Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
N-Cadherin Relocalizes from the Periphery to the Center of the Synapse after Transient Synaptic Stimulation in Hippocampal Neurons

N-cadherin is a cell adhesion molecule which is enriched at synapses. Binding of N-cadherin molecules to each other across the synaptic cleft has been postulated to stabilize adhesion between the presynaptic bouton and the postsynaptic terminal. N-cadherin is also required for activity-induced changes at synapses, including hippocampal long term potentiation and activity-induced spine expansion and stabilization. We hypothesized that these activity-dependent changes might involve changes in N-cadherin localization within synapses. To determine whether synaptic activity changes the localization of N-cadherin, we used structured illumination microscopy, a super-resolution approach which overcomes the conventional resolution limits of light microscopy, to visualize the localization of N-cadherin within synapses of hippocampal neurons. We found that synaptic N-cadherin exhibits a spectrum of localization patterns, ranging from puncta at the periphery of the synapse adjacent to the active zone to an even distribution along the synaptic cleft. Furthermore, the N-cadherin localization pattern within synapses changes during KCl depolarization and after transient synaptic stimulation. During KCl depolarization, N-cadherin relocalizes away from the central region of the synaptic cleft to the periphery of the synapse. In contrast, after transient synaptic stimulation with KCl followed by a period of rest in normal media, fewer synapses have N-cadherin present as puncta at the periphery and more synapses have N-cadherin present more centrally and uniformly along the synapse compared to unstimulated cells. This indicates that transient synaptic stimulation modulates N-cadherin localization within the synapse. These results bring new information to the structural organization and activity-induced changes occurring at synapses, and suggest that N-cadherin relocalization may contribute to activity dependent changes at synapses.
Is AMH Level, Independent of Age, a Predictor of Live Birth in IVF?

Background: Although anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) level is known to predict ovarian reserve, there is conflicting evidence regarding the association between AMH and clinical pregnancy or live birth (LB). Aim: Our aim is to establish if there is any association between AMH and LB considering the effects of age and other relevant confounding factors in predicting LB. Settings and Design: 200 in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) cycles were retrospectively analysed in a tertiary fertility centre. Materials and Methods: From the database, data regarding the women’s age, AMH level, IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection, the factors of infertility, protocols, median AMH level and live birth rates (LBRs) were compared between the groups with and without LB in four age groups. The influences of age and AMH in predicting LB were analysed. Statistical analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 21 software (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, United States). Results and Conclusion: There were no significant differences in any of the confounding factors analysed between the groups with and without LB. In the higher two age groups, median AMH levels in the group with LB were higher than that in the group without LB. The odds of having a LB was significantly higher in the younger three age groups, and when AMH level was >20 pmol/l. AMH was not found to be the IVF outcome defining factor in younger women, but was relevant in those above 35 years. Older women with significantly higher AMH level had significantly higher LBR than their peers with low AMH level. Thus AMH does have a role in counselling women when predicting live birth from IVF, although age of women plays a major role in determining success from IVF treatment.
Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF)-2 and FGF Receptor 3 Are Required for the Development of the Substantia Nigra, and FGF-2 Plays a Crucial Role for the Rescue of Dopaminergic Neurons after 6-Hydroxydopamine Lesion

Basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF-2) is involved in the development and maintenance of the nervous system. Exogenous administration of FGF-2 increased dopaminergic (DA) graft survival in different animal models of Parkinson's disease. To study the physiological function of the endogenous FGF-2 system, we analyzed the nigrostriatal system of mice lacking FGF-2, mice overexpressing FGF-2, and FGF-receptor-3 (FGFR3)-deficient mice both after development and after 6-hydroxydopamine lesion. FGFR3-deficient mice (+/−) displayed a reduced number of DA neurons compared with the respective wild type. Whereas absence of FGF-2 led to significantly increased numbers of DA neurons, enhanced amount of the growth factor in mice overexpressing FGF-2 resulted in less tyrosine hydroxylase expression and a reduced DA cell density. The volumes of the substantia nigra were enlarged in both FGF-2−/− and in FGF-2 transgenic mice, suggesting an important role of FGF-2 for the establishment of the proper number of DA neurons and a normal sized substantia nigra during development. In a second set of experiments, the putative relevance of endogenous FGF-2 after neurotoxin application was investigated regarding the number of rescued DA neurons after partial 6-OHDA lesion. Interestingly, the results after lesion were directly opposed to the results after development: significantly less DA neurons survived in FGF-2−/− mice compared with wild-type mice. Together, the results indicate that FGFR3 is crucially involved in regulating the number of DA neurons. The lack of FGF-2 seems to be (over)compensated during development, but, after lesion, compensation mechanisms fail. The transgenic mice showed that endogenous FGF-2 protects DA neurons from 6-OHDA neurotoxicity.
Autoimmune Type 1 Diabetes Genetic Susceptibility Encoded by Human Leukocyte Antigen DRB1 and DQB1 Genes in Tunisia

