Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Group I metabotropic glutamate receptors mediate the inhibition of phosphatidylserine synthesis in rat cerebellar slices: a possible role in physiology and pathology

In cerebellar slices, the lowering of oxygen availability, obtained by bubbling N2 in the medium, reduced the incorporation of radioactive serine into phosphatidylserine (PtdSer). CPCCOEt, an antagonist of metabotropic glutamate receptors type 1 (mGluR1) counteracted the effect, whereas antagonists of NMDA or AMPA receptors were ineffective. In oxygenated slices, agonists of Group I mGluRs, which include mGluR1, inhibited PtdSer synthesis. This effect was also counteracted by CPCCOEt. These findings indicate that glutamate inhibits PtdSer synthesis by acting on mGluR1. This could be important in relation to the known release of glutamate in hypoxia–ischaemia conditions. In cerebellar Purkinje cells, mGluR1 are involved in the generation of mGluR‐EPSP evoked by parallel fibre stimulation. The administration of l‐serine to cerebellar slices reduced in a dose‐dependent manner the mGluR‐EPSP evoked by parallel fibre stimulation. The effect was mostly due to the increased synthesis of PtdSer. Thus inhibition of PtdSer synthesis, mediated by mGluR1, may participate in the generation of mGluR‐EPSP.
Presumed Regional Incidence Rate of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest in Korea

The regional incidence rates of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) were traditionally calculated with the residential population as the denominator. The aim of this study was to estimate the true incidence rate of OHCA and to investigate characteristics of regions with overestimated and underestimated OHCA incidence rates. We used the national OHCA database from 2006 to 2010. The nighttime residential and daytime transient populations were investigated from the 2010 Census. The daytime population was calculated by adding the daytime influx of population to, and subtracting the daytime outflow from, the nighttime residential population. Conventional age-standardized incidence rates (CASRs) and daytime corrected age-standardized incidence rates (DASRs) for OHCA per 100,000 person-years were calculated in each county. A total of 97,291 OHCAs were eligible. The age-standardized incidence rates of OHCAs per 100,000 person-years were 34.6 (95% CI: 34.3-35.0) in the daytime and 24.8 (95% CI: 24.5-25.1) in the nighttime among males, and 14.9 (95% CI: 14.7-15.1) in the daytime, and 10.4 (95% CI: 10.2-10.6) in the nighttime among females. The difference between the CASR and DASR ranged from 35.4 to -11.6 in males and from 6.1 to -1.0 in females. Through the Bland-Altman plot analysis, we found the difference between the CASR and DASR increased as the average CASR and DASR increased as well as with the larger daytime transient population. The conventional incidence rate was overestimated in counties with many OHCA cases and in metropolitan cities with large daytime population influx and nighttime outflow, while it was underestimated in residential counties around metropolitan cities.
Temperature sensors and voltage references implemented in CMOS technology

This paper reviews the concepts, opportunities and limitations of temperature sensors and voltage references realized in CMOS technology. It is shown that bipolar substrate transis- tors are very suited to be applied to generate the basic and PTAT voltages. Furthermore, it is shown that dynamic element matching and auto-calibration can solve the problems related to mismatching of components and noise. The effects of mechan- ical stress are a major source of inaccuracy. In CMOS technology, the mechanical-stress effects are small, as compared to those in bipolar technology. It is concluded that, with low-cost CMOS tech- nolog, rather accurate voltage references and temperature sensors can be realized.
Calculation of inter-plane thermal resistance of few-layer graphene from equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations

Inter-plane thermal resistance in 5-layer graphene is calculated from equilibrium molecular dynamics (EMD) by calculating the autocorrelation function of temperature difference. Our simulated inter-plane resistance for 5-layer graphene is 4.83 × 10−9 m2K/W. This data is in the same order of magnitude with the reported values from NEMD simulations and Debye model calculations, and the possible reasons for the slight differences are discussed in details. The inter-plane resistance is not dependent on temperature, according to the results of the EMD simulation. Phonon density of states (DOSs) were plotted to better understand the mechanism behind the obtained values. These results provide a better insight in the heat transfer across a few layer graphene and yield useful information on the design of graphene based thermal materials.
Refining the Notions of Depth and Density in WordNet-based Semantic Similarity Measures

