Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Control by Circulating Factors of Mitochondrial Function and Transcription Cascade in Heart Failure: A Role for Endothelin-1 and Angiotensin II

Background—Evidence is emerging to support the concept that the failing heart is “energy depleted” and that defects in energy metabolism are important determinants in the development and the progression of the disease. We have shown previously that depressed mitochondrial function in cardiac and skeletal muscles in chronic heart failure is linked to decreased expression of the gene encoding transcriptional proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α, the inducible regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis and its transcription cascade, leading to altered expression of mitochondrial proteins. However, oxidative capacity of the myocardium of patients treated for chronic heart failure and pathophysiological mechanisms of mitochondrial dysfunction are still largely unknown. Methods and Results—In patients with chronic heart failure treated with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition, cardiac oxidative capacity, measured in saponin-permeabilized fibers, was 25% lower, and proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α protein content was 34% lower compared with nonfailing controls. In a rat model of myocardial infarction, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition therapy was only partially able to protect cardiac mitochondrial function and transcription cascade. Expression of proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α and its transcription cascade were evaluated after a 48-hour exposure of cultured adult rat ventricular myocytes to endothelin-1, angiotensin II, aldosterone, phenylephrine, or isoprenaline. Endothelin-1 (−30%) and, to a lesser degree, angiotensin II (−20%) decreased proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α mRNA content, whereas other hormones had no effect (phenylephrine) or even increased it (aldosterone, isoprenaline). Conclusions—Taken together, these results show that, despite angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition treatment, oxidative capacity is reduced in human and experimental heart failure and that endothelin-1 and angiotensin II could be involved in the downregulation of the mitochondrial transcription cascade.
Links between Rossby Wave Breaking and the North Atlantic Oscillation-Arctic Oscillation in Present-Day and Last Glacial Maximum Climate Simulations

Upper-tropospheric Rossby wave-breaking processes are examined in coupled ocean-atmosphere simulations of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and of the modern era. LGM statistics of the Northern Hemisphere in winter, computed from the Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project Phase II (PMIP2) dataset, are compared with those from preindustrial simulations and from the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40). Particular attention is given to the role of wave-breaking events in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) for each simulation. Anticyclonic (AWB) and cyclonic (CWB) wave-breaking events during LGM are shown to be less and more frequent, respectively, than in the preindustrial climate, especially in the Pacific. This is consistent with the slight equatorward shift of the eddy-driven jets in the LGM runs. The most remarkable feature of the simulated LGM climate is that it presents much weaker latitudinal fluctuations of the eddy-driven jets. This is accompanied by less dispersion in the wave-breaking events. A physical interpretation is provided in terms of the fluctuations of the low-level baroclinicity at the entrance of the storm tracks. The NAO in the preindustrial simulations and in ERA-40 is characterized by strong latitudinal fluctuations of the Atlantic eddy-driven jet as well as by significant changes in the nature of the wave breaking. During the positive phase, the eddy-driven jet moves to the north with more AWB events than usual and is well separated from the subtropical African jet. The negative phase exhibits a more equatorward Atlantic jet and more CWB events. In contrast, the LGM NAO is less well marked by the latitudinal vacillation of the Atlantic jet and for some models this property disappears entirely. The LGM NAO corresponds more to acceleration-deceleration or extension-retraction of the Atlantic jet. The hemispheric point of view of the Arctic Oscillation exhibits similar changes.
Tissue-specific and pretranslational character of variants of the rosy locus control element in Drosophila melanogaster.

Prior reports from this laboratory have described the experimental basis for our understanding of the genetic organization of the rosy locus (ry:3-52.0) of Drosophila melanogaster, as a bipartite genetic entity consisting of a structural element that codes for the xanthine dehydrogenase (XDH) peptide and a contiguous, cis-acting control element. The present report describes our progress in the analysis of the control element and its variants. Characterization of the control element variants reveals that, with respect to late third instar larval tissue distribution of XDH activity and cross-reacting material, i409H is associated with a large, tissue-specific increase in fat body which is not observed in malpighian tubules. Further data are presented in support of the inference that this differential expression must reflect differential production of XDH-specific RNA transcripts. --Gel blot analyses are described which demonstrate that the phenotypic effects associated with variation in the rosy locus control element relate to differences in accumulation of XDH-specific poly-A+ RNA and do not relate to differences in rosy DNA template numbers. --Experiments are described that provide for unambiguous mapping of control element sites through the use of half-tetrad recombination experiments and the recovery and phenotypic characterization of the reciprocal products of exchange between control element site variants. Thus, we are able to order the sites as follows: kar-i1005 i409-ry.
Patterns on growing square domains via mode interactions

