Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prolonged Calpain‐mediated Spectrin Breakdown Occurs Regionally Following Experimental Brain Injury in the Rat

Calpain, a calcium-activated neutral protease family, has been implicated in the neuropathologic sequelae accompanying various neurological disorders. We have characterized the distribution and time course of calpain activation following brain injury in the rat, using a monoclonal antibody that recognizes calpain-generated breakdown products (BDPs) of spectrin. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats received lateral fluid percussion brain injury of moderate severity (2.2–2.4 atm, n = 35) or served as controls (uninjured, n = 12). One group of animals (n = 21) were sacrificed at either 30 minutes (min), 1 day, or 3 days post-injury, and selected brain regions were prepared for Western blot analysis. The remaining animals (n = 26) were sacrificed at 90 min, 4 hours (h), 1 day, or 7 days post-injury, and immunohistochemistry was performed. Spectrin BDPs were found predominantly in the hemisphere ipsilateral to the injury site, located primarily in cortical and hippocampal regions which exhibit neuronal death. Calpain-mediated spectrin breakdown was detected at 90 min in dendrites and axons, and by 4 h in neuronal perikarya. By 1 day post-injury, cortical and hippocampal regions of calpain activation had increased in size. Delayed spectrin breakdown was observed in the thalamus, both at 3 days and 7 days after injury. These results suggest that calpain may play an role in the neurodegenerative process following brain injury.
Development of a Real-Time Fluorescence PCR Assay for Rapid Detection of the Diphtheria Toxin Gene

ABSTRACT We developed and evaluated a real-time fluorescence PCR assay for detecting the A and B subunits of diphtheria toxin (tox) gene. When 23 toxigenic Corynebacterium diphtheriae strains, 9 nontoxigenic C. diphtheriae strains, and 44 strains representing the diversity of pathogens and normal respiratory flora were tested, this real-time PCR assay exhibited 100% sensitivity and specificity. It allowed for the detection of both subunits of the tox gene at 750 times greater sensitivity (2 CFU) than the standard PCR (1,500 CFU). When used directly on specimens collected from patients with clinical diphtheria, one or both subunits of the tox gene were detected in 34 of 36 specimens by using the real-time PCR assay; only 9 specimens were found to be positive by standard PCR. Reamplification by standard PCR and DNA sequencing of the amplification product confirmed all real-time PCR tox-positive reactions. This real-time PCR format is a more sensitive and rapid alternative to standard PCR for detection of the tox gene in clinical material.
DJ‐1 Protects Breast Cancer Cells Against 2′‐Benzoyloxycinnamaldehyde‐induced Oxidative Stress Independent of Nrf2

2′‐Benzoyloxycinnamaldehyde (BCA) is a promising antitumor agent. BCA effectively inhibited proliferation of MDA‐MB‐435 more than in MCF‐7 breast cancer cells. Our recent findings showed that DJ‐1 protects MCF7 cells from BCA‐induced oxidative stress via its mitochondrial translocation and inhibition of the mitochondrial perturbation (Ismail et al., 2012). In this study, we addressed the question of whether Nrf2 works downstream to DJ‐1 in mediating differential antiproliferation effects in MCF‐7 and MDAMB‐435 breast cancer cells induced by BCA treatment. BCA upregulated the expression and induced nuclear translocalization of DJ‐1 and Nrf2 in only MCF‐7 cells. However, in MDA‐MB‐435, BCA increased only Nrf2 expression without inducing DJ‐1 and/or Nrf2 protein translocalization to the nucleus. Furthermore, DJ‐1 knockdown decreased DJ‐1 expression in both cells without affecting Nrf2 and its downstream target γ‐GCS, suggesting that DJ‐1‐induced cell protection and works independent of Nrf2 signaling pathway. J. Cell. Physiol. 230: 2262–2269, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Broadband, Miniaturized Stacked-Patch Antennas for L-Band Operation Based on Magneto-Dielectric Substrates

Design of stacked-patch antennas using magneto-dielectric substrates was investigated. In particular, special types of substrates with identical relative permittivity and permeability were considered. The optimal design parameters were determined using a genetic algorithm. It will be shown that by employing these matched magneto-dielectric substrates, a significant miniaturization of up to 60% can be achieved while providing a large operating bandwidth (20%). Several design examples were considered and their performance was evaluated using a full-wave analysis technique based on the method of moments. The tradeoff between antenna gain and degree of miniaturization for a fixed bandwidth was also investigated. A fabrication methodology for obtaining the required matched magneto-dielectric substrate materials is also proposed.
Fear, anxiety, and control in the zebrafish

