Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of Akt Inhibitor and a Drug-resistant Mutant Validates a Critical Role for Protein Kinase B/Akt in the Insulin-dependent Regulation of Glucose and System A Amino Acid Uptake*

Protein kinase B (PKB)/Akt has been strongly implicated in the insulin-dependent stimulation of GLUT4 translocation and glucose transport in skeletal muscle and fat cells. Recently an allosteric inhibitor of PKB (Akti) that selectively targets PKBα and -β was reported, but as yet its precise mechanism of action or ability to suppress key insulin-regulated events such as glucose and amino acid uptake and glycogen synthesis in muscle cells has not been reported. We show here that Akti ablates the insulin-dependent regulation of these processes in L6 myotubes at submicromolar concentrations and that inhibition correlates tightly with loss of PKB activation/phosphorylation. Similar findings were obtained using 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Akti did not inhibit IRS1 tyrosine phosphorylation, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signaling, or activation of Erks, ribosomal S6 kinase, or atypical protein kinases C but significantly impaired regulation of downstream PKB targets glycogen synthase kinase-3 and AS160. Akti-mediated inhibition of PKB requires an intact kinase pleckstrin homology domain but does not involve suppression of 3-phosphoinositide binding to this domain. Importantly, we have discovered that Akti inhibition is critically dependent upon a solvent-exposed tryptophan residue (Trp-80) that is present within the pleckstrin homology domain of all three PKB isoforms and whose mutation to an alanine (PKBW80A) yields an Akti-resistant kinase. Cellular expression of PKBW80A antagonized the Akti-mediated inhibition of glucose and amino acid uptake. Our findings support a critical role for PKB in the hormonal regulation of glucose and system A amino acid uptake and indicate that use of Akti and expression of the drug-resistant kinase will be valuable tools in delineating cellular PKB functions.
From Institutions to Financial Development and Growth: What are the Links?

This paper presents an integrated overview of the literature linking institutions, financial development and economic growth. From the large body of research on institutional development, the paper first selects those contributions that make it possible to study the role of institutional arrangements in ameliorating/worsening the information frictions and transaction costs that characterize the development of financial markets. The paper then investigates the theoretical mechanisms by which these specific frictions affect economic growth and presents the stock of empirical evidence quantifying the impact of institutions on growth through financial development.
Peripheral neuropathy complicating pancreatitis.

cleidomastoids may still continue intermittently in both forms if the patient is carefully observed. Our patient had symptoms compatible with paralytic rabies. However, the initial presentation with seizures resulted in delay in diagnosis. Clinical seizures of cortical origin were extremely rare in our experience of more than 40 rabies patients (by Hemachudha and Manutsathit, unpublished data). Only one patient who received intensive respiratory support and had severe hyponatremia had a seizure during the preterminal phase. Opistothonos or convulsions during hydrophobic spasms have been described,9 but not as an initial presentation. Attempts to make a diagnosis of human rabies in life by immunofluorescent testing for rabies virus antigen in corneal or salivary smears, or from nuchal skin or brain biopsy, and efforts to detect antibody to rabies virus in the serum or spinal fluid, were all disappointing during the early clinical stage of the disease.6 Antibody to rabies virus by RFFIT was demonstrated in this case 9 days after the onset of disease. The presence of rabies antigen of comparable amount in both neurons and glial cells was surprising. Study of rabies virus distribution in six other patients (four encephalitic and two paralytic cases) showed neuron to be the almost exclusive target of infection (Manuscript submitted). Inclusion bodies in astrocytes have been regarded as an uncommon finding on light microscopy. ' " Only 17% ofhuman rabies cases reported by Tangchai et al' were found to have inclusion body positive astrocytes. These were mostly in the floor of the third ventricle, paraventricular area and brainstem. It is not known whether seizure activity can be induced by the presence of virus in glial cells. T HEMACHUDHA
The Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.): the development and validation of a structured diagnostic psychiatric interview for DSM-IV and ICD-10.

The Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.) is a short structured diagnostic interview, developed jointly by psychiatrists and clinicians in the United States and Europe, for DSM-IV and ICD-10 psychiatric disorders. With an administration time of approximately 15 minutes, it was designed to meet the need for a short but accurate structured psychiatric interview for multicenter clinical trials and epidemiology studies and to be used as a first step in outcome tracking in nonresearch clinical settings. The authors describe the development of the M.I. N.I. and its family of interviews: the M.I. N.I. -Screen, the M.I. N.I. -Plus, and the M.I. N.I. -Kid. They report on validation of the M.I. N.I. in relation to the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R, Patient Version, the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, and expert professional opinion, and they comment on potential applications for this interview.
Tabu Search for Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs)

Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) considered in this paper involve a set of engineers operating from one base and a set of geographically distributed jobs or services to be performed by them under the given technological and temporal constraints. All engineers have different time-windows for their working and the technological constraints specify their competence to do jobs which can be performed within the given time-windows. A solution to a VRP is the scheduling of jobs among different engineers so that these jobs can be performed in minimum cost with all the temporal and technological constraints satisfied. The objective is to maximize the work done measured in terms of total number of jobs completed and minimize the total distance travelled by all the engineers. Three types of VRPs considered are under, critically and over resourced VRPs. VRPs belong to the class of NP-Complete problems. This paper investigates experimentally the application of an iterative method Tabu Search (TS) [5] in solving all the three types of randomly generated VRPs. The performance of TS is measured in terms of the number of unallocated jobs left and the cost of the solution measured in terms of total distance travelled by all the engineers. Starting with a given initial solution, TS attempts to obtain a near optimal solution containing the minimum number of unallocated jobs and the minimum cost. It is compared with the Hill-Climbing (HC) algorithm also used to solve same VRPs. In almost all cases, TS performs better than HC. However, in some cases, HC is found to give better results in terms of number of unallocated jobs.
The morphology and stability of resin-modified glass-ionomer adhesive at the dentin/resin-based composite interface.

PURPOSE To evaluate the interface with tooth structure, mode of failure and stability of Fuji Bond LC (FBLC) resin-modified glass-ionomer bonding system. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was in three main parts. The first part with interfacial characteristics of FBLC. The micropermeability of the FBLC/dentin interface of restored cavities in extracted teeth, after fluorescent dye was introduced into the pulp chamber, was assessed by confocal microscopy. In other teeth, confocal microscopy was also used to examine trhe failure of FBLC bonded to flat dentin surfaces, on shear loading. In the second part, cervical cavities restored with FBLC (with and without light-curing) and a resin-based composite were examined for stability of the interface over the first 15 minutes. In the last part of the study, a new fluorescent dye was mixed with FBLC for restoration of cavities and subsequent examination using 2-photon imaging techniques. RESULTS FBLC adapted well to tooth structure, had an interface with dentin that was permeable to fluid and displayed the absorption layer. Shear loading at the dentin interface resulted in complex failure with areas of cohesive failure where the absorption layer was present. Light-curing of FBLC seemed to produce a stable restorative while "co-curing" resulted in an unstable situation, with the appearance of an emmisable exudate from the FBLC. Advanced fluorescent imaging of the material itself seemed to suggest that there was a movement of aluminum ions in a manner similar to other glass-ionomer cements. The presence of HEMA in the matrix of the cement associated with the absorption layer was also demonstrated.
The Effectiveness of Quality Protein Maize in Improving the Nutritional Status of Young Children in the Ethiopian Highlands

