Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Three-block electrical model of renal impedance

In this study, we measured the characteristic renal impedance profiles of Wistar rats and simulated the profiles using an electrical model with three series connected Windkessel blocks containing inductance. It is expected that a complete renal impedance profile ought to provide better physical properties information and have more diagnostic power than the pulsatility (PI) and resistive indices (RI) as a result of frequency dependency. A characteristic peak value at the third harmonic on the renal impedance amplitude curve was observed and the phase curve decreased with increasing harmonic numbers. From least mean square fitted parameters, the three blocks were given distinct physical properties and identified as: (1) the renal artery, (2) the small arteries plus the afferent arteriole and (3) the residual kidney (i.e., the efferent arteriole plus the post glomerular capillary structures). These allocations were made according to respective physical properties reported in previous research. These classifications were further confirmed when we compressed the kidney or infused Ang II. Variations in electrical parameters concurred with the likely affected blood vessels reported. This model describes renal impedance characteristics well; and it provides useful hints on the physical properties of the renal vascular system as well as allows for distinctions in possible physiologically affected locations during functional disturbance. It has potential for development as a clinical non-invasive diagnostic tool.
Regulation of Homer and group I metabotropic glutamate receptors by nicotine

The present study focuses on the nicotine‐induced modulation of mRNA and protein expression of a number of genes involved in glutamatergic synaptic transmission in rat brain over different time periods of exposure. A subchronic (3 days) but not the chronic (7 or 14 days) administration of nicotine resulted in the up‐regulation of Homer2a/b mRNA in the amygdala while in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) no change in expression of either Homer2a/b or Homer1b/c was observed. Although the increase in Homer2a/b mRNA was not translated into the protein level in the amygdala, a slight but significant up‐regulation of Homer1b/c protein was observed in the same region at day 3. Both Homer forms were up‐regulated at the protein level in the VTA at day 3. In the nucleus accumbens, 14 days of nicotine treatment up‐regulated mRNA of Homer2b/c by 68.2% (P < 0.05), while the short form Homer1a gene was down‐regulated by 65.0% at day 3 (P < 0.05). In regard to other components of the glutamatergic signalling, we identified an acute and intermittent increase in the mRNA and protein levels of mGluR1 and mGluR5 in the amygdala. In the VTA, however, the effects of nicotine on mGluR mRNA expression were long‐lasting but rather specific to mGluR1. Nevertheless, mGluR1 protein levels in the VTA area were up‐regulated only at day 3, as in the amygdala. These data provide further evidence for the involvement of nicotine in the glutamatergic neuronal synaptic activity in vivo, suggesting a role for the newly identified Homer proteins in this paradigm.
The worldwide importance of honey bees as pollinators in natural habitats

The western honey bee (Apis mellifera) is the most frequent floral visitor of crops worldwide, but quantitative knowledge of its role as a pollinator outside of managed habitats is largely lacking. Here we use a global dataset of 80 published plant–pollinator interaction networks as well as pollinator effectiveness measures from 34 plant species to assess the importance of A. mellifera in natural habitats. Apis mellifera is the most frequent floral visitor in natural habitats worldwide, averaging 13% of floral visits across all networks (range 0–85%), with 5% of plant species recorded as being exclusively visited by A. mellifera. For 33% of the networks and 49% of plant species, however, A. mellifera visitation was never observed, illustrating that many flowering plant taxa and assemblages remain dependent on non-A. mellifera visitors for pollination. Apis mellifera visitation was higher in warmer, less variable climates and on mainland rather than island sites, but did not differ between its native and introduced ranges. With respect to single-visit pollination effectiveness, A. mellifera did not differ from the average non-A. mellifera floral visitor, though it was generally less effective than the most effective non-A. mellifera visitor. Our results argue for a deeper understanding of how A. mellifera, and potential future changes in its range and abundance, shape the ecology, evolution, and conservation of plants, pollinators, and their interactions in natural habitats.
Cbl-mediated Negative Regulation of the Syk Tyrosine Kinase

