Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increased Expression of the E 3-Ubiquitin Ligase Receptor Subunit B TRCP 1 Relates to Constitutive Nuclear Factor-K B Activation and Chemoresistance in Pancreatic Carcinoma Cells

The permanent activation of the transcription factor nuclear factor-nB (NF-nB) in pancreatic cancer cells is associated with a profound resistance towards chemotherapy. In the present study, we show that chemoresistant pancreatic cancer cell lines exhibiting constitutive NF-nB activity (i.e., PancTu-1, BxPc3, and Capan-1) express significantly elevated levels of the E3-ubiquitin ligase receptor subunit BTRCP1, compared with pancreatic carcinoma cell lines lacking constitutive NF-nB activity and chemoresistance (i.e., PT45-P1 and T3M4). If transfected with BTRCP1, PT45-P1 cells exhibit an elevated NF-nB activity and become less sensitive towards anticancer drug treatment (i.e., etoposide). Conversely, blockade of BTRCP1 expression in PancTu-1 cells by transfection with a vector-expressed small interferingRNAreducesNF-KnBactivation and chemoresistance. In PancTu-1 cells, BTRCP1 expression is inhibited, at least in part, by the interleukin-1 (IL-1) receptor(I) antagonist, whereas stimulation of PT45-P1 cells with IL-1B resulted in an increased expression of BTRCP1, and transfection of this cell line with BTRCP1 induced IL-1B secretion in a NF-nB–dependent fashion. Thus, via its close and mutual link to IL-1B secretion, BTRCP1 expression might substantially contribute to the persistent, IL-1B–dependent activation of NF-nB in pancreatic carcinoma cells. In support of this, BTRCP1 expression is detectable at considerable levels in a great number of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma specimens, along with an intense staining for activated NF-nB. Altogether, our findings of the elevated BTRCP1 expression in pancreatic carcinoma cells pinpoint to another important mediator of constitutive NF-nB activation and thereby of chemoresistance. (Cancer Res 2005; 65(4): 1316-24)
The policy panoptic of ‘ mutual obligations ’ 1

Australian Government policies of ‘mutual obligations‘ are based on the UK’s ‘Third Way’ and the ‘Workfare’ policies of the US. The discussion here is pertinent to the range of welfare reform initiatives adopted by Western governments over recent times. In this paper, I focus on the ‘mutual obligations‘ aspects of the Australian welfare reform agenda as Foucauldian ‘technologies’. A feminist and poststructuralist stance is adopted in outlining some developing theoretical arguments about the ways that Australian welfare reform initiatives position working class young women. I begin by discussing the ‘gaze’ and the ways the gaze is brought to bear on contemporary working class young women in Australia. In the second section, I discuss the panoptic mechanism and the specific features of the mechanism that correlate with Australian welfare reform initiatives containing mutual obligations. Thirdly, I discuss Foucauldian ‘technologies of the self’, ‘technologies of domination’2 and ‘governmentality’, focusing on how the policy panoptic of mutual obligations constructs particular subject locations for the contemporary hybrid subject3. My objective here in the initial stages of this project is to describe some of the theoretical resources I am using to think about mutual obligations policies.
Mediodorsal nucleus and its multiple cognitive functions

The mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus (MDT) is one of the largest thalamic nuclei and is a typical association nucleus, participating in several cortico-subcortical networks, primarily those involving the prefrontal cortex.1–3 Pathologic involvement of the MDT or its cortical connections contributes to the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral manifestations of stroke4–6; metabolic disorders, such as Wernicke encephalopathy7; inflammatory disorders, such as multiple sclerosis8; prion disorders, such as fatal familial insomnia9 and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease10; and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer disease,11 dementia with Lewy bodies,12 and Parkinson disease.13 The MDT also participates in the pathophysiology of epilepsy14,15 and schizophrenia.16 The following case shows that its involvement affects wide cortical areas and produces disabling symptoms that may not be associated with objective abnormalities in neuropsychometric testing.
Value of Computed Tomography in the Evaluation of Children With Cochlear Nerve Deficiency

