Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cannabinoids Induce Immunoglobulin Class Switching to IgE in B Lymphocytes

Cannabinoid treatment increases Th2 activity and previous reports showed B cells express the highest level of CB2 mRNA relative to other immune cells suggesting that cannabinoids play a critical role in B cell activation and maturation. To examine the direct effect of cannabinoids on B cell antibody class switching, mouse splenic B cells were purified by negative selection and cultured with IL4 and anti-CD40 in the presence or absence of the nonselective cannabinoid agonist, CP55940, or the CB1 selective agonist, methanandamide, or the CB2 selective agonist, JW015. The cultures were then analyzed at different times by flow cytometry for expression of B cell surface markers, such as CD19, CD138, CD40, MHCII, CD23, CD80, CD45R, immunoglobulins produced such as IgM, IgE, IgD, and IgG1, and Toll-like receptors such as TLR 2 and 4. Cells treated with CP55940 showed an increase in surface expression of IgE by day 5 in culture; methanandamide had no effect. CP55940 also induced an increase in secreted IgE in culture supernatants analyzed by ELISA. In addition, CB2 receptors were increased on B cells following stimulation with IL-4 and anti-CD40 and the class ix switching effect of CP55940 was attenuated by the CB2 antagonist, SR144528. We also observed that cannabinoid treatment of B cells modulates cell functions other than antibody class switching such as surface marker and TLR expression. CP55940 caused a significant increase in surface expression of TLR 4, but had no effect on other markers. Additional experiments with cannabinoid receptor selective agonists and antagonists suggested both CB1 and CB2 receptors were involved in the TLR effect. Receptor involvement and Gi coupling was supported by our findings that cannabinoids inhibit intracellular cAMP levels in forskolin stimulated B cells, and increasing intracellular cAMP with forskolin suppressed IgE antibody class switching in activated B cell cultures. These results suggest cannabinoids negatively regulate cAMP in B cells resulting in increased IgE. In conclusion, cannabinoids can directly affect the function of B cells by inducing antibody class switching to IgE and TLR4 expression through mechanisms involving CB1 and CB2 receptors suggesting the endocannabinoid system may be an important regulator of humoral immunity and the allergic response.
Birds of a Feather Linked Together: A Discriminative Topic Model using Link-based Priors

A wide range of applications, from social media to scientific literature analysis, involve graphs in which documents are connected by links. We introduce a topic model for link prediction based on the intuition that linked documents will tend to have similar topic distributions, integrating a max-margin learning criterion and lexical term weights in the loss function. We validate our approach on the tweets from 2,000 Sina Weibo users and evaluate our model’s reconstruction of the social network.
The Influence of Sleep Quality on Student Burnout

To prevent a further increase in the high prevalence of student burnout, this longitudinal study investigated the influence of sleep quality on burnout. The impact of engaging in university on the development of burnout was assessed in first-year psychology students (N=75) by measuring symptoms before and after their first study period. The hypothesis that a poor sleep quality is associated with higher emotional exhaustion and cynicism and lower professional efficacy was confirmed. Although the change in burnout over time was not predicted by sleep quality, the exposure to academic stressors lead to the development of emotional exhaustion in students.
Parent Dispositional Mindfulness and its Links to Adolescent Disclosure, Mother-Adolescent Conflict, and Adolescent Hostile Attribution Bias

Mindfulness, defined as the nonjudgmental awareness of and attention towards present experience, has become a popular subject of research in recent years. Higher mindfulness levels have been linked to a number of positive correlates, including lower stress and effective coping skills (e.g. Weinstein, Brown, & Ryan, 2009). Despite increasing attention on the link between mindfulness and its impact on parenting, there is a shortage of literature focusing on the indirect pathways by which this link is facilitated. The goal of this thesis was to examine the indirect link between parents’ mindfulness and their adolescent children’s disclosure, mother-adolescent conflict, and adolescents’ hostile attribution bias. Mediating parent factors considered were parental stress, adolescent perceptions of parents’ perspective taking, and parental perceptions of balanced control over caregiving failure. Adolescents between the ages of 9.5 and 12 and their mothers and fathers participated in this study (N = 127). First, path analysis was used to test the links between mothers’ mindfulness and both adolescent children’s disclosure and mother-adolescent conflict, through mothers’ stress and perspective taking. Results indicated that mindful mothers experienced lower
Using Syntactic Information for Improving Why-Question Answering

