Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular dissection of the myelinated axon

The membrane of the myelinated axon expresses a rich repertoire of physiologically active molecules: (1) Voltagesensitive NA+ channels are clustered at high density (∼1,000/μm2) in the nodal axon membrane and are present at lower density(<25/μm2) in the internodal axon membrane under the myelin. Na+ channels are also present within Schwann cell processes (in peripheral nerve) and perinodal astrocyte processes (in the central nervous system) which contact the Na+ channel–rich axon membrane at the node. In some demyelinated fibers, the bared (formerly internodal) axon membrane reorganizes and expresses a higher‐than‐normal Na+ channel density, providing a basis for restoration of conduction. The presence of glial cell processes, adjacent to foci of Na+ channels in immature and demyelinated axons, suggests that glial cells participate in the clustering of Na+ channels in the axon membrane. (2) “Fast” K+ channels, sensitive to 4‐aminopyridine, are present in the paranodal of internodal axon membrane under the myelin; these channels may function to prevent reexcitation following action potentials, or participate in the generation of an internodal resting potential. (3) “Slow” K+ channels, sensitive to tetraethylammonium, are present in the nodal axon membrane and, in lower densities, in the internodal axon membrane; their activation produces a hyperpolarizing afterpotential which modulates repetitive firing. (4) The “inward rectifier” is activated by hyperpolarization. This channel is permeable to both Na+ and K+ ions and may modulate axonal excitability or participate in ionic reuptake following activity. (5) Na+/K+‐ATPase and (6) Ca2+‐ATPase are also present in the axon membrane and function to maintain transmembrane gradients of Na+, K+, and Ca2+. (7) A specialized antiporter molecule, the Na+/Ca2+ exchanger, is present in myelinated axons within central nervous system white matter. Following anoxia, the Na+/Ca2+ exchanger mediates an influx of Ca2+ which damages the axon. The molecular organization of the myelinated axon has important pathophysiological implications. Blockade of fast K+ channels and Na+/K+‐ATPase improves action potential conduction in some demyelinated axons, and block of the Na+/Ca2+ exchanger protects white matter axons from anoxic injury. Modification of ion channels, pumps, and exchangers in myelinated fibers may thus provide an important therapeutic approach for a number of neurological disorders.
Designing New Electoral Districts for the City of Edmonton

Every few years, the city of Edmonton, Canada must review and evaluate changes to its electoral district boundaries. The review process that was completed in 2009 resulted in modifying the district plan from a six-ward system with two council members in each to a single-member 12-ward system. The authors of this paper designed the redistricting plan. This paper describes the algorithm we applied to solve the problem and the decision support system we used. The algorithm is based on a multicriteria mathematical model, which is solved by a tabu search heuristic embedded within a geographic information system (GIS)-based decision support system. The resulting district plan meets districting criteria, including population balance, contiguity, compactness, respect for natural boundaries, growth areas, and integrity of communities of interest. This plan was formally approved as a city bylaw and used in the municipal elections in 2010.
Detecting the dynamics of urban structure through spatial network analysis

Urban spatial structure in large cities is becoming ever more complex as populations grow in size, engage in more travel, and have increasing amounts of disposable income that enable them to live more diverse lifestyles. These trends have prominent and visible effects on urban activity, and cities are becoming more polycentric in their structure as new clusters and hotspots emerge and coalesce in a wider sea of urban development. Here, we apply recent methods in network science and their generalization to spatial analysis to identify the spatial structure of city hubs, centers, and borders, which are essential elements in understanding urban interactions. We use a ‘big’ data set for Singapore from the automatic smart card fare collection system, which is available for sample periods in 2010, 2011, and 2012 to show how the changing roles and influences of local areas in the overall spatial structure of urban movement can be efficiently monitored from daily transportation. In essence, we first construct a weighted directed graph from these travel records. Each node in the graph denotes an urban area, edges denote the possibility of travel between any two areas, and the weight of edges denotes the volume of travel, which is the number of trips made. We then make use of (a) the graph properties to obtain an overall view of travel demand, (b) graph centralities for detecting urban centers and hubs, and (c) graph community structures for uncovering socioeconomic clusters defined as neighborhoods and their borders. Finally, results of this network analysis are projected back onto geographical space to reveal the spatial structure of urban movements. The revealed community structure shows a clear subdivision into different areas that separate the population’s activity space into smaller neighborhoods. The generated borders are different from existing administrative ones. By comparing the results from 3 years of data, we find that Singapore, even from such a short time series, is developing rapidly towards a polycentric urban form, where new subcenters and communities are emerging largely in line with the city’s master plan. To summarize, our approach yields important insights into urban phenomena generated by human movements. It represents a quantitative approach to urban analysis, which explicitly identifies ongoing urban transformations.
Inhibition by antimicrotubular agents of the procoagulant activity generated by the blood monocytes: A biochemical and morphological study

