Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Consistent organization of glomeruli in the antennal lobes of related species of heliothine moths

The glomeruli of the antennal lobes in insects reflect the organization of the olfactory system, which is important for species‐specific behaviors in response to insect‐ and plant‐produced odorants. We studied the antennal lobes of the polyphagous moth Helicoverpa armigera and the oligophagous H. assulta (Heliothinae; Lepidoptera; Noctuidae) in order to see whether there are any anatomical differences that might elucidate how information about odorants is analyzed. Three‐dimensional models of the antennal lobes were made, based on synaptic antibody staining combined with confocal laser scanning microscopy. These showed 65 glomeruli in each sex of H. armigera and 66 glomeruli in females of H. assulta. Sixty‐two of the glomeruli were identified in both sexes and species and were given the same numbers. The sex‐specific glomeruli included three macroglomerular units in H. armigera males, as well as three and four female‐specific glomeruli in H. armigera and H. assulta, respectively. The species specificity of H. assulta females also appeared by the particular large size of two ordinary glomeruli. The accumulating knowledge on how biologically relevant information is encoded in receptor and antennal lobe neurons in heliothines makes these moths particularly interesting for studying the functional organization of the glomeruli. The anatomical atlases of the antennal lobes, as presented here, are prerequisites for identifying glomeruli ascribed to particular functions across sexes and species. J. Comp. Neurol. 491:367–380, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Crystal structure of the crenarchaeal conserved chromatin protein Cren7 and double‐stranded DNA complex

Cren7 is a crenarchaeal conserved chromatin protein discovered recently. To explore the mechanism of the DNA packaging in Crenarchaeota, the crystal structure of Cren7–GCGATCGC complex has been determined and refined at 1.6 Å resolution. Cren7 kinks the dsDNA sharply similar to Sul7d, another chromatin protein existing only in Sulfolobales, which reveals that the “bending and unwinding” compacting mechanism is conserved in Crenarchaeota. Significant structural differences are revealed by comparing both protein–dsDNA complexes. The kinked sites on the same dsDNA in the complexes with Sul7d and Cren7 show one base pair shift. For Cren7, fewer charged residues in the β‐barrel structural region bind to DNA, and additionally, the flexible loop Lβ3β4 is also involved in the binding. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays indicate that loop Lβ3β4 is essential for DNA‐binding of Cren7. These differences provide insight into the functional difference of both chromatin proteins, suggesting that Cren7 may be more regulative than Sul7d in the DNA‐binding affinity by the methylation in the flexible loop Lβ3β4 in vivo.
The Effect of Acute Fluid Consumption and Hydration Status on Percent Body Fat and Minimum Wrestling Weight

Abstract Cutrufello, PT and Dixon, CB. The effect of acute fluid consumption and hydration status on percent body fat and minimum wrestling weight. J Strength Cond Res 27(7): 1950–1957, 2013—The weight certification program for wrestling requires a urine-specific gravity (USG) <1.020. However, the effect of acute rehydration on percent body fat (%BF) and minimum wrestling weight (MWW) is largely unknown. We examined the effect of acute fluid consumption on %BF and MWW. Twenty-five male subjects (18–22 years) were tested in a dehydrated state (USG > 1.020; DEH), 1 hour after rehydration (USG < 1.020; REH), and on a separate day in a hydrated state (USG < 1.020; HYD) which served as the criterion. Percent body fat was determined using skinfolds (SF), air displacement plethysmography (ADP), leg-to-leg bioelectrical impedance analysis (LBIA), and multifrequency bioelectrical impedance analysis (MBIA). Regardless of hydration state, %BF values were not significantly different when using SF (DEH = 13.35 ± 4.03%; REH = 13.41 ± 3.99%; HYD = 13.47 ± 4.31%; p = 0.693) or ADP (DEH = 15.68 ± 4.69%; REH = 16.19 ± 4.57%; HYD = 15.88 ± 4.72%; p = 0.145). The MWW after fluid consumption (REH) was similar to the criterion (HYD) when using SF (REH = 72.04 ± 8.25 kg; HYD = 72.23 ± 8.15 kg; p = 1.000) and ADP (REH = 70.38 ± 8.93 kg; HYD = 70.81 ± 8.50 kg; p = 0.177) methods. Conversely, hydration state had a significant impact on LBIA (p = 0.011) and MBIA (p < 0.001) %BF values resulting in reduced MWWs. When using the SF and ADP methods to assess %BF, modest amounts of water (∼1 L) restored euhydration (<1.020) without negatively affecting %BF or MWW. Therefore, acute fluid consumption (∼1 L) may offer a safe alternative in which the weight certification program can be expedited.
Age, Specialty, and Practice Setting Predict Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease Prescribing Behavior

