Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Activation of the Human Epithelial Sodium Channel (ENaC) by Bile Acids Involves the Degenerin Site*

The epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) is a member of the ENaC/degenerin ion channel family, which also includes the bile acid-sensitive ion channel (BASIC). So far little is known about the effects of bile acids on ENaC function. ENaC is probably a heterotrimer consisting of three well characterized subunits (αβγ). In humans, but not in mice and rats, an additional δ-subunit exists. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of chenodeoxycholic, cholic, and deoxycholic acid in unconjugated (CDCA, CA, and DCA) and tauro-conjugated (t-CDCA, t-CA, t-DCA) form on human ENaC in its αβγ- and δβγ-configuration. We demonstrated that tauro-conjugated bile acids significantly stimulate ENaC in the αβγ- and in the δβγ-configuration. In contrast, non-conjugated bile acids have a robust stimulatory effect only on δβγENaC. Bile acids stimulate ENaC-mediated currents by increasing the open probability of active channels without recruiting additional near-silent channels known to be activated by proteases. Stimulation of ENaC activity by bile acids is accompanied by a significant reduction of the single-channel current amplitude, indicating an interaction of bile acids with a region close to the channel pore. Analysis of the known ASIC1 (acid-sensing ion channel) crystal structure suggested that bile acids may bind to the pore region at the degenerin site of ENaC. Substitution of a single amino acid residue within the degenerin region of βENaC (N521C or N521A) significantly reduced the stimulatory effect of bile acids on ENaC, suggesting that this site is critical for the functional interaction of bile acids with the channel.
AGE , SEX AND LACTATING STATUS REGULATE GHRELIN SECRETION AND 1 GOAT mRNA LEVELS FROM ISOLATED RAT STOMACH 2

32 Ghrelin is a stomach derivate peptide involved in energy homeostasis regulation and 33 ghrelin O-acyltransferase (GOAT) is the enzyme responsible for ghrelin acylation. Puberty 34 is a period characterized by profound changes in the metabolic requirements and notable 35 variations of sexual hormone levels. On the other hand, the weaning process is a 36 fundamental modification of the diet, which implicates several adaptations of the 37 gastrointestinal tract physiology. Until now the direct secretion of ghrelin by the stomach in 38 these conditions, without interferences from other organs, has never been studied. 39 The main objective of this paper was to investigate how the stomach modulates ghrelin 40 production and secretion as well as GOAT expression, on these periods of life. 41 Gastric ghrelin secretion is regulated through postnatal life in an independent way of gastric 42 expression and circulating levels of this hormone. The present work shows a strong 43 regulation of gastric ghrelin secretion by estrogens. The weaning strongly regulates gastric 44 ghrelin secretion. Animals subjected to delayed weaning present a lower body weight than 45 the corresponding controls. For the first time it is shown that a noticeable decrease in 46 circulating levels of testosterone and estrogens is associated with delay of weaning. GOAT 47 mRNA levels in the stomach are strongly regulated by age, breastfeeding and testosterone. 48 In conclusion, the stomach itself regulates ghrelin and GOAT production in order to adapt 49 the organism to the metabolic requirements demanded through each stage of life. 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Characterization of insect cell lines: heteroduplex analysis employing a mitochondrial 16S ribosomal RNA gene fragment.

Routine cell line characterization procedures are not adequate for characterizing the cell lines of insect origin. Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequences and their comparisons have been used successfully for delineating species and phylogenetic analysis. Using similar principles, we have standardized a protocol for the confirmation of species identity of insect cell lines. The procedure includes PCR amplification of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene fragment from the cell line and larvae of known insect species and heteroduplex analysis to detect the sequence variation in the PCR-amplified rRNA gene fragments. If the PCR fragment of the cell lines yields a homoduplex with the larvae of known species, then the cell line is conspecific with the larvae. If the larvae and cell line are of two different species, then the analysis exhibits multiple bands of heteroduplexes. The technique also allows detection of cross-contamination of culture having two insect cell lines belonging to two different species.
Role of Information Technology Capabilities on Product Innovation Performance: Mediating Role of Corporate Entrepreneurship

