Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intraocular Pressure and Its Determinants in Subjects With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in India

Objectives This study was conducted to show the intraocular pressure (IOP) distribution and the factors affecting IOP in subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) in India. Methods We measured the anthropometric and biochemical parameters for confirmed type 2 DM patients. A comprehensive ocular examination was performed for 1377 subjects aged > 40 years and residing in Chennai. Results A significant difference in IOP (mean ± standard deviation) was found between men and women (14.6±2.9 and 15.0±2.8 mmHg, p = 0.005). A significantly elevated IOP was observed among smokers, subjects with systemic hypertension and women with clinically significant macular edema (CSME). After a univariate analysis, factors associated significantly with higher IOP were elevated systolic blood pressure, elevated resting pulse rate and thicker central corneal thickness (CCT). In women, elevated glycosylated hemoglobin was associated with a higher IOP. After adjusting for all variables, the elevated resting pulse rate and CCT were found to be associated with a higher IOP. Conclusions Systemic hypertension, smoking, pulse rate and CCT were associated with elevated intraocular pressure in type 2 DM. Women with type 2 DM, especially those with CSME, were more prone to have an elevated IOP.
IL-33, the IL-1-like cytokine ligand for ST2 receptor, is a chromatin-associated nuclear factor in vivo

Recent studies indicate that IL-1α functions intracellularly in pathways independent of its cell surface receptors by translocating to the nucleus and regulating transcription. Similarly, the chromatin-associated protein HMGB1 acts as both a nuclear factor and a secreted proinflammatory cytokine. Here, we show that IL-33, an IL-1-like cytokine that signals via the IL-1 receptor-related protein ST2 and induces T helper type 2-associated cytokines, is an endothelium-derived, chromatin-associated nuclear factor with transcriptional repressor properties. We found that IL-33 is identical to NF-HEV, a nuclear factor preferentially expressed in high endothelial venules (HEV), that we previously characterized. Accordingly, in situ hybridization demonstrated that endothelial cells constitute a major source of IL-33 mRNA in chronically inflamed tissues from patients with rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease. Immunostaining with three distinct antisera, directed against the N-terminal part and IL-1-like C-terminal domain, revealed that IL-33 is a heterochromatin-associated nuclear factor in HEV endothelial cells in vivo. Association of IL-33 with heterochromatin was also observed in human and mouse cells under living conditions. In addition, colocalization of IL-33 with mitotic chromatin was noted. Nuclear localization, heterochromatin-association, and targeting to mitotic chromosomes were all found to be mediated by an evolutionarily conserved homeodomain-like helix–turn–helix motif within the IL-33 N-terminal part. Finally, IL-33 was found to possess transcriptional repressor properties, associated with the homeodomain-like helix–turn–helix motif. Together, these data suggest that, similarly to IL1α and HMGB1, IL-33 is a dual function protein that may function as both a proinflammatory cytokine and an intracellular nuclear factor with transcriptional regulatory properties.
A Review of LED Drivers and Related Technologies

Light-emitting diode (LEDs) have a promising prospect because of its outstanding advantages: 1) long lifetime, 2) environmentally friendly, 3) flexibility of color mixing, 4) high illumination efficiency, etc. Based on the electrical characteristics of LEDs, a constant current driver is needed to support the LED working performance. With the wide applications of LEDs, many new technologies are presented. In this paper, advantages and disadvantages of different LED drivers are discussed. A detailed technology review is presented which is good for researchers and engineers to make right choices in design and selection of LED drivers.
Mechanism of Antimalarial Action of the Synthetic Trioxolane RBX11160 (OZ277)

