Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interaction of Cytochrome P450 3A Inhibitors with P-Glycoprotein

Many clinically important drug interactions occur due to inhibition of human liver cytochrome P450 3A (CYP3A) metabolism. The drug efflux pump P-glycoprotein (Pgp) can be an additional locus contributing to these drug interactions because there is overlap in drugs that are substrates for both proteins. We screened a number of CYP3A inhibitors (macrolide antibiotics, azole antifungals, and ergotpeptides) for their ability to interact with Pgp, compared with prototypical Pgp inhibitors. We used cell lines expressing human, mouse, and rat mdr1 genes. Pgp antagonism was defined by interactions of the drugs with four cell lines (LLC-PK1, L-MDR1, L-mdr1a, and L-mdr1b) using a microfluorometric calcein-AM assay and characterized for their inhibitor constant (K i) toward calcein-AM. The compounds were further defined for their ability to inhibit MDR1 by their effect on vinblastine accumulation into L-MDR1 cells. Representative compounds from each class of drugs were further tested as Pgp substrates, defined by the ability of human Pgp or mouse mdr1a/Pgp to transport them across a polarized kidney epithelial cell in vitro. These same compounds were administered radiolabeled in vivo to mdr1a (+/+) and (−/−) mice and the distribution of radioactivity compared. The results are summarized as follows: 1) Some drug interactions with Pgp were substrate- and/or assay-dependent. 2) Ergot alkaloids were identified as a class of MDR1/Pgp chemosensitizers. 3) The Ergot alkaloids revealed species differences in the structure-activity relationships for inhibition of Pgp. Simultaneous inhibition of Pgp by many CYP3A inhibitors contributes to human variation in the extent of drug-drug interactions.
A Comparison of the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC) and the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) for the Quantitative Evaluation of Autism

The purpose of this study was to evaluate scores generated from the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC), a parent–rated measure, and those derived from professionally completed Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) evaluations. A cohort of 56 participants diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder was used for the study, and each child was evaluated independently by the parent using the ATEC and a health care professional using the CARS. The Spearman's rank correlation statistic ρ was used to evaluate the correlation between ATEC and CARS scores. It was observed that there was a significant correlation between total ATEC and CARS scores (ρ = .71). Specific domains in the ATEC evaluation significantly correlated with CARS scores. Sensitivity, specificity, and receiver operating characteristic confirmed the association between CARS and ATEC domains. The results help to validate the utility of the parentally completed ATEC in comparison with an established, professional-related measure of autism.
Education Policy in the UK

Published by Centre for the Economics of Education London School of Economics Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE © Stephen Machin and Anna Vignoles, submitted December 2005 ISBN 07530 1853 5 Individual copy price: £5 The Centre for the Economics of Education is an independent research centre funded by the Department for Education and Skills. The views expressed in this work are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the DfES. All errors and omissions remain the authors.
Grid Frequency Control Design for Offshore Wind Farms with Naturally Commutated HVDC Link Connection

This paper considers the formal design for the offshore grid frequency control in an LCC HVDC connected wind farm. The control paradigm is based on using the grid frequency control to regulate the HVDC rectifier angle and hence control the power flow in the system. The dynamics of the system are derived and a grid frequency controller is designed. The mathematical analysis and the control design are verified through PSCAD simulation. Good modeling agreement is obtained for both open and closed loop systems and the work provides a good basis for wider research investigation into wind farm operation including fault behaviour.
Letter-Discrimination Errors in Kindergarten through Third Grade: Assessment and Operant Training1

Because of the implication of perceptual factors in reading retardation, a number of remedial perceptual-training programs have been developed. These have received some support in the research literature and have grown rapidly in acceptance and use over the past few years. Recently, however, a considerable number of studies have questioned the effectiveness of perceptual-training programs. Hammill (1972) recently reveiwed the literature on perceptual training:
Recombinant Duck Interferon Gamma Inhibits Duck Hepatitis B Virus Replication in Primary Hepatocytes

