Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of climatic and geological events in generating diversity in Ethiopian grass frogs (genus Ptychadena)

Ethiopia is a world biodiversity hotspot and harbours levels of biotic endemism unmatched in the Horn of Africa, largely due to topographic—and thus habitat—complexity, which results from a very active geological and climatic history. Among Ethiopian vertebrate fauna, amphibians harbour the highest levels of endemism, making amphibians a compelling system for the exploration of the impacts of Ethiopia's complex abiotic history on biotic diversification. Grass frogs of the genus Ptychadena are notably diverse in Ethiopia, where they have undergone an evolutionary radiation. We used molecular data and expanded taxon sampling to test for cryptic diversity and to explore diversification patterns in both the highland radiation and two widespread lowland Ptychadena. Species delimitation results support the presence of nine highland species and four lowland species in our dataset, and divergence dating suggests that both geologic events and climatic fluctuations played a complex and confounded role in the diversification of Ptychadena in Ethiopia. We rectify the taxonomy of the endemic P. neumanni species complex, elevating one formally synonymized name and describing three novel taxa. Finally, we describe two novel lowland Ptychadena species that occur in Ethiopia and may be more broadly distributed.
An adaptive evolutionary algorithm based on tactical and positional chess problems to adjust the weights of a chess engine

This paper employs an evolutionary algorithm to adjust the weights of the evaluation function of a chess engine. The selection mechanism of this algorithm chooses the virtual players (individuals in the population) that have the highest number of problems properly solved from a database of tactical and positional chess problems. This method has as its main advantage that we only mutate those weights involved in the solution of the current problem. Furthermore, the mutation mechanism is based on a Gaussian distribution whose standard deviation is adapted through the number of problems solved by each virtual player. We show here how, with the use of this method, we were able to increase the rating of our chess engine in 557 Elo points (from 1760 to 2317).
Optique active et grandes déformations élastiques : application à la réalisation d'un miroir à focale variable pour le Very Large Telescope Interferometer

Une etude theorique des grandes deformations elastiques, c'est-a-dire dont l'amplitude est superieure a l'epaisseur de la piece deformee, a ete entreprise dans le cadre de l'optique active afin d'accroitre les possibilites d'utilisation de cette technique. Cette etude prend en compte les deformations de la surface mediane d'un miroir soumis a une charge ou une force centrale, ainsi que les contraintes associees. La resolution numerique des equations d'equilibre d'un tel miroir nous a notamment permis de determiner la limite de validite de la theorie des faibles deformations. Un code de calcul specifique a ete elabore afin de calculer la distribution d'epaisseur d'un miroir permettant d'engendrer une deformation particuliere. Les profils necessaires a l'obtention d'une flexion purement parabolique ont ainsi ete determines dans deux cas de charges exterieures. De tels miroirs a courbure fortement variable, pouvant passer de la forme plane a des rapports d'ouverture de l'ordre de f/2, sont le seul moyen pratique de compenser le champ des futurs interferometres geants tels que le very large telescope interferometer. Ils constituent le cur meme des lignes a retard a il de chat, leur rayon de courbure variant continument pendant le deplacement du systeme. Du fait de la grande flexibilite demandee, les alliages metalliques a la fois tres lineaires et de haute limite elastique sont les seuls materiaux utilisables. La realisation de ces miroirs a courbure variable en acier inoxydable est abordee en detail, ainsi que les resultats des premiers tests de qualification d'un prototype. La comparaison entre la phase experimentale et les predictions theoriques nous permet ainsi de valider le modele numerique utilise
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF POLYMORPHISM LEVEL, DISCRIMINATION CAPACITY AND INFORMATIVENESS OF AFLP, ISTR, SSR AND ISOENZYMES MARKERS AND AGRO-MORPHOLOGICAL TRAITS IN AVOCADO

