Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Fenoterol Inhalation After Acid Aspiration-Induced Lung Injury

BACKGROUND: Acid aspiration is a serious complication that can occur during general anesthesia. Studies show that &bgr;-agonists have beneficial effects on lung injury. Therefore, we tested the effect of the nebulized &bgr;-agonist fenoterol on lung variables in a rodent model of acid-induced lung injury. METHODS: In a prospective, randomized, and controlled study, we evaluated the effects of fenoterol inhalation on lung oxygenation, inflammation, and pulmonary histology in a rat model of acid-induced lung injury. Sprague-Dawley rats underwent sevoflurane anesthesia with tracheotomy and carotid catheter insertion. Lung injury was induced by instillation of 0.4 mL/kg 0.1 M hydrochloric acid. The lungs were ventilated for 6 h and randomized to receive either fenoterol inhalation 10 &mgr;g or saline inhalation, both at 15 and 180 min after acid aspiration. Mean arterial blood pressures and peak airway pressures were documented, arterial blood gases were determined at 30, 90, 180, 270, and 360 min, and postmortem histology was subsequently examined. Additionally, fenoterol concentrations in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and plasma were determined by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectroscopy. After 360 min tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-&agr; and interleukin (IL)-6 were determined in the BALF, and lungs were dried for determination of the wet/dry ratio. RESULTS: Inhalation treatment with 10 &mgr;g fenoterol significantly increased oxygenation after 270 and 360 min when compared with placebo. Fenoterol-treated rats showed a significant decrease in IL-6 and TNF-&agr; levels and in the wet/dry weight ratio of the lungs. The histologic appearance showed significantly less interstitial edema and leukocyte infiltration in the fenoterol group. The concentration of fenoterol was 10.3 &mgr;g/L (median) in the BALF and <1 &mgr;g/L in the plasma. CONCLUSIONS: Fenoterol inhalation improved oxygenation after 270 and 360 min, attenuated the release of TNF-&agr; and IL-6, and diminished the lung edema and infiltration of polymorphonuclear leukocytes.
The Bifunctional Cell Wall Hydrolase CwlT Is Needed for Conjugation of the Integrative and Conjugative Element ICEBs1 in Bacillus subtilis and B. anthracis

ABSTRACT The mobile genetic element ICEBs1 is an integrative and conjugative element (ICE) found in Bacillus subtilis. One of the ICEBs1 genes, cwlT, encodes a cell wall hydrolase with two catalytic domains, a muramidase and a peptidase. We found that cwlT is required for ICEBs1 conjugation. We examined the role of each of the two catalytic domains and found that the muramidase is essential, whereas the peptidase is partially dispensable for transfer of ICEBs1. We also found that the putative signal peptide in CwlT is required for CwlT to function in conjugation, consistent with the notion that CwlT is normally secreted from the cytoplasm. We found that alteration of the putative lipid attachment site on CwlT had no effect on its role in conjugation, indicating that if CwlT is a lipoprotein, the lipid attachment is not required for conjugation. Finally, we found conditions supporting efficient transfer of ICEBs1 into and out of Bacillus anthracis and that cwlT was needed for ICEBs1 to function in B. anthracis. The mature cell wall of B. anthracis is resistant to digestion by CwlT, indicating that CwlT might act during cell wall synthesis, before modifications of the peptidoglycan are complete.
Evaluation of the neurovirulence test for mumps vaccines.

