Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Consequences Of Brief Periods Of Sleep Loss On Hippocampus-Dependent Memory And Synaptic Plasticity

Hippocampal cellular and molecular processes critical for memory consolidation are affected by the amount and quality of sleep attained. Questions remain with regard to how sleep enhances memory, what parameters of sleep after learning are optimal for memory consolidation, and what underlying hippocampal molecular players are dysregulated by sleep deprivation to impair memory consolidation and plasticity. In this dissertation, I describe experiments that we performed to identify the time window where memory consolidation is sensitive to sleep loss as well as to characterize two potential molecular players targeted by sleep deprivation. Because consolidation appears to have a particular window where it is sensitive to sleep loss, we explore the parameters of this time window in Chapter 2. Our results suggest that a specific 3-hour period of sleep loss during consolidation disrupts both memory and plasticity. In the second portion of this dissertation, I examine the mechanisms by which sleep deprivation impairs hippocampus-dependent memory consolidation. In Chapter 3, we show that loss of the phosphodiesterase (PDE) 4A, an enzyme responsible for decreasing cAMP signaling, rescues spatial memory disrupted by sleep loss. These results further implicate cAMP signaling with the negative effects of sleep deprivation on memory. Obtaining adequate sleep is challenging in a society that values "work around the clock. " Therefore, the development of interventions to combat the negative cognitive effects of sleep deprivation is critical. However, a limited number of therapeutics exists that are able to enhance cognition in the face of insufficient sleep. The identification of the temporal characteristics of sleep loss and the molecular pathways implicated in the deleterious effects of sleep deprivation on memory could potentially yield new targets for the development of more effective drugs. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Neuroscience First Advisor Ted Abel
The development of cortical connections

The cortex receives its major sensory input from the thalamus via thalamocortical axons, and cortical neurons are interconnected in complex networks by corticocortical and callosal axons. Our understanding of the mechanisms generating the circuitry that confers functional properties on cortical neurons and networks, although poor, has been advanced significantly by recent research on the molecular mechanisms of thalamocortical axonal guidance and ordering. Here we review recent advances in knowledge of how thalamocortical axons are guided and how they maintain order during that process. Several studies have shown the importance in this process of guidance molecules including Eph receptors and ephrins, members of the Wnt signalling pathway and members of a novel planar cell polarity pathway. Signalling molecules and transcription factors expressed with graded concentrations across the cortex are important in establishing cortical maps of the topography of sensory surfaces. Neural activity, both spontaneous and evoked, plays a role in refining thalamocortical connections but recent work has indicated that neural activity is less important than was previously thought for the development of some early maps. A strategy used widely in the development of corticocortical and callosal connections is the early overproduction of projections followed by selection after contact with the target structure. Here we discuss recent work in primates indicating that elimination of juvenile projections is not a major mechanism in the development of pathways feeding information forward to higher levels of cortical processing, although its use is common to developing feedback pathways.
Eecient Signcryption Schemes on Elliptic Curves

Signcryption is a new paradigm in public key cryptography. A remarkable property of a signcryption scheme is that it fulllls both the functions of public key encryption and digital signature, with a cost signiicantly smaller than that required by signature-then-encryption. The purposes of this paper are to demonstrate how to specify signcryption schemes on elliptic curves over nite elds, and to examine the eeciency of such s c hemes. Our analysis shows that when compared with signature-then-encryption on elliptic curves, signcryp-tion on the curves represents a 58% saving in computational cost and a 40% saving in communication overhead.
Aberrant Bone Density in Aging Mice Lacking the Adenosine Transporter ENT1

