Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genome-Wide Quantitative Analysis of Histone H3 Lysine 4 Trimethylation in Wild House Mouse Liver: Environmental Change Causes Epigenetic Plasticity

In mammals, exposure to toxic or disease-causing environments can change epigenetic marks that are inherited independently of the intrauterine environment. Such inheritance of molecular phenotypes may be adaptive. However, studies demonstrating molecular evidence for epigenetic inheritance have so far relied on extreme treatments, and are confined to inbred animals. We therefore investigated whether epigenomic changes could be detected after a non-drastic change in the environment of an outbred organism. We kept two populations of wild-caught house mice (Mus musculus domesticus) for several generations in semi-natural enclosures on either standard diet and light cycle, or on an energy-enriched diet with longer daylight to simulate summer. As epigenetic marker for active chromatin we quantified genome-wide histone-3 lysine-4 trimethylation (H3K4me3) from liver samples by chromatin immunoprecipitation and high-throughput sequencing as well as by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The treatment caused a significant increase of H3K4me3 at metabolic genes such as lipid and cholesterol regulators, monooxygenases, and a bile acid transporter. In addition, genes involved in immune processes, cell cycle, and transcription and translation processes were also differently marked. When we transferred young mice of both populations to cages and bred them under standard conditions, most of the H3K4me3 differences were lost. The few loci with stable H3K4me3 changes did not cluster in metabolic functional categories. This is, to our knowledge, the first quantitative study of an epigenetic marker in an outbred mammalian organism. We demonstrate genome-wide epigenetic plasticity in response to a realistic environmental stimulus. In contrast to disease models, the bulk of the epigenomic changes we observed were not heritable.
Rethinking Initial Teacher Education for Further Education Teachers: From a standards‐led to a knowledge‐based approach

This paper is a critique of the initial teacher education (ITE) of further and adult education teachers in the UK. It argues that the employer‐led, national standards model in the UK is not the basis for ITE and professional development because it takes no account of learning in the workplace, disregards the multi‐specialist and professional dimensions of professional practice and marginalizes the importance of knowledge. In the critique of the “standards‐led model” the paper draws upon research and ideas on work‐based learning, seeing the learning of teachers in the workplace as a complex relationship with many “experts” in multiple, often conflicting learning contexts. The paper stresses the importance of seeing work‐based learning as more than just “learning by doing” to one that sees it as an intentional structuring of participatory activity. In other words, a “pedagogy of the workplace”. Finally the paper suggests that learning is not just a process of “participation”, but a learning zone where different types of knowledge and pedagogy are learnt and transformed. In highlighting the importance of knowledge the paper draws upon theories of professional knowledge that suggests that certain types of knowledge cannot be gained in the workplace alone, therefore focusing on the issues of the different types of knowledge, their acquisition and their transformation or recontextualisation.
Study of Financial Literacy and Interpersonal Influence on Self-Evaluation Bias-An Empirical Analysis with Chinese Sample

Based on the theoretical analysis, with first-hand data collection and using multiple regression models, this study explored the relationship between financial literacy, interpersonal influence and self-evaluation bias and figured out interactive effect of financial literacy, interpersonal influence on self-evaluation bias. We draw on the following conclusions: (1) Three financial literacy factors (sophisticated financial literacy, basic financial literacy and numeracy) entered into the regression equation on self-evaluation bias, with a predictive power of 14.8%. (2) The interaction term of financial literacy and coworkers/classmatesi¯ influence can negatively predict self-evaluation bias. (3) The interaction term of financial literacy and family membersi¯ influence can negatively predict self-evaluation bias.
On the Varieties and Utilities of Political Expertise