Background: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) affects more than 40% of adults in the United States each month. Although the economic costs of treating this disorder are enormous, the attitudes and prescribing preferences of physicians who treat patients with GERD are not well known. This study was undertaken to determine physician prescribing practices in the treatment of GERD. Methods: A questionnaire was mailed to 687 randomly selected, practicing gastroenterologists, internists, and family physicians in the State of Maryland. Each questionnaire was identical and contained 7 questions designed to elicit demographic data (age, sex, degree, specialty, practice setting, years in practice, community served), and 16 questions related to the evaluation and treatment of GERD. Results: A total of 214 completed questionnaires were returned (31.1%), nearly equally distributed among the three different specialty groups. A total of 82% of the respondents were male; 60% of the respondents had practiced more than 15 years, and 6% had practiced 4 years or less. Older physicians prescribed proton pump inhibitors more often than younger physicians for mild or intermittent GERD symptoms. Physicians in an academic setting were more likely to use step-down therapy in patients with well-controlled GERD symptoms than were HMO-employed physicians. Family physicians requested a barium swallow in the evaluation of uncomplicated GERD more frequently than did gastroenterologists or internists. Gastroenterologists were more likely than family physicians and internists to recommend upper endoscopy for GERD patients with warning symptoms and for patients with long-standing reflux disease. Conclusions: Age, specialty, number of years in practice, and practice setting significantly influence how physicians evaluate and treat patients with GERD. Educational efforts to improve the evaluation and treatment of patients with GERD may require different strategies for different types of healthcare providers.
Daily heat stress treatment rescues denervation‐activated mitochondrial clearance and atrophy in skeletal muscle

Traumatic nerve injury or nerve disease leads to denervation and severe muscle atrophy. Recent evidence shows that mitochondrial loss could be a key mediator of skeletal muscle atrophy. Here, we show that daily heat stress treatment rescues denervation‐induced loss of mitochondria and concomitant muscle atrophy. We also found that denervation‐activated autophagy‐dependent mitochondrial clearance (mitophagy) was suppressed by daily heat stress treatment. The molecular basis of this observation is explained by our results showing that heat stress treatment attenuates the increase of key proteins that regulate the tagging step for mitochondrial clearance and the intermediate step of autophagosome formation in denervated muscle. These findings contribute to the better understanding of mitochondrial quality control in denervated muscle from a translational perspective and provide a mechanism behind the attenuation of muscle wasting by heat stress.
How students' achievement goals shape their beliefs about effective teaching: a 'build-a-professor' study.

BACKGROUND Which instructor qualities do students consider most important? The answer likely depends on the student. This study attempted to trace beliefs about the most essential instructor qualities to students' academic achievement goals. AIMS The present study tested the hypothesis that students pursuing mastery goals favour instructors who stimulate and challenge them intellectually, whereas those pursuing performance goals favour instructors who present material clearly and provide clear cues about how to succeed. SAMPLE Participants were 157 students at a 4-year public university. METHOD Participants designed the ideal professor through a hypothetical combination of nine widely valued instructor qualities, such as enthusiasm, presentation clarity, and an interactive teaching style. The more they acquired of any one instructor quality, the less they could acquire of the others, thus compelling students to distinguish necessary qualities from desirable luxury qualities. RESULTS Students' achievement goals corresponded to their views about the most essential instructor qualities. Mastery goals predicted greater demand for professors who intellectually challenge students and possess topic expertise, whereas performance goals predicted high demand for professors who present material clearly and provide cues about how to succeed in the course. CONCLUSIONS The findings support emerging theorizing about how mastery and performance goals nudge students to pursue different learning agendas, with distinct consequences to their learning experience.
Society And Puritanism In Pre-Revolutionary England

