Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CHARACTERIZATION OF TESTOSTERONE 11β-HYDROXYLATION CATALYZED BY HUMAN LIVER MICROSOMAL CYTOCHROMES P450

A combination of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry has been used to clarify some new aspects of testosterone metabolism. The main pathway of testosterone oxidative metabolism by human liver microsomes is the formation of 1β-, 2α-/β-, 6β-, 15β-, and 16β-hydroxytestosterones, mainly catalyzed by cytochromes P450 2C9, 2C19, and 3A4. We now report the first determination that 11β-hydroxytestosterone (11β-OHT) can also be formed by human liver microsomal fractions. The structures of five hydroxylated metabolites of testosterone (2β-, 6β-, 11β-, 15β-, and 16β-OHT) and the C-17 oxidative metabolite androstenedione were determined by liquid chromatography with UV detection at 240 nm and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Corresponding results were obtained by high-performance liquid chromatography-AMS analysis of incubations of [4-14C]testosterone with human liver microsomes. 6β-Hydroxylation was always the dominant metabolic pathway, but 2β-, 15β-, and 16β-OHT, and androstenedione were also formed. The previously undetected hydroxytestosterone, 11β-OHT, was found to be a minor metabolite formed by human liver microsomal enzymes. It was formed more readily by CYP3A4 than by either CYP2C9 or CYP2C19. 11β-Hydroxylation was inhibited by ketoconazole (IC50 = 30 nM) at concentrations similar to the IC50 (36 nM) for 6β-hydroxylation Therefore, CYP3A4 could be mainly responsible for testosterone 11β-hydroxylation in the human liver. These findings identify human hepatic biotransformation of testosterone to 11β-OHT as a previously unrecognized extra-adrenal metabolic pathway.
Policy iteration optimal tracking control for chaotic systems by using an adaptive dynamic programming approach

A policy iteration algorithm of adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) is developed to solve the optimal tracking control for a class of discrete-time chaotic systems. By system transformations, the optimal tracking problem is transformed into an optimal regulation one. The policy iteration algorithm for discrete-time chaotic systems is first described. Then, the convergence and admissibility properties of the developed policy iteration algorithm are presented, which show that the transformed chaotic system can be stabilized under an arbitrary iterative control law and the iterative performance index function simultaneously converges to the optimum. By implementing the policy iteration algorithm via neural networks, the developed optimal tracking control scheme for chaotic systems is verified by a simulation.
A Channelized Binning Method for Extraction of Dominant Color Pixel Value

The Color is one of the most important and easily identifiable features for describing the visual content. The MPEG standard has developed a number of descriptors that covers different aspects of the visual content. The Dominant color descriptor is one of them. This paper proposes a channelized binning approach a novel method for extraction of the dominant color pixel value which is a variant of the dominant color descriptor. The Channelized binning method treats the problem as a statistical problem and tries to avoid color quantization and interpolation guessing of number and centroid of dominant colors. Channelized binning is an iterative approach which automatically estimates the number of dominant pixel values and their centroids. It operates on 24 bit full RGB color space, by considering one color channel at a time and hence avoiding the color quantization. Results show that the proposed method can successfully extract dominant color pixel values.
Anatomic study of the superficial sural artery and its implication in the neurocutaneous vascularized sural nerve free flap

Combined extended nerve and soft tissue defects of the upper extremity require nerve reconstruction and adequate soft tissue coverage. This study focuses on the reliability of the free vascularized sural nerve graft combined with a fasciocutaneous posterior calf flap within this indication. An anatomical study was performed on 26 cadaveric lower extremities that had been Thiel fixated and color silicone injected. Dissection of the fasciocutaneous posterior calf flap involved the medial sural nerve and superficial sural artery (SSA) with its septocutaneous perforators, extended laterally to include the lateral cutaneous branch of the sural nerve and continued to the popliteal origin of the vascular pedicle and the nerves. The vessel and nerves diameter were measured with an eyepiece reticle at 4.5× magnification. Length and diameter of the nerves and vessels were carefully assessed and reported in the dissection book. A total of 26 flaps were dissected. The SSA originated from the medial sural artery (13 cases), the popliteal artery (12 cases), or the lateral sural artery (one case). The average size of the SSA was 1.4 ± 0.4 mm. The mean pedicle length before the artery joined the sural nerve was 4.5 ± 1.9 cm. A comitant vein was present in 21 cases with an average diameter of 2.0 ± 0.8 mm, in 5 cases a separate vein needed to be dissected with an average diameter of 3.5 ± 0.4 mm. The mean medial vascularized sural nerve length was 21.2 ± 8.9 cm. Because of inclusion of the vascularized part of the lateral branch of the sural nerve (mean length of 16.7 ± 4.8 cm), a total of 35.0 ± 9.6 cm mean length of vascularized nerve could be gained from each extremity. The free vascularized sural nerve graft combined with a fasciocutaneous posterior calf flap pedicled on the SSA offers a reliable solution for complex tissue and nerve defect. Clin. Anat. 26:903–910, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Promoting Long Term Athlete Development in Cross Country Skiing through Competency-Based Coach Education: A Qualitative Study

