Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of aerobic training on gene expression in skeletal muscle of elderly men.

PURPOSE To analyze the effect of 3 months of training on global gene expression in skeletal muscle of healthy elderly men in order to better characterize the pathways that differentiate the trained from the sedentary state. METHODS Needle biopsies were obtained from the vastus lateralis of six healthy, sedentary, 68.0 +/- 2.7-yr-old males, before and after 3 months of training at 80% of maximal capacity, that improved peak O2 uptake by 17.8 +/- 4.0% (P = 0.009). RNA extracted from the samples was hybridized to Affymetrix U133A Genechip arrays. RESULTS Overall, training modified the expression of 397 out of 14,500 genes tested. In the trained state, the expression of genes linked with energy metabolism, protein amino acid dephosphorylation, and heme biosynthesis increased, whereas those linked with ribosome and protein catabolism decreased. CONCLUSION This set of 397 genes that includes the upregulated energy pathways and the downregulated protein catabolism genes represents the transcriptional response of the skeletal muscle in the trained state. It is highly likely that many of these genes are mediators of the beneficial effects of physical activity on health and fitness.
Robust Segmentation of Highly Dynamic Scene with Missing Data

Segmenting foreground objects from highly dynamic scenes with missing data is very challenging. We present a novel unsupervised segmentation approach that can cope with extensive scene dynamic as well as a substantial amount of missing data that present in dynamic scene. To make this possible, we exploit convex optimization of total variation beforehand for images with missing data in which depletion mask is available. Inpainting depleted images using total variation facilitates detecting ambiguous objects from highly dynamic images, because it is more likely to yield areas of object instances with improved grayscale contrast. We use a conditional random field that adapts to integrate both appearance and motion knowledge of the foreground objects. Our approach segments foreground object instances while inpainting the highly dynamic scene with a variety amount of missing data in a coupled way. We demonstrate this on a very challenging dataset from the UCSD Highly Dynamic Scene Benchmarks (HDSB) and compare our method with two state-of-the-art unsupervised image sequence segmentation algorithms and provide quantitative and qualitative performance comparisons. key words: image sequence segmentation, convex optimization, total variation, conditional random field
Emx1‐expressing neural stem cells in the subventricular zone give rise to new interneurons in the ischemic injured striatum

Neural stem cells from different regions within the subventricular zone (SVZ) are able to produce several different subtypes of interneurons in the olfactory bulb throughout life. Previous studies have shown that ischemic stroke induces the production of new neurons in the damaged striatum from the SVZ. However, the origins and genetic profiles of these newborn neurons remain largely unknown as SVZ neural stem cells are heterogeneous. In the present study, using a mouse model of perinatal hypoxic‐ischemic (H/I) brain injury combined with BrdU labeling methods, we found that, as in rat brains, virtually all newborn neuroblasts that migrate from the SVZ into the ischemic injured striatum exclusively express the transcription factor Sp8. Furthermore, although newborn neuroblasts are plentiful in the damaged striatum, only a few can differentiate into calretinin‐expressing (CR+) interneurons that continuously express Sp8. Genetic fate mapping reveals that newly born CR+ interneurons are generated from Emx1‐expressing neural stem cells in the dorsal–lateral SVZ. These results suggest that the fate of the Emx1‐expressing lineage in the ischemic damaged striatum is restricted. However, when Sp8 was conditionally inactivated in the Emx1‐lineage cells, Pax6 was ectopically expressed by a subpopulation of Emx1‐derived CR+ cells in the normal and damaged striatum. Interestingly, these cells possessed large cell bodies and long processes. This work identifies the origin of the newly born CR+ interneurons in the damaged striatum after ischemic brain injury.
Hyperthermia classic commentary: ‘Inductive heating of ferrimagnetic particles and magnetic fluids: Physical evaluation of their potential for hyperthermia’ by Andreas Jordan et al., International Journal of Hyperthermia, 1993;9:51–68.

