Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Selenium-rich C-terminal Domain of Mouse Selenoprotein P Is Necessary for the Supply of Selenium to Brain and Testis but Not for the Maintenance of Whole Body Selenium*

Selenoprotein P (Sepp1) has two domains with respect to selenium content: the N-terminal, selenium-poor domain and the C-terminal, selenium-rich domain. To assess domain function, mice with deletion of the C-terminal domain have been produced and compared with Sepp1–/– and Sepp1+/+ mice. All mice studied were males fed a semipurified diet with defined selenium content. The Sepp1 protein in the plasma of mice with the C-terminal domain deleted was determined by mass spectrometry to terminate after serine 239 and thus was designated Sepp1Δ240–361. Plasma Sepp1 and selenium concentrations as well as glutathione peroxidase activity were determined in the three types of mice. Glutathione peroxidase and Sepp1Δ240–361 accounted for over 90% of the selenium in the plasma of Sepp1Δ240–361 mice. Calculations using results from Sepp1+/+ mice revealed that Sepp1, with a potential for containing 10 selenocysteine residues, contained an average of 5 selenium atoms per molecule, indicating that shortened and/or selenium-depleted forms of the protein were present in these wild-type mice. Sepp1Δ240–361 mice had low brain and testis selenium concentrations that were similar to those in Sepp1–/– mice but they better maintained their whole body selenium. Sepp1Δ240–361 mice had depressed fertility, even when they were fed a high selenium diet, and their spermatozoa were defective and morphologically indistinguishable from those of selenium-deficient mice. Neurological dysfunction and death occurred when Sepp1Δ240–361 mice were fed selenium-deficient diet. These phenotypes were similar to those of Sepp1–/– mice but had later onset or were less severe. The results of this study demonstrate that the C terminus of Sepp1 is critical for the maintenance of selenium in brain and testis but not for the maintenance of whole body selenium.
Dexamethasone Increases Growth Hormone (GH)‐Releasing Hormone (GRH) Receptor mRNA Levels in Cultured Rat Anterior Pituitary Cells

To examine the effects of glucocorticoid (GC) on growth hormone (GH)‐releasing hormone (GRH) receptor gene expression, a highly‐sensitive and quantitative reverse‐transcribed polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) method was used in this study. Rat anterior pituitary cells were isolated and cultured for 4 days. The cultured cells were treated with dexamethasone for 2, 6, and 24 h. GRH receptor mRNA levels were determined by competitive RT‐PCR using a recombinant RNA as the competitor. Dexamethasone significantly increased GRH receptor mRNA levels at 5 nM after 6‐ and 24 h‐incubations, and the maximal effect was found at 25 nM. The GC receptor‐specific antagonist, RU 38486 completely eliminated the dexamethasone‐induced enhancement of GRH receptor mRNA levels. Dexamethasone did not alter the mRNA levels of β‐actin and prolactin at 5 nM for 24 h, whereas GH mRNA levels were significantly increased by the same treatment. The GH response to GRH was significantly enhanced by the 24‐h incubation with 5 nM dexamethasone. These findings suggest that GC stimulates GRH receptor gene expression through the ligand‐activated GC receptors in the rat somatotrophs. The direct effects of GC on the GRH receptor gene could explain the enhancement of GRH‐induced GH secretion.
The challenge of research and extension to define and implement alternatives to methyl bromide.

