Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Human photoreceptor outer segments shorten during light adaptation.

PURPOSE Best disease is a macular dystrophy caused by mutations in the BEST1 gene. Affected individuals exhibit a reduced electro-oculographic (EOG) response to changes in light exposure and have significantly longer outer segments (OS) than age-matched controls. The purpose of this study was to investigate the anatomical changes in the outer retina during dark and light adaptation in unaffected and Best disease subjects, and to compare these changes to the EOG. METHODS Unaffected (n = 11) and Best disease patients (n = 7) were imaged at approximately 4-minute intervals during an approximately 40-minute dark-light cycle using spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). EOGs of two subjects were obtained under the same conditions. Automated three-dimensional (3-D) segmentation allowed measurement of light-related changes in the distances between five retinal surfaces. RESULTS In normal subjects, there was a significant decrease in outer segment equivalent length (OSEL) of -2.14 μm (95% confidence interval [CI], -1.77 to -2.51 μm) 10 to 20 minutes after the start of light adaptation, while Best disease subjects exhibited a significant increase in OSEL of 2.07 μm (95% CI, 1.79-2.36 μm). The time course of the change in OS length corresponded to that of the EOG waveform. CONCLUSIONS Our results strongly suggest that the light peak phase of the EOG is temporally related to a decreased OSEL in normal subjects, and the lack of a light peak phase in Best disease subjects is associated with an increase in OSEL. One potential role of Bestrophin-1 is to trigger an increase in the standing potential that approximates the OS to the apical surface of the RPE to facilitate phagocytosis.
El ojo de Dios no mira signos. Desarrollo temprano y semiótica

Resumen En este artículo analizamos el recorrido de la obra de Ángel Rivière desde que comienza a introducir una lectura semiótica, con la influencia de Leslie o Bateson, hasta que su interés por los signos, desde las tesis de Vygotski, se vuelve sistemático para comprender el desarrollo temprano. A través de la interpretación semiótica de Rivière reflexionamos acerca de algunos de los temas cruciales que articulan desarrollo y signos prelingüísticos, tales como: el signo como inferencia, el significado del signo como función del uso, los signos permiten el análisis microgenético de procesos de interacción on line, los signos y la comunicación intencional, los signos y las interacciones triádicas de acción conjunta, o la difícil articulación entre usos de objetos y signos. También aludimos al interés de introducir una lectura semiótica con los niños de riesgo.
Anthropometric Changes Using a Walking Intervention in African American Breast Cancer Survivors: A Pilot Study

Introduction African American women exhibit a higher mortality rate from breast cancer than do white women. African American women are more likely to gain weight at diagnosis, which may increase their risk of cancer recurrence and comorbidities. Physical activity has been shown to decrease body mass index and improve quality of life in cancer survivors. This study was designed to evaluate the feasibility and impact of a community-based exercise intervention in African American breast cancer survivors. Methods A theory-based eight-week community intervention using pedometers with scheduling, goal setting, and self-assessment was tested in a convenience sample of African American breast cancer survivors (n = 24). Data were collected at three time points to examine changes in steps walked per day, body mass index, and other anthropometric measures, attitudes, and demographic variables. Results Statistically significant increases in steps walked per day and attitude toward exercise as well as significant decreases in body mass index, body weight, percentage of body fat, and waist, hip, and forearm circumferences, as well as blood pressure, were reported from baseline to immediate post-intervention. Positive changes were retained or improved further at three-month follow-up except for attitude toward exercise. Participant retention rate during eight-week intervention was 92%. Conclusion Increasing walking for exercise, without making other changes, can improve body mass index, anthropometric measures, and attitudes, which are associated with improved quality of life and reduced risk of cancer recurrence. The high participant retention rate, along with significant study outcomes, demonstrate that among this sample of African American breast cancer survivors, participants were motivated to improve their exercise habits.
In Vitro Controlled Release of Alfuzosin Hydrochloride Using HPMC-Based Matrix Tablets and Its Comparison with Marketed Product

