Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential expression of interleukin‐10 mRNA in Wallerian degeneration and immune‐mediated inflammation of the rat peripheral nervous system

Interleukin‐10 (IL‐10) is a potent immunosuppressant cytokine which downregulates MHC class II antigen expression and inflammatory cytokine production. In this study we localized mRNA for IL‐10 in the rat peripheral nervous system (PNS) by nonradioactive in situ hybridization using a digoxygenin‐labeled riboprobe specific for rat IL‐10. IL‐10 mRNA was expressed by some Schwann cells (SCs) in the normal sciatic nerve. During Wallerian degeneration, SCs strongly expressed IL‐10 mRNA between days 2 and 4 after transection. By day 14 only occasional cells were positive for IL‐10 mRNA. The vast majority of ED1‐positive macrophages were IL‐10 negative after axotomy. Contrastingly, infiltrating macrophages expressed IL‐10 mRNA coincident with beginning clinical recovery in experimental autoimmune neuritis (EAN), the rat model of human Guillain‐Barré syndrome. Our data suggest that SCs provide a constitutive immunosuppressant system in the PNS. In EAN additional macrophage‐derived IL‐10 may be important for the resolution of the T cell‐mediated immune response. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Psychiatric and medical features of near fatal asthma.

BACKGROUND--The associations between psychiatric caseness, denial, and self reported measures of handicap and morbidity due to asthma in patients suffering a near fatal attack of asthma have not been fully explored. METHODS--Seventy seven consecutive subjects who presented to Adelaide teaching hospitals with a near fatal attack of asthma were assessed with a validated semi-structured interview following discharge from hospital. RESULTS--43% of the patients scored > or = 5 on the GHQ-28 questionnaire. There was a positive correlation between GHQ-28 score and limitation to daily activities due to asthma, and between GHQ-28 score and days lost from work, school or usual daily activities, both of which were retained after adjusting for age and sex. Asthma severity did not show a clear association with GHQ-28 score. The asthmatic patients reported high levels of denial, 57% scoring more than 3 out of 5 on the denial scale of the Illness Behaviour Questionnaire. Presentation with a history of progressive respiratory distress was negatively associated with denial score. This persisted after adjustment for age and sex--that is, those with high denial scores were more likely to report presentation as sudden collapse than progressive respiratory distress. CONCLUSIONS--Psychiatric caseness (GHQ score > or = 5) is associated with high levels of morbidity in asthmatic patients who survive a near fatal attack of asthma. High levels of denial in asthmatic subjects may be life threatening. The link between morbidity associated with asthma and psychiatric features, along with other psychosocial issues, warrants further investigation. A broader paradigm than the traditional medical model should be considered when assessing patients with asthma.
Characteristic clinical features as an aid to the diagnosis of suppurative keratitis caused by filamentous fungi

Aim: To assess whether the presence of characteristic clinical features can be used as a diagnostic aid for suppurative keratitis caused by filamentous fungi. Methods: Patients presenting with suppurative keratitis in India underwent detailed clinical examination followed by microbiological investigation of corneal scrapes. A partial diagnostic score based upon the strength of the association, as estimated by the odds ratio, between reported clinical features and laboratory confirmed diagnoses was devised and subsequently tested using a case series from Ghana. Results: Serrated margins, raised slough, dry texture, satellite lesions and coloration other than yellow occurred more frequently in cases of filamentous fungal keratitis than bacterial keratitis (p<0.05). Hypopyon and fibrinous exudate were observed more frequently in bacterial keratitis (p<0.05). When incorporated into a backwards stepwise logisitic regression model only serrated margins, raised slough, and colour were independently associated with fungal keratitis; these features were used in the scoring system. The probability of fungal infection if one clinical feature was present was 63%, increasing to 83% if all three features were present. Conclusions: Microbiological investigations should be performed whenever possible; however, where facilities are not available, a rapid presumptive diagnosis of suppurative keratitis may be possible by scoring clinical features.
Integration of Reinforcement Learning and Optimal Decision-Making Theories of the Basal Ganglia

