Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alfalfa benefits from Medicago truncatula: The RCT1 gene from M. truncatula confers broad-spectrum resistance to anthracnose in alfalfa

Alfalfa is economically the most important forage legume worldwide. A recurrent challenge to alfalfa production is the significant yield loss caused by disease. Although knowledge of molecular mechanisms underlying host resistance should facilitate the genetic improvement of alfalfa, the acquisition of such knowledge is hampered by alfalfa's tetrasomic inheritance and outcrossing nature. However, alfalfa is congeneric with the reference legume Medicago truncatula, providing an opportunity to use M. truncatula as a surrogate to clone the counterparts of many agronomically important genes in alfalfa. In particular, the high degree of sequence identity and remarkably conserved genome structure and function between the two species enables M. truncatula genes to be used directly in alfalfa improvement. Here we report the map-based cloning of RCT1, a host resistance (R) gene in M. truncatula that confers resistance to multiple races of Colletotrichum trifolii, a hemibiotrophic fungal pathogen that causes anthracnose disease of alfalfa. RCT1 is a member of the Toll-interleukin-1 receptor/nucleotide-binding site/leucine-rich repeat (TIR-NBS-LRR) class of plant R genes and confers broad-spectrum anthracnose resistance when transferred into susceptible alfalfa plants. Thus, RCT1 provides a novel resource to develop anthracnose-resistant alfalfa cultivars and contributes to our understanding of host resistance against the fungal genus Colletotrichum. This work demonstrates the potential of using M. truncatula genes for genetic improvement of alfalfa.
GIV is a nonreceptor GEF for Gαi with a unique motif that regulates Akt signaling

Heterotrimeric G proteins are molecular switches that control signal transduction. Ligand-occupied, G protein-coupled receptors serve as the canonical guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) that activate heterotrimeric G proteins. A few unrelated nonreceptor GEFs have also been described, but little or nothing is known about their structure, mechanism of action, or cellular functions in mammals. We have discovered that GIV/Girdin serves as a nonreceptor GEF for Gαi through an evolutionarily conserved motif that shares sequence homology with the synthetic GEF peptide KB-752. Using the available structure of the KB-752·Gαi1 complex as a template, we modeled the Gαi-GIV interface and identified the key residues that are required to form it. Mutation of these key residues disrupts the interaction and impairs Akt enhancement, actin remodeling, and cell migration in cancer cells. Mechanistically, we demonstrate that the GEF motif is capable of activating as well as sequestering the Gα-subunit, thereby enhancing Akt signaling via the Gβγ-PI3K pathway. Recently, GIV has been implicated in cancer metastasis by virtue of its ability to enhance Akt activity and remodel the actin cytoskeleton during cancer invasion. Thus, the novel regulatory motif described here provides the structural and biochemical basis for the prometastatic features of GIV, making the functional disruption of this unique Gαi-GIV interface a promising target for therapy against cancer metastasis.
Should Spouses Be Demanding Less From Marriage? A Contextual Perspective on the Implications of Interpersonal Standards

How much should people ask of their relationships? Whereas several perspectives suggest high standards should make actual outcomes feel worse by comparison and thus harm relationships, other perspectives suggest high standards should motivate people to exert the effort necessary to cultivate quality partnerships. The current 4-year longitudinal study of newlywed couples reconciled these competing perspectives by testing a prediction implicit in Finkel, Hui, Carswell, and Larson’s suffocation model of marriage—that spouses’ standards interact with factors reflective of their abilities to meet those standards to predict subsequent satisfaction. Among spouses who either reported less severe problems or were in marriages observed to be characterized by lower levels of destructive behavior, standards were positively associated with satisfaction over time; among spouses who reported more severe problems or were in marriages characterized by higher levels of destructive behavior, in contrast, standards were negatively associated with satisfaction over time.
INTRAVITREAL TRIAMCINOLONE ACETONIDE FOR RADIATION MACULOPATHY AFTER PLAQUE RADIOTHERAPY FOR CHOROIDAL MELANOMA