ABSTRACT Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II genes contribute to the genetic susceptibility to type 1 diabetes (T1D), and susceptible alleles and haplotypes were implicated in the pathogenesis of T1D. This study investigated the heterogeneity in HLA class II haplotype distribution among Tunisian patients with T1D. This was a retrospective case control study done in Monastir in central Tunisia. The subjects comprised 88 T1D patients and 112 healthy controls. HLA-DRB1 and -DQB1 genotyping was done by PCR-sequence-specific priming. Significant DRB1 and DQB1 allelic differences were seen between T1D patients and controls; these differences comprised DRB1*030101 and DQB1*0302, which were higher in T1D patients than in control subjects, and DRB1*070101, DRB1*110101, DQB1*030101, and DQB1*060101, which were lower in T1D patients than in control subjects. In addition, the frequencies of DRB1*030101-DQB1*0201 and DRB1*040101-DQB1*0302 were higher in T1D patients than in control subjects, and the frequencies of DRB1*070101-DQB1*0201 and DRB1*110101-DQB1*030101 haplotypes were lower in T1D patients than in control subjects. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed the positive association of DRB1*030101-DQB1*0201 and DRB1*040101-DQB1*0302 and the negative association of only DRB1*070101-DQB1*0201 haplotypes with T1D. Furthermore, a significantly increased prevalence of DRB1*030101-DQB1*0201 homozygotes was seen for T1D subjects than for control subjects. Our results confirm the association of specific HLA-DR and -DQ alleles and haplotypes with T1D in Tunisians. The identification of similar and unique haplotypes in Tunisians compared to other Caucasians highlights the need for evaluating the contribution of HLA class II to the genetic susceptibility to T1D with regard to haplotype usage and also to ethnic origin and racial background.
The Effect of Anxiety and Emotional Intelligence on Students' Learning Process

A lot of teachers don’t know what exactly anxiety and emotional intelligenceare and how they can impact on student’s learning. Academic Anxiety will be happened amongst students when they feel intense worry about upcoming and previous incidence, too much self-concern and high focus on acting proficiently or they motivate by various items. Students with high level of anxiety most of the time misinterpreted or overstated the importance of the situation. If the situation is not managed correctly negative consequences may happen. In addition, students that show emotional intelligence toward different items can growth their skills in educational situation. Various expressions have been used to describe experience of emotional intelligence and academic anxiety. This study, talk over the relation of those terms associated with characterizing and conceptualizing of working memory, emotional intelligence and learning process.
Bacterial Vaginosis in HIV-Infected Women Induces Reversible Alterations in the Cervical Immune Environment

Background:Bacterial vaginosis (BV) has been associated with increased HIV cervicovaginal shedding. We hypothesized that this might relate to BV-associated increases in mucosal activated CD4+ T cells, which could enhance local HIV replication. Methods:Vaginal flora, cytokine/chemokine levels, and mucosal immune cell populations collected by cervical cytobrush were analyzed in 15 HIV-infected Kenyan female sex workers, before and after BV therapy with oral metronidazole. Results:Therapy reduced the Nugent score in all but 1 participant, and BV elimination was associated with reduced genital levels of interleukin 1β(IL1β), interleukin 8 (IL-8), and Regulated Upon Activation Normal T-cell Expressed and Secreted (RANTES). In addition, BV elimination reduced the total number of cervical CD4+ T cells, including those expressing the HIV coreceptor CCR5 and the activation marker CD69. Conclusions:BV induces significant and reversible alterations in cervical immune cell populations and local inflammatory cytokines that would be expected to enhance local HIV replication.
Localized Support for Injection Point Election in Hybrid Networks

Ad-hoc networks, a promising trend in wireless technology, fail to work properly in a global setting. In most cases, self-organization and cost-free local communication cannot compensate the need for being connected, gathering urgent information just-in-time. Equipping mobile devices additionally with GSM or UMTS adapters in order to communicate with arbitrary remote devices or even a fixed network infrastructure provides an opportunity. Devices that operate as intermediate nodes between the ad-hoc network and a reliable backbone network are potential injection points. They allow disseminating received information within the local neighborhood. The effectiveness of different devices to serve as injection point differs substantially. For practical reasons the determination of injection points should be done locally, within the ad-hoc network partitions. We analyze different localized algorithms using at most 2-hop neighboring information. Results show that devices selected this way spread information more efficiently through the ad-hoc network. Our results can also be applied in order to support the election process for clusterheads in the field of clustering mechanisms.
Inference on treatment effects for targeted clinical trials under enrichment design

