Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Loss of the Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 2&agr; Kinase General Control Nonderepressible 2 Protects Mice From Pressure Overload–Induced Congestive Heart Failure Without Affecting Ventricular Hypertrophy

In response to several stresses, including nutrient deprivation, general control nonderepressible 2 kinase (GCN2) attenuates mRNA translation by phosphorylating eukaryotic initiation factor 2&agr;Ser51. Energy starvation is known to exacerbate congestive heart failure, and eukaryotic initiation factor 2&agr;Ser51 phosphorylation is increased in the failing heart. However, the effect of GCN2 during the evolution of congestive heart failure has not been tested. In this study, we examined the influence of GCN2 expression in response to a cardiac stress by inducing chronic pressure overload with transverse aortic constriction in wild-type and GCN2 knockout mice. Under basal conditions, GCN2 knockout mice had normal left ventricular structure and function, but after transverse aortic constriction, they demonstrated less contractile dysfunction, less increase in lung weight, less increase in lung inflammation and vascular remodeling, and less myocardial apoptosis and fibrosis compared with wild-type mice, despite an equivalent degree of left ventricular hypertrophy. As expected, GCN2 knockout attenuated transverse aortic constriction–induced cardiac eukaryotic initiation factor 2&agr;Ser51 phosphorylation and preserved sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase expression compared with wild-type mice. Interestingly, the expression of the antiapoptotic protein Bcl-2 was significantly elevated in GCN2 knockout hearts, whereas in isolated neonatal cardiomyocytes, selective knockdown of GCN2 increased Bcl-2 protein expression and enhanced myocyte resistance to an apoptotic stress. Collectively, our data support the notion that GCN2 impairs the ventricular adaptation to chronic pressure overload by reducing Bcl-2 expression and increasing cardiomyocyte susceptibility to apoptotic stimuli. Our findings suggest that strategies to reduce GCN2 activity in cardiac tissue may be a novel approach to attenuate congestive heart failure development.
[Tables of coronary risk evaluation adapted to the Spanish population: the DORICA study].

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Independent risk factors (smoking, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and diabetes mellitus) are direct causes of coronary heart disease and are common in the population. Considering all independent factors together seems to be more appropriate to estimate the global risk of coronary heart disease. The objective of this paper was to estimate the global risk of coronary heart disease based on the Framingham function, adapted to the prevalence of risk factors in Spain. SUBJECTS AND METHOD The prevalence of risk factors in the Spanish population was estimated based on pooled analysis of regional cross-sectional random population surveys. Prevalence estimates and incidence rate of coronary events were replaced in the Framingham equation accordingly. Risk probability for 10 years was estimated and risk tables were designed using a gradual color coding system according to an increasing risk. RESULTS The estimated attributable fraction (AF) for hypertension in the Spanish population was 26.7% for men and 22.9% women; that for hypercholesterolemia was 15.7% and 12.7% for men and women, respectively. Smoking was identified in the third position of the ranking order for males (AF 13.13%) and fourth for the female group (AF 3.71%). The prevalence of obesity was 13.2% for men and 17.5% for women. AF for obesity among men was 4% and it was 5% for women. CONCLUSIONS An adaptation of the Framingham equation according to the prevalence of independent risk factors and incidence of coronary events in the Spanish population is useful to build instruments to estimate the 10-year global risk of coronary heart disease while a specific function based on a well-designed cohort study in not available in Spain.
Photosynthesis of temperate Eucalyptus globulus trees outside their native range has limited adjustment to elevated CO2 and climate warming

