Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Peptide models of protein folding initiation sites. 3. The G-H helical hairpin of myoglobin.

As part of an extensive dissection of the folding pathway of myoglobin, a series of peptides corresponding to fragments of sperm whale myoglobin have been synthesized, and their conformational preferences investigated using circular dichroism and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in aqueous solution and in solvent mixtures containing water and trifluoroethanol. The behavior of short fragments corresponding to the sequences of the G- and H-helices of myoglobin and to the turn region between these helices has been described in accompanying papers. At the next level of complexity, peptide model compounds have been synthesized to explore the longer-range interactions which may take place in protein folding after initial secondary structure formation has occurred. A series of disulfide-bridged dimeric peptides containing the complete sequences of the G- and H-helices of myoglobin were synthesized and their conformational preferences examined. CD spectra indicate that disulfide-bridged peptides consisting of two H-helix sequences (Mb-HssH) and of one G- and one H-helix (Mb-GssH) are highly helical in water solution, as a result of intermolecular association. A 51-residue peptide, Mb-GH51, encompassing the entire G-H helical hairpin of myoglobin, including the turn sequence between the two helices, has been successfully synthesized by standard methods. This peptide was designed to be monomeric in aqueous solution. Mb-GH51 does not appear from CD spectra to contain any additional helix in water solution above what would be expected from an equimolar mixture of the G- and H-helix peptides. NMR spectra indicate that the turn conformation observed in shorter peptide fragments is retained in Mb-GH51 in high population. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Using faculty consensus to develop and implement a medical ethics course

This report describes the development and implementation of a new required course in medical ethics for second-year medical students at the Cornell University Medical College, 1988–89 and 1989–90. The course was specifically designed to teach students who had not yet started their clinical clerkships to think critically and systematically about ethical issues faced by practicing physicians. The goals, structure, and content of the course were developed using an innovative technique, a planning model involving faculty consensus. The faculty members found the planning sessions intellectually challenging and enjoyable, and reported that the sessions added greatly to their teaching of the course. The students' evaluations over the first two years of the course (with 188 of the 201 students–94%–responding) documented the students' satisfaction with the content and the structure of the course, and their belief that the course had achieved its goals. The authors conclude that the faculty's participation in the planning process was crucial to the success of the course.
Electron Microscopy Study of Exotic Nanostructures of Cadmium Sulfide

In this article, two simple methods, evaporation-condensation and catalytic thermal evaporation, were used to investigate the synthesis of CdS nanostructures for nanoscale optoelectronic applications. To understand their growth mechanisms, various electron microscopy and microanalysis techniques were utilized in characterizing their morphologies, internal structures, growth directions and elemental compositions. The electron microscopy study reveals that when using the evaporation-condensation method, branched CdS nanorods and self-assembled arrays of CdS nanorods were synthesized at 800°C and 1000°C, respectively. Instead of morphological differences, both types of CdS nanorods grew along the [0001] direction. However, when using the catalytic thermal evaporation method (Au as the catalyst), patterned CdS nanowires and nanobelts were formed at the temperature region of 500–600°C and 600–750°C, respectively. Their growth direction was along the direction [1010] instead of [0001]. Based on the microscopy and microanalysis results, we propose some growth mechanisms in relation to the growth processes of those exotic CdS nanostructures.
Obsidian as Jewelry: Lapidary Production in Aztec Otumba, Mexico

Abstract Research carried out during the last three decades at the Late Postclassic city-state of Otumba, Mexico, has identified a wide variety of craft-production specializations. Data derived from excavations and surface collections made at the workshop site of one of Otumba's specialties—lapidary jewelry production—have revealed much of the process for the production of such jewelry, including ear spools, lip plugs, and beads, along with some possible secondary products, such as sequins and disks, all primarily made from obsidian. Besides the lapidary products themselves, many of the tools employed in production—made of obsidian, chert, and basalt—were found. The materials recovered enhance and expand upon the information available from colonial documentary sources, providing greater insight into this complicated and intriguing process.
Arm scheduling in shadowed disks

