Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular mechanisms underlying protective effects of quercetin against mitochondrial dysfunction and progressive dopaminergic neurodegeneration in cell culture and MitoPark transgenic mouse models of Parkinson's Disease

Quercetin, one of the major flavonoids in plants, has been recently reported to have neuroprotective effects against neurodegenerative processes. However, since the molecular signaling mechanisms governing these effects are not well clarified, we evaluated quercetin's effect on the neuroprotective signaling events in dopaminergic neuronal models and further tested its efficacy in the MitoPark transgenic mouse model of Parkinson's disease (PD). Western blot analysis revealed that quercetin significantly induced the activation of two major cell survival kinases, protein kinase D1 (PKD1) and Akt in MN9D dopaminergic neuronal cells. Furthermore, pharmacological inhibition or siRNA knockdown of PKD1 blocked the activation of Akt, suggesting that PKD1 acts as an upstream regulator of Akt in quercetin‐mediated neuroprotective signaling. Quercetin also enhanced cAMP response‐element binding protein phosphorylation and expression of the cAMP response‐element binding protein target gene brain‐derived neurotrophic factor. Results from qRT‐PCR, Western blot analysis, mtDNA content analysis, and MitoTracker assay experiments revealed that quercetin augmented mitochondrial biogenesis. Quercetin also increased mitochondrial bioenergetics capacity and protected MN9D cells against 6‐hydroxydopamine‐induced neurotoxicity. To further evaluate the neuroprotective efficacy of quercetin against the mitochondrial dysfunction underlying PD, we used the progressive dopaminergic neurodegenerative MitoPark transgenic mouse model of PD. Oral administration of quercetin significantly reversed behavioral deficits, striatal dopamine depletion, and TH neuronal cell loss in MitoPark mice. Together, our findings demonstrate that quercetin activates the PKD1‐Akt cell survival signaling axis and suggest that further exploration of quercetin as a promising neuroprotective agent for treating PD may offer clinical benefits.
Balaenophilus manatorum (Ortíz, Lalana and Torres, 1992) (Copepoda: Harpacticoida) from Loggerhead Sea Turtles, Caretta caretta, from Japan and the Western Mediterranean: Amended Description and Geographical Comparison

Abstract The ectoparasitic harpacticoid copepod, Balaenophilus manatorum (Ortíz, Lalana and Torres, 1992) (syn. Balaenophilus umigamecolus Ogawa, Matsuzaki and Misaki, 1997), has been reported on 3 species of marine turtles from the Pacific and the Mediterranean and from the West Indian manatee off Cuba in the Caribbean. The 3 available descriptions of this species were made using light microscopy. In this paper, we provide an amended description of B. manatorum using scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) for specimens in the collection from which B. umigamecolus was originally described. This material was collected from 1 loggerhead sea turtle, Caretta caretta, from Japan. The use of SEM allowed us to add several new microcharacters to the original description but, more importantly, allowed us to correct a number of the traits originally described. Some of the corrections could affect the interpretation of putative homology and variability of characters among populations of B. manatorum. A SEM comparison of specimens of B. manatorum from loggerheads from Japan and the western Mediterranean suggested the existence of morphological stasis between these populations. However, there were apparent meristic differences with a recently published description of this species from olive ridleys, Lepidochelys olivacea, in Mexico. Although B. manatorum is currently considered as a single, widespread taxon, the possibility that it actually represents a species complex deserves further attention.
Severity of leukoaraiosis correlates with clinical outcome after ischemic stroke