During in vitro incubation, human blood leukocytes triggered by various stimuli, generate and release procoagulant activity (PCA), which was identified as tissue factor‐like activity. The cell responsible for this production is the monocyte. Monocytes, when incubated in aseptic conditions generate and release PCA in the incubation medium, after a lag period of 1–2 hours. Most of the activity (95%) remains cell bound while only 5% are released. In order to ascertain whether microtubules (MT) act as an intermediate in the generation and/or the release of PCA, monocytes were incubated with antimicrotubular agents ie, colchicine or vinblastine. Both drugs inhibited PCA generation and release.
Quantification of zooplankton trophic position in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre using stable nitrogen isotopes

We quantify the trophic positions of subtropical open‐ocean zooplankton species using amino acid‐specific (AA) stable nitrogen isotopic compositions. We model animal trophic position by computing trophic 15N enrichment of glutamic acid relative to phenylalanine, and find that trophic position for primary copepod consumers (Oithona spp., Neocalanus robustior) and secondary copepod consumers (Pleuromamma xiphias and Euchaeta rimana) varied little over a 5–10–yr period in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG; mean ± SD: 2.1 ± 0.1 and 2.9 ± 0.1, respectively). Comparison of AA 15N enrichment patterns in different copepod species suggests that trophic 15N enrichment is most consistent in glutamic acid, aspartic acid, and alanine, "trophic" AAs that are intimately involved in the citric acid cycle and energy production. We further test equations involving these trophic AAs and "source" AAs (which appear to retain the nitrogen isotopic composition of the food‐web base), and find that such compound‐specific models give results that are identical to those calculated using whole‐animal (bulk) stable isotopic compositions. However the benefits of our AA‐based approach (i.e., the relatively few samples needed for precise TP estimation, elimination of the need for concurrent prey isotopic analyses, and the ability to utilize formalin‐preserved specimens from archived collections), make this a powerful technique for the quantitative assessment of trophic position within the pelagic food web. We further discuss how stable isotopic analyses provide a new perspective on the structure of open‐ocean food webs and can be used to trace large seasonal fluctuations in nitrogen source in the NPSG.
Translocation of Single-Stranded DNA Through Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon Nanotube Bridge for DNA Transport The nanoporosity of carbon nanotubes has been exploited in the control of molecular transport—for example, in creating membranes. Liu et al. (p. 64) fabricated devices in which one single-walled carbon nanotube connects two fluid reservoirs. In some of these devices, apparently those in which the nanotube is metallic, the ionic conductivity is anomalously higher than that expected from the bulk resistivity of the electrolyte. This high conductivity was exploited for the transport of single-stranded DNA, which was accompanied by large but transient increases in the ion current. Transfer of DNA by electrophoresis through some carbon nanotubes is accompanied by giant current pulses. We report the fabrication of devices in which one single-walled carbon nanotube spans a barrier between two fluid reservoirs, enabling direct electrical measurement of ion transport through the tube. A fraction of the tubes pass anomalously high ionic currents. Electrophoretic transport of small single-stranded DNA oligomers through these tubes is marked by large transient increases in ion current and was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction analysis. Each current pulse contains about 107 charges, an enormous amplification of the translocated charge. Carbon nanotubes simplify the construction of nanopores, permit new types of electrical measurements, and may open avenues for control of DNA translocation.
Make-or-break: chasing risky goals or settling for safe rewards?