A catalog of the various political expertise and schema measures in use reveals little consensus among researchers and little basis for comparison across research programs. To examine the varieties of political expertise and their utilities in political information processing, virtually the entire battery of the available measures was given to a sample of Pittsburgh voters, who then read newspaper articles on political issues of current local interest. Confirmatory factor analysis of the expertise measures indicated a cluster of political knowledge, operationalized as (a) accurate consensual knowledge about liberals' and conservatives' issue stands, plus various individuals' and groups' ideological stands, (b) the issue stands of the president and one group, and (c) facts about the government. Other coherent dimensions of political expertise included political activity, print media use, electronic media use, and political self-schema. Structural equations supported political knowledge and print media usag.
Pharmacogenomics of acetaminophen in pediatric populations: a moving target

Acetaminophen (APAP) is widely used as an over-the-counter fever reducer and pain reliever. However, the current therapeutic use of APAP is not optimal. The inter-patient variability in both efficacy and toxicity limits the use of this drug. This is particularly an issue in pediatric populations, where tools for predicting drug efficacy and developmental toxicity are not well established. Variability in toxicity between age groups may be accounted for by differences in metabolism, transport, and the genetics behind those differences. While pharmacogenomics has been revolutionizing the paradigm of pharmacotherapy for many drugs, its application in pediatric populations faces significant challenges given the dynamic ontogenic changes in cellular and systems physiology. In this review we focused on the ontogenesis of the regulatory pathways involved in the disposition of APAP and on the variability between pediatric, adolescent, and adult patients. We also summarize important polymorphisms of the pharmacogenes associated with APAP metabolism. Pharmacogenetic studies in pediatric APAP treatment are also reviewed. We conclude that while a consensus in pharmacogenetic management of APAP in pediatric populations has not been achieved, a systems biology based strategy for comprehensively understanding the ontogenic regulatory pathway as well as the interaction between age and genetic variations are particularly necessary in order to address this question.
An elusive community? Lesbian usage of the Internet in South Africa

Abstract The initial celebratory response that hailed the Internet as some kind of utopia has been tempered, and gender scholars increasingly interrogate the Internet in relation to gender (in)justice. There is still a scarcity of work that engages with non-normative identities, and while there is a growing visibility of gay sexuality in the literature, lesbian usage is seldom considered – particularly in South Africa. Against the background of homophobia and limited Internet access, the article first presents an overview of sites relevant to lesbian users by mapping the South African lesbian web sphere, and categorising dating, lifestyle and political sites. It then considers the responses of lesbian users of the Internet as pertains to the value they ascribe to it. While the overview of the websites suggests a fragmented or elusive online lesbian community, the respondents insist on the value of the Internet as a space for community engagement. This contradiction points to the potential for personal and political engagement through the Internet – one that is arguably not yet fully realised.
Privacy Policies of Android Diabetes Apps and Sharing of Health Information.

Privacy Policies of Android Diabetes Apps and Sharing of Health Information Mobile health apps can help individuals manage chronic health conditions.1 One-fifth of smartphone owners had health apps in 2012,2 and 7% of primary care physicians recommended a health app.3 The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the prescription of some apps.4 Health apps can transmit sensitive medical data, including disease status and medication compliance. Privacy risks and the relationship between privacy disclosures and practices of health apps are understudied.
Association of Fibrosis in the Infrapatellar Fat Pad and Degenerative Cartilage Change of Patellofemoral Joint After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and risk factor of cartilage degeneration of patellofemoral joint (PFJ) that was diagnosed by second look arthroscopy in the short term follow-up period. Methods: One hundred seven patients who underwent ACL reconstruction were evaluated by preoperative MRI, postoperative MRI and second-look arthroscopy. Severity of infrapatellar fat pad (IPFP) fibrosis was evaluated by MRI at average of 26 months after ACL reconstruction. Cartilage degeneration was assessed by second look arthroscopy at 29 months. Results: Twenty-five patients (24.0%) showed cartilage degeneration of PFJ in second look arthroscopy. Patients were divided into 3 groups according to severity of IPFP fibrosis tissue i.e. Group A: focal and incomplete band fibrosis, n=69, Group B: complete band fibrosis, n=31, and Group C: diffuse and infiltrated fibrosis, n=7. Cartilage degeneration of PFJ was significantly worsened with more fibrosis formation of IPFP (p<0.001). Other factors for instabilities, BMI, age, concomitant meniscal procedure, time from injury to reconstruction, severity of IPFP fibrosis of preoperative MRI and clinical scores were not correlated with cartilage degeneration of PFJ. The multivariate logistic regression analysis of degeneration of PFJ after ACL reconstruction identified more severe fibrosis tissue formation of IPFP and initial cartilage defect as significant predictors. Conclusions: More extensive fibrosis tissue of IPFP and initial cartilage defect related to further degenerative change of PFJ. Age, BMI, concomitant meniscal procedure, time from injury to reconstruction, clinical scores and instability did not affect cartilage degeneration of PFJ in the short term follow-up period. Proton density sagittal MRI classifying IPFP fibrosis tissue Proton density sagittal MRI classifying IPFP fibrosis tissue a: focal and incomplete band fibrosis, b: complete band fibrosis, c: diffuse and infiltrated fibrosis
TRANSFECTION OF NORMAL HUMAN EPIDERMAL KERATINOCYTES WITH LIPID/DNA COMPLEXES IN VITRO

