Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Overexpressing AtPAP15 Enhances Phosphorus Efficiency in Soybean1[W][OA]

Low phosphorus (P) availability is a major constraint to crop growth and production, including soybean (Glycine max), on a global scale. However, 50% to 80% of the total P in agricultural soils exists as organic phosphate, which is unavailable to plants unless hydrolyzed to release inorganic phosphate. One strategy for improving crop P nutrition is the enhanced activity of acid phosphatases (APases) to obtain or remobilize inorganic phosphate from organic P sources. In this study, we overexpressed an Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) purple APase gene (AtPAP15) containing a carrot (Daucus carota) extracellular targeting peptide in soybean hairy roots and found that the APase activity was increased by 1.5-fold in transgenic hairy roots. We subsequently transformed soybean plants with AtPAP15 and studied three homozygous overexpression lines of AtPAP15. The three transgenic lines exhibited significantly improved P efficiency with 117.8%, 56.5%, and 57.8% increases in plant dry weight, and 90.1%, 18.2%, and 62.6% increases in plant P content, respectively, as compared with wild-type plants grown on sand culture containing phytate as the sole P source. The transgenic soybean lines also exhibited a significant level of APase and phytase activity in leaves and root exudates, respectively. Furthermore, the transgenic lines exhibited improved yields when grown on acid soils, with 35.9%, 41.0%, and 59.0% increases in pod number per plant, and 46.0%, 48.3%, and 66.7% increases in seed number per plant. Taken together, to our knowledge, our study is the first report on the improvement of P efficiency in soybean through constitutive expression of a plant APase gene. These findings could have significant implications for improving crop yield on soils low in available P, which is a serious agricultural limitation worldwide.
Gain Enhancement of Printed Log-Periodic Dipole Array Antenna Using Director Cell

In this communication, several parasitic dipole elements served as director cell are added to the shorter end of the printed Log-periodic dipole array (PLPDA) antenna for the gain enhancement. This novel antenna is based on the combination of the PLPDA antenna and the quasi-Yagi antenna techniques, so called printed Log-Yagi dipole array antenna (PLYDA). The number and the distribution of the director cell are discussed and optimized. A prototype PLYDA antenna fed by half mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW) is manufactured, as well as a HMSIW PLPDA antenna for comparison. The return loss and far-field radiation patterns were measured and presented in this work. The proposed PLYDA antenna exhibits gain enhancement of 0.2-2 dB in comparison with the equal size PLPDA antenna over the operating frequency range 21-40 GHz. The simulated and measured results are in good agreement, and the gain enhancement using the director cell is verified.
Analgesic and Hyperalgesic Effects of Midazolam: Dependence on Route of Administration

The effects of intraperitonenl (IP) and lumbar intrathecal (IT) midazolam (MID) on nociception was studied in 38 male albino rats using the noxious tale-flick and hot-plate tests. Four groups received IP 0.1, 1, and 10 mg/kg MID or an equal volume of its vehicle benzyl alcohol 0.1 mg in 1 ml saline, while the other three groups received IT 10 and 100 μg MID or 0.5 μg benzyl alcohol in 5 μl saline. The two higher doses of IP MID produced statistically significant decrease of tale-flick latencies (P < 0.005 and 0.05 at 10 and 100 mg/kg MID, respectively). This hyperalgesic effect could be seen, although the animals appeared highly sedated with reduced motor activity and relatively unresponsive to non-noxious stimuli. In contrast, IT injections of 10 μg MID produced moderate but statistically significant prolongation of tail-flick latencies (P < 0.05) without noticeable change in motor activity. This analgesic effect could not be observed with the higher dose of IT MID until an hour after its administration. The almost complete immobility and ataxia seen after the high doses of IP and IT MID (animals lying on their sides) precluded reliable hot plate testing in these animals. Apparently part of the high IT dose of MID diffused into the brain, as observed after high-dose IP administration. We therefore propose that the analgesic effect of midazolam stems from its action at the spinal level, while its sedative and hyperalgesic effects are a function of its supraspinal action.
Metamorphosis and the amphibian immune system

