Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The mechanics of gravitaxis in Paramecium

SUMMARY An analysis of swimming patterns in the ciliate Paramecium shows that the ability to swim preferentially upwards (negative gravitaxis) is primarily the result of upwardly curving trajectories. The trajectory characteristics are consistent with those produced by mechanical orientation. Cell profile measurements from microscope images suggest that the characteristic front–rear body asymmetry accounts for the observed orientation rates. Gravikinesis may result from interactions between the propelling cilia and the sedimentary flow around the cell, and it seems unlikely that an internal physiological gravity receptor exists in Paramecium.
Speculation Sentiment

Abstract I exploit the leveraged exchange-traded funds’ (ETFs’) primary market to measure aggregate, uninformed, gambling-like demand, that is, speculation sentiment. The leveraged ETFs’ primary market is a novel setting that provides observable arbitrage activity attributed to correcting mispricing between ETFs’ shares and their underlying assets. The arbitrage activity proxies for the magnitude and direction of speculative demand shocks and I use them to form the Speculation Sentiment Index. The measure negatively relates to contemporaneous market returns (e.g., it is bullish in down markets) and negatively predicts returns. The results are consistent with speculation sentiment causing market-wide price distortions that later reverse.
Effects of Vitamin D3 and Calcium Supplementation on Serum Levels of Tocopherols, Retinol, and Specific Vitamin D Metabolites

γ-Tocopherol (γT) protects against DNA-damaging effects of nitrogen oxides, yet its physiologic regulation in vivo is unknown. Observational studies indicate inverse associations of 25[OH]-vitamin D with γT and leptin. To determine whether vitamin D3 supplementation alters levels of lipid-soluble micronutrients, serum samples (N = 85 subjects) from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of vitamin D3 (800 IU) and calcium (2 g), alone and in combination, were analyzed for lipid micronutrients and specific vitamin D metabolites at baseline and after 6 mo of supplementation. Serum 25[OH]-vitaminD3 levels increased 55% (P < 0.0001) and 48% (P = 0.0005), whereas 25[OH]-vitaminD2 levels were lower by 48% (P = 0.26) and 21% (P = 0.36) in the vitamin D3 and vitamin D3 plus calcium groups, respectively. At baseline, γT levels were inversely associated with 25[OH]D (r = −0.31, P = 0.004). With vitamin D3 plus calcium treatment, serum α-tocopherol decreased 14% (P = 0.04), whereas similar changes in γT (19% lower, P = 0.14) were observed. No significant effects were observed for D3 supplementation on leptin or retinol levels. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that vitamin D3 ± calcium affects serum tocopherol and 25[OH]D2 levels; however, studies using larger, more homogeneous populations are warranted.
50S ribosomal subunit synthesis and translation are equivalent targets for erythromycin inhibition in Staphylococcus aureus

Macrolide antibiotics like erythromycin can prevent the formation of the 50S ribosomal subunit in growing bacterial cells, in addition to their inhibitory effect on translation. The significance of this novel finding has been further investigated. The 50% inhibitory doses of erythromycin for the inhibition of translation and 50S subunit assembly in Staphylococcus aureus cells were measured and were found to be identical. Together they account quantitatively for the observed effects of erythromycin on cell growth rates. There is also a direct relationship between the loss of rRNA from the 50S subunit and its accumulation as oligoribonucleotides in cells. The importance of this second site for erythromycin inhibition of bacterial cell growth is discussed.
Induction of neurotensin and c-fos mRNA in distinct subregions of rat neostriatum after acute methamphetamine: comparison with acute haloperidol effects.

