Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modulation of horizontal cell function by GABAA and GABAC receptors in dark- and light-adapted tiger salamander retina

The physiological function of GABA transporters and GABA receptors in retinal horizontal cells (HCs) under dark- and light-adapted conditions were studied by whole-cell voltage clamp and intracellular recording techniques in retinal slices and whole-mounted isolated retinas of the larval tiger salamander. Puff application of GABA in picrotoxin elicited a NO-711 (a potent GABA transporter blocker)-sensitive inward current that did not exhibit a reversal potential in the physiological range, consistent with the idea that these HCs contain electrogenic GABA transporters. Application of GABA in NO-711 elicited a chloride current in HCs; about half of the current was suppressed by bicuculline or I4AA (a GABAC receptor antagonist), and the remaining half was suppressed by bicuculline + I4AA or picrotoxin. In whole-mount retinas, NO-711, bicuculline, I4AA, or picrotoxin hyperpolarized the HCs and enhanced the light responses under dark-adapted conditions, and blocked the time-dependent recovery of HC membrane potential and light responses during background illumination. Based on the parallel conductance model, GABA released in darkness mediates a chloride conductance about three times greater than the leak conductance or the glutamate-gated cation conductance. About half of this chloride conductance is mediated by GABAA receptors, and the other half is mediated by GABAC receptors. These results suggest that GABA released from HCs through the NO-711-sensitive GABA transporters activates GABAA and GABAC receptors, resulting in chloride conductance increase which leads to a HC depolarization and reduction of the light response. Additionally, GABA transporters also mediate GABA release in background light that is responsible for the recovery of HC membrane potential and light responses.
Geometry matters: Place recognition in 2D range scans using Geometrical Surface Relations

Place recognition is a fundamental requirement for mobile robots. It is particularly needed for detecting loop closures in SLAM and to enable self-localization for mobile robots given a prior map. The multitude of existing approaches rely on appearance based methods, e.g. the extraction of interest points in terms of local extrema. It can be observed that the availability of these features is highly environment specific and the limited descriptiveness causes a large number of false-positive matches. This paper utilizes a generic environment description based on normal surface primitives. The association of different places is done using Geometrical Surface Relations (GSR) of co-occurring primitives. Experimental results obtained from publicly available datasets demonstrate that GSR outperforms state-of-the-art approaches in place recognition for large scale outdoor as well as indoor environments.
Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of pessary treatment compared with pelvic floor muscle training in older women with pelvic organ prolapse: 2-year follow-up of a randomized controlled trial in primary care

Objective:We investigated the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of pessary treatment compared with pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) in women with pelvic organ prolapse over a 2-year period. Methods:Randomized controlled trial with women (≥55 y) with symptomatic pelvic organ prolapse, identified by screening. Participants were recruited from 20 primary care practices (October 2009-December 2012). Primary outcome was the difference in change of pelvic floor symptoms (PFDI-20 score) between groups over 24 months. Secondary outcomes included prolapse, urinary, and anorectal symptoms; quality of life; costs; sexual functioning; prolapse stage; pelvic floor muscle function; and participants’ perceived symptom improvement. Results:There was a nonsignificant difference in the primary outcome between pessary treatment (n = 82) and PFMT (n = 80) with a mean difference of −3.7 points (95% CI, −12.8 to 5.3; P = 0.42) in favor of pessary treatment. A significantly greater improvement in the prolapse symptom score was, however, seen with pessary treatment (mean difference −3.2 points [95% CI, −6.3 to −0.0; P = 0.05]). Direct medical costs over the 2-year study were $309 and $437 per person for pessary treatment and PFMT, respectively. Conclusions:In older women with symptomatic prolapse, there was no significant difference between pessary treatment and PFMT in reducing pelvic floor symptoms, but specific prolapse-related symptoms did improve more with pessary treatment. Pessary treatment was preferable in the cost-effectiveness analysis. When counseling women for prolapse treatment it should, however, be taken into account that pessary fitting fails in a considerable portion of women and that pessary treatment was associated with more side effects compared with PFMT.
Current evidence demonstrates similar effects of kilohertz-frequency and low-frequency current on quadriceps evoked torque and discomfort in healthy individuals: a systematic review with meta-analysis

