Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ibudilast (AV411), and its AV1013 analog, reduce HIV-1 replication and neuronal death induced by HIV-1 and morphine

Objective:We explored the antiviral therapeutic potential of ibudilast (AV411, MN-166) and its amino analog, AV1013. Methods:We analyzed whether Ibudilast, a nonselective cyclic AMP phosphodiesterase inhibitor that has been used clinically in Asia for bronchial asthma, poststroke dizziness, and ocular allergies, and AV1013, attenuate HIV-1 replication and the synergistic interactions seen with opiate abuse–HIV-1 comorbidity in neuronal death and inflammation. Results:AV411 and AV1013 inhibited replication by HIV-1 in microglia and significantly suppressed Tat ± morphine-induced tumor necrosis factor-&agr; and MIF production, the activation of the nuclear factor-kappa B subunit p65, and neuronal death. AV411 and AV1013 prevented HIV-1 replication, and attenuated tumor necrosis factor-&agr; and MIF release at concentrations of 100 nmol/l and 1 &mgr;mol/l, which are likely achievable at clinical doses. More importantly, co-exposure with morphine did not negate the inhibitory actions of AV411. Conclusion:Collectively, our data suggest that AV411 and its amino analog, AV1013, may be useful neuroprotective agents counteracting neurotoxicity caused by infected and activated glia, and implicate them as potential therapies for the management of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders in an opioid-abusing population.
Recognition of Emotion in Facial Expressions and Vocal Tones in Children With Psychopathic Tendencies

Abstract The authors investigated the ability of children with emotional and behavioral difficulties, divided according to their Psychopathy Screening Device scores (P. J. Frick & R. D. Hare, in press), to recognize emotional facial expressions and vocal tones. The Psychopathy Screening Device indexes a behavioral syndrome with two dimensions: affective disturbance and impulsive and conduct problems. Nine children with psychopathic tendencies and 9 comparison children were presented with 2 facial expression and 2 vocal tone subtests from the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (S. Nowicki & M. P. Duke, 1994). These subtests measure the ability to name sad, fearful, happy, and angry facial expressions and vocal affects. The children with psychopathic tendencies showed selective impairments in the recognition of both sad and fearful facial expressions and sad vocal tone. In contrast, the two groups did not differ in their recognition of happy or angry facial expressions or fearful, happy, and angry vocal tones. The results are interpreted with reference to the suggestion that the development of psychopathic tendencies may reflect early amygdala dysfunction (R. J. R. Blair, J. S. Morris, C. D. Frith, D. I. Perrett, & R. Dolan, 1999).
True-motion estimation with 3-D recursive search block matching

A new recursive block-matching motion estimation algorithm with only eight candidate vectors per block is presented. A fast convergence and a high accuracy, also in the vicinity of discontinuities in the velocity plane, was realized with such new techniques as bidirectional convergence and convergence accelerators. A new search strategy, asynchronous cyclic search, which allows a highly efficient implementation, is presented. A new block erosion postprocessing proposal further effectively eliminates block structures from the generated vector field. Measured with criteria relevant for the field rate conversion application, the new motion estimator is shown to have a superior performance over alternative algorithms, while its complexity is significantly less. >
Nursing home staffing standards and staffing levels in six countries.

PURPOSE This study was designed to collect and compare nurse staffing standards and staffing levels in six counties: the United States, Canada, England, Germany, Norway, and Sweden. DESIGN The study used descriptive information on staffing regulations and policies as well as actual staffing levels for registered nurses, licensed nurses, and nursing assistants across states, provinces, regions, and countries. METHODS Data were collected from Internet searches of staffing regulations and policies along with statistical data on actual staffing from reports and documents. Staffing data were converted to hours per resident day to facilitate comparisons across countries. FINDINGS We found wide variations in both nurse staffing standards and actual staffing levels within and across countries, although comparisons were difficult to make due to differences in measuring staffing, the vagueness of standards, and limited availability of actual staffing data. Both the standards and levels in most countries (except Norway and Sweden) were lower than the recommended levels by experts. CONCLUSIONS Our findings demonstrate the need for further attention to nurse staffing standards and levels in order to assure the quality of nursing home care. CLINICAL RELEVANCE A high quality of nursing home care requires adequate levels of nurse staffing, and nurse staffing standards have been shown to improve staffing levels.
Plasmodium knowlesi variant antigens are found on schizont-infected erythrocytes but not on merozoites