This article seeks to integrate two sets of theories describing action selection in the basal ganglia: reinforcement learning theories describing learning which actions to select to maximize reward and decision-making theories proposing that the basal ganglia selects actions on the basis of sensory evidence accumulated in the cortex. In particular, we present a model that integrates the actor-critic model of reinforcement learning and a model assuming that the cortico-basal-ganglia circuit implements a statistically optimal decision-making procedure. The values of corico-striatal weights required for optimal decision making in our model differ from those provided by standard reinforcement learning models. Nevertheless, we show that an actor-critic model converges to the weights required for optimal decision making when biologically realistic limits on synaptic weights are introduced. We also describe the model's predictions concerning reaction times and neural responses during learning, and we discuss directions required for further integration of reinforcement learning and optimal decision-making theories.
Solitary Fibrous Tumor of the Kidney Developing Local Recurrence

Solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) of the kidney is a rare entity and usually displays a favorable prognosis. We herein report a second case of renal SFT developing local recurrence. A 50-year-old man was referred to our hospital because of a left renal mass. An abdominal CT detected a large renal tumor and radical nephrectomy was performed with a possible diagnosis of renal cell carcinoma. The resected tumor size was measured at 17 × 11 × 8 cm. Grossly, necrosis was observed in central lesion of the tumor but hemorrhage was not observed. Microscopically, the tumor consisted of spindle-shaped cells with scant cytoplasm accompanied by hyalinized collagenous tissue, which displayed hemangiopericytomatous patterns. The cellularity was normal and nuclear pleomorphism was not observed. Ki-67 labeling index was less than 3%. The pathological diagnosis of SFT was made without obvious malignant findings. Three years after the surgery, a follow-up CT scan detected a mass lesion in the tumor bed. Surgical resection was performed and the resected tumor was compatible with local recurrence of the SFT without obvious malignant findings. Renal SFT should be carefully monitored even in the absence of obvious malignant findings.
The Development and Validation of a Risk Score to Predict the Probability of Postoperative Vomiting in Pediatric Patients

Risk scores to predict the occurrence of postoperative vomiting (PV) or nausea and vomiting that were developed for adult patients do not fit for children, because several risk factors are difficult to assess or are usually not applicable in pediatric patients (e.g., smoking status). Thus, in the present study, we sought to develop and to validate a simple score to predict PV in children (POVOC-score). Development and validation of the new score was based on data from 4 independent institutions of 1257 children (aged 0–14 yr) undergoing various types of surgery under general anesthesia without antiemetic prophylaxis. Preoperatively, several potential risk factors were recorded. Postoperatively, the occurrence of PV was observed for up to 24 h. The dataset was randomly split into an evaluation set (n = 657) that was analyzed using a forward logistic regression technique and a validation set (n = 600) that was used to confirm the accuracy of prediction by means of the area under a receiver operating characteristic curve. Four independent risk factors for PV were identified in the final analysis: duration of surgery ≥30 min, age ≥3 yr, strabismus surgery, and a positive history of PV in the children or PV/postoperative nausea and vomiting in relatives (mother, father, or siblings). The incidence of PV was 9%, 10%, 30%, 55%, and 70% for 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 risk factors observed. Using these incidences as cut-off values in the validation dataset, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.72 (95% confidence interval: 0.68–0.77). Our data suggest that PV can be predicted with an acceptable accuracy using a four-item simplified risk score.
A New Approach on Rule and Context Based Dynamic Business Process Simulation

Nowadays business is rapidly changing to fulfil the customers’ needs and to meet the requirements of a changing environment. All those changes of a business have to be implemented in business processes (BP) and their maintaining information systems. Therefore, a necessity for a new approach of dynamic business process (DBP) modelling arises. Moreover, business needs a tool suitable for DBP modelling, execution and simulation. This gap triggered significant research efforts over the past decade and a number of approaches to DBP modelling were proposed. However, a question of implementation of the proposed approaches is left without an answer. Therefore, in the paper we emphasize DBP simulation and existing DBP simulation tools. We review existing DBP modelling approaches, propose a new DBP modelling and simulation approach and develop a prototype for DBP simulation. A DBP simulation experiment was carried out using the developed prototype and obtained results are presented in the paper.
Stable results and relative normalization

