Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microsurgical injection of spermatozoa into hamster eggs with subsequent transformation of sperm nuclei into male pronuclei.

Hamster eggs were injected with either isolated nuclei of hamster sp ermatozoa or fresh frozen-thawed and freeze-dried human spermatozoa to determine whether they could develop into male pronuclei. Each of the specimens were capable of devloping into male pronuclei when injected. The results show that sperm nuclei are stable organelles and that the factors in egg cytoplasm which control the transformation of sperm nuclei into male pronuclei are not restricted to a particular species.
Exploration of Schedule Space by Random Walk

Scheduling, an important step in high-level synthesis, is essentially a searching process in the solution space. Due to the vastness of the solution space and the complexity of the imposed constraints, it is usually difficult to explore the solution space efficiently. In this paper, we present a random walk based perturbation method to explore the schedule space. The method works by limiting the search within a specifically defined sub-solution space (SSS), where schedules in the SSS can be found in polynomial time. Then, the SSS is repeatedly perturbed by using an N-dimension random walk so that better schedules can be searched in the new SSS. To improve the search efficiency, a guided perturbation strategy is presented that leads the random walk toward promising directions. Experiments on well-known benchmarks show that by controlling the number of perturbations, our method conveniently makes tradeoff between schedule quality and runtime. In reasonable runtime, the proposed method finds schedules of better quality than existing methods.
A Camera Phone Localised Surface Plasmon Biosensing Platform towards Low-Cost Label-Free Diagnostic Testing

Developmental work towards a camera phone diagnostic platform applying localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) label-free sensing is presented. The application of spherical gold nanoparticles and nanorods are considered and assessed against ease of application, sensitivity, and practicality for a sensor for the detection of CCL2 (chemokine ligand 2). The sensitivity of the platform is compared with that of a commercial UV/Vis spectrometer. The sensitivity of the camera phone platform is found to be 30% less than that of the commercial system for an equivalent incubation time, but approaches that of the commercial system as incubation time increases. This suggests that the application of LSPR sensing on a portable camera phone devices may be a highly effective label-free approach for point-of-care use as a low-cost diagnostic sensing tool in environments where dedicated equipment is not available.
Utility of DPX2 Cells for Predicting CYP3A Induction-Mediated Drug-Drug Interactions and Associated Structure-Activity Relationships

The increase in cytochrome P450 (P450) enzyme activity noted upon exposure to therapeutics can elicit marked drug-drug interactions (DDIs) that may ultimately result in poor clinical outcome or adverse drug effects. As such, in vitro model systems that can rapidly and accurately determine whether potential therapeutics activate the human pregnane X receptor (PXR) and thus induce CYP3A P450 levels are highly sought after tools for drug discovery. To that end, we assessed whether DPX2 cells, a HepG2-derived cell line stably integrated with a PXR expression vector plus a luciferase reporter, could detect agents that not only cause PXR activation/CYP3A induction but also elicit clinical DDIs. All 20 clinical inducers and 9 of 15 clinical noninducers examined activated PXR in DPX2 cells (Emax > 8-fold), although activation parameters obtained with the noninducers were not predictive of DDI. The relative induction score, calculated by combining PXR activation parameters (EC50 and Emax) in DPX2 cells for seven inducers plus four noninducers with their efficacious total plasma concentrations, strongly correlated (R2 = 0.90) with the magnitude of induction of midazolam clearance. Thus, the DPX cell-based PXR activation system is not only capable of distinguishing potential inducers in a high-throughput manner but can also differentiate among compounds in predicting the magnitude of induction-mediated DDIs, providing a means for structure-activity relationship screening during discovery and development.
Creating a Protein-Based Element of Inheritance

clicking here. colleagues, clients, or customers by , you can order high-quality copies for your If you wish to distribute this article to others here. following the guidelines can be obtained by Permission to republish or repurpose articles or portions of articles ): June 18, 2013 www.sciencemag. org (this information is current as of The following resources related to this article are available online at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/287/5453/661.full.html version of this article at: including high-resolution figures, can be found in the online Updated information and services, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/287/5453/661.full.html#ref-list-1 , 10 of which can be accessed free: cites 21 articles This article 73 article(s) on the ISI Web of Science cited by This article has been http://www.sciencemag. org/content/287/5453/661.full. html#related-urls 23 articles hosted by HighWire Press; see: cited by This article has been http://www.sciencemag. org/cgi/collection/neuroscience Neuroscience subject collections: This article appears in the following
Clinical significance of the mixing test in laboratory diagnoses of lupus anticoagulant: the fate of the mixing test in integrated lupus anticoagulant test systems

