Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Plasticity of the Primate Prefrontal Cortex

Cortical plasticity refers to flexible and long-lasting changes in neuronal circuitry and information processing, which is caused by learning and experience. Although cortical plasticity can be observed in every cortex of the brain, the plasticity of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is particularly important because the PFC is involved in various cognitive functions, and its plasticity could lead to adaptive changes in the use of other brain regions. Cortical plasticity occurs at several levels, from functional molecules to the organization of large areas of the brain. Here, the authors focus mainly on the development and remodeling of the functional and structural organization of the primate PFC. They discuss how the columnar modules of the PFC develop in the immature brain, how these modules form a “cognitive field” that is responsible for a specific cognitive function, how the cognitive field could be reorganized by training in the mature brain, and how monoaminergic systems contribute to these various levels of plasticity. They suggest that monoaminergic systems, especially the dopaminergic system, are involved in various levels of cortical plasticity, such as behavioral learning and learning-dependent cortical remodeling, thereby contributing to the reorganization of the cognitive field in the primate PFC. NEUROSCIENTIST 13(3):229—240, 2007.
Fundal pressure during the second stage of labour.

BACKGROUND Fundal pressure during the second stage of labour involves application of manual pressure to the uppermost part of the uterus directed towards the birth canal in an attempt to assist spontaneous vaginal delivery and avoid prolonged second stage or the need for operative delivery. Fundal pressure has also been applied using an inflatable girdle. A survey in the United States found that 84% of the respondents used fundal pressure in their obstetric centres.There is little evidence to demonstrate that the use of fundal pressure is effective to improve maternal and/or neonatal outcomes. Several anecdotal reports suggest that fundal pressure is associated with maternal and neonatal complications: for example, uterine rupture, neonatal fractures and brain damage. There is a need for objective evaluation of the effectiveness and safety of fundal pressure in the second stage of labour. OBJECTIVES To determine the benefits and adverse effects of fundal pressure in the second stage of labour. SEARCH STRATEGY We searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group's Trials Register (November 2008). SELECTION CRITERIA Randomised and quasi-randomised controlled trials of fundal pressure versus no fundal pressure in women in the second stage of labour with singleton cephalic presentation. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Three review authors independently assessed for inclusion all the potential studies. We extracted the data using a pre-designed form. We entered data into Review Manager software and checked for accuracy. MAIN RESULTS We excluded two of three identified trials from the analyses for methodological reasons. This left no studies on manual fundal pressure. We included one study (500 women) of fundal pressure by means of an inflatable belt versus no fundal pressure to reduce operative delivery rates. The methodological quality of the included study was good.Use of the inflatable belt did not change the rate of operative deliveries (RR 0.94, 95% CI 0.80 to 1.11). Fetal outcomes in terms of five-minute Apgar scores below seven (RR 4.62, 95% CI 0.22 to 95.68), low arterial cord pH (RR 0.47, 95% CI 0.09 to 2.55) and admission to the neonatal unit (RR 1.48, 95% CI 0.49 to 4.45) were also not different between the groups. There was no severe neonatal or maternal mortality or morbidity. There was an increase in intact perineum (RR 1.73, 95% CI 1.07 to 2.77), as well as anal sphincter tears (RR 15.69, 95% CI 2.10 to 117.02) in the belt group. There were no data on long-term outcomes. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS There is no evidence available to conclude on beneficial or harmful effects of manual fundal pressure. Good quality randomised controlled trials are needed to study the effect of manual fundal pressure. Fundal pressure by an insufflatable belt during the second stage of labour does not appear to increase the rate of spontaneous vaginal births in women with epidural analgesia. There is insufficient evidence regarding safety for the baby. The effects on the maternal perineum are inconclusive.
Prioritization of Service Quality Dimension and Performance Indicators Using Analytic Network Process with the Approach of Balanced Score Card; a Case Study

Customer satisfaction is an important parameter of a hospital as a service organization. In this study, taking into account that service quality as a parameter that influences customer satisfaction; is in connection with performance indicators. The dimensions of service quality and performance indicators in Saadi hospital; Isfahan city; Iran; were prioritized using Analytic Network Process and with the approach of Balanced Score Card. To do this; the service quality in the surgery department of Saadi Hospital was measured using the standard questionnaire of SERVQUAL model; and service quality gap was determined in the five dimensions of service quality. The performance indicators were chosen with the approach of Balanced Score Card. Results showed that the empathy and responsiveness dimensions had the highest priority respectively and the internal processes; learning and growth indictors had the highest priority respectively.
Tumor and Stem Cell Biology CD 66 þ Cells in Cervical Precancers Are Partially Differentiated Progenitors with Neoplastic Traits

