Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pituitary adenylate cyclase activating peptide and its receptors are expressed in human neuroblastomas

Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) has been considered as an autocrine growth factor in neuroblastomas. Pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptides (PA‐CAPs) are newly recognized members of the VIP family of neurohormones. As compared to VIP, PACAP has been reported to be biologically more potent and more efficient in tissues expressing selective PACAP receptors rather than common VIP/PACAP receptors. PACAPs and VIP interact with the same affinity and stimulate adenylate cyclase activity with the same efficacy and potency on the VIP receptors, but PACAPs act also on a more selective PACAP receptor that also recognizes VIP but with a 100‐ to 1,000‐fold lower affinity. Thus, depending on the type of receptors expressed at a cell surface, PACAP may be more potent and efficient than VIP. The capacity of 22 surgical specimens of neuroblastomas and of 5 established cell lines to synthesize PACAP and VIP and to synthesize and express PACAP receptors and VIP receptors was studied. Using the reverse transcriptase‐polymerase chain (RT‐PCR) method with specific primers, we detected the mRNAs coding for PACAP and VIP in 19 and 3 out of 22 samples, respectively. PACAP mRNA was expressed in 3 of the 5 cell lines studied and VIP mRNA in 4. Using the same techniques, PACAP and VIP receptors mRNA were detected in 21, and 13 of the 22 tumor samples and in 5 and 1 of the cell lines studied, respectively. The expression of the PACAP receptor was demonstrated by direct binding studies and/or by the relative potency of PACAPs and VIP to stimulate adenylate cyclase activity in 16 of the 22 tumors and in all the cell lines. In addition, there was no correlation between tumor stage and the expression of mRNA coding for the peptides and the receptors. The present results demonstrated that PACAP could also be a candidate as an autocrine regulator of neuroblastoma which a higher activity than VIP. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Simultaneous determination of indinavir, ritonavir and saquinavir in plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Antiretroviral regimens consisting of a combination of protease inhibitors have been shown to be highly potent for the treatment of HIV infection. Therapeutic drug monitoring may ensure optimal drug levels to improve efficacy and minimize side effects. The purpose of this study was to establish a method for simultaneous determination of plasma concentrations of indinavir (IDV), ritonavir (RTV) and saquinavir (SQV) by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in a single run. METHODS A C(18) column and an ultraviolet detector set at 215 nm were used in the HPLC. The mobile phase consisted of phosphate buffer (50 mM, pH 5.6) and acetonitrile (55:45, v/v), and the flow rate was 1.5 mL/min. Plasma sample (0.5 mL) containing IDV, RTV, and SQV was alkalinized with ammonia water (10%) and propylparaben added as an internal standard (IS), which was then extracted with methyl tert. -butyl ether. The organic layer was taken and evaporated to dryness. The residue was dissolved in the mobile phase, and the solution was washed with n-hexane followed by HPLC analysis. RESULTS The calibration curves were linear for each of the 3 drugs in the studied concentration range (0.1 to 5 microg/mL). The extraction recoveries were greater than 90%. One HPLC run takes less than 15 minutes. Analysis of plasma samples of patients treated with combinations of these drugs demonstrated that the calibration curves covered the clinical concentration range. CONCLUSIONS This study established a simple and accurate method for simultaneous determination of IDV, RTV, and SQV in plasma by isocratic HPLC. The method is practical for therapeutic drug monitoring.
Cost-benefit analysis of community-based marine protected areas: five case studies in Vanuatu.

