Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regulation of Multiple Effectors by the Cloned δ‐Opioid Receptor: Stimulation of Phospholipase C and Type II Adenylyl Cyclase

Abstract: The δ‐opioid receptor is known to regulate multiple effectors in various tissues. When expressed in human embryonic kidney 293 cells, the cloned δ‐opioid receptor inhibited cyclic AMP (cAMP) accumulation in response to the δ‐selective agonist [d‐Pen2,d‐Pen5]enkephalin. The inhibitory response of [d‐Pen2,d‐Pen5]enkephalin was dependent on the expression of the δ‐opioid receptor and exhibited an EC50 of 1 nM. The receptor showed ligand selectivity and a pharmacological profile that is appropriate for the δ‐opioid subtype. The inhibition was blocked by the opiate antagonist naloxone or by pretreatment of the cells with pertussis toxin. Cotransfection of the δ‐opioid receptor with type II adenylyl cyclase and an activated mutant of αs converted the δ‐opioid signal from inhibition to stimulation of cAMP accumulation. It is interesting that when transfected into Ltk− fibroblasts, the cloned δ‐opioid receptor was able to stimulate the formation of inositol phosphates (EC50 = 8 nM). This response was sensitive to pertussis toxin. The opioid‐mediated formation of inositol phosphates exhibited the same ligand selectivity as seen with the inhibition of cAMP accumulation. The ability of the δ‐opioid receptor to couple to G proteins other than Gi was also examined. Cotransfection studies revealed that the δ‐opioid receptor can utilize Gz to regulate cAMP accumulation and to stimulate the formation of inositol phosphates.
Beneficial effect of rituximab in the treatment of recurrent idiopathic membranous nephropathy after kidney transplantation.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Recurrence of the original kidney disease after renal transplantation is an increasingly recognized cause of allograft loss. Idiopathic membranous nephropathy (iMN) is a common cause of proteinuria that may progress to ESRD. It is known that iMN may recur after kidney transplantation, causing proteinuria, allograft dysfunction, and allograft loss. Limited data regarding the frequency and treatment of recurrent iMN are available. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS In this single-center study, all patients who had iMN and were receiving a first kidney transplant were included. We retrospectively assessed the incidence of biopsy-confirmed recurrent iMN and compared clinical characteristics of patients with and without recurrence. In addition, the effect of treatment with rituximab on proteinuria and renal allograft function in patients with recurrent iMN was examined RESULTS The incidence of recurrent iMN was 44%, and recurrences occurred at a median time of 13.6 months after transplantation. Two patterns of recurrence were identified: Early and late. No predictors of recurrence or disease progression could be identified. Treatment with rituximab was effective in four of four patients in stabilizing or reducing proteinuria and stabilizing renal function. CONCLUSIONS Recurrence of iMN is common even in the era of modern immunosuppression. Rituximab seems to be a valuable treatment option for these patients, although lager studies are needed to confirm our data.
Knee Confidence as It Relates to Self-reported and Objective Correlates of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Cross-sectional Study of 220 Patients.

STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional study. OBJECTIVE The objective was to validate, if possible, previously reported associations and to investigate other potential associations between knee confidence and various self-reported and objective measures in an independent cohort of patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). BACKGROUND Lack of knee confidence is a frequent symptom in patients with knee OA, but little is known of associations between knee confidence and other common correlates of knee OA. METHODS Baseline data from 220 patients with knee OA were applied in ordinal regression analyses, with knee confidence, assessed using item Q3 of the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score, as the dependent variable and self-reported (pain on walking, general health, fear of movement, self-efficacy, function, and previous serious injury) and objective measures (muscle strength, 20-m walk time, and radiographic severity of tibiofemoral OA) as predictor variables. RESULTS Most (95%) of the participants reported lack of knee confidence, and 54% experienced severe or extreme lack of knee confidence. Fear of movement (odds ratio [OR] = 2.06; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.15, 3.68), pain on walking (OR = 1.21; 95% CI: 1.09, 1.34), and general health (OR = 0.024; 95% CI: 0.002, 0.259) explained 19% of the variance in knee confidence (P<.001). CONCLUSION Severe lack of knee confidence is a common finding in individuals with knee OA. Pain on walking was confirmed as a correlate of knee confidence, whereas muscle strength was not. Fear of movement and poor general health were new variables associated with lack of knee confidence. The noncorrelations or poor correlations with other tested variables suggest that a lack of knee confidence may represent an independent treatment target in knee OA of importance to improve mobility. Trials registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01410409 and NCT01535001).
Support for Policies Are Leftists More Emotion-Driven Than Rightists ? The Interactive Influence of Ideology and Emotions on