Objective: To assess the predictive value of high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) in the evaluation of children with cochlear nerve deficiency (CND). Study Design: Retrospective review of medical records. Setting: Tertiary referral center, hospital setting. Patients: Nineteen children (31 ears) with CND. Interventions: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), HRCT, and audiologic evaluation. Main Outcome Measures: Comparisons of the morphology of the internal auditory canal (IAC), the bony cochlear nerve canal (BCNC) as seen on HRCT, and audiologic data. Results: Of 12 ears with MRI evidence of an absent cochlear nerve (CN) and a normal-size IAC, all had a patent BCNC as revealed by HRCT. Four of these ears failed auditory stimulation after cochlear implantation, confirming clinically significant CND. Of 15 ears with a narrow IAC and a single nerve visible on MRI, 2 (13.3%) had a normal-size BCNC, 4 (26.7%) were narrow, and 9 (60.0%) were absent. One ear with a narrow IAC, normal BCNC, and a single nerve as revealed by MRI has benefited from cochlear implantation. Conclusion: Using BCNC patency, as revealed by HRCT, as a means of identifying CND would miss all cases of absent CNs in the setting of a normal-size IAC. Thus, MRI should be the primary modality for imaging children with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss. When MRI demonstrates a single nerve within a narrow IAC, the addition of HRCT can further identify more than half of these cases as involving absent CNs because of an absent BCNC. In a subset of patients, CN status remains indeterminate.
Incidence of acute renal transplant rejection in atopic individuals.

BACKGROUND AND DESIGN It is been shown that atopic individuals can exhibit a T-cellular response (ie, "late-phase reaction") when exposed to relevant allergens and that they have more lymphocytes in an activated state. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate whether atopic individuals could mount more frequent and more severe episodes of acute renal transplant rejection, a phenomenon that is also mediated by T cells. A 6-month retrospective study was conducted comparing episodes of acute renal transplant rejection in nine atopic patients and nine nonatopic patients. The atopic patients used in this study all had allergic rhinitis. The hypothesis was that atopic individuals, who already have a proposed form of cell-mediated hypersensitivity to allergens, should also be able to experience more frequent and more severe episodes of acute allograft rejection. RESULTS The atopic patients in this study were found to have more frequent episodes of acute renal transplant rejection than the nonatopic group. In addition, they were found to have more severe episodes of rejection than the nonatopic group. CONCLUSIONS In our study, we observed that atopic individuals are more likely to exhibit acute rejection phenomena after renal transplant. Thus, our study presumes that the T-cellular hypersensitivity reactions observed in atopic individuals are analogous to the T-cell-mediated acute transplant rejection episode. The question of whether the same subset of T cells is active in these two reactions still needs to be explored, and the T cells in question need to be further characterized. In addition, the effect of immunosuppressive therapy on T-cell kinetics in atopic individuals needs to be further defined.
Recuperação de imagens com realimentação de relevancia baseada em programação genetica

A tecnica de realimentacao de relevância tem sido utilizada com o intuito de incorporar a subjetividade da percepcao visual de usuarios a recuperacao de imagens por conteudo. Basicamente, o processo de realimentacao de relevância consiste na: (i) exibicao de um pequeno conjunto de imagens; (ii) rotulacao dessas imagens pelo usuario, indicando quais sao relevantes ou nao; (iii) e finalmente, aprendizado das preferencias do usuario a partir das imagens rotuladas e selecao de um novo conjunto de imagens para exibicao. O processo se repete ate que o usuario esteja satisfeito. Esta dissertacao apresenta dois arcaboucos para recuperacao de imagens por conteudo com realimentacao de relevância. Esses arcaboucos utilizam programacao genetica para assimilar a percepcao visual do usuario por meio de uma combinacao de descritores. A utilizacao de programacao genetica e motivada pela sua capacidade exploratoria do espaco de busca uma vez que esse espaco se adequa ao objetivo principal dos arcaboucos propostos: encontrar, dentre todas as possiveis funcoes de combinacao de descritores, aquela que melhor representa as caracteristicas visuais que um usuario deseja ressaltar na realizacao de uma consulta. Os arcaboucos desenvolvidos foram validados por meio de uma serie de experimentos, envolvendo tres diferentes bases de imagens e descritores de cor, forma e textura para a caracterizacao do conteudo dessas imagens. Os arcaboucos propostos foram comparados com tres outros metodos de recuperacao de imagens por conteudo com realimentacao de relevância, considerando-se a eficiencia e a efetividade no processo de recuperacao. Os resultados experimentais mostraram a superioridade dos arcaboucos propostos. As contribuicoes dessa dissertacao sao: (i) estudo sobre diferentes tecnicas de realimentacao de relevância; (ii) proposta de dois arcaboucos para recuperacao de imagens por conteudo com realimentacao de relevância baseado em programacao genetica; (iii) implementacao dos metodos propostos, validando-os por meio de uma serie de experimentos e comparacoes com outros metodos Abstract
Endomorphin‐2 is released from newborn rat primary sensory neurons in a frequency‐ and calcium‐dependent manner

