Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Threshold Distributions of Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) in the Chinese Population a

ABSTRACT: The ability to taste phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) is a well‐documented Mendelian trait. Mapping and cloning the gene(s) responsible for the PTC tasting ability would help to delineate the molecular basis for the variations in PTC tasting ability in humans and to shed new light on taste chemosensory functions. In view of the spectacular successes in genome science, the positional cloning strategy seems to be a feasible approach to the isolation of the gene(s) underlying the PTC tasting ability. As a first step toward mapping the gene(s), we collected PTC taste threshold data on 106 individuals, most of them being university students, in Shanghai, China. Using various parametric and nonparametric statistical methods, we have found that the data set is best described by a bimodal distribution. The frequency of PTC nontasters is estimated to be 10%. This is consistent with the view that the PTC nontasting ability follows a recessive mode of inheritance. Several authors had previously reported PTC data on Chinese living outside China. Our data are, to our knowledge, the first ever collected from the Chinese population within China.
Freestanding graphene edge probes for scanning tunneling microscope

We demonstrated the fabrication of individual freestanding graphene edge probes. Graphene was prepared by thermal CVD with solid carbon sources. A Cu wire was act as the substrate for graphene growth. Follow the structure process from a micromanipulator and an optical microscope, the freestanding graphene probes was fabricated. The electron emission pattern from the graphene edge was observed, and a layered structure could be identified from field emission microscopy. The single-layer graphene emitted electrons from limited number of atoms. The graphene emitters required careful conditioning to achieve a stable emission current. Such graphene probes were applied in scanning tunneling microscopes for surface morphology detection. A preconditioned, multi-layer graphene probe presented well resolution compared with a conventional tungsten probe. Our study reveals a practical method by individual freestanding graphene in application for surface probe microscopy.
Side-branch intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms of the pancreatic head/uncinate: resection or enucleation?

INTRODUCTION Side-branch intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMN) of the pancreatic head/uncinate are an increasingly common indication for pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD). However, enucleation (EN) may be an alternative to PD in selected patients to improve outcomes and preserve pancreatic parenchyma. AIM To determine peri-operative outcomes in patients with side-branch IPMN of the pancreatic head/uncinate undergoing EN or PD compared with a cohort of patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PA) undergoing PD. METHODS Retrospective review of a prospectively collected, combined, academic institutional series from 2005 to 2008. Of 107 pancreatic head/uncinate IPMN, enucleation was performed in 7 (IPMN EN) and PD was performed in 100 (IPMN PD) with 17 of these radiographically amenable to EN (IPMN PD(en) ). During the same time period, 281 patients underwent PD for PA (Control PD). RESULTS Operative time was shorter (p<0.05) and blood loss (p<0.05) was less in the IPMN EN group compared with all other groups. Peri-operative mortality and morbidity of all IPMN groups (IPMN EN, IPMN PD(en) ) were similar to the Control PD group. Overall pancreatic fistulae rate in the IPMN EN group was higher than in the IPMN PD(en) and Control PD groups; however, the rate of grade C pancreatic fistulae was the same in all groups. CONCLUSIONS Pancreaticoduodenectomy for side-branch IPMNs can be performed safely. Compared with PD, enucleation for IPMN has less blood loss, shorter operative time and similar morbidity, mortality, hospital length of stay (LOS) and readmission rate. Enucleation should be considered more frequently as an option for patients with unifocal side-branch IPMN.
Evaluation of an Actinomycin D/VX-680 aurora kinase inhibitor combination in p53-based cyclotherapy

