Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cell-type specific burst firing interacts with theta and beta activity in prefrontal cortex during attention states

Population-level theta and beta band activity in anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex (ACC/PFC) are prominent signatures of endogenously controlled, adaptive behaviors. But how these rhythmic activities are linked to cell-type specific activity has remained unclear. Here, we suggest such a cell-to-systems level linkage. We found that the rate of burst spiking events is enhanced particularly during attention states and that attention-specific burst spikes have a unique temporal relationship to local theta and beta band population level activities. For the 5-10Hz theta frequency range, bursts coincided with transient increases of local theta power relative to non-bursts, particularly for bursts of putative interneurons. For the 16-30Hz beta frequency, bursts of putative interneurons phase synchronized stronger than nonbursts, and were associated with larger beta power modulation. In contrast, burst of putative pyramidal cells were overall similarly beta-synchronized than nonbursts, but were linked with stronger beta power only when they occurred early in the beta cycle. These findings suggests that in the ACC/PFC during attention states, mechanisms underlying burst firing are intimately linked to narrow band population level activities, providing a cell-type specific window into the emergence, resetting, or termination of oscillatory activities.
Cardiotoxicity of Cancer Therapeutics: Current Issues in Screening, Prevention, and Therapy

In the context of modern cancer chemotherapeutics, cancer survivors are living longer and being exposed to potential comorbidities related to non-cancer side effects of such treatments. With close monitoring of cancer patients receiving potentially cardiotoxic medical therapies, oncologists, and cardiologists alike are identifying patients in both clinical and subclinical phases of cardiovascular disease related to such chemotherapies. Specifically, cardiotoxicity at the level of the myocardium and potential for the development of heart failure are becoming a growing concern with increasing survival of cancer patients. Traditional chemotherapeutic agents used commonly in the treatment of breast cancer and hematologic malignancies, such as anthracyclines and HER-2 antagonists, are well known to be associated with cardiovascular sequelae. Patients often present without symptoms and an abnormal cardiac imaging study performed as part of routine evaluation of patients receiving cardiotoxic therapies. Additionally, patients can present with signs and symptoms of cardiovascular disease months to years after receiving the chemotherapies. As the understanding of the physiology underlying the various cancers has grown, therapies have been developed that target specific molecules that represent key aspects of physiologic pathways responsible for cancer growth. Inhibition of these pathways, such as those involving tyrosine kinases, has lead to the potential for cardiotoxicity as well. In view of the potential cardiotoxicity of specific chemotherapies, there is a growing interest in identifying patients who are at risk of cardiotoxicity prior to becoming symptomatic or developing cardiotoxicity that may limit the use of potentially life-saving chemotherapy agents. Serological markers and novel cardiac imaging techniques have become the source of many investigations with the goal of screening patients for pre-clinical cardiotoxicity. Additionally, studies have been performed.
FACILE: Description of the NE System Used for MUC-7

In the rest of this paper, we first give some background on the context in which the system used in the MUC-7 NE task was developed. We then outline its internal structure, concentrating on the rule notation which is its most salient feature. An evaluation of its performance in the task then follows, before concluding with some speculation on the extent to which the approach adopted is susceptible to further improvement.
Burden and well-being among caregivers: examining the distinction.

PURPOSE This study assessed overall quality of life of caregivers, using a path model in which burden was conceptualized as distinct from well-being. DESIGN AND METHODS Data were drawn from a representative sample of caregivers to dementia and nondementia care receivers in British Columbia, Canada (N = 243). The model used was based on a previously proposed stress/appraisal path model and used multiple regression path estimates. Primary stressors were care receiver cognitive status, physical function, and behavioral problems; the primary appraisal variable was hours of caregiving during the previous week. Mediators were perceived social support, frequency of getting a break, and hours of formal service use; secondary appraisal was subjective burden. The outcome measure was generalized well-being. RESULTS Well-being was directly affected by four variables: perceived social support, burden, self-esteem, and hours of informal care. Burden was affected directly by behavioral problems, frequency of getting a break, self-esteem, and informal hours of care and was not affected by perceived social support. DISCUSSION The finding that perceived social support is strongly related to well-being but unrelated to burden reinforces the conceptual distinctiveness of the latter two concepts. This suggests that quality of life of caregivers could be improved even with burden in their lives and that the overwhelming focus in caregiving research on burden should be supplemented with an emphasis on quality of life.
Using hydrochemical, stable isotope, and river water recharge data to identify groundwater flow paths in a deeply buried karst system