Humans regularly pursue activities characterized by dramatic success or failure outcomes where, critically, the chances of success depend on the time invested working toward it. How should people allocate time between such make-or-break challenges and safe alternatives, where rewards are more predictable (e.g., linear) functions of performance? We present a formal framework for studying time allocation between these two types of activities, and we explore optimal behavior in both one-shot and dynamic versions of the problem. In the one-shot version, we illustrate striking discontinuities in the optimal time allocation policy as we gradually change the parameters of the decision-making problem. In the dynamic version, we formulate the optimal strategy-defined by a giving-up threshold-which adaptively dictates when people should stop pursuing the make-or-break goal. We then show that this strategy is computationally inaccessible for humans, and we explore boundedly rational alternatives. We compare the performance of the optimal model against (a) a myopic giving-up threshold that is easier to compute, and even simpler heuristic strategies that either (b) only decide whether or not to start pursuing the goal and never give up or (c) consider giving up at a fixed number of control points. Comparing strategies across environments, we investigate the cost and behavioral implications of sidestepping the computational burden of full rationality.
Effect of counterface roughness on the friction of bionic wall-shaped microstructures for gecko-like attachments

Hairy adhesive systems involved in gecko locomotion have drawn the interest of many researchers regarding the development of bionic solutions for fast and reversible adhesive technologies. To date, despite extensive efforts to design gecko-inspired adhesive surfaces, adhesion and friction capacities are often evaluated using smooth and rigid counterfaces, in general glass, whereas most natural and artificial surfaces inevitably have a certain level of roughness. For that reason, in this study experiments tested the effects of the substrate roughness on the friction of bionic wale-shaped microstructures for gecko-like attachments. To this end, 12 substrates with different isotropic roughness were prepared using the same Epoxy material. Friction force was measured under various normal loads. It was concluded that classical roughness parameters, considered separately, are not appropriate to explain roughness-related variations in friction force. This has led us to develop a new integrative roughness parameter that combines characteristics of the surface. The parameter is capable of classifying the obtained experimental results in a readable way. An analytical model based on the experimental results has been developed to predict the variation of the friction force as a function of counterface roughness and applied normal load.
Chronic administration of angiotensin-(1-7) attenuates pressure-overload left ventricular hypertrophy and fibrosis in rats.

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that chronic administration of angiotensin-(1-7) [Ang-(1-7)] attenuates cardiac hypertrophy in rats in vivo. METHODS Coarctation of the suprarenal abdominal aorta was performed in 41 8-week-old male Sprague Dawley rats. Twenty-four hours after the operation, osmotic minipumps were surgically implanted subcutaneously in the rats, which were randomly divided into 3 groups, including a sham-operation group (n=15) receiving infusion with normal saline, a suprarenal aortic coarctation group (n=12), and a suprarenal aortic coarctation group (n=14) with Ang-(1-7) treatment at the dose of 25 mug x kg(-1) x h(-1). Four weeks later, the systolic and diastolic blood pressures were measured and the left ventricular mass index (LVMI, mg/g) was calculated from the ratio of left ventricular weight to body weight. The concentrations of Ang II in the plasma and myocardium were measured by radioimmunoassay, and myocardial interstitial collagen volume fraction (ICVF) was determined by quantitative morphometry of the sections with Picrosirius red staining using an automated image analyzer. RESULTS Suprarenal abdominal aortic coarctation induced a significant increase in carotid artery systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart weight, LVMI, ICVF, and the concentration of Ang II in the myocardium (P<0.01). Chronic administration of Ang-(1-7) attenuated the increase in the heart weight, LVMI, ICVF and left ventricular diastolic end pressure (LVEDP) caused by suprarenal abdominal aortic coarctation (P<0.05). Ang-(1-7) also increased the formerly decreased maximum left ventricular pressure reduction rate (-dP/dt(max)) (P<0.05), but had no effect on blood pressure and the concentration of Ang II in the myocardium. No difference was noted in plasma concentration of Ang II between the 3 groups. CONCLUSIONS Ang-(1-7) attenuates cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis and preserved the impaired left ventricular function induced by left ventricular pressure-overload in rats. These effects are not associated with the changes in the concentrations of Ang II in the left ventricular myocardium and plasma.
A Novel Lawsonia intracellularis Autotransporter Protein Is a Prominent Antigen