Emotional responses are triggered by environmental signals and involve profound changes at multiple levels, from molecular to behavior. Much has been learnt about two emotions, fear and anxiety, by studying mammalian models. In particular, neural circuits and the corresponding molecular mechanisms essential for the learning and retention of fear, as well as the activation of anxiety, are well known. In contrast, little is known about how these emotions are terminated. The zebrafish is a newcomer to the world of emotion research. A number of assays for fear and anxiety now exist, but the underlying neural circuitry is largely undefined. Recent experiments, however, appear to provide a hint as to how anxiety is downregulated. In particular, they point to an essential role for a circuit involving the posterior septum, medial habenula, and interpeduncular nucleus. This evolutionarily conserved circuit may fulfill a similar function in mammals. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 72: 395–403, 2012
Inviting everyone to play: Gamifying collaborative requirements engineering

Requirement engineering (RE) presents several challenges stemming from the required collaboration and knowledge transfer between analysists, developers and customers. In order to overcome these challenges and improve the effectiveness of RE, we developed REVISE: Requirement Elicitation and Verification Integrated in Social Environment. This tool is designed based on cognitive theories and implementing gamification elements, to motivate collaboration and knowledge sharing between programmers to encourage and enhance the task of RE. This paper presents our vision for enhancing software engineering via gamification, and the theoretical cognitive foundation on which this vision is based, starting with the example of RE.
Domain adaptation strategies in statistical machine translation: a brief overview

Abstract Statistical machine translation (SMT) is gaining interest given that it can easily be adapted to any pair of languages. One of the main challenges in SMT is domain adaptation because the performance in translation drops when testing conditions deviate from training conditions. Many research works are arising to face this challenge. Research is focused on trying to exploit all kinds of material, if available. This paper provides an overview of research, which copes with the domain adaptation challenge in SMT.
Evaluation and guidance in processor architecture selection for dsp

With today's rapidly growing use of signal processing, communication, and multimedia applications in electronic systems, programmable Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) have recently emerged into the mainstream of embedded systems design with architectures growing in diversification and innovation. The choices faced by a designer have multiplied: from enhanced conventional DSPs, to new RISC-like DSPs, to general-purpose processors and micro-controllers with added DSP support. As a result it has become increasingly difficult for designers to determine the appropriate architecture for the intended applications and design constraints. Unfortunately, due to the irregularity of DSP architecture, even for a single DSP processor, it has been difficult to reach or predict optimal implementation of a given application from a behavioral description. Even the latest software development tools have been unable to extract the true potential of a DSP processor in implementing an application, without requiring the designer's in-depth knowledge of the architecture. In this research work, a novel approach is taken to address today's growing need for automated guidance in architecture selection and design development of DSP systems. This dissertation presents a new technique for early estimation of DSP software by using encapsulation of knowledge about the DSP application domain and DSP architectural features. This method, called Retargetable Estimation, produces aggressive predictions of the likely bottlenecks and potential optimization opportunities to guide the designer toward the development of the applications' optimal implementation on a particular processor architecture. This technique is made quickly retargetable to a wide range of different architectures by using a parameterized architecture model that emphasizes the salient optimizing features of a DSP architecture. Experimental results presented in this work show that Retargetable Estimation can be used to predict expert hand-optimized performance of DSP-oriented applications reliably, exceeding the reach of DSP compilers by two orders of magnitude. A method is also proposed to determine the expected confidence level of this scheme's estimation results. Furthermore, as the intent of this research is to provide guidance for design with focus on varying design metrics, a demonstration of applying this retargetable performance estimation scheme to another increasingly important metric, power consumption, is provided in this dissertation.
Soluble glycoprotein VI dimer inhibits platelet adhesion and aggregation to the injured vessel wall in vivo

Platelet—collagen interactions play a fundamental role in the process of arterial thrombosis. The major platelet collagen receptor is the glycoprotein VI (GPVI). Here, we determined the effects of a soluble dimeric form of GPVI on platelet adhesion in vitro and in vivo. We fused the extracellular domain of GPVI with the human immunoglobulin Fc domain. The soluble dimeric form of GPVI (GPVI‐Fc) specifically bound to immobilized collagen. Binding of GPVI‐Fc to collagen was inhibited competitively by soluble GPVI‐Fc, but not control Fc lacking the external GPVI domain. GPVI‐Fc inhibited the adhesion of CHO cells that stably express human GPVI and of platelets on collagen and attenuated thrombus formation under shear conditions in vitro. To test the effects of GPVI‐Fc in vivo, arterial thrombosis was induced in the mouse carotid artery, and platelet—vessel wall interactions were visualized by intravital fluorescence microscopy. Infusion of GPVI‐Fc but not of control Fc virtually abolished stable arrest and aggregation of platelets following vascular injury. Importantly, GPVI‐Fc but not control Fc, was detected at areas of vascular injury. These findings further substantiate the critical role of the collagen receptor GPVI in the initiation of thrombus formation at sites of vascular injury and identify soluble GPVI as a promising antithrombotic strategy.
Mobile devices and services: bridging the digital divide in rural areas

