Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Morphogenesis of the Medaka Cerebellum, with Special Reference to the Mesencephalic Sheet, a Structure Homologous to the Rostrolateral Part of Mammalian Anterior Medullary Velum

We have examined cerebellar morphogenesis after neural tube stage in medaka (Oryzias latipes), a ray-finned fish, by conventional histology and immunohistochemistry using anti-proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and anti-acetylated tubulin antibodies. Our results indicate that the medaka cerebellum is formed in 4 successive stages: (1) formation and enlargement of the cerebellar primordia; (2) rostral midline fusion of the left/right halves of the cerebellar primordia; (3) formation of the cerebellar matrix zones in the midline and caudalmost regions of the primitive cerebellum, and (4) growth and differentiation of the cerebellum. Our results also show that cerebellar morphogenesis is different from that in mammals in 3 important points: the developmental origins of the primordia, directions along which cerebellar fusion proceeds, and number, locations and duration of the cerebellar matrix zones. During the course of this study, an alar-derived membranous structure between the cerebellum and the midbrain in the adult medaka brain was identified as the structure homologous to the rostrolateral part of the mammalian anterior medullary velum. We have named this structure in the adult teleostean brains as the ‘mesencephalic sheet’. The present study indicates that there exists both conserved and divergent patterns in cerebellar morphogenesis in vertebrates.
Enhancement of Vancomycin Activity against Biofilms by Using Ultrasound-Targeted Microbubble Destruction

ABSTRACT Treating biofilm infections on implanted medical devices is formidable, even with extensive antibiotic therapy. The aim of this study was to investigate whether ultrasound (US)-targeted microbubble (MB) destruction (UTMD) could enhance vancomycin activity against Staphylococcus epidermidis RP62A biofilms. Twelve-hour biofilms were treated with vancomycin combined with UTMD. The vancomycin and MB (SonoVue) were used at concentrations of 100 μg/ml and 30% (vol/vol), respectively, in studies in vitro. After US exposure (0.08 MHz, 1.0 W/cm2, 50% duty cycle, and 10-min duration), the biofilms were cultured at 37°C for another 12 h. The results showed that many micropores were found in biofilms treated with vancomycin combined with UTMD. Biofilm densities (A570 values) and the viable counts of S. epidermidis recovered from the biofilm were significantly decreased compared with those of any other groups. Furthermore, the highest percentage of dead cells was found, using confocal laser scanning microscopy, in the biofilm treated with vancomycin combined with UTMD. The viable counts of bacteria in biofilms in an in vivo rabbit model also confirmed the enhanced effect of vancomycin combined with UTMD. UTMD may have great potential for improving antibiotic activity against biofilm infections.
Expression and Cell Distribution of Group I and Group II Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor Subtypes in Taylor‐type Focal Cortical Dysplasia

Summary: Purpose: Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) is known to be a major cause of intractable epilepsy. The cellular mechanism(s) underlying the epileptogenicity of FCD remain largely unknown. Because recent studies indicate that metabotropic glutamate receptor subtypes (mGluRs) play a role in epileptogenesis, we investigated the expression and cellular distribution pattern of mGluRs in FCD specimens.
Prevalence of hepatic steatosis in an urban population in the United States: Impact of ethnicity

