Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neuronal death after trophic factor deprivation.

Since the discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF) nearly 40 years ago, extensive studies have elaborated the trophic relationship between a neuron and its end organ. Much evidence has accumulated that depicts the crucial role of neurotrophic factors in determining neuronal survival both during development and after injury. The molecular events by which trophic factors determine whether an individual neuron lives or dies are poorly understood. The function of active protein synthesis as a prerequisite for neuronal death has led to the hypothesis that all neurons contain a mechanism to self-destruct or a phenomenon of programmed cell death. The loss of trophic support may, therefore, lead to the initiation of this so called "suicide" program within individual cells. Recently, multiple other trophic factors have been discovered. At least two of these factors, brain-derived neurotrophic factor and neurotrophin-3, appear related to members of the same gene family as the prototypic neurotrophic factor, nerve growth factor. Other metabolic factors, such as intracellular calcium, may be instrumental in determining the dependence of individual neurons on specific trophic support. A "set-point" hypothesis has been described concerning the relationship between intracellular calcium and the NGF dependency of embryonic neurons in cell culture. Changes in calcium metabolism may be an important determinant in altering trophic dependence and naturally occurring cell death. Neurotrophic factors also influence the reaction of the neuron to axotomy and subsequent axonal regeneration. Exogenously supplied trophic factors may prevent neuronal loss after axotomy when supplied at the site of injury. Both NGF and FGF have been shown to enhance early regeneration across gaps within silicone chambers. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Cloning and characterisation of two chick homeobox genes, members of the six/sine oculis family, expressed during eye development.

The vertebrate eye formation is a very complex phenomenon that relays on a sequence of inductive interactions. The eye development begins with the formation of the optic vesicle, a protrusion of the lateral forebrain. The optic vesicles upon contact with the over1ying ectoderm will determine the formation of the lens placode. At this stage the optic cup is formed from v-. t1ichthe optic stalk, pigmented epithelium and neural retina will arise. The chick embryo is an ideal model to study these ear1y steps of eye formation, since it is accessible to surgical manipulations and it allows rapid attempts of interference with the expression of specific genes. Transcription factors in general and homeobox genes in particular, are fundamental for the genetic control of different basic developmental processes (Gehring et ai., 1994). Therefore,the study of thesegenes might be crucial to understand the steps leading to the formation of a well organised and functional eye. Recently, several homeobox genes have been detected at ear1yand later stages of vertebrate eye and retinal development (Saha et ai, 1992; Halder et ai, 1995). Many of them A homologues of genes kno'M1 to be crucial in the development of the Drosophila compound eyes. Thus, in the search for new genes that might control the ear1y steps of vertebrate eye formation, we have looked for the chick . homologue of the Drosophila gene sine c-slx3 oculis. Sine oculis is a homeobox containing gene that, in the fly, appears to be fundamental for the development of the entire visual system (Cheyette et ai., 1994). Using t"-O different pairs of degenerate primers, we have amplified by nested PCR, the homeobox region of the homologue of sine oculis starting from a E2 chick cDNA GADPH library. Sequence analysis of the amplified fragments revealed the existence of at least four different genes related to the Drosophila sine oculis.The aa sequence of t"-O of them B were identical to the homeobox of the recently isolated murine six-1 and six-2 (Oliver et ai., 1995a). The remaining t"-O were used to screen the cDNA library and isolate t"-O cDNA inserts of 1.5 and 2.1 kb, respectively. Sequence analysis revealed that the first cDNA contained the entire coding sequence of a gene related to the Drosophila sine oculis, and highly homologue to that of the recently described mouse six-3 (Oliver et ai., 1995b). The second contained part of the coding sequence and the 3' end region of a gene relatedto the Drosophilasine oculis, but different from those so far described. We named them csix-3 and cSix-4, respectively. The csix-3 gene presented a homeodomain Identical to that of the mouse six-3 (70% homology with that of sine oculis). Et.5 E3 E T "P'! '~__' "'. E5 E T E7 E T E9 E T Ell
Solução da conjectura de Weiss estocástica para semigrupos analíticos

