Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sphingoid base synthesis requirement for endocytosis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The internalization step of endocytosis in yeast requires actin and sterols for maximum efficiency. In addition, many receptors and plasma membrane proteins must be phosphorylated and ubiquitylated prior to internalization. The Saccharomyces cerevisiae end8‐1 mutant is allelic to lcb1, a mutant defective in the first step of sphingoid base synthesis. Upon arrest of sphingoid base synthesis a rapid block in endocytosis is seen. This block can be overcome by exogenous sphingoid base. Under conditions where endogenous sphingosine base synthesis was blocked and exogenous sphingoid bases could not be converted to phosphorylated sphingoid bases or to ceramide, sphingoid bases could still suppress the endocytic defect. Therefore, the required lipid is most likely a sphingoid base. Interestingly, sphingoid base synthesis is required for proper actin organization, but is not required for receptor phosphorylation. This is the first case of a physiological role for sphingoid base synthesis, other than as a precursor for ceramide or phosphorylated sphingoid base synthesis.
Effects of Gender, Age, and Education on Assertiveness in a Nigerian Sample

Two hundred fourteen (214) married persons, 101 men and 113 women aged 20–60, with at least high school education, participated in the study which investigated the effects of gender, age, and educational attainment on assertiveness among married persons in Nigeria. The Assertive Behavior Assessment scale (ABAS; Onyeizugbo, 1998) was used to measure assertiveness. It was hypothesized that persons with higher educational attainment will report more assertiveness than persons with lower educational attainment. Results supported the hypothesis. In addition, interactions between gender and age, and gender and educational attainment were found. Younger men reported more assertiveness than younger women whereas older women reported more assertiveness than older men. Also, women participants of lower educational attainment reported more assertiveness than their men counterparts whereas men of higher educational attainment reported more assertiveness than their women counterparts. Results of this study suggest that women in Nigeria may become more assertive with age.
Role of human papillomavirus in the development of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas

Objective To review the literature on the role of oncogenic human papillomaviruses (HPVs) in the carcinogenesis of the head and neck mucosa. Material and Methods Molecular and epidemiological studies concerning the high-risk HPV types and their role in carcinogenesis in the head and neck region were screened. Results Different studies revealed that: (i) 15–25% of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) are clonally associated with high risk HPV types (type 16); (ii) the oropharynx and particularly the tonsils are the most susceptible sites; (iii) patients with HPV-positive tumours present with more advanced stages of disease, are relatively younger, do not have extravagant tobacco and alcohol intake and seem to have a better survival; (iv) HPV-positive tumours are characterized by poor differentiation grade and a basaloid appearance; and (v) HPV-positive tumours exhibit integrated HPV DNA, wild-type p53, pRb downregulation and overexpression of p16INK4A. Conclusion Taken together, these data support the view that HPV-harbouring HNSCC can be considered a discrete tumour entity with, moreover, a favourable prognosis. Screening of patients, especially those with tonsillar cancers, for the presence of HPV may help to further optimize treatment protocols and to provide more accurate prognostic information.
Fast coupled adaptation for sparse impulse responses using a partial haar transform

This work presents a novel scheme for identifying the impulse response of a sparse channel. The scheme consists of two adaptive filters operating sequentially. The first adaptive filter adapts using a partial Haar transform of the input and yields an estimate of the location of the peak of the sparse impulse response. The second adaptive filter is then centered about this estimate. Both filters are short in comparison to the delay uncertainty of the unknown channel. The principle advantage of this scheme is that two short adaptive filters can be used instead of one long adaptive filter, resulting in faster overall convergence and reduced computational complexity and storage. The scheme is analyzed in detail for a least mean squares (LMS) LMS-LMS type of structure, although it can be implemented using any combination of adaptive algorithms. Monte Carlo simulations are shown to be in good agreement with the theoretical model for the behavior of the peak estimating filter as well as for the mean square error (MSE) behavior of the second filter.
Oil Consumption and Economic Growth Interdependence in Small European Countries

Abstract The paper examines the existence and the direction of causality between the oil consumption and the economic growth in small European countries over the period 1980–2007 for the developed countries and 1993-2007 for the transition countries. Our findings show that small European states can be divided into two groups. The first group is characterized by the causality running from real GDP to oil consumption and is composed of the most developed European countries and a number of transition countries. In the former case, the direction of causality is a consequence of a highly developed post-industrial society with a strong tertiary sector. In the case of transition economies the direction of causality can be related to deindustrialization process and transition depression that resulted in a sharp industrial decline and decreased industrial oil demand. The second group is characterized by the causality running from oil consumption to economic growth, in which case the state should employ additional resources in subsidizing oil prices and securing long term and stable oil sources for its economy. In such countries the reduction of oil consumption because of different reasons (external prices shocks, increased taxes on oil and its derivatives, restrictive ecological laws regarding CO2 emission) could lead to a fall in economic growth.
Burnout in Youth Sports

