Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Caspase-8 and Apaf-1-independent Caspase-9 Activation in Sendai Virus-infected Cells*

Apoptotic cell death is of central importance in the pathogenesis of viral infections. Activation of a cascade of cysteine proteases, i.e. caspases, plays a key role in the effector phase of virus-induced apoptosis. However, little is known about pathways leading to the activation of initiator caspases in virus-infected host cells. Recently, we have shown that Sendai virus (SeV) infection triggers apoptotic cell death by activation of the effector caspase-3 and initiator caspase-8. We now investigated mechanisms leading to the activation of another initiator caspase, caspase-9. Unexpectedly we found that caspase-9 cleavage is not dependent on the presence of active caspases-3 or -8. Furthermore, the presence of caspase-9 in mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) cells was a prerequisite for Sendai virus-induced apoptotic cell death. Caspase-9 activation occurred without the release of cytochrome cfrom mitochondria and was not dependent on the presence of Apaf-1 or reactive oxygen intermediates. Our results therefore suggest an alternative mechanism for caspase-9 activation in virally infected cells beside the well characterized pathways via death receptors or mitochondrial cytochrome c release.
A naturally occurring mutation near the C terminus of the β‐propeller of αIIb impair the transport of αIIbβ3 complexes from the endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi apparatus

that show that cancer patients with TE did not have a high rate of FVL polymorphism. This difference might be explained by the high prevalence of FVL in the Turkish population is higher than in the Western population (9.8% in Turkish Anatolian) [8]. The high frequency of FVL in our cancer patients with TE was associated with its high prevalence among the normal Turkish population. Based upon our results, screening for FVL should be considered in cancer patients with an increased prevalence of TE. In our study, PT G20210A was found to be normal. We suggest that this polymorphism does not play a major role in the development of TE in cancer patients.
Inhibition of HDAC8 and HDAC9 by microbial short-chain fatty acids breaks immune tolerance of the epidermis to TLR ligands

Microbial short-chain fatty acids inhibit HDAC activity and contribute to keratinocyte-triggered skin inflammation. Microbial fatty acids get under your skin The skin plays host to many different species of microbes, tolerating their presence without the inflammatory response that greets more dangerous pathogens. Now, Sanford et al. report that short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) produced by skin bacterium can lead to inflammatory response from keratinocytes. SCFAs produced by Propionibacterium acnes inhibited histone deacetylase (HDAC) activity in keratinocytes, which promoted the inflammatory response to innate immune ligands. These responses are cell-specific and environmentally specific—in a mouse model, SCFA induced cytokine expression on the skin but inhibited cytokine expression subcutaneously. Thus, microbial products may regulate immune tolerance of commensals in the skin. Epidermal keratinocytes participate in immune defense through their capacity to recognize danger, trigger inflammation, and resist infection. However, normal skin immune function must tolerate contact with an abundant community of commensal microbes without inflammation. We hypothesized that microbial environmental conditions dictate the production of molecules that influence epigenetic events and cause keratinocytes to break innate immune tolerance. Propionibacterium acnes, a commensal skin bacterium, produced the short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) propionate and valerate when provided a lipid source in hypoxic growth conditions, and these SCFAs inhibited histone deacetylase (HDAC) activity. Inhibition of HDAC activity in keratinocytes promoted cytokine expression in response to Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands for TLR2 or TLR3. This response was opposite to the action of HDAC inhibition on production of inflammatory cytokines by monocytes and involved HDAC8 and HDAC9 because small interfering RNA silencing of these HDACs recapitulated the activity of SCFAs. Analysis of cytokine expression in mice confirmed the response of the epidermis where application of SCFA on the skin surface promoted cytokine expression, whereas subcutaneous administration was inhibitory. These findings show that the products of commensal microbes made under specific conditions will inhibit HDAC activity and break tolerance of the epidermis to inflammatory stimuli.
Arabidopsis Pht1;5 plays an integral role in phosphate homeostasis

