Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Restraint and Gender on Frequency of Consumption of High-Glycemic Load and High-Fat Foods

Nutritional characteristics, like fat and carbohydrates, may influence how frequently individuals consume various foods. Further, food consumption may vary by gender or by whether an individual exhibits restrained eating. Men and women may prefer different foods, and high dietary restraint may increase avoidance of foods that are believed to cause weight gain like foods high in fat and rapidly absorbed refined carbohydrates (indicated by glycemic load [GL]). This study analyzed the influence of individual characteristics on reported consumption of foods with varying nutrition. Participants (n = 120) were asked how frequently they consumed 35 foods with different nutritional compositions, and completed the EDE-Q. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to assess the impact of fat and GL on reported consumption, and how restraint and gender altered these associations. Fat and GL both emerged as large, negative predictors, meaning that as fat or GL increased in a food, reported consumption decreased. Gender was a large predictor of consumption of high-fat foods, that is, males indicated consuming high-fat foods more frequently than females. Restraint was a moderate, negative predictor of consumption of high-GL foods, that is, as individuals scored higher on the restraint scale, their reported consumption of high-GL foods decreased. An increased societal pressure on women to be thin may explain the gender difference found in this study. Restrained eaters may be particularly susceptible to messages in the environment encouraging or discouraging consumption of foods with certain nutritional profiles. More research is needed to explore restrained eaters’ reaction to environmental food messages.
Vagotomy attenuates but does not prevent the somnogenic and febrile effects of lipopolysaccharide in rats.

The role of the vagus nerve in the somnogenic and pyrogenic effects of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was studied in rats. Control rats (n = 8) and rats subjected to bilateral subdiaphragmal vagotomy (VX; n = 9) were injected with 100 micrograms/kg i.p. LPS at the beginning of the dark period. Sleep and brain temperature (Tbr) were recorded for 23 h after the injections. LPS caused increases in non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREMS) for 12 h after the injection in control rats. Sleep intensity, as indicated by the slow-wave activity (SWA) of the electroencephalogram during NREMS, was suppressed. LPS elicited biphasic Tbr responses: an initial hypothermia was followed by increases in Tbr that lasted for approximately 20 h. In vagotomized rats, the NREMS responses to LPS were blunted. The magnitude of the LPS-induced NREMS increases was about one-half of that seen in control rats, and these sleep responses lasted only for 6 h. LPS did not affect SWA in VX animals. VX completely abolished the hypothermic responses to LPS and shortened the duration of the hyperthermia. The results suggest that the subdiaphragmal vagi play an important, but not exclusive, role in the somnogenic and pyrogenic actions of intraperitoneally injected LPS.
Gelatin-based resorbable sponge as a carrier matrix for human mesenchymal stem cells in cartilage regeneration therapy.

Adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), found in the bone marrow, have the potential to differentiate into multiple connective tissue types, including cartilage. In this study, we examined the potential of a porous gelatin sponge, Gelfoam, for use as a delivery vehicle for MSCs in cartilage regeneration therapy. Adult human MSCs (hMSCs) were seeded throughout the gelatin sponge after a 2-h incubation period. When cultured for 21 days in vitro in a defined medium supplemented with 10 ng/mL of TGF-beta 3, hMSC/Gelfoam constructs produced a cartilage-like extracellular matrix containing sulfated glycosaminoglycans (s-GAGs) and type-II collagen, as evident upon histologic evaluation. Constructs loaded with a cell suspension of 12 x 10(6) cells/mL produced an extracellular matrix containing 21 microg of s-GAG/microg of DNA after 21 days of culture. This production was more efficient than constructs loaded at higher or lower cell densities, indicating that the initial seeding density influences the ability of cells to produce extracellular matrix. When implanted in an osteochondral defect in the rabbit femoral condyle, Gelfoam cylinders were observed to be very biocompatible, with no evidence of immune response or lymphocytic infiltration at the site. Based on these observations we conclude that Gelfoam resorbable gelatin sponge is a promising candidate as a carrier matrix for MSC-based cartilage regeneration therapies.
Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Pathway Required for Immune Homeostasis Is Neurally Controlled by Arrestin-1

