Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Protein Kinase and G-Protein Regulation of Ca2+Currents in Hermissenda Photoreceptors by 5-HT and GABA

The effects of serotonin (5-HT) and GABA on two Ca2+ currents, a transient low-voltage-activated current (tLVA) and a sustained high-voltage-activated current (sHVA) were examined in isolated photoreceptors of Hermissenda. The sHVA current was blocked by 5-HT and reduced by activation of protein kinase C (PKC) with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate. The effects of 5-HT were transiently reversed by staurosporine and partially blocked by the PKC inhibitor peptide [PKC(19–36)]. GABA enhanced both the tLVA and sHVA currents at low concentrations (5 nm to 5 μm) and reduced the sHVA current at high concentrations (>10 μm). The GABA-mediated enhancement of the Ca2+ current at low concentrations was sensitive to block by picrotoxin. The protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitor peptide [PKI(6–22)amide] blocked enhancement of both Ca2+ currents produced by cAMP analogs and GABA, suggesting that the effects at low concentrations may be PKA mediated. Caged GTP-γ-S released by flash photolysis reduced the sHVA current, and pretreatment of the photoreceptors with pertussis toxin blocked the effects of higher concentrations of GABA, indicating that at higher concentrations, the effects may be G-protein mediated.
ENHANCEMENT OF THE NON‐TRYPTOPHAN FLUORESCENCE OF HUMAN LENS PROTEINS AFTER NEAR‐UV LIGHT EXPOSURE *

Abstract. In this work, the non‐tryptophan fluorescence (360 nm excited; 440 nm emitted) of human lens proteins was found to be intensified by exposing whole lens homogenates to near‐UV light in the presence of tryptophan photoproducts. The induced fluorescence accumulates mainly in the soluble phase proteins, whereas in aging and brown cataractous lenses, the major fluorescence is found in the insoluble proteins. Using SDS‐polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis with densitometric and fluorescence scanning techniques, the polypeptide chains of the three major protein fractions were analyzed for their specific non‐tryptophan fluorescences. The same chains were found in all fractions. Two chains (11,000 and 45,000 daltons) were found to accumulate most of the induced fluorescence. These also contained the greatest intrinsic fluorescence initially. The data indicates that specific polypeptide chains in the lens proteins are most sensitive to modifications due to their exposure to near‐UV light in the presence of tryptophan photoproducts.
Abusing locality in shared web hosting

The increasing popularity of the World Wide Web has made more and more individuals and companies to identify the need of acquiring a Web presence. The most common way of acquiring such a presence is through Web hosting companies and the most popular hosting solution is shared Web hosting. In this paper we investigate the workings of shared Web hosting and we point out the potential lack of session isolation between domains hosted on the same physical server. We present two novel server-side attacks against session storage which target the logic of a Web application instead of specific logged-in users. Due to the lack of isolation, an attacker with a domain under his control can force arbitrary sessions to co-located Web applications as well as inspect and edit the contents of their existing active sessions. Using these techniques, an attacker can circumvent authentication mechanisms, elevate his privileges, steal private information and conduct attacks that would be otherwise impossible. Finally, we test the applicability of our attacks against common open-source software and evaluate their effectiveness in the presence of generic server-side countermeasures.
Sport Spectacles, Uniformities and the Search for Identity in Late Modern Japan 1