Cervical cancers, a malignancy associated with oncogenic papilloma viruses, remain a major disease burden in the absence of effective implementation of preventive strategies. CD66þ cells have previously been identified as a tumor-propagating subset in cervical cancers. We investigated the existence, differentiation state, and neoplastic potential of CD66þ cells in a precancer cell line harboring HPV31b episomes. The gene expression profile of CD66 cells overlaps with differentiated keratinocytes, neoplastic mesenchymal transition, cells of the squamocolumnar junction, and cervical cancer cell line–derived spheroids. There is elevated expression of DNMT1, Notch1, and the viral gene product E1^E4 in CD66 high cells. Thus, CD66 cells, in the absence of differentiating signals, express higher levels of key regulators of keratinocytes stemness, differentiation, and the viral life cycle, respectively. We also find a striking association of neoplastic traits, including migration, invasion, and colony formation, in soft agar with CD66 cells. These properties and a distinct G2–M–enriched cell-cycle profile are conserved in cells from cervical cancers. Principally, using a precancerous cell line, we propose that CD66 cells have an intermediate differentiation state, with a cellular milieu connected with both viral replication and neoplastic potential, and validate some key features in precancer lesions. Such pathophysiologically relevant systems for defining cellular changes in the early phases of the disease process provide both mechanistic insight and potential therapeutic strategies. Collectively, our data provide a rationale for exploring novel therapeutic targets in CD66þ subsets during cancer progression. Cancer Res; 74(22); 6682–92. 2014 AACR.
Approaches to Hearing Evaluation in Young Patients : Learning What We Need to Know Before a Child Can Tell Us

Address correspondence to: Linda J. Hood, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center, Vanderbilt University, 1215 21st Ave. So. , #8310, Medical Center East, So. Tower, Nashville, TN. 37232-8242. linda.j.hood@vanderbilt.edu Determination of hearing sensitivity for infants below 5–6 months of age depends on objective test methods. Objective approaches currently in clinical use with infant populations include otoacoustic emissions (OAE), middle-ear measures including tympanograms and middleear muscle reflexes (MEMR), auditory brainstem response (ABR), and auditory steady-state responses (ASSR). A pediatric test battery approach published by Gravel and Hood (1999) recommended inclusion of OAEs and middle-ear measures as standard components of a
An Application of Pontryagin's Principle to Brownian Particle Engineered Equilibration

We present a stylized model of controlled equilibration of a small system in a fluctuating environment. We derive the optimal control equations steering in finite-time the system between two equilibrium states. The corresponding thermodynamic transition is optimal in the sense that it occurs at minimum entropy if the set of admissible controls is restricted by certain bounds on the time derivatives of the protocols. We apply our equations to the engineered equilibration of an optical trap considered in a recent proof of principle experiment. We also analyze an elementary model of nucleation previously considered by Landauer to discuss the thermodynamic cost of one bit of information erasure. We expect our model to be a useful benchmark for experiment design as it exhibits the same integrability properties of well-known models of optimal mass transport by a compressible velocity field.
Response of High-Rise and Base-Isolated Buildings to a Hypothetical Mw 7.0 Blind Thrust Earthquake

High-rise flexible-frame buildings are commonly considered to be resistant to shaking from the largest earthquakes. In addition, base isolation has become increasingly popular for critical buildings that should still function after an earthquake. How will these two types of buildings perform if a large earthquake occurs beneath a metropolitan area? To answer this question, we simulated the near-source ground motions of a Mw 7.0 thrust earthquake and then mathematically modeled the response of a 20-story steel-frame building and a 3-story base-isolated building. The synthesized ground motions were characterized by large displacement pulses (up to 2 meters) and large ground velocities. These ground motions caused large deformation and possible collapse of the frame building, and they required exceptional measures in the design of the base-isolated building if it was to remain functional.
Macronodular hepatic tuberculosis mimicking hydatid cyst: A case report

Isolated hepatic tuberculosis is called hepatic tuberculoma disease and constitutes less than 1% of all tuberculosis cases. Its clinical features are non Imaging-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy by ultrasonography or computed tomography (CT) is the best way to confirm the diagnosis as rifampicin, isoniazid, ethambutol, and pyrazinamide. male patient with macronodular hepatic tuberculosis. His CT imaging was hydatid cyst and also had a positive indirect hemagglutination test.
Theperiodgene controls courtship song cycles inDrosophila melanogaster


