Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PsbP Protein, But Not PsbQ Protein, Is Essential for the Regulation and Stabilization of Photosystem II in Higher Plants1

PsbP and PsbQ proteins are extrinsic subunits of photosystem II (PSII) and participate in the normal function of photosynthetic water oxidation. Both proteins exist in a broad range of the oxygenic photosynthetic organisms; however, their physiological roles in vivo have not been well defined in higher plants. In this study, we established and analyzed transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) plants in which the levels of PsbP or PsbQ were severely down-regulated by the RNA interference technique. A plant that lacked PsbQ showed no specific phenotype compared to a wild-type plant. This suggests that PsbQ in higher plants is dispensable under the normal growth condition. On the other hand, a plant that lacked PsbP showed prominent phenotypes: drastic retardation of growth, pale-green-colored leaves, and a marked decrease in the quantum yield of PSII evaluated by chlorophyll fluorescence. In PsbP-deficient plant, most PSII core subunits were accumulated in thylakoids, whereas PsbQ, which requires PsbP to bind PSII in vitro, was dramatically decreased. PSII without PsbP was hypersensitive to light and rapidly inactivated when the repair process of the damaged PSII was inhibited by chloramphenicol. Furthermore, thermoluminescence studies showed that the catalytic manganese cluster in PsbP-deficient leaves was markedly unstable and readily disassembled in the dark. The present results demonstrated that PsbP, but not PsbQ, is indispensable for the normal PSII function in higher plants in vivo.
Goldfish bipolar cells and axon terminal patterns: A Golgi study

The morphology and axon terminal arrangement of Golgi stained goldfish bipolar cells were examined to understand better the organization of bipolar cells in the inner plexiform layer (IPL) of the retina. Fifteen morphological bipolar cell types were identified, representing two major cell classes: mixed input cells that receive input from rod and cone photoreceptors, and cone bipolar cells that receive input from cones only. Mixed input bipolar cells comprised six types, including two new types, characterized by large somas and terminals. The terminals of mixed input bipolar cells terminated strictly within sublamina a or b of the IPL. Cone bipolar cells comprised nine subtypes, including seven new types, characterized by small somas and from one to four small terminal bulbs along the length of the axon, each having a characteristic termination depth in the IPL. The cone bipolar cell system had a complex multilaminar organization of terminals in the IPL, but maintained a high degree of anatomical symmetry about sublamina a and b. Cone bipolar cells could be divided into three groups: cells terminating within sublamina a and having an anatomically symmetrical counterpart terminating in sublamina b; cells with anatomically similar terminals in both sublamina a and b; and cells having no anatomically symmetrical counterpart or having anatomically dissimilar terminals in sublamina a and b. Based on bipolar cell terminal arrangement, we suggest that each bipolar cell type probably has a unique set of synaptic targets in the IPL, and that several bipolar cell types may be involved in functionally equivalent circuits at more than one level in the IPL. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Imperfect top-k skyline query with confidence level

Uncertain, imprecise and noisy data arise in a number of domains including sensor networks and data integration. Skyline analysis is a powerful tool in a wide spectrum of real applications involving multi-criteria optimal decision making. The skyline operator aims at returning the most interesting objects in a database. Previous researches showed that the skyline size over uncertain data is too large to be exploited. In this paper, we propose an advanced skyline analysis over uncertain databases where uncertainty is modelled by the evidence theory. We particularly tackle the following two important issues: (1) model the skyline query over an evidential database (2) rank the evidential skyline result and retrieve k skyline objects that are expected to have the highest score with considering the confidence level of the objects. We also study its impact on the top-k result. The efficiency and effectiveness of our proposal are verified by extensive experimental results.
Kynurenine Pathway of Tryptophan Metabolism: Regulatory and Functional Aspects