The present study is an attempt to formulate a controlled-release matrix tablet formulation for alfuzosin hydrochloride by using low viscous hydroxy propyl methyl cellulose (HPMC K-100 and HPMC 15cps) and its comparison with marketed product. Different batches of tablets containing 10 mg of alfuzosin were prepared by direct compression technique and evaluated for their physical properties, drug content, and in vitro drug release. All the formulations had a good physical integrity, and the drug content between the batches did not vary by more than 1%. Drug release from the matrix tablets was carried out for 12 hr and showed that the release rate was not highly significant with different ratios of HPMC K-100 and HPMC15cps. Similar dissolution profiles were observed between formulation F3 and the marketed product throughout the study period. The calculated regression coefficients showed a higher r2 value with zero-order kinetics and Higuchi model in all the cases. Although both the models could be applicable, zero-order kinetics seems to be better. Hence, it can be concluded that the use of low viscous hydrophilic polymer of different grades (HPMC K-100 and HPMC 15cps) can control the alfuzosin release for a period of 12 hr and was comparable to the marketed product.
Softbots as Testbeds for Machine Learning

\If you want to think about thinking, you have to think about thinking about something. " | Seymour Papert A softbot (software robot) is a program that interacts with a software environment by issuing commands and interpreting the environment's feedback. Because softbots are much easier to build than physical robots, softbots are an attractive substrate for machine-learning and agentarchitecture research. To illustrate this point, we consider Rodney, a UNIX 1 softbot under development at the University of Washington. Rodney uses prodigy as its planner and the theo frame system to represent its world model. Custom-built execution and sensing modules allow Rodney to interact with a UNIX shell in real time.
38 Color Constancy

Vision is useful because it informs us about the physical environment. In the case of colm~ two distinct functions are generally emphasized (e.g., Jacobs, 1981; Mollon, 1989). First, color helps to segment objects from each other and the background. A canonical task for this function is locating fruit in foliage (Regan et al., 2001; Sumner & Mollon, 2000). Second, color provides infm' mation about object properties (e.g., fresh fish versus old fish; figure 38.1). Using color for this second function is enabled to the extent that perceived object color correlates well with object reflectance properties. Achieving such correlation is a nontrivial requirement, however, because the spectrum of the light reflected from an object confounds variation in object surface reflectance with variation in the illumination (figure In particular, the spectrum of the reflected light is the wavelength-by-wavelength product of the spectrum of the illumination and the object's surface reflectance function (figure 38.2B). The dependence of the reflected light on illumination leads to ambiguity about object reflectance because changes in the spectrum of the reflected light can arise from changes in object reflectance, changes in illumination , or both. Despite this ambiguity, color appearance is often quite stable across illumination changes 2004). The approximate invariance of object color appearance is called color constancy. VVhen color con-c-stan<:yfails, as in the case of Uluru (figure 38.2A), it is prterwJmc:n<m to remark on. how biological information processing informational ambiguity is a priority for vision Object perception provides a model system for moving characterization forward. chapter provides an update on the treatment of constancy that appeared in the first edition of this (Brainard, 2004). Our emphasis here is to provide a self-contained introduction, to highlight some more recent results, and to outline what we see as important challenges for the field. We focus on key concepts and avoid much in the way of technical development. Other recent treatments complement the one provided here and provide a level of technical detail beyond that introduced in this chapter The study of constancy requires methods for measuring it. The classic approach to such measurement is to assess the extent to which the color appearance of objects varies as they are viewed under different illuminations. Helson (1938; Helson & Jeffers, 1940), for example, trained observers to use a color-naming system (Munsell notation) and then had them name the colors of surfaces viewed under different illuminants. He found very good constancy …
Homophilic Interactions of the Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) Ectodomain Are Regulated by the Loop Region and Affect β-Secretase Cleavage of APP*

