Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Loss of synaptophysin‐positive boutons on lumbar motor neurons innervating the medial gastrocnemius muscle of the SOD1G93A G1H transgenic mouse model of ALS

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a common form of motor neuron disease (MND) that involves both upper and lower nervous systems. In the SOD1G93A G1H transgenic mouse, a widely used animal model of human ALS, a significant pathology is linked to the degeneration of lower motor neurons in the lumbar spinal cord and brainstem. In the current study, the number of presynaptic boutons immunoreactive for synaptophysin was estimated on retrogradely labeled soma and proximal dendrites of α and γ motor neurons innervating the medial gastrocnemius muscle. No changes were detected on both soma and proximal dendrites at postnatal day 60 (P60) of α and γ motor neurons. By P90 and P120, however, α motor neuron soma had a reduction of 14 and 33% and a dendritic reduction of 19 and 36%, respectively. By P90 and P120, γ motor neuron soma had a reduction of 17 and 41% and a dendritic reduction of 19 and 35%, respectively. This study shows that levels of afferent innervation significantly decreased on surviving α and γ motor neurons that innervate the medial gastrocnemius muscle. This finding suggests that the loss of motor neurons and the decrease of synaptophysin in the remaining motor neurons could lead to functional motor deficits, which may contribute significantly to the progression of ALS/MND. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Psychotropic medications for patients with bipolar disorder in the United States: polytherapy and adherence.

OBJECTIVE Because treatments for bipolar disorder include a growing number of psychotropic agents, the authors evaluated psychotropic polytherapy and adherence to treatment among U.S. patients with bipolar disorder. METHODS National health plan claims data (2000-2004) were used to identify patients diagnosed as having bipolar disorder who had continuous benefits and had not been prescribed medication for bipolar disorder for six months or more. The study compared drugs dispensed to these patients initially and at one year and characterized patients who were adherent to mood-stabilizers. RESULTS A total of 7,406 patients had a bipolar disorder: bipolar I (55%), bipolar II (15%), or bipolar disorder not otherwise specified (30%). Women represented 57% of the sample; mean+/-SD age was 35.4+/-12.4 years. Initial prescription fills involved one psychotropic agent in 67% of patients, and two or more psychotropics (polytherapy) in 33%. Initial prescription drug selections involved: antidepressants > anticonvulsants >or= antipsychotics > sedatives > lithium; initial mood stabilizer use ranked: valproate > lithium > carbamazepine or oxcarbazepine > lamotrigine; antipsychotics ranked: olanzapine > quetiapine >or= risperidone > ziprasidone > aripiprazole > clozapine. Rankings were similar at one year, when only 31% of patients received monotherapy (a 2.2-fold decline), 32% received polytherapy, and 37% received no psychotropics. Initially patients received 1.42 psychotropic drugs per person; at one year, patients received 175, and at both times polytherapy was less likely with lithium than with anticonvulsants. In multivariate modeling, one-year mood stabilizer use was greater with the following: older age, type of mood stabilizer (lamotrigine > valproate > carbamazepine or oxcarbazepine > lithium) and was associated with more psychiatric office and emergency visits, clinician type (more common with psychiatrists than with primary care physicians), and nonuse of off-label anticonvulsants. CONCLUSIONS Polytherapy was used by one-third of patients initially and at one year, antidepressant use was highly prevalent initially and later, but lack of treatment was prevalent at one year. Plausible clinical and treatment factors were associated with sustained mood stabilizer adherence.
Distinct regulation of IL-8 and MCP-1 by LPS and interferon-gamma-treated human peritoneal macrophages.