p53-based cyclotherapy is proving to be a promising approach to palliate undesired effects of chemotherapy in patients with tumours carrying p53 mutations. For example, pre-treatment of cell cultures with Nutlin-3, a highly-selective inhibitor of the p53-mdm2 interaction, has been successfully used as a cytostatic agent to protect normal cells, but not p53-defective cells, from subsequent treatment with mitotic poisons or S-phase specific drugs. Here we sought to evaluate whether low doses of Actinomycin D (LDActD), a clinically-approved drug and potent p53 activator, could substitute Nutlin-3 in p53-based cyclotherapy. We found that pre-treatment with LDActD before adding the aurora kinase inhibitor VX-680 protects normal fibroblasts from polyploidy and nuclear morphology abnormalities induced by VX-680. However, and although to a lower extent than normal fibroblasts, tumour cell lines bearing p53 mutations were also protected by LDActD (but not Nutlin-3) from VX-680-induced polyploidy. We also report that a difference between the response of p53 wild-type cells and p53-defective cells to the LDActD/VX-680 sequential combination is that only the former fail to enter S-phase and therefore accumulate in G1/G0. We propose that drugs that incorporate into DNA during S-phase may perform better as second drugs than mitotic poisons in cyclotherapy approaches using LDActD as a cytostatic agent.
Monetarism with Chinese Characteristics

Monetarism is often misunderstood, overlooked, forgotten, or even derided. Yet its basic logic, resting on the quantity theory of money, is evident and remains important in a world of pure fiat monies. Most major central banks have abandoned monetary targeting in favor of setting interest rates to achieve long-run price stability and full employment. China is an exception. Since 1998, the People’s Bank of China (PBC) has used money growth targets to help guide monetary policy aimed at preventing socially disruptive inflation and maintaining growth of nominal income. However, the PBC is subject to oversight by the State Council; the financial system is dominated by state-owned banks; capital markets are highly regulated; and interest rates and exchange rates are distorted. Thus, China’s monetarism is best described as “monetarism with Chinese characteristics. ” This article gives an overview of the basic tenets of monetarism, contrasts monetary policy making at the Federal Reserve with that employed by the PBC, examines financial repression in China, and offers some lessons learned from the operation of the monetary transmission mechanism under China’s system of monetary targeting and financial repression. While the M1 money multiplier is robust in China, it has collapsed in the United States since the use of unconventional monetary policy. Both China and the United States would benefit from the adoption of an explicit monetary rule, the depoliticization of credit allocation, and market-determined interest rates.
Fuel cell and battery hybrid supplied power system

In this paper, a hybrid power system supplied by a fuel cell and a lead-acid battery is realized by using the digital signal processor (DSP) TMS320LF2407 for power management and interleaved control. When the power provided from the fuel cell is higher than the load power, the extra energy may be used to charge the lead-acid battery. When the fuel cell can not provide enough energy to the load, the shortage of energy will be supplied by the lead-acid battery. Experimental results show that the system operating modes can be changed automatically, and that the output voltage is regulated well during load variations. Also, high system efficiency is achieved.
Piwi expression in archeocytes and choanocytes in demosponges: insights into the stem cell system in demosponges

SUMMARY Little is known about the stem cells of organisms early in metazoan evolution. To characterize the stem cell system in demosponges, we identified Piwi homologs of a freshwater sponge, Ephydatia fluviatilis, as candidate stem cell (archeocyte) markers. EfPiwiA mRNA was expressed in cells with archeocyte cell morphological features. We demonstrated that these EfPiwiA‐expressing cells were indeed stem cells by showing their ability to proliferate, as indicated by BrdU‐incorporation, and to differentiate, as indicated by the coexpression of EfPiwiA with cell‐lineage‐specific genes in presumptive committed archeocytes. EfPiwiA mRNA expression was maintained in mature choanocytes forming chambers, in contrast to the transition of gene expression from EfPiwiA to cell‐lineage‐specific markers during archeocyte differentiation into other cell types. Choanocytes are food‐entrapping cells with morphological features similar to those of choanoflagellates (microvillus collar and a flagellum). Their known abilities to transform into archeocytes under specific circumstances and to give rise to gametes (mostly sperm) indicate that even when they are fully differentiated, choanocytes maintain pluripotent stem cell‐like potential. Based on the specific expression of EfPiwiA in archeocytes and choanocytes, combined with previous studies, we propose that both archeocytes and choanocytes are components of the demosponge stem cell system. We discuss the possibility that choanocytes might represent the ancestral stem cells, whereas archeocytes might represent stem cells that further evolved in ancestral multicellular organisms.
Students’ Perceptions of Agriculture and Natural Resources Majors: Understanding STEM Choice

