Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The age of anxiety: role of animal models of anxiolytic action in drug discovery

Anxiety disorders are common, serious and a growing health problem worldwide. However, the causative factors, aetiology and underlying mechanisms of anxiety disorders, as for most psychiatric disorders, remain relatively poorly understood. Animal models are an important aid in giving insight into the aetiology, neurobiology and, ultimately, the therapy of human anxiety disorders. The approach, however, is challenged with a number of complexities. In particular, the heterogeneous nature of anxiety disorders in humans coupled with the associated multifaceted and descriptive diagnostic criteria, creates challenges in both animal modelling and in clinical research. In this paper, we describe some of the more widely used approaches for assessing the anxiolytic activity of known and potential therapeutic agents. These include ethological, conflict‐based, hyponeophagia, vocalization‐based, physiological and cognitive‐based paradigms. Developments in the characterization of translational models are also summarized, as are the challenges facing researchers in their drug discovery efforts in developing new anxiolytic drugs, not least the ever‐shifting clinical conceptualization of anxiety disorders. In conclusion, to date, although animal models of anxiety have relatively good validity, anxiolytic drugs with novel mechanisms have been slow to emerge. It is clear that a better alignment of the interactions between basic and clinical scientists is needed if this is to change.
A 160 × 120 Pixel Analog-Counting Single-Photon Imager With Time-Gating and Self-Referenced Column-Parallel A/D Conversion for Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging

A single-photon, time-gated, $160 \times 120 $ pixel imager is presented for its application in fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy. Exploiting single-photon avalanche diodes and an extremely compact pixel circuitry—only seven MOSFETs and one MOSCAP—the imager is capable of gathering information about photon position, number, and time distribution, enabling cost-effective devices for scientific imaging applications. This is achieved thanks to the photon counting and time-gating capabilities implemented in the analog domain, which in turn enable a $15\;{\upmu}{\text{m}}$ pixel with a 21% fill-factor. A reconfigurable column circuitry supports both the analog conventional readout and a self-referenced analog-to-digital conversion, able to cancel out the pixel-to-pixel nonuniformities, and speeding up the framerate to 486 fps. The imager, featuring also a delay locked loop to stabilize the internal waveform generation for reliable timing performance, has been implemented in a standard high-voltage $0.35\;{\upmu}{\text{m}}$ CMOS technology. Measurements in a fluorescent lifetime setup have been performed, comparing the results with single-point acquisitions made with commercial time-correlated equipment.
Nuclear transfer in cattle with non‐transfected and transfected fetal or cloned transgenic fetal and postnatal fibroblasts

The efficiency of nuclear transfer (NT) using two primary cultures of fetal fibroblasts (FF1 and FF2) was compared vs. the same cultures transfected with an expression vector in which the bovine prochymosin coding sequence is placed under the control of the bovine αS1‐casein promoter (TFF1 and TFF2). In addition, fibroblasts of a cloned transgenic fetus (TRFF1) derived from TFF1 and ear skin fibroblasts of a 1‐month‐old cloned transgenic calf (TRCF1) derived from TRFF1 were used as nuclear donors. Embryos reconstructed from FF1 (44%) and FF2 (52%) developed to the blastocyst stage at a significantly (P < 0.05) higher rate than those derived from TFF1 (24%) and TFF2 (27%). The proportions of cleaved embryos and blastocysts were significantly (P < 0.05) higher with TRFF1 than with TRCF1 used as nuclear donors (75 vs. 66% and 33 vs. 16%, respectively). Transfer of NT embryos derived from FF2 and TFF2 to recipients resulted in similar pregnancy rates on day 30 (52 and 48%, respectively). However, with TFF2 embryos, the majority of pregnancies (8/11; 73%) was lost in the first and second trimesters of gestation, whereas 4/11 (36%) pregnancies with FF2 embryos were lost during the full period of in vivo development. Of 11 FF2 and 6 TFF2 born calves (25 and 13% of transferred embryos, respectively), 6 and 3 survived including one oversized FF2 calf. After transfer of TRFF1 and TRCF1 NT embryos to recipients, initial pregnancy rate was as a tendency higher in the TRFF1 (49%) than in the TRCF1 group (30%). The majority (14/17) of TRFF1 pregnancies and all TRCF1 pregnancies were lost in the first and second trimester. A high proportion of TRFF1 calves (5/8) showed increased body weights, and only two calves which were also large survived. These findings demonstrate that (i) extended culture associated with transfection and selection procedures may induce changes of donor cells which markedly decrease the efficiency of nuclear transfer and (ii) these changes are not reversed by recloning. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 60:362‐369, © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Admixture as a tool for finding linked genes and detecting that difference from allelic association between loci.