ABSTRACT Interferon gamma (IFN-γ), which has been cloned in several mammalian species and recently in birds, plays a critical role in modulating immune system function. IFN-γ and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) have been shown to be crucial in the pathogenesis of viral hepatitis and in the transient disappearance of hepatitis B virus (HBV) from the liver after adoptive transfer of HBV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes into HBV-transgenic mice. Similar studies in the natural animal hosts of related hepadnaviruses have been limited because the corresponding probes and recombinant cytokines were not available. For this reason, we initiated studies to clone and characterize cytokines from the duck, the natural host of the duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV). We describe here the cDNA cloning and initial characterization of the IFN-γ homologue of ducks (DuIFN-γ). The DuIFN-γ cDNA codes for a predicted mature protein of 145 amino acids with a molecular mass of 16.6 kDa. The precursor protein has 67% identity with the previously cloned chicken IFN-γ and 21 to 34% identity with mammalian IFN-γ. Recombinant DuIFN-γ induces the transcription of several IFN-inducible genes including IFN regulatory factor 1 and guanylate-binding protein, and it exhibits antiviral activity that protects duck cells from vesicular stomatitis virus-mediated lysis. Importantly, treatment of primary duck hepatocytes with recombinant DuIFN-γ inhibits DHBV replication in a dose-dependent fashion. Time course analysis revealed that IFN-γ treatment does not affect initial covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) conversion but inhibits the synthesis of progeny cccDNA by amplification.
A comparison of x-lets in denoising cDNA microarray images

Microarray technology has become a power tool in the field of bioinformatics. It is used to measure gene expression levels and similar to any other image capturing processes is prone to noise. There are different kinds of noise, during preparation, hybridization and scanning in microarray images which usually are modeled by Gaussian noise. Since introduction of wavelets in 1970s, many more forms and extensions of this transform have been developed and used, such as stationary wavelet transform (SWT), complex wavelet transform (CWT), curvelet transform (CURV) and contourlet transform (CNT). By developing of more sparse transforms, it is important to have a perspective of how efficient the transforms are in different applications, such as microarray image analysis. In this paper, we compare the efficiency of common sparse transforms including ordinary discrete wavelet transform (DWT), SWT, CWT, CURV, CNT, Contourlet-SD decomposition, steerable pyramid (STP) and shearlet transform (SHR) for microarray image denoising. Therefore after converting microarray image into x-let transform, BayesShrink method, soft and hard thresholding are used to perform denoising of these images. Both local and general thresholds are calculated for each subband in order to evaluate the effect of incorporating intrascale dependency on top of sparsity property in statistical modeling of x-let's coefficients. Our simulation results show that CWT and SHR outperforms the others when using global thresholding and SWT is the preferred transform when using local thresholding. Although STP and SHR have better performance for some criteria like structural similarity (SSIM) index, but CWT is faster.
Modeling for spectrum handoff based on secondary users with different priorities in cognitive radio networks

Storaci-Cognitive radio (CR) can improve spectrum utilization by allowing the secondary users to temporarily access the primary user's unutilized licensed spectrum. In fact, the secondary users' delay requirements for data transmission would be not unitary. Some secondary users' communications may be delay-sensitive such as VoIP service while some others may not such as uploading a large file. In this paper, secondary users are divided into two classes, class-1 secondary user denoted by SUI and class-2 secondary user denoted by SU2. Suppose SUI has a higher priority than SU2 to occupy the channels. In order to characterize the cumulative handoff delay of the secondary users with different priorities, a Markov transition model integrating with the preemptive resume priority (PRP) M/M/2 queuing network is investigated. The numerical results compare the handoff delay between the unitary secondary users and different priorities secondary users. The analysis of the admission region for SUI and SU2 can also facilitate the designs of admission control rules according to the latency delay requirements of different transmission services.
Cloning of the NCX2 isoform of the plasma membrane Na(+)-Ca2+ exchanger.