The mobilization of inorganic phosphate (Pi) in planta is a complex process regulated by a number of developmental and environmental cues. Plants possess many Pi transporters that acquire Pi from the rhizosphere and translocate it throughout the plant. A few members of the high-affinity Pht1 family of Pi transporters have been functionally characterized and, for the most part, have been shown to be involved in Pi acquisition. We recently demonstrated that the Arabidopsis Pi transporter, Pht1;5, plays a key role in translocating Pi between tissues. Loss-of-function pht1;5 mutant seedlings accumulated more P in shoots relative to wild type but less in roots. In contrast, overexpression of Pht1;5 resulted in a lower P shoot:root ratio compared with wild type. Also, the rosette leaves of Pht1;5-overexpression plants senesced early and contained less P, whereas reproductive organs accumulated more P than those of wild type. Herein we report the molecular response of disrupting Pht1;5 expression on other factors known to modulate P distribution. The results reveal reciprocal mis-regulation of PHO1, miR399d, and At4 in the pht1;5 mutant and Pht1;5-overexpressor, consistent with the corresponding changes in P distribution in these lines. Together our studies reveal a complex role for Pht1;5 in regulating Pi homeostasis.
Sex preselection in the United States: some implications.

If effective sex control techniques were rapidly and widely adopted in the United States the current sex preferences of married women indicated that the temporary effect would be of a surplus of male births in the first couple of years followed by a wave of female births to achieve balance. The most significant implication appears to be the probability of first borns being male. Current attitudes of women however suggest that a substantial proportion would not use sex selection techniques even if available. Data on the use of this technology suggest the only major impact would be on first and second births with little effect on over-all sex ratio at birth.
Sex-Associated Differences in Pre-Antiretroviral Therapy Plasma HIV-1 RNA in Diverse Areas of the World Vary by CD4+ T-Cell Count

Background Sex differences in the natural history of HIV infection may vary between resource-rich and resource-limited settings. Methods Baseline characteristics from a randomized clinical trial of treatment-naive subjects conducted at sites in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and North and South America were analysed to determine if there were significant differences by sex. Results Of the 1,571 participants, 740 (47.1%) were women. Women had higher mean screening CD4+ T-cell counts (mean 15 cells higher; P<0.001), lower mean haemoglobin and creatinine clearance, a lower mean baseline HIV-1 viral load (4.85 log10 versus 5.05 log10 copies/ml; P<0.001) and were less likely to have a prior AIDS diagnosis than men. The sex difference in viral load was related to CD4+ T-cell count; however, it was independent of country and persisted within the strata with CD4+ T-cell count <200 cells/mm3. Conclusions Women in resource-limited settings have lower levels of plasma HIV-1 RNA and appear to present for enrolment into clinical trials at an earlier stage of disease than men. The biological basis for lower viral load in women compared to men remains unexplained. It will be important to determine if the sex differences observed at baseline impact clinical outcomes once the PEARLS clinical trial is completed.
FACTORS INFLUENCING THE USE OF M-BANKING BY ACADEMICS: CASE STUDY SMS-BASED M-BANKING

There are several advantages with m-banking. Several related studies have shown that m-banking and indeed SMS-based mobile banking applications have become popular in many countries in Europe and America. The phenomenon remains not widely used in many others such as Nigeria. This study identified and investigated the factors that influence academics in Nigeria to use mbanking with focus on the evaluation of SMS-based mobile banking. The research model was adopted from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model (UTAUT). A survey questionnaire was administered to collect data from 150 academic staff and 350 university students of the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. The results show a positive correlation between customer service, type of bank and perceived ease of use and the use of m-banking. The implications of the results are crucial for technology adoption research and managers of banks in Nigeria.
Novel hormone “receptors”