Numerical simulations of reaction-diffusion systems with Neumann boundary conditions (NBC) on growing square domains by Maini et al. exhibit square and stripe (or roll) patterns that are usually associated with bifurcations from a trivial equilibrium on a square lattice. However, these patterns change as the domain grows. In this article we discuss several of these transitions; namely, transitions between different types of squares and between squares and stripes (or rolls). We show that these transitions can be understood by tracing paths through the unfoldings of certain co-dimension two mode interactions. To understand these transitions, we need to discuss two issues: the speed at which the domain size changes and the relations between NBC and periodic boundary conditions (PBC) on a square. First, in the simulations, the domain growth takes place on a time scale that is longer than the one needed for pattern formation. Therefore, we can assume that the domain growth is identified with quasistatic variation of time; that is, the domain grows slowly enough that the PDE solution of the time-dependent system tracks equilibria of the reaction-diffusion systems posed on a fixed size domain. Second, as is well-known, NBC problems on a square of side length l can be embedded in PBC problems on a square with side length 2l. The PBC problem has translation symmetries that are not present in the NBC problem. These additional symmetries are called hidden symmetries in the literature. Moreover, solutions to PBC that restrict to the smaller square and satisfy NBC are just those solutions that satisfy certain symmetry constraints. We show further that the transitions between different patterns can be understood by considering relevant mode interaction bifurcation problems on the larger square and then restricting to the smaller square. We have found that a generic continuous transition can occur between two types of squares. Also, the transition between squares and stripes can generically occur either via steady states and time-periodic states (standing waves) or via a jump. Interestingly, in mode interactions, the symmetry constraints induced by NBC are important in understanding which solutions exist and which solutions are stable. For example, diagonal stripes cannot occur as a primary branch in the NBC problem but do in the PBC problem. Also, patterns can be stable in the NBC problem that are not stable in the PBC problem. As a consequence, in the NBC problem we see standing wave time-periodic solutions as stable patterns leading to stable stripes, whereas in the PBC problem we see wavy rolls steady states as stable patterns leading to stable stripes. In principle, a classification of all transitions in NBC mode interactions is possible. However, we concentrate only on those transitions that are relevant to the numerically observed transitions.
The Role of Parents in Preventing Childhood Obesity

As researchers continue to analyze the role of parenting both in the development of childhood overweight and in obesity prevention, studies of child nutrition and growth are detailing the ways in which parents affect their children's development of food- and activity-related behaviors. Ana Lindsay, Katarina Sussner, Juhee Kim, and Steven Gortmaker argue that interventions aimed at preventing childhood overweight and obesity should involve parents as important forces for change in their children's behaviors. The authors begin by reviewing evidence on how parents can help their children develop and maintain healthful eating and physical activity habits, thereby ultimately helping prevent childhood overweight and obesity. They show how important it is for parents to understand how their roles in preventing obesity change as their children move through critical developmental periods, from before birth and through adolescence. They point out that researchers, policymakers, and practitioners should also make use of such information to develop more effective interventions and educational programs that address childhood obesity right where it starts—at home. The authors review research evaluating school-based obesity-prevention interventions that include components targeted at parents. Although much research has been done on how parents shape their children's eating and physical activity habits, surprisingly few high-quality data exist on the effectiveness of such programs. The authors call for more programs and cost-effectiveness studies aimed at improving parents' ability to shape healthful eating and physical activity behaviors in their children. The authors conclude that preventing and controlling childhood obesity will require multifaceted and community-wide programs and policies, with parents having a critical role to play. Successful intervention efforts, they argue, must involve and work directly with parents from the earliest stages of child development to support healthful practices both in and outside of the home.
Robustness to inflated subscription in multicast congestion control

Group subscription is a useful mechanism for multicastcongestion control: RLM, RLC, FLID-DL, and WEBRC form a promisingline of multi-group protocols where receivers provide no feedbackto the sender but control congestion via group membershipregulation. Unfortunately, the group subscription mechanism alsooffers receivers an opportunity to elicit self-beneficial bandwidthallocations. In particular, a misbehaving receiver canignoreguidelines for group subscription and choose an unfairly highsubscription level in a multi-group multicast session. This poses aserious threat to fairness of bandwidth allocation. In this paper,we present the first solution for the problem of inflatedsubscription. Our design guards access to multicast groups withdynamic keys and consists of two independent components: DELTA(Distribution of ELigibility To Access) -- a novel method forin-band distribution of group keys to receivers that are eligibleto access the groups according to the congestion control protocol,and SIGMA (Secure Internet Group Management Architecture) -- ageneric architecture for key-based group access at edgerouters.
Grazing in a high-tech world : Proceedings 5th meeting EGF Working Group "Grazing" in Trondheim