The Na(+)-Ca2+ exchanger is an important regulator of cellular Ca2+ levels, and one isoform of this transporter, NCX1, has been cloned previously (Nicoll, D.A., Longoni, S., and Philipson, K.D. (1990) Science 250, 562-565). We now report the cloning of a second isoform (NCX2) of the Na(+)-Ca2+ exchanger which was present in a rat brain cDNA library. NCX2 is predicted to code for a protein of 921 amino acids. NCX1 and NCX2 are 61 and 65% identical at the nucleotide and amino acid levels, respectively, and are the products of different genes. The genes for NCX1 and NCX2 are located on human chromosomes 2 and 14, respectively. Hydropathy profiles of the two exchangers are very similar. Transcripts of NCX2 are detected in brain and skeletal muscle. NCX2 was expressed in Xenopus oocytes and Na(+)-Ca2+ exchange activity was analyzed electrophysiologically by the giant inside-out, excised patch technique. Outward currents were evoked by the application of Na+ with the exchanger operating in the reversed mode (extracellular Ca2+ exchanging for intracellular Na+). The affinity for Na+ (30 mM) and the current-voltage relationship of NCX2 are similar to those for NCX1. Like NCX1, NCX2 is secondarily regulated by intracellular Ca2+, but the affinity of NCX2 for regulatory Ca2+ (1.5 microM) upon initial application of Na+ is lower than that of NCX1 (0.3 microM). The existence of multiple Na(+)-Ca2+ exchanger isoforms may provide flexibility for regulation and expression.
Cosmological recombination: feedback of helium photons and its effect on the recombination spectrum

In this paper, we consider the reprocessing of high-frequency photons emitted by He II and He I during the epoch of cosmological recombination by He I and H I. We demonstrate that, in comparison to computations which neglect all feedback processes, the number of cosmological recombination photons that are related to the presence of helium in the early Universe could be increased by ∼40―70 per cent. Our computations imply that per helium nucleus ∼3―6 additional photons could be produced. Therefore, a total of ∼12―14 helium-related photons per helium atom are emitted during cosmological recombination. This is an important addition to cosmological recombination spectrum which in the future may render it slightly easier to determine the primordial abundance of helium using differential measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) energy spectrum. Also, since these photons are the only witnesses of the feedback process at high redshift, observing them in principle offers a way to check our understanding of the recombination physics. Here, most interestingly, the feedback of He II photons on He I leads to the appearance of several additional, rather narrow spectral features in the He I recombination spectrum at low frequencies. Consequently, the signatures of helium-related features in the CMB spectral distortion from cosmological recombination at some given frequency can exceed the average level of ∼17 per cent several times. We find that in particular the bands around v ∼ 10, ∼35, ∼80 and ∼200 GHz seem to be affected strongly. In addition, we computed the changes in the cosmological ionization history, finding that only the feedback of primary He I photons on the dynamics of He II → He I recombination has an effect, producing a change of ΔN e /N e ∼ +0.17 per cent at z ∼ 2300. This result seems to be ∼2―3 times smaller than the one obtained in earlier computations for this process, however, the difference will not be very important for the analysis of future CMB data.
Signi"cance of randomneuronal drive

E! ectively random "ring occurs frequently in the brain. Randomcom ponents of neuronal drive are therefore often major in#uences on activity. We describe here how level of drive, inhibitory/excitatory balance, correlation between input streams, EPSP/IPSP characteristics, the nature of the postsynaptic neuron all a! ect pattern and level of "ring, the in#uence often interacting in complex ways. Random "ring might also be instrumental in facilitating synchronized "ring. These factors are possibly important elements of the mechanisms by which some neural networks encode information. Clarifying them might therefore facilitate a deeper understanding of the nature of the neural code. 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.
Human Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 7 (PRMT7) Is a Type III Enzyme Forming ω-NG-Monomethylated Arginine Residues*