The author describes a number of configurations and disk scheduling algorithms for shadow sets, and presents an analysis of seek time based on both a simulation and an analytic model. She focuses on the algorithm based on assigning a read request to the arm that is within the shortest seek distance of the target location. With this scheduling algorithm, shadowing five disks decreases the expected seek time for reads by 50%. For a ratio of reads to writes equal to 1.5 or higher, shadowing decreases the overall seek time by 20%. <<ETX>>
The Impact of mHealth Interventions: Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews

Background Mobile phone usage has been rapidly increasing worldwide. mHealth could efficiently deliver high-quality health care, but the evidence supporting its current effectiveness is still mixed. Objective We performed a systematic review of systematic reviews to assess the impact or effectiveness of mobile health (mHealth) interventions in different health conditions and in the processes of health care service delivery. Methods We used a common search strategy of five major scientific databases, restricting the search by publication date, language, and parameters in methodology and content. Methodological quality was evaluated using the Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) checklist. Results The searches resulted in a total of 10,689 articles. Of these, 23 systematic reviews (371 studies; more than 79,665 patients) were included. Seventeen reviews included studies performed in low- and middle-income countries. The studies used diverse mHealth interventions, most frequently text messaging (short message service, SMS) applied to different purposes (reminder, alert, education, motivation, prevention). Ten reviews were rated as low quality (AMSTAR score 0-4), seven were rated as moderate quality (AMSTAR score 5-8), and six were categorized as high quality (AMSTAR score 9-11). A beneficial impact of mHealth was observed in chronic disease management, showing improvement in symptoms and peak flow variability in asthma patients, reducing hospitalizations and improving forced expiratory volume in 1 second; improving chronic pulmonary diseases symptoms; improving heart failure symptoms, reducing deaths and hospitalization; improving glycemic control in diabetes patients; improving blood pressure in hypertensive patients; and reducing weight in overweight and obese patients. Studies also showed a positive impact of SMS reminders in improving attendance rates, with a similar impact to phone call reminders at reduced cost, and improved adherence to tuberculosis and human immunodeficiency virus therapy in some scenarios, with evidence of decrease of viral load. Conclusions Although mHealth is growing in popularity, the evidence for efficacy is still limited. In general, the methodological quality of the studies included in the systematic reviews is low. For some fields, its impact is not evident, the results are mixed, or no long-term studies exist. Exceptions include the moderate quality evidence of improvement in asthma patients, attendance rates, and increased smoking abstinence rates. Most studies were performed in high-income countries, implying that mHealth is still at an early stage of development in low-income countries.
Improvement of emotional healthcare system with stress detection from ECG signal

Our emotional healthcare system is designed to cope with users' negative emotions in daily life. To make the system more intelligent, we integrated emotion recognition by facial expression to provide appropriate services based on user's current emotional state. Our emotion recognition by facial expression has confusion issue to recognize some positive, neutral and negative emotions that make the emotional healthcare system provide a relaxation service even though users don't have negative emotions. Therefore, to increase the effectiveness of the system to provide the relaxation service, we integrate stress detection from ECG signal. The stress detection might be able to address the confusion issue of emotion recognition by facial expression to provide the service. Indeed, our results show that integration of stress detection increases the effectiveness and efficiency of the emotional healthcare system to provide services.
A new body mass estimation ofBrachiosaurus brancaiJanensch, 1914 mounted and exhibited at the Museum of Natural History (Berlin, Germany)