We developed a technique that assists in objective identification of pulse and sine components in the Drosophila melanogaster courtship song. The song was recorded digitally and subjected to wavelet analysis, which decomposed the signal into a series of bands of decreasing frequency in which acoustic power appeared as a function of time. This time-frequency analysis expresses characteristic 'fingerprints' of the pulses, which appear in all frequency bands, and characteristic 'fingerprints' of the sine song, which appear only in the band containing its frequency. Means of the interpulse intervals (IPIs) for each second of 10-min recordings of song in which pulse singing occurred constituted an irregularly sampled time series, intractable to common spectral analysis techniques. Therefore, we took the discrete Fourier transform of this series, which retained all the spectral information in the Fourier coefficients, and used the inverse Fourier transform of these coefficients to yield a new series that was regularly spaced, with an estimate of IPI for each second in the interval. We observed an IPI period of 67.9 s in wild type, 31.1 s in per0, 45.9 s in pers, and 72.0 s in perL. Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
A review of attention biases in women with eating disorders

There is robust evidence that women with eating disorders (EDs) display an attention bias (AB) for disorder-salient stimuli. Emerging data suggest that the presence of these biases may be due, in part, to neurological deficits, such as poor set shifting and weak central coherence. While some have argued that these biases function to predispose and/or act to maintain disordered eating behaviours, evidence supporting this view has rarely been examined. This report summarises and integrates the existing literature on AB in EDs and other related psychiatric disorders to better understand its potential role in the development and maintenance of an ED. The domains reviewed include experimental data using the dot-probe and modified Stroop task and neurobiological findings on AB in women with EDs as well as the role of AB in current theoretical models. We conclude by proposing an integrated model on the role of AB in EDs and discuss treatment approaches aimed at modifying these biases.
A dynamic Asp–Arg interaction is essential for catalysis in microsomal prostaglandin E2 synthase

Significance Microsomal prostaglandin E2 synthase type 1 (mPGES-1) is an integral membrane protein that produces prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), a mediator of inflammation, fever, pain, and tumorigenesis. Here we show that a serine residue implicated by the crystal structure is not required for function, whereas an arginine and aspartate residue in the active site, observed to be interacting within the crystal structure, are essential and mutually dependent during catalysis. We also demonstrate that a contact signaling network can interrupt the arginine–asparagine interaction and facilitate their participation in the chemical mechanism. Our work has broad implications for development of effective mPGES-1 inhibitors, potential drugs with clinical application in treatment of inflammatory diseases and cancer. Microsomal prostaglandin E2 synthase type 1 (mPGES-1) is responsible for the formation of the potent lipid mediator prostaglandin E2 under proinflammatory conditions, and this enzyme has received considerable attention as a drug target. Recently, a high-resolution crystal structure of human mPGES-1 was presented, with Ser-127 being proposed as the hydrogen-bond donor stabilizing thiolate anion formation within the cofactor, glutathione (GSH). We have combined site-directed mutagenesis and activity assays with a structural dynamics analysis to probe the functional roles of such putative catalytic residues. We found that Ser-127 is not required for activity, whereas an interaction between Arg-126 and Asp-49 is essential for catalysis. We postulate that both residues, in addition to a crystallographic water, serve critical roles within the enzymatic mechanism. After characterizing the size or charge conservative mutations Arg-126–Gln, Asp-49–Asn, and Arg-126–Lys, we inferred that a crystallographic water acts as a general base during GSH thiolate formation, stabilized by interaction with Arg-126, which is itself modulated by its respective interaction with Asp-49. We subsequently found hidden conformational ensembles within the crystal structure that correlate well with our biochemical data. The resulting contact signaling network connects Asp-49 to distal residues involved in GSH binding and is ligand dependent. Our work has broad implications for development of efficient mPGES-1 inhibitors, potential anti-inflammatory and anticancer agents.
Author ' s personal copy Effect of percutaneous electrical muscle stimulation on postprandial hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes §

Aims: The aim of this study was to examine whether percutaneous electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) attenuates postprandial hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes. Methods: Eleven patients with type 2 diabetes participated in two experimental sessions; one was a 30-min EMS 30 min after a breakfast (EMS trial) and the other was a complete rest after a breakfast (Control trial). In each trial, blood was sampled before and at 30, 60, 90, and 120 min after the meal. Results: Postprandial glucose level was significantly attenuated in EMS trial at 60, 90, and 120 min after a meal ( p < 0.05). The C-peptide concentration was also significantly lowered in EMS trial ( p < 0.01). On the other hand, there was no significant increase in creatine phosphokinase (CPK) concentration in each trial. Conclusions: The present results provide first evidence indicating that EMS is a new exercise method for treating postprandial hyperglycemia in individuals with type 2 diabetes, especially who cannot perform adequate voluntary exercise because of excessive obesity, orthopedic diseases, or severe diabetic complications. # 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. § Clinical trial number: UMIN000002723. * Corresponding author. Tel. : +81 75 753 6888; fax: +81 75 753 6888. E-mail address: moritanni.toshio. 6e@kyoto-u.ac. jp (T. Moritani).
Metabolites of cannabidiol identified in human urine.