Abstract Background: Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) is widely utilized to enhance muscle performance. However, the optimal NMES waveform with respect to treatment effect has not been established. Objective: To investigate the effects of kilohertz-frequency alternating current (KFAC) and low-frequency pulsed current (PC) on quadriceps evoked torque and self-reported discomfort. Data sources: PubMed, The Cochrane Library, EMBASE, MEDLINE, Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro), SinoMed, ISI Web of Knowledge, and CINAHL were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-randomized controlled trials (QRCTs). Study selection: Two reviewers independently selected potential studies according to the inclusion criteria, extracted data, and assessed methodological quality. Data extraction and synthesis: Studies were eligible if they compared KFAC versus PC interventions. Studies that included outcome measures for percentage of maximal isometric voluntary contraction (%MIVC) torque and self-reported discomfort level were eligible for evaluation. Seven studies involving 127 individuals were included. The methodological quality of eligible trials was moderate, with a mean of 5 on the 10-point PEDro scale. Overall, PC was no better than KFAC in terms of evoked torque and there was no difference in self-reported discomfort level. Conclusion: KFAC and PC have similar effects on quadriceps evoked torque and self-reported discomfort level in healthy individuals. The small number and overall methodological quality of currently available studies included in this meta-analysis indicate that new RCTs are needed to better determine optimal NMES treatment parameters.
Underwater hyperspectral imaging for environmental mapping and monitoring of seabed habitats

Underwater hyperspectral imaging is a novel method for mapping and monitoring the seafloor. It uses the reflected light from objects under water to automatically identify them. This paper explains the basic technology and shows examples of use from two field missions in Norwegian waters. In the two cases, libraries of spectral signatures for the living organisms at the site were established, and subsequently used to automatically identify objects on the seafloor.
Joint Inference over a Lightly Supervised Information Extraction Pipeline: Towards Event Coreference Resolution for Resource-Scarce Languages

We address two key challenges in end-to-end event coreference resolution research: (1) the error propagation problem, where an event coreference resolver has to assume as input the noisy outputs produced by its upstream components in the standard information extraction (IE) pipeline; and (2) the data annotation bottleneck, where manually annotating data for all the components in the IE pipeline is prohibitively expensive. This is the case in the vast majority of the world's natural languages, where such annotated resources are not readily available. To address these problems, we propose to perform joint inference over a lightly supervised IE pipeline, where all the models are trained using either active learning or unsupervised learning. Using our approach, only 25% of the training sentences in the Chinese portion of the ACE 2005 corpus need to be annotated with entity and event mentions in order for our event coreference resolver to surpass its fully supervised counterpart in performance.
Can a service philosophy be identified in aging and disability resource centers? A study of institutional logics as applied to the creation of new hybrid organizations