In this paper, we extend an existing paragraph retrieval approach to why-question answering. The starting-point is a system that retrieves a relevant answer for 73% of the test questions. However, in 41% of these cases, the highest ranked relevant answer is not ranked in the top-10. We aim to improve the ranking by adding a re-ranking module. For re-ranking we consider 31 features pertaining to the syntactic structure of the question and the candidate answer. We find a significant improvement over the baseline for both [email protected] and [email protected] The most important features for re-ranking are the baseline score, the presence of cue words, the question's main verb, and the relation between question focus and document title.
SEX DIFFERENCES IN BODY SIZE AND BODY CONDITION OF CALIFORNIA SEA LION (ZALOPHUS CALIFORNIANUS) PUPS FROM THE GULF OF CALIFORNIA

The Gulf of California harbors about 15% of the total California sea lion (Zalophus californianus californianus) population. We studied pup morphometrics from eight Gulf of California rookeries during the 1996 and 1997 reproductive seasons to describe sex differences in body size and body condition indices. Newborn pup body size was not different from previous reports. Male pups were heavier and larger than female pups in terms of all linear dimensions. Morphometric relationships, however, showed that males were 3%-4% denser, and that after removing the effects of length, they were about 2% heavier than females. Sculp depth adjusted for length was 12% larger in female than in male pups. Our data provide further evidence that male otariid pups may allocate a larger fraction of milk energy to muscular and skeletal growth compared to female pups.
ELECTROPHILIC OLEFIN HETEROCYCLIZATION IN ORGANIC SYNTHESIS. : STEREOSELECTIVE INTRAMOLECULAR AMIDOMERCURATION OF γ-HYDROXY-δ, ε-UNSATURATED URETHANES

Mercuric acetate driven cyclization of γ-hydroxy-δ, e-unsaturated urethanes 1a, b proceeded regio- and stereoselectively to afford cis-2-acetoxymercurymethyl-3-hydroxypyrrolidines 2a, b, respectively. These were transformed into the key intermediates for several biologically active compounds.
La flexibilité des symbioses entre bivalves et bactéries chimiotrophes : mécanismes, régulation et résilience

La symbiose entre les moules Bathymodiolus et des bacteries sulfo-oxydantes/methanotrophes localisees dans les branchies permet a ces bivalves de vivre dans des environnements hostiles comme les sources hydrothermales sous-marines. Cette symbiose est flexible car l'abondance de chaque symbiote varie selon les substrats chimiques disponibles. Notre objectif etait d'etudier les mecanismes qui sous-tendent cette flexibilite a partir d'experimentations en aquariums, pressurises ou non. La multiplication cellulaire dans la branchie, suivie par marqueur mitotique et par incorporation in vivo de nucleotides synthetiques, a montre qu'elle etait importante dans la zone ciliee et la region dorsale de la branchie. L'apoptose, quantifiee par marquages specifiques, montre que les branchies des Bathymodiolus presentent un taux d'apoptose plus eleve qu'une moule cotiere. Ce sont surtout les bacteriocytes les moins riches en symbiotes qui sont en apoptose, invalidant l'hypothese d'une regulation directe des quantites de symbiotes par apoptose. La comparaison avec l'espece cotiere, Mytilus edulis montre un turn-over important de la zone ciliee des Bathymodiolus, une possible adaptation a la symbiose et a l'environnement. La branchie d'une moule maintenue sans les substrats des symbiotes change et ressemble a celle de la moule cotiere. Les Bathymodiolus relarguent de faibles quantites de leurs deux types de symbiotes, ce qui pourrait participer a la transmission laterale des symbiotes aux moules voisines. Cette premiere approche integree des mecanismes impliques dans la flexibilite de la symbiose ouvrent de nouvelles pistes sur la maniere dont hote et symbiotes dialoguent.
Clustering of Russian Adjective-Noun Constructions using Word Embeddings

