Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spironolactone Modulates Expressions of Cardiac Mineralocorticoid Receptor and 11β-Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase 2 and Prevents Ventricular Remodeling in Post-Infarct Rat Hearts

Aldosterone antagonists have been reported to prevent ventricular remodeling after myocardial infarction (MI) via their action to extracellular matrix (ECM). However, it remains largely unknown whether aldosterone antagonists attenuate myocyte loss in the remodeling process. The present study examined whether spironolactone prevents myocyte apoptosis and improves post-infarct ventricular remodeling in rats. MI was achieved by permanent occlusion of the left coronary artery. Administration of spironolactone (100 mg/kg/day) was started immediately after MI. Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into four groups: 1) sham, 2) spironolactone-treated sham, 3) untreated MI, 4) spironolactone-treated MI. Echocardiographic parameters (left ventricular [LV] diastolic dimension [LVDd], fractional shortening [%FS]), hemodynamic parameters (LV systolic pressure [LVSP], LV end-diastolic pressure [LVEDP], dP/dtmax and dP/dtmin) and collagen accumulation quantitated by Masson's Trichrome staining were significantly improved in the spironolactone-treated MI group on the 14th day, compared with the untreated MI group. Moreover, the percentage of apoptotic myocytes evaluated by terminal deoxynucleotide transferase–mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay was significantly lower in the spironolactone-treated MI group on the 2nd (3.54% vs. 5.79% in untreated MI group), 7th (0.65% vs. 1.37% in untreated MI group) and 14th days (0.11% vs. 0.16% in untreated MI group). Real time reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis showed that the expression of mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) mRNA and that of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 2 (11β-HSD2) mRNA, which is known to confer aldosterone selectivity on MR, were upregulated in the untreated MI group, and that spironolactone significantly suppressed the expression of these genes. Moreover, spironolactone significantly inhibited aldosterone-induced apoptosis in cultured rat cardiac myocytes in a dose-dependent fashion. Our study demonstrates that, in addition to their effect on ECM, aldosterone antagonists inhibit myocyte apoptosis and prevent post-infarct ventricular remodeling by modulating the expression levels of MR and 11β-HSD2, which are enhanced in the remodeling heart.
Efficient simulation of light transport in scenes with participating media using photon maps

This paper presents a new method for computing global illumination in scenes with participating media. The method is based on bidirectional Monte Carlo ray tracing and uses photon maps to increase efficiency and reduce noise. We remove previous restrictions limiting the photon map method to surfaces by introducing a volume photon map containing photons in participating media. We also derive a new radiance estimate for photons in the volume photon map. The method is fast and simple, but also general enough to handle nonhomogeneous media and anisotropic scattering. It can efficiently simulate effects such as multiple volume scattering, color bleeding between volumes and surfaces, and volume caustics (light reflected from or transmitted through specular surfaces and then scattered by a medium). The photon map is decoupled from the geometric representation of the scene, making the method capable of simulating global illumination in scenes containing complex objects. These objects do not need to be tessellated; they can be instanced, or even represented by an implicit function. Since the method is based on a bidirectional simulation, it automatically adapts to illumination and view. Furthermore, because the use of photon maps reduces noise and aliasing, the method is suitable for rendering of animations.
Whole-body Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Techniques, Clinical Indications, and Future Applications

This article reviews developments in both pulse sequence design and gradient technology that facilitate rapid imaging of the whole body. It discusses its application in patients with bone marrow neoplasms, including metastases, lymphoma, and myeloma and emphasizes the value of whole-body magnetic resonance imaging in patients with known vertebral lesions to detect other bone lesions that are easier to biopsy. It outlines possible applications in well-defined clinical situations, including pregnancy and unknown primary tumor.
Deficits in narrative discourse elicited by visual stimuli are already present in patients with mild cognitive impairment