Background: GPCRs function in the C. elegans nervous system to control immunity. Results: Arrestin-1, the only GPCR adaptor in C. elegans, functions in the nervous system to control immunity. Conclusion: Neural arrestin-1 signal regulates immunity. Significance: Our data underscore the importance of the nervous system in the control of longevity and immune homeostasis and suggest that overlapping and distinct neural circuits control these processes. In response to pathogen infection, the host innate immune system activates microbial killing pathways and cellular stress pathways that need to be balanced because insufficient or excessive immune responses have deleterious consequences. Recent studies demonstrate that two G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) in the nervous system of Caenorhabditis elegans control immune homeostasis. To investigate further how GPCR signaling controls immune homeostasis at the organismal level, we studied arrestin-1 (ARR-1), which is the only GPCR adaptor protein in C. elegans. The results indicate that ARR-1 is required for GPCR signaling in ASH, ASI, AQR, PQR, and URX neurons, which control the unfolded protein response and a p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway required for innate immunity. ARR-1 activity also controlled immunity through ADF chemosensory and AFD thermosensory neurons that regulate longevity. Furthermore, we found that although ARR-1 played a key role in the control of immunity by AFD thermosensory neurons, it did not control longevity through these cells. However, ARR-1 partially controlled longevity through ADF neurons.
Clinical Criteria for the Diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease

The diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease (PD) follows the UK Brain Bank Criteria, which demands bradykinesia and one additional symptom, i.e. rigidity, resting tremor or postural instability. The latter is not a useful sign for the early diagnosis of PD, because it does not appear before Hoehn and Yahr stage 3. Early symptoms of PD which precede the onset of motor symptoms are hyposmia, REM sleep behavioral disorder, constipation, and depression. In addition, an increasing number of patients whose PD is related to a genetic defect are being described. Thus, genetic testing may eventually develop into a tool to identify at-risk patients. The clinical diagnosis of PD can be supported by levodopa or apomorphine tests. Imaging studies such as cranial CT or MRI are helpful to distinguish idiopathic PD from atypical or secondary PD. SPECT and PET methods are valuable to distinguish PD tremor from essential tremor if this is clinically not possible. Using all of these methods, we may soon be able to make a premotor diagnosis of PD, which will raise the question whether early treatment is possible and ethically and clinically advisable.
Measurement of machine-induced changes in thickness of the bovine teat

Summary Machine milking induced repeatable, short-term changes in thickness of the teat apex. These changes were measured with a spring-loaded caliper instrument under milking conditions that imposed differing forces on the teat apex. The mean percentage changes in teat end thickness (relative to the premilking values for individual teats) varied from 10% decrease up to 20% or more increase depending on the particular milking system used. The overall decrease in teat end thickness associated with cannula milking, milking at very low vacuum levels or milking with positive pressure pulsation may result from: (i) decrease in the intramammary pressure; and/or (ii) small changes in tone of teat musculature; and/or (iii) changes in the distribution of interstitial fluids in the teat apex. The overall increase in teat thickness caused by conventional or PKME milking systems results mainly from oedema (the extravascular accumulation of fluid). It is likely that milking equipment can, and should, be designed to minimize circulatory impairment resulting in oedema of the teat.
Comparing usability between a visualization and text-based system for information retrieval

This investigation tested the designer assumption that VIBE is a tool for an expert user and asked: what are the effects of user expertise on usability when VIBE's non‐traditional interface is compared with a more traditional text‐based interface? Three user groups – novices, online searching experts, and VIBE system experts – totaling 31 participants, were asked to use and compare VIBE to a more traditional text‐based system, askSam. No significant differences were found; however, significant performance differences were found for some tasks on the two systems. Participants understood the basic principles underlying VIBE although they generally favored the askSam system. The findings suggest that VIBE is a learnable system and its components have pragmatic application to the development of visualized information retrieval systems. Further research is recommended to maximize the retrieval potential of IR visualization systems.
The role of predisposing and moderating factors in the stress-illness relationship.

