Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Capillarity and Wetting of Carbon Nanotubes

The wetting and capillarity of carbon nanotubes were studied in detail here. Nanotubes are not "super-straws," although they can be wet and filled by substances having low surface tension, such as sulfur, selenium, and cesium, with an upper limit to this tension less than 200 millinewtons per meter. This limit implies that typical pure metals will not be drawn into the inner cavity of nanotubes through capillarity, whereas water and organic solvents will. These results have important implications for the further use of carbon nanotubes in experiments on a nanometer scale.
Bronchial and Bronchiolar Fibrosis in Rats Exposed to 2,3-Pentanedione Vapors: Implications for Bronchiolitis Obliterans in Humans

2,3-Pentanedione (PD) is a component of artificial butter flavorings. The use of PD is increasing since diacetyl, a major butter flavorant, was associated with bronchiolitis obliterans (BO) in workers and has been removed from many products. Because the toxicity of inhaled PD is unknown, these studies were conducted to characterize the toxicity of inhaled PD across a range of concentrations in rodents. Male and female Wistar-Han rats and B6C3F1 mice were exposed to 0, 50, 100, or 200 ppm PD 6 h/d, 5 d/wk for up to 2 wk. Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) was collected after 1, 3, 5, and 10 exposures, and histopathology was evaluated after 12 exposures. MCP-1, MCP-3, CRP, FGF-9, fibrinogen, and OSM were increased 2- to 9-fold in BALF of rats exposed for 5 and 10 days to 200 ppm. In mice, only fibrinogen was increased after 5 exposures to 200 ppm. The epithelium lining the respiratory tract was the site of toxicity in all mice and rats exposed to 200 ppm. Significantly, PD also caused both intraluminal and intramural fibrotic airway lesions in rats. The histopathological and biological changes observed in rats raise concerns that PD inhalation may cause BO in exposed humans.
Bayesian Analysis of Occupational Exposure Data with Conjugate Priors

Bayesian analysis is a flexible method that can yield insight into occupational exposures as the methods quantify plausible values for exposure parameters of interest, such as the mean, variance, and specific percentiles of the exposure distribution. We describe three Bayesian analysis methods for the analysis of normally distributed data (e.g. the logarithm of measurements of chemical hazards) that use conjugate prior distributions (normal for the mean, and inverse-χ2, inverse-Γ, or vague for the variance) to provide analytical expressions for the posterior distributions of the sufficient statistics of the normal distribution (e.g. the mean and variance). From these posterior distributions, the posterior distribution of any parameter of interest about the exposure distribution can be tabulated. The methods are illustrated using lead exposure data collected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration at a copper foundry on multiple occasions. A unique feature of the normal-inverse-Γ method is that dependence of the mean and variance prior distributions is integrated out of the posterior distributions expressions, suggesting that a 'default' prior distribution on variance may be used: candidate default distributions are proposed based on the literature. Relative to other Bayesian analysis methods used in industrial hygiene, the methods described are flexible, and can be implemented without specialized software.
Ultra-High Input Impedance, Low Noise Integrated Amplifier for Noncontact Biopotential Sensing

Noncontact electrocardiogram/electroencephalogram/<? Pub _bookmark Command="[Quick Mark]"? >electromyogram electrodes, which operate primarily through capacitive coupling, have been extensively studied for unobtrusive physiological monitoring. Previous implementations using discrete off-the-shelf amplifiers have been encumbered by the need for manually tuned input capacitance neutralization networks and complex dc-biasing schemes. We have designed and fabricated a custom integrated noncontact sensor front-end amplifier that fully bootstraps internal and external parasitic impedances. DC stability without the need for external large valued resistances is ensured by an ac bootstrapped, low-leakage, on-chip biasing network. The amplifier achieves, without neutralization, input impedance of 60 fF<formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\Vert$</tex></formula>50 T<formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\Omega$</tex></formula>, input referred noise of 0.05 fA/<formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\sqrt{\rm Hz}$</tex></formula> and 200 nV/<formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\sqrt{\rm Hz}$</tex></formula> at 1 Hz, and power consumption of 1.5 <formula formulatype="inline"> <tex Notation="TeX">$\mu$</tex></formula>A per channel at 3.3 V supply voltage. Stable frequency response is demonstrated below 0.05 Hz with electrode coupling capacitances as low as 0.5 pF.
Adaptive Suppression of Subordinate Reproduction in Cooperative Mammals

