Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Homeodomain‐containing protein HOXB9 regulates expression of growth and angiogenic factors, facilitates tumor growth in vitro and is overexpressed in breast cancer tissue

HOXB9 is a homeobox‐containing gene and is critical for the development of mammary gland and sternum. HOXB9 is also regulated by estrogen and is critical for angiogenesis. We investigated the biochemical roles of HOXB9 and its homeodomain in cell‐cycle progression and tumorigenesis. Our studies demonstrated that HOXB9 is overexpressed in breast cancer tissue. HOXB9 overexpression stimulated 3D formation in soft agar assay. HOXB9 binds to the promoters of various tumor growth and angiogenic factors and regulates their expression. The homeodomain of HOXB9 plays crucial roles in transcriptional regulation of tumor growth factors and also in 3D colony formation, indicating crucial roles of the HOXB9 homeodomain in tumorigenesis. Overall, we demonstrated that HOXB9 is a critical regulator of tumor growth factors and is associated with tumorigenesis.
NMDA receptors inhibit synapse unsilencing during brain development

How the billions of synapses in the adult mammalian brain are precisely specified remains one of the fundamental questions of neuroscience. Although a genetic program is likely to encode the basic neural blueprint, much evidence suggests that experience-driven activity through NMDA receptors wires up neuronal circuits by inducing a process similar to long-term potentiation. To test this notion directly, we eliminated NMDA receptors before and during synaptogenesis in single cells in vitro and in vivo. Although the prevailing model would predict that NMDA receptor deletion should strongly inhibit the maturation of excitatory circuits, we find that genetic ablation of NMDA receptor function profoundly increases the number of functional synapses between neurons. Conversely, reintroduction of NMDA receptors into NR1-deficient neurons reduces the number of functional inputs, a process requiring network activity and NMDA receptor function. Although NMDA receptor deletion increases the strength of unitary connections, it does not alter neuronal morphology, suggesting that basal NMDA receptor activation blocks the recruitment of AMPA receptors to silent synapses. Based on these results we suggest a new model for the maturation of excitatory synapses in which ongoing activation of NMDA receptors prevents premature synaptic maturation by ensuring that only punctuated bursts of activity lead to the induction of a functional synapse for the activity-dependent wiring of neural circuitry.
Uncertainty of Czech macroeconomic data: advanced analysis:output gap

The article analyses output gap values that are published by the Czech National Bank. It shows that output gap estimates are uncertain and substantial revisions occur very often. The revisions are often so radical, that it is not sure, whether the economy is above or below its potential. The contribution also constructs confidence bands for “true” values of output gap. Ascertained data uncertainty is very strong and the quality of output gap estimates is low.
Performance Bounds for MLSD Reception of OFDM Signals in Fast Fading

For OFDM systems in fast fading, it is difficult to obtain a closed form expression for the OFDM symbol error probability. Thus, tight analytical bounds on actual performance are extremely useful for performance prediction and verification. Additionally, the structure of the bound provides insight into system behavior. A new expurgated 2-dimensional union bound is proposed and applied to an OFDM system in fast fading. This bound becomes extremely tight as the rate of fading L increases. Performance comparison of the new bound to a lower bound on a known expurgated union bound demonstrates a gain of up to 1.5 dB at P(e) = 10 2 for channel implicit diversity order of L = 4. A new simulated upper bound that uses a reduced state vector in a modified trellis search algorithm and a simulated lower bound that assumes limited knowledge of the ICI are also presented. Both bounds are derived from a "time-varying" finite state machine model of the received signal. Performance results for these bounds are extremely tight for small to large values of N, where N is the number of OFDM signal tones. Also, the reduction in computational complexity achieved for N = 512 is from 2512 to 26 for both bounds.
The Role of Emotional Competence in Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy

Objective The current study examined the role of emotional competences and depression in takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TTC). Methods We compared 37 TTC patients who experienced emotion triggers (TTC-t: M (SD) age = 66.4 (12.8) years, 33 women) with 37 TTC patients who did not experience emotion triggers (TTC-nt: M (SD) age = 65.8 (11.1) years, 33 women) and 37 patients with acute myocardial infarction who experienced an emotion trigger (AMI-t: M (SD) age = 66.1 (10.1) years, 33 women). Three aspects of emotional competence (emotional intelligence, metacognitive beliefs, and emotional processing deficits) were assessed using the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS), the Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire 30, and the Emotional Processing Scale. Differences between-group means were evaluated using multivariate analysis of covariance, adjusting for depressive symptom (Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression). Results Compared with the TTC-nt and AMI-t comparison groups, TTC-t patients had low scores on emotional intelligence (TMMS Attention: F(2, 184) = 23.10, p < . 001; TMMS Repair: F(2, 184) = 11.98, p < . 001) and high scores in metacognitive beliefs and emotional processing deficits (e.g., Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire 30 Negative Beliefs about Thoughts: F(2, 184) = 56.93, p < . 001), independent of the levels of depressive symptom. TTC-nt patients also had significantly lower scores on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression scale compared with AMI-t (p = .021) and TTC-t (p = .004) patients. Conclusions TTC-t patients showed a specific dysfunctional profile of emotional competence, even after adjusting for depressive symptom. These results provided a better understanding of the psychological factors that contribute to TTC.
Molecular Characteristics of Staphylococcus aureus Causing Bovine Mastitis between 2014 and 2015