The proto-oncogene product Cbl has emerged as a potential negative regulator of the Syk tyrosine kinase; however, the nature of physical interactions between Cbl and Syk that are critical for this negative regulation remains unclear. Here we show that the phosphotyrosine-binding (PTB) domain within the N-terminal transforming region of Cbl (Cbl-N) binds to phosphorylated Tyr323in the linker region between the Src homology 2 and kinase domains of Syk, confirming recent results by another laboratory using the yeast two-hybrid approach (Deckert, M., Elly, C., Altman, A., and Liu, Y. C. (1998) J. Biol. Chem. 273, 8867–8874). A PTB domain-inactivating point mutation (G306E), corresponding to a loss-of-function mutation in the Caenorhabditis elegans Cbl homologue SLI-1, severely compromised Cbl-N/Syk binding in vitro and Cbl/Syk association in transfected COS-7 cells. Using heterologous expression in COS-7 cells, we investigated the role of Cbl PTB domain binding to Syk Tyr323 in the negative regulation of Syk. Co-expression of Cbl with Syk in COS-7 cells led to a dose-dependent decrease in the autophosphorylated pool of Syk and in phosphorylation of an in vivo substrate, CD8-ζ. Unexpectedly, these effects were largely due to the loss of Syk protein. Both the decrease in Syk and CD8-ζ phosphorylation and reduction in Syk protein levels were blocked by either G306E mutation in Cbl or by Y323F mutation in Syk. These results demonstrate a critical role for the Cbl PTB domain in the recruitment of Cbl to Syk and in Cbl-mediated negative regulation of Syk.
A Feasible Strategy for Reachability Testing of Internet-Based Concurrent Programs

Internet-based concurrent programs, such as multiplayer online game program that multiplayer in highly interactive domain behave in space-time unpredictably, offer more advantages and are difficult to test because of their non-deterministic behaviors. One approach to test the concurrent programs is reachability testing. Lei and Carve did more research work and proposed an algorithm for reachability testing. Lei's algorithm can not ensure that a race variant is always feasible because all the events that occur after the race receive event r can potentially be affected, which may induce exercising false SYN-sequences after the send partner of r of a synchronization pair is changed. For increasing the feasibility of reachability testing, we can remove all the events that occur after the race receive event r after changing the send partner of r. But the problem that we need to solve is how to remove. We propose a feasible strategy to solve the problem. Our strategy uses vector timestamps to determine the happened-before relation between the race receive events of the synchronization pairs of the concurrent program. According to the happened-before relation, we change the send partners of the more receive events in proper order. After we change the send partner of the race receive event r , we need to remove all the events that occur after r in the original execution. Our strategy can ensure the feasibility of race variants. The case study proves that our feasible strategy for reachability testing of the concurrent programs can ensure the feasibility of the testing.
Antigen-Independent Differentiation and Maintenance of Effector-like Resident Memory T Cells in Tissues

Differentiation and maintenance of recirculating effector memory CD8 T cells (TEM) depends on prolonged cognate Ag stimulation. Whether similar pathways of differentiation exist for recently identified tissue-resident effector memory T cells (TRM), which contribute to rapid local protection upon pathogen re-exposure, is unknown. Memory CD8αβ+ T cells within small intestine epithelium are well-characterized examples of TRM, and they maintain a long-lived effector-like phenotype that is highly suggestive of persistent Ag stimulation. This study sought to define the sources and requirements for prolonged Ag stimulation in programming this differentiation state, including local stimulation via cognate or cross-reactive Ags derived from pathogens, microbial flora, or dietary proteins. Contrary to expectations, we found that prolonged cognate Ag stimulation was dispensable for intestinal TRM ontogeny. In fact, chronic antigenic stimulation skewed differentiation away from the canonical intestinal T cell phenotype. Resident memory signatures, CD69 and CD103, were expressed in many nonlymphoid tissues including intestine, stomach, kidney, reproductive tract, pancreas, brain, heart, and salivary gland and could be driven by cytokines. Moreover, TGF-β–driven CD103 expression was required for TRM maintenance within intestinal epithelium in vivo. Thus, induction and maintenance of long-lived effector-like intestinal TRM differed from classic models of TEM ontogeny and were programmed through a novel location-dependent pathway that was required for the persistence of local immunological memory.
Synaptic Contributions to Receptive Field Structure and Response Properties in the Rodent Lateral Geniculate Nucleus of the Thalamus