Admixture between genetically different populations may produce gametic association between gene loci as a function of the genetic difference between parental populations and the admixture rate. This association decays as a function of time since admixture and the recombination rate between the loci. Admixture between genetically long-separated human populations has been frequent in the centuries since the age of exploration and colonization, resulting in numerous hybrid descendant populations today, as in the Americas. This represents a natural experiment for genetic epidemiology and anthropology, in which to use polymorphic marker loci (e.g., restriction fragment length polymorphisms) and disequilibrium to infer a genetic basis for traits of interest. In this paper we show that substantial disequilibrium remains today under widely applicable situations, which can be detected without requiring inordinately close linkage between trait and marker loci. Very disparate parental allele frequencies produce large disequilibrium, but the sample size needed to detect such levels of disequilibrium can be large due to the skewed haplotype frequency distribution in the admixed population. Such situations, however, provide power to differentiate between disequilibrium due just to population mixing from that due to physical linkage of loci--i.e., to help map the genetic locus of the trait. A gradient of admixture levels between the same parental populations may be used to test genetic models by relating admixture to disequilibrium levels.
Nowhere to go? Why do some civil wars generate more refugees than others?

ABSTRACT Civil wars greatly vary in the number of refugees they generate, ranging from zero to over six millions in a given conflict. Work on this variation has largely focused on “push” factors – deleterious attributes of the home country that lead to refugee flows, such as violence and repression. Yet, few have studied the importance of “pull” factors – attractive features of the potential host countries. Here we show in particular the importance of the expected quality of life in possible destinations. Using data on civil wars from 1951 to 2008, we find that the proximity of democratic and wealthy potential hosts accounts for much of the variation in the number of refugees. Out-of-sample validation methods show that these “pull” factors account for nearly as much predictive power as all the main variables previously identified in the literature combined.
Mechanistic insights into CED-4-mediated activation of CED-3

Programmed cell death in C. elegans requires caspase CED-3 activation. The CED-4 apoptosome facilitates CED-3 activation, yet how CED-4 recognizes CED-3 is unknown. Huang et al. now show that CED-3 directly binds CED-4 and plays a pivotal role in forming an active CED-4–CED-3 holoenzyme. Structural and biochemical analyses suggest a model whereby two CED-3 molecules are forced into the CED-4 apoptosome, which then undergoes dimerization and autocatalytic maturation. This work provides a major revision of the prevailing model for initiator caspase activation.
The stationary-phase-exit defect of cydC (surB) mutants is due to the lack of a functional terminal cytochrome oxidase

The surB gene was identified as a gene product required for Escherichia coli cells to exit stationary phase at 37 degrees C under aerobic conditions. surB was shown to be the same as cydC, whose product is required for the proper assembly and activity of cytochrome d oxidase. Cytochrome d oxidase, encoded by the cydAB operon, is one of two alternate terminal cytochrome oxidases that function during aerobic electron transport in E. coli. Mutations inactivating the cydAB operon also cause a temperature-sensitive defect in exiting stationary phase, but the phenotype is not as severe as it is for surB mutants. In this study, we examined the phenotypes of surB1 delta(cydAB) double mutants and the ability of overexpression of cytochrome o oxidase to suppress the temperature-sensitive stationary-phase-exit defect of surB1 and delta(cydAB) mutants and analyzed spontaneous suppressors of surB1. Our results indicate that the severe temperature-sensitive defect in exiting stationary phase of surB1 mutants is due both to the absence of terminal cytochrome oxidase activity and to the presence of a defective cytochrome d oxidase. Membrane vesicles prepared from wild-type, surB1, and delta(cydAB) strains produced superoxide radicals at the same rate in vitro. Therefore, the aerobic growth defects of the surB1 and delta(cydAB) strains are not due to enhanced superoxide production resulting from the block in aerobic electron transport.
Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Scientometric Analysis