Community-based marine protected areas (MPAs) have experienced impressive development over the last decade (Aalbersberg et al. 2005). They usually form part of a larger management scheme referred to as a marine managed area (MMA), and more than 550 documented MMAs now exist in the Pacific (Govan 2009). Management is carried out primarily by the community through relevant user groups, and involves local and national institutions and private stakeholders.
EVALUATION OF ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF LEONURUS CARDIACA HERB IN PICROTOXIN INDUCED CONVULSION IN MICE

INTRODUCTION Epilepsy is one of the most common serious disorders of the brain, affecting 0.4-0.8% of the population and up to 50 million people worldwide, whereas affecting 0.5-1.0 % of population and may be 5 10 million people in India accounting for almost one fifth of the global figure. Epilepsy accounts for 1% of the global burden of disease and among primary the primary disorders of the brain this burden rank with depression and other affective disorders , Alzheimers disease and other dementias , and substances abuse among all medical conditions, it rank with the breast cancer in women and lung cancer in men. Eighty percent of the burden of epilepsy is in the developing world. Worldwide mortality among people with epilepsy is two to three time higher than in general population [2]. Epilepsy and Oxidative stress The excessive production of free radicals in the human body is involved in the pathogenesis of epilepsy. The most important effect of free radicals is lipid peroxidation, which causes disruption of cell membrane thereby leading to their destruction. The mechanisms of epilepsy are not fully understood. However, numerous reports are available concerning free radicals in relation to changes in the epileptic rat brain. Oxidative stress in the central nervous system has been shown in several rodent models of experimental epilepsy, such as the amygdale kindling model, the kainic acid model, the PCT kindling model, and in acute PCT induced seizures [4]. Seizures can increase the content of reactive oxygen species and
Omega 3 fatty acid for the prevention of dementia.

BACKGROUND Accruing evidence from observational and epidemiological studies suggests an inverse relationship between dietary intake of omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) and risk of dementia. Postulated mechanisms that might qualify omega 3 PUFA as an interventional target for the primary prevention of dementia include its anti-atherogenic, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-amyloid and neuroprotective properties. OBJECTIVES To review the evidence that omega 3 PUFA supplementation prevents cognitive impairment and dementia in cognitively intact elderly persons. SEARCH STRATEGY The Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group's (CDCIG) Specialized register, MEDLINE, EMBASE,CINAHL PsycINFO, AMED AND CENTRAL and several ongoing trials databases were searched on 5 and 6 October 2005. The CDCIG Register is updated regularly and contains records from all major medical databases and many ongoing trials databases. SELECTION CRITERIA In order to be selected, trials needed to be randomized, placebo-controlled, doubled blinded, of minimum study duration of 6 months, involved persons aged 60 years and above without pre-existing dementia at study onset, and employed cognitive endpoints. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Reviewers, working independently, were to select, quality assess and extract relevant data where appropriate and possible. In comparing intervention with placebo, the pooled odds ratios or weighted mean differences and standardized mean difference were to be estimated. MAIN RESULTS There were no randomized trials found in the search that met the selection criteria. Results of two clinical trials are expected in 2008. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS There is a growing body of evidence from biological, observational and epidemiological studies that suggests a protective effect of omega 3 PUFA against dementia. However, until data from randomized trials become available for analysis, there is no good evidence to support the use of dietary or supplemental omega 3 PUFA for the prevention of cognitive impairment or dementia.
Numerical calculation of current through grading electrodes in inner cooling circuit of HV converter valve

Inorganic sediments deposited on the pin-type grading electrodes in the inner cooling water circuits would affect the normal operation of high voltage (HV) converter valves, which may be caused by the current through the grading electrodes. The distributions of the current through the electrodes in two different converter valves are calculated using the finite element method (FEM) software in this paper. The relationship between the thickness of the sediment on the grading electrodes and the DC current through the electrodes is analyzed. The distributions of current density on the electrodes are compared with the morphology of deposited sediments on the corresponding electrodes. The leakage current through the aluminum radiators from the distributed water circuit is calculated. The results indicate that the sediment deposition is mainly caused by the DC current through the pin-type grading electrode. The sediment thickness has a positive correlation with the magnitude of the DC current. The leakage current through the radiators from distributed water circuit may cause electrochemical corrosion which could generate the source of the sediments.
Highly-Selective Tunable Bandpass Filter With Two-Path Mixed Coupling