ABSTRACT Investigation of antigenic determinants of the microaerophilic obligate intracellular bacterium Lawsonia intracellularis using a mass spectrometry approach identified a novel bacterial protein present in an extract of cell culture medium aspirated from heavily infected in vitro cell cultures. Western immunoblotting analysis of SDS-PAGE-resolved proteins using immune sera pooled from L. intracellularis-infected pigs revealed the presence of a strongly immunoreactive band of ∼72 kDa. Liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry analysis of this component and database mining using a fully annotated L. intracellularis genome sequence and the comprehensive GenBank prokaryotic genomic database highlighted the presence of a protein that shares little sequence similarity with other prokaryotic proteins and appears to be highly species specific. Detailed bioinformatic analyses identified the protein as member of the autotransporter protein family of surface-exposed proteins, and the designation LatA (Lawsonia autotransporter protein A) is suggested. Recognition of recombinant LatA on Western blots by a panel of sera from infected and control pigs corresponded 100% with a commercial serodiagnostic that relies on in vitro culture of this fastidious organism. LatA therefore represents a potential candidate for the development of a rapid and species-specific serodiagnostic reagent.
Racial Perceptions , Stereotype Threat , and the Black-White Test Score Gap : A Bayesian Principal Stratification Approach ∗

Does stereotype threat explain part of the black-white test score gap? Recent evidence suggests that theperceptionof a white test administrator causes black test takers to perform worse, but that race of the test administrator itself has no impact independent of racial perception. If correct, this finding sheds new light on the validity, mechanism, and normative legal implications of stereotype threat. Using a Bayesian principal stratification approach – a framework that makes explicit and relaxes crucial assumptions implicit in conventional instrumental variables (IV) analyses – I reanalyze a quasi-experiment in a survey of political knowledge during which respondents only interact orally with the administrator. Examining the race of the interviewer alone, I find more evidence of a stereotype lift for whites than a threat for blacks. Moreover, racial effects do not appear to be mediated by racial perceptions alone. The administrator’s race affects performance similarly, regardless of the respondent’s perception of administrator’s race. This suggests that conscious racial perceptions are not crucial to the operation of stereotype threat. The evidence for stereotype threat from this experiment, however, is a mixed bag. Methodologically, the article illustrates widely-applicable methods for researchers to gain more leverage and assess the credibility and sensitivity of IV studies. ∗Many thanks to Ian Ayres, Jim Alt, Rick Brooks, Kristina Daugirdas, Matt Hindman, Keisuke Hirano, Kosuke Imai, Gary King, Chenxin Li, Kevin Quinn, and Liz Stuart for very helpful discussions and comments. Research support was provided by the Institute for Quantitative Social Science and the Program on Justice, Welfare and Economics at Harvard University. †Assistant Professor, Stanford Law School, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA 94305. Email: dho@law.stanford. edu, URL: people.iq. harvard.edu/ ̃dho
Strike‐slip tectonics and Quaternary basin formation along the Vienna Basin fault system inferred from Bouguer gravity derivatives