Burnout is a condition of psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical withdrawal from sport participation as a result of chronic stress. Although youth sports have not been found to be as anxiety provoking as once feared, a significant number of young athletes suffer from burnout each year. Unfortunately, a review of the literature indicates that sport scientists have given little attention to burnout. The most significant advance in the study of burnout has been Smith's cognitive-affective model of athletic burnout, which he adapted from an earlier cognitive-affective model of stress. The model, which consists of situational, cognitive appraisal, physiological-response, and behavioral components, is described in detail, and some directions for future research are outlined. Finally, suggestions for preventing and treating burnout in young athletes are presented.
Communicating health risk to ethnic groups: reaching Hispanics as a case study.

The United States is increasingly becoming a culturally heterogeneous society. In 1990, 75% of the people in the United States were white of European descent, 12.3% were African-American, 9.0% were Hispanic-American, 2.8% were Asian-American, and 0.7% were Native-American. It is projected that by the year 2021, these proportions will change: only 53% of the U.S. population will be white of European descent, the number of Asian-Americans and HispanicAmericans will triple, and the number of African-Americans will double (1).
The Ecology of Tactical Voting in Britain

Analyses of both aggregate-level constituency data and individual-level survey data from the 1983–2005 British General Elections indicate that when available information clearly signals which parties in a constituency are viable and which are not, supporters of nonviable parties vote tactically. Alliance/Liberal Democrat tactical voters tend to split their votes between Labour and the Conservatives, so the major parties derive limited net benefit from them. When Labour faces a dismal outlook in a constituency many of its supporters also vote tactically, and those that do overwhelmingly cast their votes for the Alliance/Liberal Democrats. Strong tactical support received from Labour voters has furnished the margin of victory in as many as a fifth of the contests that the Alliance/Liberal Democrats have won. A party that has repeatedly seen Duverger's “mechanical” factor reduce the sizable share of votes it wins nationally to a far smaller share of seats thus turns out to be the biggest beneficiary of tactical voting.
Assessment of Rodent Glioma Models Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging Techniques

There is a strong need to obtain precise surrogate biomarkers to improve the accuracy of diagnosis for gliomas, and to effectively evaluate therapeutic response. Often pre-clinical models of disease are used to develop diagnostic procedures and assess the effectiveness of a potential therapy. For gliomas, there are a variety of rodent models that have been investigated by numerous investigators over the past few decades, ranging from intracranial rodent glioma cell implantation models, intracranial human glioma xenografts, orthotopic implantation of human glioma stem cells, multipotent human glioblastoma stem-like neurosphere lines, transgenic mouse models, to viral-induced progenitor or stem cell derived glioma models. Tumor grades in these models vary from low to high grade tumors, with many of the high-grade glioma models sharing some of the characteristics of human grade IV glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Many of the characteristic features of gliomas can be assessed diagnostically with in vivo imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). MRI has the capability of obtaining morphological/anatomical, functional, biophysical, molecular and metabolic information of a disease at various pathological stages of development. Tumor characteristics often associated with aggressive gliomas include an invasive growth pattern, angiogenesis, necrosis, hypoxia, edema, and alterations in major metabolic pathways. Morphological features, such as tumor size and position, infiltrative growth, hemorrhaging, necrotic lesions, edema, mass effect, heterogeneity, and cyst formation, can be followed using standard contrast-enhanced T1-weighted MR imaging or non-contrast T2-weighted imaging. Although conventional MRI provides us with some indication about the nature of the lesion or tumor, it has limited sensitivity and specificity in determining histological type and grade, delineating margins and differentiating edema, as well as effectively evaluating therapeutic effects or side-effects. Incorporating some advanced MR techniques, such as MR angiography (MRA), perfusion-weighted MR imaging (PWI), diffusion-weighted MR imaging (DWI), MR spectroscopy (MRS), and molecular MRI (mMRI), may help to overcome some of those limitations. Angiogenesis associated with major blood vessels can be assessed using MR angiography, whereas perfusion-weighted imaging can be used to monitor angiogenesis associated with capillary vessels in tumors. Biophysical parameters such as water diffusion, as measured by diffusion-weighted imaging, have also provided
Attitudes towards benefits among entrepreneurial employees