Although emotions and ideology are important factors guiding policy support in conflict, their interactive influence remains unclear. Based on prior findings that ideological leftists’ beliefs are more susceptible to change than rightists’ beliefs, we tested a somewhat counterintuitive extension that leftists would be more susceptible to influence by their emotional reactions than rightists. In three laboratory studies, inducing positive and negative emotions affected Jewish–Israeli leftists’, but not rightists’, support for conciliatory policies toward an adversarial (Studies 1 and 3) and a non-adversarial (Study 2) outgroup. Three additional field studies showed that positive and negative emotions were related to leftists’, but not rightists’, policy support in positive as well as highly negative conflict-related contexts, among both Jewish (Studies 4 and 5) and Palestinian (Study 6) citizens of Israel. Across different conflicts, emotions, conflict-related contexts, and even populations, leftists’ policy support changed in accordance with emotional reactions more than rightists’ policy support.
Approximate Likelihood for Large Irregularly Spaced Spatial Data

Likelihood approaches for large, irregularly spaced spatial datasets are often very difficult, if not infeasible, to implement due to computational limitations. Even when we can assume normality, exact calculations of the likelihood for a Gaussian spatial process observed at n locations requires O(n3) operations. We present a version of Whittle's approximation to the Gaussian log-likelihood for spatial regular lattices with missing values and for irregularly spaced datasets. This method requires O(nlog2n) operations and does not involve calculating determinants. We present simulations and theoretical results to show the benefits and the performance of the spatial likelihood approximation method presented here for spatial irregularly spaced datasets and lattices with missing values. We apply these methods to estimate the spatial structure of sea surface temperatures using satellite data with missing values.
Extracting Relevant Structures with Side Information

The problem of extracting the relevant aspects of data, in face of multiple conflicting structures, is inherent to modeling of complex data. Extracting structure in one random variable that is relevant for another variable has been principally addressed recently via the information bottleneck method [15]. However, such auxiliary variables often contain more information than is actually required due to structures that are irrelevant for the task. In many other cases it is in fact easier to specify what is irrelevant than what is, for the task at hand. Identifying the relevant structures, however, can thus be considerably improved by also minimizing the information about another, irrelevant, variable. In this paper we give a general formulation of this problem and derive its formal, as well as algorithmic, solution. Its operation is demonstrated in a synthetic example and in two real world problems in the context of text categorization and face images. While the original information bottleneck problem is related to rate distortion theory, with the distortion measure replaced by the relevant information, extracting relevant features while removing irrelevant ones is related to rate distortion with side information.
Navigating Virtual Reality by Thought: What Is It Like?

We have set up a brain-computer interface (BCI) to be used as an input device to a highly immersive virtual reality CAVE-like system. We have carried out two navigation experiments: three subjects were required to rotate in a virtual bar room by imagining left or right hand movement, and to walk along a single axis in a virtual street by imagining foot or hand movement. In this paper we focus on the subjective experience of navigating virtual reality by thought, and on the interrelations between BCI and presence.
Influence of Human Sera on the In Vitro Activity of the Echinocandin Caspofungin (MK-0991) against Aspergillus fumigatus

ABSTRACT There have been several reports that the activity of echinocandin antifungal agents is not affected or decreased in the presence of human sera. It is known that these drugs are bound >80% in animal and human sera. The activity of the echinocandin caspofungin (MK-0991), a 1,3-β-d-glucan synthase inhibitor, againstAspergillus fumigatus with and without human sera was studied. Conidia of A. fumigatus in microtest plate wells formed germlings after overnight culture in RPMI 1640. Caspofungin was then added with or without serum, and the germlings were incubated at 37°C for 24 h. Human serum (5%) in RPMI 1640 alone did not significantly inhibit the growth of A. fumigatus in vitro. Caspofungin in RPMI 1640 exhibited dose-dependent inhibition, with concentrations of 0.1 and 0.05 μg/ml inhibiting 24.9% +/− 10.4% and 11.7% +/− 3.6%, respectively (n = 10;P < 0.01). The addition of 5% human serum to caspofungin at 0.1 or 0.05 μg/ml increased the inhibition to 78.6% +/− 5.8% or 58.3% +/− 19.2%, respectively (n = 10; P < 0.01 versus controls and versus the drug without serum). Lower concentrations of serum also potentiated drug activity. The effect of human sera was further seen when using caspofungin that had lost activity (e.g., by storage) against A. fumigatus at 0.1 μg/ml. Inactive caspofungin alone demonstrated no significant inhibition of hyphal growth, whereas the addition of 5% human serum to the inactive drug showed 83% +/− 16.5% inhibition (n = 5; P < 0.01). The restoration of activity of caspofungin was seen at concentrations as low as 0.05% human serum. In contrast to prior reports, this study suggests that human serum acts synergistically with caspofungin to enhance its inhibitory activity in vitro against A. fumigatus.
Immunocytochemical localization of peptidylarginine deiminase in human eosinophils and neutrophils