Over the past 30 years, methyl bromide (MBr), a broad spectrum fumigant, has been used extensively for soilborne disease and pest control in the production of many fruit, vegetable, turf, and nursery crops. Recently, agricultural emissions of MBr were implicated as a potentially significant contributor to stratospheric ozone depletion. As a precautionary measure for global ozone protection, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has enforced federal legislation which mandates a complete phase-out of MBr use within the United States by 1 January 2001. Thus, new cost effective, environmentally compatible strategies for control of nematodes and other soilborne pests and pathogens must be developed and tested in a relatively short time to avoid significant losses in crop productivity. The extent to which certain agricultural industries that are now heavily reliant on MBr are affected will depend on the development of sustainable, integrated tactics to pest control, such as combinations of cultural, chemical, and biological tactics. New muhidisciplinary research and extension programs must be developed to address and overcome major constraints and incompatibilities that have prevented such tactics from being widely adopted.
Identification of Immunogenic and Virulence-Associated Campylobacter jejuni Proteins

ABSTRACT With the aim of identifying proteins important for host interaction and virulence, we have screened an expression library of NCTC 11168 Campylobacter jejuni genes for highly immunogenic proteins. A commercial C. jejuni open reading frame (ORF) library consisting of more than 1,600 genes was transformed into the Escherichia coli expression strain BL21(DE3), resulting in 2,304 clones. This library was subsequently screened for immunogenic proteins using antibodies raised in rabbit against a clinical isolate of C. jejuni; this resulted in 52 highly reactive clones representing 25 different genes after sequencing. Selected candidate genes were inactivated in C. jejuni NCTC 11168, and the virulence was examined using INT 407 epithelial cell line and motility, biofilm, autoagglutination, and serum resistance assays. These investigations revealed C. jejuni antigen 0034c (Cj0034c) to be a novel virulence factor and support the usefulness of the method. Further, several antigens were tested as vaccine candidates in two mouse models, in which Cj0034c, Cj0404, and Cj0525c resulted in a reduction of invasion in spleen and liver after challenge.
Insights to drug addiction derived from ultrastructural views of the mesocorticolimbic system

Drugs of abuse increase the release of dopamine from mesocorticolimbic neurons in the ventral tegmental area. Thus, insights into the cytoarchitecture and the synaptic circuitry affecting the activity of dopaminergic neurons in this area are fundamental for understanding the commonalities produced by mechanistically distinct drugs of abuse. Electron microscopic immunolabeling has provided these insights and also shown the critical relationships between the dopaminergic axon terminals and their targeted neurons in the prefrontal cortex and in the both the dorsal and ventral striatum. These brain regions are among those where dopamine and associated neurotransmitters are most implicated in the transition from recreational to compulsive consumption of reinforcing drugs. Thus, the synaptic circuitry and drug‐induced plasticity occurring in the ventral tegmental area and in dopamine‐targeted regions are reviewed, as both are essential for understanding the long‐lasting changes produced by addictive substances.
Fast, energy-efficient, robust, and reproducible mixed-signal neuromorphic classifier based on embedded NOR flash memory technology

We have designed, fabricated, and tested a prototype mixed-signal, 28×28-binary-input, 10-ouput, 3-layer neuromorphic network based on embedded nonvolatile floating-gate cell arrays redesigned from a commercial 180-nm NOR flash memory. Each array performs a very fast and energy-efficient analog vector-by-matrix multiplication, which is the bottleneck for signal propagation in neuromorphic networks. All functional components of the prototype circuit, including 2 synaptic arrays with 101,780 floating-gate synaptic cells, 74 analog neurons, and the peripheral circuitry for weight adjustment and I/O operations, have a total area below 1 mm2. Its testing on the MNIST benchmark set has shown a classification fidelity of 94.65%, close to the 96.2% obtained in simulation. The classification of one pattern takes <1 μs time and ∼20 nJ energy — both numbers >103× better than those of the 28-nm IBM TrueNorth digital chip for the same task at a similar fidelity. Estimates show that this performance may be further improved using a better neuron design and a more advanced memory technology, leading to a >102x advantage in speed and a >104x advantage in energy efficiency over the state-of-the-art purely digital circuits for classification of large, complex patterns. Experimental results for the chip-to-chip statistics, long-term drift, and temperature sensitivity show no evident showstoppers on the way toward practical deep neuromorphic networks with unprecedented performance.
Educational Strategies to Enhance Placement and Retention of Nurse Practitioners in Rural Arkansas