Background: Leukoaraiosis (LA) is closely associated with aging, a major determinant of clinical outcome after ischemic stroke. In this study we sought to identify whether LA, independent of advancing age, affects outcome after acute ischemic stroke. Methods: LA volume was quantified in 240 patients with ischemic stroke and MRI within 24 hours of symptom onset. We explored the relationship between LA volume at admission and clinical outcome at 6 months, as assessed by the modified Rankin Scale (mRS). An ordinal logistic regression model was developed to analyze the independent effect of LA volume on clinical outcome. Results: Bivariate analyses showed a significant correlation between LA volume and mRS at 6 months (r = 0.19, p = 0.003). Mean mRS was 1.7 ± 1.8 among those in the lowest (≤1.2 mL) and 2.5 ± 1.9 in the highest (>9.9 mL) quartiles of LA volume (p = 0.01). The unfavorable prognostic effect of LA volume on clinical outcome was retained in the multivariable model (p = 0.002), which included age, gender, stroke risk factors (hypertension, diabetes mellitus, atrial fibrillation), previous history of brain infarction, admission plasma glucose level, admission NIH Stroke Scale score, IV rtPA treatment, and acute infarct volume on MRI as covariates. Conclusions: The volume of leukoaraiosis is a predictor of clinical outcome after ischemic stroke and this relationship persists after adjustment for important prognostic factors including age, initial stroke severity, and infarct volume.
Springflow Hydrographs: Eogenetic vs. Telogenetic Karst

Matrix permeability in the range of 10−11 to 10−14 m2 characterizes eogenetic karst, where limestones have not been deeply buried. In contrast, limestones of postburial, telogenetic karst have matrix permeabilities on the order of 10−15 to 10−20 m2. Is this difference in matrix permeability paralleled by a difference in the behavior of springs draining eogenetic and telogenetic karst? Log Q/Qmin flow duration curves from 11 eogenetic‐karst springs in Florida and 12 telogenetic‐karst springs in Missouri, Kentucky, and Switzerland, plot in different fields because of the disparate slopes of the curves. The substantially lower flow variability in eogenetic‐karst springs, which results in the steeper slopes of their flow duration curves, also makes for a strong contrast in patterns (e.g., “flashiness”) between the eogenetic‐karst and telogenetic‐karst spring hydrographs. With respect to both spring hydrographs and the flow duration curves derived from them, the eogenetic‐karst springs of Florida are more like basalt springs of Idaho than the telogenetic‐karst springs of the study. From time‐series analyses on discharge records for 31 springs and published time‐series results for 28 additional sites spanning 11 countries, we conclude that (1) the ratio of maximum to mean (Qmax/Qmean) discharge is less in springs of eogenetic karst than springs of telogenetic karst; (2) aquifer inertia (system memory) is larger in eogenetic karst; (3) eogenetic‐karst aquifers take longer to respond to input signals; and (4) high‐frequency events affect discharge less in eogenetic karst. All four of these results are consistent with the hypothesis that accessible storage is larger in eogenetic‐karst aquifers than in telogenetic‐karst aquifers.
Subjective rating scales: science or art?

Subjective rating scales are widely used in almost every aspect of ergonomics research and practice for the assessment of workload, fatigue, usability, annoyance and comfort, and lesser known qualities such as urgency and presence, but are they truly scientific? This paper raises some of the key issues as a basis for debate. First, it is argued that all empirical observations, including those conventionally labelled as ‘objective’, are unavoidably subjective. Shared meaning between observers, or intersubjectivity, is the key criterion of scientific probity. The practical steps that can be taken to increase intersubjective agreement are discussed and the well-known sources of error and bias in human judgement reviewed. The role of conscious experience as a mechanism for appraising the environment and guiding behaviour has important implications for the interpretation of subjective reports. The view that psychometric measures do not conform to the requirements of truly ‘scientific’ measurement is discussed. Human judgement of subjective attributes is essentially ordinal and, unlike physical measures, can be matched to interval scales only with difficulty, but ordinal measures can be used successfully both to develop and test substantive theories using multivariate statistical techniques. Constructs such as fatigue are best understood as latent or inferred variables defined by a set of manifest or directly observed indicator variables. Both construct validity and predictive validity are viewed from this perspective and this helps to clarify several problems including the dissociation between measures of different aspects of a given construct, the question of whether physical (e.g. physiological) measures should be preferred to subjective measures and whether a single measure of constructs which are essentially multidimensional having both subjective and physical components is desirable. Finally, the fitness of subjective ratings to different purposes within the broad field of ergonomics research is discussed. For testing of competing hypotheses concerning the mechanisms underlying human performance, precise quantitative predictions are rarely needed. The same is frequently true of comparative evaluation of competing designs. In setting design standards, however, something approaching the level of measurement required for precise quantitative prediction is required, but this is difficult to achieve in practice. Although it may be possible to establish standards within restricted contexts, general standards for broadly conceived constructs such as workload are impractical owing to the requirement for representative sampling of tasks, work environments and personnel.
Temporal Binary Coding for Large-Scale Video Search