Language batteries used to assess the skills of elderly individuals, such as naming and semantic verbal fluency, present some limitations in differentiating healthy controls from patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI). Deficits in narrative discourse occur early in dementia caused by Alzheimer's disease (AD), and the narrative discourse abilities of a-MCI patients are poorly documented. The present study sought to propose and evaluate parameters for investigating narrative discourse in these populations. After a pilot study of 30 healthy subjects who served as a preliminary investigation of macro- and micro-linguistic aspects, 77 individuals (patients with AD and a-MCI and a control group) were evaluated. The experimental task required the participants to narrate a story based on a sequence of actions visually presented. The Control and AD groups differed in all parameters except narrative time and the total number of words recalled. The a-MCI group displayed mild discursive difficulties that were characterized as an intermediate stage between the Control and AD groups' performances. The a-MCI and Control groups differed from the AD group with respect to global coherence, discourse type and referential cohesion. The a-MCI and AD groups were similar to one another but differed from the Control group with respect to the type of words recalled, the repetition of words in the same sentence, the narrative structure and the inclusion of irrelevant propositions in the narrative. The narrative parameter that best distinguished the three groups was the speech effectiveness index. The proposed task was able to reveal differences between healthy controls and groups with cognitive decline. According to our findings, patients with a-MCI already present narrative deficits that are characterized by mild discursive difficulties that are less severe than those found in patients with AD.
Dietary patterns in Brazilian patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE: Recent evidence suggests that non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is associated with diet. Our aim was to investigate the dietary patterns of a Brazilian population with this condition and compare them with the recommended diet. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 96 non-alcoholic fatty liver disease patients before any dietetic counseling. All patients underwent abdominal ultrasound, biochemical tests, dietary evaluations, and anthropometric evaluations. Their food intake was assessed by a semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire and 24-hour food recall. RESULTS: The median patient age was 53 years, and 77% of the individuals were women. Most (67.7%) participants were obese, and a large waist circumference was observed in 80.2% subjects. Almost 70% of the participants had metabolic syndrome, and 62.3% presented evidence of either insulin resistance or overt diabetes. Most patients (51.5, 58.5, and 61.7%, respectively) exceeded the recommendations for energy intake, as well as total and saturated fat. All patients consumed less than the amount of recommended monounsaturated fatty acids, and 52.1 and 76.6% of them consumed less polyunsaturated fatty acids and fiber, respectively, than recommended. In most patients, the calcium, sodium, potassium, pyridoxine, and vitamin C intake did not meet the recommendations, and in 10.5-15.5% of individuals, the tolerable upper limit intake for sodium was exceeded. The patients presented a significantly high intake of meats, fats, sugars, legumes (beans), and vegetables and a low consumption of cereals, fruits, and dairy products compared with the recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: Although patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease exhibited high energy and lipid consumption, most of them had inadequate intake of some micronutrients. The possible role of nutrient-deficient intake in the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease warrants investigation.
Emerging agents of phaeohyphomycosis: pathogenic species of Bipolaris and Exserohilum

Study of numerous living isolates of Bipolaris, Drechslera, Exserohilum, and Helminthosporium spp. , as well as a mycological assessment of published case reports of phaeohyphomycosis attributed to these fungi, showed that Bipolaris australiensis, B. hawaiiensis, B. spicifera, Exserohilum longirostratum, E. mcginnisii, and E. rostratum are well-documented pathogens. Conidial shape, septation, and size, hilar characteristics, the origin of the germ tube from the basal cell and, to a lesser extent, from other conidial cells, and the sequence and location of the conidial septa are useful criteria for distinguishing these taxa.
A new heuristic reconfiguration algorithm for large distribution systems

Summary form only given. This paper presents a reconfiguration algorithm which is specially suited to large scale distribution systems. The algorithm uses a heuristic strategy that starts with the system in a meshed status, with all maneuverable switches closed. The choice of the switches to be opened is based on the calculation of the minimum total system losses, using a load-flow program. A refinement on this procedure, based on branch status exchange is described. The paper includes results and comparisons on test systems utilized in three classical papers published in the technical literature. Results obtained on a real large scale distribution system are also presented
“I Am Not a Francophone”: Identity Choices and Discourses of Youth Associating With a Powerful Minority

ABSTRACT Taking a broad interest in the linguistic, educational, and identity issues relevant to young people, this article examines the experiences and discourses of linguistic minority youth in the French-dominant context of Québec City. Our analysis is based on qualitative interviews conducted with 10 young people who speak a language other than French at home and who chose to study in English at the postsecondary level. Beyond exploring the local impact of language policies, we focus on the identity choices these youth make in positioning themselves and the discourses that they appropriate in describing their sociolinguistic context. Findings suggest that tensions between linguistic groups in Québec are perpetuated through discourses that distance one group from another, including discourses of closed-mindedness and superiority. What the students in our study appear to be doing is rejecting a minority identity by invoking national and international scales through their discourses, scales in which English is dominant.
Fostering postgraduate student engagement: online resources supporting self-directed learning in a diverse cohort