Neurovirulence tests in Macaca fascicularis using commercial preparations of different vaccine bulks and a wild-type strain revealed that the test was unable to distinguish mixed from pure populations or a suitable vaccine from a related strain which has been shown to be associated with clinical meningitis. However, the test was able to distinguish a wild-type strain from the vaccine strains successfully. The ability of the test to discriminate between acceptable and unacceptable seeds requires further examination.
Evaluation of the Exposure—Response Relationship of Lung Cancer Mortality and Occupational Exposure to Hexavalent Chromium Based on Published Epidemiological Data

Some have suggested a threshold mechanism for the carcinogenicity of exposure to hexavalent chromium, Cr(VI). We evaluated the nature of the exposure—response relationship between occupational exposure to Cr(VI) and respiratory cancer based on results of two recently published epidemiological cohort studies. The combined cohort comprised a total of 2,849 workers employed at two U.S. chromate production plants between 1940 and 1974. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) for lung cancer in relation to cumulative Cr(VI) exposure categories were reported using regional mortality rates. Linear additive and multiplicative relative risk regression models were fit to the SMRs of the individual and combined studies. Both models fit the data from the individual studies reasonably well; however, the fit was somewhat less adequate for the pooled data. Meta-analysis of the slope estimates obtained from the multiplicative relative risk model showed substantial heterogeneity between the two epidemiological studies. In conclusion, these data indicate that a linear dose response describes the relationship between Cr(VI) and lung cancer reasonably well, and therefore these analyses do not necessarily support the threshold hypothesis for the lung carcinogenicity of Cr(VI). However, these results must be interpreted with recognition of the limitations of the use of epidemiological data in the evaluation of nonlinear exposure—response patterns.
Strategic Similarity and Emergent Conventions: Evidence from Similar Stag Hunt Games

Abstract This paper reports evidence on the origin of convention in laboratory cohorts confronting similar but not identical strategic situations repeatedly. The experiment preserves the action space of the game, while randomly perturbing the payoffs and scrambling the action labels in an effort to blunt the salience of retrospective selection principles. Hence, the similarity between stage games is reduced to certain strategic details, like efficiency, security, and risk dominance. Nevertheless, we do observe conventions emerging in half of the laboratory cohorts. When a convention emerges subjects's behavior conforms to the selection principles of efficiency rather than security or risk dominance. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C72, C78, C92, D83.
Reduction of feed blockage in reflectarray by orthogonally polarized transformation

A microstrip reflectarray is usually composed of a feed and an array of printed metal patch elements that are slightly different from each other to reflect the incident field into a phase-coherent beam in a prescribed direction. The feed placed in front of the reflectarray causes blockage to the reflected wave. A reflectarray with orthogonally polarized transformation is proposed in an innovative concept developed for blockage reduction. The reflectarray is simulated with valuable data, designed on high performances, and fabricated. About 4 dB gain drop due to feed-blockage may be avoided by this technology, and about a 10 % frequency band may be covered.
Histones of Drosophila embryos. Electrophoretic isolation and structural studies.

Abstract Five main classes of histones and one minor component have been isolated from Drosophila melanogaster embryos and purified by means of a gel electrophoretic method in which the electrophoretic mobilities of proteins depend on their hydrophobicity in addition to their charge and mass. When the purified histones are compared with analogous vertebrate histones in amino acid composition, the extent of difference varies widely among the different histone classes, the order from most to least conserved being F2a1, F3, F2a2, F2b, and F1. The compositional differences between mammalian and Drosophila F1 histones are particularly large, exceeding 30% for all amino acids except lysine and arginine. The F1 histone of Drosophila was cleaved with CNBr, and the COOH-terminal peptide, representing 60% of the molecule, was isolated. It was found to be enriched in lysine, as in rabbit F1 histone. These results suggest that despite the high rate of evolutionary change of this histone, the general arrangement of positively charged residues is largely conserved, possibly to satisfy requirements for correct binding to DNA. However, this COOH-terminal peptide contains less than one-half of the number of prolyl residues present in the corresponding portion of rabbit F1, indicating that the lysine-, alanine-, and proline-rich portion of this region, believed to be very constant among mammalian F1 histones, can undergo striking evolutionary changes.
An Improved Method for Power-Line Reconstruction from Point Cloud Data