Objective: To evaluate the effect of intravitreal triamcinolone acetonide on patients with visually symptomatic radiation-induced maculopathy after plaque radiotherapy for choroidal melanoma. Design: In this prospective, nonrandomized, single-center case series of 31 patients with visually symptomatic radiation-induced maculopathy after plaque radiotherapy for choroidal melanoma at the Ocular Oncology Service at Wills Eye Hospital of Thomas Jefferson University, triamcinolone acetonide (4 mg/1 mL) was injected through the pars plana into the vitreous cavity using sterile technique. Status of radiation maculopathy and final visual acuity were the main outcome measures. Results: At the time of diagnosis of choroidal melanoma, visual acuity was 20/20 to 20/50 in 90% (n = 28), 20/60 to 20/200 in 10% (n = 3), and 20/400 or worse in none of the patients. The mean radiation dose to the foveola was 5,122 cGy (median, 3,280 cGy; range, 1,000–16,100 cGy). Radiation maculopathy developed at a mean of 22 months (median, 16 months; range, 6–96 months) after plaque radiotherapy. In all cases, the choroidal melanoma was regressed, and there was no retinal detachment or neovascularization of the retina, optic disk, or iris. At the time of diagnosis of radiation maculopathy, visual acuity was 20/20 to 20/50 in 19% (6/31), 20/60 to 20/200 in 58% (18/31), and 20/400 or worse in 23% (7/31) of patients. After intravitreal injection of triamcinolone acetonide, visual acuity was stable or improved in 91% (20/22) of patients by 1 month and 45% (14/31) by 6 months. Mean foveal thickness by optical coherence tomography was 417 μm at injection and 207 μm at 1 month and 292 μm at 6 months after injection. Conclusions: Intravitreal triamcinolone acetonide can stabilize or improve visual acuity in some patients with radiation-induced maculopathy, but its effect might not be lasting.
UNDERSTANDING USERS’ PERSPECTIVES OF BARRIERS TO MATERNAL HEALTH CARE USE IN MAHARASHTRA, INDIA

This paper uses data collected using in-depth, semi-structured interviews to examine utilization of maternal health care services among two rural and urban populations of Pune and Mumbai in Maharashtra, India. The study aims to identify key social, economic and cultural factors influencing women’s decisions to use maternal health care and the places used for child delivery, whilst considering the accessibility of facilities available in the local area. Socioeconomic status was not found to be a barrier to service use when women perceived the benefits of the service to outweigh the cost, and when the service was within reasonable distance of the respondent’s place of residence. A large number of women perceived private services to be superior to those provided by the government, although cost often meant they were unable to use them. The provision of services did not ensure that women used them; they had to first perceive them to be beneficial to their health and that of their unborn child. Respondents identified the poor quality of services offered at government institutions to be a motivating factor for delivering at home. Thus further investigation is needed into the quality of services provided by government facilities in the area. A number of respondents who had received antenatal care went on to deliver in the home environment without a trained birth attendant. Further research is needed to establish the types of care provided during an antenatal consultation to establish the feasibility of using these visits to encourage women, particularly those with high-risk pregnancies, to be linked to a trained attendant for delivery.
A Real-Time Energy Management Architecture for Multisource Electric Vehicles

This paper presents an energy management architecture for small urban electric vehicles based on hybrid energy sources and its real-time implementation. The energy management strategy uses an integrated rule-based metaheuristic approach to obtain solutions for sharing energy and power between two sources with different characteristics, namely, one with high specific energy and another with high specific power. A comprehensive real-time architecture for the energy management system is presented considering different management levels. The proposed approach determines an optimized real-time energy sharing between the sources without prior knowledge of the power demand profile. The multilevel energy management strategy has been validated using power-level reduced-scale hardware-in-the-loop simulations for a normalized urban driving cycle. The experimental results show the effectiveness of a real-time implementation based on particle swarm optimization supported by a set of rules restricting the search space. This strategy is effective in controlling the energy sources to work in their higher efficiency region and in satisfying the dynamic performance of the vehicle.
Physical performance during rehabilitation in persons with spinal cord injuries.

