Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Red Deer Cloned from Antler Stem Cells and Their Differentiated Progeny1

Abstract The significance of donor cell differentiation status for successful cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is unclear. Here, we cloned a new species, red deer (Cervus elaphus), from multipotent antler stem cells and their differentiated progeny. Cultured donor cell lines from male antlerogenic periosteum (AP) were left undifferentiated or chemically induced to initiate osteogenesis or adipogenesis. Based on their morphology and marker gene expression profile, donor cells were classified as undifferentiated AP cells, presumptive osteoblasts, or adipocytes. Adipocytes upregulated adipogenic markers procollagen type I alpha 2 (COL1A2), peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma 2 (PPARG), and gylceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), and downregulated antlerogenic transcripts POU-domain class 5 transcription factor (POU5F1) and parathyroid hormone (PTH)-like hormone (PTHLH). Despite differences prior to NT, transcript abundance of donor-specific markers COL1A2, PPARG, GAPDH, and POU5F1 did not differ significantly in cloned blastocysts (P = 0.10, 0.50, 0.61, and 0.16, respectively). However, donor cell and blastocyst expression levels were completely different for most genes analyzed, indicating their successful reprogramming. The type of donor cell used for NT (AP, bone, and fat cells), had no effect on in vitro development to blastocysts (93 [38%] of 248 vs. 32 [44%] of 73 vs. 59 [32%] of 183, respectively). Likewise, development to weaning was not significantly different between the three cell types (2 [4%] of 46 vs. 2 [29%] of 7 vs. 4 [13%] of 31, for AP vs. bone vs. fat, respectively). Microsatellite DNA analysis confirmed that the eight cloned red deer calves were genetically identical to the cells used for NT.
A weight learning technique for cursive handwritten text categorization with fuzzy confusion matirx

A fuzzy confusion matrix based cursive handwritten text categorization has been implemented. Printed text is obtained from handwritten text through Modified Optimal Clustering Algorithm (MOCA). Optimal Clustering Algorithm (OCA) groups texts into different subject categories. Learning is conducted to extract the attributes along with corresponding weights for each subjects. Fuzzy confusion matrix has been used to measure several performance metrics with Holdout method. These are satisfactory. Over and above the text learning and recognition time is very less making the system efficient also.
Rules of Engagement: Residents’ Perceptions of the In-Training Evaluation Process

Background In-training evaluation reports (ITERs) often fall short of their goals of promoting resident learning and development. Efforts to address this problem through faculty development and assessment-instrument modification have been disappointing. The authors explored residents’ experiences and perceptions of the ITER process to gain insight into why the process succeeds or fails. Method Using a grounded theory approach, semistructured interviews were conducted with 20 residents. Constant comparative analysis for emergent themes was conducted. Results All residents identified aspects of “engagement” in the ITER process as the dominant influence on the success of ITERs. Both external (evaluator-driven, such as evaluator credibility) and internal (resident-driven, such as self-assessment) influences on engagement were elaborated. When engagement was lacking, residents viewed the ITER process as inauthentic. Conclusions Engagement is a critical factor to consider when seeking to improve ITER use. Our articulation of external and internal influences on engagement provides a starting point for targeted interventions.
Galectin-3 in patients with chronic heart failure: association with oxidative stress, inflammation, renal dysfunction and prognosis.