Large increases of neurotensin (NT)-like immunoreactivity in the rat neostriatum have been reported previously after treatment with either dopamine D2 receptor antagonists (e.g., haloperidol) or potent indirect dopamine agonists (e.g., methamphetamine). Combined administration of these two opposite classes of drugs results in additive increases in striatal NT-like immunoreactivity suggesting that distinct mechanisms may underlie increases in NT content after haloperidol and methamphetamine. Our recent studies demonstrate that acute haloperidol treatment increases NT immunoreactivity in the striatum, at least in part, by enhancing the expression of the NT/neuromedin N (NT/N) gene in neurons confined to the dorsolateral sector of the striatum. Additionally, this induction of NT/N gene transcription in the dorsolateral striatum by haloperidol appears to involve participation of the immediate early gene, c-fos. The present study investigated alterations in NT/N and c-fos gene expression after acute methamphetamine (10 mg/kg s.c.) treatment and compared these changes to those observed after acute haloperidol (1 mg/kg i.p.) administration. Unlike haloperidol, methamphetamine increased NT/N mRNA expression in the periventricular dorsomedial quadrant of the striatum and induced c-fos mRNA primarily in the medial aspects of the central core of the neostriatum. These data suggest that Fos may not act as a primary transcription factor in methamphetamine-induced NT/N gene expression in the dorsomedial striatum. The results also indicate that additive increases in striatal NT-like immunoreactivity after simultaneous treatment with haloperidol and methamphetamine may be due to induction of NT/N gene expression in distinct neostriatal neuronal populations.
Some selective inhibitors of true cholinesterase.

While studying certain diphenyl pentanones as possible neuromuscular blocking agents, it was found that 1: 5-bis(4-trimethyl-ammoniumphenyl)n-pentan-3-one diiodide (62C47, Wellcome) had a marked selective inhibitory action on " true cholinesterase. " The distribution of this type of activity was therefore investigated in further members of this and analogous series. The general formula of the compounds is
Lipid Profile, Aip And Glycated Haemoglobin Level In Type-2 Diabetic Patients In Enugu, South-East Nigeria

Impaired lipid metabolism resulting from uncontrolled hyperglycaemia has been implicated in diabetes and glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) used as predictor of uncontrolled hyperglycaemia. The present study is aimed at analyzing the HbA1c level, lipid profile and atherogenic index of plasma (AIP), in type-2 diabetics in Enugu. Ninety (90) type-2 diabetic patients (46 males and 44 females) drawn from the diabetic clinic and 40 apparently-healthy, non-diabetics (20 males and 20 females), all aged 45-70 years, were included in the study. Venous blood samples were collected from the subjects after 8 hours fasting and analyzed for HbA1c, fasting blood glucose (FBG), total cholesterol (TC), triacylglycerol (TG) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL-C), whereas low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C), very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL-C) and AIP were calculated using standard procedures. Data was analyzed with SPSS computer software version 11 using student’s t-test at 95% confidence limit. The results showed significant increase (P
Deep neural network based protein-protein interaction extraction from biomedical literature

This paper presents a deep neural network-based protein-protein interactions (PPIs) information extraction approach which can learn complex and abstract features automatically from unlabeled data by unsupervised representation learning methods. This approach first employs the training algorithm of auto-encoders to initialize the parameters of a deep multilayer neural network. Then the gradient descent method using back-propagation is applied to train this deep multilayer neural network model. Experimental results on five public PPI corpora show that our method can achieve better performance than can a multilayer neural network. In addition, the performance comparison with APG also verifies the effectiveness of our method.
Recent trends in epidemiology, sensitization and legal requirements of selected relevant contact allergens

ABSTRACT Numerous studies have focused on emerging allergens causing contact allergy and allergic contact dermatitis in eczema populations and the general population, whereas only a few European multicenter studies systematically manage to detect prevalence rates of various contact allergies over time in eczema populations. Contact allergy is a life-time condition, which may lead to allergic contact dermatitis in individuals who do not manage to avoid exposure to the ascertained allergen in question. It is therefore of utmost importance that clinicians and dermatologists have sufficient knowledge on common allergens causing contact allergies in the general and working population. This review aimed to highlight the newest knowledge of frequent allergens of clinical importance. Literature was sought from the Pubmed™ database, Google™ scholar and textbooks. On the basis of the literature within the last 5 years, a comprehensive review of methylisothiazolinone, chromium, cobalt, rubber accelerators and fragrance ingredients were conducted. Of each allergen we discuss in detail the temporal trend of prevalence, source of exposure, clinical manifestation of allergic contact dermatitis and legislative measurements on how to regulate the exposure.
The psychological consequences of menopause: the importance of timing of a life stage event.