Background Undernutrition is a persistent problem in Africa, especially in rural areas where the poor largely depend on staples and have limited access to a diverse diet. Quality protein maize (QPM) consists of maize varieties biofortified with increased lysine and tryptophan levels. Several studies in controlled settings have indicated the positive impact of QPM on the nutritional status of children. Objective Two 1-year, randomized, controlled studies were undertaken to measure the effect of QPM on the nutritional status of children consuming typical maize-based diets when QPM was cultivated by their households in the western Ethiopian highlands. Methods The first study used a cluster-randomized design with 151 children aged 5 to 29 months; the second study used a completely randomized design with 211 children aged 7 to 56 months. In both studies, half of the households were provided with QPM seed and the other half with seed of an improved conventional maize variety. Results Undernutrition was pervasive, and maize was the dominant food in the children's complementary diets. In the first study, a positive effect of QPM was observed for weight but not height, with children in the QPM group recovering from a drop in weight-for-height. In the second study, children consuming conventional maize progressively faltered in their growth, whereas children consuming QPM did not change significantly in height-for-age and had a marginal increase in weight-for-age. Conclusions These studies indicate that in major maize-producing and -consuming areas of Africa, home cultivation and use of QPM in children's diets could reduce or prevent growth faltering and may in some cases support catch-up growth in weight.
Development of a novel biosensor based on a polypyrrole–dodecylbenzene sulphonate (PPy–DBS) film for the determination of amperometric cholesterol

Abstract Herein a novel amperometric biosensor based on a conducting polymer with anionic dopant modified electrode was successfully developed for detection of cholesterol. Polypyrrole is deposited on a platinum surface and the sodium dodecylbenzene sulphonate (DBS) ion-doped polypyrrole film was electrochemically prepared by scanning the electrode potential between −0.8 and +0.8 V at a scan rate of 20 mV/s. The present electrochemical biosensor was optimized in terms of working potential, number of cycles, concentrations of monomer, and anionic dopant. Cholesterol oxidase (ChOx) was physically entrapped in PPy–DBS to construct an amperometric cholesterol biosensor. Amperometric determination is based on the electrochemical detection of H2O2 generated in the enzymatic reaction of cholesterol. Kinetic parameters, operational and storage stabilities, pH, and temperature dependencies were determined. Km and Imax were calculated as 0.11 μM and 0.967 nM/min, respectively. The operational stability results showed that 90.0% of the response current was retained after 30 activity assays. Morphology of electrodes was characterized by SEM and AFM. Additionally, contact angle measurements were made with 1 μL water of polymer film and enzyme electrode. As a result, the cholesterol biosensor suggested in this study is easy to prepare and is highly cost-effective. This composite (PPy–DBS) can supply a biocompatible and electrochemical microenvironment for immobilization of the enzyme, making this material a good candidate for the fabrication of highly sensitive and selective cholesterol biosensors.
Microbial Transformation of Dehydroepiandrosterone

Transformation of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) ( 1 ) was carried out by a plant pathogen Rhizopus stolonifer , which resulted in the production of seven metabolites. These metabolites were identified as 3 g ,17 g -dihydroxyandrost-5-ene ( 2 ), 3 g ,17 g -dihydroxyandrost-4-ene ( 3 ), 17 g -hydroxyandrost-4-ene-3-one ( 4 ), 3 g ,11 g -dihydroxyandrost-4-ene-17-one ( 5 ), 3 g ,7 f -dihydroandrost-5-ene-17-one ( 6 ), 3 g ,7 f ,17 g -trihydroxyandrost-5-ene ( 7) and 11 g -hydroxyandrost-4,6-diene-3,17-dione ( 8) . The structures of the transformed products were determined by the spectroscopic techniques.
Risk factors for the development of diabetes mellitus in chronic hepatitis C virus genotype 4 infection

Background and Aim: A high occurrence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been reported in Kuwait and other countries. However, HCV genotype 4 has been underrepresented in all previous studies. Our aim was to investigate the viral and host risk factors associated with the development of T2D in patients with chronic hepatitis C genotype 4 infection in the absence of liver fibrosis and steatosis.
Multivariate Autoregressive Spectrogram Modeling for Noisy Speech Recognition

