Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aging: The Fading Signal of Natural Selection

The surprising discovery that age-specific mortality rates (and fecundity rates) plateau in late life, in contrast to the traditional Gompertz prediction of the acceleration of age-specific mortality rates, has motivated Rose and his collaborators to seek explanations grounded in evolutionary theory, such as the decline of natural selection with age predicted by Hamilton in 1966 (Mueller et al., 2011). From this approach has emerged Rose’s stated idea that aging is the deterioration or detuning of adaptation with age. To push the musical metaphor, as the forces of natural selection attenuate, the coherent tuned signal of adapted allele frequencies fades until lost in the static noise of random genetic drift. The long-lived fly experiments in the Rose laboratory which indicate that adjusting the timing of the antagonistic pleiotropy between reproduction and survival in turn adjusts the timing of the late life plateaus comprise a most striking confirmation of the evolutionary approach. Despite these predictive successes, aging continues to be almost reflexively thought of by many as the inexorable accumulation of cellular and physiological damage and wear with age. Even researchers who know of the decline of Hamilton’s forces have often assumed, as Rose points out, that this decline fits with the inexorable damage accumulation thesis. This old thinking casts a shadow not only on much aging research but its application in traditional pharmaceutical approaches to the “diseases of aging” and in clinical gerontology. Now in the age of genomics, we can test aspects of the model with rich new data sets. In comparing the genomes of long-lived flies with flies of ordinary life span, it would be fascinating to search for altered expression levels (via microarray studies as J. L. G. suggests in his commentary on “What is Aging? ”) in genes at succeeding stages in life history. Another potentially illuminating suite of tests would entail the use of varied phylogenetic methods (Suzuki, 2010) to detect differences between lineages in the strength of selection versus nearly neutral genetic drift in those genes with altered expression and across regions of the genomes of long-lived and ordinary flies. If the age of genomics has taught us anything, it is that genomic adaptations are likely to be slight and additive across numerous genes and their regulatory regions.
Immunogenicity of low-dose and conventional-dose recombinant hepatitis B vaccines in healthy adolescents in India.

INTRODUCTION The recombinant hepatitis B vaccine, at a conventional dose of 20 microgrammes, is highly effective in a majority of the population. Recent studies have reported that a 10-microgramme dose is as effective as the conventional dose, especially in young adolescents. This study compares the effect of two different doses of recombinant hepatitis B vaccine (Enivac HB) in healthy adolescents. METHODS Ninety-two adolescents were randomised into two equal groups to receive either 10 microgrammes (group 1) or 20 microgrammes (group 2) of vaccine using the vaccination schedule of 0, one and six months. Blood samples were collected at 30, 60, 90, 180 and 210 days to detect anti-HBs antibodies. At each interval, geometric mean titres were calculated for seroconverted subjects. RESULTS After the initial doses of the vaccine, greater proportion of subjects receiving the higher dose seroconverted. However, at six months, all subjects who received the low dose seroconverted, as did those who received the conventional dose. Furthermore, there were significant differences in the anti-HBs geometric mean titres for seroconverters at 180 days (218.27 versus 111.43) and 210 days (345.14 versus 133.35). The difference in the overall reactogenicity for the two dose levels was not remarkable, although the higher dose produced more local symptoms. CONCLUSION 10-microgramme recombinant vaccine can be used in routine immunisation in healthy adolescents. If quick immunisation is needed, as in high-risk groups, the conventional dose should be administered, as it results in earlier seroconversion with higher anti-HBs geometric mean titres.
Chaos in Neuronal Networks with Balanced Excitatory and Inhibitory Activity

Neurons in the cortex of behaving animals show temporally irregular spiking patterns. The origin of this irregularity and its implications for neural processing are unknown. The hypothesis that the temporal variability in the firing of a neuron results from an approximate balance between its excitatory and inhibitory inputs was investigated theoretically. Such a balance emerges naturally in large networks of excitatory and inhibitory neuronal populations that are sparsely connected by relatively strong synapses. The resulting state is characterized by strongly chaotic dynamics, even when the external inputs to the network are constant in time. Such a network exhibits a linear response, despite the highly nonlinear dynamics of single neurons, and reacts to changing external stimuli on time scales much smaller than the integration time constant of a single neuron.
Comparative Critical Study of Commercial Calcium Phosphate Bone Substitutes in Terms of Physic-Chemical Properties

Physico-chemical characteristics impact directly or indirectly the bioactive properties of biomaterials, it is then essential to correlate it with their effect in vivo. A panel of biomaterials available on the market, based on Hydroxyapatite (HA) and Tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) is studied in terms of surface area, hydrophilicity, porosity, zeta potential, crystalline phases and density. This study highlights the dispersity of commercial calcium phosphates (CaP) properties, and demonstrates how the quality criteria required for such bone substitute based on biomimicry concept, whose pores distribution is certainly the more relevant, are often incompletely or not respected according to literature.
Integration of vision and walking skills together with high-level strategies for quadruped robots to play soccer

