Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Probing the salt dependence of the torsional stiffness of DNA by multiplexed magnetic torque tweezers

Abstract The mechanical properties of DNA fundamentally constrain and enable the storage and transmission of genetic information and its use in DNA nanotechnology. Many properties of DNA depend on the ionic environment due to its highly charged backbone. In particular, both theoretical analyses and direct single-molecule experiments have shown its bending stiffness to depend on salt concentration. In contrast, the salt-dependence of the twist stiffness of DNA is much less explored. Here, we employ optimized multiplexed magnetic torque tweezers to study the torsional stiffness of DNA under varying salt conditions as a function of stretching force. At low forces (<3 pN), the effective torsional stiffness is ∼10% smaller for high salt conditions (500 mM NaCl or 10 mM MgCl2) compared to lower salt concentrations (20 mM NaCl and 100 mM NaCl). These differences, however, can be accounted for by taking into account the known salt dependence of the bending stiffness. In addition, the measured high-force (6.5 pN) torsional stiffness values of C = 103 ± 4 nm are identical, within experimental errors, for all tested salt concentration, suggesting that the intrinsic torsional stiffness of DNA does not depend on salt.
Introduction Expression of Nestin and CD 133 in serous ovarian carcinoma

ers of cancer stem cells (CSCs) and related to poor prognosis in various cancer sites. Since few studies have focused on their role in ovarian cancer, we aimed to investigate their predictive value and association with neoangiogenesis. Methods: Immunohistochemical analysis for nestin and CD133 was performed on 85 serous ovarian carcinoma tumor samples using tissue microarray technique. Nestin immunoreactivity was detected in both tumor and endothelial cells, whilst CD133 was only identified in tumor cells. CD34 endothelial expression was used to assess intratumor microvessel density (MVD). Results: Of the tissue samples 49.4% were nestin-positive and 24.7% were positive for CD133. In both univariate and multivariate analysis nestin or CD133 expressions in tumor cells were not significantly associated with clinicopathological parameters (age, serum CA125, peritoneal carcinomatosis, malignant ascites, tumor grade). However, in multivariate analysis nestin expression in tumor cells proved to be an independent prognostic factor, associated with poorer survival and time to progression (p=0.025 and p=0.05, respectively). This has not been achieved for CD133. Furthermore, a significant concordance between nestin endothelial expression (nestin-determined MVD) and CD34-determined MVD was achieved. Conclusion: In addition to the well-known clinicopathological characteristics, tumor expression of nestin might be a valuable prognostic factor for survival in patients with advanced ovarian cancer. With regard to its endothelial expression, nestin might be as reliable as CD34 for quantifying tumor angiogenesis. Further investigation is justified in order to better clarify the role of these biomarkers.
Unreliability of the dot probe task

The dot probe task is a widely used measure of attention allocation to threatening stimuli. The present two studies examine the reliability of different versions of this task using words as well as pictures as stimulus material. Estimates of both internal consistency and retest reliability over one week lead to the conclusion that the dot probe task is a completely unreliable measure of attentional allocation in non‐clinical samples. This unreliability may explain the inconsistent findings for the dot probe task as reported in the literature. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Function of Avoidance in Improving the Understanding of Disaster Recovery

Functional avoidance as an intermittent coping mechanism is a necessary component in disaster recovery. By temporarily avoiding losses after disaster, survivors can secure basic needs and begin rebuilding. It is not until recovery projects are completed that mental health outcomes become apparent. Many individuals begin a healthy grieving process; however, for others, where avoidance extends past the completion of normalizing tasks it becomes pathological. This study presents the concept of functional avoidance and investigates the point at which it becomes dysfunctional using case examples and data from a mental health clinic. Findings suggest increased emotional distress, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder over 3 years after Hurricane Katrina.
Randomised controlled trials of physical activity promotion in free living populations: a review.

OBJECTIVES--To review evidence on the effectiveness of trials of physical activity promotion in healthy, free living adults. To identify the more effective intervention programmes. METHODS--Computerised databases and references were searched. Experts were contacted and asked for information about existing work. INCLUSION CRITERIA--Randomised controlled trials of healthy, free living adult subjects, where exercise behaviour was the dependent variable were included. CONCLUSIONS--Ten trials were identified. The small number of trials limits the strength of any conclusions and highlights the need for more research. No UK based studies were found. Previously sedentary adults can increase activity levels and sustain them. Promotion of these changes requires personal instruction, continued support, and exercise of moderate intensity which does not depend on attendance at a facility. The exercise should be easily included into an existing lifestyle and should be enjoyable. Walking is the exercise most likely to fulfil these criteria.
Steady state power flow control of two-terminal electromagnetic loop network