1. Urine from a dystonic patient treated with cannabidiol (CBD) was examined by g.l. c. -mass spectrometry for CBD metabolites. Metabolites were identified as their trimethylsilyl (TMS), [2H9]TMS, and methyl ester/TMS derivatives and as the TMS derivatives of the product of lithium aluminium deuteride reduction. 2. Thirty-three metabolites were identified in addition to unmetabolized CBD, and a further four metabolites were partially characterized. 3. The major metabolic route was hydroxylation and oxidation at C-7 followed by further hydroxylation in the pentyl and propenyl groups to give 1"-, 2"-, 3"-, 4"- and 10-hydroxy derivatives of CBD-7-oic acid. Other metabolites, mainly acids, were formed by beta-oxidation and related biotransformations from the pentyl side-chain and these were also hydroxylated at C-6 or C-7. The major oxidized metabolite was CBD-7-oic acid containing a hydroxyethyl side-chain. 4. Two 8,9-dihydroxy compounds, presumably derived from the corresponding epoxide were identified. 5. Also present were several cyclized cannabinoids including delta-6- and delta-1-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabinol. 6. This is the first metabolic study of CBD in humans; most observed metabolic routes were typical of those found for CBD and related cannabinoids in other species.
Vocabulary hierarchy optimisation based on spatial context and category information

In this paper, we focus on the hierarchy and discriminating ability of visual vocabulary. We propose to use the category information of images and the spatial context of keypoints to select appropriate visual words from different hierarchical levels. Existing approaches, such as flat vocabulary and vocabulary tree, can change the hierarchy of all visual words at the same time, by setting different cluster numbers and tree height respectively. However, the most appropriate visual words may be at different hierarchical levels, and existing approaches could not adjust the hierarchy of different visual words separately. To address this problem, we propose an object function to describe the consistence of visual words, with category information of images and spatial context of keypoints, and then we adopt simulated annealing algorithm to search for a sub-optimal solution, which corresponds to a visual vocabulary selected from the vocabulary tree. Different from existing methods, the proposed approach can selec.
Interactions of agonists with M2 and M4 muscarinic receptor subtypes mediating cyclic AMP inhibition.

In this study the similarities and differences between the M2 and M4 subtypes in their recognition of agonists were explored. A CHO-K1 cell line transfected with the human m2 receptor was used as a homogeneous M2 tissue for comparison with two putative M4 systems (rat striatum and the N1E-115 mouse neuroblastoma cell line). The equilibrium binding dissociation constants and intrinsic efficacies for seven muscarinic agonists were determined for their stimulation of cyclic AMP inhibition via the M2 and M4 receptors. Partial receptor occlusion with propylbenzilylcholine mustard was used to determine binding constants for the more efficacious drugs and the reference agonist oxotremorine-M. The binding dissociation constants and relative efficacies for other agonists were then determined in reference to oxotremorine-M by a null method. For the M2 receptor the agonist binding dissociation constants ranged in potency from oxotremorine (1.5 microM) to bethanechol (171 microM), whereas relative efficacies varied from that of muscarine (relative efficacy = 0.9) to the value for McN-A343 (relative efficacy = 0.04). In general, most agonists bound with similar potencies to M2 and M4 receptors (Kd values within a factor of 2-3). However, oxotremorine bound to the N1E-115 and striatal M4 receptors about 3-fold and 10-fold less potently, respectively, than it did to the M2 receptor. Another exception was pilocarpine, which bound to the N1E-115 receptor (1.9 microM) with 8-fold and 12-fold higher potency than to the CHO-K1 M2 receptor and the striatal M4 receptor, respectively. Despite the low affinity of bethanechol for the M2 receptor, it was an efficacious agonist (maximal response equivalent to that of oxotremorine-M; relative efficacy = 0.6) at this subtype, whereas it was a partial agonist (60%) with lesser efficacy in the clonal M4 system. In contrast, McN-A343 and arecoline were significantly more efficacious at the two M4 receptors than they were at the M2 receptor. The M4 system in the rat striatum displayed some similarity to the N1E-115 M4 system, with regard to the efficacy ranking for certain agonists (arecoline greater than bethanechol greater than McN-A343 greater than or equal to pilocarpine). This rank order was different from the ranking of these four agonists in the M2 system, indicating that these two M4 receptors are more similar to each other in efficacy ranking than they are to the M2 receptor. However, the rat striatal and N1E-115 M4 receptor differed in their binding of oxotremorine and pilocarpine, indicating that these two M4 systems were not pharmacologically identical. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)