BACKGROUND Interleukin-8 and monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) are major leukocyte chemoattractants during bacterial peritonitis by recruiting neutrophils and monocytes/macrophages respectively. METHODS Peritoneal macrophages (PM) from 12 different CAPD patients with peritonitis were stimulated with either 10 ng/ml LPS, 10 ng/ml IFN-gamma or LPS+IFN-gamma, and IL-8 and MCP-1 production was determined on protein and mRNA levels by using ELISA technique and Northern blot analysis. To obtain information from two different stages of activation, experiments were done with highly activated PM directly after isolation and with cells after 10 days in culture, each group being stimulated for 4 h. Unstimulated cells served as control. RESULTS Immediately after isolation IL-8 mRNA-expression and synthesis was high and could be further increased by LPS stimulation, whereas IFN-gamma treatment showed no significant influence. The levels of MCP-1 were also initially high but could not be further stimulated by LPS, whereas addition of IFN-gamma resulted in a significant rise in MCP-1 synthesis. After 10 days in culture LPS-stimulation of cells again revealed a significant increase in IL 8 protein synthesis, whereas IFN-gamma showed no effect. LPS anergy for MCP-1 was still seen in PM after 10 days in culture, and IFN-gamma treatment again induced a significant rise in MCP-1 synthesis. The overall production of both chemokines was far higher on day 1 compared to day 10. CONCLUSION Our data show differences in LPS/IFN-gamma regulation for IL-8 and MCP-1 in both highly activated and in resting, mature peritoneal macrophages, suggesting distinct pathways for these chemokines that may offer a means of control for the specific recruitment of neutrophils and monocytes/macrophages in bacterial peritonitis.
Real-time Visual-Inertial Odometry for Event Cameras using Keyframe-based Nonlinear Optimization

Event cameras are bio-inspired vision sensors that output pixel-level brightness changes instead of standard intensity frames. They offer significant advantages over standard cameras, namely a very high dynamic range, no motion blur, and a latency in the order of microseconds. We propose a novel, accurate tightly-coupled visual-inertial odom- etry pipeline for such cameras that leverages their outstanding properties to estimate the camera ego-motion in challenging conditions, such as high-speed motion or high dynamic range scenes. The method tracks a set of features (extracted on the image plane) through time. To achieve that, we consider events in overlapping spatio-temporal windows and align them using the current camera motion and scene structure, yielding motion-compensated event frames. We then combine these feature tracks in a keyframe- based, visual-inertial odometry algorithm based on nonlinear optimization to estimate the camera’s 6-DOF pose, velocity, and IMU biases. The proposed method is evaluated quantitatively on the public Event Camera Dataset [19] and significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art [28], while being computationally much more efficient: our pipeline can run much faster than real-time on a laptop and even on a smartphone processor. Fur- thermore, we demonstrate qualitatively the accuracy and robustness of our pipeline on a large-scale dataset, and an extremely high-speed dataset recorded by spinning an event camera on a leash at 850 deg/s.
The evolution of tissue migration by parasitic nematode larvae

SUMMARY Migration by nematode larvae through the tissues of their mammalian hosts can cause considerable pathology, and yet the evolutionary factors responsible for this migratory behaviour are poorly understood. The behaviour is particularly paradoxical in genera such as Ascaris and Strongylus in which larvae undergo extensive migrations which begin and end in the same location. The orthodox explanation for this apparently pointless behaviour is that a tissue phase is a developmental requirement following the evolutionary loss of skin penetration or intermediate hosts. Yet tissue migration is not always necessary for development, and navigation and survival in an array of different habitats must require costly biochemical and morphological adaptations. Migrating larvae also risk becoming lost or killed by the host. Natural selection should therefore remove such behaviour unless there are compensating benefits. Here we propose that migration is a selectively advantageous life-history strategy. We show that taxa exploiting tissue habitats during development are, on average, bigger than their closest relatives that develop wholly in the gastrointestinal tract. Time to reproduction is the same, indicating that worms with a tissue phase during development grow faster. This previously unsuspected association between juvenile habitat and size is independent of any effects of adult habitat, life-cycle, or host size, generation time or diet. Because fecundity is intimately linked with size in nematodes, this provides an explanation for the maintenance of tissue migration by natural selection, analogous to the pre-spawning migrations of salmon.
The non-receptor tyrosine kinase Ack1 regulates the fate of activated EGFR by inducing trafficking to the p62/NBR1 pre-autophagosome