Despite the surplus studies demonstrating the significance of information technology capabilities in business growth with innovation, the knowledge of the approaches through which such benefits can be attained and their connections, expertise, and influence to other organizational and managerial aspects are yet limited. Purpose: To fill the research gap by studying the relationship between Information technology capabilities and business innovation within corporate entrepreneurial activities and also examining the mediating effect of Corporate Entrepreneurship, its sustainable approach at managerial level and contribution in market research towards emerging demands of IT. This study is also focusing on the skills, processes, and modifications to achieve such goals; also the implications for the managers dealing with product innovations in dynamic organizations. Design: Selected design for this study is descriptive in nature following a quantitative approach with stratified random sampling technique. The data is collected from 315 IT executive and managers from the population of 50 manufacturing firms in Karachi, Pakistan. Findings: Using data collected from the concerned population in the dynamic business environment, Researcher found the corporate entrepreneurship partially mediating the correlation between product innovation performance and information technology capabilities in an organization. These variables being studied are the observed elements of organizational progress and success; and their impacts on innovation, growth, and success are recognized and attested with the help of hypothesis testing in this research. Significance: This study is providing guide and support to organizations and policymakers incorporate entrepreneurial activities at different firms and managerial levels. Furthermore, this research study fills the existing gap by incorporating corporate entrepreneurship (CE) at the organizational level and contributes to the more robust development, understanding and involvement of IT to improve the overall business value.
Catastrophic bifurcation in three-phase boost rectifiers

Active PWM voltage rectifiers are commonly used to convert ac power from a three-phase grid to a regulated dc voltage with unity input power factor. The output voltage regulation is normally achieved by an outer voltage feedback loop and a sinusoidal-pulse-width-modulation (SPWM) inner current loop. Due to output voltage disturbances, such as those produced by a capacitive load, the inner current loop can be easily driven into over-modulation and possible six-step operating regions. Current research efforts have focused on extending the linearity of the modulated voltage in the over-modulation range to reduce the input current harmonics and on studying the closed-loop stability via conventional small-signal linearization around a fixed operating point. Such linear techniques obviously fall short of predicting large-signal transient stability. In this paper, catastrophic bifurcation is reported in terms of the input current and output voltage. The physical origin of the phenomenon is identified. Boundaries of catastrophic bifurcation in the parameter space are found. The phenomenon is verified experimentally.
A Theoretical Model of Cerebral Hemodynamics: Application to the Study of Arteriovenous Malformations

A comprehensive computer model of the cerebral circulation, based on both hydrodynamics and electrical network analysis, was used to investigate the influences of arteriovenous malformations (AVM) on regional cerebral hemodynamics. The basic model contained 114 normal compartments: 55 arteries, 37 veins, 20 microvessel groups (MVG), one compartment representing systemic and extracranial vascular resistance, and one representing the heart. Each microvessel group, which represented the arteriolar bed, consisted of 5000 microvessels. Cerebral blood flow autoregulation was simulated by a formula that determined the resistance and therefore the flow rate of the microvessel groups (arterioles) as a function of perfusion pressure. Elasticity was introduced to describe the compliance of each vessel. Flow rate was made a controlling factor for the positive regulation of the diameters of conductance vessels by calculation of shear stress on the vessel wall (vessel dilation). Models containing an AVM were constructed by adding an AVM compartment and its feeding arteries and draining veins. In addition to the basic model, AVM models were simulated with and without autoregulation and flow-induced conductance vessel dilation to evaluate the contributions of these factors on cerebral hemodynamics. Results for the model with vessel dilation were more similar to clinical observations than those without vessel dilation. Even in the presence of total vasoparalysis of the arteriolar bed equivalent, obliteration of a large (1000 mL/min) shunt flow AVM resulted in a near-field CBF increase from a baseline of 21 to a post-occlusion value of no more than 74 mL/100 g/min, casting doubt on a purely hemodynamic basis for severe hyperemia after treatment. The results of the simulations suggest that our model may be a useful tool to study hemodynamic problems of the cerebral circulation.
Analysis of Students Open Feedback After Their Participation in a Multinational Design Project