BACKGROUND Galectin-3 is a recently developed biomarker of fibrosis, which may play a role in cardiac remodeling and associated with both the progression and severity of heart failure (HF). METHODS A prospective cohort study of 190 patients with documented prior myocardial infarction and chronic HF (NYHA class II-IV) was conducted. Patients were divided into 3 groups based on their NYHA functional class. Levels of galectin-3, NT-proBNP, CRP, IL-6, oxidized-LDL, extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC-SOD), 3-nitrotyrosine, SH-groups, cystatin-C were determined. Follow-up period was 26 months, and all-cause mortality was determined as the primary endpoint. Statistical analysis was performed and statistical significance was set at P<0.05. RESULTS The cytokines hs-CRP, IL-6 and markers of oxidative stress had significant positive correlation with plasma galectin-3 levels in all groups of patients. The level of galectin-3 was significantly different between the groups (P<0.05). Galectin-3 was found to be the most sensitive and specific value in determination of 26 months mortality in patients with chronic HF. Logistic regression analysis showed that age, galectin-3 and cystatin-C were associated with death during the follow up period. CONCLUSIONS Galectin-3 levels are elevated in patients with chronic HF across all NYHA functional classes. Galectin-3 shows positive correlation with markers of oxidative stress, inflammation and kidney dysfunction. Galectin-3 levels and cystatin-C levels are independent predictors of 26-month mortality in patients with chronic HF. Patients with cystatin-C level >2800 pg/mL carry a worse prognosis. Galectin-3 level >21 ng/mL associated with increased mortality.
What Happens with Household Assets during Economic Collapse? The Case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1975–2010)

Abstract Many Congolese seem to have withstood their country’s protracted economic crisis relatively well, despite its length and severity. This study analyses whether and to what extent this livelihood paradox can be explained by a strategy of asset depletion. In general, this strategy seems not to have played an important role. Marked reductions in household asset stock were limited to some secondary urban centres. Explanations for this strategy’s limited reach point to a much richer set of asset coping mechanisms which households may have developed regarding assets in times of hardship, and to a concomitant shortage of research strategies to take due account of these.
Interaction between PKD1L3 and PKD2L1 through their transmembrane domains is required for localization of PKD2L1 at taste pores in taste cells of circumvallate and foliate papillae

The polycystic kidney disease 1‐like 3 (PKD1L3) and polycystic kidney disease 2‐like 1 (PKD2L1) proteins have been proposed to form heteromers that function as sour taste receptors in mammals. Here, we show that PKD1L3 and PKD2L1 interact through their transmembrane domains, and not through the coiled‐coil domain, by coimmunoprecipitation experiments using a series of deletion mutants. Deletion mutants lacking the critical interaction region were not transported to the cell surface and remained in the cytoplasm, whereas PKD1L3 and PKD2L1 proteins were expressed at the cell surface when both are transfected. Calcium imaging analysis revealed that neither the coiled‐coil domain nor the EF‐hand domain located in the C‐terminal cytoplasmic tail of PKD2L1 was required for response on stimulation with an acidic solution. Finally, PKD2L1 did not localize to the taste pore but was distributed throughout the cytoplasm in taste cells of circumvallate and foliate papillae in PKD1L3−/− mice, whereas it localized to the taste pore in wild‐type mice. Collectively, these results suggest that the interaction between PKD1L3 and PKD2L1 through their transmembrane domains is essential for proper trafficking of the channels to the cell surface in taste cells of circumvallate and foliate papillae and in cultured cells. —Ishimaru, Y. , Katano, Y. , Yamamoto, K. , Akiba, M. , Misaka, T. , Roberts, R. W. , Asakura, T. , Matsunami, H. , Abe, K. Interaction between PKD1L3 and PKD2L1 through their transmembrane domains is required for localization of PKD2L1 at taste pores in taste cells of circumvallate and foliate papillae. FASEB J. 24, 4058–4067 (2010). www.fasebj. org
The individual variation in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of furosemide in young normal male subjects

Abstract. Following a 24 h control period in the ward 80 mg furosemide was injected intravenously to ten young healthy, male volunteers. The serum clearance of furosemide (Cls) was between 140 and 201 ml min‐1 and on the average the renal clearance was 66% of Cls. During the initial 30 min period a maximum additional excretion rate of sodium of 3·3 mmol min‐1 was reached at an excretion rate of 0·8 mg furosemide min‐1. A marked initial drop in creatinine clearance (Clcr) was noted and Clcr(24 h) showed an average decrease of 12% after the drug administration. The serum concentration of potassium was decreased at 1 and 2 h after the injection and of sodium from 2 h and on. The concentration of albumin in serum increased by 3% (P < 0·05) already after 5 min. After 2 h a maximum increase of 14% was reached. After 8 min diastolic blood pressure was increased by 13% (P < 0·05), whereas systolic blood pressure reached a significant decrease gradually (7% after 3 h).
Sequence requirements for proteolytic processing of glycoprotein B of human cytomegalovirus strain Towne