Abstract. Body mass and surface areas are important in several aspects for an organism living today. Therefore, mass and surface determinations for extinct dinosaurs could be important for paleo-biological aspects as well. Based on photogrammetrical measurement the body mass and body surface area of the Late Jurassic Brachiosaurus brancai Janensch, 1914 from Tendaguru (East Africa), a skeleton mounted and exhibited at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin (Germany), has been re-evaluated. We determined for a slim type of 3D reconstruction of Brachiosaurus brancai a total volume of 47.9 m3 which represents, assuming a mean tissue density of 0.8 kg per 1,000 cm3, a total body mass of 38,000 kg. The volume distributions from the head to the tail were as follows: 0.2 m3 for the head, neck 7.3 m3, fore limbs 2.9 m3, hind limbs 2.6 m3, thoracic-abdominal cavity 32.4 m3, tail 2.2 m3. The total body surface area was calculated to be 119.1 m2, specifically 1.5 m2 for the head, 26 m2 neck, fore limbs 18.8 m2, hind limbs 16.4 m2, 44.2 m2 thoracic-abdominal cavity, and finally the tail 12.2 m2. Finally, allometric equations were used to estimate presumable organ sizes of this extinct dinosaur and to test whether their dimensions really fit into the thoracic and abdominal cavity of Brachiosaurus brancai if a slim body shape of this sauropod is assumed. doi: 10.1002/mmng.200700011
Predicting polymorphic EST‐SSRs in silico

The public availability of large quantities of gene sequence data provides a valuable resource of the mining of Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) molecular genetic markers for genetic analysis. These markers are inexpensive, require minimal labour to produce and can frequently be associated with functionally annotated genes. This study presents the characterization of barley EST‐SSRs and the identification of putative polymorphic SSRs from EST data. Polymorphic SSRs are distinguished from monomorphic SSRs by the representation of varying motif lengths within an alignment of sequence reads. Two measures of confidence are calculated, redundancy of a polymorphism and co‐segregation with accessions. The utility of this method is demonstrated through the discovery of 597 candidate polymorphic SSRs, from a total of 452 642 consensus expressed sequences. PCR amplification primers were designed for the identified SSRs. Ten primer pairs were validated for polymorphism in barley and for transferability across species. Analysis of the polymorphisms in relation to SSR motif, length, position and annotation is discussed.
Echocardiographic Study of Cardiac Morphological and Functional Changes before and after Parturition in Pregnancy‐Induced Hypertension

Purpose: To investigate the cardiac morphological and functional changes by echocardiography, before and after parturition in patients with pregnancy‐induced hypertension (PIH). Methods: The parameters related to cardiac morphology and left ventricular diastolic and systolic functions were compared before and after parturition in 32 patients with PIH and 24 normal pregnant (NP) women. Results: Compared with NP women, the PIH patients had greater diameters of left atrium and left ventricle in end‐diastole (LAd: 38.9 ± 4.5 vs 34.6 ± 4.4 mm, P = 0.0015; LVEDd: 51.2 ± 5.8 vs 47.1 ± 4.2 mm, P = 0.036) and lower E/A (1.2 ± 0.2 vs 1.4 ± 0.2, P = 0.009) and greater fractional shortening (FS) (39.8 ± 6.5% vs 37.1 ± 6.9%, P = 0.042) and ejection fraction (EF) (0.72 ± 0.07 vs 0.66 ± 0.08, P = 0.040). Pericardial effusion (PE) occurred in 31.3% and 16.7% of PIH and NP, respectively. The LAd and LVEDd in 70% and 47% patients with PIH resolved and PE disappeared in 80% of PIH patients postpartum. E/A ratio in PIH significantly increased after parturition, while the two patients with cardiac systolic dysfunction did not improve very much. Conclusions: Compared with normal pregnancy, the most significant cardiac morphological changes in PIH are the greater diameters of left atrium and left ventricle, thicker inter‐ventricular septum (IVS), more PE, impaired left ventricular diastolic function, and increased systolic function. The PE could disappear in PIH and about half of other abnormalities could recover to be the level of normal pregnancy postpartum within 2 months.
Evaluating the Multiple-Group Mean and Covariance Structure Analysis model for the detection of Differential Item Functioning in polytomous ordered items