Coach education programs in Canada and abroad have recently been framed around Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD), a seven-stage model that is based on the physical, mental, emotional, and cognitive development of children and adolescents. To date, limited empirical research on LTAD exists. The primary objective of this study was to identify whether individuals who completed a coach education course acquired an understanding of LTAD and whether they integrated this knowledge into their coaching practice. The secondary purpose was to identify information that could be used to improve the coach education program as well as the effectiveness of youth sport coaching in cross-country skiing. Results indicated the course was an effective technique for delivering the core principles of LTAD to coaches with little or no prior knowledge of the concept. As well, coaches successfully integrated the principles of LTAD into their coaching practices. These results are discussed in regard to improving the effectiveness of youth sport coaching.
Sparse multi-task regression and feature selection to identify brain imaging predictors for memory performance

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive impairment of memory and other cognitive functions, which makes regression analysis a suitable model to study whether neuroimaging measures can help predict memory performance and track the progression of AD. Existing memory performance prediction methods via regression, however, do not take into account either the interconnected structures within imaging data or those among memory scores, which inevitably restricts their predictive capabilities. To bridge this gap, we propose a novel Sparse Multi-tAsk Regression and feaTure selection (SMART) method to jointly analyze all the imaging and clinical data under a single regression framework and with shared underlying sparse representations. Two convex regularizations are combined and used in the model to enable sparsity as well as facilitate multi-task learning. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by both clearly improved prediction performances in all empirical test cases and a compact set of selected RAVLT-relevant MRI predictors that accord with prior studies.
Inhibitory Processes in Attention, Memory and Language

The Neurology of Inhibition: Integrating Controlled and Automatic Processes. A Model of Inhibitory Mechanisms in Selective Attention. Categories of Cognitive Inhibition, With Reference to Attention. Temporal Allocation of Visual Attention: Inhibtion or Interference? On the Ability to Inhibit Thought and Action: A User's Guide to the Stop Signal Paradigm. Directed Ignoring: Inhibitory Regulation of Working Memory. Mechanisms of Inhibition in Long-Term Memory: A New Taxonomy. Inhibitory Processes in Perceptual Recognition: Evidence for a Center-Surround Attentional Mechanism. Inhibitory Processes in the Recognition of Homograph Meanings. Phonological Inhibition in Auditory Word Recognition. Inhibition in Interactive Activation Models of Linguistic Selection and Sequencing.
Two Receptor Tyrosine Phosphatases of the LAR Family Are Expressed in the Developing Leech by Specific Central Neurons as well as Select Peripheral Neurons, Muscles, and Other Cells

Receptor protein tyrosine phosphatases (rPTPs) are thought to play a crucial role in neuronal development, particularly in pathfinding by growing processes. We have cloned and sequenced two Hirudo medicinalis rPTPs that are homologous to theDrosophila and vertebrate rPTPs of the Leukocyte common antigen-related (LAR) subfamily. These Hirudo rPTPs, HmLAR1 and HmLAR2, are products of different, homologous genes, both containing two tandem intracellular phosphatase domains and ectodomains with three tandem Ig domains and different numbers of tandem fibronectin type III (FIII) domains. They are expressed in distinct patterns during embryogenesis. HmLAR1 mRNA is expressed by a subset of central and peripheral neurons and by several peripheral muscular structures, whereas HmLAR2 mRNA is expressed by a different subset of central neurons and by the peripheral, neuron-like Comb cells. HmLAR1 and HmLAR2 proteins are located on the neurites of central neurons. In addition, HmLAR2 is expressed on the cell body, processes, and growth cones of the Comb cells. Because of their CAM-like ectodomains and homology to proteins known to be involved in pathfinding and because they are expressed by different subsets of neurons, we hypothesize that HmLAR1 and HmLAR2 participate in navigational decisions that distinguish the sets of neurons that express them. Furthermore, we hypothesize that HmLAR2 is also involved in setting up the highly regular array of parallel processes established by the Comb cells. Lastly, we propose that the HmLAR1 ectodomain on peripheral muscle cells plays a role in target recognition via interactions with neuronal receptors, which might include HmLAR1 or HmLAR2.
Discogenic Axial Back Pain: Is There a Role for Nucleoplasty?