Despite the increasing prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), its pathogenesis and clinical significance remain poorly defined. In this study, we examined and compared the distribution of hepatic triglyceride content (HTGC) in 2,287 subjects from a multiethnic, population‐based sample (32.1% white, 48.3% black, and 17.5% Hispanic) using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. HTGC varied over a wide range (0.0%‐41.7%; median, 3.6%) in the population. Almost one third of the population had hepatic steatosis, and most subjects with hepatic steatosis had normal levels of serum alanine aminotransferase (79%). The frequency of hepatic steatosis varied significantly with ethnicity (45% in Hispanics; 33% in whites; 24% in blacks) and sex (42% in white men; 24% in white women). The higher prevalence of hepatic steatosis in Hispanics was due to the higher prevalence of obesity and insulin resistance in this ethnic group. However, the lower frequency of hepatic steatosis in blacks was not explained by ethnic differences in body mass index, insulin resistance, ethanol ingestion, or medication use. The prevalence of hepatic steatosis was greater in men than women among whites, but not in blacks or Hispanics. The ethnic differences in the frequency of hepatic steatosis in this study mirror those observed previously for NAFLD‐related cirrhosis (Hispanics > whites > blacks). In conclusion, the significant ethnic and sex differences in the prevalence of hepatic steatosis documented in this study may have a profound impact on susceptibility to steatosis‐related liver disease. (HEPATOLOGY 2004;40:1387–1395.)
Hierarchical models for ROC curve summary measures: Design and analysis of multi‐reader, multi‐modality studies of medical tests

Comparative studies of the accuracy of diagnostic tests often involve designs according to which each study participant is examined by two or more of the tests and the diagnostic examinations are interpreted by several readers. Tests are then compared on the basis of a summary index, such as the (full or partial) area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, averaged over the population of readers. The design and analysis of such studies naturally need to take into account the correlated nature of the diagnostic test results and interpretations.
A Circadian Oscillator in Aspergillus spp. Regulates Daily Development and Gene Expression

ABSTRACT We have established the presence of a circadian clock in Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus nidulans by morphological and molecular assays, respectively. In A. flavus, the clock regulates an easily assayable rhythm in the development of sclerotia, which are large survival structures produced by many fungi. This developmental rhythm exhibits all of the principal clock properties. The rhythm is maintained in constant environmental conditions with a period of 33 h at 30°C, it can be entrained by environmental signals, and it is temperature compensated. This endogenous 33-h period is one of the longest natural circadian rhythms reported for any organism, and this likely contributes to some unique responses of the clock to environmental signals. In A. nidulans, no obvious rhythms in development are apparent. However, a free running and entrainable rhythm in the accumulation of gpdA mRNA (encoding glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase) is observed, suggesting the presence of a circadian clock in this species. We are unable to identify an Aspergillus ortholog of frequency, a gene required for normal circadian rhythmicity in Neurospora crassa. Together, our data indicate the existence of an Aspergillus circadian clock, which has properties that differ from that of the well-described clock of N. crassa.
Company visits as an opportunity for entrepreneurial learning

The research field of entrepreneurship education has emerged rapidly. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the organisation of company visits. Especially, the utilisation of companies to expand the learning environment has been largely dismissed. This study examines company visits as an opportunity for entrepreneurial learning in compulsory education. The empirical part of this study considers five cases. The informants are teachers in compulsory education. The findings show that company visits are a broader concept than previous literature suggests, and depending on the way the visits are organised, they create very different learning possibilities. The cases indicate that teachers willingly cooperate with companies, although organising company visits remains a challenge. The findings highlight the positive effects of school-company cooperation, and especially the cases where students implement the process to create significant potential for entrepreneurial learning.
Vitamin E isoforms alpha-tocotrienol and gamma-tocopherol prevent cerebral infarction in mice.

Alpha-tocopherol and its derivatives have been shown to be effective in reducing cerebral ischemia-induced brain damage. However, the effects of other vitamin E isoforms have not been characterized. In the present study, we investigated the effects of six different isoforms of vitamin E on the ischemic brain damage in the mice middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion model. All vitamin E isoforms were injected i.v. , twice, immediately before and 3 h after the occlusion. Alpha-tocopherol (2 mM), alpha-tocotrienol (0.2 and 2 mM) and gamma-tocopherol (0.2 and 2 mM) significantly decreased the size of the cerebral infarcts 1 day after the MCA occlusion, while gamma-tocotrienol, delta-tocopherol and delta-tocotrienol showed no effect on the cerebral infarcts. These results suggest that alpha-tocotrienol and gamma-tocopherol are potent and effective agents for preventing cerebral infarction induced by MCA occlusion.
A Deep Machine Learning Method for Classifying Cyclic Time Series of Biological Signals Using Time-Growing Neural Network

