Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trypanosoma cruzi Mexican Strains Differentially Modulate Surface Markers and Cytokine Production in Bone Marrow-Derived Dendritic Cells from C57BL/6 and BALB/c Mice

Dendritic cells (DCs) are a type of antigen-presenting cells that play an important role in the immune response against Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease. In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that the modulation of these cells by this parasite can directly affect the innate and acquired immune response of the host in order to facilitate its biological cycle and the spreading of the species. Many studies show the mechanisms by which T. cruzi modulates DCs, but the interaction of these cells with the Mexican strains of T. cruzi such as Ninoa and INC5 has not yet been properly investigated. Here, we evaluated whether Ninoa and INC5 strains evaded the immunity of their hosts by modulating the biology and function of murine DCs. The CL-Brener strain was used as the reference strain. Herein, it was demonstrated that Ninoa was more infective toward bone marrow-derived dendritic cells (BMDCs) than INC5 and CL-Brener strains in both BMDCs of BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice. Mexican strains of T. cruzi induced different cytokine patterns. In BMDCs obtained from BALB/c mice, Ninoa strain led to the reduction in IL-6 and increased IL-10 production, while in C57BL/6 mice Ninoa strain considerably increased the productions of TNF-α and IL-10. Also, Ninoa and INC5 differentially modulated BMDC expressions of MHC-II, TLR2, and TLR4 in both BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice compared to Brazilian strain CL-Brener. These results indicate that T. cruzi Mexican strains differentially infect and modulate MHC-II, toll-like receptors, and cytokine production in DCs obtained from C57BL/6 and BALB/c mice, suggesting that these strains have developed particular modulatory strategies to disrupt DCs and, consequently, the host immune responses.
Multiple features within Sed5p mediate it’s COPI-independent trafficking and Golgi localization

Protein retention and the transport of proteins and lipids into and out of the Golgi is intimately linked to the biogenesis and homeostasis of this sorting hub of eukaryotic cells. Of particular importance are membrane proteins that mediate membrane fusion events with and within the Golgi – the Soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptors (SNAREs). In the Golgi of budding yeast cells a single syntaxin - the SNARE Sed5p - oversees membrane fusion within the Golgi. Determining how Sed5p is localized to and trafficked within the Golgi is critical to informing our understanding of the mechanism(s) of biogenesis and homeostasis of this organelle. Here we establish that the Golgi retention and trafficking of Sed5p between the Golgi and the ER is independent of COPI function, the composition of the transmembrane domain, and binding of the Sec1-Munc18 (SM) protein Sly1p. Rather, the steady state localization of Sed5p to the Golgi appears to be primarily conformation-based relying on intra-molecular associations between the Habc domain and SNARE-motif.
Dynactin p150 promotes processive motility of DDB complexes by minimizing diffusional behavior of dynein

Cytoplasmic dynein is activated by forming a complex with dynactin and the adaptor protein BicD2. We used Interferometric Scattering (iSCAT) microscopy to track dynein-dynactin-BicD2 (DDB) complexes in vitro and developed a regression-based algorithm to classify switching between processive, diffusive and stuck motility states. We find that DDB spends 65% of its time undergoing processive stepping, 4% undergoing 1D diffusion, and the remaining time transiently stuck to the microtubule. Although the p150 subunit was previously shown to enable dynactin diffusion along microtubules, blocking p150 enhanced the proportion of time DDB diffused and reduced the time DDB processively walked. Thus, DDB diffusive behavior most likely results from dynein switching into an inactive (diffusive) state, rather than p150 tethering the complex to the microtubule. DDB - kinesin-1 complexes, formed using a DNA adapter, moved slowly and persistently, and blocking p150 led to a 70 nm/s plus-end shift in the average velocity, in quantitative agreement with the increase in diffusivity seen in isolated DDB. The data suggest a DDB activation model in which engagement of dynactin p150 with the microtubule promotes dynein processivity, serves as an allosteric activator of dynein, and enhances processive minus-end motility during intracellular bidirectional transport. TOC Highlight Dynein-dynactin-BicD2 (DDB) is highly processive, but also shows transient pausing and diffusion, which we analyzed using iSCAT microscopy. Blocking dynactin p150 results in more diffusion of isolated DDB and a plus-end shift of kinesin-1 – DDB complexes. Thus, we conclude that p150 is an allosteric activator of dynein in the DDB complex.
Misvaluation of Hospital-based Upper Extremity Surgery Across Payment, Relative Value Units, and Operative Time