We found previously by fluorescence resonance energy transfer experiments that amyloid precursor protein (APP) homodimerizes in living cells. APP homodimerization is likely to be mediated by two sites of the ectodomain and a third site within the transmembrane sequence of APP. We have now investigated the role of the N-terminal growth factor-like domain in APP dimerization by NMR, biochemical, and cell biological approaches. Under nonreducing conditions, the N-terminal domain of APP formed SDS-labile and SDS-stable complexes. The presence of SDS was sufficient to convert native APP dimers entirely into monomers. Addition of an excess of a synthetic peptide (APP residues 91-116) containing the disulfide bridge-stabilized loop inhibited cross-linking of pre-existing SDS-labile APP ectodomain dimers. Surface plasmon resonance analysis revealed that this peptide specifically bound to the N-terminal domain of APP and that binding was entirely dependent on the oxidation of the thiol groups. By solution-state NMR we detected small chemical shift changes indicating that the loop peptide interacted with a large protein surface rather than binding to a defined pocket. Finally, we studied the effect of the loop peptide added to the medium of living cells. Whereas the levels of α-secretory APP increased, soluble β-cleaved APP levels decreased. Because Aβ40 and Aβ42 decreased to similar levels as soluble β-cleaved APP, we conclude either that β-secretase binding to APP was impaired or that the peptide allosterically affected APP processing. We suggest that APP acquires a loop-mediated homodimeric state that is further stabilized by interactions of hydrophobic residues of neighboring domains.
There is No Exclusion Problem

Many philosophers want to say both that everything is determined by the physical and subject to physical laws and principles, and that certain mental entities cannot be identified with any physical entities. The problem of mental causation is to make these two assumptions compatible with the causal efficacy of the mental. The concern is that this physicalist picture of the world leaves no space for the causal efficacy of anything non-physical. The physical, as it is sometimes said, excludes anything non-physical from doing causal work. The general shape of the problem is not new. Leibniz famously argued that Descartes's conception of the relationship between mind and body had no place for mental causation. On Descartes's view, according to Leibniz, the mind can only affect the body by changing the 'direction of motion' of the body's 'animal spirits'. Descartes had held that in this way the total 'quantity of motion' was conserved in psychophysical interaction. But Leibniz claimed that what should be conserved in these interactions is not quantity of motion but (as we would now put it) quantity of momentum (mass times velocity). So the mind cannot alter the direction of motion of the animal spirits without altering the quantity of momentum in the physical world. The physical law that Leibniz took himself to have discovered excludes the mental from making a causal difference. 1 Leibniz's objection to Descartes was based on his view of the nature of the physical world. Contemporary philosophers also see the problem of mental causation as arising from assumptions about the physical world (see Papineau 1990). Partly because of the need to accommodate mental causation given these assumptions, many philosophers have sought to find a more intimate connection between the mental and the physical, holding that mental entities are determined by or constituted by physical
&#x03BC;*-Tree: An Ordered Index Structure for NAND Flash Memory with Adaptive Page Layout Scheme

As NAND flash memory is gaining popularity as a storage medium for mobile embedded devices, many flash-aware file systems, flash-aware DBMSes, and flash translation layers (FTLs) require an flash-efficient index structure. This paper proposes a novel index structure called μ*-Tree which natively works on NAND flash memory, aiming at improving performance over B+-Tree. μ*-Tree stores all the nodes along the path from the root to the leaf into a single flash memory page in order to minimize the number of flash write operation when a node is updated. Furthermore, μ*-Tree has an adaptive page layout scheme which dynamically adjusts the page layout according to the workload characteristics on-the-fly. μ*-Tree also allows flash pages with different page layouts to coexist in the same tree. Our evaluation results with real workload traces show that μ*-Tree outperforms B+-Tree by up to 55 percent in terms of the time needed for flash operations. With a small in-memory cache of 32 KB, μ*-Tree improves the overall performance by up to five times compared to B+-Tree with the same cache size.
Nonextendible Latin Cuboids

We show that for all integers $m \geqslant 4$ there exists a $2m\times 2m\times m$ latin cuboid that cannot be completed to a $2m\times 2m\times 2m$ latin cube. We also show that for all even $m>2$ there exists a $(2m{-}1)\times(2m{-}1)\times(m{-}1)$ latin cuboid that cannot be extended to any $(2m{-}1)\times(2m{-}1)\times m$ latin cuboid.
Active Transport and Inotropic State in Guinea Pig Left Atrium