Concerns about the extent to which science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors attract students and, ultimately, produce STEM workforce suggest the need for concerted efforts to promote STEM educational and careers choices. This study was motivated by U.S. efforts to promote (STEM) education and the National Science Foundation’s call to reconsider key messages about STEM fields. The study examines students’ interests in agriculture and natural resources majors as a test case to identify factors that may influence high school and college students’ choice of colleges of agriculture and natural resources. Using an online survey, the study explores students’ interests in four agricultural and natural resources majors by drawing on the theory of planned behavior and research on trust in science communication. A total of 1340 students participated in the study, including 620 high school students and 710 college students. Findings showed that descriptive norms, the perceived warmth and competence of relevant professionals, and the opportunity to make an impact on the world are primary statistical predictors of students’ overall appeal of agriculture and natural resources majors. Implications for communication efforts to portray colleges of agriculture and natural resources and recruiting prospective students on STEM colleges are discussed.
Performances of suspended Silicon Nanowire Resonators for time reference applications

High frequency Silicon NanoWire Resonators (SNWR) have been fabricated and their performances for time reference applications have been assessed. The SNWR have been designed to operate at different frequencies going from 55 MHz up to 300 MHz with quality factors higher than 2000 at room temperature under high vacuum. The measured temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) for different SNWR is about 40 ppm over a range of temperature going from 4 K to 300 K. The evolution of the quality factor as function of temperature has also been measured as well as the Allan deviation for different nanowire lengths.
Goldfish morphology as a model for evolutionary developmental biology

Morphological variation of the goldfish is known to have been established by artificial selection for ornamental purposes during the domestication process. Chinese texts that date to the Song dynasty contain descriptions of goldfish breeding for ornamental purposes, indicating that the practice originated over one thousand years ago. Such a well‐documented goldfish breeding process, combined with the phylogenetic and embryological proximities of this species with zebrafish, would appear to make the morphologically diverse goldfish strains suitable models for evolutionary developmental (evodevo) studies. However, few modern evodevo studies of goldfish have been conducted. In this review, we provide an overview of the historical background of goldfish breeding, and the differences between this teleost and zebrafish from an evolutionary perspective. We also summarize recent progress in the field of molecular developmental genetics, with a particular focus on the twin‐tail goldfish morphology. Furthermore, we discuss unanswered questions relating to the evolution of the genome, developmental robustness, and morphologies in the goldfish lineage, with the goal of blazing a path toward an evodevo study paradigm using this teleost species as a new model species. WIREs Dev Biol 2016, 5:272–295. doi: 10.1002/wdev.224
Place fields of rat hippocampal pyramidal cells and spatial learning in the watermaze

To provide a background for studying place‐related activity in hippocampal neurons during spatial learning, we compared the activity of hippocampal place cells in an annular watermaze and an analogous land‐based task. Complex‐spike cells had robust place correlates in both conditions, and a significant proportion of the cells had place fields at the same locations. However, the in‐field firing rates were slightly higher in the wet condition. Elevated firing was observed also in an open water task. There was no enhancement when the platform location was varied randomly or when there was no platform at all. Second, the place fields were under stronger directional modulation during swimming. In the annular task, directional sensitivity appeared regardless of whether the animals were trained to find a platform or not. There were directionally modulated units also in the open watermaze, but the number was smaller than in the corridor. Altogether, these observations suggest that place fields in the watermaze are largely controlled by the same factors as on dry land, in spite of the differences in kinaesthetic and vestibular input. Differences in firing rate and directional control may depend on the geometric and cognitive structure of the task rather than the medium on which the rats are moving.
Administering Design Fluency Tests in School-aged Children: Analyses of Design Productivity over Time, Clustering, and Switching

