Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Serine Protease Plasmin Cleaves the Amino-terminal Domain of the NR2A Subunit to Relieve Zinc Inhibition of the N-Methyl-d-aspartate Receptors*

Zinc is hypothesized to be co-released with glutamate at synapses of the central nervous system. Zinc binds to NR1/NR2A N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors with high affinity and inhibits NMDAR function in a voltage-independent manner. The serine protease plasmin can cleave a number of substrates, including protease-activated receptors, and may play an important role in several disorders of the central nervous system, including ischemia and spinal cord injury. Here, we demonstrate that plasmin can cleave the native NR2A amino-terminal domain (NR2AATD), removing the functional high affinity Zn2+ binding site. Plasmin also cleaves recombinant NR2AATD at lysine 317 (Lys317), thereby producing a ∼40-kDa fragment, consistent with plasmin-induced NR2A cleavage fragments observed in rat brain membrane preparations. A homology model of the NR2AATD predicts that Lys317 is near the surface of the protein and is accessible to plasmin. Recombinant expression of NR2A with an amino-terminal deletion at Lys317 is functional and Zn2+ insensitive. Whole cell voltage-clamp recordings show that Zn2+ inhibition of agonist-evoked NMDA receptor currents of NR1/NR2A-transfected HEK 293 cells and cultured cortical neurons is significantly reduced by plasmin treatment. Mutating the plasmin cleavage site Lys317 on NR2A to alanine blocks the effect of plasmin on Zn2+ inhibition. The relief of Zn2+ inhibition by plasmin occurs in PAR1-/- cortical neurons and thus is independent of interaction with protease-activated receptors. These results suggest that plasmin can directly interact with NMDA receptors, and plasmin may increase NMDA receptor responses through disruption or removal of the amino-terminal domain and relief of Zn2+ inhibition.
Information Systems Success - A Quantitative Literature Review and Comparison

Despite the outstanding economic relevance of information systems in business and society, there exists no consensus among academics and practi- tioners how to measure the success of information systems. Therefore this paper makes a contribution to structure and classify the most recent research in IS success. This is done by providing an exhaustive overview of literature in the field of IS success capturing the empirical and non-empirical publications be- tween 2007 and 2011. With regard to theoretical foundation, object of analysis, unit of analysis, evaluation perspective, data gathering method, and data analy- sis, 26 empirical articles are classified. The 11 non-empirical studies are classi- fied by theoretical foundation, methodological type and object of analysis. The results show that in most cases a type of IT or IT application is investigated by applying the DeLone and McLean IS success model. Most of the studies focus on IS users and the individual perspective of analysis, whereas the most promi- nent data analysis method is structural equation modeling.
Proteomic analysis of pericardial effusion: Characteristics of tuberculosis‐related proteins

The aim of this study has been designed to identify the tuberculosis (TB)‐related proteins in pericardial effusion by proteomic approaches. TB is one of the major infectious diseases causing pericardial effusion. This study details protein profiles in pericardial effusion from three TB patients and three heart failure patients. Pericardial effusions were analyzed using 2‐DE combined with the nano‐HPLC‐ESI‐MS/MS. Eleven protein spots with differential expression in pericardial effusion were identified between the two groups of TB and heart failure patients (the control group). Seven protein spots were upregulated and four were downregulated. The composition of the pericardial effusion proteome may reflect the pathophysiological conditions affecting the progression of tuberculous pericarditis. The proteins in the tuberculous pericardial effusion with differential expression may serve as new and direct indicators of drug treatment. A possible conclusion is indicated that fibrinogen may play an important role for fibrin assembly in tuberculous pericardial effusion.
Effect of a 60 Hz magnetic field on the behavior of Paramecium.

Paramecium multimicronucleatum was used as a model cell to study the effects of 60 Hz magnetic fields on swimming behavior. When exposed to a vertical field of 0.6 T, the cells accumulated at the upper end of the cuvette. An analysis of the swimming behavior revealed that the exposure to the field increased the number of cells swimming upwards maximally at 1 min after onset of the exposure. This effect of the magnetic field was transient, disappearing within a few minutes during the exposure. It is suggested that the magnetic field may amplify to a large extent the negative gravitaxis of Paramecium. Effects of an induced electric field on the swimming behavior are also discussed.
IGR J00234+6141: a new INTEGRAL source identified as an intermediate polar