Although the positive inotropic effect of cardiac glycosides correlates well with inhibition of Na+ pump activity in many preparations, digitalis at low concentrations (10−9 to 10−8M) may produce an apparent stimulation of monovalent cation transport in isolated intact myocar-dium or produce an inotropic effect that does not correlate with pump inhibition. Digitalis is known to modify tissue metabolism of endogenous neurotransmitters that may affect inotropic state, Na,K-ATPase activity, and K+ permeability. We examined the interactions of low concentrations of ouabain with adrenergic and cholinergic influences in isolated guinea pig left atria stimulated at 3.3 Hz in which inotropic state and monovalent cation transport (measured as 86Rb+ uptake) were assessed simultaneously. Ouabain (10−9 M) stimulated Rb+ transport (+25%) without an inotropic response; the stimulatory effect on transport was abolished by propranolol or atropine pretreatment. In atria pretreated with atropine, 10−8 M ouabain produced a small positive inotropic effect (+10%) without measurable associated Na+-K+ pump inhibition. This inotropic response was abolished in catecholamine-depleted atria. Ouabain (10−7 M) always produced a positive inotropic response (about +25%) independent of catecholamine depletion, β-adrenergic blockade, or muscarinic blockade, but Rb+ uptake inhibition was observed only in β-adrenergically-blocked atria. In all preparations, ouabain concentrations greater than 10−7 M caused an inotropic response associated with pump inhibition. At concentrations 3 × 10−7 M and higher, mechanical toxicity was observed in all preparations except those pretreated with propranolol. Incubation with low concentrations of ouabain did not modify the inotropic response to isoproterenol. At concentrations of isoproterenol sufficient to stimulate Rb+ transport by 25%, there was a large (+80%) inotropic response. We conclude first, that, in guinea pig atria exposed to ouabain, the mechanism as well as the extent of inotropic response and of monovalent cation transport modification is concentration dependent, second, that at low concentrations (1–10 × 109 M), in vitro inotropic and monovalent cation transport responses are in part mediated by an effect of ouabain on endogenous neurotransmitters; and third, that in this preparation at concentrations between 10−9 and 10−7 M ouabain, monovalent cation transport as measured by tissue 86Rb+ uptake does not correlate with inotropic response.
Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique

Neuroscience has been fixated on the life of the psychological self for the past fifty years, focusing on the brain systems underlying language, memory, emotion, and perception. What it has not done is consider the stark reality that most of the time we humans are thinking about social processes, comparing ourselves to and estimating the intentions of others. In Human, Gazzaniga explores a number of related issues, including what makes human brains unique, the importance of language and art in defining the human condition, the nature of human consciousness, and even artificial intelligence.
Detection and localization of change points in temporal networks with the aid of stochastic block models

A framework based on generalized hierarchical random graphs (GHRGs) for the detection of change points in the structure of temporal networks has recently been developed by Peel and Clauset (2015 Proc. 29th AAAI Conf. on Artificial Intelligence). We build on this methodology and extend it to also include the versatile stochastic block models (SBMs) as a parametric family for reconstructing the empirical networks. We use five different techniques for change point detection on prototypical temporal networks, including empirical and synthetic ones. We find that none of the considered methods can consistently outperform the others when it comes to detecting and locating the expected change points in empirical temporal networks. With respect to the precision and the recall of the results of the change points, we find that the method based on a degree-corrected SBM has better recall properties than other dedicated methods, especially for sparse networks and smaller sliding time window widths.
Indian research on aging and dementia

All the articles published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry (IJP) from 1958 to 2009 on aging, dementia and other mental health issues of late life were systematically reviewed. There were only a limited number of research articles on dementia in the IJP. Most of the Indian studies on dementia were published elsewhere. People above the age of 60 years constitute about 5% of patients seen in tertiary care settings. High prevalence of psychiatric morbidity was reported among community resident older people. Depression was the commonest mental health problem in late life. We need to develop community-based interventions for management of common conditions like depression in late life. The effectiveness of these interventions needs to be established. It is important to identify risk factors for depression and dementia in our population. We could then try and modify these factors to reduce the prevalence of these conditions.
A Naturally Occurring Lgr4 Splice Variant Encodes a Soluble Antagonist Useful for Demonstrating the Gonadal Roles of Lgr4 in Mammals