This paper presents a novel method for learning the cyclic contents of stochastic time series: the deep time-growing neural network (DTGNN). The DTGNN combines supervised and unsupervised methods in different levels of learning for an enhanced performance. It is employed by a multiscale learning structure to classify cyclic time series (CTS), in which the dynamic contents of the time series are preserved in an efficient manner. This paper suggests a systematic procedure for finding the design parameter of the classification method for a one-versus-multiple class application. A novel validation method is also suggested for evaluating the structural risk, both in a quantitative and a qualitative manner. The effect of the DTGNN on the performance of the classifier is statistically validated through the repeated random subsampling using different sets of CTS, from different medical applications. The validation involves four medical databases, comprised of 108 recordings of the electroencephalogram signal, 90 recordings of the electromyogram signal, 130 recordings of the heart sound signal, and 50 recordings of the respiratory sound signal. Results of the statistical validations show that the DTGNN significantly improves the performance of the classification and also exhibits an optimal structural risk.
Corporate Tax Inversions and Reputational Costs - A Study on Board-Level Patriotism and the Decision to Expatriate

Corporate inversion is the procedure of reincorporating abroad for tax purposes to reduce the corporate income tax. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, we evaluate the shareholder value creation aspect of U.S. corporate inversions after 2004, a year when the U.S. imposed a number of regulatory changes to reduce the benefits of tax inversions. Second, we examine a number of board-related determinants of the decision to invert, with particular focus on board-level patriotism and firm ethics. By using traditional event study methodology we show that inversions create significant shareholder value. We also find that the ratio of foreign professionals on U.S. corporate boards positively affect the decision to invert. By assuming a positive relationship between patriotism and the level of board reputational costs, we introduce the notion that lack of board-level patriotism may partly explain the under sheltering problem related to tax inversions.
Single step purification of lactoperoxidase from whey involving reverse micelles‐assisted extraction and its comparison with reverse micellar extraction

The extraction of lactoperoxidase (EC 1.11.1.7) from whey was studied using single step reverse micelles‐assisted extraction and compared with reverse micellar extraction. The reverse micelles‐assisted extraction resulted in extraction of contaminating proteins and recovery of lactoperoxidase in the aqueous phase leading to its purification. Reverse micellar extraction at the optimized condition after forward and backward steps resulted in activity recovery of lactoperoxidase and purification factor of the order of 86.60% and 3.25‐fold, respectively. Whereas reverse micelles‐assisted extraction resulted in higher activity recovery of lactoperoxidase (127.35%) and purification factor (3.39‐fold). The sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS‐PAGE) profiles also evidenced that higher purification was obtained in reverse micelles‐assisted extraction as compared of reverse micellar extracted lactoperoxidase. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 2010
Validation of the SenseWear Armband as a Measure of Sedentary Behavior and Light Activity.

BACKGROUND This study determined the validity and sensitivity of the SenseWear armband (SWA) during sedentary and light office duties compared with indirect calorimetry (IC). METHODS Participants (N = 22), 30 to 64 years of age, randomly performed 6 conditions for 5 minutes each (ie, supine, sitting no movement, standing no movement, sitting office work, standing office work, walking at 1.0 mph). Steady state for each activity (ie, average for minutes 4 and 5) was analyzed. RESULTS Energy expenditure (EE) for the SWA (1.58 kcal/min) and the IC (1.64 kcal/min) were significantly correlated, r(20) = 0.90, P < . 001 and ICC = 0.90, 95% CI (0.699, 0.966). Correlation results for each condition varied in strength, r(20) = 0.53 to 0.83 and ICC = 0.49 to 0.81, but were all significant (P < .05). A significant interaction between measurement method and condition existed (P < .001). The SWA under predicted EE during standing with no movement, sitting office work, and standing office work. CONCLUSION The SWA and IC EE rates were strongly correlated during sedentary and light activity office behaviors. However, the SWA may under predict EE during office work (standing or sitting) and when standing motionless, making it slightly less sensitive than IC.
Testing for Trading-Day Effects in Production in Industry: a Bayesian Approach