Participation by students in multinational engineering design projects is an activity that has been implemented at academic institutions with the objective of exposing the students to globalization. Such collaborations are becoming a very important practice that prepare students to be aware of the various aspects that are faced whenever work is performed in a global environment. There have been several approaches for the implementation of these activities in the curriculum, and the one presented here is an engineering design project conducted with the participation of students from six different countries. As an assessment of the students’ experience, three specific open-ended questions were asked at the end of their participation. These questions cover the basic information of like-dislike-recommendation regarding the collaborative experience. Proper interpretation of responses to open-ended questions is not an easy task, and several approaches have been reported. In this manuscript, the data analytics technique of topic modelling is utilized in order to get a more objective assessment. Based on the responses by participants to the three basic questions, together with the corresponding demographic information, the feedback is evaluated and some conclusions are drawn regarding the effect of factors like geographic location and gender. These conclusions will be utilized to improve the offering of a multinational collaboration by students in an engineering design project.
Exploitation of Electric-Drive Vehicles in Electricity Markets

The paper presents the optimization algorithm which may eventually be used by electric energy suppliers to coordinate charging and discharging of electric-drive vehicles (EDVs) exploited in electricity markets. The research is focused on a day-ahead market and a provision of system regulation in an ancillary-service market. The proposed optimization minimizes the charging costs that can be partly compensated with profits obtained from participation in the energy markets. Due to the stochastic nature of transportation patterns, the Monte Carlo simulation is applied to model uncertainties presented by numerous scenarios. To reduce the problem complexity, the simulated driving patterns are not individually considered in the optimization but clustered into fleets using the GAMS/SCENRED tool. Uncertainties of energy requirements in the market and energy prices are presented by statistical central moments that are further considered in Hong's 2 - point +1 estimation method in order to define points considered in the optimization. Finally, each energy supplier has to offer competitive energy prices to EDV users for transportation. Due to uncertainties, the final prices cannot be deterministically calculated; thus, the paper proposes the risk-based approach applying value at risk. Case studies illustrate the application of the proposed optimization in achieving competitive prices for EDV users.
DETERMINATION OF CONCENTRATION BY MEANS OF LIGHT SCATTERING AND DIGITAL IMAGE POSTPROCESSING

The main purpose of this research is to manage simultaneous measurement of velocity and concentration in large cross sections by recording and processing images of cloud structures. Stack gas dispersion in an atmospheric boundary layer (ABL), was chosen as the test case and investigated both experimentally and numerically. Large scale particle image velocimetry (LS-PIV), which records cloud structures instead of individual particles, was used to obtain the velocity field. Light scattering technique (LST) was employed to determine the concentration of the pollutant from the same set of images. In addition, aspiration probe concentration measurements were performed. The test case was also simulated using the CFD solver FLUENT. Comparison revealed that there is a good agreement between the aspiration probe measurements and the CFD results. For the LST measurements, a non-linear relation between concentration and light intensity was observed.
ParaLite: A Parallel Database System for Data-Intensive Workflows