Age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) is a major cause of central blindness among working aged adults across the world. Systematic research planning on any subject, including ARMD is in need of solid data regarding previous efforts in this field and to identify the gaps in the research. This study aimed to elucidate the most important trends, directions, and gap in this subject. The data extracted from the Institute for Scientific Information were used to perform a bibliometric analysis of the scientific productions (1993–2013) about ARMD. Specific parameters related to ARMD were analyzed to obtain a view of the topic’s structure, history, and document relationships. Additionally, the trends and authors in the most influential publications were analyzed. The number of articles in this field was found constantly increasing. Most highly cited articles addressed genetic epidemiology and clinical research topics in this field. During the past 3 years, there has been a trend toward biomarker research. Through performing the first scientometric survey on ARMD research, we analyzed the characteristics of papers and the trends in scientific production. We also identified some of the critical gaps in the current research efforts that would help in large-scale research strategic planning.
SMART: A scalable mapping and routing technique for power-gating in NoC routers

Reducing the size of the technology increases leakage power in Network-on-Chip (NoC) routers drastically. Power-gating, particularly in NoC routers, is one of the most efficient approaches for alleviating the leakage power. Although applying power-gating techniques alleviates NoC power consumption due to high proportion of idleness in NoC routers, since the timing behavior of packets is irregular, even in low injection rates, performance overhead in power-gated routers is significant. In this paper, we present SMART, a Scalable Mapping And Routing Technique, with virtually no area overhead on the network. It improves the irregularity of the timing behavior of packets in order to mitigate leakage power and lighten the imposed performance overhead. SMART employs a special deterministic routing algorithm, which reduces number of packets encounter power-gated routers. It establishes a dedicated path between each source-destination pair to maximize using powered-on routers, which roughly halves the number of wake-ups. Additionally, in order to maximize the efficiency of the proposed routing algorithm, SMART provides an exclusive mapping for each communication task graph. In proposed mapping, all cores should be arranged with a special layout suited for the proposed routing, which helps us to minimize the number of hops. Furthermore, we modify the predictor of conventional power-gating technique to reduce energy overhead of inconsistent wake-ups. Experimental results on SPLASH-2 benchmarks indicate that the proposed technique can save 21.9% of static power, and reduce the latency overhead by 42.9% compared with the conventional power-gating technique.
Do Firms Manage Their Credit Ratings? Evidence from Rating-Based Contracts

This paper examines whether firms with rating-based performance-priced loan contracts (PPrating firms) manage cash flow from operations (CFO) and accruals to obtain better firm credit ratings. I find that for PPrating firms, both CFO management and accruals management, are positively associated with firm credit ratings. In the cross-section, the relation of CFO management and accruals management with firm ratings is less pronounced when there is a larger benefit associated with inflated firm ratings. These results support the view that financial statement manipulation helps PPrating firms achieve more favorable ratings; when these firms are subject to more stringent rating-agency monitoring, such manipulation proves less effective. JEL Classifications: G18; G20; G28.
Neurogenesis and progenitor cells in the adult human brain: A comparison between hippocampal and subventricular progenitor proliferation

