Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Population genetics of the olive‐winged bulbul (Pycnonotus plumosus) in a tropical urban‐fragmented landscape

Abstract With increasing urbanization, urban‐fragmented landscapes are becoming more and more prevalent worldwide. Such fragmentation may lead to small, isolated populations that face great threats from genetic factors that affect even avian species with high dispersal propensities. Yet few studies have investigated the population genetics of species living within urban‐fragmented landscapes in the Old World tropics, in spite of the high levels of deforestation and fragmentation within this region. We investigated the evolutionary history and population genetics of the olive‐winged bulbul (Pycnonotus plumosus) in Singapore, a highly urbanized island which retains <5% of its original forest cover in fragments. Combining our own collected and sequenced samples with those from the literature, we conducted phylogenetic and population genetic analyses. We revealed high genetic diversity, evidence for population expansion, and potential presence of pronounced gene flow across the population in Singapore. This suggests increased chances of long‐term persistence for the olive‐winged bulbul and the ecosystem services it provides within this landscape.
Propranolol impairs liver regeneration after partial hepatectomy in C57Bl/6-mice by transient attenuation of hepatic lipid accumulation and increased apoptosis

Abstract Objective. Acute hepatic fat accumulation appears to be crucial for liver regeneration after partial hepatectomy. Since fatty acids in the liver are provided by catecholamine-induced lipolysis in the adipose tissue, we investigated whether β-adrenergic blockade of lipolysis might affect liver regeneration. Material and methods. Mice were treated with propranolol prior to partial hepatectomy. Subsequently, liver regeneration was evaluated histologically, by determination of the relative liver weight and the mitotic index at different time points after surgery. Results. Liver mass restoration was delayed by propranolol, which was associated with a lower hepatic triglyceride content. Ki-67 labelling indicated that liver regeneration was attenuated by propranolol through inhibition of mitosis. Hepatocytes were arrested in the G1 phase of the cell cycle, as shown by the expression of G1-related proteins such as proliferating cell nuclear antigen, cyclin D1 and cyclin-dependent kinase-2, and underwent apoptosis as indicated by detection of poly(adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase fragments. β-adrenergic blockade of the host animal did not provide transplanted hepatocytes with a growth advantage over host cells. Conclusion. Impairment of liver regeneration by propranolol is related to the inhibition of acute hepatic fat accumulation and to a predisposition of hepatocytes to apoptosis.
Risk Perceptions and Trust Following the 2010 and 2011 Icelandic Volcanic Ash Crises

Eruptions at the Icelandic volcanoes of Eyjafjallajökull (2010) and Grimsvötn (2011) produced plumes of ash posing hazards to air traffic over northern Europe. In imposing restrictions on air traffic, regulators needed to balance the dangers of accidents or aircraft damage against the cost and inconvenience to travelers and industry. Two surveys examined how members of the public viewed the necessity of the imposed restrictions and their trust in different agencies as estimators of the level of risk. Study 1 was conducted with 213 British citizens (112 males, 101 females), who completed questionnaires while waiting for flights at London City Airport during May 2012. Study 2 involved an online survey of 301 Icelandic citizens (172 males, 127 females, 2 undeclared gender) during April 2012. In both samples, there was general support for the air traffic restrictions, especially among those who gave higher estimates of the likelihood of an air accident or mishap having otherwise happened. However, in both countries, the (minority of) respondents who had personally experienced travel disruption were less convinced that these restrictions were all necessary. Scientists, the International Civil Aviation Organization, and (in Iceland) the Icelandic Department of Civil Protection were all highly trusted, and seen as erring on the side of caution in their risk estimates. Airlines were seen as more likely to underestimate any risk. We conclude that perceptions of the balance between risk and caution in judgments under uncertainty are influenced by one's own motives and those attributed to others.
Early HLA-B*57-Restricted CD8+ T Lymphocyte Responses Predict HIV-1 Disease Progression