SUMMARY To better support data-intensive workﬂows which are typically built out of various independently developed executables, this paper proposes extensions to parallel database systems called User-Deﬁned eXe-cutables (UDX) and collective queries . UDX facilitates the description of workﬂows by enabling seamless integrations of external executables into SQL statements without any e ﬀ orts to write programs conﬁrming to strict speciﬁcations of databases. A collective query is an SQL query whose re-sults are distributed to multiple clients and then processed by them in parallel, using arbitrary UDX. It provides e ﬃ cient parallelization of executables through the data transfer optimization algorithms that distribute query re-sults to multiple clients, taking both communication cost and computational loads into account. We implement this concept in a system called ParaLite, a parallel database system based on a popular lightweight database SQLite. Our experiments show that ParaLite has several times higher performance over Hive for typical SQL tasks and has 10x speedup compared to a commercial DBMS for executables. In addition, this paper studies a real-world text processing workﬂow and builds it on top of ParaLite, Hadoop, Hive and general ﬁles. Our experiences indicate that ParaLite outperforms other systems in both productivity and performance for the workﬂow.
Application of soft magnetic composites to PM wind generator design

This paper explores the application of soft magnetic composite (SMC) materials to the design of PM wind generators for small direct-drive wind energy conversion systems (WECSs). The characteristics of SMC materials are first introduced. The applicability of SMC materials to the design of PM wind generators is then discussed. The design and performance of a prototype SMC-based PM wind generator is outlined finally
Methodological Aspects of Bronchoscopic Lung Volume Reduction with a Proprietary System

Bronchoscopic lung volume reduction (BLVR) is emerging as a new technique to palliate symptoms in patients with severe emphysema. Several devices and techniques are being developed to occlude airways resulting in collapse and reduced lung volume. Here we present in detail the methodological aspects of one such interventional bronchoscopic approach.
Structural and Optical Properties of III-V Nanowires and Nanowire Heterostructures Grown by Metalorganic Chemical Vapour Deposition

We have investigated the structural and optical properties of III-V nanowires grown by metalorganic chemical vapour deposition. Binary GaAs, InAs and InP nanowires, and ternary InGaAs and AlGaAs nanowires, have been fabricated and characterised. A variety of axial and radial heterostructures have also been fabricated, including GaAs/AlGaAs core-multishell and GaAs/InGaAs superlattice nanowires. GaAs/AlGaAs core-shell nanowires exhibit strong photoluminescence as the AlGaAs shell passivates the GaAs nanowire surface reducing the surface nonradiative recombination.
Behavioral phenotypic variation in autism multiplex families: evidence for a continuous severity gradient.

Recent genetic investigations of autism have studied multiplex families, typically including families with multiple siblings who meet criteria for a diagnosis of autism. However, little is known about the specific behavioral characteristics of siblings with autism in these multiplex families. We investigated the behavioral phenotypic variability and similarity of 351 siblings with autism in 171 multiplex families using cluster analysis and correlations. The results of cluster analyses showed that the individuals with autism could be characterized on a severity gradient: a continuum based on severity of symptoms and impairment as measured by Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) scores, verbal-nonverbal status, and nonverbal IQ scores. Clusters based on scores from the ADI-R for the autism diagnostic criteria of the DSM-IV and nonverbal IQ scores still represented a severity gradient when the effects of verbal-nonverbal status were removed. The severity gradient was shown to be heritable, with a sib correlation of 30% or a heritability of 60%. In summary, in a sample of 171 autism multiplex families, there was no evidence of discrete behaviorally defined subgroups of affected individuals or families characterized by distinct patterns of behavioral symptoms. Rather, the clusters could be characterized along a single, heritable, continuous severity dimension.
Réseaux de neurones sur silicium : une approche mixte, analogique / numérique, pour l'étude des phénomènes d'adaptation, d'apprentissage et de plasticité

Dans un contexte ou l'usage de circuits neuromimetiques se generalise au sein des neurosciences, nous etudions ici leur integration au sein de reseaux adaptatifs. Les circuits mis en oeuvre se basent sur un modele proche de la biologie resolu en continu et en temps reel. Les calculs relatifs a l'adaptation du reseau sont realises en numerique temps reel, logiciel et/ou materiel. La partie logicielle est assuree par un ordinateur interface a travers le bus PCI, tandis que la partie materielle utilise des EPGAS. Trois generations sont presentes avec une analyse critique sur leur utilisation comme systeme de simulation de reseau neuronal.
Endothelin type A-antagonist improves long-term neurological recovery after cardiac arrest in rats