Attempts to account for observed variation in the degree of reproductive skew among cooperative breeders have usually assumed that subordinate breeding has fitness costs to dominant females. They argue that dominant females concede reproductive opportunities to subordinates to retain them in the group or to dissuade them from challenging for the dominant position or that subordinate females breed where dominants are incapable of controlling them. However, an alternative possibility is that suppressing subordinate reproduction has substantive costs to the fitness of dominant females and that variation in these costs generates differences in the net benefits of suppression to dominants which are responsible for variation in the frequency of subordinate breeding that is not a consequence of either reproductive concessions or limitations in dominant control. Here, we show that, in wild Kalahari meerkats (Suricata suricatta), the frequency with which dominants evict subordinates or kill their pups varies with the costs and benefits to dominants of suppressing subordinate breeding, including the dominants' reproductive status, the size of their group, and the relatedness of subordinates. We review evidence from other studies that the suppression of reproduction by subordinates varies with the likely costs of subordinate breeding to dominants.
Ethnic and Sex Differences in Children's Depressive Symptoms

This study examined ethnic and sex differences in children's depressive symptoms, along with hypothesized mediators of those differences (academic achievement, peer acceptance), in a follow-up of African American (n = 179) and Euro-American (n = 462) children in Grades 3 to 5. African American boys reported more depressive symptoms than African American girls, and Euro-American boys and girls. Also, depressive symptoms of African American boys increased over time whereas depressive symptoms of the other groups decreased or remained stable. Academic and social competence deficits were associated with elevated levels of depressive symptoms across the school year, although only academic achievement scores emerged as a unique predictor of increases in depressive symptoms over time. Neither academic nor social competence mediated the Sex × ethnicity interaction in changes in children's depressive symptoms.
Research on the Model of Consumer Health Information Seeking Behavior via Social Media

Purpose: We aim to create a model of consumer health information seeking behavior via social media, then to have a better understand of it. After that further efforts should be made to provide targeted recommendations for media managers to promote health communication via social media. Methods: Our custom model was derived from literature review, empirical research was tested by the use of questionnaire investigation, and then the collected data were analyzed by structural equation model tool SmartPLS. Finally, the custom model was modified according to the experimental results of SmartPLS. Results: A total of 239 (66.39%) of the respondents were female and 121 (33.61%) were male. The maximum of two stages of age were 18 - 29 (70.56%), 30 - 39 (13.89%). Wechat (60.28%), QQ Zone (55.22%), Micro-blog (48.89%) were the most commonly used social media to obtain health information. About 44.72% of respondents used social media to obtain health information multiple times a day. The whole numerical values of AVE, cronbach’s alpha, CR and square roots of AVE were above the benchmarks of themselves and showed great reliability and validity. All the 11 hypotheses had obvious statistical significance, the P-value of eight path coefficients exhibited <0.001, one path coefficient exhibited <0.01 and two path coefficients exhibited <0.05. Conclusions: A suitable model of consumer health information seeking behavior via social media was created and some inner relationships were found. Namely, gratification of health information and its platform had a positive effect on attitudes toward health information seeking behavior. Health information literacy and health status were proved to have a significant influence on attitudes toward health information seeking behavior, subject norms and perceived behavioral control respectively. In addition, attitudes toward the health information seeking behavior, subject norms and perceived behavioral control were proved to positively associate with health information seeking behavior intention.
Optimizing Glucuronic Acid Production Using Tea Fungus on Grape Juice by Response Surface Methodology