The aging of our society is well known, with policy makers and analysts forecasting enormous increases in people living with chronic illness and disabilities (AoA, 2009). Less well known is that services for older adults and younger people with disabilities – historically separated by different funding streams, service systems, and workforces – have increasingly merged (Putnam, 2007). The movement to combine services for older adults and younger persons with disabilities is reflected in the creation of a hybrid organization – Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs) – designed to combine services for both populations (O’Shaughnessy, 2011; Putnam, 2011). Using ADRCs as the principal organizational strategy to combine aging and disability services has been challenging, primarily because these organizations have different histories and service philosophies (Kane, 2007; Putnam & Stoever, 2007; DeJong, 1979). Independent living centers, who serve people of all ages with disabilities, have a service philosophy that emphasizes ‘consumer direction’, characterized by consumer control, advocacy, and
New Insights Into the Mechanisms of Green Tea Catechins in the Chemoprevention of Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and second most common cause of cancer deaths in American men. Its long latency, slow progression, and high incidence rate make prostate cancer ideal for targeted chemopreventative therapies. Therefore, chemoprevention studies and clinical trials are essential for reducing the burden of prostate cancer on society. Epidemiological studies suggest that tea consumption has protective effects against a variety of human cancers, including that of the prostate. Laboratory and clinical studies have demonstrated that green tea components, specifically the green tea catechin (GTC) epigallocatechin gallate, can induce apoptosis, suppress progression, and inhibit invasion and metastasis of prostate cancer. Multiple mechanisms are involved in the chemoprevention of prostate cancer with GTCs; understanding and refining models of fundamental molecular pathways by which GTCs modulate prostate carcinogenesis is essential to apply the utilization of green tea for the chemoprevention of prostate cancer in clinical settings. The objective of this article is to review and summarize the most current literature focusing on the major mechanisms of GTC chemopreventative action on prostate cancer from laboratory, in vitro, and in vivo studies, and clinical chemoprevention trials.
N-Terminal Prodomain of Pfs230 Synthesized Using a Cell-Free System Is Sufficient To Induce Complement-Dependent Malaria Transmission-Blocking Activity

ABSTRACT The aim of a malaria transmission-blocking vaccine is to block the development of malaria parasites in the mosquito and thus prevent subsequent infection of the human host. Previous studies have demonstrated that the gametocyte/gamete surface protein Pfs230 can induce transmission-blocking immunity and have evaluated Escherichia coli-produced Pfs230 as a transmission-blocking vaccine candidate. In this study, we used the wheat germ cell-free expression system to produce N-terminal fragments of Pfs230 and evaluated the transmission-blocking activity of antisera raised against the recombinant Pfs230 protein. The rabbit antisera reacted to the surface of cultured gametocytes and gametes of the Plasmodium falciparum NF54 line, recognized the 360-kDa form of parasite-produced Pfs230 by Western blot assay, and reduced the infectivity of NF54 parasites to Anopheles stefensi mosquitoes in the presence of complement in a standard membrane feeding assay. Thus, our data demonstrate that the N-terminal pro domain of Pfs230 is sufficient to induce complement-dependent transmission-blocking activity against P. falciparum.
Exposure of Rosy Barb (Puntius conchonius) Sperm to Abamectin as an In Vitro Assay of Cytotoxicity

The acute cytotoxicity of abamectin to the sperm of rosy barb (Puntius conchonius) was tested. It was found that 79% sperm remained motile at 30 min after activation by hypo-osmotic sodium buffer (HSB), while the motility of sperm exposed to 0.14, 0.28, and 0.42 μ M abamectin for 30 min was reduced to 60%, 35%, and 15%, respectively. Exposure to abamectin at 0.56 μ M decreased the motility of sperm to an even lower value of 5.67% after 20 min of exposure. This indicates that the toxicity of abamectin to rosy barb sperm is both dose dependent and exposure time dependent. The ultrastructural examination showed that most of the sperm exposed to 0.14 μ M abamectin for 30 min remained morphologically normal, while the midpiece and its surrounding mitochondria of the sperm treated with 0.28 μ M abamectin for 30 min were severely damaged. For the sperm treated with 0.42 μ M abamectin for 30 min, the majority of the sperm were abnormal. Sperm heads were dissolved and the midpiece broken. The mitochondria are located in the midpiece of the sperm and may be the target of abamectin toxicity in rosy barb sperm. The results also suggest that rosy barb sperm are a suitable candidate for rapid screening of the acute toxicities of bioorganic pesticides.
Sensitization by ventral pallidal DAMGO: lack of cross-sensitization to morphine