The deeply buried river‐connected Xishan karst aquifer (XKA) in western Beijing, China, has been suffering from diminishing recharge for several decades, which in turn leads to the disappearing of spring water outflows and continuously lowering of groundwater level in the area. Thus, it is important to correctly recognize the groundwater recharge and flow paths for the sustainable development of the XKA. To investigate these issues, the hydrochemical and isotopic compositions are analysed for both surface water and groundwater samples collected over an area of about 280 km2. Results show that (a) the river water is characterized by high Na contents; (b) the δ2H and δ18O values in the river water are distinctively higher than those of groundwater samples, after experiencing the long‐time evaporative enrichment in the upstream reservoir; (c) the Sr concentrations and 87Sr/86Sr ratios of groundwater clearly indicated the interaction between water and carbonate minerals but excluded the water–silicate interaction; and (d) the groundwater samples in the direct recharge area of the XKA have the lowest Na concentrations and the δ2H and δ18O values. Based on the large differences in the Na contents and 18O values of groundwater and surface water, a simple two‐component mixing model is developed for the study area and the fractions of the river water are estimated for groundwater samples. We find that the distribution pattern of the river water fractions in the XKA clearly shows a change of directions in the preferential flow path of the groundwater from its source zone to the discharge area. Overall, our results suggest that the recharged surface water can be a useful evidence for delineating the groundwater flow path in river‐connected karst aquifer. This study improves our understanding of the heterogeneity in karst groundwater systems.
Major flowering time gene, FLOWERING LOCUS C, regulates seed germination in Arabidopsis thaliana

FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) is a major regulator of flowering responses to seasonal environmental factors. Here, we document that FLC also regulates another major life-history transition-seed germination, and that natural variation at the FLC locus and in FLC expression is associated with natural variation in temperature-dependent germination. FLC-mediated germination acts through additional genes in the flowering pathway (FT, SOC1, and AP1) before involving the abscisic acid catabolic pathway (via CYP707A2) and gibberellins biosynthetic pathway (via GA20ox1) in seeds. Also, FLC regulation of germination is largely maternally controlled, with FLC peaking and FT, SOC1, and AP1 levels declining at late stages of seed maturation. High FLC expression during seed maturation is associated with altered expression of hormonal genes (CYP707A2 and GA20ox1) in germinating seeds, indicating that gene expression before the physiological independence of seeds can influence gene expression well after any physical connection between maternal plants and seeds exists. The major role of FLC in temperature-dependent germination documented here reveals a much broader adaptive significance of natural variation in FLC. Therefore, pleiotropy between these major life stages likely influences patterns of natural selection on this important gene, making FLC a promising case for examining how pleiotropy influences adaptive evolution.
Nanosuspensions: a promising drug delivery strategy

Nanosuspensions have emerged as a promising strategy for the efficient delivery of hydrophobic drugs because of their versatile features and unique advantages. Techniques such as media milling and high‐pressure homogenization have been used commercially for producing nanosuspensions. Recently, the engineering of nanosuspensions employing emulsions and microemulsions as templates has been addressed in the literature. The unique features of nanosuspensions have enabled their use in various dosage forms, including specialized delivery systems such as mucoadhesive hydrogels. Rapid strides have been made in the delivery of nanosuspensions by parenteral, peroral, ocular and pulmonary routes. Currently, efforts are being directed to extending their applications in site‐specific drug delivery.
CTCF Genomic Binding Sites in Drosophila and the Organisation of the Bithorax Complex

Insulator or enhancer-blocking elements are proposed to play an important role in the regulation of transcription by preventing inappropriate enhancer/promoter interaction. The zinc-finger protein CTCF is well studied in vertebrates as an enhancer blocking factor, but Drosophila CTCF has only been characterised recently. To date only one endogenous binding location for CTCF has been identified in the Drosophila genome, the Fab-8 insulator in the Abdominal-B locus in the Bithorax complex (BX-C). We carried out chromatin immunopurification coupled with genomic microarray analysis to identify CTCF binding sites within representative regions of the Drosophila genome, including the 3-Mb Adh region, the BX-C, and the Antennapedia complex. Location of in vivo CTCF binding within these regions enabled us to construct a robust CTCF binding-site consensus sequence. CTCF binding sites identified in the BX-C map precisely to the known insulator elements Mcp, Fab-6, and Fab-8. Other CTCF binding sites correlate with boundaries of regulatory domains allowing us to locate three additional presumptive insulator elements; “Fab-2,” “Fab-3,” and “Fab-4. ” With the exception of Fab-7, our data indicate that CTCF is directly associated with all known or predicted insulators in the BX-C, suggesting that the functioning of these insulators involves a common CTCF-dependent mechanism. Comparison of the locations of the CTCF sites with characterised Polycomb target sites and histone modification provides support for the domain model of BX-C regulation.
Improving Inservice Training: The Messages of Research.