Highly proliferative normal human epidermal keratinocytes (NHK) were isolated from human foreskin biopsies, cultivated in serum-free medium and characterized by flow cytometry. The expression of cytokeratin 19, cytokeratin 14 and vimentin indicated that the suspension contained a high percentage of undifferentiated cells of the basal epidermal layer. The NHK were transfected in vitro with lipid/DNA complexes made of Effectene or Lipofectamine and different reporter genes. The transfection efficiency of Effectene/DNA complexes was 20fold higher compared to Lipofectamine. Transfected keratinocytes continued to grow and developed within 2 weeks a cellular multilayer (3-D culture). Areas of transfected cells were detected within this layer.
Therapy of Hepatitis C

In acute hepatitis C, the efficacy of alpha interferon has not been definitively demonstrated. However, several small trials have suggested that interferon may decrease the chronicity rate of acute hepatitis C. In view of the high rate of chronic infection resulting from acute hepatitis C, it is warranted to treat patients during the acute phase of illness if they continue to have HCV RNA detectable in serum for 1 month after the onset of symptoms. The regimen of alpha interferon therapy should be 3 mu three times weekly for 24 weeks. In chronic hepatitis C, therapy with 3-5 mu of alpha interferon three times weekly for 24-48 weeks will induce a temporary remission in disease with loss of HCV RNA from serum, fall of aminotransferases into the normal range, and improvement in liver histology in 50% of patients, and a sustained remission persisting after therapy is stopped in 15% to 20% of patients. Younger patients with a short duration of disease, without cirrhosis, and with lower levels of HCV RNA in serum are the most likely to respond. Unfortunately, there are no completely reliable means of predicting which patients will derive long-term benefits from the use of interferon. Interferon remains the only approved therapy for chronic hepatitis C, although the low rate of sustained remissions and the incidence of side effects mandate a search for ways to improve the efficacy of interferon, as well as to find new, more potent agents for the treatment of this disease.
What Sleeping Babies Hear : An fMRI Study of Interparental Conflict and Infants ’ Emotion Processing

Experiences of adversity in the early years of life alter the developing brain. However, evidence documenting this relationship often focuses on severe stressors and relies on peripheral measures of neurobiological functioning during infancy. The present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during natural sleep to examine associations between a more moderate environmental stressor (non-physical interparental conflict), and 6–12 month-old infants’ neural processing of emotional tone of voice. The primary question was whether interparental conflict experienced by infants is associated with neural responses to emotional tone of voice, particularly very angry speech. Results indicated that maternal report of higher interparental conflict was associated with infants’ heightened neural responses to very angry versus neutral speech across several brain regions implicated in emotion and stress reactivity and regulation (including rostral anterior cingulate cortex, caudate, thalamus and hypothalamus) – suggesting that even moderate environmental stress may be associated with brain functioning during infancy.
The Arabidopsis Na+/H+ Antiporters NHX1 and NHX2 Control Vacuolar pH and K+ Homeostasis to Regulate Growth, Flower Development, and Reproduction[C][W]