The dimensionality of a multi‐dimensional questionnaire – the Attitudes Towards Benefits Scale (ATBS) – was examined using a principal components analysis with an orthogonal rotation and multiple‐group confirmatory factor analysis for a sample of 851 employees of entrepreneurial organizations in the USA. As previously found by Hart and Carraher, it is found that the questionnaire contains three separate dimensions of attitudes towards benefits.
Climate change in size-structured ecosystems

One important aspect of climate change is the increase in average temperature, which will not only have direct physiological effects on all species but also indirectly modifies abundances, interaction strengths, food-web topologies, community stability and functioning. In this theme issue, we highlight a novel pathway through which warming indirectly affects ecological communities: by changing their size structure (i.e. the body-size distributions). Warming can shift these distributions towards dominance of small- over large-bodied species. The conceptual, theoretical and empirical research described in this issue, in sum, suggests that effects of temperature may be dominated by changes in size structure, with relatively weak direct effects. For example, temperature effects via size structure have implications for top-down and bottom-up control in ecosystems and may ultimately yield novel communities. Moreover, scaling up effects of temperature and body size from physiology to the levels of populations, communities and ecosystems may provide a crucially important mechanistic approach for forecasting future consequences of global warming.
Epoch Extraction Based on Integrated Linear Prediction Residual Using Plosion Index

Epoch is defined as the instant of significant excitation within a pitch period of voiced speech. Epoch extraction continues to attract the interest of researchers because of its significance in speech analysis. Existing high performance epoch extraction algorithms require either dynamic programming techniques or a priori information of the average pitch period. An algorithm without such requirements is proposed based on integrated linear prediction residual (ILPR) which resembles the voice source signal. Half wave rectified and negated ILPR (or Hilbert transform of ILPR) is used as the pre-processed signal. A new non-linear temporal measure named the plosion index (PI) has been proposed for detecting ‘transients’ in speech signal. An extension of PI, called the dynamic plosion index (DPI) is applied on pre-processed signal to estimate the epochs. The proposed DPI algorithm is validated using six large databases which provide simultaneous EGG recordings. Creaky and singing voice samples are also analyzed. The algorithm has been tested for its robustness in the presence of additive white and babble noise and on simulated telephone quality speech. The performance of the DPI algorithm is found to be comparable or better than five state-of-the-art techniques for the experiments considered.
Tai Chi Chih: an exercise option for older adults.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of Tai Chi Chih on balance, flexibility, mood, health status, and blood pressure in a sample of community-dwelling elders. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was used in the study. Participants were recruited from a senior center located in the suburbs of a large metropolitan area. The experimental group consisted of 24 volunteers over the age of 55 who performed 60 minutes of Tai Chi Chih once a week for 10 weeks and practiced at home. The control group consisted of 22 volunteers who continued with their current level of activity. Analysis of covariance revealed a significant difference between the two groups on balance (F = 4.3, p < .05). This study suggests that Tai Chi Chih is a safe and enjoyable form of exercise that might improve balance in community-dwelling elders.
SCIENTIFIC SELF-DEFENSE: TRANSFORMING DEWEY'S IDEA OF TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSPARENCY

In this essay, David Waddington provides a basic outline of John Dewey's often-overlooked views on technology education and explores how these ideas could be updated productively for use in contemporary contexts. Some of the shortcomings of Dewey's ideas are also examined—his faith in the scientific method may have been excessive, and some critics have charged that his aspirations for a technology-infused citizenship education were overly ambitious. However, Waddington contends in this analysis that by combining Dewey's ideas with the insights of contemporary thinkers such as Bruno Latour, it is possible to update the notion of technological transparency to create a fresh approach to science and technology education. This new approach, which Waddington calls “critical transparency,” aims to help citizens develop a healthy skepticism toward science and technology.
Love and Sexual Attitudes, Self-Disclosure and Sensation Seeking

Love and sexuality are phenomena of central importance to certain types of intimate relationships. Although love has been a mainstream relationship variable in research, sexuality has often been explored only peripherally within a relationship context. Based on previous findings and using newly developed measures of love attitudes, sexual attitudes and self-disclosure, the present study explored the relation between love and sexuality and their mutual relations with self-disclosure and sensation seeking. Results (n = 218) indicated substantial correlations between love and sex attitudes, and between those variables and self-disclosure to a lover and to a friend, the ability to elicit self-disclosure, and sensation seeking. Males differed from females on only seven of 114 correlations, suggesting gender similarity in the pattern of variable relations. Such correlational evidence is helpful in interpreting mean differences between the sexes for several variables in this study and in previous research. This study shows that a multiplex of attitudes about love interlocks with attitudes about sexuality, and that both relate to other variables such as disclosure and sensation seeking. Such results begin the task of developing the characterizations of the love styles (Lee, 1973) and generalizing love-sex linkages towards the broader context of personality on the one hand, and the complex arena of personal relationships on the other.
Altered Midline Axon Pathways and Ectopic Neurons in the Developing Hypothalamus of Netrin-1- and DCC-Deficient Mice

