Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enkephalins, dynorphins, and β‐endorphin in the rat dorsal horn: An immunofluorescence colocalization study

To characterize neuronal pathways that release opioid peptides in the rat dorsal horn, multiple‐label immunohistochemistry, confocal microscopy, and computerized co‐localization measures were used to characterize opioid‐containing terminals and cells. An antibody that selectively recognized β‐endorphin labeled fibers and neurons in the ventral horn as well as fibers in the lateral funiculus and lamina X, but practically no fibers in the dorsal horn. An anti‐enkephalin antibody, which recognized Leu‐, Met‐, and Phe‐Arg‐Met‐enkephalin, labeled the dorsolateral funiculus and numerous puncta in laminae I–III and V of the dorsal horn. An antibody against Phe‐Arg‐Met‐enkephalin, which did not recognize Leu‐ and Met‐enkephalin, labeled the same puncta. Antibodies against dynorphin and prodynorphin labeled puncta and fibers in laminae I, II, and V, as well as some fibers in the rest of the dorsal horn. Dynorphin and prodynorphin immunoreactivities colocalized in some puncta and fibers, but the prodynorphin antibody additionally labeled cell bodies. There was no co‐localization of dynorphin (or prodynorphin) with enkephalin (or Phe‐Arg‐Met‐enkephalin). Enkephalin immunoreactivity did not colocalize with the C‐fiber markers calcitonin gene‐related peptide (CGRP), substance P, and isolectin B4. In contrast, there was some colocalization of dynorphin and prodynorphin with CGRP and substance P, but not with isolectin B4. Both enkephalin and dynorphin partly colocalized with vesicular glutamate transporter 2, a marker of glutamatergic terminals. The prodynorphin‐positive neurons in the dorsal horn were distinct from neurons expressing μ‐opioid receptors, neurokinin 1 receptors, and protein kinase C‐γ. These results show that enkephalins and dynorphins are present in different populations of dorsal horn neurons. In addition, dynorphin is present in some C‐fibers. J. Comp. Neurol. 517:51–68, 2009. Published 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Identity Politics in Early Roman Galilee

This chapter focuses on the Jews in the context of their war against Rome in the first century c.e. - but author's hope is also to gain some understanding of starkly parallel modern situations that, perhaps not coincidentally, have unfolded in identical geographical territory. He asks the same questions that scholars of modern history and political science ask: how far back should we go to understand such an event? Which aspects are relevant, and which incidental? When do cultural differences become divisions? Which divisions do people live with, and which blow up? and why? The ancient evidence author explores is physical remains, material culture, a category that some historians may feel is inconsequential. He hopes to demonstrate that such evidence is both relevant and revelatory. He then focuses on the north, Galilee and Gaulanitis, because this is the area with the most complete array of relevant and closely datable archaeological evidence. Keywords:archaeological evidence; Galilee; Gaulanitis; geographical territory; Jews; Politics; Rome
Recentralization and the Left Turn in Latin America

Over the past decade, leftist presidents in Latin America have sought to recentralize authority by reversing the decentralizing reforms that swept the region in the 1980s and 1990s. This article explains why subnational opposition elites were able to resist recentralization in Bolivia, but not in Venezuela or Ecuador. I argue that opposition mayors and governors increase the chance of success against the president if they can transcend their interelite policy struggles with him and mobilize average citizens against recentralization. In Bolivia, the concentration of subnational opposition victories in eastern lowland departments, which share a common regional identity and dense organizational networks, enabled governors to enlist societal support in defense of decentralization, ultimately forcing compromise upon the president. In Ecuador and Venezuela in contrast, the diffusion of opposition jurisdictions foreclosed the possibility of encouraging societal opposition through appeals to common regional identities, allowing presidents to proceed with recentralization unchecked.
Plasma nevirapine levels and 24-week efficacy of a fixed-dose combination of stavudine, lamivudine and nevirapine (GPO-VIR) among Thai HIV-infected patients.

BACKGROUND A fixed-dose combination of stavudine, lamivudine, and nevirapine (GPO-VIR) is the most affordable antiretroviral therapy (ART) regimen in Thailand. The data of nevirapine (NVP) level and efficacy of this fixed-dose combination is limited. MATERIAL AND METHOD Patients who were initiated GPO-VIR in 2004 were enrolled NVP levels at 12 weeks were determined. Patients were followed for 24 weeks. RESULTS Fifty-nine patients with a mean age of 36.4 years and 54% male were enrolled. Mean body weight was 54.7 kgs. Median baseline CD4 and HIV-RNA were 29 cells/mm3 and 270,000 (5.4 log10) copies/mL, respectively. Mean plasma NVP levels at 12 weeks was 6.4 mg/L. By linear regression, female gender (p = 0.042), and higher weight (p = 0.020) were associated with lower NVP levels. At 24 weeks, 78% achieved undetectable HIV-RNA and median CD4 was 156 cells/mm3. CONCLUSION NVP levels and 24-week efficacy of GPO-VIR are favorable. According to the affordable cost, GPO-VIR should be an appropriate initial regimen for naïve HIV-infected patients in resource-limited settings.
Can Unilateral Trade Measures Significantly Reduce Leakage and Competitiveness Pressures on EU-ETS-Constrained Industries? The Case of China Export Taxes and VAT Rebates