ABSTRACT RBX11160 (OZ277) is a fully synthetic peroxidic antimalarial in clinical development. To study the possible mechanisms of action of RBX11160, we have examined its ability to inhibit PfATP6, a sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium ATPase and proposed target for semisynthetic peroxidic artemisinin derivatives. RBX11160 inhibits PfATP6 (apparent half-maximal inhibitory constant = 7,700 nM) less potently than artemisinin (79 nM). Inhibition of PfATP6 is abrogated by desferrioxamine, an iron-chelating agent. Consistent with this finding, the killing of Plasmodium falciparum organisms by RBX11160 in vitro is antagonized by desferrioxamine. Artesunate and RBX11160 also act antagonistically against P. falciparum in vitro. A fluorescent derivative of RBX11160 localizes to the parasite cytosol in some parasites and to the food vacuole in other parasites. These data demonstrate that there are both similarities and differences between the antimalarial properties of RBX11160 and those of semisynthetic antimalarials such as artesunate and artemisinin.
Book Review: The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods

Eric Margolis and Luc Pauwels (eds), The Sage Handbook of Visual Research Methods, Sage: London, 2011; 754 pp.; ISBN 978 1 84787 556 3 This handbook is a large volume at 754 pages and a traditional approach to a book review would have been difficult. For this reason, we have chosen to draw out a few key themes that arose from our group discussion of the book. These themes relate to what we felt to be forward thinking in the handbook, but also to points that need problematising further. As a group of early career academics new to social sciences, we found many of the issues raised in the handbook were interesting to reflect on. As we are also trained art historians, designers and architects now working in education, the book summarises much of what we have found in our transition from visual-based disciplines to the social sciences. This also relates to what it is to be from a generation that has grown up with images playing a large part of the way in which we make meaning, going into a group of established social science academics used to working with words. We feel that this handbook is a great resource for thinking about many of these issues.
Capital Gains Realizations of the Rich and Sophisticated

This paper attempts to bring theoretical and empirical research on capital gains realization behavior closer together by considering whether investors who appear to engage more in strategic tax avoidance activity also respond differently to tax rates. We find that such investors exhibit significantly smaller responses to permanent tax rate changes than other investors. Put another way, a larger part of their response to capital gains tax rates reflects timing, consistent with their closer adherence to tax avoidance strategies emphasizing arbitrage based on tax rate differentials. This finding holds for two alternative specifications of realization behavior, one of which suggests larger permanent responses to capital gains tax rates than those of previous panel studies.
T Dwarfs and the Substellar Mass Function. I. Monte Carlo Simulations

Monte Carlo simulations of the field substellar mass function (MF) are presented, based on the latest brown dwarf evolutionary models from Burrows et al. and Baraffe et al. Starting from various representations of the MF below 0.1 M☉ and the stellar birthrate, luminosity functions (LFs) and Teff distributions are produced for comparison with observed samples. These distributions exhibit distinct minima in the mid-type L dwarf regime followed by a rise in number density for fainter/cooler brown dwarfs, predicting many more T-type and cooler brown dwarfs in the field even for relatively shallow mass functions. Deuterium-burning brown dwarfs (0.012 M☉ ≤ M ≤ 0.075 M☉) dominate field objects with 400 K ≤ Teff ≤ 2000 K, while nonfusing brown dwarfs make up a substantial proportion of field dwarfs with Teff ≤ 500 K. The shape of the substellar LF is fairly consistent for various assumptions of the Galactic birthrate, choice of evolutionary model, and adopted age and mass ranges, particularly for field T dwarfs, which as a population provide the best constraints for the field substellar MF. Exceptions include a depletion of objects with 1200 K ≤ Teff ≤ 2000 K in "halo" systems (ages >9 Gyr), and a substantial increase in the number of very cool brown dwarfs for lower minimum formation masses. Unresolved multiple systems tend to enhance features in the observed LF and may contribute significantly to the space density of very cool brown dwarfs. However, these effects are small (<10% for Teff ≳ 300 K) for binary fractions typical for brown dwarf systems (10%-20%). An analytic approximation to correct the observed space density for unresolved multiple systems in a magnitude-limited survey is derived. As an exercise, surface densities as a function of Teff are computed for shallow near-infrared (e.g., 2MASS) and deep red-optical (e.g., UDF) surveys based on the simulated LFs and empirical absolute magnitude-Teff relations. These calculations indicate that a handful of L and T dwarfs, as well as late-type M and L halo subdwarfs, should be present in the UDF field depending on the underlying MF and disk scale height. These simulations and their dependencies on various factors provide a means for extracting the field substellar MF from observed samples, an issue pursued using 2MASS T dwarf discoveries in Paper II.
Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age