The performance of an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system is highly degraded in the presence of noise and reverberation. The autoregressive (AR) modeling approach, which preserves the high energy regions of the signal that are less susceptible to noise, first, presents a potential method for robust feature extraction. Second, there are strong correlations in the spectrotemporal domain of the speech signal, which are generally absent in noise. In this letter, we propose a novel method for speech feature extraction, which combines the advantages of AR approach and joint time–frequency processing using the multivariate AR modeling (MAR). Specifically, the subband discrete cosine transform coefficients obtained from multiple speech bands are used in the MAR framework to derive the Riesz temporal envelopes that provide features for ASR. We perform several speech recognition experiments in the Aurora-4 database with clean and multicondition training. In these experiments, the proposed features provide significant improvements over other noise robust feature extraction methods (relative improvements of 24% in clean training and 14% in multicondition training over mel features). Furthermore, the speech recognition experiments in REVERB challenge database illustrates the extension of the MAR modeling method for suppressing reverberant artifacts.
Adult Attachment Interview, Thematic Analysis, and Communicative Style in Families with Substance Use Disorder

The paper examined the Adult Attachment Interview with special reference to thematic and semantic analysis in line with the discourse study (van Dijk, 1997). The hypothesis was that correspondence between the communicative organization of speech and the mental representations of the attachment experiences would be substantial Eight Adult Attachment Interview transcripts of fathers with a heroin addicted young son were analyzed at two levels, (a) thematic analysis to individuate the topics of their talk applying the structural and semantic study of discourse and (b) enunciative analysis of speech to define their linguistic patterns utilizing a set of linguistic micro- and macro-units. Results showed nine main topics in the Adult Attachment Interview, each of which was characterized by a distinctive linguistic profile. In this perspective this device seems to be effective not only for discriminating attachment styles between subjects but also to identify differences within subjects belonging to the same attachment pattern.
K -shell photoionization of O + and O 2 + ions: Experiment and theory

M.F. G.acknowledges funding from the Scientific Research Support Fund, Jordan, under Contract No. as/2/02/2010. I.Q. A. acknowledges financial support from the SESAME – Lounsbery Foundation for a training fellowship. B.M. M. acknowledges support from the U.S. National Science Foundation through a grant to ITAMP at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the RTRA network Triangle de la Physique, and a visiting research fellowship (VRF) from Queen’s University Belfast.
Crystal Planar Waveguides, a Power Scaling Architecture for Low-Gain Transitions

In this paper, we present the underlying advantages that make the crystalline planar waveguide (PW) the key ingredient in power-scaling difficult or “weak” laser transitions, especially those which are extremely challenging to operate in other gain medium configurations. The planar waveguide architecture is shown to enable efficient laser operation of low-gain and/or quasi-four-level transitions that suffer reabsorption losses. Exemplar configurations are reported to make this case, for example, 1.4 W at 1.8 μm from a Nd:YAG double-clad planar waveguide laser (PWL), in addition to 0.5 W at 2.7 μm from a similar highly doped Er:YAG PWL. New laser performance levels from sesquioxide PWs fabricated by pulsed laser deposition are also presented for the first time, with >1 W obtained from a Yb:Y2O3 PWL. Current performance and future prospects are discussed for this laser architecture.
The Use of Hyperbaric Oxygenation in the Treatment of Cerebral Ischemia and Infarction

The therapeutic usefulness of hyperbaric oxygenation in cerebral vascular disease was evaluated in 22 persons with recent neurologic deficits caused by cerebral embolism, thrombosis, hemorrhage, or arteriographic complications. Hyperoxygenation produced a significant elevation in content and tension of oxygen in blood and increased the reservoir of oxygen available for utilization by neurons. Remarkable and dramatic improvement in neurologic function occurred in four patients. The improvement persisted in two patients. In two others the neurologic deficit recurred a few hours after removal from the hyperbaric chamber; repeated exposure to high oxygen pressures was associated with only temporary improvement. In six other patients there was some evidence of clinical recovery immediately after onset of hyperoxygenation, but the neurologic deficit returned during decompression. The remaining 12 patients did not improve during hyperbaric oxygenation.These observations indicate that in some patients neuronal structures remain viable for some hours after loss of function in acute cerebral ischemia. In such instances an increase in oxygen delivery may reverse cellular ischemia and prevent death of cerebral tissues. Hyperbaric oxygenation may provide supportive therapy in some patients with acute cerebral ischemia, thereby permitting the removal of the occlusive lesion by surgery or other methods.
Flexibility of managing VLAN filtering and segmentation in SDN networks