Regulatory and functional aspects of the kynurenine (K) pathway (KP) of tryptophan (Trp) degradation are reviewed. The KP accounts for ~95% of dietary Trp degradation, of which 90% is attributed to the hepatic KP. During immune activation, the minor extrahepatic KP plays a more active role. The KP is rate-limited by its first enzyme, Trp 2,3-dioxygenase (TDO), in liver and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) elsewhere. TDO is regulated by glucocorticoid induction, substrate activation and stabilization by Trp, cofactor activation by heme, and end-product inhibition by reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (phosphate). IDO is regulated by IFN-γ and other cytokines and by nitric oxide. The KP disposes of excess Trp, controls hepatic heme synthesis and Trp availability for cerebral serotonin synthesis, and produces immunoregulatory and neuroactive metabolites, the B3 “vitamin” nicotinic acid, and oxidized nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. Various KP enzymes are undermined in disease and are targeted for therapy of conditions ranging from immunological, neurological, and neurodegenerative conditions to cancer.
Laboratory Diagnosis of Tuberculosis in Resource-Poor Countries: Challenges and Opportunities

SUMMARY With an estimated 9.4 million new cases globally, tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a major public health concern. Eighty percent of all cases worldwide occur in 22 high-burden, mainly resource-poor settings. This devastating impact of tuberculosis on vulnerable populations is also driven by its deadly synergy with HIV. Therefore, building capacity and enhancing universal access to rapid and accurate laboratory diagnostics are necessary to control TB and HIV-TB coinfections in resource-limited countries. The present review describes several new and established methods as well as the issues and challenges associated with implementing quality tuberculosis laboratory services in such countries. Recently, the WHO has endorsed some of these novel methods, and they have been made available at discounted prices for procurement by the public health sector of high-burden countries. In addition, international and national laboratory partners and donors are currently evaluating other new diagnostics that will allow further and more rapid testing in point-of-care settings. While some techniques are simple, others have complex requirements, and therefore, it is important to carefully determine how to link these new tests and incorporate them within a country's national diagnostic algorithm. Finally, the successful implementation of these methods is dependent on key partnerships in the international laboratory community and ensuring that adequate quality assurance programs are inherent in each country's laboratory network.
Prospective Analysis of Psychosocial Outcomes in Breast Reconstruction: One-Year Postoperative Results from the Michigan Breast Reconstruction Outcome Study

In the past decade, changing attitudes toward breast reconstruction among both patients and providers have led a growing number of women to seek breast reconstruction after mastectomy. Although investigators have documented the psychological, social, emotional, and functional benefits of breast reconstruction, little research has evaluated the effects of procedure choice on these outcomes. The current study prospectively evaluated and compared psychosocial outcomes for three common options for mastectomy reconstruction: tissue expander/implant, pedicle TRAM, and free TRAM techniques. In a prospective cohort design, patients undergoing postmastectomy reconstruction for the first time with expander/implant, pedicle TRAM, or free TRAM procedures were recruited from 12 centers and 23 plastic surgeons in the United States and Canada. Before reconstruction and at 1 year after reconstruction, patients were evaluated by a battery of questionnaires consisting of both generic and condition-specific surveys. Outcomes assessed included emotional well-being, vitality, general mental health, social functioning, functional well-being, social well-being, and body image. Baseline (preoperative) scores and the change in scores (the difference between postoperative and preoperative scores) were compared across procedure types using t tests and analysis of covariance. Preoperative and 1-year postoperative surveys were obtained from 273 patients. Procedure type was reported in 250 patients, of whom 56 received implant reconstructions, 128 pedicle TRAM flaps, and 66 free TRAM flaps. A total of 161 immediate and 89 delayed reconstructions were performed. Among women receiving immediate reconstruction, significant improvements were observed in all psychosocial variables except body image. However, no significant effects of procedure type on these changes over time existed. Similarly, delayed reconstruction patients had significant increases in emotional well-being, vitality, general mental health, functional well-being, and body image. Although the choice of reconstructive technique did not significantly impact most of these outcomes, significant differences existed among procedure types for three psychosocial subscales. Patients undergoing delayed expander/implant reconstructions reported greater improvements in vitality and social well-being relative to women receiving delayed TRAM procedures. By contrast, delayed TRAM patients noted significantly greater gains in body image compared with women choosing delayed expander-implant reconstruction. The authors conclude that both immediate and delayed breast reconstructions provide substantial psychosocial benefits for mastectomy patients. Although the choice of reconstructive procedure does not seem to significantly affect improvements in psychosocial status with immediate reconstruction, our data suggest that procedure type does have a significant effect on gains in vitality and body image for women undergoing delayed reconstruction.
A prospective study on the reciprocal influence between personality and attitudes, behaviors, and psychological characteristics salient in eating disorders in a sample of non-clinical adolescents