This research focuses on whether or not and under what conditions menopause is likely to be a psychologically stressful event for women. This question is examined empirically using data from the nationally representative Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HANES). Results from analyses of variance and covariance support the main hypothesis of this study. They indicate that when menopause occurs on time, that is, during midlife, it is not associated with psychological distress. When menopause occurs at earlier or later stages of the life course, however, it is apt to be a source of psychological distress. These results support other studies demonstrating that the timing of life events is an important element in their psychological impact.
Comparison of Standard and Zipf-Based Document Retrieval Heuristics

Document retrieval is the task to retrieve from a possibly huge collection of documents those which are most similar to a given query document. In this paper, we present a new heuristic for inexact top K retrieval. It is similar to the well-known index elimination heuristic and is based on Zipf’s law, a statistical law observable in natural language texts. We compare the two heuristics with regard to retrieval performance and execution time. Therefore, we use a text collection consisting of scientific articles from various computer science conferences and journals. It turns out that our new approach is not better than index elimination. Interestingly, a combination of both heuristics yields the best results.
Convergence theorems for graph sequences

In this paper, we deal with a notion of Banach space-valued mappings defined on a set consisting of finite graphs with uniformly bounded vertex degree. These functions will be endowed with certain boundedness and additivity criteria. We examine their normalized long-term behavior along a particular class of graph sequences. Using techniques developed by Elek, we show convergence in the topology of the Banach space if the corresponding graph sequence possesses a hyperfinite structure. These considerations extend and complement the corresponding results for amenable groups. As an application, we verify the uniform approximation of the integrated density of states for bounded, finite range operators on discrete structures. Further, we extend results concerning an abstract version of Fekete's lemma for cancellative, amenable groups and semigroups to the geometric situation of convergent graph sequences.
The Effects of Hypothermia on Endotoxin-Primed Lung

BACKGROUND: Hypothermia may be effective for endotoxin-induced acute lung injury. In most studies, hypothermia was induced before the development of neutrophilic inflammation, which would be clinically irrelevant. We investigated whether hypothermia induced after the onset of such neutrophilic inflammation reduces acute lung injury. METHODS: In the first experiment, rats were allocated to one of four groups: intratracheal saline instillation/killed at 1 h (saline), intratracheal lipopolysaccharide (LPS) instillation/killed at 1 h (LPS-primed), intratracheal LPS instillation/killed at 6 h (LPS-NT), all under normothermia (NT) (37 ± 0.5°C) throughout study, and intratracheal LPS instillation/killed at 6 h with hypothermia (HT) (32 ± 0.5°C) for the last 5 h of study (LPS-HT). Lungs were lavaged for biochemical measurements. In the second experiment in 26 additional rats, we followed exactly the same protocol as described above for the saline group (n = 2), LPS-NT (n = 12), and LPS-HT (n = 12), and obtained a fresh pool of alveolar neutrophils to assess oxidative burst. RESULTS: Compared with the LPS-primed group, the neutrophil count, protein level, and lactate dehydrogenase activity in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and myeloperoxidase activity of the lung were all higher in the LPS-NT group. Compared with this LPS-NT group, the neutrophil count, protein level, and lactate dehydrogenase activity in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and microscopic scores for alveolar neutrophilic infiltration were all lower in the LPS-HT group. The stimulated production of hydrogen peroxide in neutrophils was lower in the LPS-HT group than in the LPS-NT group. CONCLUSION: Hypothermia, applied even after the onset of neutrophilic inflammation, was effective in reducing endotoxin-induced acute lung injury.
Citicoline mechanisms and clinical efficacy in cerebral ischemia