Adenosine is known to regulate bone production and resorption in humans and mice. Type 1 equilibrative nucleoside transporter (ENT1) is responsible for the majority of adenosine transport across the plasma membrane and is ubiquitously expressed in both humans and mice. However, the contribution of ENT1-mediated adenosine levels has not been studied in bone remodeling. With the recent identification of the importance of adenosine signaling in bone homeostasis, it is essential to understand the role of ENT1 to develop novel therapeutic compounds for bone disorders. Here we examined the effect of ENT1 deletion on bone density using X-ray, dual energy X-ray absorptiometry and micro-computerized tomography analysis. Our results show that bone density and bone mineral density is reduced in the lower thoracic and lumbar spine as well as the femur of old ENT1 null mice (>7 months) compared to wild-type littermates. Furthermore, we found increased mRNA expression of tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP), an osteoclast marker, in isolated long bones from 10 month old ENT1 null mice compared to wild-type mice. In addition, aged ENT1 null mice displayed severe deficit in motor coordination and locomotor activity, which might be attributed to dysregulated bone density. Overall, our study suggests that ENT1-regulated adenosine signaling plays an essential role in lumbar spine and femur bone density.
B and Activating Protein-1 κ Nuclear Factor-Responsive to Ambient Glutamine Availability : Role of Growth Factor and Interleukin-8 / CXCL 8 Is Highly Expression of Angiogenic Factors Vascular Endothelial

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and interleukin-8/CXCL8 (IL-8) are prominent pro-angiogenic and pro-metastatic proteins that represent negative prognostic factors in many types of cancer. Hypoxia is thought to be the primary environmental cause of VEGF and IL-8 expression in solid tumors. We hypothesized that a lack of nutrients other than oxygen could stimulate the expression of these factors and previously demonstrated that expression of VEGF and IL-8 is responsive to amino acid deprivation. In the present study, we examined the effect of glutamine availability on the expression of these factors as well as the role of transcription factors NF B and activating protein-1 (AP-1) in the response of TSE human breast carcinoma cells to glutamine deprivation. VEGF and IL-8 secretion and mRNA levels were dramatically induced by glutamine deprivation. mRNA stabilization contributed to this response. Glutamine deprivation increased NF B (p65/p50) and AP-1 (Fra-1/cJun JunD) DNA-binding activities. Blocking NF B and AP-1 activation with curcumin as well as expression of dominant inhibitors, inhibitor of nuclear factorB (I B) super repressor (I BM), and a mutant form of c-Fos (A-Fos) demonstrated that the activation of NF B and AP-1 transcription factors was necessary for the induction of IL-8 expression but dispensable for the induction of VEGF expression. A macro-array containing 111 NF B target genes identified a total of 17 that were upregulated 2-fold or more in response to glutamine deprivation. These included growth regulated oncogene (GRO /GRO1/CXCL1), another neutrophil chemoattractant implicated in tumor angiogenesis and metastasis.
Development and validation of HIV prevention scale for Historically Black College students

This paper reports the development and initial validation of scores obtained from the socio-cognitive determinants of HIV prevention measures. Series of scales developed to identify HIV prevention are knowledge, motivation and behavioral skills of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. The study was carried out among college students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). In the first study, the findings of exploratory factor analyses using 297 HBCU students suggest a 23-item scale with four correlated factors: HIV prevention education motivation (3 items), HIV prevention knowledge (6 items), HIV prevention personal motivation (5 items) and HIV prevention behavioral skills (3 items). Initial estimate of convergent validity for the HIV prevention measures scores were reported. The psychometric properties of the four-factor structure of HIV prevention measures derived from the first study were confirmed by confirmatory factor analyses in a second study.
Monitoring of Monocyte Recruitment in Reperfused Myocardial Infarction With Intramyocardial Hemorrhage and Microvascular Obstruction by Combined Fluorine 19 and Proton Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Background— Monocytes and macrophages are indispensable in the healing process after myocardial infarction (MI); however, the spatiotemporal distribution of monocyte infiltration and its correlation to prognostic indicators of reperfused MI have not been well described. Methods and Results— With combined fluorine 19/proton (1H) magnetic resonance imaging, we noninvasively visualized the spatiotemporal recruitment of monocytes in vivo in a rat model of reperfused MI. Blood monocytes were labeled by intravenous injection of 19F-perfluorocarbon emulsion 1 day after MI. The distribution patterns of monocyte infiltration were correlated to the presence of microvascular obstruction (MVO) and intramyocardial hemorrhage. In vivo, 19F/1H magnetic resonance imaging performed in series revealed that monocyte infiltration was spatially inhomogeneous in reperfused MI areas. In the absence of MVO, monocyte infiltration was more intense in MI regions with serious ischemia-reperfusion injuries, indicated by severe intramyocardial hemorrhage; however, monocyte recruitment was significantly impaired in MVO areas accompanied by severe intramyocardial hemorrhage. Compared with MI with isolated intramyocardial hemorrhage, MI with MVO resulted in significantly worse pump function of the left ventricle 28 days after MI. Conclusions— Monocyte recruitment was inhomogeneous in reperfused MI tissue. It was highly reduced in MVO areas defined by magnetic resonance imaging. The impaired monocyte infiltration in MVO regions could be related to delayed healing and worse functional outcomes in the long term. Therefore, monocyte recruitment in MI with MVO could be a potential diagnostic and therapeutic target that could be monitored noninvasively and longitudinally by 19F/1H magnetic resonance imaging in vivo.
Detection of metamorphic viruses: A survey

