Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dopamine Induces Apoptosis through an Oxidation-involved SAPK/JNK Activation Pathway*

Dopamine (DA) is a neurotransmitter, but it also exerts a neurotoxic effect under certain pathological conditions, including age-related neurodegeneration such as Parkinson’s disease. By using both the 293 cell line and primary neonatal rat postmitotic striatal neuron cultures, we show here that DA induces apoptosis in a time- and concentration-dependent manner. Concomitant with the apoptosis, DA activates the JNK pathway, including increases in JNK activity, phosphorylation of c-Jun, and subsequent increase in c-Jun protein. This DA-induced JNK activation precedes apoptosis and is persistently sustained during the process of apoptosis. Transient expression of a dominant negative mutant SEK1(Lys → Arg), an upstream kinase of JNK, prevents both DA-induced JNK activation and apoptosis. A dominant negative c-Jun mutant FLAGΔ169 also reduces DA-induced apoptotic cell death. Anti-oxidants N-acetylcysteine and catalase, which serve as scavengers of reactive oxygen species generated by metabolic DA oxidation, effectively block DA-induced JNK activation and subsequent apoptosis. Thus, our data suggest that DA triggers an apoptotic death program through an oxidative stress-involved JNK activation signaling pathway. Given the fact that the anti-oxidative defense system declines during aging, this molecular event may be implicated in the age-related striatal neuronal cell loss and age-related dopaminergic neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases.
A modification of the Kumaresan-Tufts methods for estimating rational impulse responses

This correspondence presents a modification of the Kumaresan-Tufts algorithm for estimating the parameters of rational impulse responses in additive white noise. The modified algorithm uses the forward and backward predictors to select the signal poles, and then combines the two sets of poles to form the final estimates. The modified algorithm exhibits an improved robustness and a smaller bias in some test cases.
Combined visual and motor disorganization in patients with schizophrenia

Cognitive impairments are difficult to relate to clinical symptoms in schizophrenia, partly due to insufficient knowledge on how cognitive impairments interact with one another. Here, we devised a new sequential pointing task requiring both visual organization and motor sequencing. Six circles were presented simultaneously on a touch screen around a fixation point. Participants pointed with the finger each circle one after the other, in synchrony with auditory tones. We used an alternating rhythmic 300/600 ms pattern so that participants performed pairs of taps separated by short intervals of 300 ms. Visual organization was manipulated by using line-segments that grouped the circles two by two, yielding three pairs of connected circles, and three pairs of unconnected circles that belonged to different pairs. This led to three experimental conditions. In the “congruent condition,” the pairs of taps had to be executed on circles grouped by connecters. In the “non congruent condition,” they were to be executed on the unconnected circles that belonged to different pairs. In a neutral condition, there were no connecters. Twenty two patients with schizophrenia with mild symptoms and 22 control participants performed a series of 30 taps in each condition. Tap pairs were counted as errors when the produced rhythm was inverted (expected rhythm 600/300 = 2; inversed rhythm <1). Error rates in patients with a high level of clinical disorganization were significantly higher in the non-congruent condition than in the two other conditions, contrary to controls and the remaining patients. The tap-tone asynchrony increased in the presence of connecters in both patient groups, but not in the controls. Patients appeared not to integrate the visual organization during the planning phase of action, leading to a large difficulty during motor execution, especially in those patients revealing difficulties in visual organization. Visual motor tapping tasks may help detect those subgroups of patients.
Synergistic Epistasis of Paraoxonase 1 (rs662 and rs85460) and Apolipoprotein E4 Genes in Pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease and Vascular Dementia

Genetic polymorphism and epistasis play a role in etiopathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD). In this case-control study, a total of 241 patients were included in the study to see the effect of paraoxonase 1 (PON1; rs662 and rs85460) and apolipoprotein E (ApoE) genes in altering the odds of having AD and VaD along with serum PON and lipid profile. The presence of at least 1 variant allele of rs662, but not rs85460, increased the risk of having AD by 1.8-fold (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.97-3.40) and VaD by 3.09-fold (95% CI: 1.4-6.9). The interaction between PON1 genes (rs662 and rs85460) and ApoE genes showed synergistic epistasis in altering the odds of significantly having both AD and VaD. On the other hand, low serum level of high-density lipoprotein and low level of serum PON activity were found associated significantly (P ≤ .001 in both cases) only in patients with VaD as compared to healthy control.
Outage Equivalence of Opportunistic Relaying and Selection Cooperation in Presence of Co-Channel Interference