This paper presents a method of automatic construction extraction from a large corpus of Russian. The term ‘construction’ here means a multi-word expression in which a variable can be replaced with another word from the same semantic class, for example, ‘a glass of [water/juice/milk]’. We deal with constructions that consist of a noun and its adjective modifier. We propose a method of grouping such constructions into semantic classes via 2-step clustering of word vectors in distributional models. We compare it with other clustering techniques and evaluate it against A Russian-English Collocational Dictionary of the Human Body that contains manually annotated groups of constructions with nouns meaning human body parts. The best performing method is used to cluster all adjective-noun bigrams in the Russian National Corpus. Results of this procedure are publicly available and can be used for building Russian construction dictionary as well as to accelerate theoretical studies of constructions.
New records and nine additions to the British list of fungus gnats of the smaller families and sub-families (Diptera: Mycetophiloidea)

Since the account (Chandler, 1987a) of additions to the groups dealt with by Hutson, Ackland & Kidd (1980) was compiled, 10 further species in these groups have been discovered in Britain, one of which (Macrocera nigropicea Lundstrom) has been . published already (Chandler, 1990). The male of Mycomya insignis and female of M. britteni have been recognized in British material and a new name is necessary for Boletina brevicornis sensu Edwards. New records are provided for other uncommon species.
Comma Restoration Using Constituency Information

Automatic restoration of punctuation from unpunctuated text has application in improving the fluency and applicability of speech recognition systems. We explore the possibility that syntactic information can be used to improve the performance of an HMM-based system for restoring punctuation (specifically, commas) in text. Our best methods reduce sentence error rate substantially --- by some 20%, with an additional 8% reduction possible given improvements in extraction of the requisite syntactic information.
ANÁLISE DE PARÂMETROS IMUNOLÓGICOS EM MULHERES COM TRANSTORNO BIPOLAR TIPO I EUTÍMICAS

O Transtorno Bipolar (TB) e uma doenca psiquiatrica cronica, complexa e multifatorial, caracterizada por ciclos alternados de mania e depressao, intercalados com periodos de remissao ou eutimia. Diversos estudos vem demonstrando associacoes entre sistema nervoso, endocrino e imunologico na patofisiologia do TB. Uma ativacao imune, evidenciada por niveis plasmaticos aumentados de citocinas pro-inflamatorias, tem sido frequentemente relatada no TB. No entanto, a maioria dos estudos refere-se principalmente as fases de mania e depressao, e poucos estudos foram desenvolvidos na fase de eutimia. Neste estudo, investigamos mecanismos celulares e moleculares potencialmente envolvidos no fenomeno inflamatorio no TB, incluindo diversos subtipos linfocitarios e vias intracelulares de ativacao linfocitaria. Vinte e sete pacientes mulheres com TB I eutimicos e 24 controles saudaveis pareados por sexo e idade foram recrutadas neste estudo. Os linfocitos foram isolados e estimulados in vitro para avaliar as citocinas Th1/Th17/Th2 (IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-10, IL-17, IFN-ע e TNF-ae) e expressao de proteinas cinases ativadas por mitogeno (MAPKs). A expressao das MAPKs (p-ERK e p-p38), subtipos linfocitarios e citocinas foram avaliados por citometria de fluxo. Todas as citocinas avaliadas encontraram-se elevadas nos bipolares em comparacao com controles sau-daveis. Em particular, foi evidenciado um vies para um perfil Th1 (inflamatorio) no TB I. Interessantemente, observamos uma reducao significativa (-56%) de celulas T regulatorias (CD4+CD25+Foxp3+) e expansao (43%) de celulas T CD8+ regulatorias (CD8+CD28-) no TB. Os linfocitos dos pacientes bipolares apresentaram um aumento significativo de p-ERK em relacao a p-p38, indicando uma ativacao linfocitaria. Concluindo, nossos dados sugerem que multiplos mecanismos celulares e moleculares contribuem para um desequilibrio imune observado no TB
IDENTIFICATION OF TOMATO GENES DIFFERENTIALLY EXPRESSED DURING COMPATIBLE INTERACTION WITH PYRENOCHAETA LYCOPERSICI