For more than a decade, we have known that the human brain harbors progenitor cells capable of becoming mature neurons in the adult human brain. Since the original landmark article by Eriksson etal. in 1998 (Nat Med 4:1313‐1317), there have been many studies investigating the effect that depression, epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, and Parkinson's disease have on the germinal zones in the adult human brain. Of particular interest is the demonstration that there are far fewer progenitor cells in the hippocampal subgranular zone (SGZ) compared with the subventricular zone (SVZ) in the human brain. Furthermore, the quantity of progenitor cell proliferation in human neurodegenerative diseases differs from that of animal models of neurodegenerative diseases; there is minimal progenitor proliferation in the SGZ and extensive proliferation in the SVZ in the human. In this review, we will present the data from a range of human and rodent studies from which we can compare the amount of proliferation of cells in the SVZ and SGZ in different neurodegenerative diseases. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 72: 990–1005, 2012
Deep learning and distributional semantic model for Indonesian tweet categorization

Twitter is one of the most well known social media in this era. Each day, many of this tweets are tweeted by people. In this experiments, Indonesian tweet will be extracted as set of features and will be categorized using machine learning. This experiment will conduct research to get the best configuration to categorize Indonesian tweet. To get the best configuration, this experiment will use lexical and distribution semantic model as feature extraction method. These two methods will later be compared to get the best one for Indonesian tweet representation. In addition to feature extraction methods, to get the model with the best accuracy, this experiment will also compare: SVM, ANN, and DNN. The best accuracy obtained by using ANN with word2vec CBOW at 82.94% for testing using 10-fold cross-validation and obtain 77.98% accuracy with data testing using deep neural network algorithm.
An empirical analysis of eating disorder, not otherwise specified: preliminary support for a distinct subgroup.

OBJECTIVE In recent years, there has been debate concerning whether distinct subgroups exist within the eating disorder, not otherwise specified (EDNOS) diagnostic category. One subgroup that has been suggested is binge-eating disorder (BED). While BED has received some research attention, relatively little is known about other possible subgroups within the EDNOS category. The purpose of the present study is to empirically investigate whether distinct subgroups exist within the diagnostic category of EDNOS. METHOD Participants were 53 EDNOS patients who presented to psychotherapy clinics for treatment of an eating disorder. Information gathered from a clinical assessment, which included a clinical interview and self-report questionnaires, was used in the analyses of the study. RESULTS Using cluster analytic procedures, two subgroups of patients diagnosed with EDNOS were identified. The two subgroups differed from each other in terms of weight, binging, and body image variables. Specifically, the second subgroup (of 11 patients) appeared to be a distinct subgroup of overweight binge-eating patients, while the first subgroup appeared to be a heterogenous group of EDNOS patients. The overweight binge-eating subgroup was significantly higher in current weight, in reported highest adult weight, in reported higher lowest adult weight, and had more binges per week than the heterogenous EDNOS subgroup. Interestingly, the two subgroups did not differ in terms of self-reported purging and/or compensatory behaviors (e.g., vomiting and laxative use). DISCUSSION The results of the present study provide preliminary support for a distinct subgroup within the EDNOS diagnostic category. This subgroup resembles BED, with the exception of the presence of purging behaviors. The findings of the present study suggest the need to further investigate the exclusionary criteria of purging/compensatory behaviors for the BED diagnosis.
Data Management and Privacy in a World of Data Wealth

Data storage and processing is at the center of every human activity and business. Among all types of data being stored and processed, there is added value in personally identifiable data. Not only it has direct value for building contact networks but also allows fine grained profiling. Profiling and extensive service usage metric collections allow unprecedented knowledge about what people want, buy, and most importantly what will buy next. Additionally, it allows to infer possible behavior and personality without ever needing to resort to actual human interaction.Naturally, this raises a number of important privacy concerns. At SafeCloud Technologies we aim to develop technology that allows online services and applications to continue to leverage data analytics but will, by design, preserve each individual's right to privacy and control over their own data. We believe that a free, united and peaceful world is necessarily built on protecting individuals privacy and ability to openly relate with one another. Moreover, we believe technology can actually support this vision.
The Threshold Impact of Fiscal and Monetary Policies on Inflation: Threshold Model Approach