In this report, we demonstrate that the variable antigens present on the surface of Plasmodium knowlesi-infected erythrocytes could not be found on the surface of merozoites. A number of technical problems had to be solved to make such a comparative study possible, including the purification of merozoites by affinity columns and gradient centrifugation, the use of hyperimmune rabbit sera instead of monkey sera, and the use of immunocytological methods (indirect immunofluorescence antibody test and electron microscopy with ferritin-labeled antibodies) instead of the schizont-infected cell agglutination test. To ensure that these new techniques were valid for variant-specific serotyping, we compared two well-characterized variant populations with both the standard and the new methods. The removal of variant antigens from the surface of infected erythrocytes by proteolytic enzymes provides further information on the biochemical nature of these antigens.
Structural and functional properties of class 1 plant hemoglobins

Nonsymbiotic class 1 plant hemoglobins are induced under hypoxia. Structurally they are protein dimers consisting of two identical subunits, each containing heme iron in a weak hexacoordinate state. The weak hexacoordination of heme‐iron binding to the distal histidine results in an extremely high avidity to oxygen, with a dissociation constant in the nanomolar range. This low dissociation constant is due to rapid oxygen binding resulting in protein conformational changes that slow dissociation from the heme site. Class 1 hemoglobins are characterized by an increased rate of Fe3+ reduction which is likely mediated by cysteine residue. This cysteine can form a reversible covalent bond between two monomers as shown by mass spectrometry analysis and, in addition to its structural role, prevents the molecule from autoxidation. The structural properties of class 1 hemoglobins allow them to serve as soluble electron transport proteins in the enzymatic system scavenging nitric oxide produced in low oxygen via reduction of nitrite. During oxygenation of nitric oxide to nitrate, oxidized ferric hemoglobin is formed (methemoglobin), which can be reduced by an associated reductase. The identified candidate for this reduction is monodehydroascorbate reductase. It is suggested that hemoglobin functions as a terminal electron acceptor during the hypoxic turnover of nitrogen, the process aided by its extremely high affinity for oxygen. © 2011 IUBMB IUBMB Life, 63(3): 146–152, 2011
Overexpression of Ste20-Related Proline/Alanine-Rich Kinase Exacerbates Experimental Colitis in Mice

Inflammatory bowel disease, mainly Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, are characterized by epithelial barrier disruption and altered immune regulation. Colonic Ste20-like proline/alanine-rich kinase (SPAK) plays a role in intestinal inflammation, but its underlying mechanisms need to be defined. Both SPAK-transfected Caco2-BBE cells and villin-SPAK transgenic (TG) FVB/6 mice exhibited loss of intestinal barrier function. Further studies demonstrated that SPAK significantly increased paracellular intestinal permeability to FITC-dextran. In vivo studies using the mouse models of colitis induced by dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) and trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid showed that TG FVB/6 mice were more susceptible to DSS and trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid treatment than wild-type FVB/6 mice, as demonstrated by clinical and histological characteristics and enzymatic activities. Consistent with this notion, we found that SPAK increased intestinal epithelial permeability, which likely facilitated the production of inflammatory cytokines in vitro and in vivo, aggravated bacterial translocation in TG mice under DSS treatment, and consequently established a context favorable for the triggering of intestinal inflammation cascades. In conclusion, overexpression of SPAK inhibits maintenance of intestinal mucosal innate immune homeostasis, which makes regulation of SPAK important to attenuate pathological responses in inflammatory bowel disease.
Petroleum Pollution Bioremediation Using Water-Insoluble Uric Acid as the Nitrogen Source

