Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lipopolysaccharide Delays Closure of the Rat Ductus Arteriosus by Induction of Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase But Not Prostaglandin E2.

BACKGROUND The incidence of patent ductus arteriosus is known to be higher in premature neonates with infection than in those without infection. However, the detailed mechanism has not been investigated. METHODSANDRESULTS Lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 100 μg/kg) was injected into timed-pregnant Wistar rats on day 18 and 19 of pregnancy. The fetuses were delivered by cesarean section on gestational day 21. Using a rapid whole-body freezing method, it was found that closure of the ductus arteriosus (DA) was significantly delayed in neonates from LPS-injected rats after birth. Histological analysis demonstrated that there was no difference in vascular remodeling of the DA. Quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that the tumor necrosis factor α and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) mRNA expression level was significantly increased, but there was no difference in cyclooxygenase 2 and prostaglandin receptor, EP4, mRNA expression in the DA from LPS-injected rats. Moreover, the NOS inhibitor,Nω-Nitro-L-arginine methyl ester hydrochloride, significantly prevented the delayed closure of the DA after birth in neonates from LPS-injected rats. CONCLUSIONS The present study demonstrated that LPS-mediated infection delayed closure of the rat DA without apparent histological changes. iNOS, but not prostaglandin E2, may play a primary role in delayed functional closure of the DA. (Circ J 2016; 80: 703-711).
Changes of arginine vasopressin in elderly patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the changes and clinical significance of arginine vasopressin (AVP) in elderly patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury. METHODS With radioimmunoassay, the plasma levels of AVP were measured in 32 elderly patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury, 30 traumatic patients without cerebral injury and 30 healthy elderly volunteers, respectively. RESULTS The plasma level of AVP in patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury in the early stage (48.30 ng/L +/- 8.28 ng/L) was much higher than that of the traumatic patients without cerebral injury (25.56 ng/L +/- 4.64 ng/L, P<0.01), which was much higher than that of the healthy volunteers (5.06 ng/L +/- 4.12 ng/L, P<0.01). The level of AVP in the patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury was negatively related with GCS scores. CONCLUSIONS AVP may play an important role in the pathophysiological process in patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury in the early stage. The severer the cerebral injury is, the higher the level of AVP is, which indicates that the level of AVP may be one of the severity indices of traumatic cerebral injury in elderly patients.
Neural mechanisms of interference control in working memory capacity

The extent to which one can use cognitive resources to keep information in working memory is known to rely on (1) active maintenance of target representations and (2) downregulation of interference from irrelevant representations. Neurobiologically, the global capacity of working memory is thought to depend on the prefrontal and parietal cortices; however, the neural mechanisms involved in controlling interference specifically in working memory capacity tasks remain understudied. In this study, 22 healthy participants completed a modified complex working memory capacity task (Reading Span) with trials of varying levels of interference control demands while undergoing functional MRI. Neural activity associated with interference control demands was examined separately during encoding and recall phases of the task. Results suggested a widespread network of regions in the prefrontal, parietal, and occipital cortices, and the cingulate and cerebellum associated with encoding, and parietal and occipital regions associated with recall. Results align with prior findings emphasizing the importance of frontoparietal circuits for working memory performance, including the role of the inferior frontal gyrus, cingulate, occipital cortex, and cerebellum in regulation of interference demands.
Awareness of olfactory deficits in healthy aging, amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

ABSTRACT Background: Olfactory dysfunction is present in early Alzheimer's disease (AD), and has now been reported in people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Recent evidence suggests that unawareness of an olfactory deficit may predict which MCI patients will subsequently meet AD criteria. However, important methodological limitations challenge this suggestion. While addressing some of the limitations of previous research, this preliminary study explores unawareness of olfactory deficits as a predictive factor of future AD among people with aMCI. Methods: Twenty-five participants with aMCI, 25 AD patients, and 22 healthy elderly participants underwent testing of olfactory identification. Subjective reports regarding perceived decline in olfactory detection and olfactory identification were also obtained. A subset of participants was reassessed 12 months later. Results: Control participants performed better than both aMCI and AD patients on olfactory identification. Almost uniformly, participants did not report decline in either olfactory detection or identification. Prediction of olfactory identification scores from subjective reports of olfactory function was poor, and awareness of olfactory decline bore no relationship to the likelihood of aMCI patients progressing to AD by the 12-month review. Conclusions: Treating awareness of olfactory function as a unitary construct can be misleading, and there is a poor relationship between subjective and objective measures of olfactory ability. Our preliminary data suggest that unawareness of olfactory decline does not improve the identification of patients with MCI who are more likely to be in the prodromal phase of AD. Replication in a larger cohort is needed to support these findings.
Non-convex boosting with minimum margin guarantees