Citicoline, an intermediate in the biosynthesis of phosphatidylcholine (PtdCho), has shown beneficial effects in various CNS injury models and neurodegenerative diseases. PtdCho hydrolysis by phospholipase A2 (PLA2) after cerebral ischemia and reperfusion yields arachidonic acid (ArAc) and lyso‐PtdCho. ArAc oxidative metabolism results in formation of reactive oxygen species and lipid peroxides. Lyso‐PtdCho could inhibit activity of cytidine triphosphate‐phosphocholine cytidylyltransferase (the rate‐limiting enzyme in PtdCho biosynthesis), resulting in impaired PtdCho synthesis. Citicoline significantly increased glutathione levels and attenuated release of ArAc and the loss of PtdCho, cardiolipin, and sphingomyelin following transient cerebral ischemia. These effects could be explained by an effect of citicoline on PLA2. Based on these observations, a mechanism has been hypothesized. This Mini‐Review summarizes recent experimental data on the effects of citicoline in cerebral ischemia and evaluates several factors that might have hindered efficacy of citicoline in stroke clinical trials in the United States. Clinical stroke trials of citicoline in Europe and Japan have demonstrated beneficial effects. U.S. trials shown only marginal effects, which might be due to the 24 hr time window, the dose and route of administration, and the stringency of the primary outcome parameters. Recent evaluation of U.S. clinical data suggests that reduction of infarct growth may be a more sensitive measure of the citicoline effect than improvement on the NIH Stroke Scale (NIHSS) by ≥7 points. The citicoline neuroprotective mechanism has not been clearly identified, and its potential in stroke treatment might still be fully recognized in the United States. The clinical efficacy of citicoline should be examined further in light of the recent phase III stroke clinical trials and experimental data for cerebral ischemia. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
How Objective a Neutral Word Is? A Neutrosophic Approach for the Objectivity Degrees of Neutral Words

In the latest studies concerning the sentiment polarity of words, the authors mostly consider the positive and negative constructions, without paying too much attention to the neutral words, which can have, in fact, significant sentiment degrees. More precisely, not all the neutral words have zero positivity or negativity scores, some of them having quite important nonzero scores for these polarities. At this moment, in the literature, a word is considered neutral if its positive and negative scores are equal, which implies two possibilities: (1) zero positive and negative scores; (2) nonzero, but equal positive and negative scores. It is obvious that these cases represent two different categories of neutral words that must be treated separately by a sentiment analysis task. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study about the neutral words applied to English as is developed with the aid of SentiWordNet 3.0: the publicly available lexical resource for opinion mining. We designed our study in order to provide an accurate classification of the so-called “neutral words” described in terms of sentiment scores and using measures from neutrosophy theory. The intended scope is to fill the gap concerning the neutrality aspect by giving precise measurements for the words’ objectivity.
On First-Order Potential Reduction Algorithms for Linear Programmming ∗

We describe primal, dual and primal-dual steepest-descent potential reduction methods for linear and convex minimization on the simplex in Rn and present their precise iteration complexity analyses depending on the problem dimension and the Lipschitz parameter of the constraint matrix or the convex objective function. In these methods, no matrix needs to be ever inversed so that they are pure firstorder methods. We also propose a reformulation of linear programming where a Gram matrix needs to be only inversed or factorized once, and present its iteration complexity bound that is independent of any Lipschitz constant. 1 Convex Optimization with the Simplex Constraint We consider the following optimization problem on the simplex: Minimize f(x) Subject to ex = 1, x ≥ 0; (1) where e is the vector of all ones. Such a problem in considered in [7] where a firs-order (primal) potential reduction algorithm was proposed. In this note we develop a primaldual first potential reduction method and prove its convergence speed is improved by a factor √ n, which method and its analysis resemble those in [9]. We assume that f(x) is a convex function in x ∈ R. Then, there is a (Wolf) dual problem Maximize λ+ f(z)−∇f(z) z Subject to ∇f(z)− eλ ≥ 0, e z = 1; z ≥ 0. (2) ∗This was a teaching note for course MS&E310, Linear Optimization
Resistance testing in children changing human immunodeficiency virus type 1 protease inhibitor