Repeated injections of morphine into the ventral pallidum of laboratory rats results in the development and expression of motor sensitization. Although morphine and [D-Ala2, N-MePhe4, Gly(ol)5]-enkephalin (DAMGO) both activate &mgr;-opioid receptors, their influence on receptor-mediated signaling differs; therefore, we determined if they differentially influenced ventral pallidal-mediated motor sensitization. Repeated intraventral pallidal injections of DAMGO led to the development of motor sensitization and this behavior persisted for at least 18 days. When DAMGO-sensitized rats were challenged with a morphine treatment (either in the ventral pallidum or systemically), the resulting motor response was similar to that seen in rats with a history of intrapallidal saline, that is, cross-sensitization did not occur. As DAMGO and morphine likely activate different arms of the heterologous signal transduction system associated with &mgr;-opioid receptors, these observations may reflect behavioral consequences of biased agonism at these receptors.
Functional recovery of patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy treated with coronary artery bypass surgery and concomitant intramyocardial bone marrow mononuclear cell implantation--a long-term follow-up study.

BACKGROUND/AIM Intramyocardial bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMNC) implantation concomitant to coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery as an option for regenerative therapy in chronic ischemic heart failure was tested in a very few number of studies, with not consistent conclusions regarding improvement in left ventricular function, and with a follow-up period between 6 months and 1 year. This study was focused on testing of the hypothesis that intramyocardial BMMNC implantation, concomitant to CABG surgery in ischemic cardiomyopathy patients, leads to better postoperative long-term results regarding the primary end-point of conditional status-functional capacity and the secondary endpoint of mortality than CABG surgery alone in a median follow-up period of 5 years. METHODS A total of 30 patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy and the median left venticular ejection fraction (LVEF) of 35.9 ± 4.7% were prospectively and randomly enrolled in a single center interventional, open labeled clinical trial as two groups: group I of 15 patients designated as the study group to receive CABG surgery and intramyocardial implantation of BMMNC and group II of 15 patients as the control group to receive only the CABG procedure. All the patients in both groups received the average of 3.4 ± 0.7 implanted coronary grafts, and all of them received the left internal mammary artery (LIMA) to the left anterior descending (LAD) and autovenous to other coronaries. RESULTS The group with BMMNC and CABG had the average of 17.5 ± 3.8 injections of BMMNC suspension with the average number of injected bone marrow mononuclear cells of 70.7 ± 32.4 x 10(6) in the total average volume of 5.7 ± 1.5 mL. In this volume the average count of CD34+ and CD133+ cells was 3.96 ± 2.77 x 10(6) and 2.65 ± 1.71 x 10(6), respectively. All the patients were followed up in 2.5 to 7.5 years (median, 5 years). At the end of the follow-up period, siginificantly more patients from the group that received BMMNC were in the functional class I compared to the CABG only group (14/15 vs 5/15; p = 0.002). After 6 months the results on 6-minute walk test (6-MWT) were significantly different between the groups (435 m in the BMMNC and CABG group and 315 m in the CABG only group; p = 0.001), and continued to be preserved and improved on the final follow-up (520 m in the BMMNC and CABG group vs 343 m in the CABG only group; p < 0.001). Cardiovascular mortality was also significantly reduced in the BMMNC and CABG group (p = 0.049). CONCLUSION Implanatation of BMMNC concomitant to CABG is a safe and feasible procedure that demonstates not only the improved functional capacity but also a reduced cardiac mortality in a 5-year follow-up in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy scheduled for CABG surgery.
Channel Coding versus Cooperative ARQ: Reducing Outage Probability in Ultra-Low Latency Wireless Communications

Nowadays wireless communications still lack the ability to provide high reliability and low latency, although mission-critical applications, such as found in industrial automation, rely on both requirements. The main challenge is that an improved reliability often comes at the price of an increased latency. It has been shown that cooperative schemes can effectively increase the reliability by leveraging spatial diversity. However, an important question remains how to integrate cooperative schemes when dealing with very short latency bounds and especially how much time should be reserved for potential retransmissions. In this work, we propose and evaluate a centralized communication system that uses cooperative ARQ to achieve high reliability under the constraint of a strict latency bound of 1 ms. We evaluate this system analytically, using an outage-capacity model with average channel state information, by varying the reserved time for retransmissions, where a shorter time for retransmissions allows to apply stronger channel codes in the original transmission. As a baseline, we use a system without cooperation mechanism, thus applying the given time for stronger channel codes in the direct transmission of a message. In case of cooperation, a third station may act as a relay if the original transmission failed. Our results reveal that an optimal size of the reserved retransmission time exists around 15% to 30% of the total frame time, increasing the reliability by several orders of magnitude, even for a large number of transmissions within a communication cycle.
Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia: prognostic factors and natural history.