Breeding for resistance is the most effective tool for controlling the corky root disease of tomato caused by the fungus Pyrenochaeta lycopersici. However, little is known about the molecular bases of tomato-P. lycopersici interaction. In order to identify genes involved in the basal defence response activated in a susceptible cultivar and in disease symptom development, a set of cDNA-AFLP fragments derived from a profiling experiment was analysed. A total of 247 differentially expressed TDFs (transcript-derived fragments), identified as putative tomato genes, were characterized by similarity searches, and classified into 11 broad functional classes. Timings ranging between the early [48, 72 and 96 h post-infection (hpi)] and the late infection stages (20 and 27 dpi) were used. The changes of tomato root transcriptional profiles showed large differences in quantity and quality between the early and late stages of infection. Mechanisms of basal defence were most likely activated at early stages, when a gene coding for a receptor- like serine-threonine protein kinase and other genes of the signalling class were upregulated. At 20 dpi some of the mechanisms involved in defence were still activated, while at 27 dpi a general repression of gene expression was observed.
Meta‐analysis in Ecology

The synthesis of information across studies and ecosystems is highly important in ecological research. Meta-analyses provide the statistical tools to quantitatively summarize the results of many empirical studies, comprising both the effects of experimental treatments and the correlation between observational data. Keywords: quantitative synthesis; meta-analysis; community ecology; statistical methods; review techniques
Evaluation of the Effect of Surfactants on the Adsorption and Movement of Carbaryl in Soils of Divergent Texture

The adsorption and movement of carbaryl on soils in surfactant-free and surfactant (cationic, non-ionic, anionic) solutions of different critical micelle concentrations (CMCs) has been studied using batch equilibrium and soil thin layer chromatography (soil TLC) techniques. The adsorption of carbaryl in surfactant–soil–water systems followed the order cationic > anionic > non-ionic as anticipated from the Freundlich constant, KF, and distribution coefficient, KD, values. The Rf values obtained from soil TLC studies were inversely proportional to the KF and KD values. The affinities of carbaryl towards organic carbon and the clay content of the soil were compared using the KOC and KC values. The behaviour of carbaryl in surfactant–soil–water systems mainly depends on the degree of hydrophobicity of the pesticide and the type and concentration of surfactant used. The KD*/KD ratios were used to evaluate the remediation efficiency of surfactants and it was found that anionic surfactant is a better choice for remediation of contaminated soils. The remediation efficiency of non-ionic surfactant varies with the nature of the soils whereas cationic surfactant leads to poor remediation efficiency. The results obtained are interesting as they afford the basic data relating to the possible use of surfactants for solving pollution problems posed by carbaryl.
Effects of Shading on Chlorophyll Content, Chlorophyll Fluorescence and Photosynthesis of Subterranean Clover

A field-experiment (2004/2005 and 2005/2006 seasons) was conducted in the coastal plain of south-eastern Sicily (37°03'N, 15°18'E, 15 m a.s.l.), on a Calcixerollic Xerochrepts soil, aimed at quantifying the effect of shading on chlorophyll (Chl) content, Chl fluorescence, photosynthesis and growth of subterranean clover. Four levels of photosynthetically active radiation reduction (from 0 % to 90 %) were tested on Trifolium brachycalycinum cv. 'Clare' and Trifolium subterraneum ecotype 'Ragalna'. In both species shading progressively increased F v /F m , internal CO 2 concentration, diffusive leaf resistance and specific leaf area (up to 8 %, 34 %, 18 % and 68 %, respectively), and decreased Chl content, T max , photosynthetic rate and plant dry weight (up to 9 %, 24 %, 79 % and 39 %, respectively). As plants aged, characteristic bell-shaped trends were evident for photosynthetic parameters, with F v /F m increasing up until the onset of flowering, and thereafter declining. This implies that F v /F m may be a useful indicator of earliness in subterranean clover genotypes. The aboveground dry biomass response to shading was both genotype- and season-dependent, but was predictable from the measurement of relative leaf Chl content. Moreover, our results suggest that an improvement in the interaction between host-rhizobium may represent a major potential breeding target for enhancing subterranean clover tolerance to shading.
Pengembangan Smart Village untuk Penguatan Smart City dan Smart Regency