ABSTRACT Although HLA-B*57 (B57) is associated with slow progression to disease following HIV-1 infection, B57 heterozygotes display a wide spectrum of outcomes, including rapid progression, viremic slow progression, and elite control. Efforts to identify differences between B57-positive (B57+) slow progressors and B57+ rapid progressors have largely focused on cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) phenotypes and specificities during chronic stages of infection. Although CTL responses in the early months of infection are likely to be the most important for the long-term rate of HIV-1 disease progression, few data on the early CTL responses of eventual slow progressors have been available. Utilizing the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS), we retrospectively examined the early HIV-1-specific CTL responses of 14 B57+ individuals whose time to development of disease ranged from 3.5 years to longer than 25 years after infection. In general, a greater breadth of targeting of epitopes from structural proteins, especially Gag, as well as of highly conserved epitopes from any HIV-1 protein, correlated with longer times until disease. The single elite controller in the cohort was an outlier on several correlations of CTL targeting and time until disease, consistent with reports that elite control is typically not achieved solely by protective HLA-mediated CTLs. When targeting of individual epitopes was analyzed, we found that early CTL responses to the IW9 (ISPRTLNAW) epitope of Gag, while generally subdominant, correlated with delayed progression to disease. This is the first study to identify early CTL responses to IW9 as a correlate of protection in persons with HLA-B*57.
Correlates of Perceived Insecurity: Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract This study explores the correlates of perceived insecurity among the households in Pakistan. For this purpose, data from the third round of Pakistan Panel Household Survey are merged with terrorist incidents taken from Global Terrorism Database. The results illustrate that objective risk, signified by violence in the district of residence, and victimization play an important role in the formation of perceived insecurity. Moreover, males and residents of rural areas feel more insecure than females and urban residents, respectively. Furthermore, spatial variation in violence indicates that terrorist attacks in the first-order contiguous districts (i.e. the immediate neighbors) are also associated with subjective insecurity. These are crucial findings because behavioral changes, such as perceived insecurity, could force the households to make suboptimal investment decisions. More importantly, since changes in behavioral parameters may be highly persistent, this study cautions that violence in Pakistan may have potentially long-term impacts on social welfare.
Utilization of genomic sequence information to develop malaria vaccines

SUMMARY Recent advances in the fields of genomics, proteomics and molecular immunology offer tremendous opportunities for the development of novel interventions against public health threats, including malaria. However, there is currently no algorithm that can effectively identify the targets of protective T cell or antibody responses from genomic data. Furthermore, the identification of antigens that will stimulate the most effective immunity against the target pathogen is problematic, particularly if the genome is large. Malaria is an attractive model for the development and validation of approaches to translate genomic information to vaccine development because of the critical need for effective anti-malarial interventions and because the Plasmodium parasite is a complex multistage pathogen targeted by multiple immune responses. Sterile protective immunity can be achieved by immunization with radiation-attenuated sporozoites, and anti-disease immunity can be induced in residents in malaria-endemic areas. However, the 23 Mb Plasmodium falciparum genome encodes more than 5300 proteins, each of which is a potential target of protective immune responses. The current generation of subunit vaccines is based on a single or few antigens and therefore might elicit too narrow a breadth of response. We are working towards the development of a new generation vaccine based on the presumption that duplicating the protection induced by the whole organism may require a vaccine nearly as complex as the organism itself. Here, we present our strategy to exploit the genomic sequence of P. falciparum for malaria vaccine development.
Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus Can Productively Infect Primary Human Keratinocytes and Alter Their Growth Properties

ABSTRACT Previous studies have shown the presence of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV/HHV8) DNA in endothelial cells, in keratinocytes in the basal layer of the epidermis overlying plaque-stage nodular lesions of cutaneous Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), and in the epithelial cells of eccrine glands within KS lesions. We infected primary cell cultures of human keratinocytes with KSHV/HHV8. At 6 days post infection, transcription of viral genes was detected by reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR), and protein expression was documented by an immunofluorescence assay with an anti-LANA monoclonal antibody. To determine whether the viral lytic cycle was inducible by chemical treatment, KSHV/HHV8-infected keratinocytes were treated with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) and RT-PCR was performed to confirm the transcription of lytic genes such as open reading frame 26, (which encodes a capsid protein). Finally, to assess infectious viral production, other primary human cells (human umbilical vein endothelial cells), were infected with concentrated supernatant of KSHV-infected, TPA-induced keratinocytes and the presence of viral transcripts was confirmed by RT-PCR. The uninfected keratinocytes senesced 3 to 5 weeks after mock infection, while the KSHV/HHV8-infected keratinocytes continued to proliferate and to date are still in culture. However, 8 weeks after infection, viral genomes were no longer detectable by nested PCR. Although the previously KSHV/HHV8-infected keratinocytes still expressed epithelial markers, they acquired new characteristics such as contact inhibition loss, telomerase activity, anchorage-independent growth, and changes in cytokine production. These results show that KSHV/HHV8, like other herpesviruses, can infect and replicate in epithelial cells in vitro and suggest that in vivo these cells may play a significant role in the establishment of KSHV/HHV8 infection and viral transmission.
Children with autism demonstrate circumscribed attention during passive viewing of complex social and nonsocial picture arrays