Leucine-rich repeat containing G protein-coupled receptor 4 (LGR4) promotes the Wnt signaling through interaction with R-spondins or norrin. Using PCR amplification from rat ovarian cDNAs, we identified a naturally occurring Lgr4 splice variant encoding only the ectodomain of Lgr4, which was named Lgr4-ED. Lgr4-ED can be detected as a secreted protein in the extracts from rodent and bovine postnatal gonads, suggesting conservation of Lgr4-ED in mammals. Recombinant Lgr4-ED purified from the conditioned media of transfected 293T cells was found to dose-dependently inhibit the LGR4-mediated Wnt signaling induced by RSPO2 or norrin, suggesting that it is capable of ligand absorption and could have a potential role as an antagonist. Intraperitoneal injection of purified recombinant Lgr4-ED into newborn mice was found to significantly decrease the testicular expression of estrogen receptor alpha and aquaporin 1, which is similar to the phenotype found in Lgr4-null mice. Administration of recombinant Lgr4-ED to superovulated female rats can also decrease the expression of estrogen receptor alpha, aquaporin 1, LH receptor and other key steroidogenic genes as well as bring about the suppression of progesterone production. Thus, these findings suggest that endogenously expressed Lgr4-ED may act as an antagonist molecule and help to fine-tune the R-spondin/norrin-mediated Lgr4-Wnt signaling during gonadal development.
Hyperlipidemia-Triggered Neutrophilia Promotes Early Atherosclerosis

Background— Inflammation and activation of immune cells are key mechanisms in the development of atherosclerosis. Previous data indicate important roles for monocytes and T lymphocytes in lesion formation, whereas the contribution of neutrophils remains to be firmly established. Here, we investigate the effect of hypercholesterolemia on peripheral neutrophil counts, neutrophil recruitment to atherosclerotic lesions, and the importance of neutrophils in atherosclerotic lesion formation in Apoe−/− mice. Methods and Results— Hypercholesterolemia induces neutrophilia, which was attributable to enhanced granulopoiesis and enhanced mobilization from the bone marrow. The degree of hypercholesterolemia-induced neutrophilia was positively correlated with the extent of early atherosclerotic lesion formation. In turn, neutropenic mice display reduced plaque sizes at early but not late stages of atherosclerotic lesion formation. Flow cytometry of enzymatically digested aortas further shows altered cellular plaque composition in neutropenic mice with reduced numbers of inflammatory monocytes and macrophages. Aortic neutrophil infiltration peaks 4 weeks after the start of a high-fat diet and decreases afterward. The recruitment of neutrophils to large arteries was found to depend on CCR1, CCR2, CCR5, and CXCR2, which contrasts to peripheral venous recruitment, which requires CCR2 and CXCR2 only. The involvement of CCR1 and CCR5 corresponded to the endothelial deposition of the platelet-derived chemokine CCL5 in arteries but not in veins. Conclusions— Our data provide evidence that hypercholesterolemia-induced neutrophilia is multifactorial and that neutrophils infiltrate arteries primarily during early stages of atherosclerosis. Collectively, these data suggest an important role of neutrophils in the initiation of atherosclerosis.
Chunk-Level Reordering of Source Language Sentences with Automatically Learned Rules for Statistical Machine Translation

In this paper, we describe a source-side reordering method based on syntactic chunks for phrase-based statistical machine translation. First, we shallow parse the source language sentences. Then, reordering rules are automatically learned from source-side chunks and word alignments. During translation, the rules are used to generate a reordering lattice for each sentence. Experimental results are reported for a Chinese-to-English task, showing an improvement of 0.5%--1.8% BLEU score absolute on various test sets and better computational efficiency than reordering during decoding. The experiments also show that the reordering at the chunk-level performs better than at the POS-level.