Staphylococcus aureus is highly pathogenic and can cause diseases in both humans and domestic animals. In animal species, including ruminants, S. aureus may cause severe or sub-clinical mastitis. This study aimed to investigate the molecular profile, antimicrobial resistance, and genotype/phenotype correlation of 212 S. aureus isolates recovered from cases of bovine mastitis from 2014 to 2015 in the Shanghai and Zhejiang areas of China. Nineteen sequence types (STs) were determined by multi-locus sequence typing, while the dominant ST was ST97, followed by ST520, ST188, ST398, ST7, and ST9. Within 14 methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) isolates and 198 methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) isolates, ST97 was the predominant MSSA clone and ST9-MRSA-SCCmecXII-spa t899 was the most common MRSA clone. The MRSA strains showed much higher rates of resistance to multiple antibiotics than did MSSA strains. Compared with other MSSA strains, MSSA ST398 was more resistant to clindamycin, erythromycin, and ciprofloxacin. No isolates were resistant to vancomycin, teicoplanin, or linezolid. The molecular profiles of the virulence genes varied in different strains. ST520 strains carried seg-sei-sem-sen-seo genes, and ST9 and ST97 harbored sdrD-sdrE genes. Virulence phenotype analysis showed diversity in different clones. Biofilm formation ability was significantly enhanced in ST188 and ST7, and red blood cell lysis capacity was relatively strong in all S. aureus strains of animal origin except ST7. Our results indicate that MSSA was the predominant S. aureus strain causing bovine mastitis in eastern regions of China. However, the presence of multidrug resistant and toxigenic MRSA clone ST9 suggests that comprehensive surveillance of S. aureus infection should be implemented in the management of animal husbandry products.
Reproductive organ and young tissues show constrained elemental composition in Arabidopsis thaliana.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The identification of stoichiometric homeostasis is crucial for understanding plant adaptive strategies under a changing environment. However, current knowledge of plant stoichiometric homeostasis has mainly been obtained from mature leaves, with little from other organs across different developmental stages. METHODS We conducted a greenhouse nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) addition experiment to evaluate the strength of stoichiometric homeostasis across different organs and developmental stages of Arabidopsis thaliana. KEY RESULTS Homeostatic regulation coefficients (H) for N (HN), P (HP) and N : P ratio (HNP) were highest in reproductive tissue, followed by stem and leaf at the same stage. All H parameters in the same organ decreased significantly over the developmental stages. Leaf HN, HP and HNP were highest at stage 1, followed by stages 2 and 3. Both stem and silique at stage 2 relative to stage 3 had higher HN, HP and HNP. These results suggested that reproductive tissue relative to other organs and young tissue relative to old tissue showed more constrained elemental composition in response to nutrient availabilities, and such trends were also evidenced by stoichiometric scaling relationships. CONCLUSIONS Our findings highlight that stoichiometric homeostasis is tightly related to the ontogenesis of plant tissue. These results could have a strong implication for diagnosing relative availabilities of N and P in ecosystems, suggesting that the N and P stoichiometry of old tissues might be stronger indicators of nutrient status for plants, but further study is needed to test the generality across species with more distinguishable functional traits.
Demand response collaborative management by a distributed alternating direction method of multipliers

This paper presents a new approach to obtain an optimal energy management in Smart Grids from both generation and demand sides where generation and demand units collaborate with others in a distributed manner to simultaneously obtain their optimal powers that maximize the total welfare in the grid. The proposed approach is developed based on an optimization method called Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM). The significant differences with existing methods such as gradient-based ones are that the power balance constraint is always satisfied during the running of proposed algorithm and the convergence speed is faster. Furthermore, the ADMM is very suitable for distributed implementation, which facilitates its applications in Smart Grids. A simulation on the benchmark IEEE 39-bus system is introduced to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Validation of the Direct Nasopharyngeal Sampling Method for Collection of Expired Air in Preterm Neonates