Background: PRMT7 is a poorly characterized member of the family of protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs) that catalyze the modification of a wide group of proteins. Results: A bacterially expressed fusion protein of human PRMT7 produces only ω-monomethylated arginine (ω-MMA) derivatives. Conclusion: PRMT7 is a type III PRMT distinct from type I and type II PRMTs characterized to date. Significance: ω-MMA may be a distinct post-translational modification. Full-length human protein arginine methyltransferase 7 (PRMT7) expressed as a fusion protein in Escherichia coli was initially found to generate only ω-NG-monomethylated arginine residues in small peptides, suggesting that it is a type III enzyme. A later study, however, characterized fusion proteins of PRMT7 expressed in bacterial and mammalian cells as a type II/type I enzyme, capable of producing symmetrically dimethylated arginine (type II activity) as well as small amounts of asymmetric dimethylarginine (type I activity). We have sought to clarify the enzymatic activity of human PRMT7. We analyzed the in vitro methylation products of a glutathione S-transferase (GST)-PRMT7 fusion protein with robust activity using a variety of arginine-containing synthetic peptides and protein substrates, including a GST fusion with the N-terminal domain of fibrillarin (GST-GAR), myelin basic protein, and recombinant human histones H2A, H2B, H3, and H4. Regardless of the methylation reaction conditions (incubation time, reaction volume, and substrate concentration), we found that PRMT7 only produces ω-NG-monomethylarginine with these substrates. In control experiments, we showed that mammalian GST-PRMT1 and Myc-PRMT5 were, unlike PRMT7, able to dimethylate both peptide P-SmD3 and SmB/D3 to give the expected asymmetric and symmetric products, respectively. These experiments show that PRMT7 is indeed a type III human methyltransferase capable of forming only ω-NG-monomethylarginine, not asymmetric ω-NG,NG-dimethylarginine or symmetric ω-NG,NG′-dimethylarginine, under the conditions tested.
Using Expectancy-Value Theory to predict intent to conform in elementary school students

The present study sought to examine the relevance of expectancy-value theory in predicting conformity in elementary school students. Measures of self-expectancy and value for five different domains (academic, sports, dating, misbehavior, and following trends) were used to predict intended conformity to friend group norms. Regression analysis was used to measure the strength of the relationship in each domain. Results indicate that the expectancy-value model explained more variance in intent to conform than did general conformity in certain domains, and results varied by gender of participant.
Language-Independent Named Entity Analysis Using Parallel Projection and Rule-Based Disambiguation

The 2017 shared task at the Balto-Slavic NLP workshop requires identifying coarse-grained named entities in seven languages, identifying each entity’s base form, and clustering name mentions across the multilingual set of documents. The fact that no training data is provided to systems for building supervised classifiers further adds to the complexity. To complete the task we first use publicly available parallel texts to project named entity recognition capability from English to each evaluation language. We ignore entirely the subtask of identifying non-inflected forms of names. Finally, we create cross-document entity identifiers by clustering named mentions using a procedure-based approach.
First Presentation Acute Rheumatic Fever is Preventable in a Community Setting: A School-based Intervention

Background: Robust evidence is lacking for community initiatives to prevent first presentation acute rheumatic fever (ARF) by group A streptococcal (GAS) pharyngitis treatment. Methods: We measured the effect of introducing a sore throat clinic program on first presentation ARF into 61-year 1–8 schools with students 5–13 years of age (population ≈25,000) in Auckland, New Zealand. The study period was 2010–2016. A generalized linear mixed model investigated ARF rate changes before and after the staggered introduction of school clinics. Nurses and lay workers treated culture-proven GAS sore throats (including siblings) with 10 days of amoxicillin. ARF cases were identified from a population-based secondary prophylaxis register. Annual pharyngeal GAS prevalence was assessed in a subset. Results: ARF rates in 5–13 year olds dropped from 88 [95% confidence interval (CI): 79–111] per 100,000 preclinics to 37 (95% CI: 15–83) per 100,000 after 2 years of clinic availability, a 58% reduction. No change in rate was demonstrated before the introduction of clinics [P = 0.88; incidence risk ratio for a 1-year change: 0.98 (95% CI: 0.63–1.52)], but there was a significant decrease of first presentation ARF rates with time after the introduction of the sore throat program [P = 0.008; incidence risk ratio: 0.61 (95% CI: 0.43–0.88)]. Pharyngeal GAS cross-sectional prevalence fell from 22.4% (16.5–30.5) preintervention to 11.9% (8.6–16.5) and 11.4% (8.2–15.7) 1 or 2 years later (P = 0.005). Conclusions: ARF declined significantly after school-based GAS pharyngitis management using oral amoxicillin paralleled by a decline in pharyngeal GAS prevalence.
ProxImaL

