Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The NALP3/Cryopyrin-Inflammasome Complex is Expressed in LPS-Induced Ocular Inflammation

In the inflammosome complex, NALP3 or NALP1 binds to ASC and activates caspase-1 which induces IL-1β. In murine LPS-induced ocular inflammation, the production of IL-1β is increased. We suggest that NALP3- or NALP1-inflammasome complex can be participating in the LPS-induced ocular inflammation. In this work, eye, brain, testis, heart, spleen, and lung were obtained from C3H/HeN mice treated with LPS for 3 to 48 hours, and the expression of NALP1b, NALP3, ASC, caspase-1, IL-1β, and IL-18 was determined. Infiltrated leukocytes producing IL-1β in the anterior chamber were found at 12-hour posttreatment. A high upregulated expression of NALP3, ASC, caspase-1, IL-1β, and IL-18 was found at the same time when infiltrated leukocytes were observed. NALP1b was not detected in the eye of treated mice. NALP3 was also overexpressed in heart and lung. These results suggest that NALP3-, but not NALP1-inflammosome complex, is participating in the murine LPS-induced ocular inflammation.
A Network Inference Method for Large-Scale Unsupervised Identification of Novel Drug-Drug Interactions

Characterizing interactions between drugs is important to avoid potentially harmful combinations, to reduce off-target effects of treatments and to fight antibiotic resistant pathogens, among others. Here we present a network inference algorithm to predict uncharacterized drug-drug interactions. Our algorithm takes, as its only input, sets of previously reported interactions, and does not require any pharmacological or biochemical information about the drugs, their targets or their mechanisms of action. Because the models we use are abstract, our approach can deal with adverse interactions, synergistic/antagonistic/suppressing interactions, or any other type of drug interaction. We show that our method is able to accurately predict interactions, both in exhaustive pairwise interaction data between small sets of drugs, and in large-scale databases. We also demonstrate that our algorithm can be used efficiently to discover interactions of new drugs as part of the drug discovery process.
Dragon-kings: Mechanisms, statistical methods and empirical evidence

This introductory article presents the special Discussion and Debate volume “From black swans to dragon-kings, is there life beyond power laws? ” We summarize and put in perspective the contributions into three main themes: (i) mechanisms for dragon-kings, (ii) detection of dragon-kings and statistical tests and (iii) empirical evidence in a large variety of natural and social systems. Overall, we are pleased to witness significant advances both in the introduction and clarification of underlying mechanisms and in the development of novel efficient tests that demonstrate clear evidence for the presence of dragon-kings in many systems. However, this positive view should be balanced by the fact that this remains a very delicate and difficult field, if only due to the scarcity of data as well as the extraordinary important implications with respect to hazard assessment, risk control and predictability.
Adverse effects of reverse transcriptase inhibitors: mitochondrial toxicity as common pathway

After zidovudine (ZDV), a 3′-azido analogue of thymi-dine, was found to be an effective antiretroviral drugagainst HIV [1,2], other nucleoside analogues inhibit-ing reverse transcriptase (RT) soon followed: didano-sine (ddI), zalcitabine (ddC), lamivudine (3TC),stavudine (D4T), and recently abacavir (1592U89)[3–7]. These drugs have demonstrated efficacy inreduction of morbidity and mortality, especially incombination therapy [8–10]. A special feature of someof these drugs is the protection against AIDS dementiacomplex, which appears to be related to good penetra-tion of the blood–brain barrier [11–13]. Although theintroduction of protease inhibitors has changed themanagement of HIV infection drastically, this cerebro-protective property will assert the role of these nucleo-side RT inhibitors (NRTI) as a cornerstone ofantiretroviral therapy [9,10]. More than 10 years of experience with NRTI therapyhas revealed important adverse effects ranging frommild (myopathy) to fatal in some cases (pancreatitis,liver failure and lactic acidosis). Behind most of theseside-effects there appears to be a common mechanism:a decreased mitochondrial energy-generating capacity.In this review we will summarize the literature inwhich this mechanism is analysed and will emphasizethe importance of acquired mitochondrial dysfunctionthat will accumulate during long-term treatment withantiretroviral nucleoside analogues.
Efficient detection algorithms for MIMO channels: a geometrical approach to approximate ML detection

It is well known that suboptimal detection schemes for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) spatial multiplexing systems (equalization-based schemes as well as nulling-and-cancelling schemes) are unable to exploit all of the available diversity, and thus, their performance is inferior to ML detection. Motivated by experimental evidence that this inferior performance is primarily caused by the inability of suboptimal schemes to deal with "bad" (i.e., poorly conditioned) channel realizations, we study the decision regions of suboptimal schemes for bad channels. Based on a simplified model for bad channels, we then develop two computationally efficient detection algorithms that are robust to bad channels. In particular, the novel sphere-projection algorithm (SPA) is a simple add-on to standard suboptimal detectors that is able to achieve near-ML performance and significantly increased diversity gains. The SPA's computational complexity is comparable with that of nulling-and-cancelling detectors and only a fraction of that of the Fincke-Phost sphere-decoding algorithm for ML detection.
Supervised matching of comments with news article segments

