cured for 20 seconds. First-time bond failures were recorded with the time of failure. Bracket bonding time was recorded. All patients were followed to the end or discontinuation of treatment. Results Bracket failure rates: SEP=4.8%, AE=3.5%, P=0.793. Mean placement time per bracket (seconds): SEP=75.5 (±6.7; 95% CI=72.9, 78.0), AE=97.7 (±9.1; 95% CI=94.3, 101.2) P=0.000. Conclusion There was no difference in the failure rates of brackets bonded with either Transbond Plus SEP or conventional AE using Transbond XT paste. Bonding with SEP was significantly faster than using conventional AE.
MASS AND ENVIRONMENT AS DRIVERS OF GALAXY EVOLUTION IN SDSS AND zCOSMOS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE SCHECHTER FUNCTION

We explore the simple inter-relationships between mass, star formation rate, and environment in the SDSS, zCOSMOS, and other deep surveys. We take a purely empirical approach in identifying those features of galaxy evolution that are demanded by the data and then explore the analytic consequences of these. We show that the differential effects of mass and environment are completely separable to z ∼ 1, leading to the idea of two distinct processes of “mass quenching” and “environment quenching. ” The effect of environment quenching, at fixed over-density, evidently does not change with epoch to z ∼ 1 in zCOSMOS, suggesting that the environment quenching occurs as large-scale structure develops in the universe, probably through the cessation of star formation in 30%–70% of satellite galaxies. In contrast, mass quenching appears to be a more dynamic process, governed by a quenching rate. We show that the observed constancy of the Schechter M* and αs for star-forming galaxies demands that the quenching of galaxies around and above M* must follow a rate that is statistically proportional to their star formation rates (or closely mimic such a dependence). We then postulate that this simple mass-quenching law in fact holds over a much broader range of stellar mass (2 dex) and cosmic time. We show that the combination of these two quenching processes, plus some additional quenching due to merging naturally produces (1) a quasi-static single Schechter mass function for star-forming galaxies with an exponential cutoff at a value M* that is set uniquely by the constant of proportionality between the star formation and mass quenching rates and (2) a double Schechter function for passive galaxies with two components. The dominant component (at high masses) is produced by mass quenching and has exactly the same M* as the star-forming galaxies but a faint end slope that differs by Δαs ∼ 1. The other component is produced by environment effects and has the same M* and αs as the star-forming galaxies but an amplitude that is strongly dependent on environment. Subsequent merging of quenched galaxies will modify these predictions somewhat in the denser environments, mildly increasing M* and making αs slightly more negative. All of these detailed quantitative inter-relationships between the Schechter parameters of the star-forming and passive galaxies, across a broad range of environments, are indeed seen to high accuracy in the SDSS, lending strong support to our simple empirically based model. We find that the amount of post-quenching “dry merging” that could have occurred is quite constrained. Our model gives a prediction for the mass function of the population of transitory objects that are in the process of being quenched. Our simple empirical laws for the cessation of star formation in galaxies also naturally produce the “anti-hierarchical” run of mean age with mass for passive galaxies, as well as the qualitative variation of formation timescale indicated by the relative α-element abundances.
Development and mapping of 2240 new SSR markers for rice (Oryza sativa L.) (supplement).

Plant Breeding Dept, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-1901, USA, Cold Spring Harbor Lab, P.O. Box 100, 1 Bungtown Road, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA, RiceTec, Inc., P.O. Box 1305, Alvin, Texas 77512, USA, International Rice Research Institute, P.O. Box 933, Manila 1099, Philippines, National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China, Institute of the Society for Tecno-innovation of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (STAFF), 446-1 Ippaizuka, Kamiyokoba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0854, Japan, Applied Genomics Laboratory, Department of Molecular Genetics, National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, 2-1-2 Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8602, Japan, USDA-ARS, Rice Research Unit, 1509 Aggie Dr., Beaumont, TX 77713, USA, and USDA Center for Agricultural Bioinformatics, Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850-1901, USA
Evidence for environmental modulation of gametocytogenesis in Plasmodium falciparum in continuous culture.