ABSTRACT The biodegradation of hydrocarbon pollutants in open systems is limited by the availability of a utilizable nitrogen source. This limitation can be overcome by using uric acid. Enrichment cultures grown on crude oil-uric acid media yielded mixed and pure cultures that degraded petroleum. In a simulated open system, uric acid bound to crude oil and was available for bacterial growth and petroleum biodegradation.
Sequence determinants of thermodynamic stability in a WW domain—An all‐β‐sheet protein

The stabilities of 66 sequence variants of the human Pin1 WW domain have been determined by equilibrium thermal denaturation experiments. All 34 residues composing the hPin1 WW three‐stranded β‐sheet structure could be replaced one at a time with at least one different natural or non‐natural amino acid residue without leading to an unfolded protein. Alanine substitutions at only four positions within the hPin1 WW domain lead to a partially or completely unfolded protein—in the absence of a physiological ligand. The side chains of these four residues form a conserved, partially solvent‐inaccessible, continuous hydrophobic minicore comprising the N‐ and C‐termini. Ala mutations at five other residues, three of which constitute the ligand binding patch on the concave side of the β‐sheet, significantly destabilize the hPin1 WW domain without leading to an unfolded protein. The remaining mutations affect protein stability only slightly, suggesting that only a small subset of side chain interactions within the hPin1 WW domain are mandatory for acquiring and maintaining a stable, cooperatively folded β‐sheet structure.
Divergent evolution of hepatitis C virus in liver and peripheral blood mononuclear cells of infected patients

In infected individuals, hepatitis C virus (HCV) exists as a variably complex population of related genetic variants known as quasispecies. The quasispecies of HCV were studied previously in 10 chronically infected patients by single‐strand conformation polymorphism analysis of a segment of the envelope gene E2/NS1 containing the hypervariable region 1 and it was found that certain variants (LC variants) were present both in the liver and in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC), others (L variants) were present in the liver but not in the PBMC, and still others (C variants) showed the opposite distribution. The sequence data obtained from nine such patients are reported, indicating that, within individual subjects, L and C variants are distinct phylogenetically. Results are described on the growth of HCV in stimulated healthy donor PBMC cultures supporting the concept that genetic divergence might stem, at least in part, from virus adaptation to growth in different cell types. This information may help to understand how HCV persists and produces disease in infected patients, especially with regard to extrahepatic pathology. J. Med. Virol. 57:57–63, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Spindle Checkpoint Arrest and a Cytokinesis Failure by the Dominant-negative Polo-box Domain of Plk1 in U-2 OS Cells* 210

Polo kinases play critical roles for proper M-phase progression. They are characterized by the presence of two regions of homology in the C-terminal non-catalytic domain, termed polo-box 1 (PB1) and polo-box 2 (PB2). Here we demonstrate that both PB1 and PB2 are required for targeting the catalytic activity of Plk1 to centrosomes, midbody, and kinetochores. Expression of either kinase-inactive PLK1/K82M or the C-terminalplk1ΔN induced a pre-anaphase arrest with elevated Cdc2 and Plk1 activity. Prophase-arrested cells exhibited randomly oriented spindle structures, whereas metaphase cells exhibited aberrant bipolar spindles with Mad2 localization at kinetochores of misaligned chromosomes. Microtubule nucleation activity of centrosomes was not compromised. In vivo time-lapse studies revealed that expression of plk1ΔN resulted in repeated cycles of bipolar spindle formation and disruption, suggestive of a defect in spindle stability. A prolonged arrest frequently led to the generation of micronucleated cells in the absence of sisterchromatid separation and centrosome duplication, indicating that micronucleation is not a result of accumulated cytokinesis failures. Interestingly, bypass of the mitotic arrest by dominant-negative spindle checkpoint components led to a failure in completion of cytokinesis. We propose that, in mammalian cells, the polo-box-dependent Plk1 activity is required for proper metaphase/anaphase transition and for cytokinesis.
Spin-polarized relativistic linear-muffin-tin-orbital method: Volume-dependent electronic structure and magnetic moment of plutonium.