Comments constitute an important part of Web 2.0. In this paper, we consider comments on news articles. To simplify the task of relating the comment content to the article content the comments are about, we propose the idea of showing comments alongside article segments and explore automatic mapping of comments to article segments. This task is challenging because of the vocabulary mismatch between the articles and the comments. We present supervised and unsupervised techniques for aligning comments to segments the of article the comments are about. More specifically, we provide a novel formulation of supervised alignment problem using the framework of structured classification. Our experimental results show that structured classification model performs better than unsupervised matching and binary classification model.
Cage Study of Spinosad-Based Bait Efficacy on Bactrocera cucurbitae, Dacus ciliatus, and Dacus demmerezi (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Reunion Island

ABSTRACT On Reunion Island, Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coquillett), Dacus ciliatus (Loew), and Dacus demmerezi (Bezzi) cause severe damage to Cucurbit crops. The aim of the study was to test in field cages the effectiveness of Synéis-appât (Dow AgroSciences), a spinosad-based bait (0.02% of spinosad) on both attraction and mortality of young adults (6–9 d old) of these three species. The effects of gender were also evaluated for all species whereas the effects of protein deprivation were tested with B. cucurbitae only. For the first 15 min after application, significantly more B. cucurbitae adults (21.7 ± 1.8%) were attracted to the bait than D. demmerezi (7.6 ± 2.4%) and D. ciliatus (2.7 ± 1.4%); the subsequent response (30–75 min after bait application) of D. demmerezi was statistically similar to that recorded for B. cucurbitae; whereas the response of D. ciliatus to the bait was consistently significantly lower. Adult mortality was significantly higher for B. cucurbitae (94.6 ± 0.7%) than for D. demmerezi (85.7 ± 2.1%), and was significantly higher for the latter than for D. ciliatus (60.4 ± 4.4%). Sex had no significant effect on the mortality rate for each species. The efficiency of the bait was the same for B. cucurbitae adults regardless whether or not the diet included proteins. Overall, Synéisappât appears to be more effective against B. cucurbitae and B. demmerezi than against D. ciliatus. In Reunion Island, this bait could constitute a useful component in the framework of Integrated Pest Management.
University Research and the Location of Business R&D

We investigate the relationship between the location of private sector R&D labs and university research departments in Great Britain. We combine establishment-level data on R&D activity with information on levels and changes in research quality from the Research Assessment Exercise. The strongest evidence for co-location is for pharmaceuticals R&D, which is disproportionately located near to relevant university research, particularly 5 or 5* rated chemistry departments. This relationship is stronger for foreign-owned labs, consistent with multinationals sourcing technology internationally. We also find some evidence for co-location with lower rated research departments in industries such as machinery and communications equipment.
Dynamic Output Feedback Sliding Mode Controller Design for Chattering Avoidance

For a class of linear MIMO uncertain systems, a dynamic output feedback sliding mode control algorithm that avoids the chattering problem and high gain control is proposed in this paper. Without using any differentiator, we develop a modified asymptotically stable second order sliding mode control law in which the developed controller can guarantee the finite time convergence to the sliding mode and the system states asymptotically approach to zero. Finally, a numerical example is explained for demonstrating the applicability of the proposed scheme.
Soft Constrained Model Predictive Control With Robust Stability Guarantees

Soft constrained model predictive control (MPC) is frequently applied in practice in order to ensure feasibility of the optimization during online operation. Standard techniques offer global feasibility by relaxing state or output constraints, but cannot ensure closed-loop stability. This paper presents a new soft constrained MPC approach for tracking that provides stability guarantees even for unstable systems. Two types of soft constraints and slack variables are proposed to enlarge the terminal constraint and relax the state constraints. The approach ensures feasibility of the MPC problem in a large region of the state space, depending on the imposed hard constraints, and stability is guaranteed by design. The optimal performance of the MPC control law is preserved whenever all state constraints can be enforced. Asymptotic stability of all feasible reference steady-states under the proposed control law is shown, as well as input-to-state stability for the system under additive disturbances. The soft constrained method can be combined with a robust MPC approach, in order to exploit the benefits of both techniques. The properties of the proposed methods are illustrated by numerical examples.
Signaling Pathways Controlling Second Heart Field Development