Computer viruses are big problem for security. It is essential to differentiate between reproducing programs and its similar forms. Reproducing programs will not necessarily harm the system. Classification aspect of metamorphic viruses is an emerging issue of research. The orientation and expansion of metamorphic viruses is quite critical and general problem of finding metamorphic viruses is NP hard. In this paper emerging methodology are discussed with their efficiency and working pattern.
One theme in all views: modeling consensus topics in multiple contexts

New challenges have been presented to classical topic models when applied to social media, as user-generated content suffers from significant problems of data sparseness. A variety of heuristic adjustments to these models have been proposed, many of which are based on the use of context information to improve the performance of topic modeling. Existing contextualized topic models rely on arbitrary manipulation of the model structure, by incorporating various context variables into the generative process of classical topic models in an ad hoc manner. Such manipulations usually result in much more complicated model structures, sophisticated inference procedures, and low generalizability to accommodate arbitrary types or combinations of contexts. In this paper we explore a different direction. We propose a general solution that is able to exploit multiple types of contexts without arbitrary manipulation of the structure of classical topic models. We formulate different types of contexts as multiple views of the partition of the corpus. A co-regularization framework is proposed to let these views collaborate with each other, vote for the consensus topics, and distinguish them from view-specific topics. Experiments with real-world datasets prove that the proposed method is both effective and flexible to handle arbitrary types of contexts.
Electrophorus acetylcholinesterase. Biochemical and electron microscope characterization of low ionic strength aggregates

The "tailed" molecules of Electrophorus (electric eel) acetylcholinesterase aggregate under conditions of low ionic strength. These aggregates have been studied by sedimentation analysis and high- resolution electron microscopy. They consist of bundles of at least half a dozen molecules, the tails of which are packed side by side, to form the core of the structure. Although aggregation is normally fully reversible, aggregates were irreversibly stabilized by methylene blue- sensitized photo-oxidation. This process was shown to consist of a singlet oxygen oxidation reaction and probably involves methionine or histidine residues. It did not modify the structural or hydrodynamic characteristics of the aggregates.
The Teams Corpus and Entrainment in Multi-Party Spoken Dialogues

When interacting individuals entrain , they begin to speak more like each other. To support research on entrainment in cooperative multi-party dialogues, we have created a corpus where teams of three or four speakers play two rounds of a cooperative board game. We describe the experimental design and technical infrastructure used to collect our corpus, which consists of audio, video, transcriptions, and questionnaire data for 63 teams (47 hours of audio). We illustrate the use of our corpus as a novel resource for studying team entrainment by 1) developing and evaluating team-level acoustic-prosodic entrainment measures that extend existing dyad measures, and 2) investigating relationships between team entrainment and participation dominance.
Functional synapse elimination in the developing avian cochlear nucleus with simultaneous reduction in cochlear nerve axon branching