With the introduction of continuous culture of Plasmodium falciparum it has become possible to study the factors involved in gametocyte production in vitro and thus eliminate the uncontrollable in vivo variables of the host. The authors have developed a method for measuring quantitatively the rate of production of gametocytes at any time in such cultures. The method is based on an estimation of the percentage of ring forms that develop into stage II gametocytes.Using this approach, it was found that dilution of cultures with fresh red blood cells so as to lower the parasitaemia led to rapid fall in the rate of conversion to gametocytes. The conversion rates subsequently rose again to levels typically in the order of 10% after several days of growth in the new culture. In the parental cultures from which the dilutions were made, conversion rates remained high at all times. This pattern was consistently observed in three different isolates of P. falciparum from Africa and the results indicate that the reduction of parasitaemia by addition of fresh cells was responsible for reducing production of gametocytes and that conditions associated with a period of growth in culture induced renewed gametocytogenesis. The authors conclude, therefore, that environmental conditions directly modulate the rate of gametocyte production by P. falciparum in culture.After 1(1/2) years in culture, parasites have retained their ability to produce gametocytes and the gametocytes to undergo exflagellation.
Protected Areas and Effective Biodiversity Conservation

Increasing the collective contribution of protected areas toward preventing species extinctions requires the strategic allocation of management efforts. Although protected areas (PAs) cover 13% of Earth's land (1), substantial gaps remain in their coverage of global biodiversity (2). Thus, there has been emphasis on strategic expansion of the global PA network (3–5). However, because PAs are often understaffed, underfunded, and beleaguered in the face of external threats (6, 7), efforts to expand PA coverage should be complemented by appropriate management of existing PAs. Previous calls for enhancing PA management have focused on improving operational effectiveness of each PA [e.g., staffing and budgets (6)]. Little guidance has been offered on how to improve collective effectiveness for meeting global biodiversity conservation goals (3). We provide guidance for strategically allocating management efforts among and within existing PAs to strengthen their collective contribution toward preventing global species extinctions.
Sequential Monte-Carlo Based Road Region Segmentation Algorithm with Uniform Spatial Sampling

: Vision based road recognition and tracking are crucial tasks in a ﬁeld of autonomous driving. Road recognition methods based on shape analysis of road region have the potential to overcome the limitations of traditional boundary based approaches, but a robust method for road region segmentation is the challenging issue. In our work, we treat the problem of road region segmentation as a classiﬁcation task, where road pixels are classiﬁed by statistical decision rule based on the probability density function (pdf) of road features. This paper presents a new algorithm for the estimation of the pdf, based on sequential Monte-Carlo (SMC) method. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on data sets of three di ﬀ erent types of images, and the results of evaluation show the e ﬀ ectiveness of the proposed method.
Effects of combined starter cultures on quality of fermented sausage during ripening

Effect of inoculation with Pediococcus pentosaceus, Staphylococcus carnosus plus Saccharomyces cerevisiae as starter cultures on quality parameters including pH and water activity (Aw), as well as color, texture properties and sensory in fermented sausage were evaluated. Results showed that the pH in samples inoculated with starter cultures and fermented spontaneously was 5.45 and 5.74, respectively. The moisture content in fermented sausage inoculated with starter cultures and fermented spontaneously were 23.4% and 20.6%, respectively. The water activity (Aw) values in fermented sausage inoculated with starter cultures and fermented spontaneously were 0.818 and 0.826, respectively. The protein degradation index (PI) values in fermented sausage inoculated with starter cultures and fermented spontaneously were 14.39% and 9.12%, respectively. The peroxide value (POV) and thiobarbituric acid value (TBAV) in fermented sausage inoculated with starter cultures was reduced by 36.7% and 36.7%, respectively. The levels of L*and a*/b* in sample inoculated with starter cultures were 41.61 and 0.54, respectively, and the L*and a*/b* of the fermented spontaneously were 43.34 and 0.51. The colors were significantly influenced (p<0.05) by the starter cultures inoculation. The hardness and cohesiveness in sample inoculated with starter cultures were decreased by 15.4% and 12.1%, respectively. And the elasticity, tenderness and chewiness of the sausage were improved. The color, organization appearance, texture and flavor of sensory scores in sample inoculated with starter cultures were higher than that of the control, sample inoculated also exhibited good sensory properties.
Thiopental Inhibits Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Tissue Factor Expression