ABSTRACT Eating disorders are mosy likely to occur for the first time in adolescence. Delineating vulnerable personality profiles of unhealthy conditions helps prevent their onset and development. This study investigated a non-clinical sample of 142 adolescents and how some theoretically salient individual differences in personality contribute to predict changes in behaviors, attitudes, and psychological characteristics that are clinically significant in eating disorders (EDs). The results from cross-lagged pattern analyses supported the influence of depression, obsessiveness, and self-esteem in the trajectories favoring the development of psychological characteristics, such as ineffectiveness and interoceptive awareness, which are salient in the ED risk process. Results also confirmed that body mass index, perfectionism, and body dissatisfaction predict increases in dysfunctional concerns with weight control and food consumption. Empirical support for the impact of ED-relevant variables on personality self-views emerged as well. Trajectories linking EDs and personality in relation to sex differences and permeability to transitory psychological conditions in adolescence were also confirmed.
CSF‐1‐activated macrophages are target‐directed and essential mediators of schwann cell dedifferentiation and dysfunction in Cx32‐deficient mice

We investigated connexin 32 (Cx32)‐deficient mice, a model for the X‐linked form of Charcot‐Marie‐Tooth neuropathy (CMT1X), regarding the impact of low‐grade inflammation on Schwann cell phenotype. Whereas we previously identified macrophages as amplifiers of the neuropathy, we now explicitly focus on the impact of the phagocytes on Schwann cell dedifferentiation, a so far not‐yet addressed disease‐related mechanism for CMT1X. Using mice heterozygously deficient for Cx32 and displaying both Cx32‐positive and ‐negative Schwann cells in one and the same nerve, we could demonstrate that macrophage clusters rather than single macrophages precisely associate with mutant but not with Cx32‐positive Schwann cells. Similarly, in an advanced stage of Schwann cell perturbation, macrophage clusters were strongly associated with NCAM‐ and L1‐positive, dedifferentiated Schwann cells. To clarify the role of macrophages regarding Schwann cell dedifferentiation, we generated Cx32‐deficient mice additionally deficient for the macrophage‐directed cytokine colony‐stimulating factor (CSF)−1. In the absence of CSF‐1, Cx32‐deficient Schwann cells not only showed the expected amelioration in myelin preservation but also failed to upregulate the Schwann cell dedifferentiation markers NCAM and L1. Another novel and unexpected finding in the double mutants was the retained activation of ERK signaling, a pathway which is detrimental for Schwann cell homeostasis in myelin mutant models. Our findings demonstrate that increased ERK signaling can be compatible with the maintenance of Schwann cell differentiation and homeostasis in vivo and identifies CSF‐1‐activated macrophages as crucial mediators of detrimental Schwann cell dedifferentiation in Cx32‐deficient mice. GLIA 2015;63:977–986
The p-Sphere Encoder : Vector Precoding with Low Peak-Power for the MIMO Gaussian Broadcast Channel

In [1] a vector perturbation scheme is used in order to minimize the instantaneous power of the transmitted signal, without taking into account the peak to average power ratio problem. In this paper we present a modified vector perturbation scheme, where the perturbation vector is chosen in order to take into account the peak power of the transmitted signal. This is obtained by minimizing the p-norm of the transmitted signal, for p ≥ 2. For this reason, the scheme is referred to as the p-sphere encoder. We show that the proposed algorithm significantly reduces the tail of the PAPR distribution with very small degradation in terms of BER with respect to [1].
Metrical Stress Sensitivity in Young Children and Its Relationship to Phonological Awareness and Reading.