Background Many US health care institutions have adopted compensation models based on work relative value units (wRVUs) to standardize payments and incentivize providers. Among other factors, a major determinant of payment and wRVU assignments is operative time. Our objective was to determine whether differences in estimated operative times between the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) contribute to payment and wRVU misvaluation for the most common hospital-based hand and upper extremity procedures. Methods Data on wRVUs, surgeon payment, and estimated operative times were collected from CMS for 53 procedures. We used regression models to compare relationships between these variables, in addition to actual median operative times as reported in the NSQIP database, from 2011 to 2016. We then determined the relative valuation of each procedure based on operative time. Results There was a wide discrepancy between CMS and NSQIP operative times (R2=0.49), with 60% of CMS times being longer than NSQIP times. Payment correlated more strongly with CMS operative times (R2=0.55) than with NSQIP operative times (R2=0.24). Similarly, wRVUs more strongly correlated with CMS operative times (R2=0.84) than with NSQIP operative times (R2=0.51). In general, for trauma-related procedures, any distal radius open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) had the highest valuation while any ORIF proximal to the distal radius had lower valuation in analysis of both databases. While 61% of trauma procedures were highly valued, 70% of elective procedures had a low valuation, including nearly all elective tendon procedures. Notable compensation differences were found between trapeziectomy versus ligament reconstruction and tendon interposition, epicondyle debridement with tendon repair versus denervation, proximal row carpectomy versus four corner fusion, and distal radius open versus percutaneous fixation. Conclusions CMS may misvalue payment and wRVU rates of hospital-based hand procedures due to inaccurate operative time estimates. By identifying which procedures are misvalued in terms of payment and wRVU per operative time, providers and payors may be able to address these imbalances and maximize appropriate care delivery incentives.Level of Evidence: III.
MATHEMATICAL MODELING FOR FIXED-BED DRYING CONSIDERING HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER AND INTERFACIAL PHENOMENA

A mathematical model for fixed-bed drying with air cross-flow was obtained to simulate the drying process. Special attention was placed on the interfacial conditions. A system of four couple nonlineal partial differential equations in conjunction with three nonlineal algebraic equations was applied and solved numerically by both finite differences and Runge–Kutta methods. Simulations were compared with experimental data from carrot slabs in deep fixed-bed drying. Slab thicknesses were 1.0 and 0.1 cm, and air drying temperatures were 50–60°C. Simulation predicted that water transport was controlled by internal diffusion in slabs with 1.0 cm of thickness; therefore, the interfacial conditions may be considered in steady state. Nevertheless, the predominant phenomenon in slabs with 0.1 cm of thickness was by convection; therefore, the interfacial conditions varied with respect to space and time. In the proposed phenomenological representation of fixed-bed drying, the properties and variables of the system defined the type of mechanism controlling of the drying process without previous assumptions.
Study of Interaction Between AviPro ® Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MGF) and Pulmotil ® -AC in Broiler Breeder Pullets

This study aimed at the determination of the optimal time interval between the vaccination with a live Mycoplasma gallisepticum vaccine AviPro® MGF and the administration of the antibiotic Pulmotil® AC (PAC) to broiler breeder pullets while preserving the vaccine efficacy. A total of 108 sixteen-weeks-old breeder pullets of the ROSS 308 strain were subdivided equally into 6 groups. Pullets of group 1 remained unvaccinated and untreated with PAC. Birds of groups 3, 4, 5 and 6 were vaccinated with AviPro® MGF at 16 weeks of age and treated with PAC at 3, 7, 14, and 21 days post-vaccination respectively. Group 2 was kept as the vaccinated non-treated group. The pullets were tested for the presence of MGF strain in the trachea at different days after PAC-treatment completion. All PAC-treated groups showed tracheal MG recolonization after the treatment was discontinued. The percentage of positive tracheal MG swab cultures was consistently higher in group 6, reaching a plateau at 14 days post PAC treatment (100%, P<0.05). qPCR implied-tracheal MG counts indicated better recolonization efficiency for birds of groups 5 and 6 reaching up to 2322 × 103 and 2839 × 103 cfu/ml of broth, respectively, at 35 days post PAC treatment. Moreover, Group 6 showed the significantly highest titer to MG, recording a value of 2160, followed by the vaccinated untreated Group 2 (1128). For a successful application of live MG vaccine/antibiotics combination, it is recommended to delay PAC treatment 21 days after the vaccination of breeder pullets with AviPro® MGF.
DEMOCRACY, ECONOMIC FREEDOM AND GROWTH: A CASE STUDY OF PAKISTAN