The aim of this paper is to construct a parametric method in 7 a Bayesian framework to identify trading-day frequency for monthly data. 8 The well-known visual spectral test (implemented, for example, in X-129 ARIMA) is a popular tool in the literature. In the article’s proposed method, 10 the assumption concerning the almost periodicity of the mean function plays 11 a central role. We use a set of frequencies that corresponds to the trading-day 12 effect for monthly data. As an illustration, we examine this effect in 13 production in industry in European economies for data adjusted by working 14 days and for gross data. 15
CHINAMPA AGRICULTURE, SURPLUS PRODUCTION, AND POLITICAL CHANGE AT XALTOCAN, MEXICO

Abstract This article examines the productivity of agriculture at the Postclassic polity of Xaltocan, Mexico. Employing multiple lines of data (remote sensing, artifactual, ecofactual, chronological, demographic, historic, ethnographic, and environmental), it reconstructs the potential productivity of an integrated raised field, chinampa system that surrounded the polity. This exercise reveals that the system was capable of producing a sizeable caloric surplus above the needs of the kingdom's estimated total population and the number of laborers necessary to maintain full production. To situate the processes related to agricultural production, the paper considers how farmers’ strategies were articulated with multiple institutions. Increased integration between political, social, and household institutions possibly fostered residents’ incorporation into the body politic and provided mechanisms to finance the political economy. Such integration and dependency fractured, however, when Xaltocan was conquered.
Environmentalism and Democracy in the Age of Nationalism and Corporate Capitalism

Environmental commodification, trading and offsetting are business as usual approaches to environmental policy. There is also consensus across political divides about the need for economic growth. Many environmental NGOs have become apologists for corporate self-regulation, market mechanisms, carbon pricing/trading and biodiversity offsetting/banking, while themselves commercialising species 'protection' as eco-tourism. In this issue of Environmental Values the state and direction of the environmental movement are at the fore. D'Amato et al. contrast pragmatism with the need for revolutionary change and consider which will achieve social ecological transformation. Parry raises the issue of how animal activists should operate within an idealised deliberative democracy and what they could then legitimately justify doing to further their cause. Quist and Rinne are concerned with the challenges that disenfranchised groups face in building shared agendas and expressing themselves in their struggles to protect the environment and their ways of life. How natural resource extraction issues are framed by the media is the concern of Davies et al. Issues of power, inclusion and representation in the environmental movement are also raised in the paper by Fenney, which addresses the challenges specifically faced by disabled people. Societal change is an inherently value laden and political issue. Environmental policy is no more a win-win than any other policy; this journal issue shows how different polices change winners and losers.
Additivity vs. Synergism: Investigation of the Additive Interaction of Cinnamon Bark Oil and Meropenem in Combinatory Therapy