This report presents the main outcomes of the fifth meeting of the EGF Working Group “Grazing” which was held in Trondheim, Norway on 4 September 2016. The aim of the Working Group “Grazing” is to exchange knowledge on all aspects of grazing research and to provide a forum for networking. The theme of the meeting in Trondheim was “Grazing in a high-tech world”
Impact of Sea Level Rise on Coastal Regions and Strategic Responses

This chapter includes an assessment of physical vulnerability of the coast, including a coastal vulnerability index composed of 9 physical variables—elevation, distance to shore, tide amplitude, significant wave weight, erosion/accretion rates, geology, geomorphology, ground cover vegetation, and anthropogenic actions—followed by a quantification of coastal recession and the data of special report on emissions scenarios (SRES) developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the rise in average sea level. It includes an estimate of the economic value of an area of recreation based on the travel cost method. Finally, a bibliographic review is made to assess strategies and responses to the impacts of sea level rise in order to make comparisons and to develop a road map of interventions for shoreline protection. The proposed methodology was applied to a case study on the Portuguese coast corresponding to the beaches of Costa de Caparica, Almada.
Periodic Photometric Variability in the Becklin-Neugebauer Object

The Becklin-Neugebauer object (BN) in the Orion Nebula cluster is a well-studied, optically invisible, infrared-bright young stellar object that is thought to be an intermediate-mass protostar. We report here that BN exhibited nearly sinusoidal periodic variability at the near-infrared H and Ks bands during a 1 month observing campaign in 2000 March/April. The period was 8.28 days, and the peak-to-peak amplitude was ~0.2 mag. Plausible mechanisms for producing the observed variability characteristics are explored.
Sound source tracking with directivity pattern estimation using a 64 ch microphone array

In human-robot communication, a robot should distinguish between voices uttered by a human and those played by a loudspeaker such as on a TV or a radio. This paper addresses detection of actual human voices by using a microphone array as an extension of auditory function of the robot to support environmental understanding by the robot. We introduce a 64 ch microphone array system in a room and propose a new method based on weighted delay-and-sum beamforming to estimate a directivity pattern of a sound source. The microphone array system localizes a sound source and estimates its directivity pattern. The directivity pattern estimation has two advantages as follows: One is that the system can detect whether the sound source is an actual human voice or not by comparing the estimated directivity pattern with prerecorded directivity patterns. The other is that the heading of the sound source is estimated by detecting the angle with the highest power in the directivity pattern. As a result, we proved the effectiveness of our microphone array through sound source tracking with orientation and detection of actual human voices based on directivity pattern estimation.
Noise statistics across the three axes of a tri-axial velocity sensor constructed of pressure sensors

This paper analyzes the noise statistics of a tri-axial velocity sensor. This tri-axial sensing system comprises three orthogonal axes. Along each axis, a uni-axial velocity sensor is realized through two isotropic pressure sensors displaced along that axis. Hence, a tri-axial velocity sensor may be implemented with as few as four isotropic sensors: one at the Cartesian origin and one at each Cartesian axis. Each isotropic sensor's noise would contribute to its axis' effective noise. As the three axes share one isotropic sensor in common, the three axes' effective noises would be cross-correlated, but how? This is answered in this paper, through rigorous mathematics that analytically derive the statistical codifference across the three axes' effective noises. This analysis models the noises accommodatingly as α-stable distributed, which includes the special cases of the Gaussian distribution, the Cauchy distribution, and many other heavy-tailed probability distributions. This finding is then generalized from the aforementioned velocity sensors (i.e., differential sensors of the first order) to differential sensors of arbitrarily high orders.
Spatial Random Tree Grammars for Modeling Hierarchal Structure in Images with Regions of Arbitrary Shape

We present a novel probabilistic model for the hierarchical structure of an image and its regions. We call this model spatial random tree grammars (SRTGs). We develop algorithms for the exact computation of likelihood and maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimates and the exact expectation-maximization (EM) updates for model-parameter estimation. We collectively call these algorithms the center-surround algorithm. We use the center-surround algorithm to automatically estimate the maximum likelihood (ML) parameters of SRTGs and classify images based on their likelihood and based on the MAP estimate of the associated hierarchical structure. We apply our method to the task of classifying natural images and demonstrate that the addition of hierarchical structure significantly improves upon the performance of a baseline model that lacks such structure.
Functional Outcomes after Double Row Versus Single Row Rotator Cuff Repair