Many classification algorithms achieve poor generalization accuracy on “noisy” data sets. We introduce a new non-convex boosting algorithm BrownBoost-δ, a noiseresistant booster, that is able to significantly increase accuracy on a set of noisy classification problems. Our algorithm consistently outperforms the original BrownBoost algorithm, AdaBoost, and LogitBoost on simulated and real data. These results hold even when early stopping of convex boosters is employed, suggesting that convex boosters may be underfitting, not overfitting. The increase in performance is correlated with the novel soft-margin maximizing parameter δ. Furthermore, we find that BrownBoost-δ is able to increase the margin at the decision boundary while sacraficing margin of easily classified examples. This tradeoff may provide a theoretical margin-based justification of empirical increased accuracy.
Auditory efferents involved in speech‐in‐noise intelligibility

FOLLOWING studies proposing that medial olivocochlear efferents might be involved in the processing of complex signals in noise, we tested the involvement of efferent feedback in speech-in-noise intelligibility. Two approaches were used: measures of speech-in-noise intelligibility in vestibular neurotomized patients with cut efferents and comparison with normal hearing subjects; and correlations between effectiveness of olivocochlear feedback, assessed by contralateral suppression of otoacoustic emissions and speech-in-noise intelligibility in normal subjects. Contralateral noise improved speech-in-noise intelligibility in normal ears. This improvement, which was almost absent in de-efferented ears of vestibular neurotomized patients, was correlated with the strength of the olivocochlear feedback. Together, these results suggest that olivocochlear efferents play an antimasking role in speech perception in noisy environments.
An Investigation of Emotional Upset in Suicide Ideation

The Suicide Upsetness Assessment (SUA) was used to measure the phenomenological experience of emotional upset during active states of suicidal ideation. Forty-nine inpatients with a history of suicide-related behaviors at a Midwestern inpatient psychiatric hospital completed a battery of assessments during their inpatient hospital stay. After reviewing theories regarding suicidality by the research team, 6 separate categories related to suicidal ideation were created, which were then subdivided into groups. Chi-Square and Fisher Exact Tests provided information regarding characteristics of emotional upset most often associated with such suicide-related behaviors as frequency and lethality of past attempts. Emotional upset is a heterogeneous construct in suicidal individuals, the properties of which may provide for a more thorough risk assessment.
Ion Exchanged Vermiculites with Lower Expansion Onset Temperatures

South African Palabora vermiculite was modified by ion exchange with ammonium and selected alkali metal and alkaline earth metal ions. In the exchanged vermiculite with ammonium ions, it was found that ammonia and water were the blowing agents and they were simultaneously released during thermal degradation. In the increasing ionic potential series: Na, Ba, Ca and Mg, it was found that the onset expansion temperature also increased dramatically. Exchange with relatively low ionic potential species, namely sodium, potassium and ammonium, lowered the exfoliation onset temperature of vermiculite to below 300°C.
Why consumers adopt mobile payment? A partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach

As mobile payment m-payment is critical to the success of mobile commerce, the research incorporates the unified theory of acceptance and use technology UTAUT with trust TR, perceived financial cost PFC, and the moderating variable of experience to understand the adoption intention. A total of 319 valid questionnaires were collected and subsequently analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling PLS-SEM approach. The results demonstrated that only performance expectancy PE, effort expectancy EE, facilitating conditions FC, and trust TR are significant with the intention to adopt. In addition, experience was found to have a moderating effect on the relationship between PE and intention. As there is limited UTAUT-based research conducted on m-payment, the paper is among the few that attempts to extend the model from a multi-religion and multi-ethnic perspective. The findings will enable mobile stakeholders to understand the rationale behind the use of service leads to higher acceptance.
Effect of trichloroethylene (TCE) and toluene concentrations on TCE and toluene biodegradation and the population density of TCE and toluene degraders in soil

