Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Afferents to the GABAergic tail of the ventral tegmental area in the rat

We previously showed that chronic psychostimulant exposure induces the transcription factor DeltaFosB in γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic neurons of the caudal tier of the ventral tegmental area (VTA). This subregion was defined as the tail of the VTA (tVTA). In the present study, we showed that tVTA can also be visualized by analyzing FosB/DeltaFosB response following acute cocaine injection. This induction occurs in GABAergic neurons, as identified by glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) expression. To characterize tVTA further, we mapped its inputs by using the retrograde tracers Fluoro‐Gold or cholera toxin B subunit. Retrogradely labeled neurons were observed in the medial prefrontal cortex, the lateral septum, the ventral pallidum, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, the substantia innominata, the medial and lateral preoptic areas, the lateral and dorsal hypothalamic areas, the lateral habenula, the intermediate layers of the superior colliculus, the dorsal raphe, the periaqueductal gray, and the mesencephalic and pontine reticular formation. Projections from the prefrontal cortex, the hypothalamus, and the lateral habenula to the tVTA were also shown by using the anterograde tracer biotinylated dextran amine (BDA). We showed that the central nucleus of the amygdala innervates the anterior extent of the VTA but not the tVTA. Moreover, the tVTA mainly receives non‐aminergic inputs from the dorsal raphe and the locus coeruleus. Although the tVTA has a low density of dopaminergic neurons, its afferents are mostly similar to those targeting the rest of the VTA. This suggests that the tVTA can be considered as a VTA subregion despite its caudal location. J. Comp. Neurol. 513:597–621, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Volatility Indices: An International Comparison

Volatility index is a measure of markets expectation of volatility over the near-term. It is a forward looking instrument and depicts the expected market volatility over the next 30 days. The constant ups and downs in the financial markets are a cause of concern for most investors. Thus, the volatility index helps them to keep track of market volatility and guide them in their investment decisions. The objective of this paper is to understand the dynamics of linkages between the volatility indices of US (VIX), Germany (VDAX), India (VIX), South Korea (VKOSPI) and China (VXFXI). The VAR model with impulse response function and variance decomposition analysis has been used to understand the linkage dynamics. The results suggest that the US VIX is the most influential index. Therefore, this index should be closely observed by overseas regulatory authorities as early warning signal for future turbulence in their domestic markets. The results for the Indian VIX reveal that there is a moderate level of influence of the US index on it. Further, the Indian VIX seems to be integrated minimally with its Asian equivalents.
Breastfeeding: an overview of oral and general health benefits.

BACKGROUND Breastfeeding is the reference against which alternative infant feeding models must be measured with regard to growth, development and other health outcomes. Although not a systematic review, this report provides an update for dental professionals, including an overview of general and oral health-related benefits associated with breastfeeding. TYPES OF STUDIES REVIEWED The authors examined the literature regarding general health protections that breastfeeding confers to infants and mothers and explored associations between breastfeeding, occlusion in the primary dentition and early childhood caries. To accomplish these goals, they reviewed systematic reviews when available and supplemented them with comparative studies and with statements and reports from major nongovernmental and governmental organizations. RESULTS When compared with health outcomes among formula-fed children, the health advantages associated with breastfeeding include a lower risk of acute otitis media, gastroenteritis and diarrhea, severe lower respiratory infections, asthma, sudden infant death syndrome, obesity and other childhood diseases and conditions. Evidence also suggests that breastfed children may develop a more favorable occlusion in the primary dentition. The results of a systematic review in which researchers examined the relationship between breastfeeding and early childhood caries were inconclusive. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, Chicago, suggests that parents gently clean infants' gums and teeth after breastfeeding. The American Academy of Pediatrics, Elk Grove Village, Ill. , recommends that breastfeeding should be exclusive for about the first six months of life and should continue, with the introduction of appropriate complementary foods, to at least age 12 months or beyond, as desired by mother and child. Dentists and staff members can take steps to ensure they are familiar with the evidence and guidelines pertaining to breastfeeding and to oral health. They are encouraged to follow the surgeon general's recommendations to promote and support optimal breastfeeding and oral health practices among their patients.
Ammonia transport in cultured gill epithelium of freshwater rainbow trout: the importance of Rhesus glycoproteins and the presence of an apical Na+/NH4+ exchange complex

