Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differentiation of forebrain and hippocampal dopamine 1‐class receptors, D1R and D5R, in spatial learning and memory

Activation of prefrontal cortical (PFC), striatal, and hippocampal dopamine 1‐class receptors (D1R and D5R) is necessary for normal spatial information processing. Yet the precise role of the D1R versus the D5R in the aforementioned structures, and their specific contribution to the water‐maze spatial learning task remains unknown. D1R‐ and D5R‐specific in situ hybridization probes showed that forebrain restricted D1R and D5R KO mice (F‐D1R/D5R KO) displayed D1R mRNA deletion in the medial (m)PFC, dorsal and ventral striatum, and the dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus. D5R mRNA deletion was limited to the mPFC, the CA1 and DG hippocampal subregions. F‐D1R/D5R KO mice were given water‐maze training and displayed subtle spatial latency differences between genotypes and spatial memory deficits during both regular and reversal training. To differentiate forebrain D1R from D5R activation, forebrain restricted D1R KO (F‐D1R KO) and D5R KO (F‐D5R KO) mice were trained on the water‐maze task. F‐D1R KO animals exhibited escape latency deficits throughout regular and reversal training as well as spatial memory deficits during reversal training. F‐D1R KO mice also showed perseverative behavior during the reversal spatial memory probe test. In contrast, F‐D5R KO animals did not present observable deficits on the water‐maze task. Because F‐D1R KO mice showed water‐maze deficits we tested the necessity of hippocampal D1R activation for spatial learning and memory. We trained DG restricted D1R KO (DG‐D1R KO) mice on the water‐maze task. DG‐D1R KO mice did not present detectable spatial memory deficit, but did show subtle deficits during specific days of training. Our data provides evidence that forebrain D5R activation plays a unique role in spatial learning and memory in conjunction with D1R activation. Moreover, these data suggest that mPFC and striatal, but not DG D1R activation are essential for spatial learning and memory. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A PPO Promoter from Betalain-Producing Red Swiss Chard, Directs Petiole- and Root-Preferential Expression of Foreign Gene in Anthocyanins-Producing Plants

A 1670 bp 5′-flanking region of the polyphenol oxidase (PPO) gene was isolated from red Swiss chard, a betalain-producing plant. This region, named promoter BvcPPOP, and its 5′-truncated versions were fused with the GUS gene and introduced into Arabidopsis, an anthocyanins-producing plant. GUS histochemical staining and quantitative analysis of transgenic plants at the vegetative and reproductive stages showed that BvcPPOP could direct GUS gene expression in vegetative organs with root- and petiole-preference, but not in reproductive organs including inflorescences shoot, inflorescences leaf, flower, pod and seed. This promoter was regulated by developmental stages in its driving strength, but not in expression pattern. It was also regulated by the abiotic stressors tested, positively by salicylic acid (SA) and methyl jasmonate (MeJA) but negatively by abscisic acid (ABA), gibberellin (GA), NaCl and OH−. Its four 5′-truncated versions varied in the driving strength, but not obviously in expression pattern, and even the shortest version (−225 to +22) retained the root- and petiole- preference. This promoter is, to our knowledge, the first PPO promoter cloned and functionally elucidated from the betalain-producing plant, and thus provides not only a useful tool for expressing gene(s) of agricultural interest in vegetative organs, but also a clue to clarify the function of metabolism-specific PPO in betalain biosynthesis.
Measuring Progress in Coevolutionary Competition

Evolution, as trial-and-error based learning methods, usually relies on the repeatability of an experience: Different behavioral alternatives are tested and compared with each other. But agents acting on real environments may not be able to choose which experience to live. Instead, the environment provides varying initial conditions for each trial. In competitive games for example, it is difficult to compare players with each other if they are not able to choose their opponents. Here we describe a statistics-based approach to solving this problem, developed in the context of the Tron system, a coevolutionary experiment that matches humans against agents on a simple video game. We are now able to show, among the results, that the complex interactions led the artificial agents to evolve towards higher proficiency, while at the same time, individual humans learned as they gained experience interacting with the system.
Theory of mind deficits in Parkinson's disease: a product of executive dysfunction?