Recent evidence indicates that endomorphins, endogenous mu‐opioid receptor (MOR) agonists, modulate synaptic transmission in both somatic and visceral sensory pathways. Here we show that endomorphin‐2 (END‐2) is expressed in newborn rat dorsal root ganglion (DRG) and nodose‐petrosal ganglion complex (NPG) neurons, and rarely co‐localizes with brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). In order to examine activity‐dependent release of END‐2 from neurons, we established a model using dispersed cultures of DRG and NPG cells activated by patterned electrical field stimulation. To detect release of END‐2, we developed a novel rapid capture enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), in which END‐2 capture antibody was added to neuronal cultures shortly before their electrical stimulation. The conventional assay was effective at reliably detecting END‐2 only when the cells were stimulated in the presence of CTAP, a MOR‐selective antagonist. This suggests that the strength of the novel assay is related primarily to rapid capture of released END‐2 before it binds to endogenous MORs. Using the rapid capture ELISA, we found that stimulation protocols known to induce plastic changes at sensory synapses were highly effective at releasing END‐2. Removal of extracellular calcium or blocking voltage‐activated calcium channels significantly reduced the release. Together, our data provide the first evidence that END‐2 is expressed by newborn DRG neurons of all sizes found in this age group, and can be released from these, as well as from NPG neurons, in an activity‐dependent manner. These results point to END‐2 as a likely mediator of activity‐dependent plasticity in sensory pathways.
Antimicrobial susceptibility of bacteria isolated from cows with mastitis in 2006-2007

The purpose of the study was determining the in vitro sensitivity of Streptococcus agalactiae, other Streptococcus sp. , Staphylococcus aureus, coagulase-negative staphylococci, Escherichia coli, and Arcanobacterium pyogenes strains to antibiotics commonly used in veterinary praxis. These pathogens were isolated from cows with clinical or subclinical mastitis in 2006–2007. The activity of 10–14 antibiotics to each bacterial species was examined. The sensitivity was tested by disk diffusion method and performed according to CLSI guidelines in Mueller-Hinton agar. Streptococcus agalactiae strains were mostly sensitive to amoxicillin (93.6%), cefquinom (96%), cefapirin (94.1%), cefoperazone (88.9%, bacitracin (87.1%), and cephalexin (79%). Other streptococci were most susceptible to amoxicillin (91.4%), cefquinom (84.1%), bacitracin (89%), and cephalexin (79.7%). Amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (97.4%), cloxacillin (90%), cefquinom (92.9%), cephalexin (90.5%), and bacitracin (88.6%) were the most active against Staphylococcus aureus. Coagulase-negative staphylococci were sensitive to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (100%), cefquinom (89.2%), cephalexin (89.3%), bacitracin (86,.1%), rifaximin (86.8%), and cefapirin (86.5%). Norfloxacin (85.1%), enrofloxacin (83.9%), and marbofloxacin (84.4%) were active against Gram-negative bacilli. Only amoxicillin (87.1%) from ten analysed antibiotics exhibited very high activity against Arcanobacterium pyogenes.
Monitoring Potential Agricultural Cold Disaster Area by Multi-factors Correctional ASTER LST: A Case Study in the Shanwei, Southern China