Recently, the paradigm of Software Defined Networking (SDN) became an attractive research field, aiming to renovate networks and to bypass existing obstacles in order to meet the new challenges of current Internet. In this paper, we emphasize the advantages and the flexibility of deploying network applications on top of SDN infrastructure, designed for solving a problem or configuring a behavior, in comparison with Autonomic Network Management (ANM) solutions on traditional network infrastructure, designed for the same purpose. To elucidate this research, we will present a study of the “VLAN filtering and segmentation” autonomic deployment on top of both environments; regular network and SDN network, proving that SDN paradigm offers to the administrators an improvement in control and management tasks, with a rigorous translation of the business needs into production networks.
Changes in sarcomere length during isometric tension development in frog skeletal muscle

1. Changes in sarcomere length during isometric contraction of isolated semitendinosus muscle fibres from the frog were studied using laser diffraction techniques. Movements of the first‐order diffraction line relative to the zero‐order reference were recorded from a screen on continuously moving film. Sarcomere length changes of 50 Å could be resolved in this way.
[Exploration of visual memory by functional MRI].

PURPOSE The aim of our study was to evidence the location of the cortical area triggered by visual memory tasks by he mean of functional magnetic resonance imaging examination (fMRI). METHODS Twelve healthy volunteers underwent fMRI examination on a 1.5 Tesla magnet with echoplanar imaging sequence during figurative and non-figurative memory tasks. An area was considered to be activated if at least 10 contiguous voxels activation was noted. Activated areas were defined for both tasks and the brain mapping was realized according to Talairach atlas. RESULTS For all examinations a bilateral activity was evidenced (area 17 and 18). In addition, a frontal activation was also noted in 83% of the cases for both tasks. However, frontal activation was bilateral in 9/10 cases for the figurative task and 6/10 cases for the non-figurative task. CONCLUSION FMRI was able to evidence activation of cerebral areas during visual memory tasks in all our study cases. Frontal activation was not discriminative of figurative or non figurative memory. This might be probably explain by inappropriate non-figurative tests. FMRI should allow a better knowledge of memory mechanisms as well as an enhancement of functional cerebral mapping before surgery.
Knowledge, attitudes and practices of business travelers regarding malaria risk and prevention.

BACKGROUND This study aimed to determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices of Swiss business travelers with regard to malaria. METHODS Questionnaires printed in three languages were distributed by employers, travel agencies and tropical medicine specialists to business travelers with destinations in malaria endemic countries. RESULTS In total, 401 questionnaires were evaluated. Thirty-three percent visited high-risk areas, 27% visited low-risk areas, and 40% visited only malaria-free areas within endemic countries. Among the investigated business travelers, 6% had experienced malaria infection, and 29% had previously had blood smears tested for malaria at least once. Almost all business travelers, 95%, knew that mosquitoes are the main vectors of malaria. The infection risk between dusk and dawn was known to 71%, and the incubation time to 36%. Apart from fever (99%) and headache (63%), other malaria symptoms were known to only 13% to 36% of the travelers. If signs of illness such as fever and headache occurred, 63% would react adequately and seek medical advice within 24 h. Only 16% of the travelers to African high-risk areas followed the recommended behavior concerning anti-mosquito and antimalarial strategies; 31% of those on trips to low-risk areas used an adequate protective strategy. Of the business travelers using chemoprophylaxis during travel, just 50% continued intake post travel, as requested, after leaving the endemic area. CONCLUSIONS Business travelers are well informed regarding the mode of transmission and the risk of malaria at specific destinations but tend to comply poorly with anti-mosquito and chemoprophylactic strategies. The knowledge, attitudes and practices of business travelers with regard to malaria prevention need to be improved.