necessarily add to the critique of news organisations as a whole, while also denying newscaster agency. A more important issue is the lack of theoretical or conceptual application in the text. Theory is mentioned in passing – the analysis of ideological interest is mentioned (p. 30), and moral panic theory is also signposted in the conclusion (p. 166). Aside from these references, there is no attempt to develop a detailed analysis of the ideological processes at work (the occasional mention of neo-liberalism, the Washington consensus and World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) policy do not do this). Neither is there an attempt to apply the stages of any moral panic approach to the data. Moreover, there exists no rigorous application or development of concepts of stereotyping, prejudice, immigrational racism or stigma, which seem to be fundamental to the critique presented. Although more theory would have been satisfying for this reader, the lack of academic or theoretical terminology does render the text highly accessible. The book will be of use to professionals working in the field and should be understandable to policymakers. One last criticism concerns the interview and focus group sample. This might have been added to through the inclusion on white Britons as a focus group. This population may have allowed the study to record the existence of a majoritarian discourse that mirrors media coverage of refugees. Overall, this text is a good example of what social science can add to our understanding of the social world. It takes the dominant ideological myths created on some of the most vulnerable, stigmatised people in society and begins to illuminate the structures that encourage these myths.
Rabbit Achilles tendon full transection model – wound healing, adhesion formation and biomechanics at 3, 6 and 12 weeks post-surgery

ABSTRACT After tendon rupture repair, two main problems may occur: re-rupture and adhesion formation. Suitable non-murine animal models are needed to study the healing tendon in terms of biomechanical properties and extent of adhesion formation. In this study 24 New Zealand White rabbits received a full transection of the Achilles tendon 2 cm above the calcaneus, sutured with a 4-strand Becker suture. Post-surgical analysis was performed at 3, 6 and 12 weeks. In the 6-week group, animals received a cast either in a 180 deg stretched position during 6 weeks (adhesion provoking immobilization), or were re-casted with a 150 deg position after 3 weeks (adhesion inhibiting immobilization), while in the other groups (3 and 12 weeks) a 180 deg position cast was applied for 3 weeks. Adhesion extent was analyzed by histology and ultrasound. Histopathological scoring was performed according to a method by Stoll et al. (2011), and the main biomechanical properties were assessed. Histopathological scores increased as a function of time, but did not reach values of healthy tendons after 12 weeks (only around 15 out of 20 points). Adhesion provoking immobilization led to an adhesion extent of 82.7±9.7%, while adhesion inhibiting immobilization led to 31.9±9.8% after 6 weeks. Biomechanical properties increased over time, however, they did not reach full strength nor elastic modulus at 12 weeks post-operation. Furthermore, the rabbit Achilles tendon model can be modulated in terms of adhesion formation to the surrounding tissue. It clearly shows the different healing stages in terms of histopathology and offers a suitable model regarding biomechanics because it exhibits similar biomechanics as the human flexor tendons of the hand. Summary: The rabbit Achilles tendon full transection model can be used to study adhesion extent in a controlled way. It also mimics the biomechanics of human hand flexor tendons.
Higher Frequency of CD4+CXCR5+ICOS+PD1+ T Follicular Helper Cells in Patients With Infectious Mononucleosis