Much more importance is attached to the application of remote sensing technology in such as on disaster monitoring and fast disaster loss evaluation, which can improve the ability of disaster prevention, resistance and reduction. Temperature is one of the most important environment factors that influence the crop growth. In winter, the economic damage of the cash crops is often caused by the cold disaster. The objective of this study is to model the potential spatial distribution of cold disaster by temperature retrieved by ASTER. data and corrects it with the terrain factors. Based on the characters of subtropical climate, topography, vegetation and the ASTER data in Shanwei region, we find out the Thermal IR-emissivity model can separate the surface radiance into temperature and emissivity. Using this method, the spatial distribution map of land surface temperature (LST) is obtained by calculating the clear-sky day-time LST of ASTER data in Shanwei. The calculation result is matched with established DEM from 1:250000 topographic data and has also been validated by the data of ground synchronized observation. Analytical results indicate that the spatial LST distribution map made by the ASTER satellite remote sensing in this research is coherence with the terrain and data of ground observation in a good precision for showing the potential spatial distribution of cold disaster degree of cash crops in winter season, Southern China, such as litchi. ASTER data produced LST is a more effective factor of temperature regionalization in spatial planning than ones from the limited meteorological observation stations at present and has a better precision.
CD8+ T Cells Are Activated in an Antigen-Independent Manner in HIV-Infected Individuals

Hyperactivation of T cells, particularly of CD8+ T cells, is a hallmark of chronic HIV 1 (HIV-1) infection. Little is known about the antigenic specificities and the mechanisms by which HIV-1 causes activation of CD8+ T cells during chronic infection. We report that CD8+ T cells were activated during in vivo HIV-1 replication irrespective of their Ag specificity. Cytokines present during untreated HIV-1 infection, most prominently IL-15, triggered proliferation and expression of activation markers in CD8+ T cells, but not CD4+ T cells, in the absence of TCR stimulation. Moreover, LPS or HIV-1–activated dendritic cells (DCs) stimulated CD8+ T cells in an IL-15–dependent but Ag-independent manner, and IL-15 expression was highly increased in DCs isolated from viremic HIV-1 patients, suggesting that CD8+ T cells are activated by inflammatory cytokines in untreated HIV-1 patients independent of Ag specificity. This finding contrasts with CD4+ T cells whose in vivo activation seems biased toward specificities for persistent Ags. These observations explain the higher abundance of activated CD8+ T cells compared with CD4+ T cells in untreated HIV-1 infection.
No selection of CXCR4-using variants in cell reservoirs of dual-mixed HIV-infected patients on suppressive maraviroc therapy

We used ultradeep sequencing to investigate the evolution of the frequency of CXCR4-using viruses in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 22 patients infected with both CCR5 and CXCR4-using viruses treated with the CCR5 antagonist maraviroc for 24 weeks and a stable antiviral therapy. The mean CXCR4-using virus frequency in peripheral blood mononuclear cells was 59% before maraviroc intensification and 52% after 24 weeks of effective treatment, indicating no selection by maraviroc.
The Singing Neanderthals: the Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body, by Steven Mithen. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2005. ISBN 0-297-64317-7 hardback £20 & US$25.2; ix+374 pp.