Computational photography systems are becoming increasingly diverse, while computational resources---for example on mobile platforms---are rapidly increasing. As diverse as these camera systems may be, slightly different variants of the underlying image processing tasks, such as demosaicking, deconvolution, denoising, inpainting, image fusion, and alignment, are shared between all of these systems. Formal optimization methods have recently been demonstrated to achieve state-of-the-art quality for many of these applications. Unfortunately, different combinations of natural image priors and optimization algorithms may be optimal for different problems, and implementing and testing each combination is currently a time-consuming and error-prone process. ProxImaL is a domain-specific language and compiler for image optimization problems that makes it easy to experiment with different problem formulations and algorithm choices. The language uses proximal operators as the fundamental building blocks of a variety of linear and nonlinear image formation models and cost functions, advanced image priors, and noise models. The compiler intelligently chooses the best way to translate a problem formulation and choice of optimization algorithm into an efficient solver implementation. In applications to the image processing pipeline, deconvolution in the presence of Poisson-distributed shot noise, and burst denoising, we show that a few lines of ProxImaL code can generate highly efficient solvers that achieve state-of-the-art results. We also show applications to the nonlinear and nonconvex problem of phase retrieval.
Risk Factors of HIV and Other Sexually Transmitted Infections in China: A Systematic Review of Reviews

Background Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) are a global challenge. China, once said to have eradicated STIs, is now facing a rapid rise in the prevalence of HIV/STIs. This review of reviews aims to map HIV/STI risk factors among the Chinese population, with the objective of identifying risk factors to inform the formulation of effective prevention strategies. Methods A systematic search using key terms related to HIV/STIs, risk factors and the Chinese population in both English and Chinese databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, the Cochrane Library; Wanfang data, CNKI, VIP and SINOMED) was conducted, and peer-reviewed systematic reviews on the topic from 1991 to 2014 were selected. Identified risk factors were grouped into different level determinants based on the HIV Social Epidemiology Model, and then evaluated and reported based on the PRISMA checklist. Findings Of the twenty-eight reviews included, the majority were focused on well-established, individual level risk factors within key populations, with some highlighting the complexity of interacting factors (e.g., alcohol use and higher income in male migrants). While twenty-two reviews covered individual factors, only ten mentioned social factors and five had contents on structural factors. There are gaps in the evidence on social and structural level impacts of HIV/STIs, such as on stigma, discrimination, health policy, access to care, and illicit drug control policies. Migration and social expectation appear to pose a significant threat in aggravating the HIV/STI situation in China; for example, incarceration patterns indicated a significant risk of HIV/STIs for female sex workers. Conclusions Since international guidelines recommend an integrated and multi-level approach to HIV/STI prevention, a comprehensive approach targeting interventions at all levels along the continuum of care is needed to effectively curtail HIV/STI transmission in China. More research is needed to better understand the impact of socio-political interventions within a Chinese context.
Robot learning by observation based on Bayesian networks and game pattern graphs for human-robot game interactions

This paper describes a new learning by observation algorithm based on Bayesian networks and game pattern graphs. Even with minimal knowledge of a game or human instructions, the robot can learn the game rules by watching human demonstrators repeatedly play the game multiple times. Based on the knowledge acquired from this learning process, represented in Bayesian networks and game pattern graphs, the robot can play games as robustly as humans do. Our learning algorithm for human-robot game interaction is implemented using a teddy bear-like robot and is demonstrated by application to well-known social games, specifically rock-paper-scissors, muk-chi-ba and blackjack.