AbstractFollicular helper T (Tfh) cells are recognized as a distinct CD4+helper T cell subset, and mainly dysregulated in the autoimmune disease, whether it plays a role in the infectious mononucleosis (IM) diseases is unknown. In this study, we found that the CD4+CXCR5+ Tfh cells were not significantly changed, but the CD4+CXCR5+ICOS+ and CD4+CXCR5+ICOS+PD1+ Tfh subsets were significantly increased in the IM patients, and all these cells were significantly changed after antiviral therapy. Second, only the numbers of CD4+CXCR5+ICOS+PD1+ Tfh cells correlated with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA load, negatively correlated with the numbers of naive B cells and amount of IL-21, and positively correlated with the numbers of plasma cells, memory B cells, and atypical lymphocytes. Third, the frequency of CD4+CXCR5+ICOS+PD1+ Tfh subset was significantly higher in lymphadenectasis or hepatosplenomegaly patients, and associated with the level of alanine aminotransferase (ALT). All together, our findings discovered this CD4+CXCR5+ICOS+PD1+ Tfh cell subset might play an important role in the pathogenesis of IM.
Adaptive memory: Animacy effects persist in paired-associate learning

Recent evidence suggests that animate stimuli are remembered better than matched inanimate stimuli. Two experiments tested whether this animacy effect persists in paired-associate learning of foreign words. Experiment 1 randomly paired Swahili words with matched animate and inanimate English words. Participants were told simply to learn the English “translations” for a later test. Replicating earlier findings using free recall, a strong animacy advantage was found in this cued-recall task. Concerned that the effect might be due to enhanced accessibility of the individual responses (e.g., animates represent a more accessible category), Experiment 2 selected animate and inanimate English words from two more constrained categories (four-legged animals and furniture). Once again, an advantage was found for pairs using animate targets. These results argue against organisational accounts of the animacy effect and potentially have implications for foreign language vocabulary learning.
Failure Detection for Multiple Input Systems

The overall goal of this research is to develop a system that is resistant or tolerant of sensor failures. The plan is to incorporate multiple sensors in an electronic system and then take the average of the sensors as the system output. If a sensor fails, the failure is detected, and the processing hardware will be ¿re-programmed¿ based on evolvable hardware principles to take the average of the remaining input sensors. A key aspect of this program is how to detect when one out of N sensors fails. This paper describes the use of a one-dimensional (1-D) Kalman filter to detect a sensor failure by observing the average of N sensors together. The paper discusses the failure detection algorithm and then gives results for the algorithm based on computer simulations and then actual laboratory measurements.
Molecular and Functional Characterization of  Two Novel Human C-C Chemokines as Inhibitors of  Two Distinct Classes of Myeloid Progenitors

Two novel human β-chemokines, Ckβ-8 or myeloid progenitor inhibitory factor 1 (MPIF-1), and Ckβ-6 or MPIF-2, were discovered as part of a large scale cDNA sequencing effort. The MPIF-1 and MPIF-2 cDNAs were isolated from aortic endothelium and activated monocyte libraries, respectively. Both of the cDNAs were cloned into a baculovirus vector and expressed in insect cells. The mature recombinant MPIF-1 protein consists of 99 amino acids and is most homologous to macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)-1α, showing 51% identity. It displays chemotactic activity on resting T lymphocytes and monocytes, a minimal but significant activity on neutrophils, and is negative on activated T lymphocytes. MPIF-1 is also a potent suppressor of bone marrow low proliferative potential colony-forming cells, a committed progenitor that gives rise to granulocyte and monocyte lineages. The mature recombinant MPIF-2 has 93 amino acid residues and shows 39 and 42% identity with monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-3 and MIP-1α, respectively. It displays chemotactic activity on resting T lymphocytes, a minimal activity on neutrophils, and is negative on monocytes and activated T lymphocytes. On eosinophils, MPIF-2 produces a transient rise of cytosolic Ca2+ and uses the receptor for eotaxin and MCP-4. In hematopoietic assays, MPIF-2 strongly suppressed the colony formation by the high proliferative potential colony-forming cell (HPP-CFC), which represents a multipotential hematopoietic progenitor.
RBT-I: A novel approach for solving the Multiple Sequence Alignment problem