Peptidylarginine deiminase, registered as PAD V in the DDBJ/GenBank/EMBL data banks, is expressed in HL‐60 cells differentiated into granulocytes or monocytes. We analyzed PAD activities in density‐fractionated human peripheral blood cell fractions. PAD activity with similar substrate specificity to that of PAD V was found in the eosinophil and neutrophil fractions, which showed single bands comigrating with authentic PAD V on immunoblotting with an anti‐PAD V antibody. Both the biochemical and immunoblotting analyses showed marked enrichment of PAD V in the eosinophil fraction. Its immunoreactivity appeared to localize in eosinophilic granules at high density and in myeloperoxidase‐negative cytoplasmic granules of neutrophils at low density, as determined by confocal laser‐scanning microscopy. Possible roles of PAD V in myeloid differentiation and granulocyte function are discussed. In addition, we present evidence for the presence of PAD(s) that are antigenically different from PAD V in monocytes and lymphocytes.
A Dual Three-Level Inverter-Based Open-End Winding Induction Motor Drive With Averaged Zero-Sequence Voltage Elimination and Neutral-Point Voltage Balance

Two three-level inverters driving an open-end winding induction motor can generate equivalent voltage waveforms as a single five-level inverter-based drive. In addition, it can bring in benefits such as reduced dc-link voltage, less number of devices, and fault-tolerant capability, which is favored in high-power motor drive applications. The main challenge with this type of configuration is the appearance of large zero-sequence current circulating between the two inverters, which generates extra losses in the switching devices and the motor as well as affects the normal operation of the machine. Another challenge is to balance the dc-link neutral point voltage of the two three-level inverters. This paper has proposed a simplified decoupled space-vector pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) strategy to eliminate the averaged zero-sequence voltage in each switching cycle by the placement of redundant vectors of each individual inverter using a time shift. Neutral point voltage balance is further achieved by adjusting the time duration of the redundant vectors. In this paper, it is shown that it is possible to operate this kind of drive configuration with a single dc power supply and achieve averaged zero-sequence voltage elimination and neutral-point voltage balancing at the same time. Experimental results of a 5.5-kW dual three-level inverter drive using the proposed PWM strategy are presented, which validates the control method and drive configuration.
Robustness and Adaptiveness Analysis of Future Fleets

Making decisions about the structure of a future military fleet is a challenging task. Several issues need to be considered such as the existence of multiple competing objectives and the complexity of the operating environment. A particular challenge is posed by the various types of uncertainty that the future might hold. It is uncertain what future events might be encountered; how fleet design decisions will influence and shape the future; and how present and future decision makers will act based on available information, their personal biases regarding the importance of different objectives, and their economic preferences. In order to assist strategic decision-making, an analysis of future fleet options needs to account for conditions in which these different classes of uncertainty are exposed. It is important to understand what assumptions a particular fleet is robust to, what the fleet can readily adapt to, and what conditions present clear risks to the fleet. We call this the analysis of a fleet's strategic positioning. This paper introduces how strategic positioning can be evaluated using computer simulations. Our main aim is to introduce a framework for capturing information that can be useful to a decision maker and for defining the concepts of robustness and adaptiveness in the context of future fleet design. We demonstrate our conceptual framework using simulation studies of an air transportation fleet. We capture uncertainty by employing an explorative scenario-based approach. Each scenario represents a sampling of different future conditions, different model assumptions, and different economic preferences. Proposed changes to a fleet are then analysed based on their influence on the fleet's robustness, adaptiveness, and risk to different scenarios.
Basis Adaptation for Sparse Nonlinear Reinforcement Learning

This paper presents a new approach to representation discovery in reinforcement learning (RL) using basis adaptation. We introduce a general framework for basis adaptation as {\em nonlinear separable least-squares value function approximation} based on finding Frechet gradients of an error function using variable projection functionals. We then present a scalable proximal gradient-based approach for basis adaptation using the recently proposed mirror-descent framework for RL. Unlike traditional temporal-difference (TD) methods for RL, mirror descent based RL methods undertake proximal gradient updates of weights in a dual space, which is linked together with the primal space using a Legendre transform involving the gradient of a strongly convex function. Mirror descent RL can be viewed as a proximal TD algorithm using Bregman divergence as the distance generating function. We present a new class of regularized proximal-gradient based TD methods, which combine feature selection through sparse L1 regularization and basis adaptation. Experimental results are provided to illustrate and validate the approach.
Pre-computation based selective probing (PCSP) scheme for distributed quality of service (QoS) routing with imprecise state information