Objectives: The effect of single row (SR) versus double row (DR) rotator cuff repair on functional outcomes was examined in a prospective randomized design. Methods: Fifty patients were randomized to DR or SR repairs; 39 patients (13 women, 26 men, 23 SR, 16 DR, age 62±7 yr) were assessed at an average of 2.2±1.6 yr after surgery (range 1-7 yr; tear size 17 medium, 13 large, 9 massive). The following data were recorded prior to surgery and at follow-up: Penn, ASES and Simple Shoulder Test (SST) scores; range of motion (ROM) for shoulder flexion, external rotation (ER) at 0º and 90º abduction, and internal rotation (IR) at 90º abduction; shoulder strength (Lafayette Manual Muscle Tester) in empty and full can tests, abduction and ER at 0º abduction. Treatment (SR vs. DR) by Time (pre-op vs. post-op) mixed model analysis of variance was used to assess the effect of rotator cuff repair. It was estimated that with 20 patients per group a 10-point difference in improvement in ASES scores between SR and DR treatments could be detected at an alpha level of 0.05 with 80% power. Results: Outcome Scores: RC repair markedly improved Penn, ASES and SST scores (P<0.001), with similar improvement between single versus double row repairs (Treatment by Time P=.49 to P=.67), and excellent scores at follow-up (Double Row vs. Single Row: Penn 91±11 vs. 91±12, P=.98; ASES 92±9 vs 87 ±15, P=.24; SST 11.2±1.2 vs. 11.4±1.0, P=.58). ROM: Patients with DR repairs lost ER ROM at 0º abduction (pre-op to final follow-up 7±10º loss, P=.013). ER ROM did not change with SR repair (3.9±15.6º gain, P=.24; Treatment by Time P=.017). This effect was not apparent for ER ROM at 90º abduction (Treatment by Time P=.26). IR ROM improved from pre-op to final follow-up (P<0.01, SR 17±18º, DR 13±23º, Treatment by Time P=.31). Strength: RC repair markedly improved strength in Empty Can (51%), Full Can (54%), Abduction (45%) and ER (31 %) strength (all P<.001), with no difference between SR and DR repairs (P=.54 to P=.81). Outcomes were not adversely affected by RC tear size, retraction, gender, or BMI. Patients <60 yo had better ASES scores than older patients (96±9 vs. 87±13, P=.021) but an age effect was not apparent for Penn (P=.14) or SST (P=.17). Conclusion: Patients had excellent outcomes regardless of whether they had a SR or DR repair. Rotator cuff repair, and subsequent rehabilitation, markedly improved shoulder strength. DR repair was associated with a loss of ER ROM but this loss did not impact other outcome measures.
DNA Vaccines against Protozoan Parasites: Advances and Challenges

Over the past 15 years, DNA vaccines have gone from a scientific curiosity to one of the most dynamic research field and may offer new alternatives for the control of parasitic diseases such as leishmaniasis and Chagas disease. We review here some of the advances and challenges for the development of DNA vaccines against these diseases. Many studies have validated the concept of using DNA vaccines for both protection and therapy against these protozoan parasites in a variety of mouse models. The challenge now is to translate what has been achieved in these models into veterinary or human vaccines of comparable efficacy. Also, genome-mining and new antigen discovery strategies may provide new tools for a more rational search of novel vaccine candidates.
Regional Productivity Di®erentials in a Large Italian Firm

This paper documents the existence of striking regional di®erences in the reported behaviour of employees working within the same ̄rm but in di®erent Italian regions. In particular, the frequency of recorded and punished misconduct episodes is signi ̄cantly higher among employees working in the south; migrants moving from the north to the south assimilate completely to the higher rate of misconduct in the receiving region while migrants moving from the south to the north assimilate only partially to the lower misconduct rate in the receiving region. These di®erences can in principle be attributed to discrimination or to individual e®ort. The absence of any evidence of regional discrimination in the process by which misconduct episodes are reported to the personnel o±ce and in terms of careers and earnings suggests that the second explanation is more likely to be true. This conclusion is supported also by the evidence on absenteeism that replicates the ̄ndings on misconduct. The hypothesis of discrimination had to be ̄rst dismissed before the existence of true regional di®erences in individual e®ort could be accepted. Now, the search for the possible ultimate causes of these di®erences comes next in our research