Nesta tese tratamos o problema de caracterizar a existencia de medida invariante para equacoes de evolucao estocasticas lineares com ruido aditivo em termos do resolvente associado ao gerador da equacao. Este problema foi proposto recentemente na literatura como uma versao estocastica da celebre conjectura de Weiss em teoria de controle para sistemas lineares, que consiste em relacionar admissibilidade de operadores de controle a certas estimativas envolvendo o resolvente do gerador infinitesimal. No contexto estocastico, e no caso em que o gerador da equacao e analitico e admite um calculo funcional do tipo Dunford-Schwartz num espaco de Banach com a propriedade de Pisier, nosso resultado principal consiste de condicoes analitico-funcionais necessarias e suficientes para existencia de medida invariante para o problema de Cauchy estocastico. Em particular, mostramos que existencia de medida invariante _e equivalente _a convergencia em probabilidade de certa serie Gaussiana cujos termos sao os resolventes avaliados nos pontos diadicos positivos da reta real, que consideramos como sendo a condicao de Weiss estocastica. Ha fortes razoes para esperar que, _a semelhanca do que ocorreu com a conjectura de Weiss classica, este problema atraia consideravel atencao da comunidade academica num futuro proximo. Abstract
Hypertension and ace gene insertion/deletion polymorphism in pediatric renal transplant patients

Abstract: The objective of the present study was to define the risk factors for hypertension and to analyze the influence of insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism of the angiotensin‐converting enzyme (ACE) on hypertension in pediatric renal transplant recipients. Twenty‐six pediatric renal transplant recipients with stable renal function and treated with the same immunosuppression protocol were included in the study. Their mean age was 12.5 ± 3.3 yr and mean time after transplantation was 38.5 ± 39.8 month. Twenty‐four hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) was performed by SpaceLabs (90207) device. The I/D polymorphism of the ACE was determined by PCR and ACE serum level was analyzed by colorimetric method. Hypertension was present in 15 patients (57.7%) by causal blood pressure measurements and 19 patients (73.1%) by ABPM. Twenty‐two patients (84.6%) were found to be non‐dipper and eight of them had reverse dipping. Only time after transplantation (38 ± 31 vs. 79 ±49 month, p = 0.016) and cyclosporin A trough plasma levels (206 ±78 vs. 119 ± 83 ng/mL, p = 0.020) influenced the presence of hypertension by multiple logistic regression analysis. The distribution of genotypes were II = 2 (7.7%), ID = 8 (30.8%), DD = 16 (61.5%). There was no effect of ACE gene I/D polymorphism or serum ACE levels on hypertension prevalence and circadian variability of blood pressures. Hypertension was related to the time after transplantation and cyclosporin A levels. The ACE gene I/D polymorphism and serum ACE levels did not influence the blood pressure values or circadian variability of blood pressure among pediatric renal transplant patients.
Practical Applications of Generalizability Theory for Designing, Evaluating, and Improving Psychological Assessments

ABSTRACT In this article, we illustrate how generalizability theory (G-theory) can extend traditional assessment methods for designing, improving, and evaluating results from both objectively and subjectively scored measures of individual differences. Our illustrations include quantification of multiple sources of measurement error, derivation of unique indexes of consistency for norm- and criterion-referenced interpretations of scores, estimation of score consistency when changing a measurement procedure, and disattenuation of correlation coefficients for measurement error. We also expand G-theory analyses beyond the item level to include parcels and split measures and highlight linkages among G-theory, classical test theory, and structural equation modeling. Computer code and sample data are provided in online supplements to help readers apply the demonstrated techniques to their own assessments.
Speaker adaptive modeling by vocal tract normalization