OBJECTIVE Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) can perform poorly on tasks involving theory of mind (ToM): the ability to reason about mental states. We investigated whether patients' ToM deficits were independent of executive dysfunction. METHOD Experiment 1 aimed to establish that ToM deficits were present, and 2 following experiments manipulated the working memory (WM) demands of the ToM task. RESULTS In Experiment 1, 15 patients with PD performed significantly more poorly than controls on a false belief vignette task but not on a faux pas task. Errors were related to poor verbal fluency. In Experiment 2, 24 patients with PD made fewer errors on shorter false belief vignettes than the original FBT, and errors on the latter were related to WM impairment. In Experiment 3, the FBT was presented as a comic strip visible throughout questioning, reducing WM demands. Patients (n = 24) made memory errors but no false belief errors on the comic strip. They exhibited no verbal fluency or WM impairments, but did exhibit deficits on a black-and-white Stroop task. False belief errors were not correlated with executive performance. CONCLUSIONS PD patients made very few ToM errors that were independent of errors on memory questions, so in this sample, ToM deficits per se appear unlikely. However, patients still made errors on ToM tasks when associated incidental WM demands were considerably reduced, highlighting the need for future investigations of ToM in PD to account for the role of more general cognitive restrictions exhibited by even some medicated, early stage patients.
Roles of Tumor Microenvironment in Hepatocelluar Carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most malignant human cancers, with a high mortality rate worldwide despite its early diagnosis in patients and improvement in therapeutic technology. Most cases of liver cancer show a strong resistance to anticancer therapy. Moreover, liver cancer patients generally have poor tolerance to chemotherapy due to liver dysfunction. In these situations, liver-targeting drugs with fewer side effects and a high efficacy are urgently needed during drug discovery for liver cancer. Researchers have aimed to derive target genes and drug candidates for HCC; however, the development of targeted drugs has not yet improved the outcome significantly. Recently, the role of the tumor microenvironment (TME) in HCC has been probed to combat this deadly disease. A deeper knowledge of the crosstalk between tumor cells and their TME is needed to fully understand tumor development, progression and chemo-resistance in HCC because this cancer develops from chronically damaged tissue that contains large amounts of inflammation and fibrosis. In this review, we summarize how distinct stromal cells of TME are involved in tumorigenesis and chemo-resistance in HCC and the significant challenge to recapitulate tumor complexity and heterogeneity enhancement.
Finger identification using hand boundary decomposition

A natural yet relatively unexplored way to classify hand gestures is to first count the number of fingers identifiable in a hand image. Feature variations introduced through imperfect hand segmentation or unconstrained gesture input hampers the performance of present boundary-based finger identification techniques. In this paper, we describe an adaptive parameterless procedure that strategically decomposes hand boundary into meaningful finger tip and wrist segments. Experimental results showed that a Fourier based approach to decomposing boundaries outperforms Least-Squared based methods in the presence of simulated variances. This way of hand modelling builds up to a solid foundation for robust untrained hand gesture classification.
R2D2 at NTCIR 2 Ad-hoc Task: Relevance-based Superimposition Model for IR

This paper describes our evaluation experiments for NTCIR 2 ad-hoc task. We developed a retrieval system using the Relevance-based Superimposition (RS) model, in which document vectors are modified based on the relevance of the documents. The major focus of this year is on combination of the RS model and query expansion (QE). We submitted fully automatic ad-hoc results brought by different parameter settings.
Investigating the challenges of Dynamic Spectrum Access in Cognitive Radio-enabled Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (CR-VANETs)

Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) is an emerging application of Intelligent Transport System (ITS) with a wide range of safety and non-safety applications. Data communication in VANETs is challenging due to its high mobility, short link lifetime, and frequent network fragmentation. These challenges demand efficient spectrum utilization for ensuring reasonable network performance. The use of Cognitive Radio (CR) can facilitate efficient spectrum utilization by Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA). Besides, it allows the vehicles to use an existing road-side network infrastructure without interfering its users. In this paper, we investigate the challenges of designing efficient DSA techniques for CR-VANETs. We provide numerical simulation results to delineate the possible challenges of DSA in CR-VANETs. In addition, we highlight the features that a DSA algorithm must have to achieve good network performance. Finally, we point out the detailed procedure of evaluating the performance of DSA algorithms in CR-VANETs using discrete-event simulation.
Trade-off between Energy Efficiency and Spectral Efficiency in the uplink of a linear cellular system with uniformly distributed user terminals

In this paper, we propose a tight closed-form approximation of the Energy Efficiency vs. Spectral Efficiency (EE-SE) trade-off for the uplink of a linear cellular communication system with base station cooperation and uniformly distributed user terminals. We utilize the doubly-regular property of the channel to obtain a closed form approximation using the Marčenko Pasture law. We demonstrate the accuracy of our expression by comparing it with Monte-Carlo simulation and the EE-SE trade-off expression based on low-power approximation. Results show the great tightness of our expression with Monte-Carlo simulation.We utilize our closed form expression for assessing the EE performance of cooperation for both theoretical and realistic power models. The theoretical power model includes only the transmit power, whereas the realistic power model incorporates the backhaul and signal processing power in addition to the transmit power. Results indicate that for both power models, increasing the number of antennas leads to an improvement in EE performance, whereas, increasing the number of cooperating BSs results in a loss in EE when considering the realistic power model.
A SOFTWARE QUALITY EVALUATION METHOD BASED ON THE PRINCIPLE OF MAXIMUM COORDINATION AND SUBORDINATION 1

Software quality evaluation is an important issue in software development. In this work, we investigate the characteristics of software quality and discuss the evaluation attributes of software quality. We then present existing commonly used software evaluation methods. For the limitations of the existing methods, we propose to apply the principle of maximum coordination and subordination to the software quality evaluation. Our method achieves relatively good results in experiment validation.
Peritonitis caused by Agrobacterium tumefaciens in a child on peritoneal dialysis.

1. Macdougall IC. Once-weekly erythropoietic therapy: is there difference between the available preparations? Nephrol Dial Transplant 2002; 17: 2047–2051 2. Locatelli F, Olivares J, Walker R et al. on behalf of the European/Australian NESP 980202 Study Group. Novel erythropoiesis stimulating protein for treatment of anemia in chronic renal insufficiency. Kidney Int 2001; 60: 741–747 3. Nissenson R, Swan SK, Lindberg JS et al. Randomized controlled trial of darbepoetin alfa for the treatment of anemia in hemodialysis patients. Am J Kidney Dis 2002; 40: 110–118 4. Vanrenterghem Y, Barany P, Mann JFE et al. on behalf of the European/Australian NESP 970200 Study Group. Randomized trial of Darbepoetin alfa for treatment of renal anemia at a reduced dose frequency compared with rHuEPO in dialysis patients. Kidney Int 2002; 62: 2167–2175 5. Horl W. IV darbepoetin alfa is more effective than IV rHu-Epo in maintaining target Hb concentrations in patients with renal anemia. J Am Soc Nephrol 2002; 17[Abstracts Suppl 1]: 24 6. Besarab A, Reynes CM, Homberger J. Meta-analysis of subcutaneous versus intravenous epoetin in maintenance treatment of anemia in hemodialysis patients. Am J Kidney Dis 2002; 40: 439–446 7. Levin A. Preaching and practice: evidence-based medicine and the accountability of nephrologists within the health care system. The implications of the findings of the cost-saving potential of subcutaneous versus intravenous epoetin therapy. Am J Kidney Dis 2002; 40: 662–663
Nanogel loaded with surfactant based nanovesicles for enhanced ocular delivery of acetazolamide