In orthogonal expression reduction systems, a common generalization of term rewriting and ? -calculus, we extend the concepts of normalization and needed reduction by considering, instead of the set of normal forms, a set S of 'results'. When S satisfies some simple axioms which we call stability, we prove the corresponding generalizations of some fundamental theorems: the existence of needed redexes, that needed reduction is normalizing, the existence of minimal normalizing reductions, and the optimality theorem.
Three-stage unstructured filter for removing mixed Gaussian plus random impulse noise

Digital image processing is often contaminated by more than one type of noise, such as mixed noise. In this paper, we propose a three-stage process to develop K-SVD method not only for reducing Gaussian noise but also for mixed Gaussian and impulse noise with optimizing input system and preserving edge structure. A three-stage process is combining of impulse noise removal, edge reconstruction and image smoothing. Pressing of an impulse noise in the early stages by Decision Based Algorithm (DBA) and repairing edge structure by an edge-map are able to optimize the performance of the K-SVD method for smoothing an image. The performance of the filter is analysed in terms of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Mean Structural Similarity (MSSIM) index and Blind Image Quality Index (BIQI). The simulation result is obtained a significant improvement over the previous research.
p62/SQSTM1 forms protein aggregates degraded by autophagy and has a protective effect on huntingtin-induced cell death

Autophagic degradation of ubiquitinated protein aggregates is important for cell survival, but it is not known how the autophagic machinery recognizes such aggregates. In this study, we report that polymerization of the polyubiquitin-binding protein p62/SQSTM1 yields protein bodies that either reside free in the cytosol and nucleus or occur within autophagosomes and lysosomal structures. Inhibition of autophagy led to an increase in the size and number of p62 bodies and p62 protein levels. The autophagic marker light chain 3 (LC3) colocalized with p62 bodies and coimmunoprecipitated with p62, suggesting that these two proteins participate in the same complexes. The depletion of p62 inhibited recruitment of LC3 to autophagosomes under starvation conditions. Strikingly, p62 and LC3 formed a shell surrounding aggregates of mutant huntingtin. Reduction of p62 protein levels or interference with p62 function significantly increased cell death that was induced by the expression of mutant huntingtin. We suggest that p62 may, via LC3, be involved in linking polyubiquitinated protein aggregates to the autophagy machinery.
Predicting performance on SMPs. A case study: the SGI Power Challenge

We study the issue of performance prediction on the SGI-Power Challenge, a typical SMP. On such a platform, the cost of memory accesses depends on their locality and on contention among processors. By running a carefully designed suite of microbenchmarks, we provide quantitative evidence that memory hierarchy effects impact performance far more substantially than other phenomena related to contention. We also fit three cost functions based on variants of the BSP model, which do not account for the hierarchy, and a newly defined function F expressed in terms of hardware counters, which captures both memory hierarchy and contention effects. We test the accuracy of all the functions on both synthetic and application benchmarks showing that, unlike the other functions, F achieves an excellent level of accuracy in all cases. Although hardware counters are only available at run-time, we give evidence that function F can still be employed as a prediction tool by extrapolating values of the counters from pilot runs on small input sizes.
Center Vortex Model for SU(3) Yang-Mills Theory

The center vortex model for the infrared sector of SU(3) Yang-Mills theory is reviewed. After discussing the physical foundations underlying the model, some technical aspects of its realisation are discussed. The confining properties of the model are presented in some detail and compared to known results from full lattice Yang-Mills theory. Particular emphasis is put on the new phenomenon of vortex branching, which is instrumental in establishing first order behaviour of the SU(3) phase transition. Finally, the vortex free energy is verified to furnish an order parameter for the deconfinement phase transition. It is shown to exhibit a weak discontinuity at the critical temperature, in agreement with predictions from lattice gauge theory.
Interaction of NIMIN1 with NPR1 Modulates PR Gene Expression in Arabidopsis