1 Instituto de Investigaciones en Fruticultura Tropical (IIFT), 7 th Ave. # 3005, e/30 y 32, Miramar, Playa, C. Habana, Cuba. orlandocoto@inica.edu. cu, mejoramiento@iift.cu 2 Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnologicas y Desarrollo Nuclear. (CEADEN), calle 30 and 5 th Ave. # 502, Miramar, Playa, C. Habana, Cuba. 3 Max-Planck-Institut fur Zuchtungsforschung (MPIZ), Carl-von-Linne-Weg 10, D-50829 Koln, Germany. 4 Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba, SA (ETECSA), Bauta, Cuba. 5 Facultad de Biologia. Universidad de la Habana. Calle 23, e/ I y J, Vedado, Habana. 6 Unidad Cientifica Tecnologica de Base de Alquizar. Instituto de Investigaciones en Fruticultura Tropical. Carretera de Guira – Pestana Km. 2 1⁄2. Alquizar La Habana Cuba. E mail: karygutda@yahoo.es y colaboracion@iift.cu *Direccion actual: Escuela de Biologia, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Industrial de Santander, A.A. 678, Ciudad Universitaria, Carrera 27-Calle 9, Bucaramanga, Colombia.
Reproducibility of regional brain metabolic responses to lorazepam.

UNLABELLED Changes in regional brain glucose metabolism in response to benzodiazepine agonists have been used as indicators of benzodiazepine-GABA receptor function. The purpose of this study was to assess the reproducibility of these responses. METHODS Sixteen healthy right-handed men underwent scanning with PET and [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) twice: before placebo and before lorazepam (30 micrograms/kg). The same double FDG procedure was repeated 6-8 wk later on the men to assess test-retest reproducibility. RESULTS The regional absolute brain metabolic values obtained during the second evaluation were significantly lower than those obtained from the first evaluation regardless of condition (p < or = 0.001). Lorazepam significantly and consistently decreased both whole-brain metabolism and the magnitude. The regional pattern of the changes were comparable for both studies (12.3% +/- 6.9% and 13.7% +/- 7.4%). Lorazepam effects were the largest in the thalamus (22.2% +/- 8.6% and 22.4% +/- 6.9%) and occipital cortex (19% +/- 8.9% and 21.8% +/- 8.9%). Relative metabolic measures were highly reproducible both for pharmacologic and replication condition. CONCLUSION This study measured the test-retest reproducibility in regional brain metabolic responses, and although the global and regional metabolic values were significantly lower for the repeated evaluation, the response to lorazepam was highly reproducible.
An intranuclear frame for chromatin compartmentalization and higher‐order folding

Recent ultrastructural, immunoelectron, and confocal microscopy observations done in our laboratory [Barboro et al. [2002] Exp. Cell. Res. 279:202–218] have confirmed that lamins and the nuclear mitotic apparatus protein (NuMA) are localized inside the interphase nucleus in a polymerized form. This provided evidence of the existence of a RNA stabilized lamin/NuMA frame, consisting of a web of thin (∼3 and ∼5 nm) lamin filaments to which NuMA is anchored mainly in the form of discrete islands, which might correspond to the minilattices described by Harborth et al. [1999] (EMBO. J. 18:1689–1700). In this article we propose that this scaffold is involved in the compartmentalization of both chromatin and functional domains and further determines the higher‐order nuclear organization. This hypothesis is strongly supported by the scrutiny of different structural transitions which occur inside the nucleus, such as chromatin displacement and rearrangements, the collapse of the internal nuclear matrix after RNA digestion and the disruption of chromosome territories induced by RNase A and high salt treatment. All of these destructive events directly depend on the loss of the stabilizing effect exerted on the different levels of structural organization by the interaction of RNA with lamins and/or NuMA. Therefore, the integrity of nuclear RNA must be safeguarded as far as possible to isolate the matrix in the native form. This material will allow for the first time the unambiguous ultrastructural localization inside the INM of the components of the functional domains, so opening new avenues of investigation on the mechanisms of gene expression in eukaryotes. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Phase II Study of Irinotecan , 5-Fluorouracil and Leucovorin for T reatm ent in Patients