Purpose To examine the factors and incentives enhancing nurse practitioners’ (NPs’) long‐term employment in rural areas. Data Source The participants were 121 master's prepared or higher educated NPs located in rural Arkansas. A survey about role preparation and employment factors was mailed to the participants. Conclusions We found that 10% of all respondents were not currently employed in the role of an NP. The majority of rural‐employed NPs had didactic content focusing on rural‐practice opportunities and engaged in rural practicums while in graduate school. Rural NPs were much more likely to have graduated from research‐intensive universities. Nearly 90% of NPs reported they were somewhat very well prepared for practice in rural Arkansas. Implications for Education The shortage of health care providers remains one of the most irresolvable problems in the U.S. health care delivery system. Compounding the shortage is the unequal distribution of health care practitioners rural areas. Evidence indicates that NP students engaged in rural clinical practicums were more likely to practice in rural areas. light of this information, nurse educators should expand the NP educational process beyond rurally located practicums to deliver the entire educational process to the NP students’ rural homes.
Micromachined Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers—Athermalization, Tuning, and Multiwavelength Integration

We review the wavelength engineering of micromachined vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), including the wavelength athermalization, wavelength tuning, and multiple wavelength integration. The integration of a thermally actuated cantilever enables us to tailor the temperature dependence of lasing wavelengths. The thermal drift of lasing wavelengths in conventional single-mode semiconductor lasers, which is typically 0.07 nm/K, can be compensated by using the thermal actuation of a cantilever mirror. We are able to realize “athermal operation” of VCSELs under uncooled operations. This novel function could be useful for WDM optical interconnects, local area networks, and access networks with narrow channel spacing under uncooled operations. In addition, continuous wavelength tuning can be realized by using either electrothermal or electrostatic force actuation of the cantilever structure, which provides the athermal and tunable operation at the same time. Also, the lithography defined multiwavelength integration of an athermal VCSEL array is addressed.
Oxidation of naphthalene by a multicomponent enzyme system from Pseudomonas sp. strain NCIB 9816

The initial reactions in the oxidation of naphthalene by Pseudomonas sp. strain NCIB 9816 involves the enzymatic incorporation of one molecule of oxygen into the aromatic nucleus to form (+)-cis-(1R,2S)-dihydroxy-1,2-dihydronaphthalene. The enzyme catalyzing this reaction, naphthalene dioxygenase, was resolved into three protein components, designated A, B, and C, by DEAE-cellulose chromatography. Incubation of naphthalene with components A, B, and C in the presence of NADH resulted in the formation of (+)-cis-(1R,2S)-dihydroxy-1,2-dihydronaphthalene. The ratio of oxygen and NADH utilization to product formation was 1:1:1. NADPH also served as an electron donor for naphthalene oxygenation. However, its activity was less than 50% of that observed with NADH. Component A showed NAD(P)H-cytochrome c reductase activity which was stimulated by the addition of flavin adenine dinucleotide and flavin mononucleotide. A similar stimulation was observed when these flavin nucleotides were added to the naphthalene dioxygenase assay system. These preliminary observations indicate that naphthalene dioxygenase has properties in common with both monooxygenase and dioxygenase multicomponent enzyme systems.
Neurochemical Targets and Behavioral Effects of Organohalogen Compounds: An Update