Study Design A prospective observational study. Purpose To evaluate the role of nucleoplasty in the management of discogenic axial back pain; to determine the influence of concordant pain during provocative discography, annular tear and loss of disc height on the outcome of nucleoplasty. Overview of Literature The role of nucleoplasty in the management of radicular leg pain due to disc herniation is known. However, the data regarding its role in the management of discogenic axial back pain is scarce. Methods A prospective evaluation of 30 patients with discogenic axial back pain undergoing nucleoplasty was performed. Pain, functional disability and quality of life were assessed using the 100 mm visual analogue scale (VAS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and Short Form-36 (SF-36), respectively. Results The mean reduction in VAS was 31.03 and 29.03; mean reduction in ODI was 24.53 and 20.60; and mean increment in SF-36 was 13.58 and 12.30, at 6 months and at 12 months, respectively. The differences were statistically significant (p <0.05). Concordant pain during provocative discography, annular tear and loss of disc height did not affect a clinically significant improvement in any of the three outcomes (p =0.882, 0.213, and 0.170; respectively). Conclusions Nucleoplasty produced statistically significant improvements in pain, functional disability and quality of life in patients with discogenic low back pain at 6 months and at 12 months. Concordant pain during provocative discography, annular tear and loss of disc height did not influence any of the outcomes after nucleoplasty in patients with discogenic axial back pain.
Herbal medicines for diabetes control among Indian and Pakistani migrants with diabetes

ABSTRACT Drawing on data collected during a 16-month ethnographic investigation, this paper explores practices around Indians’ and Pakistanis’ use of herbal medications for diabetes control. The ethnographic study was conducted among Indian and Pakistani migrants in Edinburgh, Scotland and included extended participant observation, six group discussions and 21 semi-structured interviews. Respondents showed great resistance in adhering to medication prescriptions for diabetes control due to their various side effects, especially within the stomach. In order to avoid such side effects, respondents decreased medication dosage and turned to non-allopathic remedies that usually consisted of herbal medications that, according to Indians and Pakistanis, did not cause side effects as medications did and tackled the cause of the disease rather than its symptoms. Such remedies however, were not only combined with allopathic ones but also eventually replaced without the doctor's consultation.
A new class of mutations in Arabidopsis thaliana, acaulis1, affecting the development of both inflorescences and leaves

We isolated and analyzed mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana, acaulis, with flower stalks that are almost absent or are much reduced in length. The mutations are divided between two loci, acaulis1 (acl1) and acaulis2 (acl2). The acl1-1 mutation has been assigned to linkage group 4 in the vicinity of locus ap2. The acl1-1 mutant showed premature arrest of the inflorescence meristem after the onset of reproductive development, followed by consequent reduction in the number of flower-bearing phytomers and therefore flowers. The apical meristem of the inflorescences was morphologically normal but its radius was about half that of the wild type. The acl1 mutants are also defective in the development of foliage leaves. Both defects could be rescued by growth at a specific temperature (28°C). The length of the cells in acl1-3 mutant was less than that in the wild type but the numbers of cells in leaves and internodes of acl1 mutants were calculated to be the same as those of the wild type. Thus, the defects in inflorescences and leaves were attributed to defects in the process of elongation (maturation) of these cells. Temperature-shift experiments showed that the Acl1+ product was necessary at all developmental stages. A critical stage was shown to exist for recovery from the cessation of development of inflorescence meristems that was caused by the acl1-1 mutation. Grafting experiments showed that the acl1-1 mutation does not affect diffusible substances. An analysis of double mutants carrying both acl1-1 and one of developmental mutations, ap1, clv1, lfy, or tfl1, showed that ACL1 is a new class of gene.
Cathexis Revisited: Corticolimbic Resonance and the Adaptive Control of Memory a