Truncated versions of the human cytomegalovirus (CMV) strain Towne glycoprotein B (gB) gene were stably expressed in CHO cell lines. The calcium-specific ionophore A23187 inhibited proteolytic cleavage of C-terminal-truncated gB expressed by cell line 67.77. These inhibition studies also showed that the 93-kilodalton cleavage product most likely represents the N-terminal cleavage fragment of gB. The ionophore carboxyl cyanide m-chlorophenyl-hydrazone was used to show that proteolytic cleavage of gB did not occur in the endoplasmic reticulum. Two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis demonstrated that the N- and C-terminal cleavage products of gB remained associated by disulfide linkages after cleavage. Expression studies using constructs in which 80% or all of the N terminus was deleted demonstrated that the N terminus was required for secretion of the gB molecule. The amino acid sequence at the site of cleavage was shown to be critical for cleavage by a cellular protease. Our results indicate that an arginine-to-threonine change at either amino acid 457 or 460, a lysine-to-glutamine change at amino acid 459, or all three substitutions together block gB cleavage. The effect on proteolysis of the arginine-to-threonine amino acid change at residue 457 (position -4 relative to the cleavage site) demonstrated that a basic pair of amino acids at the endoproteolytic processing site is not the only requirement in cis for gB cleavage.
Revisiting the Canadian public policy towards venture capital: Crowding-out or displacement

Government venture capital (VC) in Canada has been criticized for performing poorly and crowding-out private VC investment. We investigate the following two questions in parallel: 1) Does Canadian government VC investment attract private VC investment within the domestic market? 2) Does Canadian government VC investment lead to, or prevent, domestic private VC firms from investing in other countries? We find that Canadian government VC investment attracts private venture capital investment domestically. We also find that Canada’s Labour-Sponsored Venture Capital Corporations (LSVCCs) have displaced private venture capital towards crossborder VC markets, located primarily in the USA.
Ascending aortic dilatation, arterial stiffness and cardiac organ damage in essential hypertension

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to evaluate the prevalence of dilatation of proximal ascending aorta (pAA) in essential hypertensive patients and the association between pAA dilatation, arterial stiffness and left ventricular hypertrophy. Background: Few data are available regarding patients with pAA dilatation in arterial hypertension. It is not known whether pAA dilatation may be related to increased left ventricular mass and what the relation with central hemodynamics and arterial stiffness would be. Methods: A total of 345 untreated and treated essential hypertensive patients (mean age, 54.3 ± 11 years) were considered for this analysis. We measured pulsatile hemodynamic parameters directly using tonometry, and the proximal aortic diameters through ultrasound imaging (echocardiography). Results: Prevalence of pAA dilatation was 17%. Peripheral hemodynamic parameters were similar in patients with and without ascending aorta dilatation. We observed a slight increase of central systolic (129.81 ± 15.4 vs. 125.02 ± 14.7 mmHg; P = 0.02) and pulse pressure (45.02 ± 10.4 vs. 42 ± 9.54 mmHg; P = 0.02) in patients with pAA dilatation. Pulse wave velocity (9.26 ± 2.33 vs. 7.70 ± 1.69 m/s; P < 0.0001), as well as the augmentation index (25.86 ± 10.2 vs. 19.41 ± 9.52%; P < 0.0001), was significantly greater in patients with pAA dilatation. Finally, left ventricular hypertrophy was thrice as frequent (32.8 vs. 13.4%; P < 0.0001) compared to hypertensive patients without aortic dilatation. Conclusion: This study shows a high prevalence (17%) of ascending aortic dilatation in patients affected by essential hypertension, without further complications. Dilatation of the ascending aorta is associated both to an increased left ventricular mass and arterial stiffness.
The Conflicting Influences of Religiosity on Attitude Toward Torture