Organohalogen compounds (OHCs) have been used and still are used extensively as pesticides, flame retardants, hydraulic fluids, and in other industrial applications. These compounds are stable, most often lipophilic, and may therefore easily biomagnify. Today these compounds are found distributed both in human tissue, including breast milk, and in wildlife animals. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, high levels of the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the pesticide dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane (DDT) were detected in the environment. In the 1970s it was discovered that PCBs and some chlorinated pesticides, such as lindane, have neurotoxic potentials after both acute and chronic exposure. Although the use of PCBs, DDT, and other halogenated pesticides has been reduced, and environmental levels of these compounds are slowly diminishing, other halogenated compounds with potential of toxic effects are being found in the environment. These include the brominated flame retardants, chlorinated paraffins (PCAs), and perfluorinated compounds, whose levels are increasing. It is now established that several OHCs have neurobehavioral effects, indicating adverse effects on the central nervous system (CNS). For instance, several reports have shown that OHCs alter neurotransmitter functions in CNS and Ca2+ homeostatic processes, induce protein kinase C (PKC) and phospholipase A2 (PLA2) mobilization, and induce oxidative stress. In this review we summarize the findings of the neurobehavioral and neurochemical effects of some of the major OHCs with our main focus on the PCBs. Further, we try to elucidate, on the basis of available literature, the possible implications of these findings on human health.
Prenatal ultrasonographic findings associated with Jacobsen syndrome.

Jacobsen syndrome results from deletion of the distal long arm of chromosome 11.1 Reported cases have been identified after chromosomal analysis of dysmorphic or mentally retarded persons.U We report the sonographic features of an affected fetus that led to prenatal cytogenetic diagnosis. One parent was newly identified as a carrier of a balanced translocation and the source of the aberrant chromosome.
Evolutionary approaches for minimising error in localisation of wireless sensor networks

Localisation in wireless sensor networks WSNs is one of the important fundamental requisite that needs to be resolved efficiently for the deployment of sensor nodes and its operation. Localisation is a challenging issue in applications such as routing and target tracking which is all location dependent. Hence, this work aims at determining the location of the sensor nodes with high precision. This work is initially based on localisation using Mobile Anchors, a range-free localisation method used for localising the nodes. When the anchors move through the network, they broadcast their location as beacon packets. The sensor nodes after collecting enough beacon packets from mobile anchors and location packets from neighbouring nodes are able to calculate their location. To improve the localisation accuracy, evolutionary algorithms such as genetic algorithm GA, particle swarm optimisation PSO and genetic simulated annealing GSA have been used. Detailed study of localisation accuracy, root mean square error RMSE and comparison among the evolutionary approaches has been done. Simulation results show that the evolutionary algorithms greatly improve the localisation accuracy when it is used over the traditional mathematical approach. The results also show that among the evolutionary algorithms, GSA is the most efficient in bringing down the localisation error.
Efficacy and safety of imatinib mesylate in advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumors.

BACKGROUND Constitutive activation of KIT receptor tyrosine kinase is critical in the pathogenesis of gastrointestinal stromal tumors. Imatinib mesylate, a selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor, has been shown in preclinical models and preliminary clinical studies to have activity against such tumors. METHODS We conducted an open-label, randomized, multicenter trial to evaluate the activity of imatinib in patients with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor. We assessed antitumor response and the safety and tolerability of the drug. Pharmacokinetics were assessed in a subgroup of patients. RESULTS A total of 147 patients were randomly assigned to receive 400 mg or 600 mg of imatinib daily. Overall, 79 patients (53.7 percent) had a partial response, 41 patients (27.9 percent) had stable disease, and for technical reasons, response could not be evaluated in 7 patients (4.8 percent). No patient had a complete response to the treatment. The median duration of response had not been reached after a median follow-up of 24 weeks after the onset of response. Early resistance to imatinib was noted in 20 patients (13.6 percent). Therapy was well tolerated, although mild-to-moderate edema, diarrhea, and fatigue were common. Gastrointestinal or intraabdominal hemorrhage occurred in approximately 5 percent of patients. There were no significant differences in toxic effects or response between the two doses. Imatinib was well absorbed, with pharmacokinetics similar to those reported in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia. CONCLUSIONS Imatinib induced a sustained objective response in more than half of patients with an advanced unresectable or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumor. Inhibition of the KIT signal-transduction pathway is a promising treatment for advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumors, which resist conventional chemotherapy.
The Set3 Complex Antagonizes the MYST Acetyltransferase Esa1 in the DNA Damage Response