SUMMARY The mechanisms of ammonia excretion at fish gills have been studied for decades but details remain unclear, with continuing debate on the relative importance of non-ionic NH3 or ionic NH4+ permeation by various mechanisms. The presence of an apical Na+/NH4+ exchanger has also been controversial. The present study utilized an in vitro cultured gill epithelium (double seeded insert, DSI) of freshwater rainbow trout as a model to investigate these issues. The relationship between basolateral ammonia concentration and efflux to apical freshwater was curvilinear, indicative of a saturable carrier-mediated component (Km=66 μmol l–1) superimposed on a large diffusive linear component. Pre-exposure to elevated ammonia (2000 μmol l–1) and cortisol (1000 ng ml–1) had synergistic effects on the ammonia permeability of DSI, with significantly increased Na+ influx and positive correlations between ammonia efflux and Na+ uptake. This increase in ammonia permeability was bidirectional. It could not be explained by changes in paracellular permeability as measured by [3H]PEG-4000 flux. The mRNA expressions of Rhbg, Rhcg2, H+-ATPase and Na+/H+ exchanger-2 (NHE-2) were up-regulated in DSI pre-exposed to ammonia and cortisol, CA-2 mRNA was down-regulated, and transepithelial potential became more negative. Bafilomycin (1 μmol l–1), phenamil (10 μmol l–1) and 5-(N,N-hexamethylene)amiloride (HMA, 10μ mol l–1) applied to the apical solution significantly inhibited ammonia efflux, indicating that H+-ATPase, Na+ channel and NHE-2 pathways on the apical surface were involved in ammonia excretion. Apical amiloride (100 μmol l–1) was similarly effective, while basolateral HMA was ineffective. Pre-treatment with apical freshwater low in [Na+] caused increases in both Rhcg2 mRNA expression and ammonia efflux without change in paracellular permeability. These data suggest that Rhesus glycoproteins are important for ammonia transport in the freshwater trout gill, and may help to explain in vivo data where plasma ammonia stabilized at 50% below water levels during exposure to high environmental ammonia (∼2300 μmol l–1). We propose an apical `Na+/NH4+ exchange complex' consisting of several membrane transporters, while affirming the importance of non-ionic NH3 diffusion in ammonia excretion across freshwater fish gills.
Investigation of Conscious Recollection, False Recognition and Delusional Misidentification in Patients with Schizophrenia

Background: Recognition memory (RM) is impaired in patients with schizophrenia, as they rely largely on feelings of familiarity rather than conscious recollection. It has been suggested that this abnormality may reflect a breakdown in strategic memory processes involved in both encoding and retrieval. By studying 2 patients with false recognition (FR; patient C.T.) and delusional misidentification (DM; patient B.C.), and a group of psychotic control patients, we examined proposals that FR and DM exist on a continuum of increasingly severe impairment in strategic memory function. Methods: Executive function, autobiographical memory and verbal and facial RM were assessed using standard neuropsychological tests and the remember/know paradigm. Results: The psychotic control group displayed a significantly reduced reliance on remember judgements and compensatory elevation in know judgements on both RM tasks compared with the normal control group. Patient B.C. also followed this trend, but in a much more pronounced manner. In contrast, patient C.T. displayed a qualitatively different performance profile, which was marked by an increased dependence on remember responses. Conclusions: We have presented evidence which support proposals that a breakdown in strategic memory and executive dysfunction are more pronounced in DM than FR. However, the small sample size precludes any firm conclusions being drawn.
Evaluation of Phenotypic and Molecular Methods for Detection of Oxacillin Resistance in Members of the Staphylococcus sciuri Group