This research examines the thesis that religiosity has conflicting influences on Americans’ attitudes about the use of torture on terrorism suspects: an organic influence favoring opposition to torture and a discursively driven influence favoring support of torture. In each of two national samples, religiosity had both a direct effect toward opposition to torture and an indirect effect—via conservative political alignment—toward support of torture. Multiple-group analyses revealed that the direct effect toward opposition to torture did not vary across Americans with differing levels of exposure to political discourse, whereas the indirect effect toward support of torture via conservative political alignment was much stronger among Americans highly exposed to political discourse. Among such individuals, the indirect effect was so strong that it completely counteracted the competing direct effect. Discussion focuses on the competing influences that a single nonpolitical psychological characteristic may have on a political preference.
The effect of vertical brand extensions on consumer-brand relationships in South Africa

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of the introduction of vertical brand extensions on Consumer-Brand Relationships (CBRs) in the mobile phone market. In particular, we aim at exploring the effect vertical brand extensions that luxury and functional brands have on consumers’ perceptions, as well as the effect the extensions will have on CBRs. This study pursues a quantitative approach, developing and testing four hypotheses on the influence vertical brand extensions have on four CBR-related constructs, namely brand attachment, brand trust, brand commitment and brand identification. The elicited context is the South African market and the selected brands are Apple, to represent luxury brands, and Samsung, representative of functional brands. Results only partially confirm previous research on vertical brand extension. Supporting previous studies, a vertical step-down extension has been found to have a stronger negative impact on brand commitment for the luxury brand than for the functional one. However, findings disconfirm the literature in revealing a stronger negative impact on the functional brand than the luxury brand and a positive effect on the brand attachment of both brands, especially the functional brand.
Survival and disease progression in essential thrombocythemia are significantly influenced by accurate morphologic diagnosis: an international study.

PURPOSE The WHO diagnostic criteria underscore the role of bone marrow (BM) morphology in distinguishing essential thrombocythemia (ET) from early/prefibrotic primary myelofibrosis (PMF). This study examined the clinical relevance of such a distinction. METHODS Representatives from seven international centers of excellence for myeloproliferative neoplasms convened to create a clinicopathologic database of patients previously diagnosed as having ET (N = 1,104). Study eligibility criteria included availability of treatment-naive BM specimens obtained within 1 year of diagnosis. All bone marrows subsequently underwent a central re-review. RESULTS Diagnosis was confirmed as ET in 891 patients (81%) and was revised to early/prefibrotic PMF in 180 (16%); 33 patients were not evaluable. In early/prefibrotic PMF compared with ET, the 10-year survival rates (76% and 89%, respectively) and 15-year survival rates (59% and 80%, respectively), leukemic transformation rates at 10 years (5.8% and 0.7%, respectively) and 15 years (11.7% and 2.1%, respectively), and rates of progression to overt myelofibrosis at 10 years (12.3% and 0.8%, respectively) and 15 years (16.9% and 9.3%) were significantly worse. The respective death, leukemia, and overt myelofibrosis incidence rates per 100 patient-years for early/prefibrotic PMF compared with ET were 2.7% and 1.3% (relative risk [RR], 2.1; P < .001), 0.6% and 0.1% (RR, 5.2; P = .001), and 1% and 0.5% (RR, 2.0; P = .04). Multivariable analysis confirmed these findings and also identified age older than 60 years (hazard ratio [HR], 6.7), leukocyte count greater than 11 × 10(9)/L (HR, 2.01), anemia (HR, 2.95), and thrombosis history (HR, 2.81) as additional risk factors for survival. Thrombosis and JAK2V617F incidence rates were similar between the two groups. Survival in ET was similar to the sex- and age-standardized European population. CONCLUSION This study validates the clinical relevance of strict adherence to WHO criteria in the diagnosis of ET and provides important information on survival, disease complication rates, and prognostic factors in strictly WHO-defined ET and early/prefibrotic PMF.
Frequency domain ultrasound waveform tomography: breast imaging using a ring transducer