We use simulated data to evaluate the adequacy of the Multiple-Group (MG) extension of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) with Mean and Covariance Structure (MACS) mo del for the detectio n of differential item functioning (DIF) in po lytomous graded response items. Two factors are varied to generate the DIF conditions: type of DIF (u niform and non-u niform) and size of DIF (low, medium and high ). For each condition, 10 0 samples (N= 800) are generated according to th e Graded Response model. Ten items with 5-response categories are consid ered, and only on e item is man ipulated to show DIF. The data are analyzed by means of LISREL 8. Results show that th e DIF detection procedure analyzed reasonably maintained control of its Type I error under non-uniform DIF conditions, but showed some difficulties under uniform-DIF con dition s. With respect to power, the procedure was satisfactory for detecting med ium and h igh uniform DIF, and lacked power for detecting n on-un iform DIF.
Creating a New Class of Pharmaceutical Services Provider for Underserved Areas: The Tanzania Accredited Drug Dispensing Outlet Experience

The Problem: In developing countries, the most accessible source of treatment for common conditions is often an informal drug shop, where drug sellers are untrained and operations are unmonitored.Purpose: We sought to describe a public–private initiative in Tanzania that created a new class of provider in government-accredited drug outlets, which improved the quality of medicines and pharmaceutical services in previously underserved areas.Key Points: The accredited drug-dispensing outlet program combines changing behavior and expectations of community members who use, own, regulate, and work in drug shops. Success resulted from including community stakeholders from the beginning of the process.Conclusions: Addressing shortages in qualified health care providers by training and accrediting private sector drug dispensers to recognize common conditions and provide quality pharmaceutical products and services is feasible in a developing country, when supported by an appropriate policy and regulatory environment. Scaling up and sustaining the program will be a challenge.
Short‐term plasticity regulates the excitation/inhibition ratio and the temporal window for spike integration in CA1 pyramidal cells

Many neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders involve an imbalance between excitation and inhibition caused by synaptic alterations. The proper excitation/inhibition (E/I) balance is especially critical in CA1 pyramidal cells, because they control hippocampal output. Activation of Schaffer collateral axons causes direct excitation of CA1 pyramidal cells, quickly followed by disynaptic feedforward inhibition, stemming from synaptically induced firing of GABAergic interneurons. Both excitatory and inhibitory synapses are modulated by short‐term plasticity, potentially causing dynamic tuning of the E/I ratio. However, the effects of short‐term plasticity on the E/I ratio in CA1 pyramidal cells are not yet known. To determine this, we recorded disynaptic inhibitory postsynaptic currents and the E/I ratio in CA1 pyramidal cells in acute hippocampal slices from juvenile mice. We found that, whereas inhibitory synapses had paired‐pulse depression, disynaptic inhibition instead had paired‐pulse facilitation (≤ 200‐ms intervals), caused by increased recruitment of feedforward interneurons. Although enhanced disynaptic inhibition helped to constrain paired‐pulse facilitation of excitation, the E/I ratio was still larger on the second pulse, increasing pyramidal cell spiking. Surprisingly, this occurred without compromising the precision of spike timing. The E/I balance regulates the temporal spike integration window from multiple inputs; here, we showed that paired‐pulse stimulation can broaden the spike integration window. Together, our findings show that the combined effects of short‐term plasticity of disynaptic inhibition and monosynaptic excitation alter the E/I balance in CA1 pyramidal cells, leading to dynamic modulation of spike probability and the spike integration window. Short‐term plasticity is therefore an important mechanism for modulating signal processing of hippocampal output.
Impact of Methods on the Measurement of mRNA 2 Turnover 3

The turnover of the RNA molecules is determined by the rates of transcription and RNA 8 degradation. Several methods have been developed to study mRNA turnover since the beginnings 9 of molecular biology. Here we summarize the main methods to measure RNA half-life: transcription 10 inhibition, gene control and metabolic labelling. These methods were used to detect the cellular 11 activity of the mRNAs degradation machinery, including the exo-ribonuclease Xrn1 and the 12 exosome. Less progress has been made in the study of the differential stability of mature RNAs 13 because the different methods have often yielded inconsistent results so that an mRNA considered 14 to be stable can be classified as unstable by another method. Recent advances in the systematic 15 comparison of different method variants in yeast have permitted the identification of the least 16 invasive methodologies that reflect half-lives the most faithfully, which is expected to open the way 17 for a consistent quantitative analysis of the determinants of mRNA stability. 18
Direct Comparison of Josephson Waveforms Using an AC Quantum Voltmeter