In clinical studies, the oxidation of 13C-labeled substrates to 13CO2 and the measurement of the appearance of excess 13CO2 in expiratory air has progressed to an increasingly common method as it is noninvasive and lacks the radiation exposure associated with the use of 14C. The collection of respiratory CO2 currently used occurs via trapping of CO2 in sodium hydroxide (trapping method), sometimes in conjunction with indirect calorimetry. The aim of the present study was to determine the accuracy of our direct nasopharyngeal sampling method for the collection of breath samples in preterm infants compared with the currently used trapping method. We present a method that simplifies the collection of breath samples in preterm infants. Seven preterm infants with a gestational age of 26–29 wk were studied on different postnatal days (range, 8–52 d) while receiving full enteral feeding. A primed constant 3-h intragastric infusion of [13C]bicarbonate was given, and breath samples were collected by means of direct nasopharyngeal sampling and by a sodium hydroxide trap simultaneously. Breath CO2 isotopic enrichments rose rapidly to reach a plateau by 120 min with <5% variation of plateau in both methods. 13CO2 breath isotopic enrichments obtained by the direct nasopharyngeal sampling method correlated highly (r2 = 0.933; p < 0.0001) with the trapping method. The Bland-Altman analysis showed no significant variability between the two methods and demonstrated that the 95% confidence interval is within ± 4.68 δ‰. These findings validate the simple method of direct nasopharyngeal sampling of expired air in neonates.
A family of stage‐specific alanine‐rich proteins on the surface of epimastigote forms of Trypanosoma brucei

A ‘two coat’ model of the life cycle of Trypanosoma brucei has prevailed for more than 15 years. Metacyclic forms transmitted by infected tsetse flies and mammalian bloodstream forms are covered by variant surface glycoproteins. All other life cycle stages were believed to have a procyclin coat, until it was shown recently that epimastigote forms in tsetse salivary glands express procyclin mRNAs without translating them. As epimastigote forms cannot be cultured, a procedure was devised to compare the transcriptomes of parasites in different fly tissues. Transcripts encoding a family of glycosylphosphatidyl inositol‐anchored proteins, BARPs (previously called bloodstream alanine‐rich proteins), were 20‐fold more abundant in salivary gland than midgut (procyclic) trypanosomes. Anti‐BARP antisera reacted strongly and exclusively with salivary gland parasites and a BARP 3′ flanking region directed epimastigote‐specific expression of reporter genes in the fly, but inhibited expression in bloodstream and procyclic forms. In contrast to an earlier report, we could not detect BARPs in bloodstream forms. We propose that BARPs form a stage‐specific coat for epimastigote forms and suggest renaming them brucei alanine‐rich proteins.
Examining methodological variation in response inhibition: The effects of outcome measures and task characteristics on age-related differences

This study addressed methodological issues common to developmental studies on response inhibition. Age-related differences were investigated using two Stroop-like tasks with different levels of complexity and comparing different outcome measures in a sample of 340 children and adolescents aged 7–15 years. First, speed and accuracy of task performance were examined; the results showing that improvement in speed continued until age 13 in both the basic naming task and the two inhibition tasks. Improvement in accuracy was less consistent and continued until age 9 or 13 years. Second, two different algorithms were employed to control for the effects of basic processes in inhibition tasks. The difference algorithm indicated age-related differences similar to those for speed. The ratio algorithm, however, suggested earlier deceleration of development of response inhibition at 9 or 11 years of age. Factors related to the cognitive requirements and presented stimuli also had an effect on the results. The present findings shed light on the inconsistencies in the developmental studies of response inhibition and demonstrated that the selection of outcome measures and task characteristics are critical because they affect the way development is depicted.
Long‐term monitoring of genotypic and phenotypic resistance to T20 in treated patients infected with HIV‐1

The aim of this study was to investigate the susceptibility to T20 and the dynamics of amino acid changes in HR1 and HR2 of gp41 of HIV‐1 obtained from plasma, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC), and primary isolates (PI) in four highly antiretroviral‐experienced patients. These patients received T20 plus an antiretroviral regimen and were followed‐up over a period of 40–72 weeks. In one non‐responder patient, N43D substitution was detected at 12 weeks of treatment, in association with a value of T20‐IC50 of 10 µg/ml (10‐fold increase). Double mutations N42T + N43D were observed in plasma RNA at 32 weeks and remained detectable up to 16 weeks after the withdrawal of the drug. The S138A substitution in HR2 was observed in plasma RNA at 32 weeks, and both in plasma RNA and in PI DNA at 40 weeks, associated with an increase of the T20‐IC50 to 25 µg/ml (25‐fold increase). Mutations V101G and E137K, not reported previously, were also observed in the HR2 region. Whether these new substitutions play a role in T20 resistance needs to be examined. In three temporary responders, coinciding with viral load rebound, G36D, and N42T substitutions were observed at 12, 24, and 40 weeks. G36D mutation was associated with a value of T20‐IC50 of 5 µg/ml. The HR2 S138A mutation was detected after the detection of HR1 substitutions and was associated with an increase in the level of T20‐IC50 to 125 µg/ml (125‐fold increase) All these data reinforce the role of gp41 amino acids 36–45 and the potential influence of the HR2 S138A mutation in the genotypic/phenotypic resistance to T20. J. Med. Virol. 78:141–147, 2006. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Index Fund Rationality Paradox and Categorical Thinking