Recent years have witnessed the success of the emerging hash-based approximate nearest neighbor search techniques in large-scale image retrieval. However, for large-scale video search, most of the existing hashing methods mainly focus on the visual content contained in the still frames, without considering their temporal relations. Therefore, they usually suffer greatly from the insufficient capability of capturing the intrinsic video similarities, from both the visual and the temporal aspects. To address the problem, we propose a temporal binary coding solution in an unsupervised manner, which simultaneously considers the intrinsic relations among the visual content and the temporal consistency among the successive frames. To capture the inherent data similarities among videos, we adopt the sparse, nonnegative feature to characterize the common local visual content and approximate their intrinsic similarities using a low-rank matrix. Then a standard graph-based loss is adopted to guarantee that the learnt hash codes can well preserve the similarities. Furthermore, we introduce a subspace rotation to model the small variation among the successive frames, and thus essentially preserve the temporal consistency in Hamming space. Finally, we formulate the video hashing problem as a joint learning of the binary codes, the hash functions and the temporal variation, and devise an alternating optimization algorithm that enjoys fast training and discriminative hash functions. Extensive experiments on three large video datasets demonstrate the proposed method significantly outperforms a number of state-of-the-art hashing methods.
Onecut 1 and Onecut 2 are potential regulators of mouse retinal development

Our current study focuses on the expression of two members of the onecut transcription factor family, Onecut1 (Oc1) and Onecut2 (Oc2), in the developing mouse retina. By immunofluorescence staining, we found that Oc1 and Oc2 had very similar expression patterns throughout retinal development. Both factors started to be expressed in the retina at around embryonic day (E) 11.5. At early stages (E11.5 and E12.5), they were expressed in both the neuroblast layer (NBL) and ganglion cell layer (GCL). As development progressed (from E14.5 to postnatal day [P] 0), expression diminished in the retinal progenitor cells and became more restricted to the GCL. By P5, Oc1 and Oc2 were expressed at very low levels in the GCL. By co‐labeling with transcription factors known to be involved in retinal ganglion cell (RGC) development, we found that Oc1 and Oc2 had extensive overlap with Math5 in the NBL, and that they completely overlapped with Pou4f2 and Isl1 in the GCL, but only partially in the NBL. Co‐labeling of Oc1 with cell cycle markers confirmed that Oc1 was expressed in both proliferating retinal progenitors and postmitotic retinal cells. In addition, we demonstrated that expression of Oc1 and Oc2 did not require Math5, Isl1, or Pou4f2. Thus, Oc1 and Oc2 may regulate the formation of RGCs in a pathway independent of Math5, Pou4f2, and Isl1. Furthermore, we showed that Oc1 and Oc2 were expressed in both developing and mature horizontal cells (HCs). Therefore the two factors may also function in the genesis and maintenance of HCs. J. Comp. Neurol. 520:952–969, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Evidence That Arachidonate 15-Lipoxygenase 2 Is a Negative Cell Cycle Regulator in Normal Prostate Epithelial Cells* 210