In the era of smart grid, the demand for power system security is further urgent. Two-terminal electromagnetic loop networks (two-terminal EMLNs) are pervasive in power networks. Their potential hazard threatens the safety of both power network and users. Due to the influence of the power flow on the high voltage side of the EMLN, the power flow on the low voltage side tends to operate at a critical condition. Therefore, an effective method of controlling the power flow on the low voltage side of the two-terminal EMLN is very important. This paper establishes the steady state model of the low voltage side network of the two-terminal EMLN, and then extracts the current components from each branch current. These current components depend on special factors. Next, the partial differential coefficients of the current components with respect to the control measures are derived, and the steady state control method based on the current components is proposed. Accordingly, the two-terminal EMLN with a proper control method can avoid the excessive power flow effectively and can maintain satisfactory operating conditions.
A new magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent loaded into poly(lacide-co-glycolide) nanoparticles for long-term detection of tumors

The incorporation of a lipophilic Gd chelate (GdDO3A-C12) in biocompatible PLGA poly(D, L-lactide-co-glycolide) nanoparticles was explored as an approach to increase the relaxivity of contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging. By nanoprecipitation, it was possible to obtain PEGylated gadolinium nanoparticles (mean diameter of 155 nm) with high Gd loading (1.1 × 104 Gd centers per nanoparticle). The corresponding GdDO3AC12 ⊂ NPs nanoparticles exhibited an enhanced relaxivity (up to sixfold greater than DOTAREM® at 40 MHz) because the nanoparticle framework constrained the lipophilic Gd chelate motion and favorably impacted the Gd chelate rotational correlation time. T1-weighted imaging at 3 T on phantoms showed enhanced contrast for the GdDO3AC12 ⊂ NPs. Importantly, Gd chelate leakage was almost nonexistent, which suggested that these GdDO3AC12 ⊂ NPs could be useful for long-term MRI detection.
Language Impairments in Children With ADHD and in Children With Reading Disorder

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate language impairments (LI) in a nonclinical sample of children with ADHD, reading disorder (RD), and ADHD + RD, and to explore whether these groups could be differentiated from each other and a control group regarding different aspects of language. Method: The groups were derived from a population-based sample of 5,672 children, 7 to 9 years. Language problems and the groups were defined from parent/teacher reports. Results: LI was identified in the majority within the ADHD + RD group and in >40% of the ADHD and RD group. More phonological and expressive language problems were seen in the RD than the ADHD group, while receptive language problems were more prominent in ADHD. More pragmatic problems were identified in the ADHD group. Conclusion: The present results support findings from clinical samples pointing to a considerable rate of LI both in children with ADHD and in children with RD.
G protein‐mediated inhibitory effect of a nitric oxide donor on the L‐type Ca2+ current in rat ventricular myocytes

1 The role of the cGMP pathway in the modulation of the cardiac L‐type Ca2+ current (ICa,L) by nitric oxide (NO) was examined in rat ventricular myocytes. 2 The NO donors DEANO, SIN‐1, SNP, SNAP and GSNO had no significant effects on basal ICa,L. However, DEANO (100 μM) inhibited ICa,L after the current had been previously stimulated by either isoprenaline (Iso, 1‐10 nM), a β‐adrenergic agonist, or isobutylmethyl‐xanthine (IBMX, 10‐80 μM), a wide spectrum phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibitor. 3 The anti‐adrenergic effect of DEANO on ICa,L was not mimicked by other NO donors (SIN‐1, SNAP and SPNO). 4 The NO‐sensitive guanylyl cyclase inhibitor ODQ (10 μM), antagonized the inhibitory effect of DEANO on ICa,L. Likewise, inhibitors of the cGMP‐dependent protein kinase (cG‐PK), Rp‐8‐chloro‐phenylthio‐cGMP (10 μM) and KT5823 (0.1 and 0.3 μM), also abolished the inhibitory effect of DEANO on Iso (1‐10 nM)‐stimulated ICa,L. 5 Intracellular dialysis with exogenous cAMP (10‐100 μM) blunted the inhibitory effect of DEANO (10 and 100 μM) on ICa,L. SNAP and SNP also had no effect on the cAMP‐stimulated ICa,L. 6 Pre‐treatment of the myocytes with pertussis toxin (0.5 μg ml−1, 4‐6 h at 37 °C) eliminated the inhibitory effect of DEANO (100 μM) on ICa,L, in the presence of either Iso (0.01 and 1 nM) or IBMX (10‐80 μM). 7 These results demonstrate that DEANO produces anti‐adrenergic effects in rat ventricular myocytes. This effect of DEANO occurs in a cGMP‐dependent manner, and involves activation of cG‐PK and regulation of a pertussis toxin‐sensitive G protein.
Becoming Teacher: Student teaching as identity construction

This article presents an autobiographical qualitative study. A former elementary school teacher describes how her work as a university supervisor gave her an opportunity to examine her own construction of self as a teacher and teacher educator during two semesters of undergraduate student teaching. Research related to teacher individualism and isolation provides a lens through which to explore socialization experiences of both the author and her students. The analysis finds that some programs and schools do not allow for or value the critical dialogue and narrative discourse essential for the formation of the self. The author makes several suggestions for teacher education programs which will help prepare teachers to take advantage of agentive moments, creating spaces for discourse and collaboration.
Autofluorescence imaging of choroidal neovascularization due to age-related macular degeneration.