The digital divide has been mostly affecting the world's poorest primarily due to lack of internet connectivity. A number of e-government services especially built to serve low income citizens do not reach those in need. The rapid expansion of the use of the mobile phone raises hopes that the digital divide can be bridged faster by providing services to people living in rural and remote areas. The authors review successful implementations of secure and trusted e-services available on mobile networks. These could be utilised in addressing the needs of those living in rural areas and are currently digitally marginalised.
The costs of HIV treatment and care in Ghana

Objective: To determine cost functions that describe the dynamics of costs of HIV treatment and care in Ghana by CD4+ cell count at treatment initiation and over time on antiretroviral therapy (ART). Design: We used detailed longitudinal healthcare utilization data from clinical health records of HIV-infected patients at seven Ghanaian ART clinics to estimate cost functions of treatment and care by CD4+ cell count at treatment initiation and time on ART. Methods: We developed two linear regression models; one with individual random effects to determine the relationship between CD4+ cell count at ART initiation and costs of treatment and care, and one with individual fixed effects to determine the causal effect of time in care on costs of treatment and care. Results: Costs for treatment and care were lowest (−7.9 US$) for patients with CD4+ cell counts of at least 350 cells/μl at ART initiation, compared with patients with 50 cells/μl or less at ART initiation, yet the difference was not significant. The per-patient costs peaked during the first 6 months on ART at 112.6 US$, and significantly decreased by 70% after 4 years on treatment. Conclusion: Our findings show that an accurate analysis of resource needs of HIV treatment and care should take into account that healthcare costs for HIV-infected people are dynamic rather than constant. The cost functions derived from our study are valuable input for cost-effectiveness analyses and research allocation exercises for HIV treatment in sub-Saharan Africa.
A Scalable Application and System Level-Based Communication Scheme for V2V Communications

To deal with the congestion problem in a broadcast environment like V2V communication, we believe that receiving nodes should take a role in guiding transmitting nodes to set their transmission parameters e.g., Tx rate and power. This is important because only receiving nodes can evaluate whether or not safety applications requirements have been fulfilled. While most congestion control protocols rely on network-level metrics to optimize their transmission parameters, our proposed method uses a combination of application and network level performance metrics to assign transmission parameters. In the proposed method, nodes calculate the max tolerable time between periodic messages as well as the channel load, and share it with others. The shared data is used to guide neighboring nodes in regulating their messaging rate and Tx power. Receiving nodes adapt their rate or/and power based on their locations w.r. t to the node with degraded safety applications performance. The evaluation shows that our method maintains low inter packet reception time.
Postpartum-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder: incidence, clinical features, and related factors.

OBJECTIVE The aims of this study were to investigate the incidence rate and symptomatology of postpartum-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (PPOCD), to investigate the factors associated with PPOCD, and to compare clinical characteristics of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with and without postpartum onset. METHOD The study data were collected from 302 women who delivered at a child and maternity hospital in Turkey from August 2005 to November 2005 and a control group of 33 women who were admitted to the psychiatric outpatient clinic of a university hospital during the same time period and who met DSM-IV criteria for OCD. The 2 clinical interviews with women who delivered were performed face-to-face on the first day after childbirth and at 6 weeks postnatally. OCD and comorbid Axis II disorders were diagnosed by means of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders, respectively. Obsessive-compulsive symptomatology was assessed with the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale. RESULTS The incidence of PPOCD was 4% at 6 weeks postnatally. The most common obsessions in women with PPOCD were contamination (75%), aggressive (33.3%), and symmetry/exactness (33.3%), and the most common compulsions were cleaning/ washing (66.7%) and checking (58.3%). The patients with PPOCD had significantly more frequent aggressive obsessions (p = .039) and less severe obsessive-compulsive symptoms (p = .013) than the OCD patients without postpartum onset. The predictors of PPOCD were avoidant (p = .000) and obsessive-compulsive (p = .004) personality disorders. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that the puerperium is a risk period in terms of new-onset OCD and that avoidant and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders predict PPOCD.
Effects of Generalized Self-Efficacy and Negative Social Comparison Feedback on Specific Self-Efficacy and Performance