Why are humans musical? Why do people in all cultures sing or play instruments? Why do we appear to have specialized neurological apparatus for hearing and interpreting music as distinct from other sounds? And how does our musicality relate to language and to our evolutionary history? Anthropologists and archaeologists have paid little attention to the origin of music and musicality — far less than for either language or ‘art’. While art has been seen as an index of cognitive complexity and language as an essential tool of communication, music has suffered from our perception that it is an epiphenomenal ‘leisure activity’, and archaeologically inaccessible to boot. Nothing could be further from the truth, according to Steven Mithen; music is integral to human social life, he argues, and we can investigate its ancestry with the same rich range of analyses — neurological, physiological, ethnographic, linguistic, ethological and even archaeological — which have been deployed to study language. In The Singing Neanderthals Steven Mithen poses these questions and proposes a bold hypothesis to answer them. Mithen argues that musicality is a fundamental part of being human, that this capacity is of great antiquity, and that a holistic protolanguage of musical emotive expression predates language and was an essential precursor to it. This is an argument with implications which extend far beyond the mere origins of music itself into the very motives of human origins. Any argument of such range is bound to attract discussion and critique; we here present commentaries by archaeologists Clive Gamble and Iain Morley and linguists Alison Wray and Maggie Tallerman, along with Mithen's response to them. Whether right or wrong, Mithen has raised fascinating and important issues. And it adds a great deal of charm to the time-honoured, perhaps shopworn image of the Neanderthals shambling ineffectively through the pages of Pleistocene prehistory to imagine them humming, crooning or belting out a cappella harmonies as they went.
SVM-Based Video Scene Classification and Segmentation

Video scene classification and segmentation are fundamental steps for multimedia retrieval, indexing and browsing. In this paper, a robust scene classification and segmentation approach based on support vector machine (SVM) is presented, which extracts both audio and visual features and analyzes their inter-relations to identify and classify video scenes. Our system works on content from a diverse range of genres by allowing sets of features to be combined and compared automatically without the use of thresholds. With the temporal behaviors of different scene classes, SVM classifier can effectively classify presegmented video clips into one of the predefined scene classes. After identifying scene classes, the scene change boundary can be easily detected. The experimental results show that the proposed system not only improves precision and recall, but also performs better than the other classification systems using the decision tree (DT), K nearest neighbor (K-NN) and neural network (NN).
Epigenetics and memory: causes, consequences and treatments for post‐traumatic stress disorder and addiction

Understanding the interaction between fear and reward at the circuit and molecular levels has implications for basic scientific approaches to memory and for understanding the etiology of psychiatric disorders. Both stress and exposure to drugs of abuse induce epigenetic changes that result in persistent behavioral changes, some of which may contribute to the formation of a drug addiction or a stress‐related psychiatric disorder. Converging evidence suggests that similar behavioral, neurobiological and molecular mechanisms control the extinction of learned fear and drug‐seeking responses. This may, in part, account for the fact that individuals with post‐traumatic stress disorder have a significantly elevated risk of developing a substance use disorder and have high rates of relapse to drugs of abuse, even after long periods of abstinence. At the behavioral level, a major challenge in treatments is that extinguished behavior is often not persistent, returning with changes in context, the passage of time or exposure to mild stressors. A common goal of treatments is therefore to weaken the ability of stressors to induce relapse. With the discovery of epigenetic mechanisms that create persistent molecular signals, recent work on extinction has focused on how modulating these epigenetic targets can create lasting extinction of fear or drug‐seeking behavior. Here, we review recent evidence pointing to common behavioral, systems and epigenetic mechanisms in the regulation of fear and drug seeking. We suggest that targeting these mechanisms in combination with behavioral therapy may promote treatment and weaken stress‐induced relapse.
A Case of Pure Red Cell Aplasia Complicated with Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma, T-Cell-Rich/Histiocyte-Rich Variant: Effectiveness of Rituximab and Implications for a Common Immunopathogenic Role of B Lymphocytes

Diffuse large B cell lymphoma, T-cell-rich/histiocyte-rich variant (DLBL-TH), is characterized by the presence of neoplastic B cells set in a background containing numerous non-neoplastic T lymphocytes and histiocytes. We report here the case of a patient with DLBL-TH who developed overt pure red cell aplasia (PRCA) following chemotherapy and autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation. Posttransplantation bone marrow biopsies revealed the absence of erythroid precursors associated with lymphoid aggregates composed of B cells mixed with numerous T cells and histiocytes. Administration of rituximab has led to complete recovery of erythropoiesis, which was associated not only with B cell depletion but also with a marked reduction in bone marrow T cells and histiocytes. These observations strongly suggest the particular pathogenetic role of the patient’s B cells in inducing PRCA and recruiting T cells and histiocytes in situ.