Although circumscribed interests are a hallmark characteristic of autism spectrum disorders, providing a means for quantifying their functional impairment has proven difficult. We developed a passive viewing task to measure aspects of visual attention in children with autism spectrum disorders and typically developing controls. Task stimuli included picture arrays that were matched for social and nonsocial content. Nonsocial content was balanced to include items related to circumscribed interests (e.g., trains) as well as more commonplace items (e.g., furniture). Discrete aspects of gaze behavior were quantified using eye‐tracking technology. Results indicate that visual attention in the autism group was more circumscribed (as indicated by the exploration of fewer images), more perseverative (as indicated by longer fixation times per image explored), and more detail oriented (as indicated by a greater number of discrete fixations on explored images). This pattern of results was similar for both social and object arrays. Within the autism group, overall severity of repetitive behavior symptoms correlated positively with exploration of object pictures and negatively with perseveration on social pictures. Results suggest that children with autism have a domain‐general pattern of atypical visual attention that may represent an exaggeration of a typical attentional process and is related to a tendency to perseverate on images of interest and explore them in a more detail‐oriented manner. Discrete measures of visual attention may therefore provide a reasonable means of quantifying aspects of the repetitive behavior phenotype in autism.
Logics, Leaders, Lab Coats: A Multi‐Level Study on How Institutional Logics are Linked to Entrepreneurial Intentions in Academia

Situated in the context of academia, this study integrates ideas from institutional theory, person‐environment fit theory and leadership research to conceptualize and examine the cross‐level link between the organizational‐level institutional logic of research commercialization and the entrepreneurial intentions of researchers. Multi‐level analyses based on a sample of 254 researchers working for 85 research group leaders in 49 German research institutes reveal that two distinct attributes of research group leaders – that is, their track records of entrepreneurial behaviour and their entrepreneurial intentions – play a significant role in transmitting the organizational‐level logic to the individual level. We also observe a complementary interaction between organizational‐level commercialization logic and the entrepreneurial track records of leaders. We discuss how these findings advance our understanding of science commercialization through academic entrepreneurship and how they inform institutional theory and theory development in other domains of entrepreneurship research.
Outcomes of systematic screening for optic pathway tumors in children with Neurofibromatosis Type 1

Optic pathway tumors (OPT) occur in about 15% of individuals with Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) and may effect substantial visual loss. Because their growth is not predictable at the time of discovery, neuroimaging for OPT in asymptomatic NF1 patients remains controversial. We evaluated the outcomes of systematic screening by both MRI and ophthalmic examinations for OPT in young children with NF1 seen at multi‐disciplinary clinics for Neurofibromatosis and Genetics at one institution between 1996 and 2001. We report on 84 children who presented with NF1 under age 6 years, of whom 13 children presented with either known OPT or abnormal MRI findings and 11 children had OPTs identified by neuroimaging, including two children with abnormal eye examinations at presentation (one with strabismus and one with optic atrophy). Nine OPTs were detected in asymptomatic subjects with normal ophthalmic examinations. Three children with chiasmal lesions enlarging on subsequent MRI were treated with carboplatin and vincristine. After treatment, the vision in each involved eye was intact. In contrast, the 13 children with OPT diagnosed outside of screening guidelines included five children with substantial visual loss. Our observations suggest that early recognition of NF1 promotes appropriate surveillance and allows early intervention to reduce complications of OPT. This analysis supports prospective studies to compare the outcomes of systematic screening with neuroimaging to screening with ophthalmic examinations alone in children with NF1. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Modeling of short circuit power consumption using timing-only logic cell macromodels

This paper proposes an analytical modeling of power consumption in CMOS gates which is based on timing-only models. The proposed model is refined for the short circuit power dissipation as a function of input transition times, power supply voltage and output loading (C/sub L/) factor. The influence of the short circuit power dissipation can introduce an error of up to 25% in the average of dynamic power estimation. In this paper we model correctly this effect, with a minimum increase in the complexity of the model. Moreover, the same model used for timing analysis purposes can be used to investigate the total power consumption, including short circuit dissipation. The formulation is geared toward cell-oriented logic synthesis, which handles delays and signal slopes. The work shows the model connection between power components and the timing parameters computed at the switch or logic level. Results are presented showing the short circuit component as a fraction of total power for gates and circuits like buffers and adders.
Increased survivin mRNA in malignant pleural effusion is significantly correlated with survival.