In this paper, we investigate two different relay selection schemes, opportunistic relaying (OR) and selection cooperation (SC), for decode-and-forward (DF)-based relay networks consisting of a source, multiple relays, and a destination in the presence of multiple co-channel interferers, where each terminal has a single antenna and operates in a half-duplex mode. For the network, we first extend the conventional OR and SC to relay networks with the direct-path and multiple co-channel interferers, and obtain the exact and closed-form outage probability of the OR. Then, we show that the SC is equivalent to the OR in terms of outage performance for relay networks with the direct-path and multiple co-channel interferers. Finally, we show that the SC and OR are outage-optimal under the aggregate power consumption constraint at the relays for relay networks with the direct-path and multiple co-channel interferers.
Linear set-membership state estimation with unknown but bounded disturbances

In this article, we consider the problem of discrete-time linear state estimation when at every discrete instant Δ the Euclidean norm of the discrete-time disturbance ‖w(Δ)‖2 is bounded within some known value. Specifically, given a hypersphere that contains the uncertain disturbance signal w(Δ) and an ellipsoid containing the uncertain system state x(Δ) at time step Δ, a sub-optimal approach to computing a linear minimax filter which constructs a minimal ellipsoid to contain x(Δ + 1) is derived. A distinct feature of our approach when compared to earlier solutions is that both the filter and the performance bound can be pre-computed off-line.
Illumina-based RiboMethSeq approach for mapping of 2′-O-Me residues in RNA

RNA 2′-O-methylation is one of the ubiquitous nucleotide modifications found in many RNA types from Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya. RNAs bearing 2′-O-methylations show increased resistance to degradation and enhanced stability in helices. While the exact role of each 2′-O-Me residue remained elusive, the catalytic protein Fibrillarin (Nop1 in yeast) responsible for 2′-O-methylation in eukaryotes, is associated with human pathologies. Therefore, there is an urgent need to precisely map and quantify hundreds of 2′-O-Me residues in RNA using high-throughput technologies. Here, we develop a reliable protocol using alkaline fragmentation of total RNA coupled to a commonly used ligation approach, and Illumina sequencing. We describe a methodology to detect 2′-O-methylations with high sensitivity and reproducibility even with limited amount of starting material (1 ng of total RNA). The method provides a quantification of the 2′-O-methylation occupancy of a given site, allowing to detect relatively small changes (>10%) in 2′-O-methylation profiles. Altogether this technique unlocks a technological barrier since it will be applicable for routine parallel treatment of biological and clinical samples to decipher the functions of 2′-O-methylations in pathologies.
What happened to the human mind after the Howiesons Poort?

The authors deliver a decisive blow to the idea of unidirectional behavioural and cognitive evolution in this tightly argued account of why the bow and arrow was invented and then possibly laid aside by Middle Stone Age communities in southern Africa. Finding that all are modern humans (Homo sapiens), they paint a picture of diverse strategies for survival and development from 75 000 years ago onwards. It is one in which material inventions can come and go, human societies negotiating their own paths through a rugged mental landscape of opportunity.
Ausgewählte Befunde zur Situation der Hochschulabsolventen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Jahre 1979. Zusammenfassung empirischer Ergebnisse aus einer Repräsentativ-Befragung der Infratest Wirtschaftsforschung GmbH., München