Comparative physiological and anatomical studies have greatly advanced our understanding of sensory systems. Many lines of evidence show that the murine lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) has unique attributes, compared with other species such as cat and monkey. For example, in rodent, thalamic receptive field structure is markedly diverse, and many cells are sensitive to stimulus orientation and direction. To explore shared and different strategies of synaptic integration across species, we made whole-cell recordings in vivo from the murine LGN during the presentation of visual stimuli, analyzed the results with different computational approaches, and compared our findings with those from cat. As for carnivores, murine cells with classical center-surround receptive fields had a “push-pull” structure of excitation and inhibition within a given On or Off subregion. These cells compose the largest single population in the murine LGN (∼40%), indicating that push-pull is key in the form vision pathway across species. For two cell types with overlapping On and Off responses, which recalled either W3 or suppressed-by-contrast ganglion cells in murine retina, inhibition took a different form and was most pronounced for spatially extensive stimuli. Other On-Off cells were selective for stimulus orientation and direction. In these cases, retinal inputs were tuned and, for oriented cells, the second-order subunit of the receptive field predicted the preferred angle. By contrast, suppression was not tuned and appeared to sharpen stimulus selectivity. Together, our results provide new perspectives on the role of excitation and inhibition in retinothalamic processing. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We explored the murine lateral geniculate nucleus from a comparative physiological perspective. In cat, most retinal cells have center-surround receptive fields and push-pull excitation and inhibition, including neurons with the smallest (highest acuity) receptive fields. The same is true for thalamic relay cells. In mouse retina, the most numerous cell type has the smallest receptive fields but lacks push-pull. The most common receptive field in rodent thalamus, however, is center-surround with push-pull. Thus, receptive field structure supersedes size per se for form vision. Further, for many orientation-selective cells, the second-order component of the receptive field aligned with stimulus preference, whereas suppression was untuned. Thus, inhibition may improve spatial resolution and sharpen other forms of selectivity in rodent lateral geniculate nucleus.
Estimating real world privacy risk scenarios

User privacy is becoming an issue on the Internet due to common data breaches and various security threats. Services tend to require private user data in order to provide more personalized content and users are typically unaware of potential risks to their privacy. This paper continues our work on the proposed user privacy risk calculator based on a feedforward neural network. Along with risk estimation, we provide the users with real world example scenarios that depict privacy threats according to selected input parameters. In this paper, we present a model for selecting the most probable real world scenario, presented as a comic, and thus avoid overwhelming the user with lots of information that he/she may find confusing. Most probable scenario estimations are performed by artificial neural network that is trained with real world scenarios and estimated probabilities from real world occurrences. Additionally, we group real world scenarios into categories that are presented to the user as further reading regarding privacy risks.
Encoding activity in the medial temporal lobe examined with anatomically constrained fMRI analysis