Summary: Studies of the ontogeny of immunity in a limited number of representative amphibians have shown that while the immune systems of the larval forms are competent to defend against potential pathogens in the temporary ponds they inhabit, they arc not equivalent to the mature immune systems that develop after metamorphosis. Metamorphosis is a critical time of transition when increased concentrations of metamorphic hormones, principally thyroid hormones (TH) and corticosteroid hormones (CH), orchestrate the loss or reorganization of many tissues and organ systems, including the immune system. Immune system reorganization may serve to eliminate unnecessary lymphocytes that could be destructive if they recognized newly emerging adult specific antigens on the adult tissues. Increased corticosteroids during metamorphosis appeal to induce apoptosis of susceptible lymphocytes. This cell death can be inhibited in vitro or in vivo by the corticosteroid receptor antagonist, RU486, A coordinate increase in both TH and CH at metamorphosis may be common to all amphibians that undergo metamorphosis. Current evidence suggests that the central hypothalamic mediator that induces pituitary production of both thyroid‐stimulating hormone and adrenocorticotropic hormone in larval amphibians is corticotropin‐releasing hormone. Most amphibians probably survive the temporary immunosuppression associated with metamorphosis with no deleterious effects. However, it is hypothesized that if environmental stressors result in the induction of metamorphosis at a less than optimal body size and state of immune maturation, the immune system destruction would be more significant, and the amphibians could be at greater risk of infection and death.
IgG‐induced clustering of desmogleins 1 and 3 in skin of patients with pemphigus fits with the desmoglein nonassembly depletion hypothesis

Background In pemphigus circulating IgG is present with the desmosomal cadherins desmoglein (Dsg) 1 and 3. In the epidermis of patients, this IgG deposits in a pattern that is often partly granular and does not reflect the normal Dsg distribution.
“What Do You Mean There Were No Tribes in Africa?”: Thoughts on Boundaries—and Related Matters—in Precolonial Africa

I made a mistake teaching my course on precolonial African history this past fall. I vowed (to myself) to be absolutely honest. I decided to admit to students how little historians know for certain about much of Africa's early history. I focused on the evidence, emphasizing how little there is for determining what occurred several centuries ago—let alone 2000 years ago—in sub-Saharan Africa. I gave one lecture—downright sterling, I thought—in which, in the first part, I taught about “Bantu Expansion” as I had done in my first year on the job, way back in 1976. I had read Roland Oliver's 1966 article in the Journal of African History, which had made everything clear to me once upon a time. With that as a basis I laid out an entire scheme about how these humans, who spoke related languages, had populated nearly all of sub-equatorial Africa since the beginning of the modern era. I had maps on overhead projection (copies handed out) showing when the Bantu migrated where; I spoke of the evidence for it all, even reading from Ptolemy's Geography and the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea; and recalled how clear it all was to myself and the students, who wrote down nearly every word and made notations on the maps. Then, in the second part of the lecture, I talked about how incorrect it all was (student pens here coming to rest)—how our reading of some of the linguistic evidence was faulty, how we read things into Ptolemy and the Periplus because they fit the scheme, and how subsequent archeological evidence has simply proved most of the neat scheme wrong. I concluded with an honest, if pessimistic, note that, because of the paucity of evidence, there simply is a lot about early African history that we will not be able to know.
Discriminative deep belief networks for microarray based cancer classification

Accurate diagnosis of cancer is of great importance due to the global increase in new cancer cases. Cancer researches show that diagnosis by using microarray gene expression data is more effective compared to the traditional methods. This study presents an extensive evaluation of a variant of Deep Belief Networks - Discriminative Deep Belief Networks (DDBN) - in cancer data analysis. This new neural network architecture consists Restricted Boltzman Machines in each layer. The network is trained in two phases; in the first phase the network weights take their initial values by unsupervised greedy layer-wise technique, and in the second phase the values of the network weights are fine-tuned by back propagation algorithm. We included the test results of the model that is conducted over microarray gene expression data of laryngeal, bladder and colorectal cancer. High dimensionality and imbalanced class distribution are two main problems inherent in the gene expression data. To deal with them, two preprocessing steps are applied; Information Gain for selection of predictive genes, and Synthetic Minority Over-Sampling Technique for oversampling the minority class samples. All the results are compared with the corresponding results of Support Vector Machines which has previously been proved to be robust by machine learning studies. In terms of average values DDBN has outperformed SVM in all metrics with accuracy, sensitivity and specificity values of 0.933, 0.950 and 0.905, respectively.
Effect of Body Orientation with Respect to Gravity on Directional Accuracy of Human Pointing Movements