We re-investigate the rationale for and the effectiveness of adopting the notions of depth and density in WordNet-based semantic similarity measures. We show that the intuition for including these notions in WordNet-based similarity measures does not always stand up to empirical examination. In particular, the traditional definitions of depth and density as ordinal integer values in the hierarchical structure of WordNet does not always correlate with human judgment of lexical semantic similarity, which imposes strong limitations on their contribution to an accurate similarity measure. We thus propose several novel definitions of depth and density, which yield significant improvement in degree of correlation with similarity. When used in WordNet-based semantic similarity measures, the new definitions consistently improve performance on a task of correlating with human judgment.
TISSUE DISTRIBUTION AND ONTOGENY OF MOUSE ORGANIC ANION TRANSPORTING POLYPEPTIDES (OATPS)

Organic anion-transporting polypeptides (Oatps) are Na+-independent solute carriers for cellular uptake of organic compounds. The purpose of this study is to determine 1) the constitutive mRNA expression of the 15 mouse Oatp genes in 12 tissues, 2) whether there are gender differences in Oatp expression, and 3) the ontogenic expression of Oatps in liver and kidney. The mRNA expression of the 15 mouse Oatps was quantified using the branched DNA technique. Oatp1a1, 1a4, 1b2, and 2b1 are expressed in liver at relatively high levels, with Oatp1b2 being exclusively expressed in liver. Oatp1a1, 1a6, 3a1, and 4c1 are highly expressed in kidney. Oatp1a4 and 1c1 are highly expressed in brain. Oatp1a5, 6b1, 6c1, and 6d1 are predominant in testes. Oatp2a1, 4a1, and 5a1 are predominantly expressed in placenta. In liver, expression of Oatp1a1 was male-predominant, whereas expression of Oatp1a4 and 1a6 was female-predominant. In kidney, expression of Oatp1a1, 3a1, and 4c1 was higher in males than in females. Hepatic expression of Oatp1a1, 1a4, 1a6, 1b2, and 2b1 gradually increased after birth and reached adult levels by 6 weeks of age. Only Oatp2a1 was expressed at adult levels at birth. In kidney, expression of mouse Oatp1a1, 1a6, and 3a1 was lower at birth than at 6 weeks of age, whereas expression of mouse Oatp1a4, 2a1, and 2b1 was similar at birth and at 6 weeks of age. These data on the tissue distribution and ontogenic expression of mouse Oatps will aid in understanding the pharmacokinetics and toxicokinetics of drugs and other chemicals.
An index of beam hardening artifact for two-dimensional cone-beam CT tomographic images: establishment and preliminary evaluation

Objectives: Based on the pixel gray value measurements, establish a beam-hardening artifacts index of the cone-beam CT tomographic image, and preliminarily evaluate its applicability. Methods: The 5mm-diameter metal ball and resin ball were fixed on the light-cured resin base plate respectively, while four vitro molars were fixed above and below the ball, on the left and right respectively, which have 10mm distance with the metal ball. Then, cone beam CT was used to scan the fixed base plate twice. The same layer tomographic images were selected from the two data and imported into the Photoshop software. The circle boundary was built through the determination of the center and radius of the circle, according to the artifact-free images section. Grayscale measurement tools were used to measure the internal boundary gray value G0, gray value G1 and G2 of 1mm and 20mm artifacts outside the circular boundary, the length L1 of the arc with artifacts in the circular boundary, the circumference L2. Hardening artifacts index was set A = (G1 / G0) * 0.5 + (G2 / G1) * 0.4 + (L2 / L1) * 0.1. Then, the A values of metal and resin materials were calculated respectively. Results: The A value of cobalt-chromium alloy material is 1, and resin material is 0. Conclusion: The A value reflects comprehensively the three factors of hardening artifacts influencing normal oral tissue image sharpness of cone beam CT. The three factors include relative gray value, the decay rate and range of artifacts.
Cooperative Regenerating Codes for Distributed Storage Systems