"In einem mehrstufigen Verfahren hat das Infratest-Institut, Munchen, im Herbst 1978 und im Fruhjahr 1979 eine ReprasentativBefragung bei Hochschulabsolventen durchgefuhrt. Die Untersuchung war als sog. Omnibus-Erhebung" angelegt. Das IAB hat sich daran mit vier Themenbereichen beteiligt. Sie betrafen die Erweiterung der Qualifikation im Berufsleben, die Verwertbarkeit des erworbenen Wissens ("Praxiszug"), die "Verdrangung" von Nicht-Akademikern durch Hochschulabsolventen und die Bewertung des Studiums durch die Akademiker selbst. Die empirischen Befunde zeigen u.a. : - der Ubergang von der Hochschule in den Beruf ist zwar in den Jahren seit 1974 (Beginn der Rezession) erschwert; aber selbst in Hochkonjunkturjahren konnten die Absolventen ihre Berufswunsche nicht immer sofort realisieren; sie haben zu gewissen Anteilen auf eine erste Anstellung (teils arbeitsmarktbedingt, teils freiwillig) langer gewartet. Je nach Fachrichtung gibt es dabei verschiedene Ubergangsmuster (z.B. Chance, sich selbstandig zu machen); globale Aussagen zu ansteigenden Risiken helfen daher im Einzelfall nur wenig. - rund 44 % aller erwerbstatigen Akademiker haben von sich aus wahrend des Studiums praktisch gearbeitet, um sich auf den spateren Beruf vorzubereiten. - den jungen Hochschulabsolventen werden in verstarktem Mase Moglichkeiten geboten, ihre Qualifikation bei Berufsantritt sowie wahrend des Arbeitslebens zu erweitern, zu vertiefen oder auszubauen. - die Verwertbarkeit der im Studium erworbenen Kenntnisse wird allgemein sehr hoch eingeschatzt (79 % der Akademiker geben an, das im Studium erworbene Wissen am Arbeitsplatz zu verwerten). Probleme bestehen u.a. bei einzelnen Funktionsbereichen der Privatwirtschaft. - die Zahl der Hoschulabsolventen, die Arbeitsplatze von "Nicht-Akademikern" ubernommen haben, betragt maximal 9 % (im offentlichen Dienst nur 5 % ; in der Privatwirtschaft dagegen 22 %). Die Privatwirtschaft hat seit Beginn der 60er Jahre ihre Arbeitsplatz-Strukturen erheblich verandert. Dies fuhrte u.a. dazu in allen Funtionsbereichen mehr Akademiker einzusetzten. - die Bewertung des Hochschulstudiums richtet sich vor allem an der personlichen Lebenssituation aus. Vorstellungen, nur voll geeignete Bewerber oder solche, die praktische Berufserfahrung gesammelt haben, sollen Zugang zur Hochschule erhalten, finden insgesamt kein breites Echo. Gleiches gilt fur die Aussage, es bestunden bereits vollwertige Alternativen zum Studium an einer Hochschule. "
Nebulized or intravenous beta 2 adrenoceptor agonist therapy in acute asthma?

Nebulized salbutamol has been known to be an effective treatment of asthma for almost two decades [1] and nebulized bronchodilator therapy has now become firstline treatment of severe acute asthma in the Emergency Departments of most British hospitals [2]. This treatment was recommended as the most effective in 1972 [3J. but after the advent of intravenous salbutamol and terbutaline the choice of administering these drugs in severe acute asthma by aerosol or by the intravenous route was considered to be contentious [4), because of conflicting results of clinical trials in which the efficacy of these two routes of administration had been compared. In mild asthma it has been reported that salbutamol was more effective when inhaled than when given intravenously [5], but in the report of a study of 10 patients with severe acute asthma it was concluded that sympathomimetics should be given intravenously if the response to nebulized therapy was poor [6]. Unfortunately, in this study all 10 patients were given aerosol before intravenous salbutamol instead of being allocated at random to the two forms of treatment, and the validity of the conclusions is, therefore, open to question. Recently it was concluded that intravenous salbutamol is more effective than nebulized salbutamol in severe acute asthma, but may have unacceptable cardiovascular effects [7]. However, the design of this study has been harshly criticized on a number of counts, including patient selection and the doses of salbutamol chosen for intravenous and aerosol administration [8]. Evidence for superiority of the intravenous route of administration of be~ adrenoreceptor agonists is sparse and based mainly upon poorly designed studies. The case for nebulized salbutamol is much stronger. In a doubleblind, parallel group study of 16 patients with severe asthma, nebulized salbutamol was considered to be superior to intravenous treatment because it produced fewer unwanted cardiovascular effects, but efficacy of the two routes of administration was similar [9]. The same conclusion was reached after a double-blind, crossover study of 22 episodes of life-threatening asthma in which all patients received intravenous and nebulized salbutamol, the treatment order being randomized [10]. The multicentre study organized by the Swedish Society of Chest Medicine [11] provides definitive evidence of the superiority of the inhaled route of salbu-
Breastfeeding support and early cessation.