After completion of a human genome project, the disease targets at molecular level can be identified. As a result, treatment modality for molecular targets can be developed. In practice, targeted clinical trials are usually conducted for evaluation of the possibility and feasibility of the individualized treatment of patients. However, the accuracy of diagnostic devices for identification of such molecular targets is usually not perfect. Therefore, some of the patients enrolled in targeted clinical trials with a positive result by the diagnostic device might not have the specific molecular targets and hence the treatment effects of the targeted drugs estimated from targeted clinical trials could be biased for the patient population truly with the molecular targets. Under an enrichment design for targeted clinical trials, we propose to use the EM algorithm and bootstrap method for obtaining the inference of the treatment effects of the targeted drugs in the patient population truly with molecular targets. A simulation study was conducted to empirically investigate the bias and variability of the proposed estimator and the size and power of the proposed testing method. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed estimator is unbiased with adequate precision and the confidence interval can provide satisfactory coverage probability. In addition, the proposed testing procedure can adequately control the size with sufficient power. A practical example illustrates the utility of the proposed method. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Long intergenic non-coding RNA HOTAIRM1 regulates cell cycle progression during myeloid maturation in NB4 human promyelocytic leukemia cells

HOTAIRM1 is a long intergenic non-coding RNA encoded in the human HOXA gene cluster, with gene expression highly specific for maturing myeloid cells. Knockdown of HOTAIRM1 in the NB4 acute promyelocytic leukemia cell line retarded all-trans retinoid acid (ATRA)-induced granulocytic differentiation, resulting in a significantly larger population of immature and proliferating cells that maintained cell cycle progression from G1 to S phases. Correspondingly, HOTAIRM1 knockdown resulted in retained expression of many otherwise ATRA-suppressed cell cycle and DNA replication genes, and abated ATRA induction of cell surface leukocyte activation, defense response, and other maturation-related genes. Resistance to ATRA-induced cell cycle arrest at the G1/S phase transition in knockdown cells was accompanied by retained expression of ITGA4 (CD49d) and decreased induction of ITGAX (CD11c). The coupling of cell cycle progression with temporal dynamics in the expression patterns of these integrin genes suggests a regulated switch to control the transit from the proliferative phase to granulocytic maturation. Furthermore, ITGAX was among a small number of genes showing perturbation in transcript levels upon HOTAIRM1 knockdown even without ATRA treatment, suggesting a direct pathway of regulation. These results indicate that HOTAIRM1 provides a regulatory link in myeloid maturation by modulating integrin-controlled cell cycle progression at the gene expression level.
Security-control methods for statistical databases: a comparative study

This paper considers the problem of providing security to statistical databases against disclosure of confidential information. Security-control methods suggested in the literature are classified into four general approaches: conceptual, query restriction, data perturbation, and output perturbation. Criteria for evaluating the performance of the various security-control methods are identified. Security-control methods that are based on each of the four approaches are discussed, together with their performance with respect to the identified evaluation criteria. A detailed comparative analysis of the most promising methods for protecting dynamic-online statistical databases is also presented. To date no single security-control method prevents both exact and partial disclosures. There are, however, a few perturbation-based methods that prevent exact disclosure and enable the database administrator to exercise "statistical disclosure control. " Some of these methods, however introduce bias into query responses or suffer from the 0/1 query-set-size problem (i.e., partial disclosure is possible in case of null query set or a query set of size 1). We recommend directing future research efforts toward developing new methods that prevent exact disclosure and provide statistical-disclosure control, while at the same time do not suffer from the bias problem and the 0/1 query-set-size problem. Furthermore, efforts directed toward developing a bias-correction mechanism and solving the general problem of small query-set-size would help salvage a few of the current perturbation-based methods.
SubtiWiki—a comprehensive community resource for the model organism Bacillus subtilis

In the post-genomic era, most components of a cell are known and they can be quantified by large-scale functional genomics approaches. However, genome annotation is the bottleneck that hampers our understanding of living cells and organisms. Up-to-date functional annotation is of special importance for model organisms that provide a frame of reference for studies with other relevant organisms. We have generated a Wiki-type database for the Gram-positive model bacterium Bacillus subtilis, SubtiWiki (http://subtiwiki.uni-goettingen.de/). This Wiki is centered around the individual genes and gene products of B. subtilis and provides information on each aspect of gene function and expression as well as protein activity and its control. SubtiWiki is accompanied by two companion databases SubtiPathways and SubtInteract that provide graphical representations of B. subtilis metabolism and its regulation and of protein–protein interactions, respectively. The diagrams of both databases are easily navigatable using the popular Google maps API, and they are extensively linked with the SubtiWiki gene pages. Moreover, each gene/gene product was assigned to one or more functional categories and transcription factor regulons. Pages for the specific categories and regulons provide a rapid overview of functionally related genes/proteins. Today, SubtiWiki can be regarded as one of the most complete inventories of knowledge on a living organism in one single resource.
The Ear Tone Toolbox for Auditory Distortion Product Synthesis