Purpose: We prospectively conducted a non-randomized phase II trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of combination irinotecan, leucovorin (LV) and 5-fluorouracil (FU) as a first-line regimen for treating patients with previously untreated advanced colorectal cancer (CRC). Materials and Methods: Twenty-six previously untreated patients with advanced, recurrent or metastatic CRC were enrolled in this study. The patients received either irinotecan 180 mg/m on day 1 with LV bolus of 200 mg/m and FU bolus of 400 mg/m, and this was followed by FU continuous infusion of 600 mg/m on day 1 and day 2 (the FOLFIRI regimen), or they were treated with LV bolus of 400 mg/m and FU bolus of 400 mg/m followed by FU continuous infusion of 2,400 mg/m for 46 hours (the simplified FOLFIRI regimen), and these treatments were repeated every 2 weeks until disease progression. Results: The objective response rate was 23.1% (6/26) respectively, for both treatments. The median time to progression was 5.3 months (range: 0.4~19.9), and the overall survival was 11.2 months (range: 0.5~52.3). The prognostic factor for longer survival was the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status (PS). The non-hematological toxicities were similar for both treatment groups, with more frequent grade ≥3 neutropenia being noted for the simplified FOLFIRI regimen. Conclusion: The biweekly irinotecan based regimen was demonstrated to have a moderate antitumor activity with acceptable toxicity profiles, and the ECOG PS was the independent prognostic factor. (Cancer Res Treat. 2006;38:72-77) 󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏󰠏 Key W ords: Irinotecan, 5-Fluorouracil, Leucovorin, Colorectal neoplasms
Through Black Eyes

This research explores Black women’s experiences with intimate male partner violence through interview data from nine former physically, emotionally, and sexually abused African American wives. It urges a womanist analysis of Black women’s abuse experiences and, thus, considers how systems of inequalities, especially gender and race, help foster less-explored constructions of and reactions to intimate male partner violence. Findings suggest that participants’ observations on Black men’s social marginalization, educational and economic disparities between Black partners, Black women’s role in safeguarding Black men, and gendered scripts on traditions of resistance influenced their perspectives on the causes of and responses to abuse.
Generation of defective virus after infection of newborn rats with reovirus

When 2-day-old rats were inoculated subcutaneously with the R2 strain of reovirus type 3 or with a class B (352) or class C (447) temperature-sensitive (ts) mutant, 5 to 10% of the animals died from acute encephalitis within 12 days. Approximately half of the survivors recovered rapidly and grew normally, but the remainder became runted. Two phases of infection are distinguished in the animals: an acute phase during which infectious virus reaches a maximum titer in brain and other tissues by 10 days p.i. and thes runting of the rats and the slow disappearance of virus from their brains over a period of 2 months or so. Virus isolated from chronically infected brains generally retained the genetic character (ts or wild type) of the inoculated virus, but two exceptions to this are described. Defective virions lacking the L1 segment of the viral genome (L1 defectives) were generated in rat brains during the acute phase of infection. Defective virus was also generated during the chronic phase, but during this period defectives were found with multiple segments deleted from the genome in addition to L1 defectives. In another type of experiment defective virus exerted a marked protective effect when inoculated intracerebrally with R2 virus. In the absence of defectives all animals died, but in their presence 17 of 23 animals survived and 15 of 23 became runted and chronically infected. The formation and evolution of defective particles in the brains of these rats were similar to those found in rats chronically infected after subcutaneous inoculation of reovirus. We conclude that the formation of defective virus particles may play a role in the initiation and maintenance of chronic neutropic infections with reovirus.
G-RCA: A Generic Root Cause Analysis Platform for Service Quality Management in Large IP Networks