The Vienna Basin at the transition between the Alpine and Carpathian belt hosts a number of large Pleistocene sub‐basins forming along an active continental scale strike‐slip fault (Vienna Basin strike‐slip fault). We utilize first‐order derivatives from industrial Bouguer gravity data to unravel the impacts of Pleistocene kinematics on the Vienna Basin and to compensate for the lack of near‐surface fault data. Anomalies have been evaluated by independent geophysical and geological data and were integrated to build up a tectonic model. Factors influencing the wavelength and the amplitude of anomalies were additionally investigated by 2‐D models to better interpret field data. Subsidence and related accumulation of Quaternary sediments in the Vienna Basin produce significant gravity signals related to the activity of the strike‐slip fault. The constrained fault patterns and structures highlight tight and elongated transtensional pull‐apart basins with typically associated features like separated depocenters and Riedel fractured sidewalls in an en‐echelon alignment. Further Pleistocene basins are highlighted as tectonic grabens developing along branches of the master fault. The Vienna Basin is additionally affected by minor deformation represented by both subsidence along major Miocene sidewalls and NW‐SE faulting resulting in distinct topographic features, which manifests kinematics on a regional scale. The clear density contrasts between Miocene marine and Quaternary terrestrial sediments, as well as the exceptional database, provide a unique framework to demonstrate advantages of incorporating gravity derivatives for near‐surface fault analysis.
Predictors of disease course in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease

The presence of extrapyramidal signs or psychosis may indicate greater disability in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease. We evaluated the ability of these signs, noted at a patient's first visit, to predict one of two specific clinical endpoints: (1) a preselected score on the modified Mini-Mental State examination (cognitive endpoint), and (2) a preselected score on the Blessed Dementia Rating Scale (functional endpoint). Sixty-five patients were followed either until they reached the endpoints or to the end of the study period. Survivorship curves were drawn to predict the distribution of time to onset of an endpoint in patients with and without the clinical signs. Time to reach the cognitive endpoint was shorter for patients with extrapyramidal signs or psychosis compared with those without these signs and symptoms. These clinical signs did not predict the functional endpoint. We conclude that extrapyramidal signs and psychosis may be useful predictors of intellectual decline in Alzheimer's disease.
Texture and Motion Pattern Fusion for Background Subtraction

In this paper, we propose a novel background subtraction algorithm, which takes both texture and motion information into account. Texture information is represented by local binary pattern (LBP), which is tolerant of illumination changes and is computational simplicity. Assuming that there is significant structure in the correlations between observations across time, we propose a novel operator to extract motion information. Then, each pixel is modeled as a group of texture pattern histograms and motion pattern histograms respectively. Finally, we combine the texture pattern-based and motion pattern-based background model. Experimental results on challenging videos demonstrate the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed method.
Interleukin-11 as a Stimulatory Factor for Bone Formation Prevents Bone Loss with Advancing Age in Mice*

Cytokines in interleukin (IL)-11 subfamily participate in the regulation of bone cell proliferation and differentiation. We report here positive effects of IL-11 on osteoblasts and bone formation. Overexpression of human IL-11 gene in transgenic mice resulted in the stimulation of bone formation to increase cortical thickness and strength of long bones, and in the prevention of cortical bone loss with advancing age. Bone resorption and osteoclastogenesis were not affected in IL-11 transgenic mice. In experiments in vitro, IL-11 stimulated transcription of the target gene for bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) via STAT3, leading to osteoblastic differentiation in the presence of BMP-2, but inhibited adipogenesis in bone marrow stromal cells. These results indicate that IL-11 is a stimulatory factor for osteoblastogenesis and bone formation to conserve cortical bone, possibly by enhancing BMP actions in bone. IL-11 may be a new therapeutic target for senile osteoporosis.
Distributed dual averaging method for solving saddle-point problems over multi-agent networks

In this paper we study the multi-agent saddle-point problems where multiple agents try to collectively optimize a sum of local convex-concave functions, each of which is available to one specific agent in the network. We propose a distributed primal-dual subgradient method, by using the dual averaging method in combination with an average consensus process. The method can be implemented over a time-varying network while satisfying some standard connectivity conditions. We provide convergence results and convergence rate estimates for the proposed method.