ABSTRACT In this paper we report on an experimental evaluation of phenotypic and molecular methods as means for the detection of oxacillin resistance in members of the Staphylococcus sciuri group. A total of 109 S. sciuri group member isolates (92 S. sciuri isolates, 9 S. lentus isolates, and 8 S. vitulinus isolates) were tested by the disk diffusion method, the agar dilution method, the oxacillin salt-agar screening method, slide latex agglutination for PBP 2a, and PCR assay for mecA as the reference method. The mecA gene was detected in 29 S. sciuri isolates, and the true-positive and true-negative results of the other tests were defined on the basis of the presence or the absence of the mecA gene. For the different methods evaluated, the sensitivities and specificities were as follows: for the disk diffusion test with a 1-μg oxacillin disk, 100% and 55.9%, respectively; for the disk diffusion test with a 30-μg cefoxitin disk, 93.5% and 100%, respectively; for the agar dilution method, 100% and 50%, respectively; for the oxacillin salt-agar screen test (with 6 μg of oxacillin per ml and 4% NaCl) 100% and 100%, respectively; and for the slide latex agglutination test for PBP 2a, 100% and 100%, respectively. The disk diffusion test with various β-lactam antibiotics was performed to evaluate their use for the prediction of oxacillin resistance. The results indicate that meropenem, cefazolin, cefamandole, cefuroxime, cefotetan, cefoperazone, cefotaxime, ceftriaxone, moxalactam, cefaclor, and cefprozil may be used as surrogate markers of oxacillin resistance, although further studies of their use for the detection of oxacillin resistance are required.
Influence of Employee Compensation on Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction: A Case Study of Educational Sector of Pakistan

The aim of this research study is to build an understanding regarding the impact of employee compensation on their job satisfaction and employee’s organizational commitment among Pakistani university teachers. Enhancing organizational commitment among the faculty members is an essential element because that will eventually result in their higher employee commitment, enhancing retention and they will perform better. By identifying the impact of employee compensation in educational sector will help organizations to foster organizational commitment and enhance their satisfaction level among faculty members. This study also aims to develop a course of action for university’s administration to come up with practices which would enable them to attract and retain top level faculty at their institutions. A study conducted by Peril and Promise (2000) stated that Pakistan is a developing nation and for them education is of great importance. Their education sector is facing many problems of them if the quality of faculty. According to Lee (2004) one of the major reasons of lack of commitment and turnover of teachers could be compensation that is being offered.
Percutaneous nephrolithotomy with ultrasonography‐guided renal access: experience from over 300 cases

To report our experience with over 300 patients treated with percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PNL), for although PNL was established as a treatment in the 1970s, its use diminished with the introduction of extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (ESWL); clinical experience with ESWL showed its limitations, and the role of PNL for treating urolithiasis was redefined, which with improvements in instruments and lithotripsy technology has expanded the capability of percutaneous stone disintegration.
Embolotherapy of pulmonary arteriovenous malformations: long-term results in 112 patients.