The mixing test is used to determine the presence of inhibitors in laboratory diagnoses of lupus anticoagulant. Updated international guidelines state that an integrated lupus anticoagulant test system does not require the mixing test; an appraisal of the mixing tests in integrated lupus anticoagulant test systems is, therefore, required. We investigated the clinical relevance of mixing tests by using the best cutoff value of the mixing test through thrombotic risk analysis. A retrospective analysis was performed on 525 specimens with positive screening tests by using two integrated lupus anticoagulant tests: diluted Russell's Viper venom (dRVVT) and silica clotting time. The diagnostic performance of two interpretation formulas (percentage correction, Rosner index) was assessed, and the thrombotic risk of a subgroup based on the mixing results was investigated. Finally, the thrombotic risk of lupus anticoagulant positivity based on the integrated lupus anticoagulant test system procedures was assessed for the appraisal of mixing test exclusion in integrated lupus anticoagulant test systems. The best cutoff values of mixing test interpretation methods based on dRVVT were as follows: 60.1% for percentage correction and 15.7 for Rosner index. There was no substantial difference in the thrombotic risk between percentage correction and the Rosner index. The mixing-positive group showed a higher lupus anticoagulant titer and higher thrombotic risk than the mixing-negative group. However, even the mixing-negative group carried a significant risk of thrombosis. Finally, lupus anticoagulant positivity determined by the updated two-step procedure (screening and confirmation tests) showed higher thrombotic risk than that determined by the traditional three-step procedure (screening, mixing, and confirmation tests). Although a positive mixing result can predict a high risk of thrombosis, negative mixing results are also associated with a substantial thrombotic risk. The updated two-step procedure without the mixing test is relevant for lupus anticoagulant detection in the context of thrombotic risk estimation.
Pre-service teachers' efficacy beliefs and concerns in Malaysia, England and New Zealand

This study compared perceptions of teacher efficacy beliefs and concerns about teaching in pre-service teacher cohorts from New Zealand, Malaysia, and England. Participants were primary pre-service teachers from Malaysia (n = 53), New Zealand (n = 100), and England (n = 119), who completed the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy (long form) (Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) and the Concerns About Teaching Scale (Smith, Corkery, Buckley and Calvert, 2012) at the beginning of the second year of their teaching programs. Eight focus groups (n = 4 to 8 each) were conducted to further explore the issues. Results indicated that both culture and context are important in regard to pre-service teachers' concerns about teaching and their teacher efficacy beliefs. Differences by nation were most evident in the comparatively low efficacy beliefs reported by the Malaysian pre-service teachers, who also expressed concerns about teaching class sizes of 50 primary students, having subject-based rather than class-based contact with students, and dealing with high parental expectations of student success. Results are discussed in terms of practical applications when preparing pre-service teachers from the cultural contexts represented by the participants.
Use of character information by autonomous robots based on character string detection in daily environments

SUMMARY Characters encountered in daily environments provide valuable information to human beings and potentially to automated machines. This paper describes the use of character information by robots working in daily environments. Our robot system finds and reads character strings by virtue of a recognition module that detects character candidates as closed contours in an image. The closed-contour-based method enables detection of various character strings observed from different viewpoints. To cope with tiny and distant characters, the image processing is collaborated with a camera system having a mechanical gaze adjustment. By combining the detection result with an optical character reader, the autonomous robot can provide daily assistance to humans.
The plant extracellular matrix: news from the cell's frontier.

In reminiscing about his 40 years of research on the chemistry and the biology of the cell walls of flowering plants, Peter Albersheim (University of Georgia) revealed that, after experiencing a series of early technical problems, he came very close to abandoning his goal of deducing the chemical structure of the plant’s primary cell wall. What a mistake that would have been! Just one year later his group’s derivatization techniquss and chromatographic separations revealed the fundamental linkage structures of several complex pectic polysaccharides, confirmed the structure of the major crosslinking glycan, xylogucan (XyG), and as a result, they proposed the first model of the plant’s primary cell wall. At that time many researchers were deducing linkage structures of plant polysaccharides, but Albersheim’s group was the first to assemble a working model of the interactions of the various polymers they found in the primary wall. In the years that followed, an evergrowing world community of cell wall researchers developed more refined technologies to study the fine structure of the cell wall, its dynamic nature, and its diverse biological functions. With a discovery-packed 3 years since the first meeting in Santa Fe, the second Keystone Symposium on the Extracellular Matrixof Plants: Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, comprising about 150 scientists, convened in Tamarron, Colorado, in March 1996. Discoveries that were highlights of the meeting for us were thecloning of the catalytic subunit of plant cellulose synthase, the identification of boron diesters as polysaccharide cross-linkers, the insight into control of lignification gained from secondary product antisense and null mutants, the identification of oligoglycan receptors, the potential role of glycochaperones in secretion and wall assembly, the ultrastructure of cell plate assembly, the molecular analysis of expansins and structural wall proteins, and the nature of wall-mediated signaling events in development and pathogenesis. We have selected these and several other contributions for more thorough discussion in the context of the major themes that we see emerging from the meeting.
The Practice Turn In Strategic Alignment Research: Fostering A Strategy-As-Practice Perspective