OBJECTIVE To examine the types of help women received with breastfeeding both in the hospital and at home and the reasons why women stopped breastfeeding earlier than intended. DESIGN A descriptive design with open-ended questions. SETTING After participant recruitment in the postpartum hospital room, data were collected by phone 8 weeks after delivery. PATIENTS/PARTICIPANTS Three hundred seventy-nine women planning to breastfeed for at least 8 weeks after uncomplicated delivery. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Breastfeeding status at 8 weeks postpartum; report of help with breastfeeding in the hospital and at home. RESULTS Sixty-eight percent of women were still breastfeeding at 8 weeks, although 37% of those reported supplementing with formula. Of those who had stopped, the most common reason was insufficient milk supply. Other reasons included painful nipples and latch problems, personal reasons, returning to work or school, and drugs/illness of the mother or baby. Most women received help with breastfeeding in the hospital, but only 55% received help with breastfeeding after hospital discharge. CONCLUSIONS The primary reasons for early cessation of breastfeeding are amenable to nursing intervention. Every opportunity should be taken to address these issues both in the hospital and through follow-up calls.
Lattice Green's functions in all dimensions

We give a systematic treatment of lattice Green's functions (LGF) on the d-dimensional diamond, simple cubic, body-centred cubic and face-centred cubic lattices for arbitrary dimensionality d ⩾ 2 for the first three lattices, and for 2 ⩽ d ⩽ 5 for the hyper-fcc lattice. We show that there is a close connection between the LGF of the d-dimensional hyper-cubic lattice and that of the (d − 1)-dimensional diamond lattice. We give constant-term formulations of LGFs for each of these lattices in all dimensions. Through a still under-developed connection with Mahler measures, we point out an unexpected connection between the coefficients of the sc, bcc and diamond LGFs and some Ramanujan-type formulae for 1/π.
Prevalence of Transmitted HIV-1 Drug Resistance Mutations in Children and Adolescents in São Paulo, Brazil

HIV drug resistance genotype testing, performed on 39 HIV-infected treatment-naive children from 2000 to 2011, identified 5 children (12.8%) with drug resistance mutations: 5.3% to nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, 5.3% to nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and 7.7% to protease inhibitors. There was a trend for increasing prevalence of drug resistance mutations during the 11-year study period.
Instructions Emphasizing Velocity, Accuracy, or Both in Performance and Kinematics of Overarm Throwing by Experienced Team Handball Players

On motor tasks like the overarm throw, velocity and accuracy are two important parameters of performance that may be incompatible and require different strategies in the execution of the motor task. The purpose was to investigate the effects of instruction (emphasizing velocity, accuracy, or both) on performance and kinematics of overarm throwing. Results for 9 experienced male team handball players (M age = 24 ± 2.2 yr.) showed type of instruction affected the maximal ball velocity. The difference in ball velocity reflected the significant difference in maximal linear velocity of the wrist, elbow, and hip segments together with their absolute timing before ball release. The subjects did not seem to change their throwing technique, i.e., the relative timing of movement initiation of the different body segments.
Vaccine and Monoclonal Antibody That Enhance Mouse Resistance to Candidiasis