Functional neuroimaging studies have produced a sizable number of observations of increased activity in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) during encoding of novel memories. The studies have suggested possible functional specialization within the anatomical components of the MTL (hippocampus and the entorhinal, perirhinal, and parahippocampal cortical areas). Neuroimaging studies have just begun to link anatomical regions to specific functions. To address functional specialization hypothesis, a method is described for using high‐resolution structural information from magnetic resonance imaging MRI to constrain the analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, for independent assessment of functional activity change in each component of the MTL. With this method, increased activity was detected throughout the MTL in a group of participants (n = 5) who encoded novel pictures. A separate group (n = 5) who encoded words exhibited lower‐levels of evoked activity. Laterality effects were found reflecting increased right hemisphere activity during picture encoding (parahippocampal cortex) and increased left hemisphere activity during word encoding (posterior hippocampus and parahippocampal cortex). Neither condition provided evidence for greater activity in the posterior hippocampus than in the anterior hippocampus during encoding, although the greatest increases in activity were observed in the parahippocampal cortex. The anatomically driven methodology is shown to provide detailed comparison of levels of activity change across specific brain areas and to provide increased sensitivity to functional change in each region of the MTL. Hippocampus 2002;12:363–376. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Coping strategies in Spanish older adults: a MIMIC model of socio-demographic characteristics and activity level

ABSTRACT Objectives: The aim of this study was to analyze the combined effect of socio-demographic characteristics and activity level on coping strategies and to test which of these variables has a greater impact on coping. Method: A sample of 243 men and women aged 55–99 years old was selected from different elderly activity centers in Granada, Spain, using a convenience sampling. Associations between eight coping strategies measured by Coping Strategies Inventory and the above mentioned variables were examined using a Multiple Indicator and Multiple Causes model. Results: Age was negatively related with problem solving, express emotions and social support. Activity level was positively related with problem solving, cognitive restructuring, express emotions and social support and it was negatively associated with social withdrawal. Gender only predicted the scores in self-criticism and living alone was related with higher emotional expression. Participation in creative activities, attending University for the third age and practicing physical exercise were related with differences in the use of several coping strategies. Conclusions: There is a complex relationship between socio-demographic characteristics, activity level and the coping strategies used by the elderly. It is important to understand this relationship in order to identify older adults who use ineffective coping, and to subsequently include them in intervention programs to improve their coping abilities.
Listening to service users: young homeless people's experiences of a new mental health service

The aim of this study was to investigate young homeless people's experiences of `Strong Minded', a new mental health service set up within selected homeless shelters and run by a voluntary sector organization. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 residents from five homeless shelters across the UK. All of the young people who had accessed Strong Minded had benefited from their engagement. The young people also identified several key inherent and important aspects of Strong Minded relating to both the practical, supportive therapeutic approach and the flexibility of the interventions offered, which contributed to the service's success. This service model of engaging vulnerable young people in transition could have useful implications for the future interface between voluntary and statutory mental health services.
Cerebral blood flow and metabolism following subarachnoid haemorrhage: cerebral oxygen uptake and global blood flow during the acute period in patients with SAH

Forty‐eight patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage were studied with repeated rCBF and CMRO2 measurements. Cortical rCBF was measured using xenon‐inhalation technique. CMRO2 was calculated as AVDO2 x CBF. When first studied the 29 conscious patients showed relative hyperaemia with CBF at 50 ml and reduced CMRO2 at 2.17 ml. In the following week CBF decreased to 41. CMRO2 remained reduced and constant. The 19 unconscious patients showed initially pronounced reduction in CMRO2 to 1.26, followed by gradual increase to 1.73 in 4–5 days. Simultaneously CBF increased from 18 ml to slightly above 30 ml. In the conscious patients the early reduction in CMRO2 and the concomitant luxury perfusion may be explained by global ischaemia because of very high ICP at the time of the haemorrhage. The reduced CBF in the unconscious group could be due to increased ICP, as ventricular drainage increased CBF to levels of relative hyperaemia as demonstrated in one case. As no decrease in CMRO2 was seen during the first 2 weeks, it is suggested that ischaemia at the time of aneurysm rupture is the most important single factor in reduction of global CMRO2.
Adaptive Gaussian mixture modeling for tracking of long range targets