Institutional freedom is considered one of the most important factor in the debate of economic growth of nations.The most prominent kinds of institutional freedom which actively take part in economic prosperity are democracy (political liberalization) and economic freedom (business liberalization). The nature of impact of democracy and economic freedom on nationâ€™s economic growth is not crystal clear.The nature of impact of democracy and economic freedom on national well being directly indirectly depends on social, economic, political, geographical and cultural aspects of society.This dissertation presents the overview of significance of democracy and economic freedom for Pakistanâ€™s economic growth.This thesis starts with the explanation of notion of democracy and economic freedom and comprehensive review of various measures of level of democracy and economic freedom. Followed by theoretical and graphical analysis of economic freedom economic growth and democracy economic growth trends in Pakistan.For empirical investigation this study measured the indexes of level of economic freedom and democracy annually. â€œAlliance for Restoration of Democracy in Asiaâ€� (ARDA) and â€œThe Fraser Institute Canadaâ€� methodologies are adopted for measurement of democracy and economic freedom respectively, while statistics of growth proxies are taken from State Bank of Pakistan and Federal Bureau of Statistics government of Pakistan reports.For study period 1970 to 2007 this thesis has constructed the data set of 38 annual observations.The most recent econometric technique ARDL approach is employed for examination of long run and short run relationships between targeted variables.To observe the comprehensive impact of institutional freedoms (democracy and economic freedom) on economic growth of Pakistanâ€™s economy this study regress a number of regressions.Therefore in sum economic freedom in the presence of poor infrastructure and illiterate society in Pakistan hindered the pace of economic prosperity.Democracy on the other hand approximately enhances the pace of economic growth, but apart from national incomes growth proxiesâ€™ democracy shown insignificant touches toward growth proxies of financial, capital and fiscal markets.The most important finding of this dissertation is that, stable democratization alone is not to key of economic growth in Pakistan but it is necessary condition.Therefore, Pakistan will have to focus on stable democrization, which ultimately will encourage or reinforce the economic freedom and economic growth.
Comparative diagnostic accuracy of ACE-III and MoCA for detecting mild cognitive impairment

Objective The aim of this study was to validate the reliability of the Chinese version of Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination III (ACE-III) for detecting mild cognitive impairment. Furthermore, the present study compares the diagnostic accuracy of ACE-III with that of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Methods One hundred and twenty patients with MCI and 136 healthy controls were included in the study. All patients were evaluated by the Chinese version of ACE-III, MoCA and MMSE. Results Subjects in the control group showed better performance in ACE-III total score and its subdomain scores than those in the MCI group. There was a significantly positive correlation between ACE-III total score and MoCA score. Meanwhile, there was also a significantly positive correlation between ACE-III total score and MMSE score. For ACE-III total score, a cut-off point of 85 yielded a sensitivity of 97.3% and a specificity of 90.7%. The AUC for ACE-III total score was 0.978. For MoCA, a cut-off point of 23 yielded a sensitivity of 86.5% and a specificity of 97.7%. The AUC for MoCA was 0.961. There were no significant differences in diagnostic accuracy between ACE-III and MoCA. Conclusion The present findings support that both ACE-III and MoCA are useful for detecting MCI in early stages.
U.S. Variations in Child Health System Performance: A State Scorecard

This report examines variations among states’ child health care systems, building on the State Scorecard published by The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System. Focusing on 13 performance indicators of access, quality, costs, equity, and the potential to lead healthy lives, the authors find wide variation among states, including distinct regional patterns. Across states, better access to care is closely associated with better quality of care. Top-performing states, such as Iowa and Vermont, have adopted policies to expand children’s access to care and improve the quality of care. While leading states outperform lagging states on multiple indicators, all states have opportunities to improve. National leadership and collaboration across public and private sectors are essential for coherent, strategic reforms to improve child health care in the United States. Support for this research was provided by The Commonwealth Fund. The views presented here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of The Commonwealth Fund or its directors, officers, or staff. This and other Fund publications are available online at www.commonwealthfund. org. To learn more about new publications when they become available, visit the Fund’s Web site and register to receive e-mail alerts. Commonwealth Fund pub. no. 1140. Note: Portions of this report were revised as of June 6, 2008.
THE EFFECT OF NOVEL AND FAMILIAR PREDATOR CUES ON PREY VIGILANCE AND FORAGING BEHAVIORS IN THE GREATER KHINGAN MOUNTAINS, INNER MONGOLIA, CHINA