The research question for this study was: ‘Can the provision of online resources help to engage and motivate students to become self-directed learners? ’ This study presents the results of an action research project to answer this question for a postgraduate module at a research-intensive university in the United Kingdom. The analysis of results from the study was conducted dividing the students according to their programme degree – Masters or PhD – and according to their language skills. The study indicated that the online resources embedded in the module were consistently used, and that the measures put in place to support self-directed learning (SDL) were both perceived and valued by the students, irrespective of their programme or native language. Nevertheless, a difference was observed in how students viewed SDL: doctoral students seemed to prefer the approach and were more receptive to it than students pursuing their Masters degree. Some students reported that the SDL activity helped them to achieve more independence than did traditional approaches to teaching. Students who engaged with the online resources were rewarded with higher marks and claimed that they were all the more motivated within the module. Despite the different learning experiences of the diverse cohort, the study found that the blended nature of the course and its resources in support of SDL created a learning environment which positively affected student learning. Keywords: self-directed learning; online resources; postgraduate teaching; higher education; prior knowledge (Published: 17 March 2016 Citation: Research in Learning Technology 2016, 24 : 29366 - http://dx.doi. org/10.3402/rlt.v24. 29366 Supplementary files : To access the supplementary material to this article, please see Supplementary files under ‘Article Tools‘.
Boosting of Action Potential Backpropagation by Neocortical Network Activity In Vivo

Action potentials backpropagate into the dendritic trees of pyramidal neurons, reporting output activity to the sites of synaptic input and provoking long-lasting changes in synaptic strength. It is unclear how this retrograde signal is modified by neural network activity. Using whole-cell recordings from somata, apical trunks, and dendritic tuft branches of layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons in vivo, we show that network-driven subthreshold membrane depolarizations (“up states”) occur simultaneously throughout the apical dendritic tree. This spontaneous synaptic activity enhances action potential-evoked calcium influx into the distal apical dendrite by promoting action potential backpropagation. Hence, somatic feedback to the dendrites becomes stronger with increasing network activity.
Domain-General Mechanisms for Speech Segmentation: The Role of Duration Information in Language Learning

Speech segmentation is supported by multiple sources of information that may either inform language processing specifically, or serve learning more broadly. The Iambic/Trochaic Law (ITL), where increased duration indicates the end of a group and increased emphasis indicates the beginning of a group, has been proposed as a domain-general mechanism that also applies to language. However, language background has been suggested to modulate use of the ITL, meaning that these perceptual grouping preferences may instead be a consequence of language exposure. To distinguish between these accounts, we exposed native-English and native-Japanese listeners to sequences of speech (Experiment 1) and nonspeech stimuli (Experiment 2), and examined segmentation using a 2AFC task. Duration was manipulated over 3 conditions: sequences contained either an initial-item duration increase, or a final-item duration increase, or items of uniform duration. In Experiment 1, language background did not affect the use of duration as a cue for segmenting speech in a structured artificial language. In Experiment 2, the same results were found for grouping structured sequences of visual shapes. The results are consistent with proposals that duration information draws upon a domain-general mechanism that can apply to the special case of language acquisition.
Human CD4+CD25high Regulatory T Cells Modulate Myeloid but Not Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells Activation

Human CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells (Treg) play an essential role in the prevention of autoimmune diseases. However, the mechanisms of immune suppression and the spectrum of cells they target in vivo remain incompletely defined. In particular, although Treg directly suppress conventional T cells in vitro, they have been shown to inhibit the Ag-presenting functions of macrophage- and monocyte-derived dendritic cells (DC). We have now studied the maturation of human blood-derived myeloid DC and plasmacytoid DC activated with TLR ligands in the presence of Treg. Preactivated Treg suppressed strongly TLR-triggered myeloid DC maturation, as judged by the blocking of costimulatory molecule up-regulation and the inhibition of proinflammatory cytokines secretion that resulted in poor Ag presentation capacity. Although IL-10 played a prominent role in inhibiting cytokines secretion, suppression of phenotypic maturation required cell-cell contact and was independent of TGF-β and CTLA-4. In contrast, the acquisition of maturation markers and production of cytokines by plasmacytoid DC triggered with TLR ligands were insensitive to regulatory T cells. Therefore, human Treg may enlist myeloid, but not plasmacytoid DC for the initiation and the amplification of tolerance in vivo by restraining their maturation after TLR stimulation.
Detecting Comparative Sentiment Expressions - A Case Study in Annotation Design Decisions

A common way to express sentiment about some product is by comparing it to a different product. The anchor for the comparison is a comparative predicate like “better”. In this work we concentrate on the annotation of multiword predicates like “more powerful”. In the single-token-based approaches which are mostly used for the automatic detection of comparisons, one of the words has to be selected as the comparative predicate. In our first experiment, we investigate the influence of this decision on the classification performance of a machine learning system and show that annotating the modifier gives better results. In the annotation conventions adopted in standard datasets for sentiment analysis, the modified adjective is annotated as the aspect of the comparison. We discuss problems with this type of annotation and propose the introduction of an additional argument type which solves the problems. In our second experiment we show that there is only a small drop in performance when adding this new argument type. 1
Education and health professionals training programs for people with type 2 diabetes: a review of quality criteria.