We studied the chick auditory system to determine whether there is a normal developmental reduction in the number of cochlear nerve axons innervating individual cochlear nucleus (nucleus magnocellularis, NM) neurons. We also examined the preterminal branching patterns of cochlear nerve axons during development. The number of cochlear nerve axons innervating individual NM neurons was estimated by counting the increments in the postsynaptic response as the intensity of cochlear nerve electrical stimulation was varied gradually; this number fell from a mean of 4.0 on embryonic day 13 (E13) to a mean of 2.2 on E17 and E18 and the 4th day after hatching. This highly reliable decline in functional convergence was accompanied by a decrease in the number of preterminal branches of cochlear nerve fibers innervating the NM. On E13 and E14, most axons stained by iontophoretic injections of horseradish peroxidase showed two distinct preterminal branches in the NM. By E17 and E18 and thereafter, cochlear nerve axons were unbranched and terminated with a characteristic single large calycine ending in the NM. There are about twice as many cochlear nerve axons as neurons in the NM and the number of fibers in the nerve appears to decline only slightly between E13 and E17. The 50% decline in the number of cochlear nerve axons making functional synapses on individual NM neurons therefore is associated principally with the concurrent elimination of cochlear nerve axon branching in the NM.
The Potential of Dark Septate Endophytes to Form Root Symbioses with Ectomycorrhizal and Ericoid Mycorrhizal Middle European Forest Plants

The unresolved ecophysiological significance of Dark Septate Endophytes (DSE) may be in part due to existence of morphologically indistinguishable cryptic species in the most common Phialocephala fortinii s. l. —Acephala applanata species complex (PAC). We inoculated three middle European forest plants (European blueberry, Norway spruce and silver birch) with 16 strains of eight PAC cryptic species and other DSE and ectomycorrhizal/ericoid mycorrhizal fungi and focused on intraradical structures possibly representing interfaces for plant-fungus nutrient transfer and on host growth response. The PAC species Acephala applanata simultaneously formed structures resembling ericoid mycorrhiza (ErM) and DSE microsclerotia in blueberry. A. macrosclerotiorum, a close relative to PAC, formed ectomycorrhizae with spruce but not with birch, and structures resembling ErM in blueberry. Phialocephala glacialis, another close relative to PAC, formed structures resembling ErM in blueberry. In blueberry, six PAC strains significantly decreased dry shoot biomass compared to ErM control. In birch, one A. macrosclerotiorum strain increased root biomass and the other shoot biomass in comparison with non-inoculated control. The dual mycorrhizal ability of A. macrosclerotiorum suggested that it may form mycorrhizal links between Ericaceae and Pinaceae. However, we were unable to detect this species in Ericaceae roots growing in a forest with presence of A. macrosclerotiorum ectomycorrhizae. Nevertheless, the diversity of Ericaceae mycobionts was high (380 OTUs) with individual sites often dominated by hitherto unreported helotialean and chaetothyrialean/verrucarialean species; in contrast, typical ErM fungi were either absent or low in abundance. Some DSE apparently have a potential to form mycorrhizae with typical middle European forest plants. However, except A. applanata, the tested representatives of all hitherto described PAC cryptic species formed typical DSE colonization without specific structures necessary for mycorrhizal nutrient transport. A. macrosclerotiorum forms ectomycorrhiza with conifers but not with broadleaves and probably does not form common mycorrhizal networks between conifers with Ericaceae.
Effects of Okadaic Acid, Retinoic Acid, and Phorbol Myristate Acetate Tumor Promoter on Oncogene Expression