During the last twenty years, literature has emerged exploring why individuals invest in high-fee index Mutual Funds (MF) while there are funds tracking the same index and charging remarkably lower commissions. This paper puts forward the individuals’ tendency to categorical thinking as one of the driving forces of this ‘index fund rationality paradox’. The main hypothesis is that individual investors do not recognize the difference between active and passive (index) funds and presume that relatively high fees, adequate for heterogeneous and costly active funds, are also acceptable for low-cost homogeneous index funds. I test this hypothesis using a survey-based experiment, conducted among the first-generation High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) and economics and finance students from leading universities. The obtained results show that, indeed, the vast majority of respondents fail to distinguish clearly the active and the index funds: they confuse their objectives and activities, misperceive the skills and efforts required to manage different types of funds. On the other hand, the average answers reveal that some comprehension of the difference between various types of funds is present: on average, the participants attribute higher skills and efforts to the managers of active funds, and are ready to pay higher fees to them. Based on these findings, I formulate basic problems that should be addressed by new policies aiming to minimize the negative effect of categorical thinking on investment in mutual funds.
Combined experimental and computational strategies define an expansive regulon for GcvB small RNA

The bacterial small RNA GcvB has been known as a translational repressor of mRNAs encoding amino acid transporters and has been postulated to limit uptake of unnecessary amino acids under nutrient‐rich conditions. In this issue of Molecular Microbiology, Sharma et al. (2011 ) provide evidence for a much broader role for GcvB as a global regulator of amino acid metabolism. Using a unique combination of experimental and biocomputational approaches, the authors triple the size of the GcvB regulon, making it the largest sRNA regulon defined to date.
Who is Poor? A New Look with the Supplemental Poverty Measure

Thanks are extended to the many individuals who assisted us as we conducted research on developing the first supplemental poverty measure for the U.S. Special thanks go to Thesia Garner of BLS for providing preliminary poverty thresholds for SPM research, Hornick of the Census Bureau for input and helpful comments and suggestions. The views expressed in this research, including those related to statistical, methodological, technical, or operational issues, are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official positions or policies of the Census Bureau, or the views of other staff members. The authors accept responsibility for all errors. This paper is released to inform interested parties of ongoing research and to encourage discussion of work in progress. This paper reports the results of research and analysis undertaken by Census Bureau staff. It has undergone more limited review than official publications.
psychosocial Predictors of Self-Care Behaviors (Compliance) and Glycemic Control in Non-Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus

This study assessed potential psychosocial correlates of self-care behaviors (compliance) and of glycemic control in a community sample of 184 people diagnosed as having non-insulin-dependent (type II) diabetes mellitus. Four different diabetes self-care behaviors were studied (medication taking, glucose testing, diet, and exercise), and glycemic control was assessed by glycosylated hemoglobin analyses. Multiple measures were collected within each of several categories of psychosocial variables including knowledge, stress, depression, anxiety, diabetes-specific health beliefs, and social support. Findings indicate that ∼25% of the variance in self-care behaviors can be explained by psychosocial and demographic variables. In contrast, psychosocial variables were not significant predictors of level of glycemic control. The diabetes-specific psychosocial measures of health beliefs and social support were the most consistent and strongest predictors of self-care behavior across the different regimen areas studied. Possible reasons for these findings, limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed.
Taylor Rules and the interest rate behavior in Algeria

The Taylor rules represent a guideline for central bank while setting their monetary policy in the aim to ensure the macroeconomic stability. The estimated Taylor rule and McCallum rule can be considered as a benchmark explicit formula for the central bank to follow when making monetary policy decisions. The Taylor rules capture the essential of the monetary authority? s behavior, and determine the level of short term interest rates compatible with price stability, keeping the output at its potential level. The gap between the rule? s rate and the observed one is used as an indicator of the appropriatemonetary policy with respect to inflation targeting and output gap targeting. In this work, we tried to asses if the short term interest rates announced by the Algerian Central Bank, fit the different version of The Taylor rule. It is an attempt to assesses the operational performance of three version of the Taylor rules in Algeria over the period 1996? 2011 using quarterly data, with a view to analytically informing the conduct of monetary policy. The different estimations showed that the Taylor rule can be somehow and in some version the appropriate predictor of interest rate behavior in Algeria.