Our concepts of hormone receptors have, until recently, been narrowly defined. In the last few years, an increasing number of reports identify novel proteins, such as enzymes, acting as receptors. In this review we cover the novel receptors for the hormones atrial naturetic hormone, enterostatin, hepcidin, thyroid hormones, estradiol, progesterone, and the vitamin D metabolites 1,25(OH)2D3 and 24,25(OH)2D3. J. Cell. Biochem. 103: 401–407, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Caffeinated and Alcoholic Beverage Intake in Relation to Ovulatory Disorder Infertility

Background: Many studies have examined whether caffeine, alcohol, or specific beverages containing these substances affect fertility in women. However, most of these studies have retrospectively collected information on alcohol and caffeine intake, making the results susceptible to biases. Methods: We followed 18,555 married women without a history of infertility for 8 years as they attempted to become (or became) pregnant. Diet was measured twice during this period and prospectively related to the incidence of ovulatory disorder infertility. Results: There were 438 incident report of ovulatory disorder infertility during follow-up. Intakes of alcohol and caffeine were unrelated to the risk of ovulatory disorder infertility. Comparing the highest to lowest categories of intake, the multivariate-adjusted relative risk, was 1.11 (95% confidence interval = 0.76–1.64; P for trend 0.78) for alcohol and 0.86 (0.61–1.20; 0.44) for total caffeine. However, intake of caffeinated soft drinks was positively related to ovulatory disorder infertility. Comparing the highest to lowest categories of caffeinated soft drink consumption, the RR was 1.47 (1.09–1.98; 0.01). Similar associations were observed for noncaffeinated, sugared, diet, and total soft drinks. Conclusions: Our findings do not support the hypothesis that alcohol and caffeine impair ovulation to the point of decreasing fertility. The association between soft drinks and ovulatory disorder infertility seems not to be attributable to their caffeine or sugar content, and deserves further investigation.
Do Institutional Incentives Distort Asset Prices?

The incentive contracts of delegated investment managers may have unintended negative consequences for asset prices. I show that managers who are compensated for relative performance optimally shift their portfolio weights towards those of the benchmark when volatility rises, putting downward price pressure on overweight stocks and upward pressure on underweight stocks. In quarters when volatility rises most (top quintile), a portfolio of aggregate-underweight minus aggregate-overweight stocks returns 3% to 8% per quarter depending on the risk adjustment. Prices rebound in the following quarter by similar amounts, suggesting that the changes are temporary distortions. Consistent with the growing influence of asset management in the US equity market, the distortions are stronger in the second half of the sample, while placebo tests on institutions without direct benchmarking incentives show no effect. My findings cannot be explained by fund flows and thus constitute a new channel for the price effects of institutional demand. The effects come into play precisely when market-wide uncertainty is rising and distortions are less tolerable, with implications for the real economy. Additionally, the paper offers novel evidence on a prominent class of models for which empirical investigations have been relatively scarce.
Comparison of quantitative sensory testing and heart rate variability in Swedish Val30Met ATTR

Patients with transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTR) polyneuropathy, a hereditary fatal disease, often report defects in both thermal perception and autonomic nervous system function as their first clinical symptoms. While elevated thermal perception thresholds (TPT) for cold and warmth only recently have been shown as an early marker of small nerve fiber dysfunction in these patients, heart rate variability (HRV) has frequently been used to quantify autonomic neuropathy. The main purpose with this report was to elucidate a possible relationship between estimates of HRV and TPT in a selected group of early and late-onset Swedish Val30Met ATTR patients. The results show significantly more pronounced elevation of TPT in early compared to late-onset patients. Significant correlations between HRV and TPT were found among late-onset cases, indicating a possible relationship between loss of thin nerve fibers in somatic and autonomic nerves, while generally no such relationships were found among early-onset cases. This observation emphasizes the importance of testing both HRV and TPT to ensure optimal early detection of neuropathic changes in an as wide as possible range of small nerve fibers in suspected ATTR patients. This is of particular importance as the phenotype of the ATTR disease varies between groups with different age of onset.
Fossil vertebrates from Antigua, Lesser Antilles: Evidence for late Holocene human-caused extinctions in the West Indies.

