Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rosuvastatin-attenuated heart failure in aged spontaneously hypertensive rats via PKCα/β2 signal pathway

There are controversies concerning the capacity of Rosuvastatin to attenuate heart failure in end‐stage hypertension. The aim of the study was to show whether the Rosuvastatin might be effective or not for the heart failure treatment. Twenty‐one spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) aged 52 weeks with heart failure were randomly divided into three groups: two receiving Rosuvastatin at 20 and 40 mg/kg/day, respectively, and the third, placebo for comparison with seven Wistar‐Kyoto rats (WKYs) as controls. After an 8‐week treatment, the systolic blood pressure (SBP) and echocardiographic features were evaluated; mRNA level of B‐type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and plasma NT‐proBNP concentration were measured; the heart tissues were observed under electron microscope (EM); myocardial sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ pump (SERCA‐2) activity and mitochondria cytochrome C oxidase (CCO) activity were measured; the expressions of SERCA‐2a, phospholamban (PLB), ryanodine receptor2 (RyR2), sodium–calcium exchanger 1 (NCX1), Ca2+/calmodulin‐dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) and protein phosphatase inhibitor‐1 (PPI‐1) were detected by Western blot and RT‐qPCR; and the total and phosphorylation of protein kinase Cα/β (PKCα/β) were measured. Aged SHRs with heart failure was characterized by significantly decreased left ventricular ejection fraction and left ventricular fraction shortening, enhanced left ventricular end‐diastolic diameter and LV Volume, accompanied by increased plasma NT‐proBNP and elevated BNP gene expression. Damaged myofibrils, vacuolated mitochondria and swollen sarcoplasmic reticulum were observed by EM. Myocardium mitochondria CCO and SERCA‐2 activity decreased. The expressions of PLB and NCX1 increased significantly with up‐regulation of PPI‐1 and down‐regulation of CaMKII, whereas that of RyR2 decreased. Rosuvastatin was found to ameliorate the heart failure in aged SHRs and to improve changes in SERCA‐2a, PLB, RyR2, NCX1, CaMKII and PPI‐1; PKCα/β2 signal pathway to be suppressed; the protective effect of Rosuvastatin to be dose dependent. In conclusion, the heart failure of aged SHRs that was developed during the end stage of hypertension could be ameliorated by Rosuvastatin.
Augmenting the input space of portable displays using add-on hall-sensor grid

Since handheld and wearable displays are highly mobile, various applications are enabled to enrich our daily life. In addition to displaying high-fidelity information, these devices also support natural and effective user interactions by exploiting the capability of various embedded sensors. Nonetheless, the set of built-in sensors has limitations. Add-on sensor technologies, therefore, are needed. This work chooses to exploit magnetism as an additional channel of user input. The author first explains the reasons of developing the add-on magnetic field sensing technology based on neodymium magnets and the analog Hall-sensor grid. Then, the augmented input space is showcased through two instances. 1) For handheld displays, the sensor extends the object tracking capability to the near-surface 3D space by simply attaching it to the back of devices. 2) For wearable displays, the sensor enables private and rich-haptic 2D input by wearing it on user's fingernails. Limitations and possible research directions of this approach are highlighted in the end of paper.
Haemodynamic response to intravenous vasopressin and nitroglycerin in portal hypertension.

We have evaluated the haemodynamic effects of intravenous (iv) nitroglycerin (NG) and vasopressin (VP) alone and in combination, in 12 patients with cirrhosis and recent variceal haemorrhage (two to seven days). Nitroglycerin infusion alone (200 micrograms/min) produced a significant fall in portal pressure (WHVP-FHVP) (from 16.4 (0.6) to 13.3 (1.2) mmHg; p less than . 001) associated with hypotension (mean arterial pressure from 95 (7) to 78 (9) mmHg; p less than 0.005). Vasopressin alone (0.4 IU/min) reduced portal pressure (20.7 (1.3) to 14.0 (1.3) mmHg; p less than 0.001), but there was considerable variation in the systemic haemodynamic changes with increased cardiac output in four of six patients. The combination of vasopressin and nitroglycerin corrected all systemic haemodynamic disturbances produced by either agent alone. This combination led, however, to a further reduction in portal pressure (from 13.7 (0.9) to 11.7 (0.7) mmHg p less than 0.01). These results show that: (1) intravenous nitroglycerin reduces portal pressure, and (2) the combination of nitroglycerin and vasopressin reverses systemic haemodynamic disturbances produced by either agent alone and leads to a further decrease in portal pressure.
The School Counselor Caseload and the High School-to-College Pipeline