During periods of predation risk, prey adopt antipredator behaviours to maximise chances of survival, such as increased vigilance, reduced foraging time, shifting to safe habitat, and group formation. To effectively balance resource acquisition and antipredator behavior, prey animals make use of cues within their environment that provide them accurate information about the realistic threat of predation. Using camera traps, we tested vigilance and feeding behavioural responses of two naturally occurring ungulate species roe deer and moose to cues from naturally occurring brown bear and novel Amur tiger predators. We found that roe deer and moose vigilance and feeding behaviours were not affected by either visual or olfactory cues from predators, suggesting that ungulates in this system do not respond differently to novel predator cues. There are a number of potential explanations for this surprising lack of response to any predator cues: a) habituation to uninformative cues is important; b) ungulates might have relied more heavily on other cue types, such as auditory cues, or cues in combination; and, c) constraints on dispersal and/or resources may result in prey being forced to remain in high risk food patches, and continued prioritization of feeding over vigilance. We therefore, recommend that in the future studies regarding cues should involve a combination of cues at a similar location to increase predation risk to the animals to maximise prey response. To our knowledge, this is the first study to lay out the foundation of the ecological influences of captive Amur tiger on prey behaviors in the wild environment.
Factors associated with the incidence of congenital anomalies: a localized investigation. Environmental health effects research series

The report concludes that, in net terms, and on the basis of available retrospective data, primarily from birth records, there are no strong indications that the incidence of congenital anomalies in the Ft. Rucker, Alabama area is higher than normal. The original hypothesis that the situation might be serious has been traced, for the most part, to earlier reliance on faulty diagnosing and reporting, and especially to reliance on the birth certificate, which, there is reason to believe on the basis of the findings of this study, is a relatively insensitive instrument for measuring the incidence of congenital anomalies. The attempt to relate this incidence to specific factors associated with military life, or in particular to factors associated with exposure to military radar, was largely unsuccessful because the military in effect denied access to pertinent records on the grounds that no prima facie case had been made that a problem really exists.
Learning Long Temporal Sequences in Spiking Networks by Multiplexing Neural Oscillations

Many cognitive and behavioral tasks - such as interval timing, spatial navigation, motor control and speech - require the execution of precisely-timed sequences of neural activation that cannot be fully explained by a succession of external stimuli. We use a reservoir computing framework to explain how such neural sequences can be generated and employed in temporal tasks. We propose a general solution for recurrent neural networks to autonomously produce rich patterns of activity by providing a multi-periodic oscillatory signal as input. We show that the model accurately learns a variety of tasks, including speech generation, motor control and spatial navigation. Further, the model performs temporal rescaling of natural spoken words and exhibits sequential neural activity commonly found in experimental data involving temporal processing. In the context of spatial navigation, the model learns and replays compressed sequences of place cells and captures features of neural activity such as the emergence of ripples and theta phase precession. Together, our findings suggest that combining oscillatory neuronal inputs with different frequencies provides a key mechanism to generate precisely timed sequences of activity in recurrent circuits of the brain.
Shareholder Votes and Proxy Advisors: Evidence from Say on Pay

We investigate the economic role of proxy advisors (PAs) in the context of mandatory “say on pay” votes, a novel and complex item requiring significant firm-specific analysis. PAs are more likely to issue an Against recommendation at firms with poor performance and higher levels of CEO pay and do not appear to follow a “one-size-fits-all” approach. PAs’ recommendations are the key determinant of voting outcome but the sensitivity of shareholder votes to these recommendations varies with the institutional ownership structure, and the rationale behind the recommendation, suggesting that at least some shareholders do not blindly follow these recommendations. More than half of the firms respond to the adverse shareholder vote triggered by a negative recommendation by engaging with investors and making changes to their compensation plan. However, we find no market reaction to the announcement of such changes, even when material enough to result in a favorable recommendation and vote the following year. Our findings suggest that, rather than identifying and promoting superior compensation practices, PAs' key economic role is processing a substantial amount of executive pay information on behalf of institutional investors, hence reducing their cost of making informed voting decisions. Our findings contribute to the literature on shareholder voting and the related policy debate.
Plant community stability results from shifts in species assemblages following whole community transplants across climates

Climate change will decrease precipitation and increase rainfall variability in eastern Mediterranean regions, with responses of plant communities largely uncertain. Here, we tested short‐term responses of dryland plant communities to contrasting rainfall regimes using reciprocal transplants of soil and seed banks. We exposed three annual plant communities to very different climatic conditions along a steep rainfall gradient. We tested for the role of climate versus community origin on community response and resistance. In parallel, we asked whether origin‐specific climatic adaptations predict compositional shifts across climates. Due to an extreme drought, all plants in the driest climate failed to reach maturity. For the remaining two community origins, the most dry‐adapted species in each community increased in dry climate and the wet‐adapted species increased in wet climate. Dry community origins showed large compositional shifts while maintaining stable plant density, biomass and species richness across climates. Conversely, wet communities showed smaller compositional shifts, but larger variation in biomass and richness. This asynchrony in species abundances in response to rainfall variability could maintain structural community stability. This, in combination with seed dormancy, has the ability to delay extinction in response to climate change. However, increasing occurrence of extreme droughts may, in the long‐term, lead to loss of wet‐adapted species.