Strategic Alignment (SA) in the literature has been predominantly envisaged as a result of a formal deliberation process which finds a fit with a particular given strategy. This falls short of acknowledging other social forces that may shape SA and neglects the view that strategy can be emergent. This paper aims to contextualize SA in line with a contemporary perspective in strategy research which draws on practice theory and is widely labelled strategy-as-practice (SAP). We will discuss the motives behind this reorientation, outlining core principles in SAP, and concluding the paper by elaborating the suitability of SAP for the future SA research agenda.
[Controlling infectious diseases].

The 20th century was a triumph for human health and longevity. An Indian born in 1900 had a life expectancy of 22 years; an American baby born that year could expect to live about 49 years. By centurys end life expectancy had soared to unprecedented levels even in many poor countries. In 2005 average life expectancy at birth in the United States was 78 years; in India it was 62 years. The falling death toll from infectious diseases--primarily among infants and young children--led to these spectacular improvements in human life expectancy. For most of human history communicable diseases such as malaria smallpox and tuberculosis (TB) were leading causes of death. TB was the second-highest cause of death in the United States in 1900 and malaria was a major problem in southeastern U.S. states. These diseases were effectively controlled in the United States and declined throughout much of the world in the 20th century. One major disease--smallpox--was virtually wiped out; another--polio--may be close to eradication. Improvements in sanitation and the development of vaccines and antibiotics accelerated the decline of infectious and parasitic diseases (IPDs) in the 20th century. But with a few exceptions communicable diseases have not been vanquished. The microbes that cause these diseases continue to evolve sometimes requiring new drugs and methods to combat them. New pathogens emerge or make the jump from infecting animals to infecting humans. The most recent global estimates show that communicable diseases cause about one-third of all deaths. Pneumonia and other lower respiratory diseases are the largest group followed by HIV/AIDS diarrheal diseases TB and malaria. (excerpt)
Regulation of atrial natriuretic factor release by endothelin in ovine fetuses.

Endothelin is a potent vasoconstrictor synthesized by vascular endothelial cells. In the adult, endothelin has been shown to stimulate the release of atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) through a direct action on atrial cardiocytes. The present study was designed to investigate, in the fetus, whether endothelin would similarly release ANF into the circulation. In addition, the effects of endothelin on fetal cardiovascular and urinary functions were explored. Chronically catheterized ovine fetuses between 126 and 139 days gestation (term 147 days) were used for the study. After a 30-min control period, the fetuses were infused intravenously with vehicle (n = 6) or endothelin-1 (n = 9) at 25 ng.min-1.kg-1 for 30 min, and this was followed by a 60-min recovery period. In response to endothelin infusion, plasma ANF levels were significantly elevated. Endothelin infusion acutely increased fetal arterial pressure without affecting venous pressure. Fetal heart rate decreased, and blood volume was reduced. Fetal urine flow rate and urinary excretion of electrolytes did not change during the endothelin infusion but were elevated during the recovery period. The fetus developed hypoxia and acidemia. Thus our study demonstrates that endothelin is effective in stimulating ANF release in the fetus, and this effect appears to be unrelated to the venous pressure changes. In addition, the results suggest that endothelin is a potent vasoconstrictor of the fetal systemic and umbilical vascular beds. The decrease in blood volume and increase in urinary excretion of fluid and electrolytes in response to endothelin are consistent with the known actions of ANF, which is elevated during endothelin infusion.
The ZIC gene family in development and disease

The human ZIC gene family is comprised of five members encoding zinc‐finger transcription factors, which are the vertebrate homologs of the Drosophila odd‐paired gene. Mutations in ZIC genes in humans have recently been implicated in a wide variety of congenital malformations, including Dandy‐Walker malformation, holoprosencephaly, neural tube defects, and heterotaxy. Mutant analysis of these genes in mice has underscored the conserved developmental roles of these genes. Further, this analysis has begun to elucidate the molecular and developmental mechanisms underlying these important birth defects.
An Educational Game for Teaching Search Algorithms