Context. Following an extensive survey of the galactic plane by the INTEGRAL satellite, new hard X-ray sources are discovered with a significant fraction of Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) among them. Aims. We report here the identification of one of these hard X-ray sources, IGR J00234+6141, as an accreting magnetic white dwarf of intermediate polar type. Methods. We analyse the high energy emission of the INTEGRAL source using all available data and provide complementary optical photometric and spectroscopic data obtained in August and October 2006, respectively. Results. Based on a refined INTEGRAL position, we confirm the proposed optical identification. We clearly detect the presence of a 564 s periodic optical modulation that we identify as the rotation of the white dwarf. The analysis of the optical spectrum also demonstrates that the emission lines show a modulation in radial velocity with an orbital period of Porb = (4.033 ± 0.005) h. Conclusions. The two periodicities indicate that IGR J00234+6141 is a magnetic CV of the intermediate polar type. This is one of the faintest and hardest sources of this type detected by INTEGRAL. This confirms earlier conclusions that intermediate polars contribute significantly to the population of galactic X-ray sources and represent a significant fraction of the high energy background.
Interleaved Regression Tree Field Cascades for Blind Image Deconvolution

Image blur from camera shake is a common cause for poor image quality in digital photography, prompting a significant recent interest in image deblurring. The vast majority of work on blind deblurring splits the problem into two subsequent steps: First, the blur process (i.e., blur kernel) is estimated, then the image is restored given the estimated kernel using a non-blind deblurring algorithm. Recent work in non-blind deblurring has shown that discriminative approaches can have clear image quality and runtime benefits over typical generative formulations. In this paper, we propose a cascade for blind deblurring that alternates between kernel estimation and discriminative deblurring using regression tree fields (RTFs). We further contribute a new dataset of realistic image blur kernels from human camera shake, which we use to train the discriminative component. Extensive qualitative and quantitative experiments show a clear gain in image quality by interleaving kernel estimation and discriminative deblurring in an iterative cascade.
Local failure is responsible for the decrease in survival for patients with breast cancer treated with conservative surgery and postoperative radiotherapy.

PURPOSE The aim of the present study was to evaluate the role of local failure (LF) in the survival of patients treated with lumpectomy and postoperative radiotherapy and to investigate whether LF is not only a marker for distant metastasis (DM) but also a cause. METHODS Charts of patients treated with breast conservative surgery between 1969 and 1991 were reviewed retrospectively. There were 2,030 patients available for analysis. The median duration of follow-up was 6 years. A Cox regression multivariate analysis was performed using LF as a time-dependent covariate. RESULTS Local control (LC) was 87% at 10 years. Local failure led to poorer survival at 10 years than local control (55% v 75%, P < .00). In a Cox model, local failure was a powerful predictor of mortality. The relative risk associated with LF was 3.6 for mortality and 5.1 for DM (P < .00). In patients with LF, the rate of DM peaked at 5 to 6 years, whereas it peaked at 2 years for patients with LC. The mean time between surgery and DM was 1,050 days for patients without LF and 1,650 days for patients with LF (P < .00). CONCLUSION Our results show that local failure is associated with an increase in mortality. The difference in the time distribution of distant metastasis for LF and LC could imply distinct mechanisms of dissemination. Local failure should be considered not only as a marker of occult circulating distant metastases but also as a source for new distant metastases and subsequent mortality.
Response to valganciclovir in chronic fatigue syndrome patients with human herpesvirus 6 and Epstein–Barr virus IgG antibody titers

Valganciclovir has been reported to improve physical and cognitive symptoms in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) with elevated human herpesvirus 6 (HHV‐6) and Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) IgG antibody titers. This study investigated whether antibody titers against HHV‐6 and EBV were associated with clinical response to valganciclovir in a subset of CFS patients. An uncontrolled, unblinded retrospective chart review was performed on 61 CFS patients treated with 900 mg valganciclovir daily (55 of whom took an induction dose of 1,800 mg daily for the first 3 weeks). Antibody titers were considered high if HHV‐6 IgG ≥1:320, EBV viral capsid antigen (VCA) IgG ≥1:640, and EBV early antigen (EA) IgG ≥1:160. Patients self‐rated physical and cognitive functioning as a percentage of their functioning prior to illness. Patients were categorized as responders if they experienced at least 30% improvement in physical and/or cognitive functioning. Thirty‐two patients (52%) were categorized as responders. Among these, 19 patients (59%) responded physically and 26 patients (81%) responded cognitively. Baseline antibody titers showed no significant association with response. After treatment, the average change in physical and cognitive functioning levels for all patients was +19% and +23%, respectively (P < 0.0001). Longer treatment was associated with improved response (P = 0.0002). No significant difference was found between responders and non‐responders among other variables analyzed. Valganciclovir treatment, independent of the baseline antibody titers, was associated with self‐rated improvement in physical and cognitive functioning for CFS patients who had positive HHV‐6 and/or EBV serologies. Longer valganciclovir treatment correlated with an improved response. J. Med. Virol. 84:1967–1974, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Discontinuous Galerkin method for numerical solution of exotic option pricing model