Longitudinal data on 267 married couples are used to examine the interrelationships among predisposing factors, stress, moderating factors, and subsequent functioning. A model of the stress process that considers spouse symptoms and coping was estimated separately for three functioning criteria (depressed mood, physical symptoms, and alcohol, consumption) and across gender groups. Predisposing factors such as low social status and poor initialfunctioning were related to higher levels of stress. Women were more responsive to stressors and social resources (family support) than were men. The stress-illness relationship was strengthened by the use of avoidance coping responses, particularly if both partners relied on avoidance coping. There were no stress-buffering effects offamily support. The associations between self-esteem, coping responses, and later functioning depended on the partner's corresponding coping levels. These findings underscore the value of considering a significant other's symptoms and behavior as salient aspects of the stress process.
Circumcision of the young infant in a developing country using the Plastibell™

Summary Circumcision of the male infant by conventional methods is common practice in Tanzania. This study reports the use of the Plastibell™ to circumcise 386 young infants between 1992 and 1998 and shows differences in age at circumcision between African and Asian infants. The Plastibell™ has been found to be cheap and easy to use and was associated with minor, remediable complications in less than 3% of infants.
Dominant Sets for “Constrained” Image Segmentation

Image segmentation has come a long way since the early days of computer vision, and still remains a challenging task. Modern variations of the classical (purely bottom-up) approach, involve, e.g., some form of user assistance (interactive segmentation) or ask for the simultaneous segmentation of two or more images (co-segmentation). At an abstract level, all these variants can be thought of as “constrained” versions of the original formulation, whereby the segmentation process is guided by some external source of information. In this paper, we propose a new approach to tackle this kind of problems in a unified way. Our work is based on some properties of a family of quadratic optimization problems related to dominant sets, a graph-theoretic notion of a cluster which generalizes the concept of a maximal clique to edge-weighted graphs. In particular, we show that by properly controlling a regularization parameter which determines the structure and the scale of the underlying problem, we are in a position to extract groups of dominant-set clusters that are constrained to contain predefined elements. In particular, we shall focus on interactive segmentation and co-segmentation (in both the unsupervised and the interactive versions). The proposed algorithm can deal naturally with several types of constraints and input modalities, including scribbles, sloppy contours and bounding boxes, and is able to robustly handle noisy annotations on the part of the user. Experiments on standard benchmark datasets show the effectiveness of our approach as compared to state-of-the-art algorithms on a variety of natural images under several input conditions and constraints.
Incorporation of Oleic Acid into Lipid by Foam Cells in Human Atherosclerotic Lesions

The incorporation of 14C-labeled oleic acid into phospholipid, cholesterol ester, and triglyceride in human arterial intima (normal and atherosclerotic) obtained from kidney transplant donors has been investigated in vitro. Most of the oleic acid was incorporated into phospholipid, in both the normal intima and the atherosclerotic lesion, but a greater proportion of label was diverted to cholesterol ester in the lesion. Representative sections of the vessels used for metabolic studies were taken for radioautography, and these demonstrated localization of 14C to foam cells, but very little localization in the region of spindle-shaped cells. It was concluded that lipid synthesis in the human atherosclerotic lesion takes place predominantly in the intimal foam cells.
Anatomical and morphological variability of needles of Pinus mugo Turra on different substrata in the Tatra Mountains

Pinus mugo is an extremely tolerant species in relation to habitat and has a great ability to adapt to various environmental conditions. The aim of this study was to compare the level of morphological and anatomical variation of needles of P. mugo growing on different substrata (limestone, granite and peat bog). The material was collected in the Tatra Mts. from three natural populations: G‡adkie Up‡aziaaeskie slope, G"sienicowa Valley (E slope near Czarny Staw G"sienicowy) and Polana Waksmundzka peat bog. Thirteen quantitative traits were examined. The results indicate that the populations significantly differed from each other, while variation within populations was low and on a similar level, irrespective of the kind of habitat.
Determination of the burden of care in families of cardiac surgery patients.