The aim of this study is to examine the nonlinear effects of fiscal and monetary policies on inflation during 1990:3 to 2013:1 based on threshold model. First lag of the liquidity growth is recognized as threshold variable with threshold value estimated at 6.37 percent. In low liquidity growth, the results indicate that inflation expectations and the lagged liquidity growth are the most important determinants of inflation. In high liquidity growth, effects of the variables including liquidity, development and con-current expenditure, exchange rate, budget deficit and inflationary expectations are much stronger than low one. GDP and its lag in both regimes are anti-inflationary as expected. Oil revenues have no inflationary effects in both regimes, so it seems that the effect of oil shocks on inflation is captured by other variables such as exchange rate and money growth. Based on results, it seems that liquidity growth can be considered as the most important factor for regime change in the relationship between inflation and fiscal and monetary policies in the economy. So if economy benefits from the low liquidity regime, it can prevent the inflationary effects of variables like government expenditure or exchange rate and use the opportunity to control inflation expectations. It is recommendable, in low liquidity regime to use fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies to stimulate production and real sector with low inflationary effects.
DFE Versus MLSE Electronic Equalization for Gigabit/s SI-POF Transmission Systems

In this letter, we compare three different types of electronic equalization techniques to compensate the limited bandwidth of gigabit/s step-index polymer optical fiber (SI-POF) transmission systems. In particular, we experimentally analyze the performance of a feed-forward equalizer (FFE), a feed-forward plus decision feedback equalizer (FFE+DFE), and a maximum likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE) equalizer in an optical link composed of a resonant cavity light-emitting diode (RC-LED), 50 m of SI-POF, and a photodiode. The investigation is carried out on a real hardware experiment based on available POF optoelectronics, while the equalization is implemented in software using an off-line processing approach. We show that the FFE+DFE solution pays only a limited penalty versus the much more complex MLSE algorithm. Our result shows that the FFE+DFE solution is a very good compromise between performance and complexity for a gigabit/s SI-POF system.
Identification of IQGAP as a Putative Target for the Small GTPases, Cdc42 and Rac1*

Cdc42 and Rac1 have been implicated in the regulation of various cell functions such as cell morphology, polarity, and cell proliferation. We have partially purified a Cdc42- and Rac1-associated protein with molecular mass of about 170 kDa (p170) from bovine brain cytosol. This protein interacted with guanosine 5′-(3-O-thio)triphosphate (GTPγS)·glutathione S-transferase (GST)-Cdc42 and GTPγS·GST-Rac1 but not with the GDP·GST-Cdc42, GDP·GST-Rac1, or GTPγS·GST-RhoA). We identified p170 as an IQGAP, which is originally identified as a putative Ras GTPase-activating protein. Recombinant IQGAP specifically interacted with GTPγS·Cdc42 and GTPγS·Rac1. The C-terminal fragment of IQGAP was responsible for their interactions. IQGAP was specifically immunoprecipitated with dominant-active Cdc42Val12 or Rac1Val12 from the COS7 cells expressing Cdc42Val12 or Rac1Val12, respectively. Immunofluorescence analysis revealed that IQGAP was accumulated at insulin- or Rac1-induced membrane ruffling areas. This accumulation of IQGAP was blocked by the microinjection of the dominant-negative Rac1Asn17 or Cdc42Asn17. Moreover, IQGAP was accumulated at the cell-cell junction in MDCK cells, where α-catenin and ZO-1 were localized. These results suggest that IQGAP is a novel target molecule for Cdc42 and Rac1.
Elastase: A predictive marker of inflammation and/or infection

The present study was undertaken to estimate elastase in biological fluids and assess its usefulness as an indicator of inflammation/infection. Elastase was measured in seminal plasma, serum, urine, and cervical specimens using a specific substrate and was expressed in arbitrary units (AU). It was found to be stable over a period of 3 weeks. The intra‐ and interassay variation of elastase assay was between 2.3 to 6.8% and 7.3 to 9.9%, respectively. The assay was validated by comparing it with other methods that are available for the detection of infections. Sensitivity of the assay indicating inflammation/infection in these samples varied between 70.9 to 87.3%. The results obtained suggest that the presence of elastase in specimens may be used as a nonspecific indicator and could be used to screen inflammation/infection in a limited resource setting. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 18:153–158, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.