An increasingly diverse set of applications, such as Internet games, streaming videos, e-commerce, online banking, and even mission-critical emergency call services, all relies on IP networks. In such an environment, best-effort service is no longer acceptable. This requires a transformation in network management from detecting and replacing individual faulty network elements to managing the end-to-end service quality as a whole. In this paper, we describe the design and development of a Generic Root Cause Analysis platform (G-RCA) for service quality management (SQM) in large IP networks. G-RCA contains a comprehensive service dependency model that incorporates topological and cross-layer relationships, protocol interactions, and control plane dependencies. G-RCA abstracts the root cause analysis process into signature identification for symptom and diagnostic events, temporal and spatial event correlation, and reasoning and inference logic. G-RCA provides a flexible rule specification language that allows operators to quickly customize G-RCA and provide different root cause analysis tools as new problems need to be investigated. G-RCA is also integrated with data trending, manual data exploration, and statistical correlation mining capabilities. G-RCA has proven to be a highly effective SQM platform in several different applications, and we present results regarding BGP flaps, PIM flaps in Multicast VPN service, and end-to-end throughput degradation in content delivery network (CDN) service.
Miniature bioreactors for automated high‐throughput bioprocess design (HTBD): reproducibility of parallel fed‐batch cultivations with Escherichia coli

To verify the reproducibility of cultivations of Escherichia coli in novel millilitre‐scale bioreactors, fully automated fed‐batch cultivation was performed in seven parallel‐operated ml‐scale bioreactors with an initial volume of 10 ml/reactor. The process was automatically controlled by a liquid‐handling system responsible for glucose feeding, titration and sampling. Atline analysis (carried out externally of the reaction vessel with a short time delay) comprised automated pH and attenuance measurements. The partial pressure of oxygen (pO2) was measured online by a novel fluorimetric sensor block measuring the fluorescence lifetime of fluorophors immobilized inside the millilitre‐scale bioreactors. Within a process time of 14.6 h, the parallel cultivation yielded a dry cell weight of 36.9±0.9 g·l−1. Atline pH measurements were characterized by an S.D. of <1.1% throughout the process. Computational‐fluid‐dynamics simulation of single‐phase flow yields a mean power input of 21.9 W·l−1 at an impeller speed of 2800 rev./min corresponding to a power number (NP) of 3.7.
Structural basis of STAT2 recognition by IRF9 reveals molecular insights into ISGF3 function

Significance Cytokines interact with their receptors and activate JAK–STAT signaling pathways that lead to changes in gene expression. In mammals, there are seven STATs that have arisen due to gene duplication and genetic drift. STATs have similar DNA binding specificity, and how individual STATs have subfunctionalized to regulate very specific cytokine responses in cells is poorly understood. Here we describe X-ray structures that show how one STAT family member, STAT2, specifically pairs with a member of the IRF family of transcription factors, IRF9. Despite overall structural similarity among STAT and IRF family members, surface features in the interacting domains of IRF9 and STAT2 have diverged to enable specific interaction between these family members and to enable the antiviral response. Cytokine signaling through the JAK/STAT pathway controls multiple cellular responses including growth, survival, differentiation, and pathogen resistance. An expansion in the gene regulatory repertoire controlled by JAK/STAT signaling occurs through the interaction of STATs with IRF transcription factors to form ISGF3, a complex that contains STAT1, STAT2, and IRF9 and regulates expression of IFN-stimulated genes. ISGF3 function depends on selective interaction between IRF9, through its IRF-association domain (IAD), with the coiled-coil domain (CCD) of STAT2. Here, we report the crystal structures of the IRF9–IAD alone and in a complex with STAT2–CCD. Despite similarity in the overall structure among respective paralogs, the surface features of the IRF9–IAD and STAT2–CCD have diverged to enable specific interaction between these family members. We derive a model for the ISGF3 complex bound to an ISRE DNA element and demonstrate that the observed interface between STAT2 and IRF9 is required for ISGF3 function in cells.
Recommendations for the registration of drugs used in the treatment of osteoarthritis. Group for the respect of ethics and excellence in science (GREES): osteoarthritis section.