This work examined the functions of NHX1 and NHX2, two members of the Arabidopsis thaliana Na+/H+ antiporter family, in cell growth and flower development, demonstrating that NHX1 and NHX2 regulate intravacuolar potassium and pH to control cell expansion. Plants lacking NHX1 and NHX2 displayed flower defects, lack siliques, have short hypocotyls and are sensitive to extracellular potassium but not sodium. Intracellular Na+/H+ (NHX) antiporters have important roles in cellular pH and Na+, K+ homeostasis. The six Arabidopsis thaliana intracellular NHX members are divided into two groups, endosomal (NHX5 and NHX6) and vacuolar (NHX1 to NHX4). Of the vacuolar members, NHX1 has been characterized functionally, but the remaining members have largely unknown roles. Using reverse genetics, we show that, unlike the single knockouts nhx1 or nhx2, the double knockout nhx1 nhx2 had significantly reduced growth, smaller cells, shorter hypocotyls in etiolated seedlings and abnormal stamens in mature flowers. Filaments of nhx1 nhx2 did not elongate and lacked the ability to dehisce and release pollen, resulting in a near lack of silique formation. Pollen viability and germination was not affected. Quantification of vacuolar pH and intravacuolar K+ concentrations indicated that nhx1 nhx2 vacuoles were more acidic and accumulated only 30% of the wild-type K+ concentration, highlighting the roles of NHX1 and NHX2 in mediating vacuolar K+/H+ exchange. Growth under added Na+, but not K+, partly rescued the flower and growth phenotypes. Our results demonstrate the roles of NHX1 and NHX2 in regulating intravacuolar K+ and pH, which are essential to cell expansion and flower development.
AC bus distributed bidirectional contactless charging station

The demand for more Electric Vehicles (EVs) will increase the power distribution requirements of future EV charging stations (CS). To increase safety and reduce CS maintenance time, the CSs have to be developed with contactless systems. The work presented in this paper describes a parallel connected multi-point bidirectional contactless charging station. An operating framework of CS is described to manage the interactions of EVs between parallel connections of multiple charging systems that share a common ac bus network. The individual charging systems are controlled to control the charging and discharging process of each EVs and avoids distribution grid congestion, while satisfying the requirements of EV owners. A control strategy is used, which estimates the line voltage, frequency and state of charge levels of EVs and manage the parallel ac lines by scheduling EVs in the CS. The complete CS having ten EVs is validated using detailed simulations.
Reducing psychiatric stigma and discrimination: evaluation of educational interventions in UK secondary schools

Background The persistent and disabling nature of psychiatric stigma has led to the establishment of global programmes to challenge the negative stereotypes and discriminatory responses that generate social disability but these initiatives are rarely evaluated. Aims To assess the effectiveness of an intervention with young people aimed at increasing mental health literacy and challenging negative stereotypes associated with severe mental illness. Method A total of 472 secondary school students attended two mental health awareness workshops and completed pre- and post-questionnaires detailing knowledge, attitudes and behavioural intentions. Results Young people use an extensive vocabulary of 270 different words and phrases to describe people with mental health problems: most were derogatory terms. Mean positive attitude scores rose significantly from 1.2 at baseline to 2.8 at 1-week follow-up and 2.3 at a 6-month follow-up. Changes were most marked for female students and those reporting personal contact with people with mental illness. Conclusions Short educational workshops can produce positive changes in participants' reported attitudes towards people with mental health problems.
Information Enrichment for Tourist Spot Recommender System Using Location Aware Crowdsourcing