Legged robots taking part in real multi-agent activities represent a very innovative challenge. This domain of research requires developments in three main areas. First, without any feedback information from the environment, there is no way for robots to achieve some tasks autonomously. Fortunately, the quadruped 'Sony' prototypes on which all experiments are carried out are equipped with an enhanced vision system; thanks to its CCD camera located in its head, the robot can obtain color images of the scene around it. Extracting relevant information from the images captured is not easy since it must be done onboard in real time. Moreover, image treatment procedures should have high process rates for the robot to react quickly in front of unexpected events. A special vision module composed of three parts has been designed for these purposes. The second point to focus on is the walking ability of the robot. Quadrupeds are designed to move efficiently and rapidly on flat ground. The objective of the walking module is to generate appropriate walking patterns allowing the machine to walk in the desired direction. Walking gaits are produced like reflexes by the robot itself to adapt to the situation. With regard to the design of these gaits, emphasis has been put on increasing speed and mastering transitions. Finally, the machine should be given a minimum of intelligence since it has to manage vision information and its walking gaits by itself. When involved in situations of cooperation or competition or both, like in a soccer game, a high-level supervision task is welcome. This paper presents detailed developments of these three points and describes how they are implemented on a real robot.
Defensive eye-blink startle responses in a human experimental model of anxiety

Inhalation of low concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) triggers anxious behaviours in rodents via chemosensors in the amygdala, and increases anxiety, autonomic arousal and hypervigilance in healthy humans. However, it is not known whether CO2 inhalation modulates defensive behaviours coordinated by this network in humans. We examined the effect of 7.5% CO2 challenge on the defensive eye-blink startle response. A total of 27 healthy volunteers completed an affective startle task during inhalation of 7.5% CO2 and air. The magnitude and latency of startle eye-blinks were recorded whilst participants viewed aversive and neutral pictures. We found that 7.5% CO2 increased state anxiety and raised concurrent measures of skin conductance and heart rate (HR). CO2 challenge did not increase startle magnitude, but slowed the onset of startle eye-blinks. The effect of CO2 challenge on HR covaried with its effects on both subjective anxiety and startle latency. Our findings are discussed with reference to startle profiles during conditions of interoceptive threat, increased cognitive load and in populations characterised by anxiety, compared with acute fear and panic.
Highly purified murine interleukin 5 (IL-5) stimulates eosinophil function and prolongs in vitro survival. IL-5 as an eosinophil chemotactic factor

The recent molecular cloning of the complementary DNA encoding T cell-- replacing factor (TRF) has demonstrated that a single molecule is responsible for B cell growth factor II (BCGF-II) activity and eosinophil differentiation activity. It has been proposed that this molecule be called interleukin 5 (IL-5). We previously reported that purified rIL-5 supports the terminal differentiation and proliferation of eosinophilic precursors. In this study, we examined the effects of IL-5 on functional activities of mature eosinophils. IL-5 maintained the viability of mature eosinophils obtained from peritoneal exudate cells of mice infected with parasites. It also induced superoxide anion production in a dose-dependent manner. The Boyden's chamber Millipore assay revealed that IL-5 had a marked chemokinetic effect on eosinophils in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, IL-5 was found to be an eosinophil chemotactic factor by the checkerboard assay. In conclusion, IL-5 is suggested to play an important role in increasing the functional activities of eosinophils as well as their production in allergic and parasitic diseases.
Myocardin-Related Transcription Factor-A Controls Myofibroblast Activation and Fibrosis in Response to Myocardial Infarction

Rationale: Myocardial infarction (MI) results in loss of cardiac myocytes in the ischemic zone of the heart, followed by fibrosis and scar formation, which diminish cardiac contractility and impede angiogenesis and repair. Myofibroblasts, a specialized cell type that switches from a fibroblast-like state to a contractile, smooth muscle-like state, are believed to be primarily responsible for fibrosis of the injured heart and other tissues, although the transcriptional mediators of fibrosis and myofibroblast activation remain poorly defined. Myocardin-related transcription factors (MRTFs) are serum response factor (SRF) cofactors that promote a smooth muscle phenotype and are emerging as components of stress-responsive signaling. Objective: We aimed to examine the effect of MRTF-A on cardiac remodeling and fibrosis. Methods and Results: Here, we show that MRTF-A controls the expression of a fibrotic gene program that includes genes involved in extracellular matrix production and smooth muscle cell differentiation in the heart. In MRTF-A–null mice, fibrosis and scar formation following MI or angiotensin II treatment are dramatically diminished compared with wild-type littermates. This protective effect of MRTF-A deletion is associated with a reduction in expression of fibrosis-associated genes, including collagen 1a2, a direct transcriptional target of SRF/MRTF-A. Conclusions: We conclude that MRTF-A regulates myofibroblast activation and fibrosis in response to the renin–angiotensin system and post-MI remodeling.
Better Glycemic Control Is Associated With Maintenance of Lower-Extremity Function Over Time in Mexican American and European American Older Adults With Diabetes