"Burden of care" is a term that describes the effects of the multifaceted stressors associated with providing care to an ill family member. Descriptions of burden of care in acute care populations, such as families of patients who have had coronary artery bypass grafting, are very limited. The three purposes of this study were to describe the burden of care in families of coronary artery bypass grafting surgery patients, to compare the burden of care in families grouped by length of stay, and to provide evidence for the validity of the Caregiving Burden Scale in acute care populations. A survey was done using a longitudinal design over the first six weeks following coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. The 124 spouses of coronary artery bypass grafting surgery patients who participated reported a moderate degree of burden in caring for post cardiac surgery family members. Providing emotional support, taking over household tasks, and monitoring patients' conditions created the greatest burden for the participants. Length of stay in hospital did not have an impact on burden of care. The analysis of the data supports the validity of the Care-giving Burden Scale when used in the cardiac surgery population. (Prog Cardiovasc).
BRCA 1 DNA-Binding Activity Is Stimulated by BARD 1

The breastand ovarian-specific tumor suppressor BRCA1 has been implicated in numerous cellular processes, including transcription, ubiquitination, and DNA repair. Its tumor suppression activity is tightly linked to that of BARD1, a protein that heterodimerizes with BRCA1. It has been previously shown that BRCA1 binds to DNA, an interesting functional observation in light of the genetic data linking BRCA1 to DNA repair pathways. In this work, we reexamine the DNA-binding properties of BRCA1, comparing them with the DNA-binding properties of the BRCA1/BARD1 heterodimer. Because nuclear BRCA1 exists as a heterodimer with BARD1, it is likely that in vitro studies of the heterodimer will provide a more accurate model of physiologic conditions. Our results indicate that whereas BARD1 cannot directly bind DNA, it does enhance DNA binding by BRCA1. This is a surprising observation as both DNA-binding domains are distal to the BARD1-interacting RING domain of BRCA1. Further analysis of the dimerization reveals that the BRCA1/ BARD1 interaction is not limited to the amino-terminal RING domains of each protein. The carboxyl terminus of BRCA1 contributes significantly to the stability of the heterodimer. We also show that the presence of BARD1 has a secondary effect, as autoubiquitination of BRCA1/BARD1 heterodimers additionally enhances the affinity of BRCA1 for DNA. Together, these data suggest that BRCA1 and BARD1 heterodimerization is stabilized via domains not previously thought to interact and that BARD1 acts in both ubiquitination-dependent and ubiquitination-independent ways to influence the role of BRCA1 in DNA repair. (Cancer Res 2006; 66(4): 2012-8)
Awards: A strategic management perspective

Research summary: Awards are a valuable strategic resource. Motivation theory and the emerging body of empirical literature suggest that awards can have a significant effect on employee motivation and corporate performance, though not always in the intended direction. Awards can also destroy value. The organizational award literature has so far largely neglected this important issue. We develop a synthesis of the dimensions critical for successful award bestowals, and analyze under which conditions awards generate firm-specific value that is sustained and difficult for competitors to imitate. The process of value creation and capture is contingent on the given firm's organizational characteristics and nature of production. The article concludes by laying out empirical implications. JEL codes: M52, M54, J24, J30. Managerial summary: Awards are widely used in the corporate sector. They fundamentally differ from monetary incentives, which risk crowding out employees' intrinsic motivation. Among the variety of awards, two general types can be distinguished: confirmatory awards based on explicit, pre-determined performance criteria, and discretionary awards, which rely on broad performance evaluations and may be used ex post to honor outstanding performance. Appropriately designed and adjusted to the specific firm's characteristics, awards enhance employees' motivation and corporate performance. They express recognition and support their recipients' perceived competence and social status. Awards help to retain valuable employees and to establish role models. However, awards may also backfire, for instance, when they provoke envy among coworkers. We propose when awards risk destroying value and when they are particularly useful. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Biological validation of increased schizophrenia risk with NRG1, ERBB4, and AKT1 epistasis via functional neuroimaging in healthy controls.