With the increase in number of available interesting locations, it becomes difficult for users to find interesting ones, thus imposes a need for recommender systems to suggest interesting locations. Further, to ease the user's decision making, the amount of supplementary information, such as right time to visit, weather conditions, traffic condition, right mode of transport, crowdedness, security alerts, etc., may be annotated with the list of recommended locations. This paper explores the possibility of enriching tourist locations using crowd sourcing approach, which can be used by Tourist Spot Recommender System (TSRS) for mobile users. Proposed crowd sourcing system focuses on getting work done from the crowd currently available at the location under consideration. In proposed system, the contributed information is not limited to ones available on blogs, web pages and sensor-readings from the device etc., but includes proactively-generated user's opinions and perspectives, that are processed to offer immediate knowledge. Our system works in collaboration with a TSRS, takes the list of locations to be recommended to the current user and performs just-in-time information enrichment for those selected set of locations. We have implemented a prototype of proposed systems using java android software development toolkit and evaluated this system by 76 real users.
Angiotensin-converting enzyme insertion/deletion polymorphism and cerebrovascular disease.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE There is evidence that an allelic variation in the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene may confer an increased risk of vascular disease. The roles of the ACE insertion/deletion polymorphism and circulating ACE levels are unknown in cerebrovascular disease. METHODS We studied an insertion/deletion polymorphism within intron 16 of the ACE gene by polymerase chain reaction and plasma ACE activity in 467 cases of stroke, the pathological type of which was established by cranial CT, and 231 control subjects. ACE genotype and activity were related to stroke type and mortality at 4 weeks and 3 months. RESULTS No difference in genotype frequency was observed between all subjects with stroke and control subjects or between control subjects and subjects with cerebral infarction or cerebral hemorrhage. Plasma ACE activity was significantly lower in stroke patients at presentation (64.1 IU/L) than in control subjects (79.6 IU/L; P<.0001). Twenty-one patients (4.5%) with cerebral infarction died within 4 weeks and 56 patients (12%) within 3 months. These patients had significantly lower plasma ACE activity than patients who survived. There was some evidence that risk of death within 4 weeks increased with the number of D alleles (P=.02). Among survivors, plasma ACE activity showed a mean increase of 6.9 IU/L (95% confidence interval, 3.0 to 10.8) between levels at presentation and at 3 months (73.6 IU/L), the latter being similar to ACE activity in control subjects. CONCLUSIONS Low ACE activity at sroke presentation and possession of the D allele may be associated with increased risk of early death from acute cerebral infarction.
On the construction of space-time Hamiltonian constellations from group codes

Full diversity signal constellations for any numbers of transmitter antennas and for any orders which are constructed from 2/spl times/2 Hamiltonian matrices are investigated in this paper. The diversity product of a 2/spl times/2 Hamiltonian constellation equals one half of the Euclidean distance between two points in C/sup 2/. By considering the transformation from R/sup 4/ to C/sup 2/, the idea of group codes is used to construct a high diversity product constellation for any order L. The (L,4) cyclic group codes are considered to obtain L 4-dimensional codewords for group codes. We show that our 2/spl times/2 Hamiltonian constellations have higher diversity product than orthogonal and diagonal constellation designs. We extend our construction to the general case for any numbers of transmitter antennas M>2 by using a direct sum of 2/spl times/2 Hamiltonian matrices for M even, and a direct sum of 2/spl times/2 Hamiltonian matrices with the L/sup th/ roots of unity for M odd. It is shown that these constellations outperform cyclic groups and some of those obtained using fixed-point free groups.
Adventure Games: A Challenge for Cognitive Robotics

This paper presents a set of challenges for cognitive robotics in the context of a text-based adventure game. Games in this class have many challenging properties for cognitive robotics, including incompletely specified goals, an environment revealed only through exploration, actions whose preconditions and effects are not known a priori, and the need of commonsense knowledge for determining what actions are likely to be available or effective. These qualities require an agent that is able to use commonsense knowledge, make assumptions about unavailable knowledge, revise its beliefs, and learn what actions are appropriate. At the same time, more traditional robotics problems arise, including sensing, object classification, focusing on relevant features on a situation, reasoning within context, and decision-making, all within a large state space. In this paper we introduce the game and its environment, elaborate upon the properties of both as they pertain to cognitive robotics, and argue that this is a highly advantageous venue for exploring cognitive robotics issues.