OBJECTIVE The sensitivity of cytologic examination of pleural effusions is variable and not predictive of prognosis. Survivin is an inhibitor of apoptosis that may be a novel diagnostic/prognostic marker of cancers. This study aimed to determine the diagnostic and prognostic value of measuring survivin mRNA levels in pleural effusions. METHODS Eighty-eight consecutive pleural effusion samples were examined for both cytology and survivin mRNA level. The accuracy of diagnosis and the correlation between survivin mRNA level and survival in malignant pleural effusion (MPE) were determined. Pleural effusions were divided into three groups: Group I, malignancy-associated (n = 44); Group II, inflammatory (n = 27); and Group III, transudative (n = 17). RESULTS Survivin mRNA levels in Group I (1.03 +/- 0.61, range 0-2.96) were significantly higher than those in Groups II (0.45 +/- 0.69, range 0-3.30) and III (0.08 +/- 0.22, range 0-0.71) (P < 0.001). Survivin mRNA level was significantly higher in MPE than in non-MPE. The cut-off value for survivin mRNA levels in pleural effusions was 0.074 for the diagnosis of malignancies, with sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of 96%, 45%, 45% and 96%, respectively. Survivin mRNA level in pleural effusions of cancer patients significantly correlated with poor survival. CONCLUSIONS Survivin mRNA level is significantly higher in MPEs. Over-expression of survivin mRNA correlates with poor prognosis in cancer patients.
Erdheim–Chester disease

Purpose of reviewErdheim–Chester disease (ECD) is a rare, non-Langerhans form of histiocytosis first described in 1930 with a wide range of manifestations. The number of new cases has dramatically increased over the past 10 years because of the better recognition of this condition. The natural evolution is variable, but the spontaneous prognosis is severe. In this review, we describe the relevant clinical, radiological, prognostic, and therapeutic features of this orphan disease. Recent findingsCompelling evidence demonstrates the efficacy of treatment by interferon alpha (IFN&agr;) which has been reported to be a major independent predictor of survival among ECD patients. Alternative treatments remain to be defined. Recent studies have highlighted the central nervous system involvement as an independent predictor of death. Pathophysiology is better understood with a complex network of cytokines and chemokines and a systemic immune Th-1-oriented perturbation. SummaryECD, although a rare and orphan disease, has been overlooked and numerous new cases are currently diagnosed because of general better knowledge of this histiocytosis. First-line treatment is IFN&agr;. We have recently described a unique cytokine signature that may provide further clues to understand the pathogenesis of ECD, as well as provide new tools for diagnosis and targeted therapy.
Pain from distension of the pelvic colon by inflating a balloon in the irritable colon syndrome 1

The effects of inflating a balloon introduced through a sigmoidoscope to 35 cm in the pelvic colon have been observed and compared in 67 patients with the irritable colon syndrome and in 16 normal and constipated subjects acting as controls. Inflation to 60 ml caused pain in 6% of the controls at a mean diameter of 3·8 cm and in 55% of patients with the irritable colon syndrome (diameter 3·4 cm). An estimate of gut wall tension at this volume of inflation showed it to be normal in patients with the irritable colon syndrome; the incidence of pain in relation to wall tension was increased nearly tenfold in the irritable colon group. Inflation of the balloon to different volumes was normally painless to a maximum acceptable diameter which remained constant for each study under constant conditions; continued inflation eventually gave rise to pain without increasing the diameter. The pain was felt in the hypogastrium in 40%, in one or both iliac fossae in 31%, and in the rectum in 21%; the other 8% felt pain in the back or elsewhere and there were no significant differences between clinical groups. Exceptionally, in 6% of the controls, and in 52% of patients with the irritable colon syndrome, pain occurred at balloon diameters that could still be increased by 10% or more with further inflation. This was probably the outcome of a low threshold for visceral pain in the section of bowel in contact with the balloon. Colonic hyperalgesia of this kind, possibly a random occurrence, may be an important contributory factor in the aetiology of the irritable colon syndrome.
Interventions for caregivers of patients with dementia.

INTRODUCTION With the aging of the population, an increasing number of people have dementia, most of whom are receiving home care. Caregivers are exposed to a variety of stressors, which may lead to feeling burdened, or to depression and anxiety. Various programs or structured interventions have been developed to prevent or lessen these negative consequences. The efficacy of these interventions is debated, mainly due to methodological differences between studies. Review studies so far have presented important discrepancies, thus perpetuating a lack of clarity regarding this important geriatric care problem. The effectiveness of interventions designed to prevent or reduce the burden and/or symptoms of anxiety and depression in informal caregivers are reviewed precisely and rigorously. METHODS A systematic review of randomized controlled studies assessing the efficacy of structured interventions on the variables of burden, depression and anxiety in informal caregivers of patients with dementia. RESULTS The literature search yielded 997 references, of which 35 met the screening criteria. Of these studies, 51.4% had results that were statistically favorable to intervention. The methodology used varied widely between studies. CONCLUSIONS Overall, the available evidence favors the implementation of structured intervention programs, although the results are heterogeneous. Psychoeducational interventions yield better results and can be better adapted to the needs of caregivers.