This paper reports two studies of young English-speaking children's ability to cope with changes to the metrical stress pattern of spoken words and the relationship between this ability, phonological awareness and early reading development. Initially, 39 children aged 4 and 5 years were assessed on their ability to identify mispronounced words, including words that had their metrical stress pattern reversed. The children were significantly worse at identifying words that had their metrical stress pattern reversed than words that were mispronounced in other ways. The second study was a cross-sectional comparison of 31 5, 6 and 7-year-old children's performance on the metrical stress reversal condition of the mispronunciation task. Measures of the children's written language skills and phonological awareness were also taken. The 7-year-old children outperformed the 5-year-olds on the metrical stress task. Performance on this measure was associated with most of the measures of phonological awareness and literacy, and was associated with rhyme awareness and spelling ability after age had been taken into account. Moreover, metrical stress sensitivity could account for variance in spelling ability after phonological awareness had been taken into account, and after vocabulary had been taken into account. This suggests that stress sensitivity may influence spelling development in a way that is independent of its contribution to phonological representations.
The Unconscious Homunculus: Response to the Commentaries by Francis Crick and Christof Koch

Stevens, R. (2000), Phenomenal approaches to the study of conscious awareness. In: Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness: Methodologies and Maps, ed. M. Velmans. Advances in Consciousness Research Series. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Richard Stevens Psychology Department The Open University Walton Hall Milton Keynes MK7 6AA United Kingdom e-mail: R.J.Stevens@open.ac. uk Phone: 01908-654-545 Fax: 01908-654-488 Crick-Koch
Confession, resistance, subjectivity

when today we see the meaning, or rather the almost total absence of meaning given to some nonetheless very familiar expressions which continue to permeate our discourse — like getting back to oneself, freeing oneself, being oneself, being authentic, etcetera — when we see the absence of meaning and thought in all of these expressions we employ today, then I do not think we have anything to be proud of in our current efforts to reconstitute an ethic of the self. And in this series of efforts to reconstitute an ethic of the self . and . to refer ourselves constantly to this ethic of the self without ever giving it any content, I think we may have to suspect that we find it impossible today to constitute an ethic of the self, even though it may be an urgent, fundamental and politically indispensable task, if it is true after all that there is no first or final point of resistance to political power other than in the relationship one has to oneself . [W]hat I mean is this . if we understand by governmentality a strategic field of power relations in their mobility, transformability and reversibility, then I do not think that reflection on this notion of governmentality can avoid passing through, theoretically and practically, the element of a subject defined by the relationship of self to self (Foucault 2005, pp. 251–252).
Clinical features of moyamoya disease in the United States.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We report the clinical features and longitudinal outcome of the largest cohort of patients with moyamoya disease described from a single institution in the western hemisphere. Moyamoya disease in Asia usually presents with ischemic stroke in children and intracranial hemorrhage in adults. METHODS Our study population included all patients with moyamoya disease evaluated at a university hospital in Houston, Texas from 1985 through 1995 (n = 35). We used Kaplan-Meier methods to estimate individual and hemispheric stroke risk by treatment status (medical versus surgical). Predictors of neurological outcome were assessed. RESULTS The ethnic background of our patients was representative of the general population in Texas. The mean age at diagnosis was 32 years (range, 6 to 59 years). Ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack was the predominant initial symptom in both adults and children. Of the 6 patients with intracranial hemorrhage, 5 had an intraventricular site of hemorrhage. The crude stroke recurrence rate was 10.3% per year in 116 patient-years of follow-up. Twenty patients underwent surgical revascularization, the most common procedure being encephaloduroarteriosynangiosis. The 5-year risk of ipsilateral stroke after synangiosis was 15%, compared with 20% for medical treatment and 22% overall for surgery. CONCLUSIONS Our observations indicate that moyamoya disease may have a different clinical expression in the United States than in Asia, and may demonstrate a trend toward a lower stroke recurrence rate and better functional outcome after synangiosis.
The Brazilian consensus for the clinical approach and treatment of subclinical hypothyroidism in adults: recommendations of the thyroid Department of the Brazilian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism.