15-Lipoxygenase 2 (15-LOX2) is a recently cloned human lipoxygenase that shows tissue-restricted expression in prostate, lung, skin, and cornea. The protein level and enzymatic activity of 15-LOX2 have been shown to be down-regulated in prostate cancers compared with normal and benign prostate tissues. The biological function of 15-LOX2 and the role of loss of 15-LOX2 expression in prostate tumorigenesis, however, remain unknown. We report the cloning and functional characterization of 15-LOX2 and its three splice variants (termed 15-LOX2sv-a, 15-LOX2sv-b, and 15-LOX2sv-c) from primary prostate epithelial cells. Western blotting with multiple primary prostate cell strains and prostate cancer cell lines reveals that the expression of 15-LOX2 is lost in all prostate cancer cell lines, accompanied by decreased enzymatic activity revealed by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry analyses. Further experiments show that the loss of 15-LOX2 expression results from transcriptional repression caused by mechanism(s) other than promoter hypermethylation or histone deacetylation. Subsequent functional studies indicate the following: 1) the 15-LOX2 product, 15(S)-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid, inhibits prostate cancer cell cycle progression; 2) 15-LOX2 expression in primary prostate epithelial cells is inversely correlated with cell cycle; and 3) restoration of 15-LOX2 expression in prostate cancer cells partially inhibits cell cycle progression. Taken together, these results suggest that 15-LOX2 could be a suppressor of prostate cancer development, which functions by restricting cell cycle progression.
On the tracks of Nitrogen deposition effects on temperate forests at their southern European range – an observational study from Italy

We studied forest monitoring data collected at permanent plots in Italy over the period 2000–2009 to identify the possible impact of nitrogen (N) deposition on soil chemistry, tree nutrition and growth. Average N throughfall (N‐NO3+N‐NH4) ranged between 4 and 29 kg ha−1 yr−1, with Critical Loads (CLs) for nutrient N exceeded at several sites. Evidence is consistent in pointing out effects of N deposition on soil and tree nutrition: topsoil exchangeable base cations (BCE) and pH decreased with increasing N deposition, and foliar nutrient N ratios (especially N : P and N : K) increased. Comparison between bulk openfield and throughfall data suggested possible canopy uptake of N, levelling out for bulk deposition >4–6 kg ha−1 yr−1. Partial Least Square (PLS) regression revealed that ‐ although stand and meteorological variables explained the largest portion of variance in relative basal area increment (BAIrel 2000–2009) ‐ N‐related predictors (topsoil BCE, C : N, pH; foliar N‐ratios; N deposition) nearly always improved the BAIrel model in terms of variance explained (from 78.2 to 93.5%) and error (from 2.98 to 1.50%). N deposition was the strongest predictor even when stand, management and atmosphere‐related variables (meteorology and tropospheric ozone) were accounted for. The maximal annual response of BAIrel was estimated at 0.074–0.085% for every additional kgN. This corresponds to an annual maximal relative increase of 0.13–0.14% of carbon sequestered in the above‐ground woody biomass for every additional kgN, i.e. a median value of 159 kgC per kgN ha−1 yr−1 (range: 50–504 kgC per kgN, depending on the site). Positive growth response occurred also at sites where signals of possible, perhaps recent N saturation were detected. This may suggest a time lag for detrimental N effects, but also that, under continuous high N input, the reported positive growth response may be not sustainable in the long‐term.
Superpixels in brain MR image analysis

A large number of sophisticated techniques have been proposed over the last few decades for automatic analysis of brain MR images to help clinicians better diagnose and understand anatomical changes due to neurological disorders. While significant improvements in performance have been achieved, almost all techniques suffer from a common limitation of high computational complexity due to the large number of voxels present in a typical MR volume. Computational complexity is a major hurdle in the clinical application of these sophisticated image analysis techniques. Brain MR volumes consist of approximately piecewise constant tissue regions with high redundancy among voxel intensities, which can be grouped into perceptually meaningful entities (superpixels) to reduce the complexity. In this study, we investigate the utility of superpixels (2D) and supervoxels (3D) in reducing computational complexity of brain MR analysis tasks. We investigate the extent of spatial and intensity distortions introduced in superpixel representation of MR images and evaluate its effect on brain tissue segmentation as an example task. We observe that superpixels are highly promising for significantly reducing the computational complexity of the lower-level image analysis tasks that are often essential components of MR analysis pipelines.
Quality of life in schizophrenia: Impact of psychopathology, patients' gender and antipsychotic treatment