The unilateral use of export restricting measures such as export taxes and VAT refund by China on energy-intensive sectors has raised both hopes and concerns over the last couple of years inside the EU. From a European perspective indeed, export restricting measures on products where China represents a decisive share of world production are likely to ease the competitive pressure faced by European import-competing industries, through both a quantity (import volumes decline) and price (world price rise) effect. Mirroring the border trade adjustment (BTA) scheme originally contemplated in the EU, trade restrictions on Chinese exports might hence have an effect on trade “comparable” to any border adjustment mechanism set in a large importing country. Concerns regard first the environmental motives if any of such export restraints, and second, provided that they are part of a national commitment to combat climate change, the exact amount to which these trade effects could be part of a deal by actually avoiding leakages outside the EU. Both concerns are addressed in this paper. We show that at least formally and legally, China’s export restraints on energy-intensive products are presented by Chinese officials as contributor to China’s overall environmental goals. The second concern we more lengthy dwell upon is to the extent to which EU import and China export adjustment mechanisms have comparable effects from a climate change perspective. Focusing on steel, aluminum and cement where risks of leakage are deemed plausible and export restricting measures have been raised in China during the last couple of years, we assess the comparability of China and EU commitment to combat climate change through a proxy given by the EU-ETS quota price equivalent of China’s export restrictions set on energy intensive products. After reviewing the rationale and current level of export taxes and VAT rebates on steel, aluminum and cement in China, we present the basic formula of EU-ETS quota price equivalent of China’s export restricting measures, and then apply it to steel, aluminum and cement. Our estimates of the EU-ETS quota price equivalent of Chinese exports restrictions provide figures of similar magnitude as the envisaged range of EU-ETS CO2 price, except for cement. We conclude by analysing the policy implications, and particularly, the leverage effects such export restraints could have in shaping a climate deal. Ongoing discussions with EU and Chinese officials triggered by IDDRI on this issue will provide first-hand material for such policy implications.
P2X7 Receptor Cell Surface Expression and Cytolytic Pore Formation Are Regulated by a Distal C-terminal Region*

The importance of the cytosolic C-terminal region of the P2X7 receptor (P2X7R) is unquestioned, yet little is known about the functional domains of this region and how they may contribute to the numerous properties ascribed to this receptor. A structure-function analysis of truncated and single-residue-mutated P2X7 receptors was performed in HEK-293 cells and Xenopus oocytes. Cells expressing receptors truncated at residue 581 (of 595) have negligible ethidium ion uptake, whereas those expressing the P2X7R truncated at position 582 give wild type ethidium ion uptake suggesting that pore formation requires over 95% of the C-terminal tail. Channel function was evident even in receptors that were truncated at position 380 indicating that only a small portion of the cytosolic region is required for channel activity. Surprisingly, truncations in the region between residues 551 and 581 resulted in non-functional receptors with no detectable cell surface expression in HEK-293 cells. A more detailed analysis revealed that mutations of single residues within this region could also abolish receptor function and cell surface expression, suggesting that this region may participate in regulating the surface expression of the pore-forming P2X7R.
Health Insurance and the Labor Market

A distinctive feature of the health insurance market in the U.S. is the restriction of group insurance availability to the workplace. This has a number of important implications for the functioning of the labor market, through mobility from job-to-job or in and out of the labor force, wage determination, and hiring decisions. This paper reviews the large literature that has emerged in recent years to assess the impact of health insurance on the labor market. I begin with an overview of the institutional details relevant to assessing the interaction of health insurance and the labor market. I then present a theoretical overview of the effects of health insurance on mobility and wage/employment determination. I critically review the empirical literature on these topics, focusing in particular on the methodological issues that have been raised, and highlighting the unanswered questions which can be the focus of future work in this area.
Automatic Lymphocyte Detection on Gastric Cancer IHC Images Using Deep Learning