In order to increase the specific power absorption (SAR) in deep seated tumors, the idea was born to use AC magnetic fields in combination with magnetic particles instead of conventional E-field dominant systems. It was found, that nanoscaled particles were superior to micron-sized, multi-domain particles in terms of SAR due to different mechanisms how the field energy is converted into heat. Crucial parameters were identified for the human application of the method, such as the AC magnetic field amplitude and frequency, the nanoparticle composition and size distribution. Based on these physical and chemical relationships, a new thermotherapy method has been developed to heat up deep regional tumors using aqueous dispersions of iron oxide nanoparticles (magnetic fluids). Several clinical studies were initiated using this new heating technology. The results of the most advanced efficacy study for recurrent glioblastoma multiforme patients in combination with conventional radiation therapy are expected at the end of this year, 16 years after publication of this fundamental paper.
European Union’s construction of international identity via strategic partnerships: associating and social distancing

ABSTRACT The European Union (EU) has developed a series of ‘strategic partnerships’ with a range of great power states. These partnerships reflect the emergence of an actor that seeks to establish foreign policy goals with an attendant institutional architecture and political commitment. This paper examines two of these partnerships with the United States and China to illustrate the manner in which the EU has constructed a collective identity for itself via discursive association with great power states, while claiming a normative character as an actor of a different kind, with the ability to act strategically with great power states via temporal and ethical forms of social distancing from these same actors. This paper consults recent survey research and policy developments to assess the success of these EU discursive strategies. It is concluded that these partnerships play a somewhat useful role in establishing the EU as an actor of global significance, whilst the EU is less successful in its inherent claims of normative superiority.
Does Company Performance Improve After M&A? A Literature Review

Empirical evidence for the positive correlation between company size and competitiveness is widely supported in the literature and research. Of the many ways in which companies can increase in size, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are the most common. M&As are now a strategic option for corporations to exploit emerging opportunities in order to expand. This paper reviewed the literature on how M&As impact company’s performance, comparing pre-merger and post-merger situations. We found that while scholars have explored this topic extensively, no minimum level of consensus has been reached, not only in conclusions but neither in methodologies nor in identifying independent and dependent variables. The evidence from the M&A literature is extremely inconsistent. Based on these mixed findings, we identified directions for future research, and suggested how to develop the scholarship to reach a consensus on the answer to the research question: does company performance improve after M&As?
Rice ABI5-Like1 Regulates Abscisic Acid and Auxin Responses by Affecting the Expression of ABRE-Containing Genes1[W][OA]

Abscisic acid (ABA) regulates plant development and is crucial for plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Studies have identified the key components of ABA signaling in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), some of which regulate ABA responses by the transcriptional regulation of downstream genes. Here, we report the functional identification of rice (Oryza sativa) ABI5-Like1 (ABL1), which is a basic region/leucine zipper motif transcription factor. ABL1 is expressed in various tissues and is induced by the hormones ABA and indole-3-acetic acid and stress conditions including salinity, drought, and osmotic pressure. The ABL1 deficiency mutant, abl1, shows suppressed ABA responses, and ABL1 expression in the Arabidopsis abi5 mutant rescued the ABA sensitivity. The ABL1 protein is localized to the nucleus and can directly bind ABA-responsive elements (ABREs; G-box) in vitro. A gene expression analysis by DNA chip hybridization confirms that a large proportion of down-regulated genes of abl1 are involved in stress responses, consistent with the transcriptional activating effects of ABL1. Further studies indicate that ABL1 regulates the plant stress responses by regulating a series of ABRE-containing WRKY family genes. In addition, the abl1 mutant is hypersensitive to exogenous indole-3-acetic acid, and some ABRE-containing genes related to auxin metabolism or signaling are altered under ABL1 deficiency, suggesting that ABL1 modulates ABA and auxin responses by directly regulating the ABRE-containing genes.
An improved strategy for selective and efficient enrichment of integral plasma membrane proteins of mycobacteria

Mycobacterial plasma membrane proteins play essential roles in many cellular processes, yet their comprehensive proteomic profiling remains challenging. This is mainly due to obstacles related to their extraction and solubilization. To tackle this problem, we have developed a novel procedure to selectively enrich mycobacterial plasma membrane proteins based on alkaline sodium carbonate washing of crude membranes followed by Triton X‐114 phase partitioning. The present study assesses the efficiency of this method by proteome analysis of plasma membrane proteins from Mycobacterium bovis BCG. Extracted proteins were separated in parallel by 1‐D SDS‐PAGE and 2‐DE and then analyzed by LC‐MS/MS and MALDI‐MS/MS. Our study revealed 125 proteins, of which 54 contained 1–14 predicted transmembrane domains (TMD) including nine novel proteins. The 1‐D SDS‐PAGE‐based proteome analysis identified 81 proteins, of which 49 (60.5%) harbored TMD. This approach also revealed many hydrophobic membrane‐associated/periplasmic proteins lacking TMD, but only few soluble proteins. The identified proteins were characterized with regard to biological functions and physicochemical properties providing further evidence for the high efficiency of the prefractionation method described herein.
Elastic spectral distortion for low resource speech recognition with deep neural networks