This paper presents methods for speaker adaptive modeling using vocal tract normalization (VTN) along with experimental tests on three databases. We propose a new training method for VTN: By using single-density acoustic models per HMM state for selecting the scale factor of the frequency axis, we avoid the problem that a mixture-density tends to learn the scale factors of the training speakers and thus cannot be used for selecting the scale factor. We show that using single Gaussian densities for selecting the scale factor in training results in lower error rates than using mixture densities. For the recognition phase, we propose an improvement of the well-known two-pass strategy: by using a non-normalized acoustic model for the first recognition pass instead of a normalized model, lower error rates are obtained. In recognition tests, this method is compared with a fast variant of VTN. The two-pass strategy is an efficient method, but it is suboptimal because the scale factor and the word sequence are determined sequentially. We found that for telephone digit string recognition this suboptimality reduces the VTN gain in recognition performance by 30% relative. In summary, on the German spontaneous speech task Verbmobil, the WSJ task and the German telephone digit string corpus SieTill, the proposed methods for VTN reduce the error rates significantly.
Computational Modelling of Mental Imagery in Chess: A Sensitivity Analysis

An important aim of cognitive science is to build computational models that account for a large number of phenomena but have few free parameters, and to obtain more veridical values for the models’ parameters by successive approximations. A good example of this approach is the CHREST model (Gobet & Simon, 2000), which has simulated numerous phenomena on chess expertise and in other domains. In this paper, we are interested in the parameter the model uses for shifting chess pieces in its mind’s eye (125 ms per piece), a parameter that had been estimated based on relatively sparse experimental evidence. Recently, Waters and Gobet (2008) tested the validity of this parameter in a memory experiment that required players to recall briefly presented positions in which the pieces were placed on the intersections between squares. Position types ranged from game positions to positions where both the piece distribution and location were randomised. CHREST, which assumed that pieces must be centred back to the middle of the squares in the mind’s eye before chunks can be recognized, simulated the data fairly well using the default parameter for shifting pieces. The sensitivity analysis presented in the current paper shows that the fit was nearly optimal for all groups of players except the grandmaster group for which, counterintuitively, a slower shifting time gave a better fit. The implications for theory development are discussed.
PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway as a target for cancer therapy

The PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway regulates several normal cellular functions that are also critical for tumorigenesis, including cellular proliferation, growth, survival and mobility. Components of this pathway are frequently abnormal in a variety of tumors, making them an attractive target for anti-cancer therapy. Inhibition of mTOR in patients with cancer became more feasible after the development of rapamycin analogs with improved pharmacologic properties. The promising activity of these agents in early clinical trials has led to the development of ongoing phase III trials in renal cell carcinoma and breast cancer. Future studies are needed to identify the patients most likely to benefit from this form of therapy, and to define its role in combination with chemotherapy, hormones and growth factor inhibitors.
Some neglected possibilities of communication.

The great informers of events in the outside world seem obviously to be the visual and auditory channels. Depending somewhat on how the information is to be used, what chains of responses it will set off, we cast messages in visual or auditory form. Not exceptionally but more commonly than not, we code them auditorily: 1) If rapidly successive data are to be resolved. Audition is more useful than vision as a means of making temporal discriminations. Also, auditory reaction times are typically faster. 2) Where the recipient is preoccupied with other tasks or in a condition of reduced alertness and we wish to "break in" with unexpected messages or warnings. 3) Listening habits being what they are, where relatively brief, easy, highly meaningful materials are to be apprehended and remembered. 4) Where flexibility of message transmission is important. The voice spontaneously gives inflectional shadings and emphases. 5) Where, out of a larger mass of
Determinação de limiar anaeróbio com base em dados de teste em elipticon

Nos ultimos anos foi desenhado e construido um novo equipamento para trabalho de sistema aerobio onde neste mesmo equipamento obtem-se um trabalho tao intenso quanto de esteira e absorcao de impacto poupando e prevenindo lesoes no joelho, sendo este equipamento utilizado principalmente em academias e centros esportivos criando cada vez mais adeptos por bons resultados. O presente estudo tem como objetivo analisar o Limiar Anaerobio para parâmetro de treinamento de individuos atletas ou nao atletas feitas as coletas no equipamento Elipticon. Participaram tres individuos com 22, 32 e 44 anos respectivamente, praticantes de atividade fisica de 3 a 4 vezes por semana em uma academia do estado de Sao Paulo. Com o objetivo de descobrir um novo protocolo para o equipamento utilizado no teste ampliando o campo para profissionais da area ao estudo para parâmetros de treinamento. Os resultados da pesquisa foram positivos sabendo que a utilizacao de um novo protocolo pode enriquecer na utilizacao e aumentar o estudo sobre o caso. Concluindo citamos a importância da continuacao do estudo para melhor entendimento e esclarecimento para a aplicacao na pratica do teste.
Brain morphology of the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) varies inconsistently with respect to habitat complexity: A test of the Clever Foraging Hypothesis