Application of the frequency domain acoustic wave equation on data acquired from ultrasound tomography scans is shown to yield high resolution sound speed images on the order of the wavelength of the highest reconstructed frequency. Using a signal bandwidth of 0.4–1 MHz and an average sound speed of 1500 m s−1, the resolution is approximately 1.5 mm. The quantitative sound speed values and morphology provided by these images have the potential to inform diagnosis and classification of breast disease. In this study, we present the formalism, practical application, and in vivo results of waveform tomography applied to breast data gathered by two different ultrasound tomography scanners that utilize ring transducers. The formalism includes a review of frequency domain modeling of the wave equation using finite difference operators as well as a review of the gradient descent method for the iterative reconstruction scheme. It is shown that the practical application of waveform tomography requires an accurate starting model, careful data processing, and a method to gradually incorporate higher frequency information into the sound speed reconstruction. Following these steps resulted in high resolution quantitative sound speed images of the breast. These images show marked improvement relative to commonly used ray tomography reconstruction methods. The robustness of the method is demonstrated by obtaining similar results from two different ultrasound tomography devices. We also compare our method to MRI to demonstrate concordant findings. The clinical data used in this work was obtained from a HIPAA compliant clinical study (IRB 040912M1F).
Improved method for the preparative synthesis of labeled trehalose of high specific activity by Escherichia coli

We report an improvement of a published procedure using Escherichia coli to synthesize 14C-labeled trehalose from [14C]glucose (B. Brand and W. Boos, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 55:2414-2415, 1989). Instead of inducing the expression of the trehalose-synthesizing enzymes encoded by the chromosomal genes otsAB by high osmolarity, we now induce their expression from a plasmid under normal growth conditions by the addition of IPTG (isopropyl-beta-D-thiogalactopyranoside). Instead of using a pgi zwf double mutant to prevent glucose utilization, we use a pgi::Tn10 insertion only. In addition to being defective in treA, which encodes a periplasmic trehalase, the strain is now also defective in treF, which encodes a newly discovered cytoplasmic trehalase. This strain is genetically stable; it has no growth defects; and after induction with IPTG, it will transform [14C]glucose to [14C]trehalose in minimal medium without any carbon source under aerobic conditions at a rate of 3 nmol/min/10(9) cells. With the improved method, the overall yield of trehalose from glucose is about 80% and the process takes place without dilution of the specific radioactivity of the glucose residues. The accumulated trehalose is extracted from the bacteria by 70% hot ethanol and can easily be purified radiochemically by chromatographic techniques.
Results of Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions by Multinational Corporations from Emerging Countries

Abstract: This paper examines the economic effects of cross-border mergers and acquisitions by Polish firms. This issue is important because mergers and acquisitions generate the bulk of foreign direct investment flows. The novelty of the paper lies in focusing on the performance of acquirers instead of target firms. Acquiring enterprises’ characteristics, especially profitability, market power, and the effectiveness of asset and equity utilization, are of particular interest. The time span of the analysis includes both periods preceding and following the transactions. The main conclusion drawn from this analysis is that firms acquiring a stake or total ownership in a foreign entity are better off in absolute terms, but their financial ratios worsen.
Spectral estimation using combined time and lag weighting

This paper presents a five-step method for spectral estimation that combines time and lag weighting and leads to a procedure that requires less than one-half the computations of standard methods. The Blackman-Tukey method and the Weighted Overlapped Segment Averaging (WOSA) method (widely used in sonar and other applications) are shown to be special cases of the combined method. An analysis of the mean value of the spectral estimate leads to an unusual lag weighting that corrects for poor (for example, rectangular) time weighting and affords effective windows with very good sidelobe behavior. Several examples of achievable windows are provided. Finally, the variance of the spectral estimate of the combined method is presented and evaluated for the case of rectangular time weighting, no segment overlap, and lag reshaping. It is found that the variance is virtually as low as any technique that realizes the same frequency resolution with the same finite data record length. Furthermore, the computational costs are less than one-half those of the WOSA method, primarily because no time weighting multiplications or overlap are required.