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) have received considerable attention in recent years, as evidence suggests they are related to cancer prognosis. Distribution and localization of these and other types of immune cells are of special interest for pathologists, and frequently involve manual examination on Immunohistochemistry (IHC) Images. We present a model based on Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Automatic lymphocyte detection on IHC images of gastric cancer. The dataset created as part of this work is publicly available for future research.
Investigation on dynamic point selection scheme based on proportional fair criteria

The coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission is one of the promising techniques to increase the throughput of users located at the cell-edge. Among the CoMP transmission schemes, the dynamic point selection (DPS) combined with the dynamic point blanking (DPB) is investigated, since it can achieve superior performance with relatively small overhead. This paper proposes the DPS/DPB scheme based on the proportional fair (PF) criteria, which is effective to exploit the tradeoff between fairness and network performance. We derive the optimum DPS/DPB allocation scheme by solving the convex optimization problem based on the achievable average data rate of each user. The paper evaluates the performance of the proposed scheme in the simple environment using the one-dimensional model with two BSs (M = 2), and shows that the proposed scheme works well. Furthermore, the extension of the proposed scheme to select the DPS/DPB user candidates, and to the inter-cell interference coordination is presented.
Chronic periodontitis is associated with erectile dysfunction. A case–control study in european population

AIM To determine the association between chronic periodontitis and erectile dysfunction adjusting for biochemical markers and other comorbidities. METHODS A case-control study was conducted on 158 male patients; 80 cases with erectile dysfunction according to the International Index of Erectile Function and 78 controls. Sociodemographic data were gathered, and a periodontal examination was performed. Testosterone, lipid profile, C-reactive protein and glycaemic parameters were assessed. All variables were compared between groups, and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed. RESULTS 74% of the cases were diagnosed with chronic periodontitis. Number of sites with pocket probing depth 4-6 mm (p = 0.05) and number of sites with clinical attachment loss >3 mm (p < 0.01) were higher in the cases. Triglycerides (p < 0.01), C-reactive protein (p = 0.02) and glycosylated haemoglobin (p = 0.04) were also higher in the cases. Logistic regression showed that patients with chronic periodontitis were more likely to have erectile dysfunction (OR=2.17; 95% CI (1.06-4.43); p = 0.03) independently of other confounders. CONCLUSION Patients with erectile dysfunction showed worse periodontal condition. Chronic periodontitis seems to play a key role as a risk factor in the pathogenesis of erectile dysfunction independently of other morbidities.
The Impact of Monetary policy on Consumption and Investment in Jordan during (1989-2013)

Monetary policy is one of the important monetary subjects that can evaluate the performance of the policy and its tools, recent development in financial markets in the past years led to changes in the behavior of countries monetary policies, concentrated to achieve stability in the price level by creating new ideas of how monetary policy affects the economy and its components through linking macroeconomic activities (private spending components) with nominal interest rate. This study aims to analyze and evaluate the impact of Jordanian monetary policy on consumption and investment spending during the period (1989-2013) to predict the impact of monetary policy and its instruments on real economic activities and inflation. The study finds that lending rate affects investment negatively but it does not affect consumption and real GDP in the short run. However, in the long run investment is affected by the co-movements occurred in consumption lending rate and lagged investment. Also, the study finds that real GDP is affected by the co- movements that occurred in real GDP and lending rate. Furthermore, domestic credit is affected by the co-movements that happened in domestic credit and lending rate.
Validation of image restoration methods on 3D-printed ultrasound phantoms

The resolution of ultrasound images is limited by the bandwidth of the imaging system and the features of the propagating medium. Using certain assumptions, image restoration can recover out-of-bandwidth data and improve resolution. Several resolution improvement methods have been reported in the literature. However, due to the lack of ground truth, their evaluation on experimental data remains an open issue. Indeed, to evaluate the performance of such methods, knowledge of the scattering function is necessary. Usually this is achieved with numerical simulations, since in traditional phantoms the exact distribution of scatterers is unknown. In the current work, based on a 3D-printed phantom, the feasibility of the evaluation of deconvolution is investigated. The deconvolution method used lp-norm-regularization terms with p=0.5 and p=2. Knowledge of the scattering function allows comparison of the deconvolved images with the ground truth. Thus, using the scattering function and the originally acquired B-mode image, performance of image restoration methods could be evaluated quantitatively through comparison of root mean square error and full width half maximum values. Preliminary results demonstrate the benefits of knowing the scattering function during experimental testing of image restoration methods. In summary, the current work shows the potential of an experimental method for evaluating the extent to which an image restoration method provides a faithful rendering of the underlying scattering structure.
Automated synchronization of a sequencer to polyphonic music