Background Advising students on the transition from high school to college is a central part of school counselors’ professional responsibility. The American School Counselor Association recommends a school counselor caseload of 250 students; however, prior work yields inconclusive evidence on the relationship between school counseling and school-level counseling resources and students’ college trajectories. Focus of Study This study evaluates the relationship between access to school counselors and several critical indicators of student transitions between high school and college. Research Design The study utilizes the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 to explore the relationships between the school counselor caseload and students’ progress throughout the high school-to-college pipeline. The key indicator is the counselor caseload for students at a given high school, measured as the number of 10th graders per counselor at the high school at which each student is enrolled. The outcome variables are students’ college expectations, whether students spoke with a counselor about college, taking the SAT, and college enrollment. Logistic and multinomial logistic regression analyses are applied to examine the relationships between these variables. Findings Students in schools with small counselor caseloads enjoy greater success at navigating the high school-to-college pipeline. Controlling for student- and school-level characteristics, students in schools where counselors are responsible for advising a large number of students are less likely to speak with a counselor about college, plan to attend college, take the SAT, and enroll in a four-year college. Conclusions The findings support the claim that a smaller school counselor caseload may increase students’ access to key college preparation resources and raise four-year college enrollment rates.
Aerobic Fitness and Inhibition in Young Children: Moderating Roles of ADHD Status and Age

We examined the relation between aerobic fitness and inhibition in young children with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-risk status. Participants (91 ADHD risk, 107 typically developing, Mage = 6.83, 53.5% male, 68.2% Caucasian) completed an assessment of aerobic fitness and a flanker task requiring variable amounts of inhibitory control. Aerobic fitness was positively associated with inhibition. When inhibitory control demands were largest, the relation varied as a function of ADHD-risk status such that the link between aerobic fitness and inhibition was significant only for children with ADHD risk. The relation between aerobic fitness, status, and inhibition was further moderated by age for interference control. Specifically, the positive relation between aerobic fitness and interference control was only significant for younger children with ADHD risk. A fitness–cognition link appears in young childhood that seems particularly salient for those in the earliest school years with ADHD risk. The findings extend work on typically developing children and suggest that exploring aerobic fitness interventions to address executive function impairments in children at risk for ADHD is warranted.
Physical therapy in Huntington's disease – toward objective assessments?

Physical therapy is recommended for the treatment of Huntington's disease, but reliable studies investigating its efficacy are almost non‐existent. This may in part be due to the lack of suitable outcome measures. Therefore, we investigated the applicability of novel quantitative and objective assessments of motor dysfunction in the evaluation of physical therapy interventions aimed at improving gait and posture.
Distributed under Creative Commons Cc-by 4.0 the Tuberculocidal Activity of Polyaniline and Functionalised Polyanilines

Tuberculosis is considered a leading cause of death worldwide. More than 95% of cases and deaths occur in low-and middle-income countries. In resource-limited countries, hospitals often lack adequate facilities to manage and isolate patients with infectious tuberculosis (TB), relying instead on personal protective equipment, such as facemasks, to reduce nosocomial transmission of the disease. Facemasks impregnated with an antimicrobial agent may be a cost-effective way of adding an extra level of protection against the spread of TB by reducing the risk of disease transmission. Conducting polymers, such as polyaniline (PANI), and their functionalised derivatives are a novel class of antimicrobial agents with potential as non-leaching additives to provide contamination resistant surfaces. We have investigated the antimicrobial action of PANI and a functionalised derivative, poly-3-aminobenzoic acid (P3ABA), against mycobacteria and have determined the optimal treatment time and concentration to achieve significant knockdown of Mycobacterium smegmatis and Mycobacterium tuberculosis on an agar surface. Results indicated that P3ABA is a potential candidate for use as an anti-tuberculoid agent in facemasks to reduce TB transmission.
Exploratory Modeling for Policy Analysis

Exploratory modeling is using computational experiments to assist in reasoning about systems where there is significant uncertainty. While frequently confused with the use of models to consolidate knowledge into a package that is used to predict system behavior, exploratory modeling is a very different kind of use, requiring a different methodology for model development. This paper distinguishes these two broad classes of model use describes some of the approaches used in exploratory modeling, and suggests some technological innovations needed to facilitate it.
A similarity retrieval of 3D polygonal models using rotation invariant shape descriptors

In virtual reality and multimedia applications, 3D polygonal models are increasing in number. Similarity retrieval is an important task in 3D polygonal model databases. We present rotation invariant shape descriptors for similarity retrieval. Our feature descriptor grouping technique overcomes the efficiency problem of query processing in high-dimensional shape descriptor spaces. Although high-dimensional feature descriptors are reduced by our techniques, they maintain high recall and precision.
Standardized Allergen Provocation Test