Errors in pointing to remembered target locations were measured in normal subjects in the upright posture and in a supine or prone lying position, three conditions that differed in the orientation of the moving arm with respect to gravity. Vertical errors, or, more strictly, errors along the body axis, were significantly larger in both supine and prone lying positions as compared with the vertical posture. Subjects’ orientation with respect to gravity produced a consistent error pattern, i.e. subjects pointed below the remembered target locations in the vertical posture and above them under the two lying conditions, in the body‐related co‐ordinates. On the contrary, variable error (the confidence ellipse) was differentially affected by the orientation of the movement trajectory with respect to gravity. In the supine body position the variable error was larger, and in the prone position it was smaller than in the upright posture. The finding of gravity‐related bias in pointing errors suggests that the motor programme generated in the lying position is not modified to adapt to an altered orientation with respect to gravity.
Some results on the sum-rate capacity of MIMO fading broadcast channels

We study the ergodic sum-rate capacity of the fading MIMO broadcast channel which is used to model the downlink of a cellular system with N/sub t/ transmit antennas at the,base and K mobile users each having N/sub r/ receive antennas. Assuming perfect channel state information (CSI) for all users is available at the transmitter and the receivers, we evaluate the sum-rate capacity numerically using the duality between uplink and downlink. Assuming Nt K, we also derive both upper and lower bounds on the sum-rate capacity to study its increase rate due to multi-user diversity. Finally, we compare three transmission schemes which use the single-user-MIMO scheme (SU-MIMO), ranked known interference (RKI) and zero-forcing beamforming (ZFB), respectively, to transmit to a selected set of users in order to approach the sum-rate capacity. We show that both ZFB and RKI outperform SU-MIMO in a cellular downlink scenario. when many mobile users are present.
Hubungan Lingkar Leher dan Lingkar Pinggang dengan Kadar Glukosa Darah Puasa Orang Dewasa : Studi Kasus di SMA Negeri 2 Semarang dan SMP Negeri 9 Semarang

Latar Belakang : Pencegahan penyakit DM tipe 2 dapat dilakukan dengan metode antropometri, diantaranya pengukuran lingkar pinggang dan lingkar leher. Lingkar pinggang merupakan metode antropometri obesitas abdominal atau obesitas sentral yang berhubungan dengan diabetes melitus tipe 2. Selain itu, lingkar leher merupakan metode antropometri lain yang telah dikaji dan direkomendasikan sebagai metode yang mudah digunakan, lebih inovatif, menghemat waktu, serta berhubungan dengan risiko DM tipe 2. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis hubungan antara lingkar leher dan lingkar pinggang dengan kadar glukosa darah puasa orang dewasa. Metode : Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan menggunakan desain cross sectional . Pengambilan sampel dilakukan dengan consecutive sampling dan didapatkan sampel 51 subjek dengan usia ≥ 45 tahun. Semua subjek mengisi informed concent. Pengukuran lingkar leher dan lingkar pinggang dengan pita ukur, dilakukan tiga kali, dan diambil rata-ratanya. Data tinggi badan dan berat badan menggunakan mikrotoa dan timbangan digital. Subjek berpuasa selama 8-12 jam sebelum pengambilan sampel darah untuk pengukuran kadar glukosa darah puasa. Analisis data dilakukan dengan SPSS versi 17. Hasil : Pada penelitian ini didapatkan sebanyak 76,5% subjek obesitas berdasarkan IMT. Subjek yang memiliki kadar glukosa darah puasa tinggi (≥ 100mg/dl) sebesar 21,4%. Lingkar leher ≥ 38,2 cm pada laki-laki dan ≥ 35 cm pada perempuan memiliki risiko kadar glukosa darah puasa yang tinggi. Lingkar pinggang ≥ 100 cm pada laki-laki dan ≥ 106 cm pada perempuan juga memiliki risiko kadar glukosa darah puasa yang tinggi. Terdapat hubungan antara lingkar leher dengan kadar glukosa darah puasa (r = 0,342 ; p = 0,014) dan ada hubungan antara lingkar pinggang dengan kadar glukosa darah puasa (r = 0,375 ; p = 0,007). Simpulan : Semakin besar lingkar leher dan lingkar pinggang, maka semakin tinggi kadar glukosa darah puasa
On Functional Approximation with Normalized Gaussian Units