The effects of social comparison feedback on specific self-efficacy and performance of high generalized self-efficacy participants and low generalized self-efficacy participants were examined with the help of 20 participants with high generalized self-efficacy and 20 participants with low generalized self-efficacy. Half of the participants in each generalized self-efficacy group received negative social comparison feedback after each of four trials of an experimental task while the other half received no feedback. Two kinds of specific self-efficacy—performance-based and normative-based—were measured once before the task and four times after the trials of the task. After the task, the High generalized self-efficacy/Feedback group rated performance-based specific self-efficacy higher and performed better than the Low generalized self-efficacy/Feedback group. No significant difference was observed between the High generalized self-efficacy/No feedback group and Low generalized self-efficacy/No feedback group. There were no significant effects with regard to normative-based specific self-efficacy.
Mixture distributions in human genetics research

The use of mixture distributions in genetics research dates back to at least the late 1800s when Karl Pearson applied them in an analysis of crab morphometry. Pearson's use of normal mixture distributions to model the mixing of different species of crab (or 'families' of crab as he referred to them) within a defined geographic area motivated further use of mixture distributions in genetics research settings, and ultimately led to their development and recognition as intuitive modelling devices for the effects of underlying genes on quantitative phenotypic (i.e. trait) expression. In addition, mixture distributions are now used routinely to model or accommodate the genetic heterogeneity thought to underlie many human diseases. Specific applications of mixture distribution models in contemporary human genetics research are, in fact, too numerous to count. Despite this long, consistent and arguably illustrious history of use, little mention of mixture distributions in genetics research is made in many recent reviews on mixture models. This review attempts to rectify this by providing insight into the role that mixture distributions play in contemporary human genetics research. Tables providing examples from the litera ture that describe applications of mixture models in human genetics research are offered as a way of acquainting the interested reader with relevant studies. In addition, some of the more problematic aspects of the use of mixture models in genetics research are outlined and addressed.
A Vector Approach for the Analysis and Synthesis of Directional Modulation Transmitters

In order to formalize and extend on previous ad-hoc analysis and synthesis methods a theoretical treatment using vector representations of directional modulation (DM) systems is introduced and used to achieve DM transmitter characteristics. An orthogonal vector approach is proposed which allows the artificial orthogonal noise concept derived from information theory to be brought to bear on DM analysis and synthesis. The orthogonal vector method is validated and discussed via bit error rate (BER) simulations.
Kinship in the Admiralty Islands

The Manus of New Guinea's Pere village were Margaret Mead's most favored community, the people to whom she returned five times before she died in 1978. "Kinship in the Admiralty Islands" is the classic and only thorough description of their complex rules of marriage and family relations. It draws on Mead's 1928-1929 field work, conducted with her second husband, New Zealander Reo Fortune, and benefits by her being able to cross-check her data with his. Written in 1931, "Kinship" followed Mead's first and very popular book on the Manus, "Growing Up in New Guinea," which was criticized by other anthropologists for being too general in scope. In "Kinship" Mead succeeded in demonstrating her thorough knowledge of this Melanesian group in the specific terms prized by her scholarly colleagues, while also describing in depth Manus social structure. "Kinship in the Admiralty Islands" describes an intricate system of social restraints and kinship ties and their impact on the local economy. The Manus' predilection for adoption, for example, allows surrogate fathers to make extended marriage payments, while in the next generation their adopted sons will take on the same responsibility for other young men in the new kin network. Mead reviews other kinship rules, such as avoidance behavior between in-laws of the opposite sex, early betrothals, other forms of adoption, and a range of deference behavior and joking relations among kin. In this work, Mead walks a fine line between functionalist kinship analysis of the British school of Radclife Brown and the cultural-and-personality orientation of Americans in the school of Franz Boas. Jeanne Guillemin's new introduction provides a lively in depth description of Margaret Mead's career in the early days of anthropology, the sometimes negative reactions of her contemporaries to her work, and her reasons for writing "Kinship in the Admiralty Islands," as well as Mead's later reactions to how "her Manus" entered the modern world. Margaret Mead was noted for directing her writings to both scholar and laymen alike. "Kinship in the Admiralty Islands" will be of interest to anthropologists and general readers interested in the peoples of the South Pacific. Margaret Mead was curator of ethnology of the American Museum of Natural History. She was the author of many books including "Continuities in Cultural Evolution" (available from Transaction), "The Study of Culture at a Distance, The Mountain of Arapesh," and "From the South Seas: Studies of Adolescence and Sex in Primitive Societies. " Jeanne Guillemin is a professor of anthropology at Boston College and editor of "Anthropological Realities: Readings in the Science of Culture," also available from Transaction.
Histological changes evoked in mice by Freund's complete adjuvant

paraffin sections were stained with haematoxylin and eosin and, where necessary, with haematoxylin and Van Gieson, Giemsa’s stain, and Ziehl-Neelsds stain, and by Masson’s trichrome method and Sweets’ and Davenport’s modified silver impregnation method. The histological and bacteriological results were assessed independently and were not collated until the end of the experiment.