The public display of team colours as an expression of loyalty has become a characteristic trait of sport fandom all over the world. Replica shirts, which had been initially conceived of (and marketed) as kids’ stuff, spilled over from the football pitch into the grandstands in the early 1980s. A decade later, they were turning into an ‘essential part of the lingua franca of football supporters’ (Fawbert, 2004:134). Since the spectacularization of sport seems to have originated in North American sport culture (Kutcher, 1983), it is hardly surprising that face painting, stylish masquerades and the variegated prop stock of a burgeoning sport paraphernalia industry have also changed the way football is followed and supported at international tournaments around the world since the United States hosted the World Cup in 1994. When Japan and Korea co-hosted football’s mega-event in 2002, spectators in the stadia as well as television audiences worldwide could observe entire grandstands soaked in blue and red, the colours of the respective hosts’ national teams. Samba drums and marching bands in Japanese stadia, bare-chested youngsters intoning the Korean supporters song based on the melody of ‘Go West’, and carefully planned and rehearsed presentations from the stands in the fashion of Italian ultras, suggested to the observer the successful appropriation, or even domestication, of a transnational football fan culture. The ‘Blue Heaven’, as one creative genius from Ultra Nippon, the core organization of fans of the national team, named the stadia filled with Japan’s supporters, and perhaps, even more, the ‘Sea of Red’ that flooded the streets of most major South Korean cities, remained in the public memory as two lasting impressions of the ‘Hollywood World Cup’ (Hirose, 2002). The ubiquitous and unconstrained mass display of the hinomaru, Japan’s long-time contested national flag, and the taegeukgi, Korea’s ‘national flag of emotion’ (Whang, 2004:158) in stadia and streets, on bodies and buildings were spectacular aspects, albeit more visible than any others, that differentiated the 2002 World Cup from previous sports mega-events hosted in these countries.
Preparing Teachers for Inclusive Classrooms

Designing preservice teacher education partially around voluntary study groups offers teacher educators a unique chance to examine group members’ perspectives and understandings. This article examines the topics of concern and questions expressed by six general education student teachers in a collaborative dialogue group focused on inclusive classrooms. Culled from seven meeting transcripts over the course of one semester, we extracted the themes of inexperience, equity, levels, normalcy, labels, and belonging as presented by these teachers in their individual inquiries into inclusive education. We consider how useful the themes, tensions, and issues unearthed in this research are for constructing a preservice teacher education curriculum for inclusive teacher preparation.
SIRT1 reduces endothelial activation without affecting vascular function in ApoE-/- mice

Excessive production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) contributes to progression of atherosclerosis, at least in part by causing endothelial dysfunction and inflammatory activation. The class III histone deacetylase SIRT1 has been implicated in extension of lifespan. In the vasculature,SIRT1 gain-of-function using SIRT1 overexpression or activation has been shown to improve endothelial function in mice and rats via stimulation of endothelial nitric oxide (NO) synthase (eNOS). However, the effects of SIRT1 loss-of-function on the endothelium in atherosclerosis remain to be characterized. Thus, we have investigated the endothelial effects of decreased endogenous SIRT1 in hypercholesterolemic ApoE-/- mice. We observed no difference in endothelial relaxation and eNOS (Ser1177) phosphorylation between 20-week old male atherosclerotic ApoE-/- SIRT1+/- and ApoE-/- SIRT1+/+ mice. However, SIRT1 prevented endothelial superoxide production, inhibited NF-κB signaling, and diminished expression of adhesion molecules. Treatment of young hypercholesterolemic ApoE-/- SIRT1+/- mice with lipopolysaccharide to boost NF-κB signaling led to a more pronounced endothelial expression of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 as compared to ApoE-/- SIRT1+/+ mice. In conclusion, endogenous SIRT1 diminishes endothelial activation in ApoE-/- mice, but does not affect endothelium-dependent vasodilatation.
Evidence Based Psychosocial Interventions in Substance Use

In recent years, there has been significant progress and expansion in the development of evidence-based psychosocial treatments for substance abuse and dependence. A literature review was undertaken using the several electronic databases (PubMed, Cochrane Database of systemic reviews and specific journals, which pertain to psychosocial issues in addictive disorders and guidelines on this topic). Overall psychosocial interventions have been found to be effective. Some interventions, such as cognitive behavior therapy, motivational interviewing and relapse prevention, appear to be effective across many drugs of abuse. Psychological treatment is more effective when prescribed with substitute prescribing than when medication or psychological treatment is used alone, particularly for opiate users. The evidence base for psychological treatment needs to be expanded and should also include research on optimal combinations of psychological therapies and any particular matching effects, if any. Psychological interventions are an essential part of the treatment regimen and efforts should be made to integrate evidence-based interventions in all substance use disorder treatment programs.
Modulating the efficiency of memory formation: Insights from temporal lobe epilepsy and nociceptive arousal