OBJECTIVE To contribute to the development of a set of quality criteria for patient education and health professionals training that could be applied in European countries. METHODS Literature review quality criteria, pre-selection based on a comparison of the criteria, peer group and expert based selection of the criteria. RESULTS 14 quality criteria were selected: goals, rationale, target group, setting, scheduling of the education/training sessions, environmental requirements, qualification of the trainers/educators, core components of the educator/trainer's role, curriculum, education methods, education didactics, monitoring of the effectiveness and quality of the program, implementation level and source of funding. DISCUSSION A set of preliminary quality criteria for patient education and health professionals training was developed, which could be applied in European countries.
Analyzing the Query Performance Over a Distributed Network of Data Aggregators

Typically a user desires to obtain the value of some aggregation function over distributed data items. We present a low-cost, scalable technique to answer continuous aggregation queries using a network of aggregators of dynamic data items. In such a network of data aggregators, each data aggregator serves a set of data items at specific coherencies. Our technique involves decomposing a client query into sub-queries and executing sub-queries on judiciously chosen data aggregators with their individual sub-query incoherency bounds. We provide a technique for getting the optimal set of sub-queries with their incoherency bounds, which satisfies client query’s coherency requirement with least number of refresh messages sent from aggregators to the client. For estimating the number of refresh messages, we build a query cost model which can be used to estimate the number of messages required to satisfy the client specified incoherency bound. Performance results using real-world traces show that our cost based query planning leads to queries being executed using less than one third the number of messages required by existing
How will Mahanarva spectabilis (Hemiptera: Cercopidae) Respond to Global Warming?

The aim of this study was to determine the favorable constant temperature range for Mahanarva spectabilis (Distant) (Hemiptera: Cercopidae) development as well as to generate geographic distribution maps of this insect pest for future climate scenarios. M. spectabilis eggs were reared on two host plants (Brachiaria ruziziensis (Germain and Edvard) and Pennisetum purpureum (Schumach)), with individual plants kept at temperatures of 16, 20, 24, 28, and 32°C. Nymphal stage duration, nymphal survival, adult longevity, and egg production were recorded for each temperature*host plant combination. Using the favorable temperature ranges for M. spectabilis development, it was possible to generate geographic distribution. Nymphal survival was highest at 24.4°C, with estimates of 44 and 8% on Pennisetum and Brachiaria, respectively. Nymphal stage duration was greater on Brachiaria than on Pennisetum at 20 and 24°C but equal at 28°C. Egg production was higher on Pennisetum at 24 and 28°C than at 20°C, and adult longevity on Pennisetum was higher at 28°C than at 20°C, whereas adult longevity at 24°C did not differ from that at 20 and 28°C. With these results, it was possible to predict a reduction in M. spectabilis densities in most regions of Brazil in future climate scenarios.
Latent dirichlet allocation based multi-document summarization

Extraction based Multi-Document Summarization Algorithms consist of choosing sentences from the documents using some weighting mechanism and combining them into a summary. In this article we use Latent Dirichlet Allocation to capture the events being covered by the documents and form the summary with sentences representing these different events. Our approach is distinguished from existing approaches in that we use mixture models to capture the topics and pick up the sentences without paying attention to the details of grammar and structure of the documents. Finally we present the evaluation of the algorithms on the DUC 2002 Corpus multi-document summarization tasks using the ROUGE evaluator to evaluate the summaries. Compared to DUC 2002 winners, our algorithms gave significantly better ROUGE-1 recall measures.
An Examination of Sexual Aggression as a Response to Sexual Frustration

Deviant sexual behavior has often been portrayed as the covsequence of the frustration of legitimate sexual outlets. Viewing male sex aggression as a deviant sexual response, one finds that, although these males are the sexually most successful, they also tend to be the sexually most dissatisfied. It is suggested that sexual satisfaction is largely a function of the nature of peer group associations rather than of a given quantity of sexual outlets.