This paper presents a robust algorithm to reconstruct power-lines using ALS technology. Point cloud data are automatically classified into five target classes before reconstruction. In order to improve upon the defaults of only using the local shape properties of a single power-line span in traditional methods, the distribution properties of power-line group between two neighbor pylons and contextual information of related pylon objects are used to improve the reconstruction results. First, the distribution properties of power-line sets are detected using a similarity detection method. Based on the probability of neighbor points belonging to the same span, a RANSAC rule based algorithm is then introduced to reconstruct power-lines through two important advancements: reliable initial parameters fitting and efficient candidate sample detection. Our experiments indicate that the proposed method is effective for reconstruction of power-lines from complex scenarios.
SMES Control for Power Grid Integrating Renewable Generation and Electric Vehicles

This paper presents a superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) control system for the power distribution grid which integrates renewable generation and electric vehicles (EVs) together. Based on a 33-bus 4-lateral radial distribution system, coordinated control is developed. With the use of SMES, any transient unbalance caused by wind power variation can be recovered so that the system frequency can be stabilized. Also, with the use of EVs, the steady-state load demand can be redistributed to facilitate the adoption of wind power generation. Finally, simulation results verify that the use of both SMES and EVs can effectively perform power balancing under both the transient and steady states.
Effects of Data Center Vibration on Compute System Performance

From September 21, 2009 until October 2nd, 2009, Q Associates performed a series of tests and benchmarks to determine the effect of data center and system vibration on the I/O performance of an end-to-end compute environment. These tests revealed that ambient vibration inherent in a world-class, raised floor data center caused performance degradation of up to 246% for random reads and up to 88% degradation for random writes for an enterprise class storage system. This loss of performance due to environmental vibration results in a commensurate increase in energy usage for equivalent work to be performed. A prototype anti-vibration rack was tested within the same environment and shown to significantly reduce or eliminate the detrimental vibration effects resulting in significantly increased performance. A "latent performance effect" was also discovered and analyzed associated with the testing. This effect is a potential source of traditional benchmark error and would likely not be detected by normal benchmark procedures and tests. The study of this effect further collaborates the impact that vibration has on overall system performance.
Polytopic membrane protein folding and assembly in vitro and in vivo (Review)

The insertion and folding of proteins in biological membranes during protein synthesis in vivo is fundamental to membrane biogenesis. At present, however, certain molecular aspects of this process can only be understood by complementary studies in vitro. We bring together in vitro and in vivo results, highlighting how the studies inform each other and increase our knowledge of the folding and assembly of polytopic membrane proteins. A notable recent advance is the high-resolution crystal structure of the protein machinery responsible for membrane protein insertion into the endoplasmic reticulum. This provides an opportunity to combine in vitro and in vivo studies at a more sophisticated level and address mechanistic aspects of polytopic protein insertion and folding. Quality control is another important aspect of membrane biogenesis, and we give an overview of the current understanding of this process, focusing on cystic fibrosis as a well-studied paradigm. Mutations in the associated membrane protein, the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), can cause the quality control mechanisms to prevent the mutant protein reaching its normal site of action, the cell surface. In vitro studies of CFTR shed light on the possible origins of other clinically relevant folding mutants and highlight the potential synergy between in vitro and in vivo approaches.
Role of Corticotropin‐Releasing Factor Receptor‐1 in Opiate Withdrawal

Abstract: Previous studies indicate that corticotropin‐releasing factor (CRF) contributes to the anxiety‐like and aversive states associated with drug‐induced withdrawal. The present study extends this work by analyzing the CRF receptor subtype involved in withdrawal responses. First, the influence of a selective CRF receptor‐1 (CRF‐R1) antagonist, CP‐154,526, on opiate withdrawal behavior was examined. Pretreatment with the CRF‐R1 antagonist significantly attenuated several behavioral signs of naltrexone‐induced morphine withdrawal, including writhing, chewing, weight loss, lacrimation, salivation, and irritability, measured during the first hour of withdrawal. Next the expression of CRF‐R1 was determined as a second measure of the involvement of this receptor in opiate withdrawal. Naltrexone‐induced morphine withdrawal resulted in down‐regulation of CRF‐R1 mRNA in several brain regions, including the frontal cortex, parietal cortex, striatum, nucleus accumbens, and amygdala, but not in the hypothalamus or periaqueductal gray. Expression of CRF‐R2, the other major CRF receptor subtype, was not down‐regulated significantly by withdrawal in any of the regions examined, although morphine alone significantly increased levels of this receptor subtype. Taken together, the behavioral and receptor regulation findings indicate that CRF‐R1 is the primary mediator of the actions of the CRF system on opiate withdrawal, although it is possible that CRF‐R2 contributes to the response.
Challenging Behavior in Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome: Initial Test of Biobehavioral Influences