Feedforward neural networks with a single hidden layer using normalized gaussian units are studied. It is proved that such neural networks are capable of universal approximation in a satisfactory sense. Then, a hybrid learning rule as per Moody and Darken that combines unsupervised learning of hidden units and supervised learning of output units is considered. By using the method of ordinary differential equations for adaptive algorithms (ODE method) it is shown that the asymptotic properties of the learning rule may be studied in terms of an autonomous cascade of dynamical systems. Some recent results from Hirsch about cascades are used to show the asymptotic stability of the learning rule.
Why would phylogeneticists ignore computerized sequence alignment?

In phylogenetic analyses, multiple sequence align ment often seems to be the poor cousin to tree build ing. It has long been recognized that both primary homology assessment (alignment) and secondary ho mology assessment (tree building) can have important effects on phylogenetic analyses (Morrison and Ellis 1997), and this has been repeatedly demonstrated for both empirical and simulated data (see references cited by Morrison 2008; also Wong et al. 2008). However, most theoretical contributions to phylogenetic analysis continue to involve tree building alone. Indeed, even most review articles continue to treat alignment as being about automated bioinformatics procedures (Wallace et al. 2005; Edgar and Batzoglou 2006; Kumar and Filipski 2007; Notredame 2007) rather than about phy logenetics (Morrison 2006; Phillips 2006). This suggests the possibility that there have been no (or few) theoretical contributions to multiple sequence alignment that practitioners considered to be useful in phylogenetics. In other words, most phylogeneticists are prepared to do tree building in a fully computerized manner but not (yet) alignment. Here, I test this hypoth esis by reviewing the current practices for multiple se quence alignment in published phylogenetic analyses, particularly with respect to differences between disci plines in the way that phylogenetic analyses are used. I also provide suggestions as to why phylogeneticists are apparently dissatisfied with computerized sequence alignment and how we might deal with it. My inten tion is to highlight why phylogeneticists are dissatisfied with similarity-based alignment procedures and what specifically they are doing about it in practice. I con clude that there is currently no bioinformatics approach that is acceptable for phylogeneticists and that there is thus a gaping hole that needs to be filled.
Multiplicative interaction between the two major mechanisms of permethrin resistance, kdr and cytochrome P450‐monooxygenase detoxification, in mosquitoes

Epistasis is the nonadditive interaction between different loci which contribute to a phenotype. Epistasis between independent loci conferring insecticide resistance is important to investigate as this phenomenon can shape the rate that resistance evolves and can dictate the level of resistance in the field. The evolution of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes is a growing and world‐wide problem. The two major mechanisms that confer resistance to permethrin in Culex mosquitoes are target site insensitivity (i.e. kdr) and enhanced detoxification by cytochrome P450 monooxygenases. Using three strains of mosquitoes, and crosses between these strains, we assessed the relative contribution of the two independent loci conferring permethrin resistance, individually and when present together. We found that for all genotype combinations tested, Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus exhibited multiplicative interactions between kdr and P450 detoxification, whether the resistance alleles were homozygous or heterozygous. These results provide a basis for further analysis of the evolution and maintenance of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes.
Interleukin‐13 and tumour necrosis factor‐α synergistically induce eotaxin production in human nasal fibroblasts

There is increasing evidence that eotaxin is a key mediator in the development of tissue eosinophilia. However, the mechanism involved in the production of eotaxin has yet to be clarified. Most recently, it has been shown that interleukin (IL) ‐4 induces eotaxin in dermal fibroblasts. A novel cytokine termed IL‐13, which binds to the α‐chain of the IL‐4 receptor, shares many biological activities with IL‐4. It is known that fibroblasts express the IL‐4 receptor and produce collagen type I upon stimulation with IL‐4.
Establishing a National Maternal Morbidity Outcome Indicator in England: A Population-Based Study Using Routine Hospital Data