Vertebrate remains recovered from a limestone fissure filling on Antigua, Lesser Antilles, are associated with radiocarbon dates ranging from 4300 to 2500 yr B.P., contemporaneous with the earliest aboriginal human occupation of the island. Nine taxa of lizards, snakes, birds, bats, and rodents (one-third of the total number of species represented as fossils) are either completely extinct or have never been recorded historically from Antigua. These extinctions came long after any major climatic changes of the Pleistocene and are best attributed to human-caused environmental degradation in the past 3500 yr. Such unnatural influences have probably altered patterns of distribution and species diversity throughout the West Indies, thus rendering unreliable the data traditionally used in ecological and biogeographic studies that consider only the historically known fauna.
Signatures of Many-Body Localization in a Controlled Open Quantum System

In the presence of disorder, an interacting closed quantum system can undergo many-body localization (MBL) and fail to thermalize. However, over long times, even weak couplings to any thermal environment will necessarily thermalize the system and erase all signatures of MBL. This presents a challenge for experimental investigations of MBL since no realistic system can ever be fully closed. In this work, we experimentally explore the thermalization dynamics of a localized system in the presence of controlled dissipation. Specifically, we find that photon scattering results in a stretched exponential decay of an initial density pattern with a rate that depends linearly on the scattering rate. We find that the resulting susceptibility increases significantly close to the phase transition point. In this regime, which is inaccessible to current numerical studies, we also find a strong dependence on interactions. Our work provides a basis for systematic studies of MBL in open systems and opens a route towards extrapolation of closed-system properties from experiments.
Vibrational modes of partly filled wine glasses

Time-average holographic interferometry has been employed to study how the vibrational modes of a singing wine glass change when it is filled with a liquid. While the liquid clearly lowers the resonance frequencies, it does not change the vibrational mode structure in a first approximation. A more detailed analysis, however, reveals that the presence of the liquid causes the simultaneous excitation of two orthogonal modes that are well resolved for the empty glass.
A central role for phosphatidic acid as a lipid mediator of regulated exocytosis in apicomplexa

Lipids are commonly known for the structural roles they play, however, the specific contribution of different lipid classes to wide‐ranging signalling pathways is progressively being unravelled. Signalling lipids and their associated effector proteins are emerging as significant contributors to a vast array of effector functions within cells, including essential processes such as membrane fusion and vesicle exocytosis. Many phospholipids have signalling capacity, however, this review will focus on phosphatidic acid (PA) and the enzymes implicated in its production from diacylglycerol (DAG) and phosphatidylcholine (PC): DGK and PLD respectively. PA is a negatively charged, cone‐shaped lipid identified as a key mediator in specific membrane fusion and vesicle exocytosis events in a variety of mammalian cells, and has recently been implicated in specialised secretory organelle exocytosis in apicomplexan parasites. This review summarises the recent work implicating a role for PA regulation in exocytosis in various cell types. We will discuss how these signalling events are linked to pathogenesis in the phylum Apicomplexa.
Pre and Post-SOX Association between Audit Firm Tenure and Earnings Management Risk

Recent proposals to limit auditor tenure to enhance audit quality and current requirements for the auditor to determine the risk of material misstatement and to assess the likelihood of fraudulent financial statements motivate our research on how the association between the auditor tenure and earnings management risk has evolved prior to and after the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). The relationship between auditor tenure and audit quality has been a controversial issue for years. As the Enron and WorldCom fiascoes illustrate, high-profile financial scandals give proposals to limit auditor tenure a lot of ―curb appeal. ‖ 1 Although Congress considered requiring the mandatory rotation of audit firms in SOX, they choose to require the rotation of lead and reviewing engagement partners instead. 2 Just two years later however, a $9 billion financial statement fraud at Fannie Mae renewed concerns over auditor tenure when part of the blame fell on KPMG, Fannie Mae‘s auditor of 36 years (Department of Housing and Urban Development‘s Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEA) 2006). Subsequently, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a proposal for the mandatory
Subvoxel image registration of multislice (2D) magnetic resonance images in patients with high-grade gliomas of the brain.