Abstract— Insight into the mechanisms underlying congenital heart defects and the use of stem cells for cardiac repair are major research goals in cardiovascular biology. In the early embryo, progenitor cells in pharyngeal mesoderm contribute to the rapid growth of the heart tube during looping morphogenesis. These progenitor cells constitute the second heart field (SHF) and were first identified in 2001. Direct or indirect perturbation of SHF addition to the heart results in congenital heart defects, including arterial pole alignment defects. Over the last 3 years, a number of studies have identified key intercellular signaling pathways that control the proliferation and deployment of SHF progenitor cells. Here, we review data concerning Wnt, fibroblast growth factor, bone morphogenetic protein, Hedgehog, and retinoic acid signaling that have begun to identify the ligand sources and responding cell types controlling SHF development. These studies have revealed the importance of signals from pharyngeal mesoderm itself, as well as critical inputs from adjacent pharyngeal epithelia and neural crest cells. Proliferation is emerging as a central checkpoint in the regulation of SHF development. Together, these studies contribute to defining the niche of cardiac progenitor cells in the early embryo, and we discuss the implications of these findings for the regulation of resident stem cell populations in the fetal and postnatal heart. Characterization of signals that maintain, expand, and regulate the differentiation of cardiac progenitor cells is essential for understanding both the etiology of congenital heart defects and the biomedical application of stem cell populations for cardiac repair.
Receptor regulatory properties evident in the molecular similarity of dopamine receptor ligands and purine nucleotides

Computational studies have revealed similarities in the relative configurations of purine nucleotides and ligands for histamine, acetylcholine and adrenergic receptors. In common with other G‐protein‐regulated receptors, dopamine receptors are associated with specific changes in nucleotide levels during signal transduction processes. The purpose of this study was to investigate molecular similarity in dopamine receptor ligands and purine nucleotides. Molecular superimposition and fitting data for D1‐like receptor ligands identified a pharmacophore in the adenine and ribose rings of ATP. D2‐like agonists and antagonists related to a pharmacophore in the guanine and ribose rings of GTP. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the dopamine receptor family may have evolved from receptors for the ATP and GTP nucleotides.
Open Peer Review Invited Referee Responses

False memory susceptibility is correlated with categorisation ability in humans [v1; ref status: indexed, Abstract Our memory is often surprisingly inaccurate, with errors ranging from misremembering minor details of events to generating illusory memories of entire episodes. The pervasiveness of such false memories generates a puzzle: in the face of selection pressure for accuracy of memory, how could such systematic failures have persisted over evolutionary time? It is possible that memory errors are an inevitable by-product of our adaptive memories and that semantic false memories are specifically connected to our ability to learn rules and concepts and to classify objects by category memberships. Here we test this possibility using a standard experimental false memory paradigm and inter-individual variation in verbal categorisation ability. Indeed it turns out that the error scores are significantly negatively correlated, with those individuals scoring fewer errors on the categorisation test being more susceptible to false memory intrusions in a free recall test. A similar trend, though not significant, was observed between individual categorisation ability and false memory susceptibility in a word recognition task. Our results therefore indicate that false memories, to some extent, might be a by-product of our ability to learn rules, categories and concepts. Creative Commons Attribution Licence which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).
General health screenings to improve cardiovascular risk profiles: a randomized controlled trial in general practice with 5-year follow-up.

OBJECTIVES To investigate the impact of general health screenings and discussions with general practitioners on the cardiovascular risk profile of a random population of patients. STUDY DESIGN A population-based, randomized, controlled, 5-year follow-up trial conducted in a primary care setting. POPULATION The study group consisted of 2000 patients, randomly selected middle-aged men and women aged 30 to 50 years from family practices in the district of Ebeltoft, Denmark. Of these patients, 1507 (75.4%) agreed to participate. Patients were randomized into (1) a control group who did not receive health screenings, (2) an intervention group that received 2 health screenings, (3) an intervention group that received both the 2 screenings and a 45-minute follow-up consultation annually with their general practitioner. OUTCOMES MEASURED Cardiovascular risk score (CRS), body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, serum cholesterol, carbon monoxide in expiratory air, and tobacco use. RESULTS After 5 years, the CRS, BMI, and serum cholesterol levels were lower in the intervention groups compared with the control group. The improved outcome was greater in the baseline risk groups. The number of patients with elevated CRS in the intervention groups was approximately half the number of patients with elevated CRS in the control group. The difference was not a result of medication use. There was no difference between the group that received consultations after the screenings and the group that had health screenings alone. CONCLUSIONS Health screenings reduced the CRS in the intervention groups. After 5 years of follow-up, the number of persons at elevated cardiovascular risk was about half that expected, based on the prevalence/proportion in a population not receiving the health checks (the control group). The impact of intervention was higher among at-risk individuals. Consultations about health did not appear to improve the cardiovascular profile of the study population.
Semi-supervised training for conditional random fields with pseudo auxiliary task

Conditional random fields (CRFs) have been successful in many sequence labeling tasks, which conventionally rely on a hand-craft feature representation of input data. However, a powerful data representation could be another determining factor of the performance, which has not attracted enough attention yet. We describe a novel sequence labeling framework that builds a supervised CRF and an unsuper-vised dynamic model on a shared nonlinear feature transformation neural network. The model could be used for transfer learning by jointly optimizing two learning tasks together. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed modeling framework using synthetic data. We also show that this model yields a significant improvement of recognition accuracy over conventional CRFs on gesture recognition tasks.
The influence of dietary folate and methionine on the metabolic disposition of endotoxic homocysteine.