ABSTRACT Previously we showed that antibodies specific for the glycan β-1,2-mannotriose [β-(Man)3] on the cell surface of Candida albicans protect mice against disseminated candidiasis (H. Xin, S. Dziadek, D. R. Bundle, and J. E. Cutler, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 105:13526–13531, 2008). Furthermore, six 14-mer peptides that are within the N-terminal portion of C. albicans wall proteins were conjugated to the glycan in an attempt to create immunogenic glycopeptide conjugates. By a dendritic cell (DC)-based immunization approach, all were immunogenic and three of the six conjugates induced a high degree of protection in mice. Interestingly, whereas all six peptides induced antibody responses when used alone to pulse DCs for subsequent immunizations, three peptides induced protection, and one in particular, peptide Fba (derived from fructose-bisphosphate aldolase), induced robust protective responses and is the focus of the current work. Fba peptide is not restricted by the major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC-II), as it induced anti-Fba antibodies in mice of different H-2 haplotypes and in rabbits. Furthermore, the peptide induced protection against disease caused by different C. albicans strains. Partial protection was achieved when alum was used in place of DCs for Fba immunizations. The passive transfer of immune sera from Fba-vaccinated mice, but not immune serum preabsorbed with fungal cells, conferred protection in naïve mice. This result, along with our finding that a monoclonal antibody specific for the peptide, E2-9 (IgM), protected mice against candidiasis, provide strong evidence that antibodies contribute to protection. Our work demonstrates the utility of cell wall peptides alone or as glycopeptides in vaccines designed for the induction of immunity against candidiasis and monoclonal antibodies as a rapid immunoprotective approach against the disease.
The Impact of Macroeconomic Variables on Non-Oil Exports Performance in Nigeria, 1986-2010

This study investigated the impact of macroeconomic variables on the performance of the Nigerian economy from 1986-2010. In carrying out the study we employed the ordinary least square (OLS) and co-integration test analysis based on the Engle Grenger (1987) co-integration analysis, in order to establish a long run relationship among the variables employed in this study. The study was guided by four research objectives and hypotheses. Given the influences other variables have on the performance of the Nigerian economy, we discriminately incorporated non-oil export, agricultural sector, manufacturing sub-sector and gross domestic product as the dependent variables while exchange rate, interest rate, government capital expenditure and government recurrent expenditure were the independent variables. The result of our analysis indicates that exchange rate, government capital expenditure and government recurrent expenditure are positively related to non-oil export, agricultural sector, manufacturing sub-sector and gross domestic product, while interest rate is negatively related to non-oil export, agricultural sector, manufacturing sub-sector and gross domestic product. The four formulated null hypotheses were rejected while the alternative hypotheses were accepted. Based on the findings of this study, we therefore recommended that investment should be increased in the areas of non-oil exports, agricultural sector and manufacturing sub sector because our result shows that they are related to the macroeconomic variables used except interest rate. Though government capital and recurrent expenditures, maintained positive relationship with non-oil exports, agricultural sector, manufacturing sub-sector and gross domestic product but had made very, almost insignificant impact on them, therefore government should increase the budget allocation of capital and recurrent expenditures and continue to force down interest rate in order to attract potential investors. Government should increase lending to agricultural sector and manufacturing sub-sector and also place less emphasis on oil sector so as to concentrate more on other aspects of the real sector of the economy. This is because increase in real sector investment, reduction in interest rate, increase budgetary allocation to government capital and recurrent expenditures are ways of improving the performance of the Nigerian economy. Keywords: Non-Oil Export, Exchange Rate, Interest Rate, Gross Domestic Product Government Capital and Recurrent Expenditure.
Joint Training of Expanded End-to-End DNN for Text-Dependent Speaker Verification

We propose an expanded end-to-end DNN architecture for speaker verification based on b-vectors as well as d-vectors. We embedded the components of a speaker verification system such as modeling frame-level features, extracting utterance-level features, dimensionality reduction of utterance-level features, and trial-level scoring in an expanded end-to-end DNN architecture. The main contribution of this paper is that, instead of using DNNs as parts of the system trained independently, we train the whole system jointly with a fine-tune cost after pre-training each part. The experimental results show that the proposed system outperforms the baseline d-vector system and i-vector PLDA system.