This letter proposes a two-path mixed coupling tunable bandpass filter with constant bandwidth. This compact configuration can achieve little bandwidth variation in a large tuning range. Presented with the equivalent circuit of the coupling structure, the analytical formulas of the two-path mixed coupling structure are derived to determine the initial dimensions of the resonator quickly. Furthermore, to enhance the selectivity and the out-of-band rejection, additional resonance circuit is introduced in the I/O structure to generate multiple adjustable transmission zeros. For verification, a tunable filter covering the frequency band of 0.78-1.35 GHz is implemented and measured. The filter has a 3 dB bandwidth variation of only 5.8% in the tuning range of 54.2%, an insertion loss of 1.68-2.9 dB and measured BW10 dB/BW3 dB 1.74 throughout. The experimental results are in good agreement with theory and simulations.
Refractive index measurement for biomaterial samples by total internal reflection

The refractive index of biological tissue is a fundamental parameter in applications of optical diagnosis and laser treatments. In the present work, the refractive indices and thermo-optic coefficients of some basic biomaterials, such as blood plasma, haemoglobin solution and lipid membrane, were studied by the method of total internal reflection at the wavelengths of 532 and 632.8 nm that are the most frequently used laser wavelengths in the biomedical field. The effects of the sample concentration and the temperature on refractive index were measured, and empirical relationships were summarized, accompanied by a theoretical explanation based on molecular polarization theory. The results provide some fundamental data for the refractive indices of these biomaterials under variant conditions, and also demonstrate that the total internal reflection method is a feasible and reliable way to measure the refractive indices of biological samples.
Blunted neural response to anticipation, effort and consummation of reward and aversion in adolescents with depression symptomatology

Neural reward function has been proposed as a possible biomarker for depression. However, how the neural response to reward and aversion might differ in young adolescents with current symptoms of depression is as yet unclear. Thirty-three adolescents were recruited, 17 scoring low on the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (low risk group) and 16 scoring high (high risk group). Our functional magnetic resonance imaging task measured; anticipation (pleasant/unpleasant cue), effort (achieve a pleasant taste or avoid an unpleasant taste) and consummation (pleasant/unpleasant tastes) in regions of interest; ventral medial prefrontal cortex, pregenual cingulate cortex, the insula and ventral striatum. We also examined whole brain group differences. In the regions of interest analysis we found reduced activity in the high risk group in the pregenual cingulate cortex during anticipation and reduced pregenual cingulate cortex and ventral medial prefrontal cortex during effort and consummation. In the whole brain analysis we also found reduced activity in the high risk group in the prefrontal cortex and the precuneus during anticipation. We found reduced activity in the hippocampus during the effort phase and in the anterior cingulate/frontal pole during consummation in the high risk group. Increased anhedonia measures correlated with decreased pregenual cingulate cortex activity during consummation in the high risk group only. Our results are the first to show that adolescents with depression symptoms have blunted neural responses during the anticipation, effort and consummation of rewarding and aversive stimuli. This study suggests that interventions in young people at risk of depression, that can reverse blunted responses, might be beneficial as preventative strategies.
Employment of Kernel Methods on Wind Turbine Power Performance Assessment

A power performance assessment technique is developed for the detection of power production discrepancies in wind turbines. The method employs a widely used nonparametric pattern recognition technique, the kernel methods. The evaluation is based on the trending of an extracted feature from the kernel matrix, called similarity index, which is introduced by the authors for the first time. The operation of the turbine and consequently the computation of the similarity indexes is classified into five power bins offering better resolution and thus more consistent root cause analysis. The accurate and proper detection of power production changes is demonstrated in cases of icing, power derating, operation under noise reduction mode, and incorrect controller input signal. Finally, overviews are illustrated for parks subjected to icing and operating under limited rotational speed. The comparison between multiple adjacent turbines contributes further to the correct evaluation of the park overall performance.
Structure of Microcin B-Like Compounds Produced by Pseudomonas syringae and Species Specificity of Their Antibacterial Action