OBJECTIVE To describe the autofluorescence (AF) characteristics of choroidal neovascularization (CNV) in patients with age-related macular degeneration. METHODS Autofluorescence images of 65 consecutive eyes with CNV at various stages of evolution were analyzed. Twenty images were of recent-onset CNV (group 1), 8 were of eyes 1 to 6 months after CNV diagnosis (group 2), and 37 were late-stage CNV (group 3). Autofluorescence images from groups 1 and 2 were compared with fundus fluorescein angiographic images. RESULTS Group 1 showed areas of hyperfluorescence on fundus fluorescein angiography corresponding to areas of normal AF in 16 of 20 cases, with adjacent areas of increased AF in 13 cases. The main areas of abnormal AF were larger than the main areas of abnormal fluorescence on fundus fluorescein angiography in 18 of the 20 cases. Groups 2 and 3 showed areas of decreased AF corresponding to areas of previous leakage on fundus fluorescein angiography (in group 2) or atrophy. CONCLUSIONS Preserved AF in group 1 indicates viable retinal pigment epithelium initially, which has implications for visual prognosis. Decreased AF in groups 2 and 3 indicates loss of retinal pigment epithelium and photoreceptors. Autofluorescence imaging may increase our understanding of CNV in age-related macular degeneration.
Ethical Considerations in Geographic Research: What Especially Graduate Students Need to Know

The topic of research ethics is assuming an increasingly more central role when preparing research proposals, with Institutional Review Boards being instructed to oversee more and more research activities. Graduate students, especially, should be educated about ethical and unethical research practices, for they will be taking over the research enterprise in the not-too-distant future. An ethics benchmark is outlined, and numerous research examples involving the themes of plagiarism, deception, fraud, confidentiality, and informed consent are discussed here. This narrative emphasizes that the canons of good scholarship require research and data collection for research to be conducted in an ethical fashion.
Power Efficient Partial Repeated Cooperation Scheme with Regular LDPC Code

The partially repeated cooperation system employing Low Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes achieves space diversity and extra coding gain at the same time. This paper focuses on the power constrained system, in which the total power of the source node and the relay node remains constant. Thus different power allocation schemes result in different repetition lengths at the relay node, and it is interesting to determine the optimal in terms of performance. A modified Gaussian Approximation algorithm is proposed to search for the feasible decoding threshold of the partially repeated regular LDPC codes, with which the outage probability is obtained and used to show the power efficiency of different power allocation schemes. The numerical results show that the partially repeated scheme can achieve a higher power efficiency than the all repeated one. However, the efficiency of the power allocation scheme strongly depends on the channel realizations of the system.
Modelling and control of robotic joints based on sliding pairs

In this paper, the investigation on the friction phenomena acting at joint level in the robotic hand developed within the DEXMART project is reported. This side effect is given by the adoption of joints based on sliding pairs to reduce the complexity of the mechanism and to ease the assembly procedure. The joint friction has been modelled by means of a specialised version of the LuGre friction model in which the friction coefficients vary with the normal force. The estimated friction has been used in the joint position control loop as a feed-forward term for reducing the position error, as shown by experimental results. The developed friction model has been also used in the experiment to reconstruct the effects of the contact force applied to the joint by the external environment by means of a suitable observer.
Antibiotic prophylaxis for mammalian bites.