When there are multiple storage node failures in distributed storage system, regenerating them individually is suboptimal as far as repair bandwidth minimization is concerned. The tradeoff between storage and repair bandwidth is derived in the case where data exchange among the newcomers is enabled. The tradeoff curve with cooperation is strictly better than the one without cooperation. An explicit construction of cooperative regenerating code is given.
Mechanical Characterization of Composites with Embedded Optical Fibers

The purpose of this investigation is to evaluate quantitatively and comparatively the effect of embedding optical fibers (OF) on the mechanical behavior of a carbon fiber-epoxy composite in order to verify whether their presence can possibly degrade the mechanical performance of the host material. The existing literature on this subject is not conclusive about the nature and intensity of this effect. Adding more reliable data to our systematic study contributes to this discussion favoring the conclusion about a harmful influence as a consequence of optical fiber embedment. Three kinds of mechanical tests have been performed in this work: impact tests, static flexural tests, and fatigue tests. The results of some experiments point to a possible detrimental influence related to the presence of the OF, being it different in nature and intensity for each of these tests. The mechanical behavior in static loading conditions seems to be not significantly affected as a consequence of the presence of the OF, while that in impact and fatigue tests are strongly affected, even though this influence being physically distinct from each other. Based on these results, some discussion is made about the possible failure mechanisms that can explain the detected differences.
Antiphospholipid-Related Chorea

Chorea is a movement disorder which may be associated with immunologic diseases, in particular in the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL). Choreic movements have been linked to the isolated presence of plasmatic aPL, or to primary, or secondary antiphospholipid syndrome. The highest incidence of aPL-related chorea is detected in children and females. The presentation of chorea is usually subacute and the course monophasic. Choreic movements can be focal, unilateral, or generalized. High plasmatic titers of aPL in a choreic patient can suggest the diagnosis of aPL-related chorea; neuroimaging investigation does not provide much additional diagnostic information. The most relevant target of aPL is β2-glycoprotein I, probably responsible for the thrombotic manifestations of antiphospholipid syndrome. Etiology of the movement disorder is not well understood but a neurotoxic effect of aPL has been hypothesized, leading to impaired basal ganglia cell function and development of neuroinflammation. Patients affected by aPL-related chorea have an increased risk of thrombosis and should receive antiplatelet or anticoagulant treatment.
Tracking Static Analysis Violations over Time to Capture Developer Characteristics

Many interesting questions about the software quality of a code base can only be answered adequately if fine-grained information about the evolution of quality metrics over time and the contributions of individual developers is known. We present an approach for tracking static analysis violations (which are often indicative of defects) over the revision history of a program, and for precisely attributing the introduction and elimination of these violations to individual developers. As one application, we demonstrate how this information can be used to compute ``fingerprints'' of developers that reflect which kinds of violations they tend to introduce or to fix. We have performed an experimental study on several large open-source projects written in different languages, providing evidence that these fingerprints are well-defined and capture characteristic information about the coding habits of individual developers.
Dynamic Path Planning for a 7-DOF Robot Arm

We present an on-line, robust, and efficient path planner for the redundant Mitsubishi PA-10 arm with 7 degrees of freedom (DOF) in non-stationary environments. Because of the specific kinematic model of the arm, path planning can be first reduced to a redundant 6-DOF problem in a 5D configuration space, which can be further decomposed into two problems: (i) 3D position planning in Cartesian space and (ii) planning in a 3D space composed of two orientation angles and an explicit parameterization of the arms redundancy. Position and orientation planning are interweaving and performed "on-the-fly" without explicit global knowledge of the environment using two instances of the dynamic wave expansion neural network (DWENN), an effective method for path generation in arbitrarily changing environments. The dynamic and explorative nature of the DWENN algorithm allows to treat stationary and dynamic obstacles in a unified manner. Through a number of simulative tests, we show that the planner is capable of reaching both a satisfactory robustness level and real-time performance, as required by many practical applications
Rediscovery of the blind-snake Leptotyphlops brasiliensis Laurent, 1949 (Serpentes, Leptotyphlopidae) in the wild