Toluene is one of several cosubstrates able to support the cometabolism of trichloroethylene (TCE) by soil microbial communities. Indigenous microbial populations in soil degraded TCE in the presence, but not the absence, of toluene after a 60- to 80-h lag period. Initial populations of toluene and TCE degraders ranged from 0.2 x 10(3) to 4 x 10(3) cells per g of soil and increased by more than 4 orders of magnitude after the addition of 20 micrograms of toluene and 1 microgram of TCE per ml of soil solution. The numbers of TCE and toluene degraders and the percent removal of TCE increased with an increase in initial toluene concentration. As the initial TCE concentration was increased from 1 to 20 micrograms/ml, the numbers of toluene and TCE degraders and the rate of toluene degradation decreased, and no TCE degradation occurred. No toluene or TCE degradation occurred at a TCE concentration of 50 micrograms/ml.
Periodontal tissue engineering by transplantation of multilayered sheets of phenotypically modified gingival fibroblasts.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE In periodontal tissue engineering, the sourcing of most of the relevant cells is limited by poor accessibility, whereas the use of readily available gingival fibroblasts is hampered because of their inhibitory effects on bone formation. To address the latter drawback, we developed a new graft composed of fibronectin (FN) matrix-based multilayered cell sheets of human gingival fibroblasts modified to express alkaline phosphatase (ALP). This study was undertaken to investigate the effects of this graft, called the FN-ALP transplant, on the healing of periodontal defects in a rat model. MATERIAL AND METHODS The FN-ALP transplants were grafted into periodontal fenestration bone defects in immunosuppressed rats. The process of periodontal healing was examined by histology, histomorphometry and immunohistochemistry. Grafted cells were tracked by immunostaining with human-specific antibodies. Control groups included non-transplanted empty defects and defects to which cell sheets without ALP induction had been grafted. RESULTS After implantation, the FN-ALP transplants healed alveolar bone defects by intramembranous ossification, with formation of cementum and periodontal ligament. Moreover, FN-ALP transplants increased new bone formation, by endochondral ossification, on the mandibular cortex adjacent to the defect. Grafted fibroblasts were located near host osteoblasts and chondrocyte precursor cells early in the ossification process but were undetectable on and in newly formed bone and cartilage. CONCLUSION These results indicate that the FN-ALP transplants support alveolar bone regeneration within the defect and augment bone formation outside the defect through the recruitment of host osteo/chondrogenic cells, suggesting their potential for periodontal tissue engineering applications.
Integrity of the permeability barrier regulates epidermal Langerhans cell density

Summary Previous studies have shown that barrier requirements regulate epidermal liquid and DNA synthesis. In the present study, we examined the possibility that the integrity of the permeability barrier influences epidermal Langerhans cells involved with the immune response. Barrier disruption was achieved by treatment of human skin with acetone, sodium dodecylsulphate (SDS), or tape stripping, until a 10–20‐fold increase in transepidermal water loss was achieved. Serial biopsies were performed 6–168 after treatment, and Langerhans cells were complexed with anti‐CD1a (Leu6) or S‐l00 antibodies, and visualized with an immunoperoxidase technique. Acetone treatment resulted in an increase in epidermal Langerhans cell density, reaching a maximum of 94% over control (P < 0.01) by 24 and 48 h post‐treatment. Following SDS treatment or tape stripping, epidermal Langerhans cell density was increased by 100 and 175% (P < 0.01), respectively. There was a linear correlation between the degree of barrier disruption and the increase in epidermal Langerhans cell density. Studies with the Ki‐S3 proliferation‐associated nuclear antigen revealed a two‐ to threefold increase in epidermal proliferation after barrier disruption. The time curves of the increase in Langerhans cell density and the increase in epidermal proliferation were similar, suggesting that there was a coordinate regulation. In contrast with our previous studies employing patch test reactions to allergens or irritants, disruption of barrier function neither resulted in an increased dermal Langerhans cell density, nor influenced T lymphocytes (CD3+. Leu4+). Macrophages (KiM8+), ICAM‐1 or ELAM‐1 expression in the skin. In addition, barrier disruption did not result in either dermal inflammation or epidermal spongiosis. In summary these findings support our hypothesis that the permeability barrier influences epidermal Langerhans cell density, which is involved in maintaining an immunological barrier.
Optimal Control of Infectious Diseases in a Population with Heterogeneous Dynamic Immunity ∗

Exposure to infectious agents triggers immune responses in individual hosts. Heterogeneity of immune responses of the individual hosts and the host population affects the transmission dynamics of the infectious agent. We extend a previously developed epidemiological modelling approach where heterogeneity of individual-specific immunity was incorporated and explore optimal control problems associated with the corresponding control strategies. This allows for the study of dynamic intervention scenarios. We focus on vaccination leading to perfect or imperfect immunity as well as treatment and/or chemoprophylaxis interventions depending on the modelling scenario. The objective of the control strategy we explore within the context of an epidemic is to minimise the number of infected individuals and medical costs. We investigate steady states, bifurcation points and make connections to known properties of simple homogeneous SI-models with respect to critical vaccination thresholds. Analytical results show that the number of infected persons in an endemic steady state is predominantly determined by the dynamics of immunity. Our findings show that the level of vaccination needed to protect the population against an epidemic is similar to that of homogeneous models. For imperfect vaccines the critical vaccination threshold is higher. The versatility of our model can be shown when combining the cases where vaccination grants immunity for some and partial protection by immune boosting for others. The use of chemoprophylaxis and treatment has the strongest effect when chemoprophylaxis is used for the susceptible population early on and widely. The incorporation of population immunity heterogeneities in epidemic modelling shows how immune response can influence the dynamics of epidemics and can provide insight into the within host and host population interactions.
Protective effects of icariin on neurons injured by cerebral ischemia/reperfusion.