BACKGROUND Bites by mammals are a common problem and they account for up to 1% of all visits to hospital emergency rooms. Dog and cat bites are the most common and people are usually bitten by their own pets or by an animal known to them. School-age children make up almost a half of those bitten. Prevention of tetanus, rabies and wound infection are the priorities for staff in emergency rooms. The use of antibiotics may be useful to reduce the risk of developing a wound infection. OBJECTIVES To determine if the use of prophylactic antibiotics in mammalian bites is effective in preventing bite wound infection. SEARCH STRATEGY Relevant RCTs were identified by electronic searches of MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS and the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register databases in November 2000. SELECTION CRITERIA We included randomised controlled trials which studied patients with bites from all mammals. Comparisons were made between antibiotics and placebo or no intervention. The outcome of interest was the number of infections at the site of bite. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Two reviewers extracted the data independently. All analyses were performed according to the intention-to-treat method. MAIN RESULTS Eight studies were included. The use of prophylactic antibiotics was associated with a statistically significant reduction in the rate of infection after bites by humans. Prophylactic antibiotics did not appear to reduce the rate of infection after bites by cats or dogs. Wound type, e.g. laceration or puncture, did not appear to influence the effectiveness of the prophylactic antibiotic. Prophylactic antibiotics were associated with a statistically significant reduction in the rate of infection in hand bites (OR 0.10, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.86; NNT = 4, 95% CI 2 to 50). REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS There is evidence from one trial that prophylactic antibiotics reduces the risk of infection after human bites but confirmatory research is required. There is no evidence that the use of prophylactic antibiotics is effective for cat or dog bites. There is evidence that the use of antibiotic prophylactic after bites of the hand reduces infection but confirmatory research is required.
On the design of selective coefficient DCT module

An innovative selective coefficient discrete cosine transform (SCDCT) architecture is proposed which is designed for selective coefficient computation and straightforward row-column computation. Having these features, the selective coefficient DCT core will fit for various area/speed requirements. It can save the transposition delay to simplify the computation flow of two-dimensional (2-D) DCT and, in view of circuit implementation, SCDCT is multiply-free and thus area/speed efficient.
A study on active power and frequency response in microgrid

This paper considers a multiple-DG microgrid connected to the main grid at a point of common coupling (PCC) via a static switch. The DGs in the microgrid can be connected in series and parallel as well. Each DG can also be operated in unit power control (UPC) mode or feeder flow control (FFC) mode. In this paper the active power and frequency response in the microgrid with respect to different configurations (parallel/series) and different control modes (UPC/FFC) is investigated. Four possible cases are considered: case 1) Series-FFC configuration: the DGs are connected in series and the DGs' control modes are FFC; case 2) Series-UPC configuration: the DGs are connected in series and DGs' control modes are UPC; case 3) Parallel-UPC configuration: the DGs are connected in parallel and DGs' control mode are UPC; case 4) Parallel-FFC configuration: the DGs are connected in parallel and DGs' control modes are UPC. According to the analysis, a comparison between the four configurations is presented, advantages and disadvantages of each configuration is then achieved.
What works for delinquency? The effectiveness of interventions for teenage offending behaviour

Over the past 20 years there has been an increase in research into the causes of delinquency and the outcomes of different forms of intervention. In this article the recent criminological and psychiatric outcome literature is reviewed. In contrast with other reviews, its focus is on psychosocial interventions for delinquency in addition to responses by the youth justice system. Computer and hand searches of the criminological and psychiatric literature were carried out to find studies of the effectiveness of interventions for delinquency. Studies were included that met minimal research criteria, usually in the form of a comparison or control condition and sample sizes large enough to achieve statistical significance. The findings of recent reviews and meta-analytic studies into the effectiveness of interventions are analysed and the most significant individual studies are described and evaluated. The results are summarized and discussed with a view to their implications for research and practice.
Correctional outcomes of offenders with mental disorders

While there is now a considerable literature on the extent of mental disorder (MD) within correctional settings, there is much less research on the correctional outcomes of offenders with a mental disorder (OMDs). This study contributes to that knowledge base by comparing the profiles and institutional and community outcomes of federally-sentenced Canadian offenders with, and without, a MD and examines the correctional response to their management. Results showed that OMDs had higher risk and need ratings and were more likely to be serving their current sentence for a violent offense. Outcomes for OMDs were poorer as reflected by higher rates of institutional charges and transfers to segregation, and higher rates of recidivism on release. This difference holds for the recidivism analysis, even when variables related to risk are controlled. The results demonstrate the complex needs of OMDs and points to the requirement for correctional agencies to provide specialized interventions that address both their mental health and criminogenic needs. Future research is required to examine whether type of diagnosis, particularly the degree of antisocial orientation, contribute to these poorer outcomes.
LMO2-Associated Clonal T Cell Proliferation in Two Patients after Gene Therapy for SCID-X1

We have previously shown correction of X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency [SCID-X1, also known as γ chain (γc) deficiency] in 9 out of 10 patients by retrovirus-mediated γc gene transfer into autologous CD34 bone marrow cells. However, almost 3 years after gene therapy, uncontrolled exponential clonal proliferation of mature T cells (with γδ+ or αβ+ T cell receptors) has occurred in the two youngest patients. Both patients' clones showed retrovirus vector integration in proximity to the LMO2 proto-oncogene promoter, leading to aberrant transcription and expression of LMO2. Thus, retrovirus vector insertion can trigger deregulated premalignant cell proliferation with unexpected frequency, most likely driven by retrovirus enhancer activity on the LMO2 gene promoter.