Objective:To study challenging behavior (destruction, aggression, self-injury, stereotypy) in children with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS) using a biobehavioral model that helps distinguish biological from socially mediated variables influencing the behavior. Background:SLOS is an autosomal-recessive syndrome of multiple malformations and intellectual disability resulting from a genetic error in cholesterol synthesis in all cells and tissues, including brain. The exact cause of the challenging behavior in SLOS is unclear, but defective brain cholesterol synthesis may contribute. Because the precise genetic and biochemical etiology of SLOS is known, this disorder is a good model for studying biological causes of challenging behavior. Method:In a preliminary application of a biobehavioral model, we studied the association between cholesterol levels (as a biochemical indicator of disease severity) and behavior subtype (“biological” vs “learned”) in 13 children with SLOS. Parents completed a questionnaire that categorized challenging behavior as influenced primarily by social or nonsocial (thus, presumably biological) factors. Results:The severity of the cholesterol synthesis defect correlated significantly with behavior subtype classification for 1 of 2 challenging behaviors. Greater severity of the cholesterol synthesis defect was associated with behavior being classified as primarily influenced by biological factors. Conclusion:The interplay between challenging behavior and defective cholesterol synthesis in SLOS may help explain biological influences on the behavior. Our findings have implications for research on the effectiveness of behavioral and medical treatments for behavioral difficulties in SLOS and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
EVALUATION OF ANTI-FATIGUE ACTIVITY OF FLAVONOIDS FROM TARTARY BUCKWHEAT IN MICE

Background: Flavonoids are the major biological activities components of tartary buckwheat which has multifunctional bioactivities. However, there are a limited number of studies on the effect of flavonoids from tartary buckwheat (TBF) on physical fatigue at present. This study aimed to investigate the anti-fatigue activity of TBF in mice. Materials and Methods: The mice were divided into four groups: control (C), low-dose TBF-treated (LFT), middle-dose TBF-treated (MFT) and high-dose TBF-treated (HFT). The treated groups received TBF (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg), while the control group received physiological saline. After 28 days' treatment, the mice performed exhaustive running exercise on the treadmill, along with the measure of exhaustive running times, blood lactic acid (BLA), serum urea nitrogen (SUN), serum creatine kinase (SCK), liver glycogen, superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and catalase (CAT). Results: TBF prolonged the exhaustive running time of the mice. It sub-served to remove the accumulated products of metabolism by decreasing the levels of BLA and SUN. It ameliorated the muscle damage by decreasing the SCK levels. It improved the metabolic control of exercise and activated the energy metabolism by increasing the liver glycogen contents, as well as improving endogenous cellular antioxidant enzymes in mice by increasing the SOD, GPx and CAT activities. Conclusion: TBF has significant anti‑fatigue activity.
Sendai virus efficiently infects cells via the asialoglycoprotein receptor and requires the presence of cleaved F0 precursor proteins for this alternative route of cell entry