During the last decade, financial models have acquired increasing popularity in option pricing. The valuation of different types of option contracts is very important in modern financial theory and practice – vanilla and especially exotic options have become very popular speculation instruments in recent years. The problem of determining the fair price of such an option is standardly formulated in wellknown Black-Scholes equation, see [1]. At the same time a huge amount of literature has been devoted to the solving of this equation or its modification. The performance demands on the valuation process are very high in this case. Moreover, closed forms of the solution to derivative pricing problems are not often easily computable and analytic solutions cannot be constructed in some models generally. Therefore, numerical methods for option pricing have been analyzed by many authors and several techniques have been developed to obtain efficient pricing algorithms, see, e.g. [4], and the references cited therein. The demand for performance has led some to use approximations with the aid of finite difference (FD) method or finite element (FE) method, see [2]. These methods have also its limitations in the treatment of exotic options, which have special features that need to be taken into account when pricing them. Such as in the case of the discrete barrier option, where it is more suitable to construct discontinuous solutions with respect to time and space coordinates. Therefore, in this paper, we focus on discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods, which combine the advantages of FE method together with discontinuous approach, for survey see [3]. This method is based on piecewise polynomial, generally discontinuous approximations. From this point of view, DG methods seem to be very promising tool for the numerical simulation of option pricing and provides robust and high-order accurate approximations of solutions resulting from the Black-Scholes equation. Moreover, the DG concept can be easily extended by hp-adaption techniques, which enable better resolving of occurred special properties of certain types of options with respect to computational meshes as well as polynomial approximation degrees. Finally, one of the most important advantages in practice common for FE and DG approach is that sensitivity measures, such as the greeks, can be calculated more exactly than using FD methods. In order to investigate the properties of proposed DG approach we carry out some numerical experiments for pricing barrier options illustrating the potency of this DG scheme.
The meaning and correlates of psychological control in Chinese and American families

Author(s): Fung, Joey | Advisor(s): Lau, Anna | Abstract: Parental use of psychological control has gained attention as a risk factor for child behavioral and emotional problems in the Western context. However, the literature on cultural differences in the implications of psychological control on child development has largely been inconsistent. This dissertation encompasses three studies and examines cultural variations in parental beliefs, socialization goals, parental control strategies, and pathways to child adjustment.In Study 1, we examine cultural differences in maternal beliefs about normative child development, priorities in socialization goals, and their relations to childrearing strategies among a sample of 160 Hong Kong mothers and 160 European American mothers. Findings show that parental control strategies are motivated by different developmental goals and beliefs for child development depending on the cultural context. In Study 2, we conducted ethnographic interviews with 19 Hong Kong Chinese parents and described a set of parent behaviors that invoke relational induction, in which parents highlight the responsibility of each family member and the impact of child's behaviors on the rest of the family. These practices may be considered forms of "psychological control" since they leverage awareness of parental negative affect; but they may also be construed as an indigenous form of parenting. Findings suggest that the use of control strategies is motivated by the goal to cultivate interpersonal sensitivity and obligations to the family within the child.In Study 3, we investigated associations between relational induction and more hostile forms of psychological control in a sample of 165 Hong Kong and 96 European American parents. We argued that relational induction (guilt induction, reciprocity, love withdrawal andsocial comparison) may represent a separate subset of psychological control strategies. Indeed, we found support that psychological control and relational induction was more strongly associated with each other among European American compared to Hong Kong parents. Parental rejection fully mediated the relationship between the two forms of parental control and child behavior problems across groups; psychological control for Hong Kong families and relational induction for European American families. The findings suggest that there are distinguishable forms of psychological control that may have distinctive implications for child adjustment depending on the cultural context. Taken together, the findings in this dissertation support a more nuanced view that the associations between some forms of parenting and child well-being may be culturally relative.
Pathways to maladjustment and resilience in inner-city minority youth: Examining academic failure and hopelessness as mediators between contextual risk factors and child maladjustment from a developmental psychopathology perspective

Literature has consistently documented links between contextual factors and developmental outcomes in inner city youth. Most of these associations, however, have been cross-sectional in nature. Furthermore, there is only a limited understanding of the pathways contributing to maladjustment and resilience in this population. While ethnographic studies have taken into account factors of academic failure and hopelessness, quantitative studies have lagged. The present study examines these issues by addressing the main question of how the experiences of low-income, African-American children contribute to later maladjustment or resilience, focusing on academic failure and hopelessness as significant mediators in the pathway to later outcomes.Specific aims of the proposed study are to determine whether 1) a hypothesized mediational model of the development of inner-city minority youth is supported as a better fit for the data from a multicohort, longitudinal study, than competing non-mediational models, 2) gender, religiosity, extracurricular involvement, and affiliation with prosocial peers moderate the associations specified within the model, and 3) there is a subgroup within this larger sample with higher levels of hopelessness who are significantly more likely to suffer from the risks and outcomes in the model as compared to their lower hopelessness counterparts. The following document begins with an introduction to outcomes in this population and links between contextual factors and outcomes. This is followed by a section devoted to academic failure and hopelessness as mediators, beginning with a description of why one would expect these to function as contributors to later maladjustment. As a conceptual framework, a model of the development of inner-city youth is presented, and each of its components included in the current study is described. Following this is a section that describes methodological improvements of the current study over existing research, including developmental considerations, multiple domains of risks, and mechanisms driving the associations. Primary questions are stated next. The methods section of the document then identifies the sample and describes the study procedures. Lastly, the results section outlines the findings from the completed analyses, followed by the conclusion which revisits the questions and the results from the current study and suggests directions for future researchers.
Prostaglandin E2 is a key factor for monocyte‐derived dendritic cell maturation: enhanced T cell stimulatory capacity despite IDO