An acoustic model based on hidden Markov models with deep neural networks (DNN-HMM) has recently been proposed and achieved high recognition accuracy. In this paper, we investigated an elastic spectral distortion method to artificially augment training samples to help DNN-HMMs acquire enough robustness even when there are a limited number of training samples. We investigated three distortion methods - vocal tract length distortion, speech rate distortion, and frequency-axis random distortion - and evaluated those methods with Japanese lecture recordings. In a large vocabulary continuous speech recognition task with only 10 hours of training samples, a DNN-HMM trained with the elastic spectral distortion method achieved a 10.1% relative word error reduction compared with a normally trained DNN-HMM.
Normative values for the assessment of gustatory function using liquid tastants

Conclusion. The present study introduces normative data for the ‘three-drop test’ of gustatory function. Objectives. Although in some instances liquid tastants appear to be preferable for the measurement of taste function, no such test has been established for the routine clinical testing. The aim of the present study was to provide normative data for a test system based on administration of taste solutions. Subjects and methods. The investigation involved 230 participants (104 female, 126 male, mean age 39 years, age range 14–79 years). After establishing the concentration range of the taste solutions, recognition thresholds were obtained for the four basic tastes using a three-alternative forced choice paradigm (three-drop test). Results. The study confirmed previous observations on effects of age and sex on gustatory function, with younger subjects being more sensitive than older ones, and women being more sensitive than men.
The effect of prior percutaneous coronary intervention on the immediate and late outcome after coronary artery bypass grafting: systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction A number of studies reported on a possible increased risk of morbidity and mortality after coronary artery bypass grafting in patients with prior percutaneous coronary intervention. Methods A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies comparing the outcome of patients undergoing coronary surgery with or without prior percutaneous coronary intervention was performed. Only studies reporting results of adjusted analysis and excluding acute percutaneous coronary intervention failures were included in this meta-analysis. Results Literature search yielded nine studies reporting on 68,645 patients who underwent coronary surgery. Of them, 8,358 (12.2%) had a prior percutaneous coronary intervention. Patients without prior percutaneous coronary intervention were significantly older (p=0.002), had significantly higher prevalence of left main stenosis (p=0.005) and three-vessel disease (p<0.0001). Prior percutaneous coronary intervention was associated with higher risk of resternotomy for bleeding (p=0.04) and dialysis (p=0.003). Thirty-day/in-hospital mortality was significantly higher in patients with prior percutaneous coronary intervention (pooled rate: 2.7% vs 2.0%, risk ratio 1.39, 95% confidence interval 1.06-1.84, p=0.02) as confirmed also by generic inverse variance analysis (risk ratio 1.47, 95% confidence interval 1.12-1.93, p=0.005). Prior percutaneous coronary intervention did not affect late outcome (five studies included, risk ratio 1.07, 95% confidence interval 0.90-1.28, p=0.43). Conclusions Prior percutaneous coronary intervention seems to be associated with an increased risk of immediate postoperative morbidity and mortality after coronary surgery, but does not affect late mortality. These results are not conclusive and need to be confirmed by studies of better quality evaluating the impact of indication, timing, type of stents, amount of treated vessels and number of previous percutaneous coronary interventions.
Macroeconomic Indicators and Capital Formation Growth in Nigeria: A New Evidence

This paper estimates the impact of macroeconomic indicators on the growth of capital formation in Nigeria. Adopting the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL), the empirical findings showed that Foreign aid which is proxied by Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) and Domestic Private Investment (DPI) had positive impact on capital formation growth in Nigeria, while exchange rate, trade openness, and external debt had negative impact for the period under review. The study therefore recommends that aid, especially from the West should not be highly depended upon as a major source of revenue for the development of the economy. Other macroeconomic determinants of capital growth that government should encourage include; savings, investment and the quality of institutions.
Crisis communication and terrorism : mapping challenges and co-creating solutions