This paper presents a novel approach to solve the multiple sequence alignment (MSA) problem. the rubber band technique: index base (RBT-I) introduced in this paper, is inspired by the elastic behavior of a rubber band (RB) on a plate with poles. RBT-I is an iterative optimization algorithm designed and implemented to find the optimal alignment for a set of input protein sequences. In this technique, the alignment answer of the MSA problem is modeled as a RB, while the answer space is modeled as the plate with several poles resembling locations in the input sequences that are most likely to be correlated and/or biologically related. Fixing the head and tail of the RB at two corners of this plate, the RB is free to bend and finds its best configuration, yielding the best answer for the MSA problem. RBT-I is tested with one of the well-known benchmarks (BALiBASE 2.0) in this field. The obtained results show the superiority of the proposed technique even in the case of formidable sequences.
Walking or Dancing

Objectives:To identify age differences in physical activity (PA) participation for women. Methods: Data from 3,952 women 25+ from the 2003-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) were used to analyze participation patterns for 17 PA types. Results: The top five leisure PAs by participation rate for all ages were walking (42%), dancing (20%), treadmill (15%), biking (11%), and yoga (10%). Participation in running, dancing, treadmill, and team sports declined around ages 35 to 44, and participation in household PA, walking, weightlifting, and hiking declined around ages 55 to 64. At age 75+ further substantial decline in most activities occurred. Nativity status was the most important moderator for age-related PA decline. Conclusions: Total PA declines with age but significant decline does not occur until ages 55 to 64. Major decline in leisure PA participation starts earlier at ages 35 to 44. While age-related declining patterns differ for different activities, the top five most popular leisure activities are similar for all age groups.
Neurotransmitter Parameters in Plasma and Urine of Affective Patients in Depression and in Normothymia after Drug Treatment

Several neurochemical parameters were estimated in plasma and urine of patients with affective disorders in the depressive phase and later in normothymia, after successful drug treatment. Significant increases were found for the activity of the enzyme dopamine-beta-hydroxylase in plasma and the concentrations of cyclic AMP in plasma and urine. No consistent changes were found for prolactin or cyclic GMP in plasma, and for methoxyhydroxyphenylgkyglycol, homovanillic acid, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid and cyclic GMP in urine. The major change we observed in the clinical state of the patients is thus not reflected in change in the urinary biogenic amine metabolites. Their changes were found to correlate inversely to their pretreatment values. In normothymia, high values decrease and low values increase for all three amine metabolites, indicating that antidepressives act towards a normalization of the amine turnover mechanisms.
Effect of DA-9701, a Novel Prokinetic Agent, on Post-operative Ileus in Rats

Background/Aims Post-operative ileus (POI) is a common complication of abdominal surgery. DA-9701, an extract of Pharbitis Semen and Corydalis Tuber, is a new prokinetic agent that also alleviates visceral pain. The aim of this study was to investigate whether DA-9701 can ameliorate POI in rats. Methods A total of 32 rats were divided into 4 groups: no surgery/no medication (NSNM), no surgery/medication (NSM), surgery/no medication (SNM), and surgery/medication (SM). Gastrointestinal transit (GIT), which is assessed by migration of charcoal, and cumulative stool weight were measured at 24 hours after surgery. Results GIT was significantly more delayed in the SNM group than in the other groups (SNM vs NSNM, P < 0.001; SNM vs NSM, P < 0.001; SNM vs SM, P = 0.005). Cumulative stool weight in that group was also lower than in the no surgery groups (SNM vs NSNM, P = 0.007; SNM vs NSM, P = 0.033), and there was no significant difference between the SM group and the no surgery groups (SM vs NSM, P = 0.703; SM vs NSNM, P = 0.347). Conclusion DA-9701 can ameliorate POI by reducing delayed GIT and improving defecation in a rat model of POI.