The efficiency of memory formation, i.e. encoding and consolidation, can be modulated by various factors. While some of these factors exert a constant influence on memory processing, others act temporarily. In the present thesis, the effects of two examples of modulating factors were investigated. Study I focused on a neurological disorder constantly affecting the neural correlates of memory formation, and Study II focused on the temporary modulation of consolidation due to arousal. In Study I, different magnetic resonance imaging techniques and memory tasks were implemented to investigate potential reasons for memory deficits in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy of unknown cause. Despite the lack of overt morphological lesions, functional imaging revealed increased hippocampal activity during encoding, but decreased associative memory during recognition for patients compared to healthy controls. The findings suggest that subtle alterations of neuronal microcircuits due to epilepsy exist which impair the efficiency of encoding. Thus, the increase of activity is assumed to reflect a compensatory process for successful encoding within less efficient hippocampal cell assemblies. In Study II, event-related effects of a temporary modulator were investigated. Electrical shocks were applied to healthy participants in order to induce arousal after the initial processing of stimuli probed for memory. Importantly, this paradigm could disentangle effects of arousal from effects of cognitive factors, which usually accompany emotionally arousing stimuli during encoding. Enhanced memory for stimuli followed by electrical shocks in Study II was only found after a retention interval, representing a more efficient consolidation. Since cognitive factors could not account for this effect, the increase of efficiency is most likely due to an enhanced noradrenergic innervation and thus facilitation of neuronal responsiveness in those temporal lobe areas relevant for stimuli processing.
Spectral Restoration Based Speech Enhancement for Robust Speaker Identification

Spectral restoration based speech enhancement algorithms are used to enhance quality of noise masked speech for robust speaker identification. In presence of background noise, the performance of speaker identification systems can be severely deteriorated. The present study employed and evaluated the Minimum Mean-SquareError Short-Time Spectral Amplitude Estimators with modified a priori SNR estimate prior to speaker identification to improve performance of the speaker identification systems in presence of background noise. For speaker identification, Mel Frequency Cepstral coefficient and Vector Quantization is used to extract the speech features and to model the extracted features respectively. The experimental results showed significant improvement in speaker identification rates when spectral restoration based speech enhancement algorithms are used as a pre-processing step. The identification rates are found to be higher after employing the speech enhancement algorithms.
Determination of proline in human serum by a robust LC-MS/MS method: application to identification of human metabolites as candidate biomarkers for esophageal cancer early detection and risk stratification.

Altered serum proline levels are related to cancer metabolism. This study developed and validated a LC-MS/MS method to analyze proline in human serum. Surrogate blank serum, coupled with stable isotope l-proline-(13) C5 ,(15) N as internal standard, was used for generating standard curves ranging from 2.5 to 100 μg/mL. Proline was extracted from serum samples using methanol. A Phenomenex Lux 5u Cellulose-1 column (250 × 4.6 mm) was used for chromatographic separation with 40% methanol in 0.05% formic acid aqueous solution as a mobile phase. Mass detection was performed under positive ionization electrospray. Intra- and inter-day accuracy and precision were <10%. The extraction recovery and matrix factor were 99.17 and 1.47%, respectively. Our study showed that the chiral column had high specificity and selectivity for separating proline from serum components. The assay was successfully applied for the quantification of human serum proline levels from 30 esophageal cancer patients and 30 healthy volunteers. Statistical analyses showed significantly lower levels of serum proline in the patients as compared with the healthy volunteers (p-value = 0.011). We report here a simple, specific and reproducible LC-MS/MS method for the quantification of proline in human serum as a potential screening biomarker for esophageal cancer.
Extension of a saddle point mirror descent algorithm with application to robust PageRank