Grape juice phytochemicals such as resveratrol and polyphenol antioxidants have been positively linked to inhibit cancer heart disease degenerative nerve disease viral infections and mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease. Glucuronic acid is the key component in human health due to its detoxifying action through conjugation to the xenobiotic metabolisms in liver and associated with cartilage, shown substantial benefit in the treatment of osteoarthritis. Here we report first analysis of evaluate the effect of treatment variables sucrose content temperature and cultivation time on glucuronic acid production (g/L) as well as monitored changes in pH, remained sucrose (g/L), reducing sugar (g/L) and total acidity (g/L) by sing Kombucha layer on sweetened grape juice. Kombucha is a refreshing beverage obtained through the fermentation of sugared grape juice with a symbiotic culture of acetic bacteria and fungi consumed for its distinct antibiotic effects against the number of disease organisms and several therapeutic purposes in human medicine. Response surface methodology using Box–Behnken design showed that all the factors had a significant effect on glucuronic acid production. The optimum medium composition for predicted maximum glucuronic acid production was appeared on 7% sucrose-sweetened grape juice within two weeks of fermentation process at 37°C.
Soft detection of multichip DPSK over the nonlinear fiber-optic channel

We analyze the performance of a recently proposed multichip differential phase-shift-keying (DPSK) format over the nonlinear fiber-optic channel. For a single wavelength nonlinear phase-noise-limited channel, a multichip DPSK receiver based on a three-chip observation can attain more than two orders of magnitude bit-error-rate reduction relative to a standard DPSK receiver, or equivalently /spl sim/1-dB improvement in Q-factor, significantly exceeding the 0.2-dB improvement achieved by the same format over a linear optical channel.
T Follicular Helper Cell–Derived IL-4 Is Required for IgE Production during Intestinal Helminth Infection

IgE production plays a crucial role in protective as well as pathogenic type 2 immune responses. Although the cytokine IL-4 is required for the development of IgE-producing plasma cells, the source of IL-4 and cellular requirements for optimal IgE responses remain unclear. Recent evidence suggests that T follicular helper (Tfh) cells are the primary producer of IL-4 in the reactive lymph node during type 2 immune responses. As Tfh cells are also required for the development of plasmablasts derived from germinal center and extrafollicular sources, we hypothesized that this cell subset is essential for the IgE plasmablast response. In this study, we show that during intestinal helminth infection, IL-4 derived from Tfh cells is required for IgE class switching and plasmablast formation. Notably, early IgE class switching did not require germinal center formation. Additionally, Tfh cell–derived IL-4 was required to maintain the Th2 response in the mesenteric lymph nodes of infected mice. Collectively, our results indicate that IL-4–producing Tfh cells are central orchestrators of the type 2 immune response in the reactive lymph nodes during parasitic helminth infection.
Characterization and Biodegradation Studies for Interpenetrating Polymeric Network (IPN) of Chitosan-Amino Acid Beads

The paper describes the synthesis of pH sensitive interpenetrating polymeric network (IPN) beads composed of chi-tosan, glycine, glutamic acid, cross linked with glutaraldehyde and their use for controlled drug release. The drug was loaded into beads by varying their composition such as, amount of crosslinker glutaraldehyde, ratio of chitosan, glycine and glutamic acid. The beads were characterized by fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to confirm the cross linking reaction and drug interaction with crosslinked polymer in beads, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to understand the surface morphology and Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to find out the thermal stability of beads. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) investigation was carried out to determine the crystalline nature of drug after loading into chitosan-glycine-glutamic acid IPN beads. Results indicated amorphous dispersion of chlorpheniramine maleate (CPM) in the polymeric matrix. The swelling behavior of the beads at different time intervals was monitored in solutions of pH 2.0 and pH 7.4. The release experiments were performed in solutions of pH 2.0 and pH 7.4 at 37oC using chlorpheniramine maleate (CPM) as a model drug. The swelling behavior and release of drug were observed to be dependent on pH, degree of cross linking and their composition. The results indicate that the cross linked IPN beads of chitosan-glycine-glutamic acid might be useful as a vehicle for controlled release of drug. The kinetics of drug release from beads was best fitted by Higuchi’s model in which release rate is largely governed by rate of diffusion through the matrix.
Implications of Psychotherapy Research for Psychotherapy Training