OBJECTIVE Diabetes is a major cause of functional decline among older adults, but the role of glycemic control remains unclear. This article assesses whether better glycemic control is associated with better maintenance of lower-extremity function over time in older adults with diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Participants (n = 119) in the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging, ages 71–85, who met American Diabetes Association diabetes criteria were followed over a 36-month period. Seven measures of A1C (HbA1c) were obtained at 6-month intervals; three measures of lower-extremity function were obtained at 18-month intervals using the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB). A two-step analytic approach was used, first, to identify distinct glycemic control classes using latent growth mixture modeling and, second, to examine trajectories of lower-extremity function based on these classes using path analysis. RESULTS Two glycemic control classes were identified: a poorer control class with higher means (all >7%) and higher within-subject variability in HbA1c and a better control class with lower means (all <7%) and lower within-subject variability. The short-term and long-term maintenance of lower-extremity function, assessed by the association between the first and second SPPB measures and the first and third SPPB measures, were both greater in the better control class than in the poorer control class. CONCLUSIONS Among older adults with diabetes, better glycemic control may improve both short-term and long-term maintenance of lower-extremity function.
Dynamic Tensile Properties of Steel Sheets for Automobiles

Abstract. In recent years, increasing interest has been paid to the accurate measurement of the entire tensile stress-strain curve of materials for a wide range of strain rates on the order of 10 ~10 s . Such data are needed to formulate precise constitutive equations for strain rate sensitive materials. The entire tensile stress-strain curves of a cold rolled high strength steel sheet (SPFC440), which due to its improved formability is widely used for automobile structures, and a cold rolled mild steel sheet (SPCE), for a wide strain rate range on the order of 10 ~10 s 1 were obtained by using the Sensing Block Type High Speed Material Testing System. Based on an investigation of experimental data, strain rate sensitivities of flow stresses of these materials were clarified for the wide strainrate range. The values of the true fracture strength and the true fracture strain were obtained. It was also found that the value of the fracture strength and the fracture strain are substantially not affected by the testing strain rates.
Visual pattern weighting for near-duplicate image retrieval

Recently, there has been growing interest in mining co-location visual patterns from a collection of images. To find a proper usage of visual patterns in near-duplicate image retrieval systems, we study a TF-IDF weighting function for visual patterns. We show usage of TF and IDF respectively in this weighting function. Experiments demonstrate that 1) visual patterns and words should be weighted separately; 2) visual patterns consist of more frequent visual words would be more important; 3) visual patterns should be given lower weight values than visual words in near-duplicate image retrieval tasks.
Counting Objects using Homogeneous Connected Components

very important feature extraction method that is commonly used in computer visions and image processing applications is counting of objects. This paper represents a modified sequential region labeling algorithm which counts the homogeneous region of different objects on image. It is based on 4-connected, 6-connected and 8-connected component technique. These algorithms scan the image pixel by pixel from left to right and top to bottom sequentially and assign a label to every foreground pixels in binary image. Salt and pepper noise is usually prevalent in such images. Removing this noise is an important issue. We propose median filter algorithm to removed such type of noise and obtain better results. This technique may be applied to uniform, non- uniform, regular, irregular objects with different shape, size and file formats. Binary images are obtained from color or greyscale images by proper thresholding. In this proposed method, the regions of various objects are found by region labelling process. These distinct regions are given the number of objects that are present inside the image. This algorithm is implemented on the . net technology. These methods produced good performance in term of accuracy. This is a process oriented task. So the machine having higher processing speed can serve the purpose better.
Demographic Influences on Economic Growth, 1968-83