PURPOSE To evaluate the long-term results of embolotherapy of pulmonary arteriovenous malformations (PAVMs) in a large group of patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS Between July 1988 and August 2001, 134 consecutive patients underwent embolotherapy of PAVMs with feeding arteries larger than 3 mm or that had previously caused bleeding or systemic complications. The mean follow-up was 62.2 months. The primary endpoints of the study were the efficacy of embolotherapy, decrease in right-to-left shunt, and increase in partial arterial oxygen pressure (PaO(2)); the secondary endpoint was the prevalence of complications. Standard follow-up consisted of yearly history, chest radiography, and arterial blood gas measurement. RESULTS Follow-up was available in 112 patients. Initially, 296 PAVMs were embolized in these patients. Nineteen patients (17%) underwent a second procedure and four patients underwent a third procedure because of recanalization of originally occluded feeding arteries (25 PAVMs, 8%) or interval enlargement of untreated PAVMs (53 PAVMs). In total, 349 PAVMs were embolized in 157 sessions. The mean diameter of occluded vessels was 4.7 mm. The long-term outcomes of embolotherapy were successful in 83% of patients overall and in 96% of patients in whom all angiographically visible PAVMs were embolized. Recanalization occurred in 12 of 16 patients who underwent repeat treatment because of enlargement of nonembolized PAVMs. Postprocedural pleurisy occurred after 14 of 157 sessions (9%). Periprocedural complications occurred in 12 sessions (8%) and included migration of an embolic device, transient ischemic attack (TIA), angina pectoris, and early cerebral infarction after embolization. Three patients experienced TIA and two patients experienced a cerebral abscess during follow-up after embolotherapy. CONCLUSIONS Embolotherapy of PAVMs is efficacious and durable in the majority of patients. Patients should remain under regular review because recanalization of PAVMs or enlargement of untreated PAVMs can occur years after treatment.
Experimenting With Commodity 802.11 Hardware: Overview and Future Directions

The huge adoption of 802.11 technologies has triggered a vast amount of experimentally-driven research works. These works range from performance analysis to protocol enhancements, including the proposal of novel applications and services. Due to the affordability of the technology, this experimental research is typically based on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) devices, and, given the rate at which 802.11 releases new standards (which are adopted into new, affordable devices), the field is likely to continue to produce results. In this paper, we review and categorise the most prevalent works carried out with 802.11 COTS devices over the past 15 years, to present a timely snapshot of the areas that have attracted the most attention so far, through a taxonomy that distinguishes between performance studies, enhancements, services, and methodology. In this way, we provide a quick overview of the results achieved by the research community that enables prospective authors to identify potential areas of new research, some of which are discussed after the presentation of the survey.
Research Assessment of Plasmodium falciparum resistance to ferroquine ( SSR 97193 ) in field isolates and in W 2 strain under pressure

Background: Ferroquine (FQ), or SSR97193, is a novel antimalarial drug currently in phase I clinical trials. FQ is a unique organometallic compound designed to overcome the chloroquine (CQ) resistance problem. FQ revealed to be equally active on CQ-sensitive and CQ-resistant Plasmodium falciparum laboratory strains and field isolates. FQ is also curative on rodent malaria parasites. As FQ will be tested in patients, the potential for resistance to this drug was evaluated. Methods: The relationship between CQ-resistant transporter gene genotype and susceptibility to FQ were studied in 33 Cambodian P. falciparum field isolates previously studied for their in vitro response to CQ. In parallel, the ability of the CQ-resistant strain W2, to become resistant to FQ under drug pressure was assessed. Results: The IC50 values for FQ in field isolates were found to be unrelated to mutations occurring in the P. falciparum chloroquine resistance transporter (PfCRT) or to the level of expression of the corresponding mRNA. In vitro, under a drug pressure of 100 nM of FQ, transient survival was observed in only one of two experiments. Conclusion: Field isolates studies and experimental drug pressure experiments showed that FQ overcomes CQ resistance, which reinforces the potential of this compound as a new antimalarial drug. Background Drug resistance, particularly to CQ is an important limit to the control of P. falciparum, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and South-east Asia. CQ is believed to act by concentrating in the parasite digestive vacuole and inhibiting the mechanism of detoxification of ferriprotoporphyrin IX that is produced during the digestion of haemoglobin, leading to parasite death. This detoxification takes place in the food vacuole and partly in the cytosol [1,2]. It was shown that CQ-resistant parasites expelled much more Published: 07 February 2006 Malaria Journal 2006, 5:11 doi:10.1186/1475-2875-5-11 Received: 27 October 2005 Accepted: 07 February 2006 This article is available from: http://www.malariajournal. com/content/5/1/11 © 2006 Daher et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Malaria Journal 2006, 5:11 http://www.malariajournal. com/content/5/1/11
Regional gray matter, white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid distributions in schizophrenic patients, their siblings, and controls.