To understand the English (or Puritan) Revolution and Civil War, the struggles which tore England apart in the mid 17th century, one needs to understand Puritanism. This book cuts through the misconceptions to show Puritanism as a living faith answering the hopes and fears of yeomen and gentlemen, merchants and artisans. Professor Hill looks at all the major i ssues of the time - oath-taking and the Sabbath, bawdy courts and poor relief - and considers Puritan stress on the household (rather that the parish) and the dignity of labour. The author also wrote "The World Upside Down".
Quantitative rat liver function test by galactose single point method

Summary The purpose of this study was to investigate the galactose single point (GSP) method, a residual liver function test recently recommended by the US Food and Drug Administration, which can be a useful tool for rat liver function measurement. Rats were treated either with carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) alone (1 mL/kg, intraperitoneally [i.p.]) for one day or with isoniazid (INH) alone (150 mg/kg, i.p.) or (in order to ameliorate the effects of INH) with a combination of INH and bis-p-nitrophenyl phosphate (BNPP) (25 mg/kg, i.p.) for 21 days. Hepatotoxicity was assayed by plasma aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activities and scores of histological activity index-necroinflammation (HAI-NI) of the respective liver specimens. The GSP method in rats was defined by the galactose blood level after 60 min. Significant differences in GSP values were observed between controls and the CCl4-treated rats. After 21 days of treatment, no significant changes in AST and ALT values were observed among the control, INH and INH-BNPP groups. There were significant differences in average GSP values for controls (P < 0.001) and INH-BNPP (P < 0.001) compared with INH alone. Highly significant correlations (P < 0.001) were obtained between GSP and scores of HAI-NI for all the groups. GSP was concluded to be a more sensitive biomarker of INH-induced hepatotoxicity than AST or ALT in the rats. The GSP method has been proved to be a simple and useful tool for the quantitative determination of liver function in rats, which can possibly be extended to other animals.
Contribution of smoking-related and alcohol-related deaths to the gender gap in mortality: evidence from 30 European countries

Background Women now outlive men throughout the globe, a mortality advantage that is very established in developed European countries. Debate continues about the causes of the gender gap, although smoking is known to have been a major contributor to the difference in the past. Objectives To compare the magnitude of the gender gap in all-cause mortality in 30 European countries and assess the contribution of smoking-related and alcohol-related deaths. Methods Data on all-cause mortality, smoking-related mortality and alcohol-related mortality for 30 European countries were extracted from the World Health Organization Health for All database for the year closest to 2005. Rates were standardised by the direct method using the European population standard and were for all age groups. The proportion of the gender gap in all-cause mortality attributable to smoking-related and alcohol-related deaths was then calculated. Results There was considerable variation in the magnitude of the male ‘excess’ of all-cause mortality across Europe, ranging from 188 per 100 000 per year in Iceland to 942 per 100 000 per year in Ukraine. Smoking-related deaths accounted for around 40% to 60% of the gender gap, while alcohol-related mortality typically accounted for 20% to 30% of the gender gap in Eastern Europe and 10% to 20% elsewhere in Europe. Conclusions Smoking continues to be the most important cause of gender differences in mortality across Europe, but its importance as an explanation for this difference is often overshadowed by presumptions about other explanations. Changes in smoking patterns by gender suggest that the gender gap in mortality will diminish in the coming decades.
Neonatal Nonhandling and In Utero Prenatal Stress Reduce the Density of NADPH-Diaphorase-Reactive Neurons in the Fascia Dentata and Ammon’s Horn of Rats