PURPOSE The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of rehabilitation on physical capacity, mechanical efficiency of manual wheelchair propulsion, and performance of standardized activities of daily living (ADL). METHODS Nineteen recently injured subjects with spinal cord injuries were tested on a wheelchair ergometer (maximal isometric strength, sprint and maximal power output, and peak oxygen uptake) and during standardized ADL (physical strain and performance time) at the beginning (t1) and at the end (t2) of the active rehabilitation period. RESULTS Paired Student t-tests showed significant increases for maximal isometric strength (24%, P < 0.01), sprint power output (l7%, P < 0.001) and maximal power output (38%, P < 0.001). Peak oxygen uptake showed no statistically significant improvement (11%, P = 0.06). Mechanical efficiency of submaximal wheelchair exercise was significantly higher at t2 (9.0%) compared to t1 (7.9%, P < 0.01). No significant differences were found for physical strain during ADL, except for passing a door (P < 0.05). Performance time showed a significant decrease for most tasks. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study show considerable improvements in physical capacity and mechanical efficiency of manual wheelchair propulsion during rehabilitation, and a concomitant lower performance time during standardized ADL. The higher mechanical efficiency and the decrease in performance time during standardized ADL suggest improvement in wheelchair propulsion technique.
Comparative Toxicity of Standard Nickel and Ultrafine Nickel in Lung after Intratracheal Instillation

Comparative Toxicity of Standard Nickel and Ultrafine Nickel in Lung after Intratracheal Instillation: Qunwei Zhang, et al.; Department of Environmental Health, School of Medicine, Fukui Medical University—A comparison was made of the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) response to ultrafine nickel (Uf‐Ni) and standard‐sized nickel (Std‐Ni). Rats were intratracheally instilled with 0, 0.1, 0.5, 1 and 5 mg Uf‐Ni and Std‐Ni, respectively. At 3 d after instillation, the body weight and wet lung weight were determined. At the same time, BALF was analyzed for lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), total protein (TP), tumor necrosis factor‐alpha (TNF‐alpha), and total cell and differential cell counts. The results showed that indicators of lung injury and inflammation in BALF were markedly raised with increased Uf‐Ni and Std‐Ni for each from 0 to 1 mg, and there were no differences in the indices between instillation of Uf‐Ni at 1 mg and 5 mg. The results also showed that the effects of Uf‐Ni on the indices were significantly higher than those of Std‐Ni. Additional groups of rats were intratracheally instilled with 1 mg of Uf‐Ni or Std‐Ni, and wet lung weight and BALF profiles were analyzed at 1, 3, 7, 15 and 30 d later. The effect of Uf‐Ni and Std‐Ni on indices that can be presumed to reflect epithelial injury and permeability (LDH or TP), and release of proinflammatory cytokine (TNF‐alpha) were increased throughout the 30 d post‐exposure and the effects of Uf‐Ni on these indices were significantly higher than those of Std‐Ni from 1 to 30 d after instillation. Moreover, the number of neutrophils and LDH activity in BALF of rats after exposure to Uf‐Ni were significantly greater than those of Std‐Ni‐exposed rats up to 30 d after instillation. Our findings suggest that Uf‐Ni has a much more toxic effect on the lung than St‐Ni, but the mechanism remains to be elucidated.
Benefits of GNSS software receivers for ionospheric monitoring at high latitudes