This paper describes an econometric investigation of the effects of population growth on the growth of output. A structural model yields an equation expressing output growth as a function of both demographic and nondemographic variables. This equation is estimated from data on 142 six-year growth periods in 85 countries at all levels of per capita output. Higher fertility is found to lower output growth in the short run and raise it in the long run (after twelve years). Nondemographic factors found to stimulate output growth include export orientation, improvements in the terms of trade, human capital formation, and reductions in political violence. What is the effect of population growth on the growth of output? The question is of obvious practical importance, but no clear consensus has emerged from the answers that economists have provided. Most of these answers have been based on one or other of three approaches. First, there is the approach of specifying a simple macroeconomic model and obtaining a direct analytical solution for the relationship between population growth and output growth. Models of the “steady-state” type illustrate this approach, and have generally yielded antinatalist results (e.g., Solow (1970)). Second, more complex models are specified, too complex to permit analytical solutions, and simulation techniques are employed to show the effects of alternative population growth rates on output growth. This approach has yielded results which are sometimes antinatalist (Coale and Hoover (1958)) and sometimes pronatalist (Simon (1976)). Third, econometric studies have examined historical correlations between population growth and output growth, using either cross-sectional or time-series techniques. The most common bivariate finding in these studies has been that the rate of population growth is not closely associated with the rate of growth in per capita output (Kelley (1988)). This paper attempts some more econometric analysis of the relationship between population growth and output growth. Some of the requirements of such analysis are as follows: 1. Multivariate rather than bivariate analysis is called for, since economic growth is evidently influenced by many other factors besides population growth, including economic policy, human capital accumulation, the external economic environment, and the political climate. 2. Different components of population growth - fertility, mortality, and immigration - as well as the absolute size of the population, ought to be recognized, since they may have
Fabrication of patient specific composite orbital floor implants by stereolithography

Fractures of the orbital floor are common in traffic accidents and assaults, and inadequate treatment can result in serious complications. Accurate anatomical reconstruction of the orbit using implants is the preferred treatment. Implants require degradability, adequate mechanical properties to support the orbital contents, and osteoinductivity or osteoconductivity so that the implant is replaced by de novo bone over time. Here, we report on a semi-automatic process for the generation of virtual models of patient-specific implants for orbital floor reconstruction. These models were generated using clinical computed tomography images of five clinical cases of orbital fracture. To fabricate accurately shaped implants based on the models, we utilized stereolithography, a high-resolution additive manufacturing technique. We prepared resins from bioresorbable, photo-curable functionalized poly(trimethylene carbonate) oligomers and osteoinductive nano-hydroxyapatite to manufacture composite implants. Incorporation of 40 wt. % nano-hydroxyapatite into photo-crosslinked poly(trimethylene carbonate) leads to an increase of the E modulus, ultimate strength and toughness from 2.8 to 60 MPa, 2.4 to 7.1 N/mm2 and 330 to 1671 N/mm2, respectively. Additionally, water uptake increased from 0.8% to 7.3%, and water contact angle decreased from 80° to 68°. Patient-specific, homogeneous, and mechanically stable implants can readily be prepared using these composite resins.
Biclustering strategies for genetic marker selection in gynecologic tumor cell lines

Over the past few decades great interest has been focused on cell lines derived from tumors, because of their usability as models to understand the biology of cancer. At the same time, advanced technologies such as DNA-microarrays have been broadly used to study the expression level of thousands of genes in primary tumors or cancer cell lines in a single experiment. Results from microarray analysis approaches have provided valuable insights into the underlying biology and proven useful for tumor classification, prognostication and prediction. Our approach utilizes biclustering methods for the discovery of genes with coherent expression across a subset of conditions (cell lines of a tumor type). More specifically, we present a novel modification on Cheng & Church's algorithm that searches for differences across the studied conditions, but also enforces consistent intensity characteristics of each cluster within each condition. The application of this approach on a gynecologic panel of cell lines succeeds to derive discriminant groups of compact bi-clusters across four types of tumor cell lines. In this form, the proposed approach is proven efficient for the derivation of tumor-specific markers.
Induction of long‐term potentiation at spinal synapses by noxious stimulation or nerve injury

Use‐dependent long‐term potentiation of synaptic strength (LTP) is an intensively studied model for learning and memory in vertebrates. Induction of LTP critically depends on the stimulation parameters of presynaptic fibres with synchronous high‐frequency bursts being most effective at many central synapses. It is, however, not known whether naturally occurring discharge patterns may induce LTP and whether LTP has any biological function in sensory systems. Here we have investigated the LTP of excitatory synaptic transmission between primary afferent C‐fibres, many of which are nociceptors, and neurons in rat superficial spinal dorsal horn. LTP that lasted for 4–6 h could not only be induced by electrical stimulation of sural nerve but also by natural stimulation of heat‐, mechano‐ or chemosensitive nociceptors in the skin or by acute nerve injury. Maintenance of LTP was not affected when afferent nerves were cut 1 h or 5 min after noxious skin stimulation, indicating that an ongoing afferent barrage is not required. Natural noxious stimuli induced LTP in animals which were spinalized but were ineffective in intact animals. Thus, induction of LTP is suppressed by tonically active supraspinal descending systems. We conclude that the natural non‐synchronized discharge patterns that are evoked by noxious stimulation may induce LTP and that this new form of LTP may be an underlying mechanism of afferent induced hyperalgesia.