The density of nitric oxide (NO)-producing neurons in the fascia dentata and Ammon’s horn was assessed in 6-month-old male rats using NADPH-diaphorase (NADPH-d) histochemistry. Two separate experiments investigated whether (1) the complete absence of neonatal handling or (2) the administration of periodic prenatal stress could affect the expression and distribution of NADPH-d reactivity in the hippocampus, when compared with rats raised in normal standard laboratory conditions. Experiment 1 demonstrated that adult rats that received no handling during neonatal development (from birth to postnatal day 22) showed a very substantial reduction in NADPH-d-positive neurons per unit area throughout the entire hippocampus when compared with rats that received regular daily handling in this period. Quantitative analysis further revealed that this effect was significantly more pronounced in Ammon’s horn than in the fascia dentata, and within Ammon’s horn the dorsal region was selectively more affected. Experiment 2 showed that prenatal stress, which involved the administration of daily restraint stress to pregnant dams throughout the gestation period, also led to a reduction in NADPH-d reactivity in the hippocampus of the offspring of these dam when they reached adulthood. The present results suggest that behavioral manipulations in the early neonatal or prenatal period can significantly alter the neurodevelopment of the hippocampal NO system and these changes might be related to some of the behavioral abnormalities that emerge later in adulthood.
Preemptive Strategy for Ganciclovir Administration Against Cytomegalovirus in Liver Transplantation Recipients

In utilizing a preemptive strategy to minimize the occurrence of symptomatic cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection following liver transplant, only patients with proven CMV activity by direct detection are treated. We applied the following preemptive strategy for CMV infection to 49 sequential liver transplant recipients between 1998 and 2001. Patients were monitored for CMV activity using CMV p65 antigen assay for the first 10 months of the study. Thereafter, we changed the detection method to a quantitative PCR for plasma CMV‐DNA. All patients were monitored post transplant, weekly for the first 3 months and then monthly. Only patients with detected CMV activity were treated with ganciclovir. Patients were divided into four groups, based on donor (D) and recipient (R) CMV status. In seven out of 49 patients (14.3%) CMV activity was detected: four in group D +/R –, and three in group D –/R –. Five out of these seven patients had asymptomatic CMV infection. Symptomatic CMV infection developed only in two of these seven patients, to give total rate of 4.1% (2/49). All seven patients developed CMV IgG antibody. ‘Transient’ CMV replication detected by PCR in five patients in group D +/R+ was not defined as infection. No patients developed organ‐invasive CMV disease. The cost of anti‐CMV treatment using the preemptive strategy was $1000/patient/1st year. Using preemptive strategy, early detection of CMV infection was achieved, allowing timely treatment. The use of ganciclovir for CMV infection in only 4.3% of the patients should have a positive impact on minimizing the risk of ganciclovir‐resistant virus, and should reduce the cost of CMV prevention strategies.
Ionizing radiation and cancer risk: evidence from epidemiology.