We have investigated the disposition of potentially endotoxic homocysteine (Hcy) and its transsulfuration metabolite cysteine (Cys) in 98 individuals (age range 20-66 years). Our study reports on the relationship between Hcy and two important dietary factors likely to influence plasma levels of this thiol: dietary folate and dietary methionine. chi2 analysis shows a low frequency of elevated plasma Hcy at high folate intake. This frequency for Hcy >10 micromol/liter with a folate intake >350 microg/day is significant (P < 0.02). The data reflect a tendency for elevated Hcy values to be associated with low dietary folate, although many subjects with a low dietary folate also had a low plasma Hcy. Intake of dietary methionine was found to be significantly higher in males than in females (P < .0001). This may account for the looser relationship between Hcy and its transsulfuration product, Cys, in females (R2 = 0.30) compared to males (R2 = 0.73), since conversion of methionine to SAM in males would activate cystathionine beta synthase and commit excess Hcy to transsulfuration. The generally lower methionine intake of females means that more Hcy is utilized in the remethylation cycle in which methionine is produced from the de novo methyl group of 5-methyltetrahydrofolate or from the preformed methyl group of betaine. Clearly a Hcy moiety locked up in remethylation would be further removed from Cys, the end product of transsulfuration. An increasing number of studies are clarifying the relationship between Hcy, folate, and other B vitamins. However, less attention seems to be given to the influence of dietary methionine on the disposition of Hcy. The present study supports biochemical theory and indicates that more focus should be given to the effect of dietary methionine on Hcy. These findings have particular significance since even moderate increases in plasma Hcy are associated with a toxic vascular effect. Consequently the relationship between dietary folate and Hcy levels should be a factor in evaluating recommended dietary allowances for this vitamin. The simplicity of our dietary folate questionnaire also raises the possibility of a screening test in which individuals can ascertain whether their folate intake is adequate to reduce Hcy levels to a benign value.
Analysis the impact of drought on NDVI in drought periods combined with climate factors and land cover in southwest china

From winter 2009 to spring 2010, due to decreasing precipitation and high temperature, Southwest China experienced the worst meteorological drought in 60 years. The drought has impacted large areas of Guizhou, Yunnan, Guangxi and Sichuan provinces. In this paper, climate data (precipitation and temperature) and SPOT VGT Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data were combined with land cover classification maps to analyze the change and spatial distribution of NDVI during the recent 13-year period of drought in Southwest China. A stepwise multiple regression analysis method and correlation coefficient analysis were used to examine relationships between NDVI and climate data for different land covers. The results revealed that vegetation positively responded to temperature and 70-day total precipitation during the drought period. The croplands of the in Guizhou and Guangxi provinces were seriously affected by climate factors.
Risk factors for proper oral language development in children: a systematic literature review.

PURPOSE To conduct a systematic review of literature production related to risk factors for proper oral language development in children. METHODS We used the terms "child language," "risk factors," and "randomized controlled trial" in MEDLINE (accessed via PubMed), Lilacs, SciELO, and The Cochrane Library from January 1980 to February 2014. Randomized controlled trials involving the study of some risk factors related to child language were included. Works with individuals who were not from the age group 0-12 years and presented no reliable definition of risk factors were excluded. The research findings were classified according to their theme and categorized methodological aspects. RESULTS We observed the lack of a standardized list of risk factors for language available for health professionals. The main risk factor mentioned was family dynamics, followed by interaction with parents, immediate social environment, and encouragement given to the child in the first years of life. It was also observed that organic hazards such as brain injury, persistent otitis media, and cardiac surgery, besides the type of food and parental counseling, may be related to language disorders. CONCLUSION More randomized controlled trials involving the evaluation of risk factors for child language and the creation of further studies involving children above 6 years of age and males are needed.
Change of International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group Rating Scale subscales with treatment and placebo: a pilot study

License. The full terms of the License are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. Permissions beyond the scope of the License are administered by Dove Medical Press Limited. Information on how to request permission may be found at: http://www.dovepress. com/permissions.php Journal of Parkinsonism and Restless Legs Syndrome 2014:4 27–33 Journal of Parkinsonism and Restless Legs Syndrome Dovepress