ObjectiveAntagonists of endothelin (ETA) receptors improve postischemic hypoperfusion. In this study we investigated whether the selective ETA-antagonist BQ123 also improves postischemic functional recovery. Study DesignCardiac arrest of 12 mins duration was induced in rats by electrical fibrillation of the heart, followed by advanced cardiopulmonary resuscitation. BQ123 (0.8 mg/kg; n = 9) or its vehicle (saline; n = 9) was injected intravenously at 15 mins after the return of spontaneous circulation. The neurologic deficit was scored daily for 7 days after resuscitation by rating consciousness, various sensory and motor functions, and coordination tests. On day 7, we measured functional coupling of cerebral blood flow under halothane anesthesia by recording laser-Doppler flow during electrical forepaw stimulation, and we measured vascular reactivity to CO2 by measuring the laser-Doppler flow change during ventilation with 6% CO2. The brains were perfusion-fixated with 4% paraformaldehyde, and the histopathologic damage was evaluated in the CA1 sector of hippocampus, in the motor cortex, and in the cerebellum. ResultsTreatment with BQ123 had no effect on histopathologic damage, but it significantly improved neurologic recovery. In all nine treated rats, neurologic performance returned to near normal within 2 days whereas four of nine untreated animals developed spastic paralysis of the hind limbs and severe coordination deficits. BQ123 also normalized CO2 reactivity and improved the functional cerebral blood flow response to somatosensory stimulation. ConclusionsThe ETA-antagonist BQ123 significantly improves neurologic outcome after 12 mins of cardiac arrest. The apparent restoration of vascular reactivity demonstrates a correlation between hemodynamic factors and functional recovery.
Neurosurgical care of the severely injured patient.

The frequency and gravity of injuries to the brain and spinal cord are such that they must be considered in the neurosurgical treatment of every seriously injured patient. It is necessary to recognize shock when it exists, for it must receive priority over everything else except when there is evidence of extradural hematoma. Shock is rarely caused by head injuries alone; its existence should immediately direct the examiner's attention to other parts of the body. The blood pressure, pulse rate, respiration rate, and temperature should be recorded every 15 minutes at first; at the same time the pupils should be observed as to size and reaction to light, and the state of consciousness must be determined. Extradural hematoma, if it occurs, requires immediate surgical intervention; if it is neglected, the results are either death or irremediable deficits. The immediate recognition of a spinal injury is of extreme importance in order to prevent further damage to the spinal cord. It is especially liable to be overlooked in the unconscious patient, and the transportation of such patients requires the greatest care. Surgery of compound depressed skull fractures can be delayed until the patient's vital signs are stable, and immediate laminectomy for spinal cord injuries is seldom required.
A Theory of Model Sophistication and Operational Risk

We study the dynamic decision making of a financial institution in the presence of a novel implementation friction that gives rise to operational risk. We distinguish between internal and external operational risks depending on whether the institution has control over them. Internal operational risk naturally arises in the context of model risk, as the institution exposes itself to operational errors whenever it updates and improves its investment model. In this case, it is no longer optimal to implement the best model available, thus leaving scope for endogenous deviation from it, and hence model sophistication. We show that the optimal exposure to operational risk may well become decreasing in the level of internal operational risk, which in turn makes the exposure to market risk less volatile. We uncover that financial constraints interact with operational risk, whether internal or external, and prompt the institution to always adopt a more sophisticated model. While such constraints are always detrimental when operational risk is internal, they may be beneficial, despite inducing an excessive level of sophistication, when it is external.
Tagging gene and protein names in full text articles

Current information extraction efforts in the biomedical domain tend to focus on finding entities and facts in structured databases or MEDLINE® abstracts. We apply a gene and protein name tagger trained on Medline abstracts (ABGene) to a randomly selected set of full text journal articles in the biomedical domain. We show the effect of adaptations made in response to the greater heterogeneity of full text.