This review article considers implications of psychotherapy research for psychotherapy training. It considers 8 themes that characterize the research literature. The themes involve outcome findings, common factors, empirically supported therapies, patient treatment matches, therapy manuals and practice guidelines, brief therapies, combinations of medication and psychotherapy, and group therapies. Each theme represents a controversial issue that has implications for the content of contemporary psychotherapy curricula. To assist trainees in becoming well-informed therapists, themes and implications such as these should be covered as part of their introduction to learning about the psychotherapies. To understand the themes and implications, as well as new findings that continually emerge from the research literature, trainees also need to be familiar with basic research methods and evaluative criteria, subjects that can also be covered as part of their introduction to the psychotherapies. As their training proceeds, research findings can be integrated with the development of their clinical skills in a broad range of psychotherapies.
Suppression of collagen-induced arthritis by oral administration of transgenic rice seeds expressing altered peptide ligands of type II collagen.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease associated with the recognition of self proteins secluded in arthritic joints. We previously reported that altered peptide ligands (APLs) of type II collagen (CII256-271) suppress the development of collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). In this study, we generated transgenic rice expressing CII256-271 and APL6 contained in fusion proteins with the rice storage protein glutelin in the seed endosperm. These transgene products successfully and stably accumulated at high levels (7-24 mg/g seeds) in protein storage vacuoles (PB-II) of mature seeds. We examined the efficacy of these transgenic rice seeds by performing oral administration of the seeds to CIA model mice that had been immunized with CII. Treatment with APL6 transgenic rice for 14 days significantly inhibited the development of arthritis (based on clinical score) and delayed disease onset during the early phase of arthritis. These effects were mediated by the induction of IL-10 from CD4(+ ) CD25(-) T cells against CII antigen in splenocytes and inguinal lymph nodes (iLNs), and treatment of APL had no effect on the production of IFN-γ, IL-17, IL-2 or Foxp3(+) Treg cells. These findings suggest that abnormal immune suppressive mechanisms are involved in the therapeutic effect of rice-based oral vaccine expressing high levels of APLs of type II collagen on the autoimmune disease CIA, suggesting that the seed-based mucosal vaccine against CIA functions via a unique mechanism.
Practical feasibility of a high-precision 3-UPU parallel mechanism

SUMMARY In this paper, we revisit the 3-degrees of freedom (DOF) pure translational mechanism. The mathematical model and the design considerations are discussed. A detailed sensitivity and error analysis is carried out and the results are discussed in a new perspective. The feasibility of the practical 3-DOF pure translational mechanism is established with novel design considerations to take care of theoretical mobility and geometrical constraints. We describe and validate the theoretical observations with stage-wise prototype models and experiments. The experimental results concur that all is well with 3-UPU in contrast to what is presented in refs. [6, 9, 10].
Cell IL-10 Production IL-23 by Antisense Oligos Increases Dendritic Multiple Sclerosis and Down-Regulation of IL-23 Is Increased in Dendritic Cells in

IL-23 is a heterodimeric cytokine comprising a p19 subunit associated with the IL-12/23p40 subunit. Like IL-12, IL-23 is expressed predominantly by activated dendritic cells (DCs) and phagocytic cells, and both cytokines induce IFN- (cid:1) secretion by T cells. The induction of experimental autoimmune encephalitis, the animal model of multiple sclerosis (MS), occurs in mice lacking IL-12, but not in mice with targeted disruption of IL-23 or both IL-12 and IL-23. Thus, IL-23 expression in DCs may play an important role in the pathogenesis of human autoimmune diseases such as MS. We quantiﬁed the expression of IL-23 in monocyte-derived DCs in MS patients and healthy donors and found that DCs from MS patients secrete elevated amounts of IL-23 and express increased levels of IL-23p19 mRNA. Consistent with this abnormality, we found increased IL-17 production by T cells from MS patients. We then transfected monocyte-derived DCs from healthy donors with antisense oligonucleotides speciﬁc for the IL-23p19 and IL-12p35 genes and found potent suppression of gene expression and blockade of bioactive IL-23 and IL-12 production without affecting cellular viability or DCs maturation. Inhibition of IL-23 and IL-12 was associated with increased IL-10 and decreased TNF- (cid:2) production. Furthermore, transfected DCs were poor allostimulators in the MLR. Our results demonstrate that an abnormal Th1 bias in DCs from MS patients related to IL-23 exists, and that antisense oligonucleotides speciﬁc to IL-23 can be used for immune modulation by targeting DC gene expression. The Journal of Immunology, 2006, 176: 7768–7774.
Altered AKT 1 andMAPK 1 Gene Expression on Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells and Correlation with T-Helper-Transcription Factors in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients

1 Department of Cellular Biology and Immunology, Instituto de Parasitoloǵıa y Biomedicina López-Neyra, (IPBLN-CSIC), Parque Tecnológico Ciencias de la Salud, Avenida Conocimiento s/n, Armilla, 18100 Granada, Spain 2 Systemic Autoimmune Diseases Unit, Department of Internal Medicine, San Cecilio University Hospital (SCUH), Avenida Dr. Oloriz, no. 16, Granada 18012, Spain 3 Department of Microbiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1720 2nd Ave South, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA 4 Department of Dermatology, SCUH, Avenida Dr. Oloriz, No. 16, Granada 18012, Spain
Prostate Apoptosis Response‐4 Mediates Trophic Factor Withdrawal‐Induced Apoptosis of Hippocampal Neurons

Abstract : Prostate apoptosis response‐4 (Par‐4) is the product of a gene up‐regulated in prostate cancer cells undergoing apoptosis. We now report that Par‐4 mRNA and protein levels rapidly and progressively increase 4‐24 h following trophic factor withdrawal (TFW) in cultured embryonic rat hippocampal neurons. The increased Par‐4 levels follow an increase of reactive oxygen species, and precede mitochondrial membrane depolarization, caspase activation, and nuclear chromatin condensation/fragmentation. Pretreatment of cultures with 17β‐estradiol, vitamin E, and uric acid largely prevented Par‐4 induction and cell death following TFW, demonstrating necessary roles for oxidative stress and membrane lipid peroxidation in TFW‐induced neuronal apoptosis. Par‐4 antisense oligonucleotide treatment blocked Par‐4 protein increases and attenuated mitochondrial dysfunction, caspase activation, and cell death following TFW. Collectively, our data identify Par‐4 as an early and pivotal player in neuronal apoptosis resulting from TFW and suggest that estrogen and antioxidants may prevent apoptosis, in part, by suppressing Par‐4 production.
Homing in on the Role of Transition Metals in the HNH Motif of Colicin Endonucleases*

The cytotoxic domain of the bacteriocin colicin E9 (the E9 DNase) is a nonspecific endonuclease that must traverse two membranes to reach its cellular target, bacterial DNA. Recent structural studies revealed that the active site of colicin DNases encompasses the HNH motif found in homing endonucleases, and bound within this motif a single transition metal ion (either Zn2+ or Ni2+) the role of which is unknown. In the present work we find that neither Zn2+ nor Ni2+ is required for DNase activity, which instead requires Mg2+ ions, but binding transition metals to the E9 DNase causes subtle changes to both secondary and tertiary structure. Spectroscopic, proteolytic, and calorimetric data show that, accompanying the binding of 1 eq of Zn2+, Ni2+, or Co2+, the thermodynamic stability of the domain increased substantially, and that the equilibrium dissociation constant for Zn2+ was less than or equal to nanomolar, while that for Co2+ and Ni 2+ was micromolar. Our data demonstrate that the transition metal is not essential for colicin DNase activity but rather serves a structural role. We speculate that the HNH motif has been adapted for use by endonuclease colicins because of its involvement in DNA recognition and because removal of the bound metal ion destabilizes the DNase domain, a likely prerequisite for its translocation across bacterial membranes.
Measurement of the polarization amplitudes and triple product asymmetries in the B 0 s → φφ decay

Article history: Received 16 April 2012 Received in revised form 12 May 2012 Accepted 6 June 2012 Available online 9 June 2012 Editor: W. -D. Schlatter Using 1.0 fb−1 of pp collision data collected at a centre-of-mass energy of √ s = 7 TeV with the LHCb detector, measurements of the polarization amplitudes, strong phase difference and triple product asymmetries in the Bs → φφ decay mode are presented. The measured values are |A0|2 = 0.365 ± 0.022 (stat) ± 0.012 (syst), |A⊥|2 = 0.291 ± 0.024 (stat) ± 0.010 (syst), cos(δ‖) = −0.844 ± 0.068 (stat) ± 0.029 (syst), AU = −0.055 ± 0.036 (stat) ± 0.018 (syst), AV = 0.010 ± 0.036 (stat) ± 0.018 (syst).