ABSTRACT Growth factor signalling regulates multiple cellular functions and its misregulation has been linked to the development and progression of cancer. Ack1 (activated Cdc42-associated kinase 1, also known as TNK2) is a non-receptor tyrosine kinase that has been implicated in trafficking and degradation of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), yet its precise functions remain elusive. In this report, we investigate the role of Ack1 in EGFR trafficking and show that Ack1 partially colocalises to Atg16L-positive structures upon stimulation with EGF. These structures are proposed to be the isolation membranes that arise during formation of autophagosomes. In addition, we find that Ack1 colocalises and interacts with sequestosome 1 (p62/SQSTM1), a receptor for selective autophagy, through a ubiquitin-associated domain, and this interaction decreases upon treatment with EGF, thus suggesting that Ack1 moves away from p62/SQSTM1 compartments. Furthermore, Ack1 interacts and colocalises with NBR1, another autophagic receptor, and this colocalisation is enhanced in the presence of ectopically expressed p62/SQSTM1. Finally, knockdown of Ack1 results in accelerated localisation of EGFR to lysosomes upon treatment with EGF. Structure–function analyses of a panel of Ack1 deletion mutants revealed key mechanistic aspects of these relationships. The Mig6-homology domain and clathrin-binding domain both contribute to colocalisation with EGFR, whereas the UBA domain is essential for colocalisation with p62/SQSTM1, but not NBR1. Taken together, our studies demonstrate a novel role for Ack1 in diverting activated EGFR into a non-canonical degradative pathway, marked by association with p62/SQSTM1, NBR1 and Atg16L.
Vehicle Type Classification Using Unsupervised Convolutional Neural Network

In this paper, we propose an appearance-based vehicle type classification method from vehicle frontal view images. Unlike other methods using hand-crafted visual features, our method is able to automatically learn good features for vehicle type classification by using a convolutional neural network. In order to capture rich and discriminative information of vehicles, the network is pre-trained by the sparse filtering which is an unsupervised learning method. Besides, the network is with layer-skipping to ensure that final features contain both high-level global and low-level local features. After the final features are obtained, the soft max regression is used to classify vehicle types. We build a challenging vehicle dataset called BIT-Vehicle dataset to evaluate the performance of our method. Experimental results on a public dataset and our own dataset demonstrate that our method is quite effective in classifying vehicle types.
The quenched limiting distributions of a charged-polymer model

The limit distributions of the charged-polymer Hamiltonian of Kantor and Kardar [Bernoulli case] and Derrida, Griffiths and Higgs [Gaussian case] are considered. Two sources of randomness enter in the definition: a random field $q= (q_i)_{i\geq 1}$ of i.i. d. random variables (called random charges) and a random walk $S = (S_n)_{n \in \mathbb{N}}$ evolving in $\mathbb{Z}^d$, independent of the charges. The energy or Hamiltonian $K = (K_n)_{n \geq 2}$ is then defined as $$K_n := \sum_{1\leq i < j\leq n} q_i q_j {\bf 1}_{\{S_i=S_j\}}. $$ The law of $K$ under the joint law of $q$ and $S$ is called "annealed", and the conditional law given $q$ is called "quenched". Recently, strong approximations under the annealed law were proved for $K$. In this paper we consider the limit distributions of $K$ under the quenched law.
The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Spathiphyllum cannifolium

Abstract We reported and characterized the complete nucleotide sequence of the Spathiphyllum cannifolium chloroplast (cp) genome in this study. The circular molecule of the cp genome is 171,420 bp containing a pair of 31,460 bp IR regions, separated by a small single-copy region (SSC) of 16,331 bp and a large single-copy region (LSC) of 92,169 bp, respectively. A total of 132 genes were successfully annotated in the cp genome, including 87 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes, and 8 rRNA genes. The G + C content of the whole cp genome is 35.62%, while the LSC, SSC, and IR region are 33.94, 28.02, and 40.05%, respectively.
Negative-pressure wound therapy in the treatment of complex postoperative spinal wound infections: complications and lessons learned using vacuum-assisted closure.