Dewasa ini berbagai kota di Indonesia maupun di negara lain sedang giat menuju pencapaian Smart City. Pencapaian Smart City acapkali dilakukan secara general untuk dapat mencapai seluruh dimensi smart, baik itu smart governance, smart living, smart people, smart environment, smart economy dan lainnya. Sementara itu tidak seluruh wilayah memiliki karakteristik sebagai kota (city). Wilayah kabupaten (regency) terdiri atas kawasan perkotaan dan perdesaaan sehingga hanya bagian dari kawasan perkotaan saja yang dapat dikembangkan dengan menggunakan konsep Smart City. Sementara itu bagian kawasan perdesaan memiliki pendekatan yang berbeda untuk dapat dijadikan sebagai daerah yang smart. Lebih jauh paper ini akan mendiskusikan tentang komponen-komponen apa yang diperlukan didalam mengambangkan Smart Village sebagai penguatan dari Smart City dan Smart Regency.
Small envelope protein E of SARS：cloning,expression, purification, CD determination, and bioinformatics analysis

AIM:To obtain the pure sample of SARS small envelope E protein (SARS E protein), study its properties and analyze its possible functions. METHODS: The plasmid of SARS E protein was constructed by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and the protein was expressed in the E coli strain. The secondary structure feature of the protein was determined by circular dichroism (CD) technique. The possible functions of this protein were annotated by bioinformatics methods, and its possible three-dimensional model was constructed by molecular modeling. RESULTS: The pure sample of SARS E protein was obtained. The secondary structure feature derived from CD determination is similar to that from the secondary structure prediction. Bioinformatics analysis indicated that the key residues of SARS E protein were much conserved compared to the E proteins of other coronaviruses. In particular, the primary amino acid sequence of SARS E protien is much more similar to that of murine hepatitis virus(MHV) and other mammal coronaviruses. The transmembrane (TM) segment of the SARS E protein is relatively more conserved in the whole protein than other regions. CONCLUSION: The success of expressing the SARS E protein is a good starting point for investigating the structure and functions of this protein and SARS coronavirus itself as well. The SARS E protein may fold in water solution in a similar way as it in membrane-water mixed environment. It is possible that β-sheet I of the SARS E protein interacts with the membrane surface via hydrogen bonding, this β-sheet may uncoil to a random structure in water solution.
Patterns of gene expression in Schistosoma mansoni larvae associated with infection of the mammalian host

Larval schistosomes infect the human host by penetration of unbroken skin, before gaining access to a blood vessel and beginning their intravascular life. The work in this thesis focuses on the mammalian infection process, as it would be the ideal point to interrupt the life cycle. A whole organism approach was taken, and the life cycle stages before, during and after skin penetration were studied, namely the intra-molluscan germ ball (embryonic cercaria), infective cercaria, and the in vitro cultured day 3 schistosomulum (equivalent to skin stage larva). Confocal microscopy was used for a morphological survey of these life cycle stages, establishing the timeline of cercarial embryogenesis and documenting the impressive changes they undergo. The temporal and spatial gene expression patterns underlying the changes were investigated using the first genome-wide microarray for S. mansoni for transcriptional profiling of the three stages. The known repertoire of molecules likely to be secreted during host entry was greatly expanded, particularly the proteases and venom allergen-like proteins. Genes involved in energy production and conservation were up-regulated in the cercaria, as were several genes encoding proteins deployed immediately on arrival in the skin. Additionally, micro exon genes (MEGs) encoding variant secreted proteins were highly upregulated in the schistosomulum, emphasising their likely role after entry into the mammalian host. The transcription of many tegument and gut-associated genes was also increased in the schistosomulum; cathepsins were particularly notable, even in the cercaria, implying that the larval gut becomes active long before blood feeding begins. The first application of whole mount in situ hybridisation to germ balls confirmed localisation of invadolysin and VAL-10 to the nascent acetabular glands. However, SmKK7 and Sm16 were not expressed in these glands, questioning their putative roles in immunomodulation. Finally, three MEGs were revealed to be expressed in tissues at the host-parasite interface.