1 Museu de Zoologia, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Caixa Postal 42694, CEP 04299-970, Sao Paulo, Brazil. E-mails: ffcurcio@yahoo.com; hzaher@ib.usp.br. 2 Universidade de Sao Paulo, Instituto de Biociencias, Departamento de Zoologia, Caixa Postal 11461, CEP 05422970, Sao Paulo, Brazil. E-mail: mturodri@usp.br. Phyllomedusa 1(2):101-104, 2002 © 2002 Melopsittacus Publicacoes Cientificas ISSN 1519-1397
The relationship of phonological ability, speech perception, and auditory perception in adults with dyslexia

This study investigated whether auditory, speech perception, and phonological skills are tightly interrelated or independently contributing to reading. We assessed each of these three skills in 36 adults with a past diagnosis of dyslexia and 54 matched normal reading adults. Phonological skills were tested by the typical threefold tasks, i.e., rapid automatic naming, verbal short-term memory and phonological awareness. Dynamic auditory processing skills were assessed by means of a frequency modulation (FM) and an amplitude rise time (RT); an intensity discrimination task (ID) was included as a non-dynamic control task. Speech perception was assessed by means of sentences and words-in-noise tasks. Group analyses revealed significant group differences in auditory tasks (i.e., RT and ID) and in phonological processing measures, yet no differences were found for speech perception. In addition, performance on RT discrimination correlated with reading but this relation was mediated by phonological processing and not by speech-in-noise. Finally, inspection of the individual scores revealed that the dyslexic readers showed an increased proportion of deviant subjects on the slow-dynamic auditory and phonological tasks, yet each individual dyslexic reader does not display a clear pattern of deficiencies across the processing skills. Although our results support phonological and slow-rate dynamic auditory deficits which relate to literacy, they suggest that at the individual level, problems in reading and writing cannot be explained by the cascading auditory theory. Instead, dyslexic adults seem to vary considerably in the extent to which each of the auditory and phonological factors are expressed and interact with environmental and higher-order cognitive influences.
Reducing the Calibration Effort for Location Estimation Using Unlabeled Samples

WLAN location estimation based on 802.11 signal strength is becoming increasingly prevalent in today's pervasive computing applications. As an alternative to the well-established deterministic approaches, probabilistic location determination techniques show good performance and thus become increasingly popular. For these techniques to achieve a high level of accuracy, however, adequate training samples should be collected offline for calibration. As a result, a great amount of manual effort is incurred. In this paper, we aim to solve the problem by reducing both the sampling time and the number of locations sampled in constructing the radio map. A learning algorithm is proposed to build location estimation systems based on a small fraction of the calibration data that traditional techniques require and a collection of user traces that can be cheaply obtained. Our experiments show that unlabeled user traces can be used to compensate for the effects of reducing calibration effort and can even improve the system performance. Consequently, manual effort can be significantly reduced while a high level of accuracy is still achieved
Analysis of TSHZ2 and TSHZ3 genes in congenital pelvi-ureteric junction obstruction.

BACKGROUND Congenital pelvi-ureteric junction obstruction (PUJO) affects 0.3% of human births. It may result from aberrant smooth muscle development in the renal pelvis, resulting in hydronephrosis. Mice that are null mutant for the Teashirt3 (Tshz3) gene exhibit congenital PUJO with defective smooth muscle differentiation and absent peristalsis in the proximal ureter. METHODS Given the phenotype of Tshz3 mutant mice, we considered that Teashirt genes, which code for a family of transcription factors, might represent candidate genes for human PUJO. To evaluate this possibility, we used in situ hydridization to analyse the three mammalian Tshz genes in mouse embryonic ureters and determined whether TSHZ3 was expressed in the human embryonic ureter. TSHZ2 and TSHZ3 were sequenced in index cases with non-syndromic PUJO. RESULTS Tshz2 and Tshz3 genes were detected in mouse ureters and TSHZ3 was expressed in the human embryonic renal pelvis. Direct sequencing of TSHZ2 and TSHZ3 did not identify any mutations in an initial cohort of 48 PUJO index cases, excluding these genes as a major cause of this condition. A polymorphic missense change (E469G) in TSHZ3 was identified at a residue highly conserved throughout evolution in all Teashirt proteins, although subsequently no significant difference between the E469G allele frequency in Albanian and Macedonian PUJO index cases (3.2%) versus 633 control individuals (1.7%) was found (P = 0.18). CONCLUSIONS Mutations in TSHZ2 and TSHZ3 are not a major cause of PUJO, at least in Albanian and Macedonian populations. Expression of these genes in the human fetal ureter emphasizes the importance of analysing these genes in other groups of patients with renal tract malformations.
The Effects of Digital Games on Undergraduate Players' Flow Experiences and Affect