The Arabidopsis thaliana NONEXPRESSER OF PR GENES1 (NPR1, also known as NIM1) protein is an essential positive regulator of salicylic acid (SA)-induced PATHOGENESIS-RELATED (PR) gene expression and systemic acquired resistance (SAR). PR gene activity is regulated at the level of redox-dependent nuclear transport of NPR1. NPR1 interacts with members of the TGA family of transcription factors that are known to bind to SA-responsive elements in the PR-1 promoter. In an attempt to identify proteins involved in SA-mediated signal transduction, we previously described the isolation of three novel genes encoding distinct albeit structurally related proteins designated NIMIN1 (for NIM1-INTERACTING1), NIMIN2, and NIMIN3 that interact with NPR1 in the yeast two-hybrid system. Here, we show that NIMIN1 and NPR1 can be copurified from plant extracts, providing biochemical evidence for their interaction. We provide functional evidence for this interaction by describing transgenic plants constitutively expressing high amounts of NIMIN1. These plants show reduced SA-mediated PR gene induction and a compromised SAR, thus mimicking the described phenotype conferred by npr1. Moreover, they showed reduced RESISTANCE gene–mediated protection. These effects were dependent on the ability of NIMIN1 to interact with NPR1. Mutant plants with a T-DNA insertion in NIMIN1 as well as transgenic plants with reduced NIMIN1 mRNA levels showed hyperactivation of PR-1 gene expression after SA treatment but no effect on the disease resistance phenotype. Our results strongly suggest that NIMIN1 negatively regulates distinct functions of NPR1, providing a mechanism to modulate specific features of SAR.
Science, explanation, and rationality : aspects of the philosophy of Carl G. Hempel

The late Carl Hempel was one of, if not the most influential philosophers of science in the 20th century. His work defined the problems and the methodology of the discipline for over thirty years. In this volume, thirteen highly distinguished philosophers, most of whom studied with Hempel, illuminate and clarify the central problems to which Carl G. Hempel was devoted. The result enhances our understanding of major developments in the philosophy of science, particularly the development of logical empiricism as a major - even the major - intellectual influence for scientifically-oriented philosphers and philosophically-minded scientists during the 20th century. It should appeal to an unusually broad audience of students and scholars of the philosophy of science, of the history of philosophy, and of 20th century intellectual history.
Role of TLx3 in the development of the somatosensory system

A Faculdade não responde pelas doutrinas expendidas na dissertação. desta dissertação: (2012) Tlx3 and Runx1 act in combination to coordinate the development of a cohort of nociceptors, thermoceptors, and pruriceptors. Ontogeny of excitatory spinal neurons processing distinct somatic sensory modalities.
Signal Transduction in Ischemic Preconditioning:

Signaling In Preconditioning. Ischemic preconditioning is a phenomenon whereby exposure of the myocardium to a brief episode of ischemia and reperfusion markedly reduces tissue necrosis induced by a subsequent prolonged ischemia. Therefore, it is hoped that elucidation of the mechanism of preconditioning will yield therapeutic strategies capable of reducing myocardial infarction. In the rabbit, the brief period of preconditioning ischemia and reperfusion releases adenosine, bradykinin, opioids, and oxygen radicals that summate to induce the translocation and activation of protein kinase C (PKC). PKC appears to be the first element of a complex kinase cascade that is activated during the prolonged ischemia in preconditioned hearts. Current evidence indicates that PKC activates a tyrosine kinase that leads to the activation ofp38 mitogen‐activated protein (MAP) kinase or JNK, or possibly both. The stimulation of these stress‐activated protein kinases ultimately induces the opening of mitochondrial KATP channels that may be the final mediator of protection by ischemic preconditioning.
Remodeling of the femoral chordotonal organ during metamorphosis of the hawkmoth, Manduca sexta