The exclusive ability of dendritic cells (DCs) to stimulate primary and secondary immune responses favors the use of antigen‐loaded human monocyte‐derived DCs (MoDCs) in vaccinations against tumors. Previous studies demonstrated that PGE2 is fundamental during MoDC maturation to facilitate migration toward lymph node‐derived chemokines. A recent study challenged the use of PGE2, as PGE2 induced IDO in mature MoDCs. In MoDCs compatible for clinical use, we now demonstrate that PGE2 is responsible for IDO induction if matured by soluble CD40 ligand, LPS, or cytokines. In contrast, IDO expression in MoDCs matured by TLR3 triggering occurs independently of PGE2. It is surprising that despite active IDO protein, MoDCs matured with PGE2 display a greater potential to stimulate naïve CD4+ and CD8+ T cell proliferation, which is not increased further by IDO inhibition. Moreover, we found elevated levels of tryptophanyl‐tRNA‐synthetase (TTS) in T cells cultured with PGE2‐matured MoDCs. Our data demonstrate that PGE2 induces IDO in MoDCs but that T cell‐stimulating capacities of PGE2‐matured MoDCs overcome IDO activity, probably through TTS induction. As PGE2 is critical for DC migration and enhances the capability of MoDCs to induce T cell proliferation, we highly recommend supplementing DC maturation stimuli with PGE2 for use in clinical trials.
Thrombolysis for acute ischaemic stroke : the development of a nurse protocol in the United Kingdom

This paper describes a nursing protocol for patients treated with thrombolysis for acute ischaemic stroke developed during the Stroke Association phase of the Third International Stroke Trial (IST-3), a randomised controlled trial of recombinant tissue plasminogen activator for acute ischaemic stoke. The IST-3 Nurse collaborative group met three times over three years. The meetings consisted of educational updates on stroke thrombolysis, training on trial procedures, presentations by participating nurses and discussions of good practice, local initiatives and sharing common problems. Lack of knowledge, fear of bleeding complications and lack of appropriate NHS beds were common barriers. Core nursing requirements suggested by this research included: fast-tracking of patients; access to trained stroke physicians; acute physiological monitoring and nursing intervention; effective communication and support of patients and carers; knowledge of complications and actions to be taken; transfer to an appropriately skilled stroke unit environment and successful discharge planning to home or rehabilitation.
Effects of moderate-level sound exposure on behavioral thresholds in chinchillas

Carbajal, Sandra M. M.S., Purdue University, May 2015. Effects of ModerateLevel Sound Exposure on Behavioral Thresholds in Chinchillas: Major Professor: Michael Heinz. Normal audiometric thresholds following noise exposure have generally been considered as an indication of a recovered cochlea and intact peripheral auditory system, yet recent animal work has challenged this classic assumption. Moderately noise-exposed animals have been shown to have permanent loss of synapses on inner hair cells (IHCs) and permanent damage to auditory nerve fibers (ANFs), specifically the low-spontaneous rate fibers (low-SR), despite normal electrophysiological thresholds. Loss of cochlear synapses, known as cochlear synaptopathy, disrupts auditory-nerve signaling, which may result in perceptual speech deficits in noise despite normal audiometric thresholds. Perceptual deficit studies in humans have shown evidence consistent with the idea of cochlear synaptopathy. To date, there has been no direct evidence linking cochlear synaptopathy and perceptual deficits. Our research aims to develop a cochlear synaptopathy model in chinchilla, similar to previously established mouse and guinea pig models, to provide a model in which the effects of cochlear synaptopathy on behavioral and physiological measures of lowfrequency temporal coding can be explored. Positive-reinforcement operant-conditioning was used to train animals to perform auditory detection behavioral tasks for four frequencies: 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz. Our goal was to evaluate the detection abilities of chinchillas for tone-innoise and sinusoidal amplitude modulated (SAM) tone behavioral tasks, which are tasks thought to rely on low-SR ANFs for encoding. Testing was performed