Abstract The Clever Foraging Hypothesis asserts that organisms living in a more spatially complex environment will have a greater neurological capacity for cognitive processes related to spatial memory, navigation, and foraging. Because the telencephalon is often associated with spatial memory and navigation tasks, this hypothesis predicts a positive association between telencephalon size and environmental complexity. The association between habitat complexity and brain size has been supported by comparative studies across multiple species but has not been widely studied at the within‐species level. We tested for covariation between environmental complexity and neuroanatomy of threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) collected from 15 pairs of lakes and their parapatric streams on Vancouver Island. In most pairs, neuroanatomy differed between the adjoining lake and stream populations. However, the magnitude and direction of this difference were inconsistent between watersheds and did not covary strongly with measures of within‐site environmental heterogeneity. Overall, we find weak support for the Clever Foraging Hypothesis in our study.
Benzodiazepiny u pacjentów w podeszłym wieku

Benzodiazepiny są czesto stosowane u pacjentow w podeszlym wieku, zwlaszcza jako leki nasenne i przeciwlekowe. Typowym pacjentem w tej grupie jest kobieta, z uporczywym zaburzeniem psychicznym (najcześciej lekowym lub depresją) i wspolchorobowością somatyczną, w tym z uporczywymi zespolami bolowymi. Stosując benzodiazepiny u pacjenta w podeszlym wieku, nalezy uwzgledniac związane z wiekiem zmiany w farmakokinetyce i farmakodynamice, a takze mozliwe dzialania niepoządane — do najpowazniejszych zalicza sie upadki, zaburzenia funkcji poznawczych, nadmierną sedacje oraz zaburzenia koordynacji ruchowej (istotne m.in. przy prowadzeniu pojazdow). Nie zaleca sie dlugoterminowego podawania benzodiazepin ze wzgledu na ryzyko uzaleznienia, a takze dane wskazujące na mozliwośc, ze jest to takze czynnik ryzyka wystąpienia otepienia. Nierozpoznane i nieleczone uzaleznienie od benzodiazepin moze prowadzic do powaznych nastepstw medycznych, zwlaszcza u chorych z istotnymi chorobami wspolistniejącymi.
New Minutiae Detection Algorithm from Fingerprint Image using the Improved Tracing on Ridge Curve

Among the verification systems using biometric information, the fingerprint-based system is well-known technique as uniqueness and immutability. However, there are some problems in the process of minutiae detection from fingerprint image. In this paper, new minutiae detection algorithm is proposed to solve those problems. New technique called tip tracing is added to trace the exact minutiae point position in the proposed algorithm. From the experiment results, we confirm that the proposed algorithm improves the minutiae extraction accuracy and performance of fingerprint verification.
Evaluación del mecanismo de corte de RNA por la toxina bacteriana Kid y de su actividad inhibidora de la traducción