Eucalyptus species are grown widely outside of their native ranges in plantations on all vegetated continents of the world. We predicted that such a plantation species would show high potential for acclimation of photosynthetic traits across a wide range of growth conditions, including elevated [CO2] and climate warming. To test this prediction, we planted temperate Eucalyptus globulus Labill. seedlings in climate‐controlled chambers in the field located >700 km closer to the equator than the nearest natural occurrence of this species. Trees were grown in a complete factorial combination of elevated CO2 concentration (eC; ambient [CO2] +240 ppm) and air warming treatments (eT; ambient +3 °C) for 15 months until they reached ca. 10 m height. There was little acclimation of photosynthetic capacity to eC and hence the CO2‐induced photosynthetic enhancement was large (ca. 50%) in this treatment during summer. The warming treatment significantly increased rates of both carboxylation capacity (Vcmax) and electron transport (Jmax) (measured at a common temperature of 25 °C) during winter, but decreased them significantly by 20–30% in summer. The photosynthetic CO2 compensation point in the absence of dark respiration (Γ*) was relatively less sensitive to temperature in this temperate eucalypt species than for warm‐season tobacco. The temperature optima for photosynthesis and Jmax significantly changed by about 6 °C between winter and summer, but without further adjustment from early to late summer. These results suggest that there is an upper limit for the photosynthetic capacity of E. globulus ssp. globulus outside its native range to acclimate to growth temperatures above 25 °C. Limitations to temperature acclimation of photosynthesis in summer may be one factor that defines climate zones where E. globulus plantation productivity can be sustained under anticipated global environmental change.
Monocular ictal nystagmus.

• A 15-year-old girl with tonic-clonic and absence seizures exhibited right monocular horizontal nystagmus during generalized seizures that were triggered by photic stimulation at a frequency of 15 flashes per second. The ictal nystagmus is considered to be a pathologic form of flash-induced afternystagmus that occurs in the context of an epileptic event.
Developmental perspectives on community beliefs andattitudes about sleep

A number of studies have found that both dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep and sleep hygiene behaviours contribute to sleeping problems, particularly for those with insomnia. However, limited research has investigated beliefs and attitudes about sleep and sleep hygiene from a developmental perspective, within the community. This study was divided into two Phases. In Phase One, the aim was to develop a questionnaire assessing ‘community’ beliefs and attitudes about sleep, named the Views on Sleep Scale (VOSS). Another aim was to re-test the psychometric properties of a published scale assessing people’s beliefs about sleep hygiene (Sleep Beliefs Scale, SBS, by Adan, Fabbri, Natale & Prat, 2006). Phase One of the study comprised of 209 adults from the general community, ranging in age from 18 to 86 (M = 41, SD = 15). The results found that both the VOSS and SBS had good internal reliability when examining the total score and individual items of the scales. In Phase Two, the aim was to test two age groups (18-25 years and 60+ years) about their beliefs and attitudes about sleep using the VOSS, SBS and the Sleep Plot (developed by Lack, 2007). Participants in Phase Two were younger adults (n=113; aged 18 to 25, M = 21.41 years) and older adults (n= 110; aged 60+ years, M = 72.13 years). Consistent with the hypothesis, the older adults held more dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep than the younger adults. In comparison, younger adults and males were found to hold more incorrect beliefs/less sleep hygiene knowledge than the older adults (respectively). An explanation was put forth, suggesting that older adults tend to be more concerned about their sleep and the consequences of poor sleep on daytime functioning. Therefore, it is suggested that the older adults are more concerned about practicing the correct sleep hygiene behaviours in comparison to younger adults. In addition, results found that both age groups realistically portrayed the sleep of a healthy 65 year old to have less deep sleep than a healthy 18 year old. Yet, both age group’s perceived sleep to be unrealistically deep and uninterrupted throughout the night. This study suggests that dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep are more widespread across the community than just in those defined as poor sleepers. This study highlights important areas for education in the general community, such as sleep expectations, sleep beliefs, sleep hygiene behaviours, and the usual sleep-wake cycles across the night. It is proposed that changing widespread faulty perspectives may be helpful in the prevention and/or treatment of insomnia.
Collision avoidance control with steering using velocity potential field