ABSTRACT Escherichia coli microcin B (Ec-McB) is a posttranslationally modified antibacterial peptide containing multiple oxazole and thiazole heterocycles and targeting the DNA gyrase. We have found operons homologous to the Ec-McB biosynthesis-immunity operon mcb in recently sequenced genomes of several pathovars of the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae, and we produced two variants of P. syringae microcin B (Ps-McB) in E. coli by heterologous expression. Like Ec-McB, both versions of Ps-McB target the DNA gyrase, but unlike Ec-McB, they are active against various species of the Pseudomonas genus, including human pathogen P. aeruginosa. Through analysis of Ec-McB/Ps-McB chimeras, we demonstrate that three centrally located unmodified amino acids of Ps-McB are sufficient to determine activity against Pseudomonas, likely by allowing specific recognition by a transport system that remains to be identified. The results open the way for construction of McB-based antibacterial molecules with extended spectra of biological activity.
Prevalence of dental caries and fluoride concentration of drinking water: A systematic review

Background: The objective of this study was to systematically review prevalence of dental caries at different water fluoride levels and emphasize fluoride concentration of drinking water and prevalence of dental caries. Materials and Methods: A comprehensive study was conducted using PubMed database. Inclusion criteria were predefined and some articles fulfilled these criteria. Study validity was assessed by some checklists. Surveys were conducted to determine prevalence of dental caries among individuals. Results: The heterogeneity in the group of children with deciduous teeth in terms of the amount of fluoride in drinking water and social class was significant, and the results of the studies in all the subgroups could not be pooled. However, the heterogeneity of group 2 for subjects with permanent teeth in terms of the fluoride level in drinking water and social class was not significant, and the results of the studies in each subgroup could be pooled together. Conclusion: The meta-regression showed that tooth type and social class had a significant association with the difference in the prevalence of dental caries. Therefore, these variables were the sources of heterogeneity, and the studies must be grouped and subgrouped based on these variables.
Advances in Organic Materials for Optical Modulation

Theory-inspired design of organic electro-optic materials is explored for three classes of materials: (1) chromophore/polymer composites; (2) chromophores covalently incorporated into polymers, dendrimers, and dendronized polymers; and (3) chromophores doped into chromophore-containing host materials. Correlated quantum/statistical mechanical calculations are used to quantitatively simulate electro-optic activity for a variety of materials falling into these three classes, elucidating the dependence of electro-optic activity on chromophore dipole moment, chromophore shape, covalent bond potentials, and dielectric permittivity. The practical consequence has been the production of materials exhibiting femtosecond response electro-optic activity approaching 600 pm/V at telecommunication wavelengths. Theory also provides insight into minimizing optical loss and maximizing stability.
Acquisition and reversal of orienting responses to word signals.

Acquisition, reversal, adaptation and inhibition of the orienting response were investigated in a mentally retarded sample and its CA and MA matched normal groups. GSR frequency, magnitude and latency were used as indices of the OR. The retarded subjects maintained and modified their ORs as efficiently as the normals during acquisition and reversal. OR decrements to non-signals and to former signals were distinguished as adaptation v. inhibition.
A Survey on Quasi-Likelihood Estimation Approaches for Longitudinal Set-ups

The Com-Poisson (CMP) model is one of the most popular discrete generalized linear models (GLMS) that handles both equi-, overand under-dispersed data. In longitudinal context, an integer-valued autoregressive (INAR(1)) process that incorporates covariate specification has been developed to model longitudinal CMP counts. However, the joint likelihood CMP function is difficult to specify and thus restricts the likelihood-based estimating methodology. The joint generalized quasi-likelihood approach (GQL-I) was instead considered but is rather computationally intensive and may not even estimate the regression effects due to a complex and frequently ill-conditioned covariance structure. This paper proposes a new GQL approach for estimating the regression parameters (GQL-III) that is based on a single score vector representation. The performance of GQL-III is compared with GQL-I and separate marginal GQLs (GQL-II) through some simulation experiments and is proved to yield equally efficient estimates as GQL-I and is far more computationally stable. Keywords—Longitudinal, Com-Poisson, Ill-conditioned, INAR(1), GLMS, GQL.
A Comparison of DNA and immunoblot fingerprinting of the SII biotype of coagulase negative staphylococci