Combinatory therapies have been commonly applied in the clinical setting to tackle multi-drug resistant bacterial infections and these have frequently proven to be effective. Specifically, combinatory therapies resulting in synergistic interactions between antibiotics and adjuvant have been the main focus due to their effectiveness, sidelining the effects of additivity, which also lowers the minimal effective dosage of either antimicrobial agent. Thus, this study was undertaken to look at the effects of additivity between essential oils and antibiotic, via the use of cinnamon bark essential oil (CBO) and meropenem as a model for additivity. Comparisons between synergistic and additive interaction of CBO were performed in terms of the ability of CBO to disrupt bacterial membrane, via zeta potential measurement, outer membrane permeability assay and scanning electron microscopy. It has been found that the additivity interaction between CBO and meropenem showed similar membrane disruption ability when compared to those synergistic combinations which was previously reported. Hence, results based on our studies strongly suggest that additive interaction acts on a par with synergistic interaction. Therefore, further investigation in additive interaction between antibiotics and adjuvant should be performed for a more in depth understanding of the mechanism and the impacts of such interaction.
Focal dysfunction of the proteasome: a pathogenic factor in a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Mutations in the Cu/Zn‐superoxide dismutase (SOD‐1) gene are responsible for a familial form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (fALS). The present study demonstrated impaired proteasomal function in the lumbar spinal cord of transgenic mice expressing human SOD‐1 with the ALS‐causing mutation G93A (SOD‐1G93A) compared to non‐transgenic littermates (LM) and SOD‐1WT transgenic mice. Chymotrypsin‐like activity was decreased as early as 45 days of age. By 75 days, chymotrypsin‐, trypsin‐, and caspase‐like activities of the proteasome were impaired, at about 50% of control activity in lumbar spinal cord, but unchanged in thoracic spinal cord and liver. Both total and specific activities of the proteasome were reduced to a similar extent, indicating that a change in proteasome function, rather than a decrease in proteasome levels, had occurred. Similar decreases of total and specific activities of the proteasome were observed in NIH 3T3 cell lines expressing fALS mutants SOD‐1G93A and SOD‐1G41S, but not in SOD‐1WT controls. Although overall levels of proteasome were maintained in spinal cord of SOD‐1G93A transgenic mice, the level of 20S proteasome was substantially reduced in lumbar spinal motor neurons relative to the surrounding neuropil. It is concluded that impairment of the proteasome is an early event and contributes to ALS pathogenesis.
Drivers of openness to online and flipped learning in medical education

One online teaching approach that has gained popularity in health science education is the ‘flipped classroom’ where students undertake content learning prior to face-to-face class time, often via watching pre-recorded videos. This frees up contact time for activities which stimulate higher-order thinking. While previous studies have generally reported neutral to positive student feedback and effects on academic attainment, the quality of pre-class resources and time required for pre-class work have been identified as potential problems with the approach. A further issue identified in the literature is students’ openness to adopting new forms of learning. This paper examines students’ responses to the flipped classroom in two undergraduate medical education courses, in which students were assigned pre-work comprising a mix of short video lectures and brief online activities. Following the unanticipated finding that students in the fourth and fifth year courses formed very different views of a similar flipped learning intervention, this study explored: • How do students use online pre-class resources in a flipped classroom? • What factors influence students’ openness to using online resources in a flipped classroom? This study used a course evaluation survey followed by focus group interviews to understand students’ use of and attitudes towards the flipped classroom. Many students in groups reversed or wanted to reverse the intended ‘flipped’ order of classes to use the online material as revision aids rather than as pre-class work. Students in both groups identified that time pressure influenced the way they used the pre-class material. The fifth year cohort held a largely positive attitude towards the flipped classroom whereas the fourth year group held a largely negative view. Differences students’ willingness to tolerate uncertainty, connections with clinical learning and metacognitive view of ‘learning’ itself appear to account Kenwright D, Osborne E, Dai W, Grainger R MedEdPublish https://doi.org/10.15694/mep.2016. 000080 Page | 2 for this difference in outcome.
Specimen adequacy and false‐negative diagnosis rate in fine‐needle aspirates of palpable breast masses

As fine‐needle aspiration (FNA) has become a critical component of the investigation of palpable breast masses, false‐negative diagnoses have become a major concern, prompting reevaluation of the definition of specimen adequacy. Although cytopathologists agree that a number of parameters relate to the adequacy of an FNA specimen, there is no unanimity on the role of epithelial cell quantitation in the determination of an adequate FNA. To better understand the significance of epithelial cellularity, false‐negative FNA samples from palpable breast lesions were reviewed.