This study investigated the effects of child-related factors (age, sex, and intellectual abilities) upon design fluency (DF) test scores. A DF test, a semantic verbal fluency (VF) test, and a Block Design test, as a proxy of intelligence, were administered to N = 80 healthy native Dutch-speaking children aged 8.45–12.82 years. Three components of DF performance were examined, i.e., design productivity over time, clustering (i.e., generating designs that share visual-spatial similarities, such as addition, deletion, or rotation), and switching (i.e., shifting between strategies that children use to draw the designs). The relation between DF design productivity over time and age was curvilinear, that is, improvements in test scores were much more pronounced for younger children than for older children. No (curvi)linear age effects were found in DF productivity scores, clustering, and switching. Also, our results did not reveal a relation between intellectual abilities and DF test scores. Furthermore, DF test scores and VF test scores were only partially significant, i.e., only significant positive correlations were found between the productivity scores of the VF test and the DF test. Finally, higher order sex by age interactions were found in all DF test scores, i.e., girls <10.5 years produced more designs, made longer clusters, and switched less than boys. Opposite sex differences were found for children >10.5 years. This illustrates the utility of combining quantitative scoring procedures with in-depth clustering and switching to understand interactions between age and sex during DF tests.
Novel 5-Flucytosine-Resistant Clade of Candida dubliniensis from Saudi Arabia and Egypt Identified by Cd25 Fingerprinting

ABSTRACT DNA fingerprinting of Candida dubliniensis isolates using the species-specific probe Cd25 previously showed that this species consists of two distinct groups, termed Cd25 group I and Cd25 group II. The present study investigated the population structure of 30 C. dubliniensis oral isolates from Saudi Arabia and Egypt using Cd25 fingerprinting and rRNA gene internal transcribed spacer region-based genotyping. Cd25 fingerprinting analysis of these isolates revealed two distinct populations, the first of which consisted of 10 closely related genotype 1 isolates (average similarity coefficient [SAB] value, 0.86). The second population of 20 isolates was much more heterogeneous (average SAB value, 0.35) and consisted of two distinct subpopulations, one of which consisted of genotype 3 isolates (n = 13) and the other of genotype 4 isolates (n = 7). A mixed dendrogram generated from the fingerprint data from the 30 Saudi Arabian and Egyptian isolates, 5 Israeli isolates, and 51 previously characterized international isolates (32 of Cd25 group I and 19 of Cd25 group II) revealed the presence of three distinct main clades. The first corresponded to the previously described Cd25 group I and contained all the Saudi Arabian, Egyptian, and Israeli genotype 1 isolates mixed with international isolates. The second clade corresponded to the previously described Cd25 group II and contained three Israeli isolates, one genotype 2 isolate, one genotype 3 isolate, and a genotype 4 variant isolate, which were mixed with international isolates. The third clade has not been described before and consisted solely of the 20 Saudi Arabian and Egyptian genotype 3 and 4 isolates identified in this study and a previously described genotype 4 Israeli isolate. All 20 Cd25 group III isolates exhibited high-level resistance to 5-flucytosine (MIC ≥ 128 μg/ml), whereas all Cd25 group I and Cd25 group II isolates tested (10 Saudi Arabian and Egyptian, 16 Israeli, and 24 international) were susceptible to 5-flucytosine (MIC ≤ 0.125 μg/ml). The results of this study show for the first time the presence of a novel 5-flucytosine-resistant clade of C. dubliniensis (Cd25 group III) that is predominant among isolates from Saudi Arabia and Egypt and absent from a previously characterized international collection of 98 isolates from 15 countries.
CagA associates with c-Met, E-cadherin, and p120-catenin in a multiproteic complex that suppresses Helicobacter pylori-induced cell-invasive phenotype.