The paper is devoted to designing an efficient recursive algorithm for solving the robust PageRank problem recently proposed by Juditsky and Polyak (2012) [4]. To this end, we reformulate the problem to a specific convex-concave saddle point problem min<sub>x∈X</sub> max<sub>y∈Y</sub> q(x, y) with simple convex sets X ∈ ℝ<sup>N</sup> and Y ∈ ℝ<sup>N</sup>, i.e., standard simplex and Euclidean unit ball, respectively. Aiming this goal we develop an extension of saddle point mirror descent algorithm where additional parameter sequence is introduced, thus providing more degree of freedom and the refined error bounds. Detailed complexity results of this method applied to the robust PageRank problem are given and discussed. Numerical example illustrates the theoretical results proved.
Redirection of Human Cancer Cells upon the Interaction with the Regenerating Mouse Mammary Gland Microenvironment

Tumorigenesis is often described as a result of accumulated mutations that lead to growth advantage and clonal expansion of mutated cells. There is evidence in the literature that cancer cells are influenced by the microenvironment. Our previous studies demonstrated that the mouse mammary gland is capable of redirecting mouse cells of non-mammary origins as well as Mouse Mammary Tumor Virus (MMTV)-neu transformed cells toward normal mammary epithelial cell fate during gland regeneration. Interestingly, the malignant phenotype of MMTV-neu transformed cells was suppressed during serial transplantation experiments. Here, we discuss our studies that demonstrated the potential of the regenerating mouse mammary gland to redirect cancer cells of different species into a functional tumor-free mammary epithelial cell progeny. Immunochemistry for human specific CD133, mitochondria, cytokeratins as well as milk proteins and FISH for human specific probe identified human epithelial cell progeny in ducts, lobules, and secretory acini. Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization (FISH) for human centromeric DNA and FACS analysis of propidium iodine staining excluded the possibility of mouse-human cell fusion. To our knowledge this is the first evidence that human cancer cells of embryonic or somatic origins respond to developmental signals generated by the mouse mammary gland microenvironment during gland regeneration in vivo.
Sensitivity Analysis of Chaos Synchronization in Colpitts Oscillators

Chaotic dynamics in grounded base bipolar junction transistor Colpitts oscillator was extensively studied due to its implementation simplicity and high frequency capability. Some synchronization methods were also proposed, but they suffer from high sensitivity both to channel noise and parameter mismatch. The present paper proposes two novel synchronization topologies based on voltage-mode implementation. The central aspect of the research is the estimation of the sensitivity performance for the proposed chaotic carrier modulation for analog transmission systems. We also perform a parametric analysis to deduce the optimum component values for the proposed application with respect to noise immunity and component tolerances. In order to improve communication speed, we used a demodulation equalizer, thus drastically increasing the maximum frequency of the modulating signal. The conclusion of this comparative study points to the most efficient synchronization and modulation / demodulation methods in order to achieve practical chaos communication based on analog modulation.
Enhanced Histopathology of the Immune System

Enhanced histopathology (EH) of the immune system is a tool that the pathologist can use to assist in the detection of lymphoid organ lesions when evaluating a suspected immunomodulatory test article within a subchronic study or as a component of a more comprehensive, tiered approach to immunotoxicity testing. There are three primary points to consider when performing EH: (1) each lymphoid organ has separate compartments that support specific immune functions; (2) these compartments should be evaluated individually; and (3) semiquantitative descriptive rather than interpretive terminology should be used to characterize any changes. Enhanced histopathology is a screening tool that should be used in conjunction with study data including clinical signs, gross changes, body weight, spleen and thymus weights, other organ or tissue changes, and clinical pathology. Points to consider include appropriate tissue collection, sectioning, and staining; lesion grading; and diligent comparison with concurrent controls. The value of EH of lymphoid organs is to aid in the identification of target cell type, changes in cell production and cell death, changes in cellular trafficking and recirculation, and determination of mechanism of action.
Real time observation of left ventricular aneurysm by b mode echocardiography