Biochemical evidence suggests that the asialoglycoprotein receptor (ASGP-R) can be used as an alternative receptor for a temperature-sensitive Sendai virus (SV) mutant. We now have investigated this possible alternative route of infection for SV wild-type (SV-wt) strain Fushimi by using a pair of cell lines which differ only with regard to ASGP-R expression. Infection studies after enzymatic destruction of conventional sialic acid-containing SV receptors (SA-R) revealed that only ASGP-R-expressing cells could be infected by SV-wt. This alternative route of cell entry could be completely blocked by incubation of cells with ASGP-R-specific antibodies prior to infection. Furthermore, cleavage of SV-F0 precursor protein into the subunits F1 and F2 was necessary to establish infection via ASGP-R, suggesting a fusion-mediated cell entry after binding of SV-wt to the ASGP-R on host cells. Interestingly, infection via ASGP-R was found to be nearly as efficient as infection via conventional sialic acid-containing SV receptors. A possible physiological role of the ASGP-R-mediated route of SV infection is discussed.
Large-Scale Magnetic Field Analysis of Laminated Core by Using the Hybrid Finite Element and Boundary Element Method Combined with the Fast Multipole Method

This paper shows a large-scale and highly accurate nonlinear magnetostatic field analysis of laminated iron core by using the hybrid finite element and boundary element (FE-BE) method. The hybrid FE-BE method is fairly effective to directly deal with the microstructure because no mesh division is required for the free space. In order to obtain the drastic reduction of the computational costs and stabilize the convergence characteristic of the Newton-Raphson method, the fast multipole method and the line search are introduced. Some numerical results that verify the effectiveness of the developed method are also presented
Tuberculosis control: current status, challenges and barriers ahead in 22 high endemic countries.

BACKGROUND Despite the fact that Directly Observed Treatment Strategy (DOTS) short course is cost effective and universally recommended by WHO for effective TB control, it is beyond the financial reach of several highly endemic countries. This article aims at identifying barriers in DOTS's implementation and progress in 22 high burden countries (HBCs) from TB. METHODS Medline abstracts, published papers and WHO reports were retrieved, critically examined and compared keeping standard parameters of TB control in view. RESULTS & CONCLUSION The increasing caseload, morbidity and mortality due to TB in high burden countries have become a major health challenge and threat to the health systems. The escalated burden of disease and deaths due to TB has posed a great threat to the international security. In the last decade little progress has been witnessed in the implementation of WHO's recommended strategy called DOTS in the 22 high burden countries. Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Brazil, Zimbabwe, S. Africa and Uganda are some of the countries still facing challenges in the effective introduction, implementation and expansion of DOTS. Financial inabilities contribute greatly to the failure of respective national TB control programs. High burden countries are usually in the economic recession or passing through severe socio-political turmoil that has further reduced spending on TB control. Majority depends on the international assistance and put little domestic efforts. Coupled with the lack of political commitment to the issue of TB control, authors urge high TB control Program managers in HBCs to increase spending and pay a great deal of commitment to the universal implementation of DOTS, increase case detection and case management to attain their global targets.
Involvement of epidermal growth factor receptor overexpression in the promotion of breast cancer brain metastasis

Brain‐metastatic breast cancer (BMBC) is increasing and poses a severe clinical problem because of the lack of effective treatments and because the underlying molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. Recent work has demonstrated that deregulation of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) may correlate with BMBC progression. However, the exact contribution that EGFR makes to BMBC remains unclear.
Directed Evolution of Metabolically Engineered Escherichiacoli for Carotenoid Production

We have previously introduced a reconstructed isoprenoid pathway into Escherichia coli that exhibits amplified biosynthetic flux to geranylgeranyl diphosphate (GGPP), a common isoprenoid precursor. It was shown that GGPP synthase is an important rate‐controlling enzyme in this reconstructed isoprenoid pathway. In this investigation, we applied directed evolution to GGPP synthase from Archaeoglobus fulgidus to enable the enhanced production of carotenoids in metabolically engineered E. coli. Eight mutants were isolated, and the best one increased lycopene production by 100%. Among the mutants that were isolated, mutation points were clustered in four “hot regions”. The “hottest” region is located in the sequence upstream of the coding region, which presumably improves the expression level of the enzyme. The other three are within the coding sequence and are believed to improve the enzyme‐specific activity in E coli. These results demonstrate that modulating both enzymatic expression and specific activity are important for optimizing the metabolic flux distribution.