We propose a new distributed QoS routing scheme called pre-computation based selective probing (PCSP). The PCSP scheme is designed to provide an exact solution to the constrained optimization problem with moderate overhead, considering the practical environment where the state information available for the routing decision is not exact. It does not limit the number of probe messages, instead, employs a qualitative (or conditional) selective probing approach. It considers both the cost and QoS metrics of the least-cost and the best-QoS paths to calculate the end-to-end cost of the found feasible paths and find QoS-satisfying least-cost paths. It defines strict probing condition that excludes not only the non-feasible paths but also the non-optimal paths. It additionally pre-computes the QoS variation taking into account the impreciseness of the state information and applies two modified QoS-satisfying conditions to the selection rules. This strict probing condition and carefully designed probing approaches enable to strictly limit the set of neighbor nodes involved in the probing process, thereby reducing the message overhead without sacrificing the optimal properties. However, the PCSP scheme may suffer from high message overhead due to its conservative search process in the worst case. In order to bound such message overhead, we extend the PCSP algorithm by applying additional quantitative heuristics. Computer simulations reveal that the PCSP scheme reduces message overhead and possesses ideal success ratio with guaranteed optimal search. In addition, the quantitative extensions of the PCSP scheme turn out to bound the worst-case message overhead with slight performance degradation.
High Genetic Variability of Herbivore-Induced Volatile Emission within a Broad Range of Maize Inbred Lines1

Maize plants (Zea mays) attacked by caterpillars release a mixture of odorous compounds that attract parasitic wasps, natural enemies of the herbivores. We assessed the genetic variability of these induced volatile emissions among 31 maize inbred lines representing a broad range of genetic diversity used by breeders in Europe and North America. Odors were collected from young plants that had been induced by injecting them with caterpillar regurgitant. Significant variation among lines was found for all 23 volatile compounds included in the analysis: the lines differed enormously in the total amount of volatiles emitted and showed highly variable odor profiles distinctive of each genotype. Principal component analysis performed on the relative quantities of particular compounds within the blend revealed clusters of highly correlated volatiles, which may share common metabolic pathways. European and American lines belonging to established heterotic groups were loosely separated from each other, with the most clear-cut difference in the typical release of (E)-β-caryophyllene by European lines. There was no correlation between the distances among the lines based on their odor profiles and their respective genetic distances previously assessed by neutral RFLP markers. This most comprehensive study to date on intraspecific variation in induced odor emission by maize plants provides a further example of the remarkably high genetic diversity conserved within this important crop plant. A better understanding of the genetic control of induced odor emissions may help in the development of maize varieties particularly attractive to parasitoids and other biological control agents and perhaps more repellent for herbivores.
Extracellular Matrix, a Hard Player in Angiogenesis

The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a complex network of proteins, glycoproteins, proteoglycans, and polysaccharides. Through multiple interactions with each other and the cell surface receptors, not only the ECM determines the physical and mechanical properties of the tissues, but also profoundly influences cell behavior and many physiological and pathological processes. One of the functions that have been extensively explored is its impingement on angiogenesis. The strong impact of the ECM in this context is both direct and indirect by virtue of its ability to interact and/or store several growth factors and cytokines. The aim of this review is to provide some examples of the complex molecular mechanisms that are elicited by these molecules in promoting or weakening the angiogenic processes. The scenario is intricate, since matrix remodeling often generates fragments displaying opposite effects compared to those exerted by the whole molecules. Thus, the balance will tilt towards angiogenesis or angiostasis depending on the relative expression of pro- or anti-angiogenetic molecules/fragments composing the matrix of a given tissue. One of the vital aspects of this field of research is that, for its endogenous nature, the ECM can be viewed as a reservoir to draw from for the development of new more efficacious therapies to treat angiogenesis-dependent pathologies.
Self-Stabilizing Leader Election Algorithm in Highly Dynamic Ad-hoc Mobile Networks

We propose a self-stabilizing leader election algorithm that can tolerate multiple concurrent topological changes. By introducing the time interval based computation concept, the algorithm ensures that a network partition within a finite time converge to a legitimate state even if topological changes occur during the convergence time. An ad hoc network is a collection of mobile nodes forming a temporary network without any form of centralized administration or predefined infrastructure. In such a network, each node participating in the network acts as both a host and a router. Two nodes can communicate if they are within the transmission range of each other. Due to node mobility, link breakages and link formations might occur frequently. The failure of some links considered as critical and can split up the network into several disjoint network components. In addition, multiple components can also merge into a single connected component. In this paper we have investigated the functional system with the proposed algorithm and how it monitors the mobile non static hosts and the transmission process between them.
Threat of future layoffs, self‐esteem, and survivors' reactions: Evidence from the laboratory and the field

Layoffs are a key aspect of many corporate restructurings, especially in declining organizations. The present studies sought to identify some of the factors that affect the impact of layoffs on the people who remain with the organization: the survivors. Consistent results emerged across laboratory and field settings: in response to the perceived threat of further layoffs, survivors low in trait self-esteem were more likely than their high self-esteem counterparts to: (1) feel worried, and (2) translate their feelings of worry into increased work motivation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.