BACKGROUND Helicobacter pylori induces an invasive phenotype in gastric epithelial cells through a mechanism that requires the type IV secretion system and the phosphorylation of c-Met. The E-cadherin-catenin complex is a major component of the adherens junctions and functions as an invasion suppressor. We investigated whether E-cadherin has a role in H. pylori-induced, c-Met phosphorylation-dependent cell-invasive phenotype. METHODS AGS cells that lack E-cadherin and that are invasive to H. pylori stimulation were transduced with E-cadherin and infected with H. pylori. NCI-N87 cells, which endogenously express E-cadherin, were also used for infection experiments. RESULTS E-cadherin was sufficient to suppress not only H. pylori-mediated cell-invasive phenotype but also c-Met and p120-catenin tyrosine phosphorylation. H. pylori infection led to increased interactions between E-cadherin and p120-catenin, c-Met and E-cadherin, and c-Met and p120-catenin. Using in vitro infection assays, we showed that H. pylori CagA interacts with E-cadherin, p120-catenin, and c-Met. Finally, using small interfering RNA, we showed that interactions between CagA and E-cadherin and between CagA and p120-catenin were established through c-Met. CONCLUSIONS We suggest that H. pylori alters the E-cadherin-catenin complex, leading to formation of a multiproteic complex composed of CagA, c-Met, E-cadherin, and p120-catenin. This complex abrogates c-Met and p120-catenin tyrosine phosphorylation and suppresses the cell-invasive phenotype induced by H. pylori.
Evaluation of the Problem Behavior Frequency Scale–Teacher Report Form for Assessing Behavior in a Sample of Urban Adolescents

This study evaluated the structure and validity of the Problem Behavior Frequency Scale–Teacher Report Form (PBFS-TR) for assessing students’ frequency of specific forms of aggression and victimization, and positive behavior. Analyses were conducted on two waves of data from 727 students from two urban middle schools (Sample 1) who were rated by their teachers on the PBFS-TR and the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS), and on data collected from 1,740 students from three urban middle schools (Sample 2) for whom data on both the teacher and student report version of the PBFS were obtained. Confirmatory factor analyses supported first-order factors representing 3 forms of aggression (physical, verbal, and relational), 3 forms of victimization (physical, verbal and relational), and 2 forms of positive behavior (prosocial behavior and effective nonviolent behavior), and higher-order factors representing aggression, victimization, and positive behavior. Strong measurement invariance was established over gender, grade, intervention condition, and time. Support for convergent validity was found based on correlations between corresponding scales on the PBFS-TR and teacher ratings on the SSIS in Sample 1. Significant correlations were also found between teacher ratings on the PBFS-TR and student ratings of their behavior on the Problem Behavior Frequency Scale–Adolescent Report (PBFS-AR) and a measure of nonviolent behavioral intentions in Sample 2. Overall the findings provided support for the PBFS-TR and suggested that teachers can provide useful data on students’ aggressive and prosocial behavior and victimization experiences within the school setting.
Acrylamide levels in selected Colombian foods

Acrylamide (AA) levels in conventional (n = 112) and traditional (n = 43) Colombian foods were analysed by gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC/MS) detection. Samples included: infant powdered formula, coffee and chocolate powders, corn snacks, bakery products and tuber-, meat- and vegetable-based foods. There was a wide variability in AA levels among different foods and within different brands of the same food, especially for coffee powder, breakfast cereals biscuits and French fries samples. Among the conventional foods tested, the highest mean AA value was found in bakery products, such as biscuit (1104 µg kg−1) and wafer (1449 µg kg−1), followed by potato chips (916 µg kg−1). On the other hand, among the traditional foods, higher AA amounts were detected in fried platano (2813 µg kg−1) and yuca (3755 µg kg−1) compared to other products. Interestingly, the arepa, a traditional Colombian bakery product made with corn flour, showed a lower AA content (< 75 µg kg−1) when compared with similar bakery products tested, such as soft bread (102–594 µg kg−1), which is a made with wheat flour.