This paper describes two cases of left ventricular aneurysm following myocardial infarction by real time B mode echocardiography with a mechanical sector scan. The most distinctive feature was the paradoxical movement of the aneurysmal wall; in systole, it moved posteriorly to form a bulge, whereas the remaining noninfarcted area was oriented toward the left ventricular cavity in contraction. The final diagnosis was verified by aneurysmectomy.
The Revelation of Information and Self-Fulfilling Beliefs

At a Rational Expectations Equilibrium (REE), individuals are assumed to know the map from states to prices. This hypothesis has two components, that agents agree (consensus), and that they have point expectations (degeneracy). We consider economies where agents' beliefs are described by a joint distribution on states and prices, and these beliefs are fulfilled at equilibrium. Beliefs are self-fulfilling if every price in the support of the distribution is an equilibrium price. The corresponding equilibria are Beliefs Equilibria (BE). The further restriction that agents have the same beliefs results in Common Beliefs Equilibria (CBE). We study the relationship between BE, CBE, and REE, thus isolating the role of consensus and of degeneracy in achieving rational expectations.
Thinking out of the box (and back in the plane). Concepts of space and spatial representation in two classic adventure games.

In this article we examine location, space and spatial representation in two classic adventure games belonging to the same game series: Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers, a one screen at a time point-and-click adventure and Gabriel Knight Blood of the Sacred Blood of the Damned, a 3D game. Our aim was to see if the changes in the audiovisual representation of the gamespace in the 3D game would affect gameplay or whether gameplay and representation are independent entities, as some researches have proposed. What we found was that location and space are experienced differently in the 3D game. Furthermore we found that players of the game series had to learn a new visual grammar to bring the 3D game to a successful end. We will therefore propose that gameplay and the representation of gamespace are linked; perhaps even to such an extent that some types of games benefit from a particular audiovisual representation.
Analysis of Tospovirus NSs Proteins in Suppression of Systemic Silencing

RNA silencing is a sequence-specific gene regulation mechanism that in plants also acts antiviral. In order to counteract antiviral RNA silencing, viruses have evolved RNA silencing suppressors (RSS). In the case of tospoviruses, the non-structural NSs protein has been identified as the RSS. Although the tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) tospovirus NSs protein has been shown to exhibit affinity to long and small dsRNA molecules, its ability to suppress the non-cell autonomous part of RNA silencing has only been studied to a limited extent. Here, the NSs proteins of TSWV, groundnut ringspot virus (GRSV) and tomato yellow ring virus (TYRV), representatives for three distinct tospovirus species, have been studied on their ability and strength to suppress local and systemic silencing. A system has been developed to quantify suppression of GFP silencing in Nicotiana benthamiana 16C lines, to allow a comparison of relative RNA silencing suppressor strength. It is shown that NSs of all three tospoviruses are suppressors of local and systemic silencing. Unexpectedly, suppression of systemic RNA silencing by NSsTYRV was just as strong as those by NSsTSWV and NSsGRSV, even though NSsTYRV was expressed in lower amounts. Using the system established, a set of selected NSsTSWV gene constructs mutated in predicted RNA binding domains, as well as NSs from TSWV isolates 160 and 171 (resistance breakers of the Tsw resistance gene), were analyzed for their ability to suppress systemic GFP silencing. The results indicate another mode of RNA silencing suppression by NSs that acts further downstream the biogenesis of siRNAs and their sequestration. The findings are discussed in light of the affinity of NSs for small and long dsRNA, and recent mutant screen of NSsTSWV to map domains required for RSS activity and triggering of Tsw-governed resistance.