S issues that Freud (1895) addressed in his Project, a “psychology for neurologists,” remain fundamental problems for a neural model of mental processes. By theorizing how neurons could represent experience and organize behavior adaptively, Freud confronted the problem of establishing memories in the same neural mechanism that must be immutable in response to perceptual events. That is, according to Freud there is an inherent inconsistency between the changes that must occur in the functions of neurons in order for memory traces to be formed and the stability that must also be present in order for perceptual processing to be unprejudiced. By proposing a neural architecture for motivating cognition and behavior adaptively, he attempted to understand how needs and values come to shape the structure of memory and behavior. Perhaps most importantly, by framing his neurophysiological model to address broad psychological questions, Freud proposed a specific theoretical approach for bringing the evolutionary insights of nineteenth-century biology to bear on practical questions of human behavior. In this paper we revisit Freud’s neurophysiological speculations in light of current thinking in cognitive neuroscience. For important aspects of Freud’s approach, such as the emphasis on adaptive and homeostatic mechanisms in regulating cognition, modern neuropsychological theory could still be informed by Freud’s work. With the concept of cathexis, for example, Freud integrated the mechanisms of memory with those of motivation in a way that is quite relevant to understanding the current evidence on corticolimbic interaction in memory and emotion. The idea that emotional excitement may be mediated directly by mechanisms of neuronal excitement remains a direct and compelling hypothesis in light of the modern evidence on emotion, kindling, and neural plasticity in corticolimbic networks. For other aspects of Freud’s theorizing, such as his separation of perceptual networks from memory networks, we think the modern evidence shows that Freud’s proposals were wrong. Memory and perception are very difficult to separate, and in fact they appear to be achieved within common networks in the cortical pathways linking sensory areas with limbic structures. Even here, however, it was an important insight to recognize the inherent incompatibility between perceptual stability and mnemonic plasticity. This incompatibility—now known as “catastrophic interference” or “the stability/plasticity dilemma”—has proven to be a key problem in computational approaches to neural models in the last half of the century. In this paper we entertain the hypothesis that the stability–plasticity dilemma may not be restricted to neural network simulations. It may reflect a fundamental fact of
Korean Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction: The Effects of Social Support and Psychological Factors

This study aimed to investigate the effects of social support and psychological factors on life satisfaction as well as the paths among them. The results are as follows. Social support did not have direct impact on their life satisfaction. However, it positively influenced psychological factors such as self-efficacy and emotion regulation, and this in turn affected their life satisfaction. Keywords-life satisfaction; social support; psychological factors
Bi-modal authentication in mobile environments using session variability modelling

We present a state-of-the-art bi-modal authentication system for mobile environments, using session variability modelling. We examine inter-session variability modelling (ISV) and joint factor analysis (JFA) for both face and speaker authentication and evaluate our system on the largest bi-modal mobile authentication database available, the MOBIO database, with over 61 hours of audio-visual data captured by 150 people in uncontrolled environments on a mobile phone. Our system achieves 2.6% and 9.7% half total error rate for male and female trials respectively - relative improvements of 78% and 27% compared to previous results.
EXPLORING HOMOPHOBIC VICTIMISATION IN GAUTENG, SOUTH AFRICA: ISSUES, IMPACTS AND RESPONSES

Post-apartheid South Africa was founded on democratic values, and a constitution that enshrines the principles of human dignity, equality, and social justice. In stark contrast with constitutional guarantees of freedom and human rights for all, research indicates that homophobic victimisation is an endemic part of the South African landscape. Crimes motivated by prejudice (‘hate crimes’) are not recognised as a separate crime category in current legislation. Research conducted in Gauteng province illuminates the nature and prevalence of prejudice-motivated hate speech and victimisation against LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people. These research findings, based on self-reported data, indicate a disconcertingly high prevalence of homophobic discrimination. The findings confirm that higher levels of ‘outness’, integration into lesbian and gay communities and challenging patriarchal gender roles, are all linked to increased rates of certain forms of homophobic victimisation. The relationship between gender presentation and vulnerability to victimisation points to the highly gendered nature of homophobic discrimination. Whilst existing policy frameworks within the ambit of the National Victim Empowerment Programme go some way in addressing homophobic discrimination, service provider deprioritisation, marginalisation, exclusion and targeted victimisation, are everyday realities in many communities. This is especially true for those who are perceived to differ from, or challenge, social and gender norms. The lack of targeted strategies to address LGBT discrimination negatively impact on the extent to which the criminal justice system and other service delivery agents can adequately respond. Hate crimes in South Africa require specific approaches in terms of legislative and policy responses. This paper considers possible multi-leveled measures to address hate crime both within the criminal justice system and in shaping appropriate service delivery responses more broadly. In particular, the paper explores homophobic discrimination in South Africa; highlights pertinent issues and impacts of sexual orientation-based hate victimisation; and considers contextually and historically appropriate remedies in this regard.
Bounding the shared resource load for the performance analysis of multiprocessor systems

Predicting timing behavior is key to reliable real-time system design and verification, but becomes increasingly difficult for current multiprocessor systems on chip. The integration of formerly separate functionality into a single multicore system introduces new inter-core timing dependencies, resulting from the common use of the now shared resources. In order to conservatively bound the delay due to the shared resource accesses, upper bounds on the potential amount of conflicting requests from other processors are required. This paper proposes a method that captures the request distances of multiple shared resource accesses by single tasks and also by multiple tasks that are dynamically scheduled on the same processor. Unlike previous work, we acknowledge the fact that on a single processor, tasks will not actually execute in parallel, but in alternation. This consideration leads to a more accurate load model. In a final step, the approach is extended to allow addressing also dynamic cache misses that do not occur at predefined times but surface dynamically during the execution of the tasks.