Objective. To assess genotypic and phenotypic resistance testing in HIV-1-infected children failing a first protease inhibitor (PI) therapy. Methods. In a multicenter observational study 21 children, ages 3 to 16 years, were given two reverse transcriptase inhibitors and one PI (mainly ritonavir, n = 18). They were subsequently treated with single or dual PI-based therapy (predominantly nelfinavir, n = 10, or ritonavir-saquinavir, n = 7). Resistance testing was performed at the time of therapy switch via direct sequencing and a recombinant virus susceptibility assay. Results. A total of 21 genotypic and 15 phenotypic resistance profiles were obtained. Most viruses displayed several reverse transcriptase mutations; however, 7 isolates maintained a wild-type protease. Ritonavir targeted the well-known pathway containing 82, 54, 46 and other secondary (nonactive site) mutations including T74A. No in vitro cross-resistance, i.e. ≥8-fold resistance to saquinavir or amprenavir, was encountered. Secondary mutations enhanced the prediction of ritonavir resistance (i.e. L10I) and in vitro nelfinavir cross-resistance (i.e. K20R/I) conferred by primary (active site) resistance mutations. Either the 82, 54, 46 mutational genotype or the phenotype showing ≥8-fold nelfinavir cross-resistance predicted a poorer virologic response to nelfinavir salvage therapy. Conclusion. In a small cohort of heavily pretreated pediatric patients, resistance testing appears to predict the response to nelfinavir as salvage for a ritonavir-based therapy. This is further supported by the correlation between ritonavir-selected mutations and in vitro nelfinavir cross-resistance. Prospective studies should assess clinical outcome in children undergoing regimen changes based on resistance testing.
Developmentally and culturally appropriate screening in primary care: development of the behavioral health checklist.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the construct validity of the Behavioral Health Checklist (BHCL) for children aged from 4 to 12 years from diverse backgrounds. METHOD The parents of 4-12-year-old children completed the BHCL in urban and suburban primary care practices affiliated with a tertiary-care children's hospital. Across practices, 1,702 were eligible and 1,406 (82.6%) provided consent. Children of participating parents were primarily non-Hispanic black/African American and white/Caucasian from low- to middle-income groups. Confirmatory factor analyses examined model fit for the total sample and subsamples defined by demographic characteristics. RESULTS The findings supported the hypothesized 3-factor structure: Internalizing Problems, Externalizing Problems, and Inattention/Hyperactivity. The model demonstrated adequate to good fit across age-groups, gender, races, income groups, and suburban versus urban practices. CONCLUSION The findings provide strong evidence of the construct validity, developmental appropriateness, and cultural sensitivity of the BHCL when used for screening in primary care.
BIG FISH, LITTLE FISH: TWO NEW ULTRA-FAINT SATELLITES OF THE MILKY WAY

We report the discovery of two new Milky Way satellites in the neighboring constellations of Pisces and Pegasus identified in data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Pisces II, an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy lies at the distance of ∼180 kpc, some 15° away from the recently detected Pisces I. Segue 3, an ultra-faint star cluster lies at the distance of 16 kpc. We use deep follow-up imaging obtained with the 4-m Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory to derive their structural parameters. Pisces II has a half-light radius of ∼60 pc, while Segue 3 is 20 times smaller at only 3 pc.
Adaptive nonlinear system identification using minimal radial basis function neural networks

In this paper, an adaptive identification scheme for nonlinear systems using a minimal radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) is presented. This scheme combines the growth criterion of the resource-allocating network (RAN) of Platt (1991) with a pruning strategy based on the relative contribution of each hidden unit to the overall network output. While being applied to nonlinear system identification, this approach enables the number of hidden layer neurons in the network to be adjusted to the changing system dynamics, the resulting neural network also leads to a minimal topology for the RBFNN. Simulations are carried out to recursively identify two nonlinear systems with time-varying dynamics. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with the recursive hybrid algorithm for system identification proposed by Chen et al. (1992). The proposed algorithm in this paper is shown to realize a RBFNN with far fewer hidden neurons and better accuracy.
Real-time system for indoor user localization and navigation using bluetooth beacons

Real-time user positioning and navigation services are widely used daily by millions of people. The challenge is that common global positioning systems fail in indoor environment or in scenes with a limited sky view. In the paper, the indoor navigation framework based on the Bluetooth beacons is proposed. Such system allows user to obtain the position in GPS denied environment on a real-time basis. Key steps for precise localizing and main components of the developed framework are considered. Initial experimental results are provided.