Kid, la toxina endoribonucleasa del sistema Toxina-Antitoxina parD del plasmido R1, corta ARN en la secuencia 5-UA(A/C)-3 inhibiendo sintesis de proteinas, efecto atribuido a la rotura del ARNm independientemente de ribosomas. En la evaluacion del modelo de union y corte del ARN por Kid se ha analizado, por espectrometria de masas, el efecto de mutaciones en residuos claves del modelo. Las mutaciones R73H, D75E, D75N y H17P, afectando residuos del centro catalitico propuesto, inactivan la toxicidad de Kid. Ensayos de corte de los sustratos 5-AUACA-3 y 5-UUACU-3, indican que las mutaciones anulan la actividad ARNasa de la toxina sin afectar su union al sustrato 5-AdUACA-3. El analisis de mutaciones en residuos implicados en union, indica que interaccionan con el sustrato 5-AdUACA-3 con menor eficiencia que la proteina silvestre y que, exceptuando a T46G, conservan actividad ARNasa. Los mutantes que retenian actividad, mostraron inhibicion de sintesis de proteinas in vitro y de toxicidad in vivo. Los resultados apoyan el modelo propuesto indicando que T46 esta implicado en union a ARN participando mas directamente en su actividad ARNasa. El descubrimiento de mutaciones en prfA abrio la posibilidad de analizar las interacciones de Kid con componentes ribosomales. prfA codifica el factor de terminacion de la traduccion RF1 de E. coli. Las mutaciones afectando residuos localizados cerca del sitio de reconocimiento de codones, mostraron reduccion en la eficiencia de terminacion en codones UAG, sin afectar su estabilidad in vivo. Los mutantes mostraron hipersensibilidad a antibioticos aminoglicosidos y a Kid cuya actividad ARNasa es, en principio, independiente del proceso de traduccion. La hipersensibilidad a Kid, dependiente de su actividad ARNasa, se suprimio al sobreproducir RF1 silvestre o la antitoxina Kis. Estos datos aportan la primera evidencia de la participacion de RF1 en la ruta de toxicidad de Kid, anadiendo complejidades a la actividad de Kid.
Morphology and experimental hydrodynamics of fish fin control surfaces

Over the past 520 million years, the process of evolution has produced a diversity of nearly 25000 species of fish. This diversity includes thousands of different fin designs which are largely the product of natural selection for locomotor performance. Fish fins can be grouped into two major categories: median and paired fins. Fins are typically supported at their base by a series of segmentally arranged bony or cartilaginous elements, and fish have extensive muscular control over fin conformation. Recent experimental hydrodynamic investigation of fish fin function in a diversity of freely swimming fish (including sharks, sturgeon, trout, sunfish, and surfperch) has demonstrated the role of fins in propulsion and maneuvering. Fish pectoral fins generate either separate or linked vortex rings during propulsion, and the lateral forces generated by pectoral fins are of similar magnitudes to thrust force during slow swimming. Yawing maneuvers involve differentiation of hydrodynamic function between left and right fins via vortex ring reorientation. Low-aspect ratio pectoral fins in sharks function to alter body pitch and induce vertical maneuvers through conformational changes of the fin trailing edge. The dorsal fin of fish displays a diversity of hydrodynamic function, from a discrete thrust-generating propulsor acting independently from the body, to a stabilizer generating only side forces. Dorsal fins play an active role in generating off-axis forces during maneuvering. Locomotor efficiency may be enhanced when the caudal fin intercepts the dorsal fin wake. The caudal fin of fish moves in a complex three-dimensional manner and evidence for thrust vectoring of caudal fin forces is presented for sturgeon which appear to have active control of the angle of vortices shed from the tail. Fish are designed to be unstable and are constantly using their control surfaces to generate opposing and balancing forces in addition to thrust. Lessons from fish for autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) design include: 1) location of multiple control surfaces distributed widely about the center of mass, 2) design of control surfaces that have a high degree of three-dimensional motion through a flexible articulation with the body, 3) the ability to modulate fin surface conformation, and 4) the simultaneous use of numerous control surfaces including locating some fin elements in the downstream wake generated by other fins. The ability to manufacture an AUV that takes advantage of these design features is currently limited by the nature of available materials and mechanical drive trains. But future developments in polymer artificial muscle technology will provide a new approach to propulsor design that will permit construction of biomimetic propulsors with conformational and articulational flexibility similar to that of fish fins.
A novel approximated solution for the Van der Pol oscillator. Application to pulsed oscillations modeling in switched cross-coupled MOS oscillators

The operation of a periodically switched cross-coupled oscillator is considered in this work. First, it is shown that this architecture corresponds to a Van der Pol oscillator. Based on that, a novel analytical solution is proposed for the Van der Pol equation taking into account the time-dependent amplitude and frequency variation at the starting of oscillation. In addition, an original specific model for the pulsed oscillations is presented. Comparison with numerical simulations of the Van der Pol equation shows very good accuracy. Finally, it is shown that synchronization of the oscillations pulses on the input signal can be obtained under specific conditions.