INTRODUCTION Subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH), defined as elevated concentrations of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) despite normal levels of thyroid hormones, is highly prevalent in Brazil, especially among women and the elderly. Although an increasing number of studies have related SCH to an increased risk of coronary artery disease and mortality, there have been no randomized clinical trials verifying the benefit of levothyroxine treatment in reducing these risks, and the treatment remains controversial. OBJECTIVE This consensus, sponsored by the Thyroid Department of the Brazilian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism and developed by Brazilian experts with extensive clinical experience with thyroid diseases, presents these recommendations based on evidence for the clinical management of SCH patients in Brazil. MATERIALS AND METHODS After structuring the clinical questions, the search for evidence in the literature was initially performed in the MedLine-PubMed database and later in the Embase and SciELO - Lilacs databases. The strength of evidence was evaluated according to the Oxford classification system and established based on the experimental design used, considering the best available evidence for each question and the Brazilian experience. RESULTS The topics covered included SCH definition and diagnosis, natural history, clinical significance, treatment and pregnancy, and the consensus issued 29 recommendations for the clinical management of adult patients with SCH. CONCLUSION Treatment with levothyroxine was recommended for all patients with persistent SCH with serum TSH values > 10 mU/L and for certain patient subgroups.
Effective training of convolutional networks using noisy Web images

Deep convolutional networks have recently shown very interesting performance in a variety of computer vision tasks. Besides network architecture optimization, a key contribution to their success is the availability of training data. Network training is usually done with manually validated data but this approach has a significant cost and poses a scalability problem. Here we introduce an innovative pipeline that combines weakly-supervised image reranking methods and network fine-tuning to effectively train convolutional networks from noisy Web collections. We evaluate the proposed training method versus the conventional supervised training on cross-domain classification tasks. Results show that our method outperforms the conventional method in all of the three datasets. Our findings open opportunities for researchers and practitioners to use convolutional networks with inexpensive training cost.
Stimulus-evoked intrinsic optical signals in the retina: spatial and temporal characteristics.

PURPOSE To characterize the properties of stimulus-evoked retinal intrinsic signals and determine the underlying origins. METHODS Seven adult cats were anesthetized and paralyzed to maximize imaging stability. The retina was stimulated with a liquid crystal display (LCD) integrated into a modified fundus camera (Topcon, Tokyo, Japan). The LCD presented patterned visual stimuli while the retina was illuminated with near infrared (NIR) light. The peristimulus changes in the NIR reflectance of the retina were recorded with a digital camera. RESULTS Two stimulus-evoked reflectance signals in the NIR were observed: a positive signal, corresponding to a relative increase in reflectance, and a negative signal, corresponding to a relative decrease in reflectance. When presented with a positive-contrast stimulus, the negative reflectance signals showed a tight spatial coupling with the stimulated region of retina, whereas the positive signals arose in an adjacent region of the retina. Signals remained spatially confined to the stimulated region even when stimuli of much longer duration were used. In addition, the positive and negative signal polarities reversed when the stimulus contrast was inverted. Both signals showed a rise time on the order of seconds, similar to those observed in the mammalian neocortex. The spectral dependency of the signals on illumination was similar to the absorbance spectra of hemoglobin and the oximetric relationship. CONCLUSIONS The findings characterize the basic properties of stimulus-evoked intrinsic signals of the retina. These signals were generally similar to the more extensively studied cortical signals. Collectively, the data suggest a hemodynamic component to the intrinsic optical signals of the retina.