BACKGROUND Cortical gray matter volume reductions and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volume increases are robust correlates of schizophrenia, but their sources have not been established conclusively. METHODS Structured diagnostic interviews and magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brain were obtained on 75 psychotic probands (63 with schizophrenia and 12 with schizoaffective disorder), ascertained so as to be representative of all such probands in a Helsinki, Finland, birth cohort; 60 of their nonpsychotic full siblings; and 56 demographically similar control subjects without a personal or family history of treated psychiatric morbidity. RESULTS Patients with schizophrenia and their siblings exhibited significant reductions in cortical gray matter volume and significant increases in sulcal CSF volume compared with controls. The patients, but not their siblings, also exhibited significant reductions in white matter volume and significant increases in ventricular CSF volume. Regional effects were most robust when component volumes were expressed as percentages of overall regional volumes; in this case, for patient and sibling groups, gray matter volume reductions and sulcal CSF volume increases were significantly more pronounced in the frontal and temporal lobes than in the remainder of the brain. None of the group differences varied significantly by sex or hemisphere. CONCLUSIONS Structural alterations of the cerebral cortex, particularly in the frontal and temporal lobes, are present in patients with schizophrenia and in some of their siblings without schizophrenia; such changes are thus likely to reflect genetic (or shared environmental) effects. Ventricular enlargement is unique to the clinical phenotype and is thus likely to be affected primarily by nonshared causative factors.
An FPGA design framework for large-scale spiking neural networks

We present an FPGA design framework for large-scale spiking neural networks, particularly the ones with a high-density of connections or all-to-all connections. The proposed FPGA design framework is based on a reconfigurable neural layer, which is implemented using a time-multiplexing approach to achieve up to 200,000 virtual neurons with one physical neuron using only a fraction of the hardware resources in commercial-off-the-shelf FPGAs (even entry level ones). Rather than using a mathematical computational model, the physical neuron was efficiently implemented with a conductance-based model, of which the parameters were randomised between neurons to emulate the variance in biological neurons. Besides these building blocks, the proposed time-multiplexed reconfigurable neural layer has an address buffer, which will generate a fixed random weight for each connection on the fly for incoming spikes. This structure effectively reduces the usage of memory. After presenting the architecture of the proposed neural layer, we present a network with 23 proposed neural layers, each containing 64k neurons, yielding 1.5 M neurons and 92 G synapses with a total spike throughput of 1.2T spikes/s, while running in real-time on a Virtex 6 FPGA.
Traction splinting of femoral shaft fractures in a paediatric emergency department: time is of the essence?

OBJECTIVE To describe the use of traction splinting in children with femoral shaft fracture and to determine if timing of traction splinting application effects outcome. METHODS A retrospective descriptive study conducted over a five and a half year period (1 January 1996 to 1 July 2001) on children presenting with femoral shaft fracture to a Paediatric trauma centre. Data were collected on all children with a radiological diagnosis of fracture to the femoral shaft. Evidence for hypovolaemic shock and neurovascular compromise was sought. The administration of parenteral analgesia and whether a validated pain scale was employed to monitor pain relief was documented. The use of traction splint or other leg splint device before arrival in the ED and subsequent changes to splinting in hospital were noted. Times to perform radiographic examination and femoral nerve block were also recorded. RESULTS Ninety-five (95) patients met the study inclusion criteria with 66.3% having some form of immobilization and 70% administered parenteral analgesia in the pre-hospital setting. In only 7.3% of patients was a Thomas splint traction applied within 2 h of arrival. Adverse clinical outcome was not reported in any patient regardless of time to application of Thomas splint traction. The application of Thomas splint traction in the ED resulted in a significant delay in the performance of diagnostic radiographs and femoral nerve block. CONCLUSIONS The timing of traction splinting is not associated with poor outcome in isolated paediatric femoral shaft fracture provided effective analgesia has been administered in a timely fashion.