To be most effective, training should include theory, demonstration, practice, feedback, and classroom application. We have just completed a two-year effort to ex amine research on the ability of teachers to acquire teaching skills and strategies. The first message from that research is very posi tive: teachers are wonderful learners. Nearly all teach ers can acquire new skills that "fine tune" their com petence. They can also learn a considerable repertoire of teaching strategies that are new to them. The second message is more sobering, but still optimistic: in order to improve their skills and learn new approaches to teaching, teachers need certain conditions—conditions that are not common in most inservice settings even when teachers participate in the governance of those settings. The third message is also encouraging: the re search base reveals what conditions help teachers to learn. This information can be used to design staff development activities for classroom personnel.
Migraine and estrogen.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW The aim is to systematically and critically review the relationship between migraine and estrogen, the predominant female sex hormone, with a focus on studies published in the last 18 months. RECENT FINDINGS Recent functional MRI (fMRI) studies of the brain support the existence of anatomical and functional differences between men and women, as well as between participants with migraine and healthy controls. In addition to the naturally occurring changes in endogenous sex hormones over the lifespan (e.g. puberty and menopause), exogenous sex hormones (e.g. hormonal contraception or hormone therapy) also may modulate migraine. Recent data support the historical view of an elevated risk of migraine with significant drops in estrogen levels. In addition, several lines of research support that reducing the magnitude of decline in estrogen concentrations prevents menstrually related migraine (MRM) and migraine aura frequency. SUMMARY Current literature has consistently demonstrated that headache, in particular migraine, is more prevalent in women as compared with men, specifically during reproductive years. Recent studies have found differences in headache characteristics, central nervous system anatomy, as well as functional activation by fMRI between the sexes in migraine patients. Although the cause underlying these differences is likely multifactorial, considerable evidence supports an important role for sex hormones. Recent studies continue to support that MRM is precipitated by drops in estrogen concentrations, and minimizing this decline may prevent these headaches. Limited data also suggest that specific regimens of combined hormone contraceptive use in MRM and migraine with aura may decrease both headache frequency and aura.
ThinkLets: a collaboration engineering pattern language

Under the right circumstances, teams that use professional facilitators and Group Support Systems (GSS) experience significant gains in productivity and quality of work life. However, because of the expense, facilitators are not available to many teams that could benefit from their interventions. The emerging field of Collaboration Engineering aims to formulate an approach for designing high-value recurring collaboration processes that capture the best practices of master facilitators and packaging the processes in a fashion that can be transferred to practitioners to execute for themselves without the ongoing intervention of professional facilitators. Towards that end, Collaboration Engineering researchers have developed thinkLets, an Alexandrian design pattern language. A thinkLet is a named, packaged facilitation technique, captured as a pattern that collaboration engineers can incorporate into process designs. These patterns can be instantiated at design time in such a way that a practitioner can use them to recreate a predictable pattern of collaboration. This paper articulates the details of thinkLet design patterns and explains the utility that facilitators, collaboration engineers, researchers and practitioners are deriving from thinkLets in the field. It examines the parallels and differences among the goals and structures of the thinkLets pattern language, Alexander's architectural patterns and software design patterns.
Improving RNA-Seq Precision with MapAl

With currently available RNA-Seq pipelines, expression estimates for most genes are very noisy. We here introduce MapAl, a tool for RNA-Seq expression profiling that builds on the established programs Bowtie and Cufflinks. In the post-processing of RNA-Seq reads, it incorporates gene models already at the stage of read alignment, increasing the number of reliably measured known transcripts consistently by 50%. Adding genes identified de novo then allows a reliable assessment of double the total number of transcripts compared to other available pipelines. This substantial improvement is of general relevance: Measurement precision determines the power of any analysis to reliably identify significant signals, such as in screens for differential expression, independent of whether the experimental design incorporates replicates or not.
Information Recommendation System Based on the Analysis of User Relationship and Micro- blogging Content Mining