It is expected that a collision avoidance system based on steering control could help avoid collisions even in cases where a collision cannot be avoided by braking only. For realizing steering-based collision avoidance, accurate environmental recognition and rapid motion planning in a highly dynamic environment are needed. The velocity potential field control method, which was proposed for mobile robot motion planning, has the advantages of a very low computation cost, even in dynamic environments with moving obstacles without any deadlock. In addition, the method generates the desired velocity vector to be followed but vehicle trajectory. With this feature, avoidance velocity vector is generated in realtime even in the case that the obstacles are moving and their movements cannot be anticipated. Thus, the present study proposes a collision avoidance method with steering control by generating a trajectory for obstacle avoidance using local environmental recognition based on application of the velocity potential field approach. In addition, a parameter determination method for the velocity potential function is derived. A preview steering control method for following the derived velocity vector is proposed. The simulation results obtained using vehicle dynamics software demonstrate that the proposed method can generate appropriate obstacle avoidance trajectories, even for moving obstacles, and the derived velocity vector can be tracked by an automobile.
Preemption-resistant control on a non-real-time operating system

We propose an architecture for implementing discrete-time control algorithms on a non-real-time operating system so that sensing and actuation occur at precise times, even if the OS preempts the control task. The architecture has the controller perform its computation on one processor and its sensing/actuation on a separate microcontroller. The controller sends arrays of future time-stamped actuator commands to the microcontroller, thereby allowing actuation to continue if preemption occurs. We use this architecture to drive a DC motor with a Beaglebone Black single-board computer, with the controller running on Linux and the I/O performed on a subsidiary microcontroller within the Beaglebone. This scheme achieves a timing accuracy of 40 μs. We demonstrate that this configuration improves a PID controller’s performance in the presence of OS preemption, even when the preemption persists across several sampling periods. In effect, this provides a mechanism to make a controller resistant to OS preemption.
Anti-Tissue Transglutaminase Antibodies in Patients with Abnormal Liver Tests: Is It Always Coeliac Disease?

BACKGROUND:Coeliac disease (CD) is found in 5–10% of patients with chronically abnormal liver tests and no obvious cause of liver disease. In this population the efficacy of screening for CD by anti-tissue transglutaminase (anti-tTG) may be impaired by the high rate of positive anti-tTG found in chronic liver disease.AIMS:To evaluate the prevalence of coeliac disease and the role of anti-tTG in patients with non-viral, non-autoimmune chronic and no obvious cause of liver damage.METHODS:Out of 2,512 consecutive patients with abnormal liver tests, 168 (118 men, 50 women; mean age 40.7 ± 12.6 years) were defined, on the basis of clinical data and liver biopsy, as NAFLD or cryptogenic chronic hepatitis. All were tested by recombinant IgA and IgG anti-tissue transglutaminase. Patients with a positive serology underwent endoscopy with duodenal biopsies.RESULTS:NAFLD was diagnosed in 121 patients, in 6 associated with cirrhosis, while 47 patients were considered as cryptogenic hepatitis in the absence of steatosis. Anti-tTG were positive in 20/168 patients (3 IgA alone; 11 IgG alone; 6 both IgA and IgG). Coeliac disease was found at endoscopy and confirmed by histopathology only in the 6 patients (3.6%) with both IgA and IgG anti-tTG positivity. Four of the patients with CD had NAFLD (3.3%), in 2 of them associated with cirrhosis; while 2 of those with cryptogenic hepatitis (4.2%) had CD.CONCLUSIONS:The prevalence of CD in patients with chronically abnormal liver tests of unexplained etiology is 4%, with no relation with the degree of liver steatosis. Screening should be done by testing for IgA and IgG antibodies and then evaluating by endoscopy and biopsy only patients positive for both.
Incidence of Pancreatitis and Pancreatic Cancer in a Randomized Controlled Multicenter Trial (SAVOR-TIMI 53) of the Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4 Inhibitor Saxagliptin