Standardized bronchial allergen provocation with the same individual allergen dose was performed 3–9 times in 20 symptomless adult asthmatic patients at intervals of 1 week or more during 1/222 months in order to study variations in bronchial response. The immediate type reaction was recorded by monitoring FEV1, FVC, PEFR and MEF50% for 30–40 min after provocation. FEV1 was highly significantly correlated to the other variables.
“Show Me the Money”

Do people take risks to obtain rewards or experience suspense? We hypothesized that people vulnerable to gambling are motivated more by the allure of winning money whereas people less vulnerable to gambling are motivated more by the allure of suspense. Consistent with this hypothesis, participants with high scores on a subscale of the Gambling Attitudes and Beliefs Survey—a measure of vulnerability to gambling— reported more of a motivation to earn money (pilot study), were more likely to accept a certain or near-certain amount of money than to gamble for that same amount (Studies 1-2), and worked harder to earn money (Study 3). People vulnerable to gambling also made more accurate predictions about how much they would gamble. People less vulnerable to gambling, in contrast, gambled more than people vulnerable to gambling, but did not know that they would.
Optimization of Spatial Association Rule Mining using Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithm

Spatial data refer to any data about objects that occupy real physical space. Attributes within spatial databases usually include spatial information. Spatial data refers to the numerical or categorical values of a function at different spatial locations. Spatial metadata refers to the descriptions of the spatial configuration. Application of classical association rule mining concepts to spatial databases is promising but very challenging. Spatial Association Rule Mining requires new approaches compared to classical association rule mining. Spatial data consists of dependent events compared to transactional data which consist of independent transactions. It is more difficult to classify a discovered spatial association rule as interesting. Instead of much generalized rule more specific rule discovery needs further research. Spatial Association Rules are association rules about spatial data objects. Either the antecedent or the consequent of the rule must contain some spatial predicates. Spatial association rules are implications of one set of data by another. The main area of concentration in this paper is to optimize the rules generated by Association Rule Mining (Apriori method), using hybrid evolutionary algorithm. The main motivation for using Evolutionary algorithms in the discovery of high-level prediction rules is that they perform a global search and cope better with attribute interaction than the greedy rule induction algorithms often used in data mining. The improvements applied in EAs are reflected in the rule based systems used for classification as described in results and conclusions. The future enhancements will be on using the other Evolutionary Optimization Algorithms such as PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization ) for the rule generation.
MASD: Multi-agent systems development methodology

In recent years, multi-agent systems gained growing acceptance as a required technology to develop complex distributed systems. As result, there is an increased need for practical methodology for developing such systems. This paper presents a new Multi-Agent System Development (MASD) methodology developed over several years through analyzing and studying most of the existing agent oriented methodologies. This new methodology is constructed based on the strengths and weaknesses of existing methodologies. MASD aims to provide designers of agent-based systems with a set of methods and guidelines that allow them to control the construction process of complex systems, enabling software engineers to specify agent-based systems that would be implemented within an execution environment, for example the Jadex platform. MASD differs from existing methodologies in that it is a detailed and complete methodology for developing multi-agent systems. This paper describes the methodology's process and illustrates it using a running example - namely, a car rental system.
Structural and Functional Characterization of a Caenorhabditis elegans Genetic Interaction Network within Pathways

A genetic interaction (GI) is defined when the mutation of one gene modifies the phenotypic expression associated with the mutation of a second gene. Genome-wide efforts to map GIs in yeast revealed structural and functional properties of a GI network. This provided insights into the mechanisms underlying the robustness of yeast to genetic and environmental insults, and also into the link existing between genotype and phenotype. While a significant conservation of GIs and GI network structure has been reported between distant yeast species, such a conservation is not clear between unicellular and multicellular organisms. Structural and functional characterization of a GI network in these latter organisms is consequently of high interest. In this study, we present an in-depth characterization of ~1.5K GIs in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. We identify and characterize six distinct classes of GIs by examining a wide-range of structural and functional properties of genes and network, including co-expression, phenotypical manifestations, relationship with protein-protein interaction dense subnetworks (PDS) and pathways, molecular and biological functions, gene essentiality and pleiotropy. Our study shows that GI classes link genes within pathways and display distinctive properties, specifically towards PDS. It suggests a model in which pathways are composed of PDS-centric and PDS-independent GIs coordinating molecular machines through two specific classes of GIs involving pleiotropic and non-pleiotropic connectors. Our study provides the first in-depth characterization of a GI network within pathways of a multicellular organism. It also suggests a model to understand better how GIs control system robustness and evolution.
Exploiting media stream similarity for energy-efficient decoding and resource prediction