This is a master thesis report dealing with the subject of synchronizing a sequencer to polyphonic music. The task is divided into three subproblems: onset detection, tempo/meter analysis, and synchronization. An in-depth study of selected methods for solving these problems is presented. Based on this study, a complete system has been designed. Onset detection is performed by dividing the musical signal into several frequency bands, and differentiating their amplitude envelopes. Onsets are discriminated by peakpicking with an adaptive threshold function. The tempo is evaluated continuously, by keeping a leaky histogram of inter onset interval times. The tempo is decided by finding the most frequent time in the histogram. The time signature of the music is found by evaluating the onset autocorrelation at lags corresponding to tempo fractions. The bar length is decided as the tempo fraction where the autocorrelation is the strongest. Synchronization is carried out with a phase-locking loop, where the system clock output is aligned to the detected onsets. The clock output is sent to the sequencer over a MIDI bus. The system has been implemented on a DSP56303 evaluation module (except for time signature identification). The performance of the system depends on the input; music with a strong beat has shown to yield good results, while non-percussive music is very difficult for the system to correctly classify.
Technological Based Growth in Developed Countries – A Quantitative Assessment

Along the history, great economic powers have based their superiority not only on the size of their territory, population but also on education, innovation, knowledge, science and technology. From the Macedonian phalanx to the modern military drones, and from the invention of the wheel to space travels, the world economy has always been shaped by daring nations who had the technological superiority and the leaders to promote or impose their economic models to the world. Presently, in the very competitive economic environment, technology and science have become more than ever fundamental drivers of the economic growth. The rate of technological change highlights more the â€œhuman touch of these factorsâ€ namely: knowledge, skills, talents, abilities, courage, intelligence, experiences, wisdom and health, attributes that make the difference in the modern world, and create the framework for scientific and technological superiority of the developed countries. In view of all this, our research aims to assess the role of technological advance as driver of economic growth in the main developed countries, insisting on four emblematic countries: the United States, Japan, South Korea and Germany. Utilizing both national and international statistics (OECD, World Bank etc.), our methodological approach is based on some relevant indicators such as:, GDP, high-tech sector contribution in the GDP, national expenditures on: education, RDI; quality of higher education, registered inventions and patents, Nobel prize winners, brains attraction and the world trade share in the field of high-tech products. Using the scoring method for ranking the place of analyzed countries in top ten developed economies within the OECD statistics, our 17 paper aims at establishing the role of scientific and technological development in stimulating economic growth. We will also highlight the role of national strategies for increasing knowledge-based economic development in general and high-tech sector development, in particular, in the analyzed countries.
[Assessment of diabetic patient management at primary health care level].

OBJECTIVE The characterization of diabetic patients seen at a primary health care clinic. METHODS The case notes of 3,024 families were searched by means of a cross-sectional study for patients 30 to 75 years of age with a diagnosis of diabetes mellitus who had had a medical consultation during the previous five years. These patients were interviewed at their homes and were asked to come to the health center for physical examination and a plasma glucose test using glucosylated hemoglobin (GH). RESULTS The prevalence of diabetes was 4%. The typical diabetic patient was a white women, > or = 50 years of age, from a family with a monthly income < or = 3 minimum wages. Compliance with GH was observed in 70% of the patients. Diet therapy was followed by less than one third of the patients and only one fifth were engaged in regular exercise. Nearly 70% were undergoing drug therapy (oral hypoglicemic agents or insulin); of these, only 15% used insulin. Most of the patients (66%) who agreed to have the GH test showed normal or fair glucose blood levels. CONCLUSIONS Great efforts should be made by health teams to enhance diabetic patient education in order to promote compliance with recommendations regarding diet and exercise.
Analysis of human lymphotropic T-cell virus type II-like particle production by recombinant baculovirus-infected insect cells.

The molecular processes involved in retrovirus assembly and budding formation remain poorly understood. The gag-pro-pol genes of human lymphotropic T-cell virus type II (HTLV-II) are translated into Gag, Gag-Pro, or Gag-Pro-Pol by frameshift events. In the present study, we investigated the roles of the gag, pro, and pol regions of HTLV-II in viral particle formation using recombinant baculoviruses. In this study we could successfully produce mature HTLV-II viral particles containing core structures using a construct expressing the entire gag-pro-pol region. We also investigated the role of the pol region in particle formation. Deletion of the pol region affects viral particle assembly or release very little, indicating that the gag-pro region is sufficient for viral particle formation and maturation. Expression of the Gag proteins alone or Gag proteins with inactivated viral proteases (Pro) resulted in the formation of viral particles; however, these particles did not contain core structures. These results suggest the intracellular expression of Gag with Pro of HTLV-II is essential for the production of mature virus particles, whereas that of Pol is not.