AIMS To implement a multislice two-dimensional (2D) T2-weighted sequence suitable for subvoxel image registration and to assess its usefulness in detecting change in high-grade intracranial gliomas. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty patients with high-grade gliomas were studied on two or more occasions. T2-weighted multislice pulse sequences with a Gaussian slice profile, 50% overlapping slices and nearly isotropic voxels were acquired. The images were registered and subtraction images were produced. The images were compared with three-dimensional (3D) T1-weighted registered images and conventional unregistered T2-weighted images. All images were scored for changes in the lesions and ventricular system. RESULTS The 2D and 3D registered subtraction images were the most sensitive for detecting changes in both the lesions and other regions in the brain. The mean rank scores were significantly higher for the lesions (chi2=86.742; df=5, n=38, P<0.0001) and for the ventricles (chi2=63.837; df=5, n=35, P<0.0001) compared with the unregistered and registered anatomical images. The subtraction images were also most sensitive for detecting signal intensity changes irrespective of the direction of change. CONCLUSION Rigid body subvoxel registration can be successfully performed with both multislice 2D and 3D imaging. In principle, virtually all forms of clinical MR images of the brain can be accurately registered and subtracted.
Estimation and model selection in generalized additive partial linear models for correlated data with diverging number of covariates

We propose generalized additive partial linear models for complex data which allow one to capture nonlinear patterns of some covariates, in the presence of linear components. The proposed method improves estimation efficiency and increases statistical power for correlated data through incorporating the correlation information. A unique feature of the proposed method is its capability of handling model selection in cases where it is difficult to specify the likelihood function. We derive the quadratic inference function-based estimators for the linear coefficients and the nonparametric functions when the dimension of covariates diverges, and establish asymptotic normality for the linear coefficient estimators and the rates of convergence for the nonparametric functions estimators for both finite and high-dimensional cases. The proposed method and theoretical development are quite challenging since the numbers of linear covariates and nonlinear components both increase as the sample size increases. We also propose a doubly penalized procedure for variable selection which can simultaneously identify nonzero linear and nonparametric components, and which has an asymptotic oracle property. Extensive Monte Carlo studies have been conducted and show that the proposed procedure works effectively even with moderate sample sizes. A pharmacokinetics study on renal cancer data is illustrated using the proposed method.
Coronary artery disease in critical patients of Iran.

OBJECTIVE To identify the risk factors for Coronary Artery Diseases (CAD), such as hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, smoking, age, obesity, immobility and diabetes mellitus, in critical patients of Sistan-Baluchistan (SB), Iran. METHODS This cross-sectional research was performed in 2006. The sampling method was convenience, and involved 616 hospitalised patients in the CCUs of hospitals of Sistan-Baluchistan province. Data was collected by structured interview and a checklist which included personal characteristics and risk factors like lifestyles as well as biochemical and physiological factors for CAD. SPSS software, Chi-square and exact fisher tests were used for analysis. RESULTS Frequency of risk factors among patients with CAD was found to be high in the study area. Also, the results showed that the prevalence of some risk factors, such as diabetes mellitus 198 (32.5%), hypertension 266 (43.7%) and obesity 131 (22.9%), was significantly higher in women than men. Besides, there was a significant relationship between smoking, 317(52.3%) and low mobility 503 (83.3%), with gender (p = 0.001). CONCLUSION Clinical and para-clinical data indicated that the adult population has a high level of CAD risk factors in the Sistan-Baluchistan province which may require urgent steps to address national control measures regarding CAD. Implementation of a prevention programme is necessary in order to reduce the risk factors. Also, health education is necessary, specially for women.