Quality of life (QoL) was evaluated in 100 schizophrenic patients treated with classic or atypical neuroleptics in a day hospital. The severity of schizophrenia was evaluated with the PANSS scale and QoL with the SF36 questionnaire. Both the patients' global QoL and several QoL domains improved after treatment. The QoL of female and male patients did not differ at baseline, but the improvement after treatment was greater in female patients, and in female patients the QoL improvement correlated positively with the improvement in PANSS general symptoms. The severity of depressive symptoms of schizophrenic patients correlated inversely with the total QoL, at both the start and end of the study. The improvement of general schizophrenic and depressive symptoms correlated positively with the improvement in QoL. The improvement in QoL in patients treated with classic neuroleptics differed only insignificantly after treatment, in comparison to that in patients receiving 'old' atypical drugs. However, the negative correlation between QoL improvement and improvement in PANSS total score, as well as in PANSS depressive symptoms, was found only among patients treated with classic neuroleptics. Neuroleptic-induced extrapyramidal symptoms were more severe in patients receiving classic neuroleptics but these did not have an impact on patients' QoL. ( Int J Psych Clin Pract 2001; 5:19-26)
Early cerebral proton MRS and neurodevelopmental outcome in infants with cystic leukomalacia

The present study tested the hypothesis that proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy CH‐MRS) predicted neurodevelopmental outcome in infants with cystic leukomalacia (CL). Nineteen infants with CL (grade 2, N‐7; grade 3, N‐7; grade 4, N=5), graded according to the authors' classification, were examined at corrected ages of mean 1.5±2.1 SD weeks. H‐MRS of the basal ganglia and the periventricular white matter was performed. Two infants died, 16 had an adverse neurodevelopmental outcome and one was normal at follow‐up. N‐acetylaspartate (NAA)‐. choline (Cho) ratios were mean 1.120. 19 (SD) (grade 2), mean 0.9510. 11 (SD) (grade 8), and mean 0.7110. 13 (SD) (grade 4). These differences are significant (P<0.01, ANOVA). NAA: Cho ratios showed a positive correlation with developmental quotient (DQ) at the age of 1 year (P<0.05). In 13 infants lactate (Lac) was found. Lac: NAA ratios showed a negative correlation with NAA: Cho ratios, but not with DQ. We conclude that a low NAA. Cho ratio predicted a poor outcome, whereas some infants developed unfavourably despite a normal NAA: Cho ratio. We speculate that partial volume effects might explain this observation.
PAC Reinforcement Learning in Noisy Continuous Worlds

Continuous state spaces and stochastic, switching dynamics characterize a number of rich, real-world domains, such as robot navigation across varying terrain. We describe a reinforcement-learning algorithm for learning in such domains. We prove that this algorithm is provably approximately correct for certain environments. Unfortunately, no optimal planning techniques exist in general for such problems; we instead use fitted value iteration to solve the learned MDP, and extend the error bounds from prior work on policy performance to include the error due to approximate planning. Finally, we provide a robotic car experiment over varying terrain to demonstrate that these dynamics representations adequately capture real world dynamics and that our algorithm can be used to efficiently solve such problems.
VALIDATION OF A SPECIFIC MACHINE TO THE STRENGTH TRAINING OF JUDOKAS

With regard to judo players, like all sport activities, strength training can be divided into general and specific strength training. The specific exercises must correspond with the competitive movement. In addition, in terms of structure, they must correspond with regard to the strength time sequence, and they may be executed with overload. With respect to these important elements, we have envisaged the use of a judo-specific machine. The purpose of this study was to validate this judo-specific machine with regard to the strength training of judokas. To that end, we have measured the maximal pulling forces applied at each hand of judokas (n = 18), playing with the judo-specific machine and with a real partner. A significant difference was found between the maximal pulling forces (F collar and F sleeve) obtained utilizing the judo- specific machine (from 4.9 ± 0.4 N·kg-1 to 6.4 ± 0.3 N·kg-1 for F collar; from 4.8 ± 0.2 N·kg-1 to 6.3 ± 0.3 N·kg-1 for F sleeve) and performing with a partner (2.7 ± 0.2 N·kg-1 for F collar; 2.5 ± 0.3 N·kg-1 for F sleeve). This can be explained by the fact that the partner opposes a low resistance during the judo-throwing technique in comparison with the judo-specific machine. These results show that the judo-specific machine might be used by the judokas to execute specific exercises with overload.