A new method for calibrating ac voltage waveforms based on measuring the difference relative to a synchronously synthesized waveform supplied from a programmable Josephson array is presented. In order to test the accuracy of this approach, the differences between two Josephson waveforms have been measured at the 1.2-V level for frequencies up to 5 kHz. The uncertainties achieved are at least a factor of ten lower than those from the direct sampling method. Below 400 Hz, this new method gives an uncertainty of 5 10-8 (k = 1), while at 1 kHz, the uncertainty is about 2 107 (k = 1)
Postinjury Induction of Activated ErbB2 Selectively Hyperactivates Denervated Schwann Cells and Promotes Robust Dorsal Root Axon Regeneration

Following nerve injury, denervated Schwann cells (SCs) convert to repair SCs, which enable regeneration of peripheral axons. However, the repair capacity of SCs and the regenerative capacity of peripheral axons are limited. In the present studies we examined a potential therapeutic strategy to enhance the repair capacity of SCs, and tested its efficacy in enhancing regeneration of dorsal root (DR) axons, whose regenerative capacity is particularly weak. We used male and female mice of a doxycycline-inducible transgenic line to induce expression of constitutively active ErbB2 (caErbB2) selectively in SCs after DR crush or transection. Two weeks after injury, injured DRs of induced animals contained far more SCs and SC processes. These SCs had not redifferentiated and continued to proliferate. Injured DRs of induced animals also contained far more axons that regrew along SC processes past the transection or crush site. Remarkably, SCs and axons in uninjured DRs remained quiescent, indicating that caErbB2 enhanced regeneration of injured DRs, without aberrantly activating SCs and axons in intact nerves. We also found that intraspinally expressed glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), but not the removal of chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans, greatly enhanced the intraspinal migration of caErbB2-expressing SCs, enabling robust penetration of DR axons into the spinal cord. These findings indicate that SC-selective, post-injury activation of ErbB2 provides a novel strategy to powerfully enhance the repair capacity of SCs and axon regeneration, without substantial off-target damage. They also highlight that promoting directed migration of caErbB2-expressing SCs by GDNF might be useful to enable axon regrowth in a non-permissive environment. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Repair of injured peripheral nerves remains a critical clinical problem. We currently lack a therapy that potently enhances axon regeneration in patients with traumatic nerve injury. It is extremely challenging to substantially increase the regenerative capacity of damaged nerves without deleterious off-target effects. It was therefore of great interest to discover that caErbB2 markedly enhances regeneration of damaged dorsal roots, while evoking little change in intact roots. To our knowledge, these findings are the first demonstration that repair capacity of denervated SCs can be efficaciously enhanced without altering innervated SCs. Our study also demonstrates that oncogenic ErbB2 signaling can be activated in SCs but not impede transdifferentiation of denervated SCs to regeneration-promoting repair SCs.
Débridement of Extremity War Wounds

&NA; The extent of surgery appropriate for limb wounds agreed on at the Inter‐Allied Surgical Conference in 1917 included excision of the skin margin, generous extension of the wound, exploration through all layers, and excision of damaged muscle—techniques recognizable by all trauma surgeons today. The criteria for muscle viability (the four C's) include contraction on being pinched, consistency (not waxy or “stewed”), capillary bleeding when cut, and color (red, not pale or brown). Skin is excised with a narrow margin, fascia is generously released, all layers of the wound are explored and gross contamination removed, and nonviable muscle is excised. Some low‐energy transfer wounds (eg, civilian handgun injury, military shrapnel wounds) involve little tissue damage and can safely be managed nonsurgically, provided that there is confidence in the assessment of wound severity. Questions remain regarding the safest and most effective way to assess wounds and select patients for surgical versus nonsurgical management.