OBJECTIVE To determine the incidence of pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer in the SAVOR-TIMI 53 trial. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 16,492 type 2 diabetic patients ≥40 years old with established cardiovascular (CV) disease or CV risk factors were randomized to saxagliptin or placebo and followed for 2.1 years. Outcome measures were investigator reported with blinded expert adjudication of total pancreatitis (acute and chronic) and reported cases of pancreatic cancer. RESULTS Trial investigators reported 35 events of pancreatitis in each treatment arm in 63 patients (33 [0.40%] in the saxagliptin arm and 30 [0.37%] in control arm), with a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.09 (95% CI 0.66–1.79, P = 0.80). Adjudication confirmed pancreatitis in 24 patients (26 events) in the saxagliptin arm (0.29%) and 21 patients (25 events) in placebo arm (0.26%), with an HR of 1.13 (0.63–2.06, P = 0.77). Cases of definite acute pancreatitis were confirmed in 17 (0.2%) vs. 9 (0.1%) (HR 1.88 [0.86–4.41], P = 0.17), definite plus possible pancreatitis in 22 vs. 16 (HR 1.36 [0.72–2.64], P = 0.42), and chronic pancreatitis in 2 vs. 6 (HR 0.33 [0.05–1.44], P = 0.18) in the saxagliptin and placebo arms, respectively. No differences in time to event onset, concomitant risk factors for pancreatitis, investigator-reported causality from study medication or disease severity, and outcome were found between treatment arms. The investigators reported 5 and 12 cases of pancreatic cancer in the saxagliptin and placebo arms, respectively (HR 0.42 [0.13–1.12], P = 0.09). CONCLUSIONS In the SAVOR-TIMI 53 trial, within 2.1 years of follow-up, risk for pancreatitis in type 2 diabetic patients treated with saxagliptin was low and apparently similar to placebo, with no sign of increased risk for pancreatic cancer. Further studies are needed to completely resolve the pancreatic safety issues with incretin-based therapy.
Edward Stuart Russell Form and Function ( 1916 ) , by

In 1916, at the age of twenty-nine, Edward Stuart Russell [4] published his first major work, Form and Function [3]: a Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology. This book has maintained wide readership among scientists and historians since its initial publication, and today is generally recognized as the first modern, sustained study of the history of morphology [5]. In particular, Form and Function [3] incorporates an extensive theoretical analysis of the relationship between embryological studies and comparative morphology [5] in the nineteenth century. Russell employs a history-of-ideas approach in this book, describing the most significant morphologists and their theories. The first chapters of Form and Function [3] discuss early investigators into morphology [5], such as Hippocrates [6] and Aristotle [7]. The book concludes with a discussion of the opening decade of the twentieth century and the works of Russell? s contemporaries, such as Ernst Mehnert [8], Hans Driesch [9], Oscar Hertwig, and Albert Oppel [10]. The broad structure of these chapters, and thus Russell? s overall history, is organized into three main ? currents? : a functionalist approach, which includes evolutionary morphologists; a transcendental or idealistic morphology [5]; and finally a focus on experimental embryology [11] or ? causal morphology [5],? to use Russell? s terminology. Consequently the overall framework of Form and Function [3] explains the emerging importance of embryology [11] for an understanding of biological form.
Deep Multimodal Speaker Naming

Automatic speaker naming is the problem of localizing as well as identifying each speaking character in a TV/movie/live show video. This is a challenging problem mainly attributes to its multimodal nature, namely face cue alone is insufficient to achieve good performance. Previous multimodal approaches to this problem usually process the data of different modalities individually and merge them using handcrafted heuristics. Such approaches work well for simple scenes, but fail to achieve high performance for speakers with large appearance variations. In this paper, we propose a novel convolutional neural networks (CNN) based learning framework to automatically learn the fusion function of both face and audio cues. We show that without using face tracking, facial landmark localization or subtitle/transcript, our system with robust multimodal feature extraction is able to achieve state-of-the-art speaker naming performance evaluated on two diverse TV series. The dataset and implementation of our algorithm are publicly available online.
InterProSurf: a web server for predicting interacting sites on protein surfaces

UNLABELLED A new web server, InterProSurf, predicts interacting amino acid residues in proteins that are most likely to interact with other proteins, given the 3D structures of subunits of a protein complex. The prediction method is based on solvent accessible surface area of residues in the isolated subunits, a propensity scale for interface residues and a clustering algorithm to identify surface regions with residues of high interface propensities. Here we illustrate the application of InterProSurf to determine which areas of Bacillus anthracis toxins and measles virus hemagglutinin protein interact with their respective cell surface receptors. The computationally predicted regions overlap with those regions previously identified as interface regions by sequence analysis and mutagenesis experiments. AVAILABILITY The InterProSurf web server is available at http://curie.utmb. edu/
Payment Certainty in Discrete Choice Contingent Valuation Responses: Results from a Field Validity Test