Ionospheric propagation is harmful for the electromagnetic signals broadcast by Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) satellites, mainly because of the presence of electron density anomalies. GNSS receivers are indeed of primary importance in scintillation and Total Electron Content (TEC) monitoring, especially at low and high latitudes, where scintillations are more frequent. Professional dual frequency custom hardware Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers have been successfully exploited since years as measurement tools able to provide post-correlation data that are then used for modeling the atmospheric phenomena. Recent trends in scientific GPS receivers implementation consider Software Defined Radio (SDR) as a valuable technology that enables access to intermediate and low level receiver processing stages. With respect to commercial hardware tools, they provide a larger subset of observables related to the signal processing stages, as well as a high grade of flexibility and re-configurability, depending on the user needs. Such features enable the design and test of innovative ionosphere monitoring techniques.
Inflammation-induced systemic proteolysis of inter-α-inhibitor in plasma from patients with sepsis ☆ ☆☆ ★

Inter-α-inhibitor (IαI) is a human plasma serine proteinase inhibitor. It contains one light peptide chain called bikunin that exerts antiproteinase activity and other anti-inflammatory functions. Bikunin is covalently linked to two heavy chains that, after tissular diffusion, stabilize the extracellular matrix. Owing to its negative acute-phase reactant character and its susceptibility to proteolysis, IαI has been implicated in the pathophysiology of sepsis. Moreover, IαI has been shown to exert a protective effect on a pig model of endotoxic shock. Twenty patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) for a septic syndrome were included in the present study. IαI and antithrombin III (ATIII) levels were measured on admission. Sequential measurements of IαI could be done in 4 patients. We demonstrate that IαI levels are significantly decreased in plasma samples collected on admission from patients with sepsis (59 ± 32 mg/L vs 241 ± 70 mg/L; P <.0001). This decrease was greater in severe sepsis and septic shock than in sepsis. Death was not predictable from initial IαI levels. In 2 patients with a favorable course, IαI values regularly increased during the ICU stay. By sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis followed by immunoblot analysis and microsequencing, we characterized IαI-related components in plasma from several patients; they obviously arise from IαI through proteolytic cleavage. Thus, systemic proteolysis and decreased biosynthesis both contribute to the fall in the plasma level of IαI. Because IαI is very sensitive to proteolysis by polymorphonuclear granulocytes (PMNs) that are stimulated during sepsis, we suggest that IαI plasma level would be a useful marker for neutrophil proteinase activity. ATIII, as well as IαI, is considered a negative acute phase protein. Because in vitro ATIII is less susceptible than IαI to proteolysis by PMNs and because their relative levels weakly correlated, we suggest that an unspecific systemic proteolysis is not significantly involved in the ATIII deficiency occurring in sepsis. (J Lab Clin Med 2000;135:188-98)
Signal Integration via PKR

The vital role of interferons (IFNs) as mediators of innate immunity is well established. It has recently become apparent that one of the pivotal proteins in mediating the antiviral activity of IFNs, the double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-activated protein kinase (PKR), also functions as a signal transducer in the proinflammatory response to different agents. PKR is a member of a small family of kinases that are activated by extracellular stresses and that phosphorylate the α subunit of protein synthesis initiation factor eIF-2, thereby inhibiting protein synthesis. The activation of PKR during infection by viral dsRNA intermediates results in the inhibition of viral replication. PKR also mediates the activation of signal transduction pathways by proinflammatory stimuli, including bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), and interleukin 1 (IL-1). PKR is a component of the inhibitor of κB (IκB) kinase complex and plays either a catalytic or structural role in the activation of IκB kinase, depending on the stimulus. The activities of the stress-activated protein kinases p38 and c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) are also regulated by PKR in a pathway that leads to the production of proinflammatory cytokines. This review will focus on the role of PKR in nuclear factor κ B (NF-κB) and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways, because these have been the subjects of a series of publications over the past year that have reported conflicting findings. Although the conflicts may not be resolved in this review, suggestions are made for experiments that could lead to a clearer understanding of the mechanisms involved. Interferons (IFNs) are secreted proteins that signal the presence of a virus infection to surrounding cells. Cells respond to IFNs by establishing an antiviral state that prohibits virus replication, thereby limiting infection. One of the mediators of this antiviral state is an enzyme, double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase (PKR). Recently, in addition to its role as an antiviral protein, PKR has been shown to be essential in the development of normal cellular inflammatory responses to the products of both bacterial and viral infections. In this role, PKR functions as a transducer of signals from the extracellular milieu to the nucleus, a process which enables activation of expression of genes encoding molecules important for inflammation and immune responses. PKR performs this role by directly interacting with other intracellular components of signaling pathways and regulating their activity. When the activity of PKR is disrupted, cells become defective in their programmed death responses to different signals.
Nitrogen supply in cattle coupled with appropriate supply of utilisable crude protein at the duodenum, a precursor to metabolisable protein