Objective: Intraocular pressure has always been a great challenge for topical ophthalmic drugs. The study aimed to develop ocular surfactant based nanovesicles (NVs) carried in mucoadhesive nanogel providing efficient topical delivery of acetazolamide (ACZ). Methods: For the sake of optimizing formulation parameters, the effect of the type of edge activator and its ratio to sorbitan monostearate (Span 60) on the mean particle size, entrapment efficiency (%EE), and zeta potential (ZP) of produced NVs was investigated. Results: The selected formulation composed of Span 60:sodium deoxycholate with ratio 80:20 showed an average diameter of 202.90 nm, %EE of 90.2%, and ZP of −38.1 mV with a spherical and smooth surface. The ACZ loaded nanovesicles (ACZ-NVs) were embedded in different concentrations of Chitosan–sodium tripolyphosphate (CS-TPP) nanogels. The nanogel prepared using 1.5% CS showed the most promising viscosity, adhesion time, and rheological behavior (118,246 cP, 290 min, and thixotropic behavior, respectively). The in vitro release of ACZ showed a controlled release profile after incorporation in nanogels. The in vivo irritation test showed minimal irritation for the nanogel formulation compared to ACZ topical suspension. The effect of intraocular pressure lowering was significantly prolonged using ACZ-NV nanogels compared to ACZ oral tablets. Histopathological examination emphasized the healing power of CS on retinal atrophy. Conclusion: The research work indicated a promising potential for successful topical delivery of ACZ.
An exploratory study of the injured worker’s experience and relationship with the workplace return to work coordinator in NSW, Australia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the injured worker’s perspective of experiences with their workplace return to work coordinator (RTWC), and explore some of the barriers they encountered in the return to work process. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten injured workers from New South Wales, Australia. The thematic analysis of transcripts was completed. Findings The findings provide an insight into the experiences of injured workers and their relationship with RTWCs. Five key themes emerged from the data: return to work experiences and the RTWC role, high turnover and lack of consistency in the role, RTWC “ideal”, knowledge and skills, communication skills and the RTWC role and GP visits privacy and conflict of interest with peer RTWCs. Practical implications The role of the workplace RTWC in the return to work process for injured workers is important and these findings are highly relevant to the return to work sector. Consistency within the role at the workplace and careful consideration of the specific traits and characteristics required by an individual to perform the role need to be observed during the selection process by employers when appointing a workplace RTWC to assist injured workers return to work. Originality/value This is the first Australian study to examine the injured workers views and experiences with the workplace RTWC and other factors that shape the return to work process.
An Exploration on Improving Statistical Machine Translation Performance by Using Post-Editing Information

Manually Post-editing (PE) is a traditional and effective way of improving machine translation outputs. However, it is costly and time consuming. In this paper, manually PE knowledge including word and phrase revision information is used for updating statistical machine translation (SMT) model, the updated system can avoidsimilar mistakes and achieve better translation performance. A number of SMT model compatible features are extracted from PE process, and then an updating process is implemented to combine such PE knowledge into the original SMT model. Experiments on Chinese to English translation are carried out. Results show that our approach could improve the performance of baseline SMT system. Additionally, the updated SMT model has the capability of generating user expected outputs through PE information combination process.
Women's stress in compulsory army service in Israel: A gendered perspective.