ABSTRACT Acetylation is a dynamic posttranslational modification that contributes to chromatin-regulated processes, including DNA replication, repair, recombination, and gene expression. Acetylation is controlled by complexes containing opposing lysine and histone acetyltransferase (KAT and HAT) and deacetylase (KDAC and HDAC) activities. The essential MYST family Esa1 KAT acetylates core histones and many nonhistone substrates. Phenotypes of esa1 mutants include transcriptional silencing and activation defects, impaired growth at high temperatures, and sensitivity to DNA damage. The KDAC Rpd3 was previously identified as an activity opposing Esa1, as its deletion suppresses growth and silencing defects of esa1 mutants. However, loss of Rpd3 does not suppress esa1 DNA damage sensitivity. In this work, we identified Hos2 as a KDAC counteracting ESA1 in the damage response. Deletion of HOS2 resulted in changes of esa1's transcriptional response upon damage. Further, loss of HOS2 or components of the Set3 complex (Set3C) in which it acts specifically suppressed damage sensitivity and restored esa1 histone H4 acetylation. This rescue was mediated via loss of either Set3C integrity or of its binding to dimethylated histone H3K4. Our results thus add new insight into the interactions of an essential MYST acetyltransferase with diverse deacetylases to respond specifically to environmental and physiological challenges.
Numerical solution of singular semi-stable Lyapunov equations

A numerical method for the least squares solution of certain large sparse singular Lyapunov equations is presented. It is shown that the solution can be obtained as the sum of three parts, each of which is a solution of an easier problem and which can be computed with a low rank approximation. Numerical tests illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Use of electromagnetic waves propagating in multilayer waveguide to characterize water transfer in concrete

Water content, known as one of the most important durability monitoring parameters of concrete, has been widely studied by GPR under homogeneous conditions. In this paper, we employ an experimental protocol by its capillary effects to monitor the water penetration into a porous concrete. In this case, concrete cannot be considered as homogeneous anymore. An innovative technique is developed here for extracting and exploiting the Electromagnetic (EM) waveguide dispersion of civil engineering materials with GPR, which enables us to study the water gradient inside a concrete. This technique is based on a new inversion procedure that relies on the Electromagnetic Waveguide Model (WGM) inverting the phase velocity dispersion curves in their modal form to estimate the dielectric constants and geometric parameters of the propagation medium. A homogenization Parallel model, derived from the well-known Lichtenecker-Rother equation is employed to develop the waveguide from a one-layer medium into a multilayer medium. The multi-layer WGM outputs offer a primary application on monitoring water transfers in concrete through water ingress cycles. This procedure is validated with GPR measurements on homogeneous materials. Then it is applied on concrete to monitor the water ingress front during an absorption process. The results of gammadensimetry, measured on cores monitoring the same imbibition process, are used as reference. Both results are found to have good agreements with each other, providing some key information of the studied concrete on conditioning states.
The organization of the contractile apparatus of vertebrate smooth muscle

Smooth muscle of the small intestine of the rat was fixed by vascular perfusion employing aldehydes in a balanced salt solution, followed by immersion fixation in aldehydes and post‐osmication. In such tissue preparations thick filaments approximating 140 Å in diameter are observed in virtually all the smooth muscle cells. The thick filaments are rather uniformly distributed among the more numerous thin filaments. The nearest neighbor distances between the thick filaments range from 400 to 700 Å. The thick to thin filaments ratio is found to apporximate 1:12. Only thin filaments are observed in the most distal segment of terminal processes of muscle cells and the tips of these processes appear to be lined by attachment plaques. A clear segregation of the thick filaments from both dense bodies and attachment plaques is seen. Distally along the tapering extremities of muscle cells progressively more of the plasma membrane is found lined by attachment plaques. These observations are interpreted as strong evidence that the contractile apparatus of the vertebrate smooth muscle cell consists of interdigitating arrays of thick and thin filaments collated into contractile units by the anchoring of the thin filaments in dense bodies and attachment plaques.