Osteoarthritis is a disorder which can potentially affect all joints. It is characterised by degeneration and regeneration of articular cartilage and bone. The pathological changes can be focal or more generalised and these changes correlate poorly with clinical symptoms and signs. However, there is some evidence that asymptomatic osteoarthritis, diagnosed radiologically, is a precursor of symptomatic disease. Osteoarthritis, particularly of the large joints of the lower limbs-for example, knees and hips-is now widely recognised as a major cause of chronic disability in the elderly population. Recent technical advances have allowed symptomatic and structural changes associated with osteoarthritis to be measured with greater precision than previously. These advances, together with increased knowledge of the biochemical mechanisms involved in the osteoarthritic disease process, have encouraged clinical evaluation of several agents which may have a beneficial effect on the disease process. Currently, there are inconsistencies in the classification of drugs for the treatment of osteoarthritis and the indications for their use. These inconsistencies are reflected in different approaches of national licensing authorities to the registration of drugs for the treatment of osteoarthritis. Accordingly, there seems to be an urgent need to standardise the registration requirements of such drugs. This prompted the formation of a European Working Group to consider the issue. The group comprised clinical and basic scientists working in the field of osteoarthritis in academia and the pharmaceutical industry and representatives of national drug licensing authorities. This report classifies drugs for the treatment of osteoarthritis as symptom modifying, structure modifying, or both and gives recommendations for the preclinical and clinical studies considered to be necessary prerequisites at this time for the registration of such drugs. The recommendations are based on currently available knowledge and technology. They will need updating as further scientific progress is made in this field.
Expression of Topoisomerase 1 and carboxylesterase 2 correlates with irinotecan treatment response in metastatic colorectal cancer

ABSTRACT Topoisomerase 1 (TOPO-1) and carboxylesterase 2 (CES-2) are found to play crucial roles in the pathogenesis of various cancers. The prognostic role of TOPO-1 and CES-2 in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) who underwent irinotecan chemotherapy was largely unknown. In the current study, we assessed the expression of TOPO-1 and CES-2 in mCRC and analyzed its potential relevance to irinotecan based therapy. A total of 98 patients with mCRC were included in this study. The expression of TOPO-1 and CES-2 in mCRC tissues was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. For TOPO-1, 46 patients showed high expression and 52 patients showed low expression. For CES-2, 53 patients showed high expression and 45 patients showed low expression. The correlation between TOPO-1 or CES-2 expression and clinicopathological characteristics of mCRC patients was analyzed. Neither TOPO-1 nor CES-2 had significant correlation with age, gender, tumor site, tumor grade and metastatic sites in mCRC patients. However, high expression of CES-2 but not TOP-1 was positively correlated with better curative effect. Kaplan-Meier and log-rank test were applied to assess the correlation between progression-free survival (PFS)/overall survival (OS) and TOPO-1 or CES-2 expression in mCRC patients. High expression of TOPO-1 and CES-2 are correlated with longer PFS and OS. In summary, our findings suggest that TOPO-1 and CES-2 may play important roles irinotecan sensitivity in mCRC patients. Evaluation of expression of TOPO-1 and CES-2 may provide preliminary clinical evidence for the management of irinotecan-based therapy in mCRC patients.
Mental health of residents during Obstetrics and Gynecology training in Thailand.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate mental health of residents during Obstetrics and Gynecology training and identify the factors that affect mental health problems. MATERIAL AND METHOD During January-April 2004, one hundred and sixty Obstetrics and Gynecology residents (62% of 259) had completed a self-administered questionnaire composed of demographic data, workload, self-report of life stressors, and the Thai Mental Health Questionnaire (TMHQ-70). RESULTS The prevalence of mental health problems was 29% (46/160). Somatization and social function were found in the first and second rank (18.1% and 11.9%), respectively. A resident who was younger than 25 years old, was married, cared for more than 20 patients per 8 hours in the labor room, performed more than 10 academic activities per year, or attended more than 5 examinations per year was at risk to develop social function problems. CONCLUSION About one-third of residents training in Obstetrics and Gynecology have faced mental health problems--somatization, social function, depression and anxiety. The significant risk factors associated with social function problems were younger age, marriage and excessive workload