La methode de l'orbitale muffin fin lineaire est generalisee au cas des calculs de bandes autocoherents relativistes et a spin polarise. Le formalisme developpe est analogue au formalisme standard de l'orbitale muffin fin lineaire orthogonale, a l'exception que les fonctions de potentiels et les parametres des potentiels sont maintenant des matrices. Cette methode est utilisee pour effectuer les calculs des fonctionnelles de densite pour le plutonium―avec des volumes atomiques differents. Analyse de la formation des moments magnetiques de spin et orbitaux, ainsi que les variations des bandes d'energie pour des variations de volume correspondant a la transition α-δ. Les moments magnetiques ainsi calcules sont en bon accord avec les valeurs experimentales
Acquisition of Domain-specific Patterns for Single Document Summarization and Information Extraction

Single-document summarization aims to reduce the size of a text document while preserving the most important information. Much work has been done on open-domain summarization. This paper presents an automatic way to mine domain-specific patterns from text documents. With a small amount of effort required for manual selection, these patterns can be used for domain-specific scenario-based document summarization and information extraction. Our evaluation shows that scenario-based document summarization can both filter irrelevant documents and create summaries for relevant documents within the specified domain.
Outbreak of Neisseria meningitidis C in workers at a large food-processing plant in Brazil: challenges of controlling disease spread to the larger community

SUMMARY An outbreak of meningococcal disease (MD) with severe morbidity and mortality was investigated in midwestern Brazil in order to identify control measures. A MD case was defined as isolation of Neisseria meningitidis, or detection of polysaccharide antigen in a sterile site, or presence of clinical purpura fulminans, or an epidemiological link with a laboratory-confirmed case-patient, between June and August 2008. In 8 out of 16 MD cases studied, serogroup C ST103 complex was identified. Five (31%) cases had neurological findings and five (31%) died. The attack rate was 12 cases/100 000 town residents and 60 cases/100 000 employees in a large local food-processing plant. We conducted a matched case-control study of eight primary laboratory-confirmed cases (1:4). Factors associated with illness in single variable analysis were work at the processing plant [matched odds ratio (mOR) 22, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2·3–207·7, P<0·01], and residing <1 year in Rio Verde (mOR 7, 95% CI 1·11–43·9, P<0·02). Mass vaccination (>10 000 plant employees) stopped propagation in the plant, but not in the larger community.
Locked nailing for displaced surgical neck fractures of the humerus.

OBJECTIVE To report experience with a newly devised humeral locked nail for treating surgical neck fractures of the humerus. This device has the advantages of a small diameter for minimal tissue trauma and transfixing locking screws for reliable fixation. METHODS From 1993 to 1996, 21 consecutive severely displaced surgical neck fractures of the humerus were antegrade nailed with humeral locked nails; 2 fractures were associated with dislocation and 1 fracture was a comminuted metaphyseal fracture with a failed plating. The average age of patients was 65.8 years; average follow-up time was 19.2 months. The proximal screws were applied upward in 5 patients and downward in 16 patients. Static locking was performed in 8 patients, dynamic locking in 13 others. RESULTS The average operation time was 55 minutes. No patients needed blood transfusion. All fractures eventually achieved union with an average time to union of 14.8 weeks. On the basis of Neer criteria for outcome analysis, excellent or satisfactory results were obtained for 86% of the patients (18 of 21 patients). No patients had deep infection, implant failure, malunion, osteonecrosis, or nail migration that interfered with joint motion. Due to technique errors, one patient had shoulder joint impingement caused by protrusion of the proximal nail tip. CONCLUSION The operative method reported here has the advantages of minimal tissue trauma, minimal hardware application, sufficient fixation, and easy operative technique, and it can be a worthy alternative for the treatment of severely displaced surgical neck fractures of the humerus.
Probing striatal microcircuitry to understand the functional role of cholinergic interneurons