Introduction As maternal deaths become rarer, monitoring near-miss or severe maternal morbidity becomes important as a tool to measure changes in care quality. Many calls have been made to use routinely available hospital administration data to monitor the quality of maternity care. We investigated 1) the feasibility of developing an English Maternal Morbidity Outcome Indicator (EMMOI) by reproducing an Australian indicator using routinely available hospital data, 2) the impact of modifications to the indicator to address potential data quality issues, 3) the reliability of the indicator. Methods We used data from 6,389,066 women giving birth in England from April 2003 to March 2013 available in the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) database of the Health and Social care Information centre (HSCIC). A composite indicator, EMMOI, was generated from the diagnoses and procedure codes. Rates of individual morbid events included in the EMMOI were compared with the rates in the UK reported by population-based studies. Results EMMOI included 26 morbid events (17 diagnosis and 9 procedures). Selection of the individual morbid events was guided by the Australian indicator and published literature for conditions associated with maternal morbidity and mortality in the UK, but was mainly driven by the quality of the routine hospital data. Comparing the rates of individual morbid events of the indicator with figures from population-based studies showed that the possibility of false positive and false negative cases cannot be ruled out. Conclusion While routine English hospital data can be used to generate a composite indicator to monitor trends in maternal morbidity during childbirth, the quality and reliability of this monitoring indicator depends on the quality of the hospital data, which is currently inadequate.
Crucial Role of Stromal Cell–Derived Factor-1&agr; in Neointima Formation After Vascular Injury in Apolipoprotein E–Deficient Mice

Background—Recent evidence indicates that stromal cell–derived factor-1&agr; (SDF-1&agr;) is expressed in human atherosclerotic plaques, whereas high plasma levels are clinically associated with stable coronary artery disease. Herein, we investigate the involvement of SDF-1&agr; in neointimal formation after vascular injury. Methods and Results—SDF-1&agr; was detected by immunohistochemistry in carotid arteries of apolipoprotein E–deficient (apoE−/−) mice at various stages of neointima formation after wire-induced injury. Double immunofluorescence revealed that SDF-1&agr; staining was mostly confined to smooth muscle cells (SMCs). Furthermore, SDF-1&agr; plasma levels peaked 1 day after vascular injury. Treatment of apoE−/− mice after carotid injury with a neutralizing SDF-1&agr; monoclonal antibody for 3 weeks reduced neointimal lesion area by 44% (n=5, P <0.05) compared with isotype control. In SDF-1&agr; antibody–treated apoE−/− mice, neointimal SMC content was decreased (21.7±2% versus 39.4±4%, n=5, P =0.005), whereas the relative content of neointimal macrophages remained unchanged. As shown by flow cytometry, carotid injury resulted in a marked expansion of circulating Sca-1+lineage− progenitor cells (PBPCs) in the peripheral blood of apoE−/− mice after 1 day, which was mediated by SDF-1&agr;. Systemic injection of isolated PBPCs after vascular injury demonstrated their recruitment to neointimal lesions, where they can adopt an SMC-like phenotype. Conclusions—SDF-1&agr; plays an instrumental role in neointimal formation after vascular injury in apoE−/− mice by regulating neointimal SMC content. This contribution appears to be attributable to SDF-1&agr;–dependent recruitment of circulating SMC progenitor cells.
The glucose kinase gene of Streptomyces coelicolor is not required for glucose repression of the chi63 promoter

Glucose kinase is required for glucose repression of several catabolite-controlled genes in Streptomyces coelicolor and certainly plays an important role in glucose repression in these organisms. We report here that glucose kinase null mutants of S. coelicolor retain transcriptional regulation of the chitinase 63 gene, which encodes an enzyme involved in chitin utilization. Transcription of chi63 is glucose sensitive and chitin dependent. We suggest that glucose repression of chi63 is independent of glucose kinase and that there may be more than one mechanism of glucose repression in Streptomyces spp.