Two methods for calibrating discrete choice contingent valuation responses – the dichotomous choice with followup certainty question method of Champ et al. (1997) and the multiple bounded method of Welsh and Poe (1998) – are evaluated using data from a field validity comparison of hypothetical and actual participation decisions in a green electricity pricing program. Both calibration methods can produce hypothetical participation levels that closely correspond with actual program participation rates. However, the two methods demonstrate procedural variance as they yield significantly different underlying distributions of willingness to pay.
Effects of NP type in reading cleft sentences in English

This paper investigates factors which contribute to the complexity of English sentences with long-distance dependencies. Two hypotheses were compared: (1) increased referential processing between the endpoints of a dependency increases processing difficulty at the completion of the dependency (Gibson, 1998, 2000; Warren & Gibson, 2002) and (2) increased similarity between NPs awaiting role-assignment increases memory interference during retrieval (Gordon, Hendrick, & Johnson, 2001). Self-paced word-by-word moving-window reading times were gathered over object-extracted cleft sentences in which two NPs were varied among definite descriptions, first names, and pronouns. Reading times at the verb supported both hypotheses. As the referential hypothesis predicted, reading times were faster when the intervening subject NP had a more referentially accessible type. Consistent with the similarity hypothesis, reading times were slow when both NPs were names or descriptions. Later comprehension measures showed strong effects of similarity-based interference, but did not show effects of referential processing load.
Two‐dimensional electrophoresis investigation of short‐term response of flax seedlings to a cold shock

The flax, Linum usitatissimum L. , is particularly suitable for studying the transduction and long‐term signal storage of environmental signals. To investigate the underlying molecular mechanisms, we have focused on the initial changes in the proteome since these offer the possibility of reflecting the plant's history of exposure to stress. In principle, this ‘proteome signature’ might be revealed by two‐dimensional electrophoresis (2‐DE). We have therefore determined the potential of 2‐DE to study the kinetics of changes to the proteome of flax induced by a 1 min cold shock. Protein identification is difficult with flax because of the lack of knowledge of gene sequences. Nevertheless, 2‐DE analysis can be informative providing the significance of changes can be evaluated. We have developed a stringent threshold method to determine the significance of changes in gels obtained with proteins extracted from hypocotyls at different times after cold shock. This allowed us to reliably detect and characterize the kinetics of a set of seven spots that responded to cold shock and that constitute candidates for a proteome signature of long‐term signal storage.
Entropic origin of Mg2+-facilitated RNA folding

Mg2+ is essential for the proper folding and function of RNA, though the effect of Mg2+ concentration on the free energy, enthalpy, and entropy landscapes of RNA folding is unknown. This work exploits temperature-controlled single-molecule FRET methods to address the thermodynamics of RNA folding pathways by probing the intramolecular docking/undocking kinetics of the ubiquitous GAAA tetraloop−receptor tertiary interaction as a function of [Mg2+]. These measurements yield the barrier and standard state enthalpies, entropies, and free energies for an RNA tertiary transition, in particular, revealing the thermodynamic origin of [Mg2+]-facilitated folding. Surprisingly, these studies reveal that increasing [Mg2+] promotes tetraloop–receptor interaction by reducing the entropic barrier () and the overall entropic penalty () for docking, with essentially negligible effects on both the activation enthalpy () and overall exothermicity (). These observations contrast with the conventional notion that increasing [Mg2+] facilitates folding by minimizing electrostatic repulsion of opposing RNA helices, which would incorrectly predict a decrease in and with [Mg2+]. Instead we propose that higher [Mg2+] can aid RNA folding by decreasing the entropic penalty of counterion uptake and by reducing disorder of the unfolded conformational ensemble.