The function of acetylcholine in the striatum has perplexed basal ganglia physiologists and clinicians for decades. The effects of cholinergic and anticholinergic agents in patients with movement disorders, as well as in animal models of basal ganglia–dependent behaviors, suggest a critical role for acetylcholine in the normal function of the basal ganglia. The highest density of acetylcholine in the basal ganglia occurs in the input nucleus, the striatum, suggesting that it might be the site of action. Striatal acetylcholine predominantly derives from local cholinergic interneurons, which form a dense network of cholinergic fibers throughout the striatum. These cholinergic interneurons represent a small percentage of all striatal neurons, but fire tonically and contribute to some of the brain’s highest levels of acetylcholine. Another source of striatal acetylcholine is extrinsic cholinergic input to the striatum, deriving from brainstem structures. Acetylcholine regulates the function of the striatal microcircuit and striatal output, via a combination of nicotinic and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. Acetylcholine also regulates striatal dopamine release, which may modulate symptoms in disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, and Tourette syndrome. Fluctuations in levels of both transmitters are believed to contribute to pathological circuit activity and drive symptoms, and are a prominent target of current therapeutic agents. In both normal and disease states, dopamine and acetylcholine concomitantly influence striatal projection neurons to affect a broad number of basal ganglia–mediated behaviors, including control of movement, motivation, and decision making. The goal of this Perspective is to discuss how recent research has modified our view of the function of striatal cholinergic interneurons. First, we provide some background on the striatal circuit components and theories regarding acetylcholine’s site of action, discussing recent studies that have clarified or altered these ideas. Next, we discuss the hypothesized role of acetylcholine in several prominent movement disorders. Finally, we outline some outstanding questions within the field, and how recent technological advances might allow further exploration of the mechanisms by which acetylcholine regulates striatal microcircuitry and basal ganglia–dependent behaviors. We hope this Perspective will inform clinicians and scientists interested in basal ganglia function and provoke new inquiry regarding the role of striatal acetylcholine in both health and disease.
Explicit Neural Word Representation

Recent advances in word embedding provide signiﬁcant beneﬁt to various information processing tasks. Yet these dense representations and their estimation of word-to-word relatedness remain difﬁcult to interpret and hard to analyze. As an alternative, explicit word representations propose vectors whose dimensions are easily inter-pretable, and recent methods show competitive performance to the dense vectors. We introduce a neural-based explicit representation, rooted in the conceptual ideas of the word2vec Skip-Gram model. The method provides interpretable explicit vectors while keeping the effectiveness of the Skip-Gram model. The evaluation of various explicit representations on word association collections shows that the newly proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art explicit representations when tasked with ranking highly similar terms. As a case study on the use of our explicit representation, we show the degree of the existence of gender bias in the English language (used in Wikipedia) in regards to various occupations. By measuring the bias towards explicit Female and Male factors, the study quantiﬁes a general tendency of the majority of the occupations to male and a strong bias in a few speciﬁc occupations (e.g. nurse) to female.
A Panel-Data Study of the Effect of Student Attendance on University Performance

The literature indicates that absenteeism from university classes is a common phenomenon in Australia and North America. Whether this constitutes a problem from society's point of view depends upon whether absenteeism has a detrimental effect on student learning. Several authors in the economics discipline have argued the affirmative although none has established a causal linkage using experimental data and appropriate statistical analysis. The study reported here used panel data on business and economics students in an introductory statistics class at an Australian university to estimate the effect of attendance on performance. The methodology takes account of unobserved heterogeneity among students and, in so doing, constitutes an improvement over cross-section regression results reported previously. Attendance is found to have a small, but statistically significant, effect on performance.
Programmable MEMS-Based Silicon Timing Solutions Change the Game

For the past few decades, the electronics industry has relied on quartz based timing solutions, which involve machining of crystals and then combining them to analog circuits inside expensive, ceramic packages. Since few years now, programmable MEMS products have provided a compelling alternative to quartz timing solutions. This paper discusses the advances of the MEMS based silicon timing solution and its advantages in performance, manufacturing flow, programmability, and short lead time.