Based on analysis of user relationship to create a user influence model. By means of collecting the user data of Sina Weibo, this thesis will analyse Weibo users relationship and the causes of customer relationship networks. By using the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation methods to determine the relationship between different factors that may affect user influence and propose a formula as well as construct the centre user's user influence model. Proposed the recommendation algorithm of micro-blogging information. In this paper, the existing information recommendation algorithms were reviewed and summarized some micro-blogging information recommended methods. On account of this, the thesis proposes another calculation method which is based on the user relationship and micro-blogging content analysis to make the Weibo information recommendation for centre audience, and verifies the effectiveness of this algorithm through the experimental results.
TRPM8, a Versatile Channel in Human Sperm

Background The transient receptor potential channel (TRP) family includes more than 30 proteins; they participate in various Ca2+ dependent processes. TRPs are functionally diverse involving thermal, chemical and mechanical transducers which modulate the concentration of intracellular Ca2+ ([Ca2+]i). Ca2+ triggers and/or regulates principal sperm functions during fertilization such as motility, capacitation and the acrosome reaction. Nevertheless, the presence of the TRPM subfamily in sperm has not been explored. Principal Findings Here we document with RT-PCR, western blot and immunocitochemistry analysis the presence of TRPM8 in human sperm. We also examined the participation of this channel in sperm function using specific agonists (menthol and temperature) and antagonists (BCTC and capsazepine). Computer-aided sperm analysis revealed that menthol did not significantly alter human sperm motility. In contrast, menthol induced the acrosome reaction in human sperm. This induction was inhibited about 70% by capsazepine (20 µM) and 80% by BCTC (1.6 µM). Activation of TRPM8 either by temperature or menthol induced [Ca2+]i increases in human sperm measured by fluorescence in populations or individual sperm cells, effect that was also inhibited by capsazepine (20 µM) and BCTC (1.6 µM). However, the progesterone and ZP3-induced acrosome reaction was not inhibited by capsazepine or BCTC, suggesting that TRPM8 activation triggers this process by a different signaling pathway. Conclusions This is the first report dealing with the presence of a thermo sensitive channel (TRPM8) in human sperm. This channel could be involved in cell signaling events such as thermotaxis or chemotaxis.
The central region of M83

We combine VLT/ISAAC near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy with archival HST/WFPC2 and HST/NICMOS imaging to study the central 20 x 20 arcsec 2 of M83. Our NIR indices for clusters in the circumnuclear starburst region are inconsistent with simple instantaneous burst models. However, models of a single burst dispersed over a duration of 6 Myr fit the data well and provide the clearest evidence yet of an age gradient along the star-forming arc, with the youngest clusters nearest the north-east dust lane. The long-slit kinematics show no evidence to support previous claims of a second hidden mass concentration, although we do observe changes in molecular gas velocity consistent with the presence of a shock at the edge of the dust lane.
Improved collaborative filtering approach based on user similarity combination

Collaborative filtering is key technique of recommendation system. But traditional collaborative filtering methods are inefficient especially when the user-rating data is extremely sparse. To solve this problem, we propose an approach to compute the user similarity with the type of users-rating items in this paper, and then we develop a collaborative filtering algorithm based on this approach. Furthermore, we put forward an improved collaborative filtering algorithm based on user similarity combination, which combines the user similarity based on user-rating items and the user similarity based on the types of user-rating items. Last, we carry out an experiment with the classic Movielens data sets to evaluate the algorithm, and use MAE as the performance index. It shows that the collaborative filtering method based on the user similarity computed with types of user-rating items is more effective than the traditional method based on user similarity computed with user-rating items, and the collaborative filtering approach based on user similarity combination gets the best result.
Discriminative Feature Learning for Video Semantic Segmentation

In this paper, we propose a novel deep learning based method for video semantic segmentation. Specially, we utilize 3D convolution neural network (3D CNN) to learn discriminative hierarchical features from spatial-temporal volumes for accurate pixel labelling. The learned features are capable of capturing both appearance and motion information. To align the pixel labels along real object boundaries, as well as maintain local consistency, we further perform graph-cut on a graph constructed on coherent 3d regions, or super-voxels, extracted from input video. Experiments demonstrate that due to the discriminative capability of learned features, our approach can obtain competitive labelling accuracy compared to the state-of-art in absence of sophisticated inference models, even with few training samples.