BACKGROUND A growing number of women are serving in the military in a variety of roles, yet information on their experience of stressors not associated with either combat or sexual harassment is not commonly reported. OBJECTIVE To present phenomenological data on stressors experienced in military service, together with the use of coping strategies as a way to focus on women's mental needs following deployment from service. METHODS Twenty women who had recently completed their compulsory army service in Israel drew a picture expressing stressors they experienced in the army. They analyzed their own pictures on three levels: the content, context, and the composition as expressing stress and the resources they used in coping with stress. RESULTS Six themes were raised: proximity to war situations, coping with accidents in training soldiers under their command, a conflict between political values and military orders, witnessing the injury of another female soldier, responsibility for accidental injury of a civilian, and distress over the army placement. CONCLUSIONS Coping resources were relational, primarily family and friend support, rather than from the army framework. This reliance on relational sources of support was both a resource and a source of vulnerability and is viewed as distinct from men's style of coping.
Generation of an inducible and optimized piggyBac transposon system†

Genomic studies in the mouse have been slowed by the lack of transposon-mediated mutagenesis. However, since the resurrection of Sleeping Beauty (SB), the possibility of performing forward genetics in mice has been reinforced. Recently, piggyBac (PB), a functional transposon from insects, was also described to work in mammals. As the activity of PB is higher than that of SB11 and SB12, two hyperactive SB transposases, we have characterized and improved the PB system in mouse ES cells. We have generated a mouse codon-optimized version of the PB transposase coding sequence (CDS) which provides transposition levels greater than the original. We have also found that the promoter sequence predicted in the 5′-terminal repeat of the PB transposon is active in the mammalian context. Finally, we have engineered inducible versions of the optimized piggyBac transposase fused with ERT2. One of them, when induced, provides higher levels of transposition than the native piggyBac CDS, whereas in the absence of induction its activity is indistinguishable from background. We expect that these tools, adaptable to perform mouse-germline mutagenesis, will facilitate the identification of genes involved in pathological and physiological processes, such as cancer or ES cell differentiation.
Early life exposure to infections and risk of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Evidence from a growing number of studies indicates that exposure to common infections early in life may be protective against childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We examined the relationship between three measures of early life exposure to infections—daycare attendance, birth order and common childhood infections in infancy—with the risk of ALL in non‐Hispanic white and Hispanic children, two ethnicities that show sociodemographic differences. The analysis included 669 ALL cases (284 non‐Hispanic whites and 385 Hispanics) and 977 controls (458 non‐Hispanic whites and 519 Hispanics) ages 1–14 years enrolled in the Northern California Childhood Leukemia Study (NCCLS). When the three measures were evaluated separately, daycare attendance by the age of 6 months (odds ratio [OR] for each thousand child‐hours of exposure = 0.90, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.82–1.00) and birth order (OR for having an older sibling = 0.68, 95% CI: 0.50–0.92) were associated with a reduced risk of ALL among non‐Hispanic white children but not Hispanic children, whereas ear infection before age 6 months was protective in both ethnic groups. When the three measures were assessed simultaneously, the influence of daycare attendance (OR = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.73–0.94) and having an older sibling (OR = 0.59, 95% CI: 0.43–0.83) became stronger for non‐Hispanic white children. In Hispanic children, a strong reduction in risk associated with ear infections persisted (OR = 0.45, 95% CI: 0.25–0.79). Evidence of a protective role for infection‐related exposures early in life is supported by findings in both the non‐Hispanic white and Hispanic populations within the NCCLS.
Recognition based segmentation of connected characters in text based CAPTCHAs

Text based CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is the most widely used mechanism adopted by numerous popular web sites in order to differentiate between machines and humans, however due to extensive research carried out by computer vision researchers, it is now a days vulnerable against automated attacks. Segmentation is the most difficult task in automatic recognition of CAPTCHAs, therefore contemporary Text based CAPTCHAs try to combine the characters together in order to make them as segmentation resistant against these attacks as possible. In this research, we have found vulnerabilities in such CAPTCHAs, a novel mechanism, i.e. the recognition based segmentation is applied to crop such connected characters, a sliding window based neural network classifier is used to recognize and segment the connected characters. Experimental results have proved 95.5% recognition success rate and 58.25% segmentation success rate on our dataset of tmall CAPTCHAs, this algorithm is further tested on two other datasets of slightly different implementations and promising results were achieved.