Ruggiero, Aino Crisis communication and terrorism: Mapping challenges and co-creating solutions Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2017, 93 p. (Jyväskylä Studies in Humanities ISSN 1459-4323; 324 (print) ISSN 1459-4331; 324 (PDF)) ISBN 978-951-39-7171-7 (print) ISBN 978-951-39-7172-4 (PDF) Terrorism is a globally connected, uncontrollable, transboundary risk that continually evolves and changes forms, resulting in multiple complexities that affect the lives of both citizens and organisations across the globe. These risks involve a high level of complexity when they materialise as crises, and the use of CBRN (chemical biological, radiological or nuclear) materials presents the possibility of a worst-case scenario. Crisis communication in such cases would not only be essential but also a matter of life and death. Hence, the purpose of this research was to better understand and describe the challenges of communication in CBRN terrorism crises as well as how these challenges can be addressed by the communication supporting crisis management of public authorities. Empirical research was conducted for this thesis, and this thesis shell provides a synthesis of the empirical findings and the theoretical insights obtained from the crisis communication literature. This thesis is comprised of five sub-studies reported in five original articles. The research is based on a qualitative research approach grounded in a social constructionist ontology and an interpretive epistemology. The data of this research were generated through literature reviews, a qualitative online questionnaire and a table top discussion, and it was mostly thematically analysed. The central findings of this research, combined with theoretical insights obtained from the literature, were synthesised and illustrated in a model, which depicts complexities and ways to cope with them using an integrated approach to crisis communication for CBRN terrorism. From a practice perspective, the findings of this thesis can promote professional resilience in the field by introducing approaches and methods communication professionals can use to cope with the most complex types of crises. From a theoretical perspective, by reviewing and synthesising insights from the scientific literature on the topic of crisis communication when CBRN terrorism is involved, this thesis provides a broad understanding of the dimensions and boundaries of this multi-disciplinary area of research and clarifies the specific aspects, elements and insights involved.
Recovery and long-term function after hematopoietic cell transplantation for leukemia or lymphoma.

CONTEXT Hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is an effective and widely used treatment for hematologic malignancies. The rate and predictors of physical and emotional recovery after HCT have not been adequately defined in prospective long-term studies. OBJECTIVE To examine the course of recovery and return to work after HCT. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS Prospective, longitudinal cohort study at a US academic center specializing in HCT. Function was assessed from pretransplantation to 5-year follow-up for 319 adults who had myeloablative HCT for treatment of leukemia or lymphoma and spoke English. Of the 99 long-term survivors who had no recurrent malignancy, 94 completed 5-year follow-up. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Physical limitations, return to work, depression, and distress related to treatment or disease were evaluated before transplantation, at 90 days, and at 1, 3, and 5 years after HCT. RESULTS Physical recovery occurred earlier than psychological or work recovery. Only 21 patients (19%) recovered on all outcomes at 1 year. The proportion without major limitations increased to 63% (n = 57) by 5 years. Among survivors without recurrent malignancy, 84% (n = 74) returned to full-time work by 5 years. Patients with slower physical recovery had higher medical risk and were more depressed before HCT (P< or =.001). Patients with chronic graft-vs-host disease (P =.01), with less social support before HCT (P =.001), and women (P<.001) were more depressed after transplantation. Transplant-related distress was slower to recover for allogeneic transplant recipients and those with less social support before HCT (P< or =.01). Patients who had more experience with cancer treatment before beginning HCT had more rapid recovery from depression (P =.04) and treatment-related distress (P =.009). CONCLUSIONS Full recovery after HCT is a 3- to 5-year process. Recovery might be accelerated by more effective interventions to increase work-related capabilities, improve social support, and manage depression.
Education-Related Laws from the Perspective of Kuwaiti Official Influencers: An Exploratory Study

This study seeks to explore and describe education-related laws in Kuwait with respect to the broader context of educational law. Employing a methodical, qualitative approach, data were collected using semi-structured interviews with twelve Kuwaiti official influencers that included parliamentary members, ex-Minsters of Education, and directors of general education. Interviews were conducted to generate insights regarding the nature and extent of the existing educationrelated laws in Kuwait. In addition, the interviews delved into the process surrounding the formation and implementation of education-related laws, and the influences that can affect them. Lastly, data from the interviews identified areas for improvement in Kuwait’s education-related law. During the interview process, measures were taken to ascertain the credibility and dependability of the results obtained. Data were analyzed and validated using thematic analysis for reduction and identification of essential themes. Five main themes emerged from the data analysis: (a) the characteristics of education-related laws; (b) the problems in forming educationrelated laws; (c) the obstacles hindering implementation of education-related laws; (d) the strong influence of actors on education-related laws; and (c) the need for more effective educationrelated laws. For each theme two sub-categories were also developed. The findings of this study demonstrate that education-related laws play a vital role in structuring, and the monitoring of, the educational system in Kuwait. Moreover, findings illustrate the absence of, and critical need for, an authority to evaluate existing education-related laws. In addition, the lack of stakeholder participation, or the influence of scientific research, in creating education policy became evident. The analysis of the research data determined that actors, both official and unofficial, affecting education-related laws included legislators, Ministers of Education, the judiciary, local and international professional association representatives, parents, and the media. Furthermore, there is evidence suggests that policymakers must become more aware of the important role stakeholders should play in the