Search algorithms constitute an important topic in the Artificial Intelligence curriculum and are acknowledged by most tutors to be a hard and complex domain for teachers to teach and students to deeply understand. In this paper, we present an educational computer game, designed to teach search algorithms, based on the popular Pacman game. The purpose of the educational Pacman game is to assist students to understand the artificial intelligence topic of search algorithms in an entertaining, interactive and motivating way. During their experience with the game, students can examine the behaviour of various search algorithms and a graphical annotated depiction of them through suitable visualizations. Visualizations can demonstrate the operational functionality of algorithms and are designed in line with the principles of studentâs active learning. Various learning activities were designed and request students to apply specific search algorithms in various example cases with or without the assistance and feedback of the game. An evaluation study was conducted in real classroom conditions and revealed quite satisfactory results. The results indicate that the educational Pacman game is an effective way to enhance studentsâ engagement and help them to deeper understand the AI search algorithms.
Single and married patients with eating disorders

Forty married and 22 unmarried female patients with eating disorders were studied to elucidate the relationship between eating disorders and marriage. Eating disorders developed in 14 patients before marriage (premarital onset) and in 26 patients at or after marriage (postmarital onset). The postmarital onset group was a significantly higher age at onset, but similar in age and duration of illness compared with the group of 22 unmarried patients. However, the various clinical features of the three groups did not differ. Four premarital onset patients showed exaggerated clinical features after marriage, but the other patients showed no change in clinical features after marriage. In the postmarital onset group, eating disorders were triggered in 18 (69%) patients by marital problems, separation or divorce. In contrast, eating disorders were triggered by dieting to be slim in eight (57%) patients of the premarital onset group and 12 (55%) patients of the unmarried group. These results suggest that marital discord plays an important role in the development and maintenance of eating disorders among married women.
Nanopartículas de plata: tecnología para su obtención, caracterización y actividad biológica

La nanotecnologia ha cambiado la perspectiva funcional de los materiales empleados en la medicina, ofreciendo estos una mejor funcionalidad debido principalmente a su tamano nanometrico. Un ejemplo son las nanoparticulas de plata que exhiben diferentes propiedades una vez aplicadas a los sistemas biologicos, en comparacion con los sistemas tradicionales de tratamiento. El tamano nanometrico les confiere la habilidad para penetrar distintas membranas biologicas como la pared bacteriana, incrementando su efecto bactericida. Esta revision aborda de manera general los procesos empleados en la obtencion de las nanoparticulas de plata como un ejemplo de la tecnologia empleada en el diseno de estos vehiculos; los parametros de calidad aplicados para resguardar su funcionalidad y una explicacion de su mecanismo de accion antibacteriana en vista de una evaluacion terapeutica eficaz y como punto de referencia del impacto del desarrollo de materiales a traves de la nanotecnologia
A Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium Succinate Dehydrogenase/Fumarate Reductase Double Mutant Is Avirulent and Immunogenic in BALB/c Mice

ABSTRACT Previously we showed that the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle operates as a full cycle during Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium SR-11 peroral infection of BALB/c mice (M. Tchawa Yimga et al., Infect. Immun. 74:1130-1140, 2006). The evidence was that a ΔsucCD mutant (succinyl coenzyme A [succinyl-CoA] synthetase), which prevents the conversion of succinyl-CoA to succinate, and a ΔsdhCDA mutant (succinate dehydrogenase), which blocks the conversion of succinate to fumarate, were both attenuated, whereas an SR-11 ΔaspA mutant (aspartase) and an SR-11 ΔfrdABCD mutant (fumarate reductase), deficient in the ability to run the reductive branch of the TCA cycle, were fully virulent. In the present study, evidence is presented that a serovar Typhimurium SR-11 ΔfrdABCD ΔsdhCDA double mutant is avirulent in BALB/c mice and protective against subsequent infection with the virulent serovar Typhimurium SR-11 wild-type strain via the peroral route and is highly attenuated via the intraperitoneal route. These results suggest that fumarate reductase, which normally runs in the reductive pathway in the opposite direction of succinate dehydrogenase, can replace it during infection by running in the same direction as succinate dehydrogenase in order to run a full TCA cycle in an SR-11 ΔsdhCDA mutant. The data also suggest that the conversion of succinate to fumarate plays a key role in serovar Typhimurium virulence. Moreover, the data raise the possibility that S. enterica ΔfrdABCD ΔsdhCDA double mutants and ΔfrdABCD ΔsdhCDA double mutants of other intracellular bacterial pathogens with complete TCA cycles may prove to be effective live vaccine strains for animals and humans.