The effect of okadaic acid (OA) on proto-oncogene protein expression of c-neu, c-myc, v-rasH, EGFR, and phosphotyrosine-containing phosphoproteins (P-Tyr) was investigated in rapidly growing (RG) normal human keratinocytes (NHK) and in SV-40 virally-transformed keratinocytes (SVK) cultured in a growth factor supplemented serum-free medium as assessed by indirect immunofluorescence microscopy. P-Tyr positively stains cell surface antigens (cytoplasm) diffusely at monopolar sites in RG NHK cultures. OA-treatment intensifies cytoplasmic P-Tyr staining at localized monopolar intercellular focal adhesion (IFA) sites with reduced cytoplasmic staining. P-Tyr expression was predominate at IFA sites with little cytoplasmic staining in RG SVK cultures. OA-treatment increased monopolar P-Tyr staining and cytoplasmic staining. OA-treatment in RG NHK cultures intensified cytoplasmic staining of c-myc and EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor) expression. OA-treatment in RG NHK and SVK cultures intensified c-neu staining at monopolar IFA sites and intensified c-neu staining at both cytoplasmic and bipolar IFA sites in RG SVK cells. OA was especially cytotoxic for SVK cells. RA treatment decreased c-neu expression in RG NHK cultures while TPA treatment has a lesser effect on both cytoplasmic and IFA sites. RA treatment also decreased P-Tyr staining in both NHK and SVK cells. Again, TPA had a lesser inhibitory effect on P-Tyr staining pattern. RA-treatment had a similar effect on P-Tyr staining of RG cultures of a mouse fibroblast cell line. These results confirm the generality of OA, RA and TPA on the regulation of oncogene expression in both normal and malignantly transformed keratinocytes.
Comparison of bacterial communities in leachate from decomposing bovine carcasses

Objective Burial is associated with environmental effects such as the contamination of ground or surface water with biological materials generated during the decomposition process. Therefore, bacterial communities in leachates originating from the decomposing bovine carcasses were investigated. Methods To understand the process of bovine (Hanwoo) carcass decomposition, we simulated burial using a lab-scale reactor with a volume of 5.15 m3. Leachate samples from 3 carcasses were collected using a peristaltic pump once a month for a period of 5 months, and bacterial communities in samples were identified by pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. Results We obtained a total of 110,442 reads from the triplicate samples of various sampling time points (total of 15 samples), and found that the phylum Firmicutes was dominant at most sampling times. Differences in the bacterial communities at the various time points were observed among the triplicate samples. The bacterial communities sampled at 4 months showed the most different compositions. The genera Pseudomonas and Psychrobacter in the phylum Proteobacteria were dominant in all of the samples obtained after 3 months. Bacillaceae, Clostridium, and Clostridiales were found to be predominant after 4 months in the leachate from one carcass, whereas Planococcaceae was found to be a dominant in samples obtained at the first and second months from the other two carcasses. The results showed that potentially pathogenic microbes such as Clostridium derived from bovine leachate could dominate the soil environment of a burial site. Conclusion Our results indicated that the composition of bacterial communities in leachates of a decomposing bovine shifted continuously during the experimental period, with significant changes detected after 4 months of burial.
A comparison of methods to estimate the prevalence of ovine Johne's infection from pooled faecal samples.

OBJECTIVE To compare estimates of ovine Johne's infection prevalence produced by several alternate methods based on pooled faecal culture (PFC) results with prevalence estimates based on individual faecal culture (IFC). PROCEDURE Seven methods for estimating prevalence of infection based on PFC results were incorporated in a computer program, including methods for imperfect test sensitivity and specificity, for variable pool size and a Bayesian method that incorporates prior knowledge about test performance and prevalence. These methods were then used to analyse PFC data at one observation 30 months post-vaccination in a field trial of a killed vaccine for the control of OJD, undertaken on three farms in New South Wales. RESULTS Prevalence estimates, for three methods that assume a perfect test, were close to the IFC estimate, whereas for three other methods that assume an imperfect test, the estimated prevalence was generally higher than the IFC estimate. In comparison, the Bayesian approach produced more variable estimates that were substantially higher than the IFC estimate when an inappropriately high prior estimate of prevalence was used. CONCLUSION Despite the limitations of each method, two methods provided accurate and reasonable estimates of the prevalence assessed by IFC in all instances, and are appropriate for the analysis of data from this vaccine trial. One of these methods also has the advantage of allowing for variable pool size. However, further research is needed to develop a method that will simultaneously account for variation in pool size and in test sensitivity and specificity.