CONTEXT NRG1 is a schizophrenia candidate gene and plays an important role in brain development and neural function. Schizophrenia is a complex disorder, with etiology likely due to epistasis. OBJECTIVE To examine epistasis between NRG1 and selected N-methyl-d-aspartate-glutamate pathway partners implicated in its effects, including ERBB4, AKT1, DLG4, NOS1, and NOS1AP. DESIGN Schizophrenia case-control sample analyzed using machine learning algorithms and logistic regression with follow-up using neuroimaging on an independent sample of healthy controls. PARTICIPANTS A referred sample of schizophrenic patients (n = 296) meeting DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia spectrum disorder and a volunteer sample of controls for case-control comparison (n = 365) and a separate volunteer sample of controls for neuroimaging (n = 172). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Epistatic association between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and case-control status; epistatic association between SNPs and the blood oxygen level-dependent physiological response during working memory measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging. RESULTS We observed interaction between NRG1 5' and 3' SNPs rs4560751 and rs3802160 (likelihood ratio test P = .00020) and schizophrenia, which was validated using functional magnetic resonance imaging of working memory in healthy controls; carriers of risk-associated genotypes showed inefficient processing in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (P = .015, familywise error corrected). We observed epistasis between NRG1 (rs10503929; Thr286/289/294Met) and its receptor ERBB4 (rs1026882; likelihood ratio test P = .035); a 3-way interaction with these 2 SNPs and AKT1 (rs2494734) was also observed (odds ratio, 27.13; 95% confidence interval, 3.30-223.03; likelihood ratio test P = .042). These same 2- and 3-way interactions were further biologically validated via functional magnetic resonance imaging: healthy individuals carrying risk genotypes for NRG1 and ERBB4, or these 2 together with AKT1, were disproportionately less efficient in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex processing. Lower-level interactions were not observed between NRG1 /ERBB4 and AKT1 in association or neuroimaging, consistent with biological evidence that NRG1 × ERBB4 interaction modulates downstream AKT1 signaling. CONCLUSION Our data suggest complex epistatic effects implicating an NRG1 molecular pathway in cognitive brain function and the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.
Sanctuary growth of human immunodeficiency virus in the presence of 3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) resistance to the nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors emerges very rapidly under selection in culture and in patients. In contrast, zidovudine (3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine [AZT])-resistant HIV generally emerges in patients only after more-prolonged therapy. Although HIV can be cultured from many patients shortly after the initiation of AZT treatment, characterization of the virus that is cultured generally indicates that it is sensitive to AZT. To initiate an evaluation of the mechanisms contributing to early HIV breakthrough in the presence of AZT and other nucleoside analogs, we have utilized replication-defective HIV encoding reporter genes. These recombinant HIV allow a quantitative analysis of a single cycle of infection. Results with these defective HIV indicate that early infection in the presence of AZT often results from the infection of a cell which is refractory to the antiretroviral effects of AZT. Characterization of a cell line derived from one such cell has demonstrated decreased accumulation of AZT triphosphate, increased phosphorylation of thymidine to thymidine triphosphate, and increased levels of thymidine kinase activity. In addition, AZT inhibition of replication-competent HIV infection is also significantly impaired in this cell line. Attempts to detect and characterize the mechanisms responsible for early viral infection after initiation of AZT therapy may result in the development of new strategies for prolonged suppression of viral infection prior to the emergence of drug-resistant virus.