Long-range radar systems providing precise range measurements experience degraded tracking performance due to the non-Gaussian nature of their measurement distribution when converted to Cartesian space. The unbiased transform and unscented Kalman filter have been used to obtain an unbiased track and improved track covariance consistency. However, debiasing the mean and inflating the covariance results in range estimates with larger errors than the measurements, along with an excessive gating region that leads to a higher probability of false alarm gating and measurement-to-track association errors. The Measurement Covariance Adaptive Extended Kalman Filter (MCAEKF) follows a similar covariance inflation strategy and suffers from similar problems. More recently, Tian and Bar-Shalom investigated the representation of the contact-lens like distribution of the precise range measurements by a Gaussian mixture. This technique increased the number of Gaussian components used to represent the contact-lens distribution until a consistency criterion dependent on the curvature of the distribution was reached. In this paper, the number of Gaussians needed to control the Kullback-Leibler (K-L) divergence of the mixture approximation from the true distribution is studied as a function of the curvature of the measurement distribution. Additionally, the track state estimate is also represented by a Gaussian mixture using an adaptive technique based on K-L divergence for selecting the number of Gaussians. This adaptive GM filter is then implemented and the results show that it produces track range estimates with error that is not degraded with respect to the accuracy of the input range measurements.
Evans' Index Revisited: The Need for an Alternative in Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus

BACKGROUND:The international guidelines for the diagnosis of normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) define ventricular enlargement as Evans' index greater than 0.3. OBJECTIVE:To establish whether there is a correlation between Evans' index and ventricular volume (VV) in NPH and whether choosing different planes for the measurements could produce significantly different results. METHODS:Pre–shunt insertion, thin-section CT scans of the brains of 10 patients with shunt-responsive NPH were reviewed retrospectively, measuring Evans' index, frontal horn index, VV, and total intracranial volume (ICV). The ventricular/intracranial volume index (VV/ICV) was calculated. Correlation between each of the linear indices and VV and VV/ICV was done. RESULTS:Significant differences were found in the index values calculated at different planes. The frontal horn index at a plane 16 mm parallel to the anterior commissure–posterior commissure (AC-PC) plane showed best correlation with VV and VV/ICV (r: 0.658 and 0.587, respectively). Evans' index, also obtained at a plane 16 mm parallel to the AC-PC plane, showed best correlation with VV and VV/ICV (r: 0.619 and 0.498, respectively). CONCLUSION:Evans' index value can vary significantly in a patient with NPH, depending on the level of the brain CT scan image at which the frontal horns and maximal inner skull diameters are measured. Evans' index is not an ideal method for estimating the VV in NPH patients. Volumetric measurements represent the logical accurate estimate of true ventricular size as well as the size of the other intracranial compartments.
Metagenomic Analysis of Viruses from Bat Fecal Samples Reveals Many Novel Viruses in Insectivorous Bats in China

ABSTRACT Increasing data indicate that bats harbor diverse viruses, some of which cause severe human diseases. In this study, sequence-independent amplification and high-throughput sequencing (Solexa) were applied to the metagenomic analysis of viruses in bat fecal samples collected from 6 locations in China. A total of 8,746,417 reads with a length of 306,124,595 bp were obtained. Among these reads, 13,541 (0.15%) had similarity to phage sequences and 9,170 (0.1%) had similarity to eukaryotic virus sequences. A total of 129 assembled contigs (>100 nucleotides) were constructed and compared with GenBank: 32 contigs were related to phages, and 97 were related to eukaryotic viruses. The most frequent reads and contigs related to eukaryotic viruses were homologous to densoviruses, dicistroviruses, coronaviruses, parvoviruses, and tobamoviruses, a range that includes viruses from invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants. Most of the contigs had low identities to known viral genomic or protein sequences, suggesting that a large number of novel and genetically diverse insect viruses as well as putative mammalian viruses are transmitted by bats in China. This study provides the first preliminary understanding of the virome of some bat populations in China, which may guide the discovery and isolation of novel viruses in the future.