The Ear Tone Toolbox is a collection of open-source unit generators for the production of auditory distortion product synthesis. Auditory distortion products are sounds generated along the basilar membrane in the cochlea in response to specific pure-tone frequency combinations. The frequencies of the distortion products are separate from the provoking stimulus tones and are not present in the acoustic space. Until the release of the Ear Tone Toolbox, music software for the synthesis of auditory distortion products has not been widely available. This first release is a collection of six externals for Max, VST plugins, and patches for the hardware OWL synthesizer, all of which produce various combinations of distortion products and acoustic primary tones. Following an introduction to the phenomenon and an overview on the biomechanics involved, this paper outlines each unit generator, provides implementation examples, and discusses specifics for working with distortion product synthesis.
Hillslope processes, drainage density, and landscape morphology

Catchment morphology and drainage density are strongly influenced by hillslope processes. The consequences of several different hillslope process laws are explored in a series of experiments with a numerical model of drainage basin evolution. Five different models are considered, including a simple diffusive‐advective process transition, a runoff generation threshold, an erosion threshold, and two types of threshold‐activated landsliding. These different hillslope processes alter both the visual appearance of the landscape and the predicted relationship between slope and contributing area. On the basis of the different threshold theories, we derive expressions for the relationships between drainage density and environmental factors such as rainfall, relief, and mean erosion rate. These relationships vary depending on the dominant hillslope threshold. In particular, the sign of the predicted relationship between drainage density and relief is positive in semiarid, low‐relief landscapes and negative in humid landscapes dominated by a saturation threshold and/or in high‐relief landscapes dominated by simple threshold landsliding.
Ferroelectric emission studies for electron emission lithography applications

Ferroelectric switching emission, dielectric switching emission, and pyroelectric emission were studied by patterning images on electron resist for electron emission lithography applications. It was observed that the pyroelectric emission is most acceptable for a high throughput 1:1 electron projection lithography application. A 1:1 electron projection lithography was demonstrated by patterning images with line widths of 30 /spl mu/m and using pyroelectric emission. A degradation of the pyroelectric emission property of the material was observed during repeated heating cycles below the phase-transition temperature of the ferroelectric material. Annealing excursions above the phase transition temperature prevented the degradation of the pyroelectric emitter.
DEVELOPMENT OF SMOKE PLUME , FIRE EMISSIONS , AND WILDLAND FIRE FUEL MODELS ON COASTAL PLAIN ECOSYSTEM

Use of prescribed fire is an important forest management activity in the southeastern United States. Fire is used to remove logging slash prior to plantation establishment, reduce hardwood and herbaceous competition in young stands, improve habitat for threatened and endangered species, and to minimize a catastrophic wildfire hazard by fuel reduction. Burning activity is projected to increase as managers on federal, private, and industrial lands seek to reduce dry fuel accumulation and minimize wildfire dangers, especially in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Isabel in October 2003. Land managers using prescribed burns for silviculture and ecosystem management do so while recognizing and planning for the liabilities of smoke, human health effects, and the danger of prescribed burns igniting wildfires and organic soil ground fires. Near ground smoke poses a risk to public safety by reducing visibility on roadways; increases human health risks from exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) and ozone precursors; and increases the public’s perception that prescribed burning is deleterious to their families and community at the wildland/urban interface.
Characteristics of the Static Recrystallization Kinetics of an Intercritically Deformed C-Mn Steel

The austenite recrystallization kinetics in the intercritical region of a C-Mn steel is investigated by means of stress relaxation tests. It is found that the Avrami exponent, n, decreases significantly with decreasing temperature, i.e. with increasing ferrite fraction. This behaviour deviates from that of austenite recrystallization in the purely austenitic state, in which case the Avrami exponent is constant and independent of temperature and deformation. To interpret this, the influence of spatial variation of the plastic strain in the intercritical austenite grains on recrystallization kinetics is modelled quantitatively. The modelling results seem to indicate that the strain heterogeneity is responsible for the decreasing Avrami exponent with decreasing intercritical temperature.
Statically Typed Document Transformation: An Xtatic Experience

XTATIC is a lightweight extension of C with native support for statically typed XML processing. It features XML trees as built-in values, a refined type system based on regular types a la XDUCE, and regular patterns for investigating and manipulating XML. We describe our experiences using XTATIC in a real-world application: a program for transforming XMLSPEC, a format used for authoring W3C technical reports, into HTML. Our implementation closely follows an existing one written in XSLT, facilitating comparison of the two languages and analysis of the costs and benefits—both significant—of rich static typing for XML-intensive code.