BACKGROUND It is very important to search for novel anti-ischemia/reperfusion neuroprotective drugs for prevention or treatment of cerebrovascular diseases. Icariin, the major active component of traditional Chinese herb Yinyanghuo, may have a beneficial role for neurons in cerebral ischemia/reperfusion caused by accident. However, it was not clear yet. In this study, we observed the protective effects of icariin on neurons injured by ischemia/reperfusion in vitro and in vivo and investigated its protective mechanism. METHODS Cerebral cortical neurons of Wistar rats in primary culture were studied during the different periods of oxygen-glucose deprivation and reperfusion with oxygen and glucose. Cell viability was determined by methyl thiazoleterazolium (MTT) assay. The activity of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) leaked from neurons, cell apoptosis and the concentration of intracellular free calcium were measured respectively. On the other hand, the mice model of transient cerebral ischemia/reperfusion was made by bilateral occlusion of common carotid arteries and ischemic hypotension/reperfusion. The mice were divided into several groups at random: sham operated group, model group and icariin preventive treatment group. The changes of mice behavioral, activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) were measured, respectively. RESULTS Treatment with icariin (final concentration 0.25, 0.5, and 1 mg/L) during ischemia/reperfusion-mimetic incubation in vitro concentration-dependently attenuated neuronal damage with characteristics of increasing injured neuronal absorbance of MTT, decreasing LDH release, decreasing cell apoptosis, and blunting elevation of intracellular calcium concentration. And in vivo the learning and memory abilities significantly decreased, activities of SOD were diminished and MDA level increased obviously in model group, compared with that in sham operated group. But pre-treatment of model mice with icariin (10, 30 and 100 mg/kg, i.g.) significantly blunted the decrease of mice learning, memory ability and SOD activity, and markedly decreased MDA level. CONCLUSIONS Icariin has protective effects on cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injured neurons. And decreasing cell apoptosis, preventing intracellular calcium concentration elevation and enhancing anti-oxidant capacity may contribute to its protective effects.
Joint Link-Attribute User Identity Resolution in Online Social Networks

In the modern Web, it is common for an active person to have several proles in dierent online social networks. As new general-purpose and niche social network services arise every year, the problem of social data integration will likely remain actual in the nearest future. Discovering multiple proles of a single person across dierent social networks allows to merge all user’s contacts from dierent social services or compose more complete social graph that is helpful in many social-powered applications. In this paper we propose a new approach for user prole matching based on Conditional Random Fields that extensively combines usage of prole attributes and social linkage. It is extremely suitable for cases when prole data is poor, incomplete or hidden due to privacy settings. Evaluation on Twitter and Facebook sample datasets showed that our solution signicantly outperforms common attribute-based approach and is able to nd matches that are not discoverable by using only prole information. We also demonstrate the importance of social links for identity resolution task and show that certain proles can be matched based only on social relationships between online social networks users.
Effect of temperature on ethanol tolerance of a thermophilic anaerobic ethanol producer Thermoanaerobacter A10: Modeling and simulation

The low ethanol tolerance of thermophilic anaerobic bacteria (<2%, v/v) is a major obstacle for their industrial exploitation for ethanol production. The ethanol tolerance of the thermophilic anaerobic ethanol‐producing strain Thermoanaerobacter A10 was studied during batch tests of xylose fermentation at a temperature range of 50–70°C with exogenously added ethanol up to ∼6.4% (v/v). At the optimum growth temperature of 70°C, the strain was able to tolerate 4.7% (v/v) ethanol, and growth was completely inhibited at 5.6% (v/v). A higher ethanol tolerance was found at lower temperatures. At 60°C, the strain was able to tolerate at least 5.1% (v/v) ethanol. A generalized form of Monod kinetic equation proposed by Levenspiel was used to describe the ethanol (product) inhibition. The model predicted quite well the experimental data for the temperature interval 50–70°C, and the maximum specific growth rate and the toxic power (n), which describes the order of ethanol inhibition at each temperature, were estimated. The toxic power (n) was 1.33 at 70°C, and corresponding critical inhibitory product concentration (Pcrit) above which no microbial growth occurs was determined to be 5.4% (v/v). An analysis of toxic power (n) and Pcrit showed that the optimum temperature for combined microbial growth and ethanol tolerance was 60°C. At this temperature, the toxic power (n), and Pcrit were 0.50, and 6.5% (v/v) ethanol, respectively. From a practical point of view, the model may be applied to compare the ethanol inhibition (ethanol tolerance) on microbial growth of different thermophilic anaerobic bacterial strains. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2007;98: 1161–1170. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.