ABSTRACT The overall objective of this study was to calculate the amount of nitrogen (N) that cattle feed must contain in order to utilise the potential supply of utilisable crude protein at the duodenum provided by their energy intake without incurring a negative N balance, that is, without having to break down body protein. For this purpose, the literature was screened for measurements of net degradation and renal excretion of urea as well as N balances (N intake, faecal N and urinary N) in ruminants (cattle, sheep and goats) fed diets with varying N concentrations. Irreversible loss of N from the body urea pool increased with increasing N intake, but net degradation of urea as a proportion of irreversible loss decreased concurrently. Faecal N appeared not to be influenced by N intake and exceeded 11 g/kg dry matter intake (DMI) only in 7% of the data sets available. Urinary non-urea-N rarely exceeded 4 g/kg DMI and appeared independent of N intake. Urinary urea-N showed a clear dependence of N intake, and it is concluded that 1 g N/kg DMI is sufficient for compensating inevitable N losses in the form of urinary urea. In conclusion, ruminant rations should contain the following N concentrations (per kg DM) to account for obligatory losses: 11 g for compensating losses as faecal N, 4 g for compensating losses as urinary non-urea-N and 1 g for compensating inevitable losses as urinary urea-N. The derived recommendations should be helpful for limiting N excretion where this is desirable for ecological reasons.
Nutritional Significance of Symbiotic Bacteria in Two Species of Hemoflagellates

Symbiote-free strains of Blastocrithidia culicis and Crithidia oncopelti, obtained by chloramphenicol treatment, were compared nutritionally with normal, symbiote-containing strains. The symbiotic bacteria spare the flagellates requirements for exogenous hemin and for other nutritional factors present in liver extract.
Adherence to the Mediterranean diet and risk of bladder cancer in the EPIC cohort study

There is growing evidence of the protective role of the Mediterranean diet (MD) on cancer. However, to date no epidemiological study has investigated the influence of the MD on bladder cancer. We evaluated the association between adherence to the MD and risk of urothelial cell bladder cancer (UCC), according to tumor aggressiveness, in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). The analysis included 477,312 participants, recruited from ten European countries between 1991 and 2000. Information from validated dietary questionnaires was used to develop a relative Mediterranean diet score (rMED), including nine dietary components. Cox regression models were used to assess the effect of the rMED on UCC risk, while adjusting for dietary energy and tobacco smoking of any kind. Stratified analyses were performed by sex, BMI, smoking status, European region and age at diagnosis. During an average follow‐up of 11 years, 1,425 participants (70.9% male) were diagnosed with a first primary UCC. There was a negative but non‐significant association between a high versus low rMED score and risk of UCC overall (HR: 0.84 [95% CI 0.69, 1.03]) and risk of aggressive (HR: 0.88 [95% CI 0.61, 1.28]) and non‐aggressive tumors (HR: 0.78 [95% CI 0.54, 1.14]). Although there was no effect modification in the stratified analyses, there was a significant 34% (p = 0.043) decreased risk of UCC in current smokers with a high rMED score. In EPIC, the MD was not significantly associated with risk of UCC, although we cannot exclude that a MD may reduce risk in current smokers.