During metamorphosis of the moth, Manduca sexta, the larval legs degenerate and are replaced by adult legs with a diverse array of new sensory organs. The majority of the larval sensory neurons degenerate but some hair sensilla and chordotonal organ sensory neurons survive metamorphosis (Consoulas [ 2000 ] J. Comp. Neurol. 419:154–174). In the present study nerve‐tracing techniques, birth‐date labeling (5‐bromodeoxyuridine), and electrophysiology were used to describe the remodeling of the femoral chordotonal organ (FCO) in the prothoracic legs. The larval FCO is composed of two scoloparia, which are associated with separate apodemes. At the onset of metamorphosis, some of the 13 larval neurons degenerate, together with the larval FCO apodemes. The remaining larval FCO sensory neurons persist in the imaginal leg to become the precursors of the adult femoral and tibial chordotonal organs respectively. Early in the pupal stage, 45 to 60 new sensory neurons are generated de novo and become associated with 6 persistent larval neurons in the imaginal femur to compose the adult FCO. Two clusters of persistent and new neurons are enclosed into two scoloparia with short apodemes that eventually become fused. In both larval and adult stages, the FCO contains units that respond phasically and others that respond tonically to femorotibial movements. Nerve activity from the FCO neurons can be recorded continuously during the remodeling of the organ. A persistent leg flexor motoneuron receives inputs from the FCO sensory neurons in both larval and adult stages, offering the opportunity to investigate the remodeling of the neural circuits underlying the proprioceptive control of the femorotibial joint. J. Comp. Neurol. 426:391–405, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Sketchy hairstyles

We present an intuitive, interactive modeling and rendering system for creating non-photorealistic hairstyle images. The main feature of our system lies in its user-friendly sketch interface that allows the user to generate his/her desired hairstyle simply by drawing a few free-form strokes on the 3D model of a scalp. Hairstyles are modeled with a polygon based technique called cluster polygons, and are rendered expressively to obtain non-photorealistic images similar to those found in hand-drawn animations and cartoons.
Increased Prediction Accuracy in Wheat Breeding Trials Using a Marker × Environment Interaction Genomic Selection Model

Genomic selection (GS) models use genome-wide genetic information to predict genetic values of candidates of selection. Originally, these models were developed without considering genotype × environment interaction(G×E). Several authors have proposed extensions of the single-environment GS model that accommodate G×E using either covariance functions or environmental covariates. In this study, we model G×E using a marker × environment interaction (M×E) GS model; the approach is conceptually simple and can be implemented with existing GS software. We discuss how the model can be implemented by using an explicit regression of phenotypes on markers or using co-variance structures (a genomic best linear unbiased prediction-type model). We used the M×E model to analyze three CIMMYT wheat data sets (W1, W2, and W3), where more than 1000 lines were genotyped using genotyping-by-sequencing and evaluated at CIMMYT’s research station in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico, under simulated environmental conditions that covered different irrigation levels, sowing dates and planting systems. We compared the M×E model with a stratified (i.e., within-environment) analysis and with a standard (across-environment) GS model that assumes that effects are constant across environments (i.e., ignoring G×E). The prediction accuracy of the M×E model was substantially greater of that of an across-environment analysis that ignores G×E. Depending on the prediction problem, the M×E model had either similar or greater levels of prediction accuracy than the stratified analyses. The M×E model decomposes marker effects and genomic values into components that are stable across environments (main effects) and others that are environment-specific (interactions). Therefore, in principle, the interaction model could shed light over which variants have effects that are stable across environments and which ones are responsible for G×E. The data set and the scripts required to reproduce the analysis are publicly available as Supporting Information.
An algorithm for mine detection and localization by single frequency near field measurements

We present an algorithm for mine detection and localization based on single view single frequency multistatic electromagnetic scattered field data collected in near field configuration. Mines are assumed to be shallowly buried so that only their position in the horizontal plane has to be searched for. To this end, the scattered field is modelled as the field radiated by planar surface electric currents and a two dimensional linear inverse source problem is formulated. A simple strategy for exploiting available data in case of wide ranging of the measurement domain is proposed. Experimental results show approach effectiveness.