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of digital games on undergraduate playerspsila flow experiences and affect. Our findings suggested that both violent and nonviolent digital games would evoke undergraduate playerspsila flow experiences and positive affect. Digital games may not arouse participantspsila real life aggression regardless of playing violent or nonviolent digital games. Undergraduate participantspsila flow experiences and positive affect after playing nonviolent digital games were higher than playing violent digital games. The authors suggested that experimental designs and sex in the participantspsila composition would have impacts on our results. The limitation was discussed as well.
Recovering Delisting Returns of Hedge Funds

Abstract Numerous hedge funds stop reporting each year to commercial databases, wreaking havoc with analyzing investment strategies that incur the unobserved delisting return. We use estimated portfolio holdings for funds-of-funds to back out estimated hedge-fund delisting returns. For all exiting funds, the estimated mean delisting return is insignificantly different from the average monthly return for live hedge funds. However, funds with poor prior performance and no clearly stated delisting reason had a significantly negative estimated mean delisting return of -5.97%, suggesting that a shock to their returns “tips them over the edge” and leads to delisting.
The role of plastids in plant speciation

Understanding the molecular basis of how new species arise is a central question and prime challenge in evolutionary biology and includes understanding how genomes diversify. Eukaryotic cells possess an integrated compartmentalized genetic system of endosymbiotic ancestry. The cellular subgenomes in nucleus, mitochondria and plastids communicate in a complex way and co‐evolve. The application of hybrid and cybrid technologies, most notably those involving interspecific exchanges of plastid and nuclear genomes, has uncovered a multitude of species‐specific nucleo‐organelle interactions. Such interactions can result in plastome–genome incompatibilities, which can phenotypically often be recognized as hybrid bleaching, hybrid variegation or disturbance of the sexual phase. The plastid genome, because of its relatively low number of genes, can serve as a valuable tool to investigate the origin of these incompatibilities. In this article, we review progress on understanding how plastome–genome co‐evolution contributes to speciation. We genetically classify incompatible phenotypes into four categories. We also summarize genetic, physiological and environmental influence and other possible selection forces acting on plastid–nuclear co‐evolution and compare taxa providing molecular access to the underlying loci. It appears that plastome–genome incompatibility can establish hybridization barriers, comparable to the Dobzhansky–Muller model of speciation processes. Evidence suggests that the plastid‐mediated hybridization barriers associated with hybrid bleaching primarily arise through modification of components in regulatory networks, rather than of complex, multisubunit structures themselves that are frequent targets.
High-Level Expression and Secretion of Methyl Parathion Hydrolase in Bacillus subtilis WB800

ABSTRACT The methyl parathion hydrolase (MPH)-encoding gene mpd was placed under the control of the P43 promoter and Bacillus subtilis nprB signal peptide-encoding sequence. High-level expression and secretion of mature, authentic, and stable MPH were achieved using the protease-deficient strain B. subtilis WB800 as the host.
Diminished Renal Function and the Incidence of Heart Failure

Heart failure is one of the most common, costly, disabling and deadly diseases. During the last decade, several different indices reflecting renal function such as creatinine-based glomerular filtration rate, circulating levels of cystatin C and low-grade albuminuria have been demonstrated to be independent risk factors for heart failure. This review summarizes our current knowledge of the relationship between diminished renal function and the incidence of heart failure in the community, and also in individuals with increased risk of heart failure such as patients with overt cardiovascular disease, hypertension or diabetes. This review will also put forward important areas of future research in this field.