This article introduces a novel approach to energy-efficient media stream decoding that is based on the notion of media stream similarity. The key idea is that platform-independent scenarios with similar decoding complexity can be identified within and across media streams. A device that decodes a media stream annotated with scenario information can then adjust its processor clock frequency and voltage level based on these scenarios for lower energy consumption. Our evaluation, done using the H.264 AVC decoder and 12 reference video streams, shows an average energy reduction of 44% while missing less than 0.2% of the frame deadlines using scenario-driven video decoding. An additional application of scenario-based media stream annotation is to predict required resources (compute power and energy) for consuming a given service on a given device. Resource prediction is extremely useful in a client-server setup in which the client requests a media service from the server or content provider. The content provider (in cooperation with the client) can then determine what service quality to deliver, given the client's available resources. Scenario-aware resource prediction can predict (compute power and energy) consumption with errors less than 4% (and an overall average 1.4% error).
The Transcription Factor CarH Safeguards Use of Adenosylcobalamin as a Light Sensor by Altering the Photolysis Products

The newly discovered light-dependent transcription factor CarH uses adenosylcobalamin as a light sensor to regulate expression of protective genes in bacteria upon exposure to sunlight. This use of adenosylcobalamin is a clever adaptation of a classic enzyme cofactor, taking advantage of its photolabile Co–C bond. However, it is also puzzling in that photolysis of adenosylcobalamin generates the 5′-deoxyadenosyl radical that could damage DNA. Here, using liquid chromatography and spectroscopic techniques, we demonstrate that CarH suppresses release of the 5′-deoxyadenosyl radical and instead effects conversion to a nonreactive 4′,5′-anhydroadenosine. In this manner, CarH safeguards use of adenosylcobalamin in light-dependent gene regulation.
Developmental Profiling of Spiral Ganglion Neurons Reveals Insights into Auditory Circuit Assembly

The sense of hearing depends on the faithful transmission of sound information from the ear to the brain by spiral ganglion (SG) neurons. However, how SG neurons develop the connections and properties that underlie auditory processing is largely unknown. We catalogued gene expression in mouse SG neurons from embryonic day 12, when SG neurons first extend projections, up until postnatal day 15, after the onset of hearing. For comparison, we also analyzed the closely related vestibular ganglion (VG). Gene ontology analysis confirmed enriched expression of genes associated with gene regulation and neurite outgrowth at early stages, with the SG and VG often expressing different members of the same gene family. At later stages, the neurons transcribe more genes related to mature function, and exhibit a dramatic increase in immune gene expression. Comparisons of the two populations revealed enhanced expression of TGFβ pathway components in SG neurons and established new markers that consistently distinguish auditory and vestibular neurons. Unexpectedly, we found that Gata3, a transcription factor commonly associated with auditory development, is also expressed in VG neurons at early stages. We therefore defined new cohorts of transcription factors and axon guidance molecules that are uniquely expressed in SG neurons and may drive auditory-specific aspects of their differentiation and wiring. We show that one of these molecules, the receptor guanylyl cyclase Npr2, is required for bifurcation of the SG central axon. Hence, our dataset provides a useful resource for uncovering the molecular basis of specific auditory circuit assembly events.
Neurogenesis and The Effect of Antidepressants

The recent evidence that neurogenesis occurs throughout adulthood and neural stem cells (NSCs) reside in the adult central nervous system (CNS) suggests that the CNS has the potential for self-repair. Beside this potential, the function of newly generated neuronal cells in the adult brain remains the focus of intense research. The hippocampus of patients with depression show signs of atrophy and neuronal loss. This suggests that adult neurogenesis may contribute to the biology of depression. The observations that antidepressants, like fluoxetine, increase neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus (DG) and neurogenesis is required for the behavioral effect of antidepressants, lead to a new theory for depression and the design of new strategies and drugs for the treatment of depression. However, the role of adult neurogenesis in the etiology of depression remains the source of controversies and debates.
Nonparallel training for voice conversion based on a parameter adaptation approach

The objective of voice conversion algorithms is to modify the speech by a particular source speaker so that it sounds as if spoken by a different target speaker. Current conversion algorithms employ a training procedure, during which the same utterances spoken by both the source and target speakers are needed for deriving the desired conversion parameters. Such a (parallel) corpus, is often difficult or impossible to collect. Here, we propose an algorithm that relaxes this constraint, i.e., the training corpus does not necessarily contain the same utterances from both speakers. The proposed algorithm is based on speaker adaptation techniques, adapting the conversion parameters derived for a particular pair of speakers to a different pair, for which only a nonparallel corpus is available. We show that adaptation reduces the error obtained when simply applying the conversion parameters of one pair of speakers to another by a factor that can reach 30%. A speaker identification measure is also employed that more insightfully portrays the importance of adaptation, while listening tests confirm the success of our method. Both the objective and subjective tests employed, demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves comparable results with the ideal case when a parallel corpus is available.