BACKGROUND: During Gram-negative sepsis, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulates toll-like receptor 4, resulting in an activation of the immune system and the expression of tissue factor on monocytes. As a consequence, intravascular coagulation, ischemia, and multiorgan dysfunction may occur. Because thiopental has been described to modulate the immune system, we tested the hypothesis that thiopental alters the LPS-induced tissue factor expression. METHODS: (i) Citrated whole blood samples were incubated with thiopental (0, 0.25, 0.5, 1 mg/mL) and LPS (100 &mgr;g/mL) for 4 h. After recalcification, clotting time (CT) was determined by rotational thrombelastometry. (ii) The mechanism of the LPS-induced shortening of CT was investigated using the tissue factor blocker active-site inhibited factor VIIa and the protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide. (iii) A concentration response curve for the effect of tissue factor on CT was generated. RESULTS: LPS shortened CT from 618 ± 122 s to 192 ± 33 s (n = 6; P < 0.05). Shortening of CT was mediated by synthesis of tissue factor, because both inhibition of protein synthesis and blockade of tissue factor effects abolished this effect of LPS. Thiopental markedly inhibited the LPS-induced shortening of CT (372 ± 86 s; n = 6; P < 0.001). Comparison of CT with a tissue factor standard curve demonstrated that thiopental reduced the LPS-induced tissue factor activity up to 86%. A direct effect of thiopental on coagulation was excluded, because tissue factor-induced CT was not affected by the barbiturate. CONCLUSIONS: Thiopental markedly inhibits the LPS-induced tissue factor expression in whole blood samples.
Lymphokine secretion and cytotoxic activity of human CD4+ T-cell clones against Bordetella pertussis

Human CD4+ T-cell clones specific for pertussis toxin and other Bordetella pertussis antigens have been tested for their cytotoxic activity, lymphokine production, and capacity to induce immunoglobulin synthesis. Clones specific for the S1 subunit of pertussis toxin were cytotoxic for autologous Epstein-Barr virus-transformed B cells, which had been pulsed with the native antigen, the recombinant S1 subunit of pertussis toxin, or synthetic peptides derived from the S1 amino acid sequence. The killing of antigen-pulsed target cells was class II restricted. All of the T-cell clones produced mostly interleukin-2 and gamma interferon and assisted allogeneic B cells in the production of immunoglobulins M and G but not immunoglobulin E. The potential in vivo role of the cytotoxic activity of these clones is discussed.
A STUDY ON ANGIOTENSIN CONVERTING ENZYME GENE INSERTION / DELETION POLYMORPHISM AND SERUM CORTISOL AMONG A SAMPLE OF EGYPTIAN PATIENTS WITH MAJOR DEPRESSION DISORDER

Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) is assumed to influence the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system, which shows hyperactivity in the majority of patients with major depression. The ACE gene, known to be associated with cardiovascular disorders, which in turn are accompanied with an increased susceptibility for depression, is therefore a promising candidate gene for effective disorders. However, the results are conflicting, with no reported studies on Egyptian depressed patients. This study aimed to assess ACE insertion / deletion (I/D) gene polymorphism among Egyptian depressed patients in order to clarify HPA system dysregulation, and to determine its possible association with severity of depression. This case/control study was conducted on 42 adult depressed patients, and 37 healthy controls were screened to detect genetic associations with unipolar major depression. Determination of ACE genotypes was performed for all subjects by real time PCR. Total serum cortisol levels were measured by ELISA. The frequencies of the DD, ID and II genotypes were 26.2%, 45.2%, Mohga S. Abdullah et all ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ ـــــــــــــــــ ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ ــــ ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ 204 and 28.2%, respectively among the cases, and 17.49%, 25.2%, and 56.41%, respectively among the controls. Significant differences in ACE genotype distribution were observed between cases and controls (p = 0.0384). Serum cortisol in patients show the highest value in the ID polymorphism while II polymorphism shows the lowest value of a.m. cortisol. Data illustrated a significant association of ID polymorphism with the more severity of illness. Our findings support that ACE gene I/D polymorphism and high D allele frequency are associated with depression, also hypercortisolimia is significantly higher in individuals with major depression compared to control among Egyptian adults. ACE gene polymorphism might provide a common link between developing depressive episode and dysfunctional HPA-axis.