Epidemiological studies provide the primary data on the carcinogenic effects of radiation in humans. Much of what is known has come from studies of the atomic bomb survivors, and to a lesser extent from patients receiving radiotherapy. These studies demonstrate that exposure to moderate to high doses of radiation increases the risk of cancer in most organs. For all solid cancers combined, cancers of the thyroid, breast and lung, and leukemia, risk estimates are fairly precise, and associations have been found at relatively low doses (<0.2 Gy). Associations between radiation and cancers of the salivary glands, stomach, colon, bladder, ovary, central nervous system and skin have also been reported, but the relationships are not as well quantified. Associations between radiation and cancers of the liver and esophagus, and to a lesser extent multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, have been reported in a few studies, but results are inconsistent. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, and cancers of the pancreas, prostate, testis and cervix have rarely been linked to radiation exposure. A linear no-threshold model adequately describes the dose-response relationship for solid cancers, although at extremely high doses the risk appears to flatten out. Because few populations have been followed until the end of life, the temporal patterns of risk are not completely known. An increased risk, however, does continue for several decades. In contrast, radiation-related leukemias begin to occur shortly (2-3 years) after exposure and, at least in the A-bomb survivors, a linear-quadratic dose response seems to fit the data better than a pure linear model. Radiation does not act entirely in isolation. It can interact with other carcinogens, e.g. tobacco or chemotherapeutic agents, and with host factors such as age at exposure, gender or reproductive history. Interactions with medical interventions or with certain heritable mutations have also been suggested. While the studies of high-dose exposures are essential for understanding the overall biological consequences of radiation exposure, the public is more concerned about the long-term health effects from protracted exposures at low doses. Unfortunately, the inherent limitations of epidemiology make it extremely difficult to directly quantify health risks from these exposures. While most epidemiological data are compatible with linear extrapolations from exposures at high doses or high dose rates, they cannot entirely exclude other possibilities. As the field of epidemiology advances, understanding more about the health effects of prolonged and low-dose exposures will be the next challenge.
Familial breast cancer. Part IV: survival of familial breast cancer in Bulgarian patients.

PURPOSE The aim of part IV of this study was to register and compare the survival rates of sporadic and familial breast cancer, and to estimate the prognostic value of familial predisposition of the disease as a risk factor. PATIENTS AND METHODS We investigated retrospectively 504 patients belonging to families with accumulation of the disease (study group, group I) and 300 patients with the sporadic form of breast cancer (control group, group II). All patients were diagnosed, treated, and followed-up at the Clinic of Thoracic Surgery, National Oncological Centre. For determination of the familial predisposition we used the Anderson's classification. The statistical significance of the difference between two groups and subgroups was evaluated by the x(2) Pearson's test and Student's paired t-test. RESULTS Women with familial breast cancer were characterized by worse survival rates compared to the sporadic cases. Of the patients in group I 20.79% survived more than 5 years versus 76.74% in group II (p <0.0000). Group I patients with first degree of kinship had the lowest survival rates. Highly significant differences were found in survival, depending on stage: in group I stage IIA patients the survival was 42.86% versus 97.73% for group II; in IIB it was 14.17% versus 89.41%; and in IIIA it was 4.76% versus 75.00%, respectively. Tumor size, lymph nodes status, metastases and steroid receptors also showed a high statistical difference in survival between the 2 groups. Five-year survival in group I patients without metastases was 22.34%, while it was 80.71% in group II. In patients with metastases 4-year survival rates were 2.94% and 22.22%, respectively. Estrogen receptor (ER)-negative patients in groups I and II had 5-year survival of 17.41% and 72.06%, respectively. Progesterone receptor (PR)-negative patients in groups I and II had 5-year survival of 17.50% and 83.67%, respectively. Invasive lobular and invasive ductal carcinoma showed very poor survival in both groups (18.75% and 17.73% in group I versus 53.33% and 77.48% in group II, respectively). CONCLUSION Familial breast cancer displays particular clinical characteristics that differ from the sporadic form of the disease in terms of clinical, histological and biochemical features. Our results show that patients with familial breast cancer have significantly lower survival rates in comparison with women with the sporadic form of the disease. The need for surveillance and diagnosis of the disease at an earlier stage is crucial for women with familial predisposition for breast cancer.
Regulation of manipulators in generic task space: an energy shaping plus damping injection approach

The position control of robot manipulators in generic task space is addressed in this paper. The main ingredient in the formulation is the use of the task function concept which includes as particular cases the task specifications in joint and Cartesian spaces. The main theoretical contribution is a novel stability analysis of a wide class of robot regulators based in energy shaping plus damping injection. We also provide sufficient conditions to design effective regulators. This approach is illustrated via experimental tests on a direct drive arm where specifications are given in Cartesian and image-based task spaces, respectively.