Optic nerve formation in mouse involves interactions between netrin-1 at the optic disk and the netrin-1 receptor DCC (deleted in colorectal cancer) expressed on retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons. Deficiency in either protein causes RGC pathfinding defects at the disk leading to optic nerve hypoplasia (Deiner et al., 1997). Here we show that further along the visual pathway, RGC axons in netrin-1- or DCC-deficient mice grow in unusually angular trajectories within the ventral hypothalamus. In heterozygousSeyneu mice that also have a small optic nerve, RGC axon trajectories appear normal, indicating that the altered RGC axon trajectories in netrin-1 and DCC mutants are not secondarily caused by optic nerve hypoplasia. Intrinsic hypothalamic patterning is also affected in netrin-1 and DCC mutants, including a severe reduction in the posterior axon projections of gonadotropin-releasing hormone neurons. In addition to axon pathway defects, antidiuretic hormone and oxytocin neurons are found ectopically in the ventromedial hypothalamus, apparently no longer confined to the supraoptic nucleus in mutants. In summary, netrin-1 and DCC, presumably via direct interactions, govern both axon pathway formation and neuronal position during hypothalamic development, and loss of netrin-1 or DCC function affects both visual and neuroendocrine systems. Netrin protein localization also indicates that unlike in more caudal CNS, guidance about the hypothalamic ventral midline does not require midline expression of netrin.
Flavonoids as dopaminergic neuromodulators.

SCOPE The present study aimed to characterize and evaluate flavonoids effects on organic cation uptake in neuronal cells. METHODS AND RESULTS Uptake experiments were conducted using radiolabeled methyl-4-phenylpyridinuim ([(3) H]-MPP(+) ), in human neuronal dopaminergic cells, SH-SY5Y. Catechin did not alter [(3) H]-MPP(+) uptake, however its metabolite 4'-methyl-catechin decreased it by almost 50%. Epicatechin and its methylated metabolites also decreased [(3) H]-MPP(+) uptake. Interestingly, the quercetin flavonol and its metabolite conjugated with glucuronic acid, as well as the flavanones naringenin and hesperitin, increased [(3) H]-MPP(+) uptake. CONCLUSION These results showed that different classes of flavonoids, as well as its metabolites, differently influence neuronal organic cation uptake. Several xeno- and endobiotics, including neurotransmitters, are organic cations. Specific food recommendations may be beneficial in pathological conditions where levels of neurotransmitters, as dopamine, are either increased or decreased.
An optimal algorithm for reconstructing images from binary measurements

We have studied a camera with a very large number of binary pixels referred to as the gigavision camera [1] or the gigapixel digital film camera [2, 3]. Potential advantages of this new camera design include improved dynamic range, thanks to its logarithmic sensor response curve, and reduced exposure time in low light conditions, due to its highly sensitive photon detection mechanism. We use maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) to reconstruct a high quality conventional image from the binary sensor measurements of the gigavision camera. We prove that when the threshold T is "1", the negative loglikelihood function is a convex function. Therefore, optimal solution can be achieved using convex optimization. Base on filter bank techniques, fast algorithms are given for computing the gradient and the multiplication of a vector and Hessian matrix of the negative log-likelihood function. We show that with a minor change, our algorithm also works for estimating conventional images from multiple binary images. Numerical experiments with synthetic 1-D signals and images verify the effectiveness and quality of the proposed algorithm. Experimental results also show that estimation performance can be improved by increasing the oversampling factor or the number of binary images.
A high-efficiency 100-W four-stage Doherty GaN HEMT power amplifier module for WCDMA systems

In this paper, a novel high-efficiency four-stage Doherty power amplifier architecture convenient for practical implementation in base station applications for modern communication standards has been proposed and fabricated. In practical verification, each power amplifier is based on a 25-W Cree GaN HEMT device with the transmission-line load network corresponding to an inverse Class F mode approximation. In a CW operation mode with the same bias voltage for each transistor, an output power of 50 dBm with a drain efficiency of 77% was achieved at a supply voltage of 34 V. In a single-carrier WCDMA operation mode with PAR of 6.5 dB, a high drain efficiency of 61% was achieved at an average output power of 43 dBm, with ACLR1 measured at −31 dBc level.