SUMMARY Thirty-eight isolates of the SII biotype of coagulase negative staphylococci were examined by phage typing, antibiograms, DNA and immunoblot fingerprinting. Multiple isolates were available from 5 patients with clinically proven infections and from 12 further patients who were epidemiologically distinct. Only 3 of the isolates were phage typable and antibiograms produced only 9 types. All isolates were typable by both DNA and immunoblot fingerprinting and reproducibility was excellent provided the conditions were standardized. Discrimination was better with immunoblot fingerprinting (17 types) than DNA fingerprinting (11 types). Both techniques were successful in assessing the significance of multiple isolates from a single patient.
Multispike train analysis

Multispike trains are encountered often, either purposely or inadvertently, when one records from neural populations. This paper focuses on techniques for detecting and identifying the spikes in multispike trains. Relatively simple methods are briefly reviewed. Most of these require a high signal-to-noise ratio. A method based on signal detection by template matching, which works well with relativeiy small spikes, is described in detail. Use of this technique is illustrated by an investigation of the biophysical aspects of extracellular recording in sensory cortex. A further application is the analysis of multi-unit records to display relationships between two or three neurons recorded simultaneously.
Decentralized relay selection in two-user multihop decode-and-forward relay networks

In this paper, we analyze the outage and diversity performance of a low-complexity relay selection routing algorithm which applies to large-scale distributed decode-and-forward relay networks with two source-destination user pairs. We analyze a suboptimal decentralized relay selection (DRS) strategy that only utilizes local channel state information of the relays within a given hop, to select distinct multihop paths for each user pair. Specifically, we derive exact closed-form expressions for the outage probability and diversity order of the DRS algorithm which prove that the full diversity order is achieved with complexity that is quadratic with the number of relays in each hop. Illustrative analytical results are accurately validated by numerical simulations.
Atom-optical gratings induced by multiphoton excitation of electronic Rydberg wave packets.

The formation of atom-optical gratings induced by multiphoton excitation of Rydberg states is discussed for fast atoms. With the help of semiclassical path-integral methods the correlation between the dynamics of a laser-excited Rydberg electron and the momentum transferred to the atomic center of mass in a spatially modulated laser field is exhibited quantitatively. These types of laser excitation processes might offer new perspectives for the realization of atomic multiple beam splitters and for atom-lithographic applications.
Wide-stopband bandpass filter with symmetrical loaded-stub resonators

In this study, a fourth-order wide-stopband bandpass filter using loaded-stub resonators is designed and implemented. The proposed single- and dual-stub resonators are realized to shift the harmonic frequencies by choosing different stub lengths. In this filter, the proposed resonators are arranged at the same fundamental frequency and different higher-order modes to suppress the harmonic responses in the upper stopband. The measured results are in good agreement with the simulated predictions, showing that the rejection levels are better than 30 dB in the stopband up to 12.2 ƒ0. The fundamental frequency is at 1 GHz designed for ZigBee solutions of IEEE 802.15. 4 standard.
Finding Singular Features

ABSTRACT We present a method for finding high density, low-dimensional structures in noisy point clouds. These structures are sets with zero Lebesgue measure with respect to the D-dimensional ambient space and belong to a d < D-dimensional space. We call them “singular features. ” Hunting for singular features corresponds to finding unexpected or unknown structures hidden in point clouds belonging to . Our method outputs well-defined sets of dimensions d < D. Unlike spectral clustering, the method works well in the presence of noise. We show how to find singular features by first finding ridges in the estimated density, followed by a filtering step based on the eigenvalues of the Hessian of the density. The code for plotting all the figures, with the corresponding plots, and the data files used in the article, are in the folder SupplementaryDocument.zip that can be find at the http://www.stat.cmu.edu/larry/singular.