OBJECT Deep infections of the spine are a significant cause of morbidity and death. Such infections complicate 0.7 to 11.9% of spinal procedures. Management includes intravenous antibiotic therapy, debridement and irrigation with primary closure, placement of drains, use of irrigation systems, and/or healing through secondary intention with wound packing. Vacuum-assisted closure (VAC) is a new alternative for treatment of patients with complex postoperative spinal infections. The aim of this study was to investigate the safety of this treatment method in this patient population. METHODS The authors reviewed the charts of 16 consecutive patients treated with negative-pressure wound therapy at their institution between 2002 and 2006. All had deep infections of the spine and were treated with surgical debridement and placement of VAC dressings. All infections were postoperative. Members of the infectious disease service were involved in the care of all patients, and all patients received intravenous antibiotic therapy. The authors reviewed operative notes, discharge summaries, and notes from follow-up visits and assessed outcome on the basis of the same records. Three patients were lost to follow up, leaving a group of 13 with follow up of at least 90 days. Two patients experienced bleeding complications related to the continuous negative pressure of the VAC device. In two cases, the infections persisted and required reoperation. In one case, a skin graft was required because of nonhealing granulation tissue. One of the patients with bleeding complications died as a result of delayed complications related to intraoperative blood loss, blood loss via the VAC system, and refusal of a blood transfusion on religious grounds. CONCLUSIONS Negative-pressure wound therapy has been employed as a treatment strategy for patients with complex postoperative spinal infections, but little is known of the complications associated with VAC in the spinal surgery patient population. Serious complications, including death, may be associated with use of the VAC system.
The Entrepreneurial Developmental State: What is the Perceived Impact of South Korea’s Creative Economy Action Plan on Entrepreneurial Activity?

ABSTRACT State support for start-ups and entrepreneurship is increasingly common, with governments worldwide experimenting with different initiatives to support innovative businesses. In this article, we conceptualise and assess the South Korean government’s turn towards supporting entrepreneurship as a manifestation of what we label the entrepreneurial developmental state. Using the case of the Park Geun-hye government’s Creative Economy Action Plan, we assess the effectiveness of South Korea’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, and find that the Plan has contributed to an increase in both the quantity and quality of entrepreneurial activity. We then analyse the perceived effects of the Plan on the evolution of South Korea’s ecosystem, which the private sector consider to be mostly positive. This way, we provide new empirical evidence about the performance of the contemporary developmental state, showing that industrial policy can effectively promote small firms and entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Somatosensory input and thalamic projection of pedunculopontine tegmental neurons

The cholinergic pedunculopontine tegmental area of the anesthetized rat was explored for single units responsive to somatosensory stimulation. Units projecting to the intralaminar thalamus were identified by antidromic stimulation. Approximately one half of the somatosensory units consisted of low threshold units responsive to light tapping and stroking; the others were high threshold mechanoreceptive units. Most receptive fields were tri- geminal and contralateral. These results suggest that somatosensory information is an important element in a subcortical system linking this area with the basal ganglia, superior colliculus and thalamus.
Differentiation of Y Chromosome in the X1X1X2X2/X1X2Y Sex Chromosome System of Hoplias malabaricus (Characiformes, Erythrinidae)

Six populations of Hoplias malabaricus from the Lower Paranapanema River were studied and showed 2n = 40 with metacentric/submetacentric chromosomes for females and 2n = 39 with m/sm chromosomes for males, thereby revealing a multiple sex chromosome system of the X1X1X2X2/X1X2Y type. The Y chromosome was the largest metacentric chromosome in all karyotypes. The heterochromatic blocks were located in a pericentromeric region of all pairs and in telomeric regions in some other pairs. A conspicuous pericentromeric C-band was detected in a single pair, equivalent to the X1 chromosome. No markers on X2 chromosomes were detected, but they could be identified by their size. The females displayed the same distribution of C and chromomycin A3 bands and 18S rDNA sites among the populations. However, the males exhibited differences in both number and position of Giemsa C-bands on the Y chromosome, which were also evident after Chromomycin A3 banding and FISH with the 18S rDNA probe. These cytogenetic tools allowed for the identification of possible mechanisms involved in the differentiation and evolution of the Y chromosome.
The Generation Effect in Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment

The generation effect (GE) has been proven as an effective technique to improve learning and memory in healthy and clinical populations. However, it has not been found with meaningless materials such as pseudowords. Several hypotheses postulate the participation of semantic memory in the information-generating process. There is indeed a clear decrease in the effect in patients with serious semantic memory disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) but, if this is correct, other patients whose memory disorders are not so serious, such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI), should show GE to some extent. To test this hypothesis, we examined 54 participants (18 healthy adults, 18 patients with AD, and 18 with MCI) in a task involving reading and completion of phrases. Results show a decreased (although obvious) GE in patients with MCI. Likewise, results indicate that greater semantic damage will lead to poorer performance with less familiar stimuli or low-frequency words.
Ambiguous Hydraulic Heads and 14C Activities in Transient Regional Flow

A regional flow and transport model is used to explore the implications of significant variability in Pleistocene and Holocene climates on hydraulic heads and 14C activity. Simulations involve a 39 km slice of the Death Valley Flow System through Yucca Mountain toward the Amargosa Desert. The long‐time scale over which infiltration has changed (tens‐of‐thousands of years) is matched by the large physical extent of the flow system (many tens‐of‐kilometers). Estimated paleo‐infiltration rates were estimated using a juniper pollen percentage that extends from the last interglacial (LIG) period (approximately 120 kyrbp) to present. Flow and 14C transport simulations show that groundwater flow changes markedly as a function of paleoclimate. At the last glacial maximum (LGM, 21 kyrbp), the recharge to the flow system was about an order‐of‐magnitude higher than present, and water table was more than 100 m higher. With large basin time constants, flow is complicated because hydraulic heads at a given location reflect conditions of the past, but at another location the flow may reflect present conditions. This complexity is also manifested by processes that depend on flow, for example 14C transport. Without a model that accounts for the historical transients in recharge for at least the last 20,000 years, there is no simple way to deconvolve the 14C dates to explain patterns of flow.
Distribution of zinedin in the rat brain

Members of the striatin family are scaffolding proteins involved in numerous signaling pathways principally in neurons. Zinedin is the only member of this protein family for which the brain distribution has not been determined so far. Here, we have validated a specific antibody against zinedin and used this tool to study the localization of zinedin at cellular and sub‐cellular levels in the rat brain. Zinedin is primarily expressed in neurons of the hippocampus, cerebral cortex, olfactory bulb and caudate putamen nucleus. Like other members of the striatin family, zinedin displays a polarized distribution in the somato‐dendritic compartment of neurons and is enriched in dendritic spines. The rostral expression of zinedin as well as its compartmented distribution in dendritic spines may have important implications not only for zinedin function but also in the physiology of dendritic spines of a particular subset of neurons.
International Sourcing in Finland and Sweden

Finland and Sweden are deeply engaged with New Globalization, which is characterized by geographically fragmented production and intense cross-border knowledge flows. Although a popular uproar has brought the steady deepening of this phenomenon to a halt, it is not about to reverse. The consequences of this new era are not well understood due to the complexity of both its actual operations, global value chains, and its key actors, multinational enterprises. The flows and structures of this new era are deeply interconnected in ways that are often uncovered only when they are disrupted by, e.g., natural catastrophes or sudden policy changes. New Globalization both underlines the importance of the age-old principles of good policy conduct and bring about new challenges. Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation, and its Swedish sister organization VINNOVA joined forces in 2014 to study the renewing manufacturing industries. Under this umbrella, Tekes and VINNOVA supported half a dozen international research projects, including our Intangibles and International Sourcing (acronym: InSource). This book is the final report of our InSource project. We wish to thank Tekes and VINNOVA for their support!
Comfort Measures Only

Despite how frequently we say “comfort measures only” (CMO) in the hospital setting, review of the medical literature yields poor representation and definition of the term. Through a survey in our hospital center, we aimed at understanding what doctors understand as CMO. A total of 176 physicians responded to the survey. We asked them about the moment in the patient care timeline when to use it and what degree of respiratory support, laboratory draws, antibiotic therapy, level of care, and code status should be a part of it. Disparities in responses were the norm, and common defining characteristics were the exception.