In the past 20 years, important progress has been made in the understanding of the natural history and prognosis of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). Based on the notion that the clinical manifestations of CLL are due primarily to the progressive accumulation of lymphocytes over time, several prognostic factors have been identified. The prognostic value of parameters reflecting tumour burden (i.e. lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly, anaemia and/or thrombocytopenia due to bone marrow failure), first identified empirically, has been confirmed in multivariate analyses of large series of patients. Furthermore, clinical staging systems that group the most relevant of these factors have also been developed. Patients in early stage (Binet A; Rai 0) have a long survival which, in some cases, may match that of the general population. In contrast, patients with advanced stage (Binet C; Rai III or IV) have a median survival < 2 years. The major limitation of staging systems is that they do not give information about the likelihood of progression for patients in early stage. Nevertheless, haemoglobin level, blood lymphocyte count, lymphocyte doubling time and bone marrow infiltration pattern are useful to identify subsets of patients in early stage with different progression and survival rates, with the 'smouldering' form of the disease being identified fairly accurately. With all these advances, therapy in CLL can now be indicated on a more rational basis. However, further biological insight is needed to elucidate the mechanism accounting for the different forms of the disease.
Bioactive compounds from Lippia javanica and Hoslundia opposita

Lippia javanica and Hoslundia opposita are aromatic herbs that occur all over Mozambique and are well known for their medicinal properties. A Phytochemical investigation of L. javanica led to the isolation of eight compounds, 4-ethyl-nonacosane (1), (E)-2(3)-tagetenone epoxide (2), myrcenone (3), piperitenone (4), apigenin (5), cirsimaritin (6), 6-methoxyluteolin 4′-methyl ether (7), 6-methoxyluteolin and 3',4',7-trimethyl ether (8). Three known compounds, 5,7-dimethoxy-6-methylflavone (9), hoslunddiol (10) and euscaphic acid (11) were isolated from H. opposita. This is the first report of compounds 1, 2, 5–8 from L. javanica and of compound (9) from H. opposita. The compounds were tested against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and HIV-1 reverse transcriptase for bioactivity. It was found that compounds 2, 4 and 9 inhibited the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase enzyme by 91, 53 and 52%, respectively, at 100 µg mL−1. Of all the compounds tested against a drug-sensitive strain of M. tuberculosis, euscaphic acid (11) was found to exhibit a minimum inhibitory concentration of 50 µg mL−1 against this strain.
The Scope of Cell Phones in Diabetes Management in Developing Country Health Care Settings

Diabetes has emerged as a major public health concern in developing nations. Health systems in most developing countries are yet to integrate effective prevention and control programs for diabetes into routine health care services. Given the inadequate human resources and underfunctioning health systems, we need novel and innovative approaches to combat diabetes in developing-country settings. In this regard, the tremendous advances in telecommunication technology, particularly cell phones, can be harnessed to improve diabetes care. Cell phones could serve as a tool for collecting information on surveillance, service delivery, evidence-based care, management, and supply systems pertaining to diabetes from primary care settings in addition to providing health messages as part of diabetes education. As a screening/diagnostic tool for diabetes, cell phones can aid the health workers in undertaking screening and diagnostic and follow-up care for diabetes in the community. Cell phones are also capable of acting as a vehicle for continuing medical education; a decision support system for evidence-based management; and a tool for patient education, self-management, and compliance. However, for widespread use, we need robust evaluations of cell phone applications in existing practices and appropriate interventions in diabetes.