Activation of the Default Mode Network Is Related to High Reaction Time Variability in ADHD

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common mental condition in U.S. children and affects more than 6.1 million individuals between the ages of 2-17 years. Recent studies have identified elevated reaction time variability (RTV) as a reliable feature of ADHD, yet it is under debate whether increased RTV is related to lapses of attention, and the neural mechanisms behind high RTV are not well understood. The default mode network (DMN) is a functional brain system responsible for internally-directed mental processes, and it is most active when not engaged in cognitively demanding tasks. Activation of the DMN during active states could pose as an internal distraction and disrupt top-down executive control. We predicted that DMN activation during externally directed tasks would lead to an increase in RTV. Further, we anticipated DMN activation to precede abnormally slow responses. We used blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while participants with and without ADHD performed a standard sustained attention to response (SART) task. We then examined the activation of the DMN during episodes of aberrant RTV to ascertain the nature of the aforementioned association. The neurobiological mechanisms that cause attention-deficit must be better understood to detect inattention reliably. Our project hopes to innovative by providing a path toward using RTV as a metric to identify inattention. This study aims to be the first to date to provide a comprehensive hypothesis to explain the neural underpinnings behind increased RTV in ADHD. The current system to diagnose ADHD in children may be ineffective because it is based on potentially subjective behavioral observations by parents and teachers. Identifying increased RTV as a behavioral marker of ADHD may enable a more effective method of diagnosing ADHD in children, resulting in more successful treatment outcomes and decreased costs of care for families of children with the disorder

Role of coxsackie- and adenovirus receptor (CXADR/CAR) in the regulation of cell plasticity in cancer and inflammation

The coxsackie- and adenovirus receptor (CXADR) is a transmembrane protein, which localizes at tight junctions (TJ) in epithelial cells. As highlighted by its name, CXADR was initially identified as a receptor for type C adenoviruses and group B coxsackieviruses. Subsequently, CXADR has been shown to mediate cell-cell adhesion, immune cell activation and cellular signaling. Unlike other TJ components, CXADR is vital for the early stages of development. Deregulation of CXADR is frequently observed in pathological conditions including cancer and chronic inflammation. However, mechanistic insight into the role of CXADR in pathophysiology has been lacking. The overall aim of this thesis was therefore to study the role of CXADR in cancer progression and inflammatory diseases. In Paper I, we show that CXADR regulates the capacity of breast cancer cells to undergo epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in response to the cytokine TGF-β1. The mechanism was traced to a previously unidentified role of CXADR in acting as a negative regulator of the AKT signaling pathway by forming a signalosome with, PTEN and PHLPP2. Through lossand gain-of-function experiments we showed that by regulating the stability of the signalosome at tight junction, CXADR controls AKT activity and epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity in breast cancer cells. Moreover, we found that loss of CXADR correlated with loss of PTEN and PHLPP2, and poor prognosis in luminal A breast cancer. In Paper II, we found that CXADR expression is significantly induced during the formation of atherosclerotic plaques in arterial walls. Macrophages were identified as a previously unknown cellular source of CXADR in both murine and human atherosclerotic plaques. A combination of gene expression profiling, mass spectrometric analysis and in vitro studies using human monocytes (THP1 cells), revealed that the induction of CXADR expression is linked to monocyte-macrophage differentiation and further polarization into M1 subtype, and foam cells. Intriguingly, we also found a significant correlation between CXADR and receptors for other viruses, associated with atherosclerosis in human plaques. In Paper III, inspired by the results from Paper I, we show that CXADR also regulates the metabolic arm downstream of AKT. We found that CXADR controls glucose uptake in various types of cells by regulating the expression and localization of the glucose transporter GLUT-1. Further studies revealed that CXADR expression is upregulated in heart and liver tissues in a mouse model of type 2 diabetes (T2D). In line with this, we found that CXADR expression is induced by IL-6, an inflammatory cytokine which is known to play a role in T2D. In conclusion, the results presented in this thesis provide a novel and mechanistic insight into the role of CXADR as a pathogenic factor in breast cancer progression and suggest that CXADR contributes to the progression of chronic inflammatory diseases including atherosclerosis and T2D. This may offer new possibilities for using CXADR as a target to develop novel diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies in cancer and inflammation

High Performance Reconstruction Framework for Straight Ray Tomography:from Micro to Nano Resolution Imaging

We develop a high-performance scheme to reconstruct straight-ray tomographic scans. We preserve the quality of the state-of-the-art schemes typically found in traditional computed tomography but reduce the computational cost substantially. Our approach is based on 1) a rigorous discretization of the forward model using a generalized sampling scheme; 2) a variational formulation of the reconstruction problem; and 3) iterative reconstruction algorithms that use the alternating-direction method of multipliers. To improve the quality of the reconstruction, we take advantage of total-variation regularization and its higher-order variants. In addition, the prior information on the support and the positivity of the refractive index are both considered, which yields significant improvements. The two challenging applications to which we apply the methods of our framework are grating-based \mbox{x-ray} imaging (GI) and single-particle analysis (SPA). In the context of micro-resolution GI, three complementary characteristics are measured: the conventional absorption contrast, the differential phase contrast, and the small-angle scattering contrast. While these three measurements provide powerful insights on biological samples, up to now they were calling for a large-dose deposition which potentially was harming the specimens ({\textit{e.g.}}, in small-rodent scanners). As it turns out, we are able to preserve the image quality of filtered back-projection-type methods despite the fewer acquisition angles and the lower signal-to-noise ratio implied by a reduction in the total dose of {\textit{in-vivo}} grating interferometry. To achieve this, we first apply our reconstruction framework to differential phase-contrast imaging (DPCI). We then add Jacobian-type regularization to simultaneously reconstruct phase and absorption. The experimental results confirm the power of our method. This is a crucial step toward the deployment of DPCI in medicine and biology. Our algorithms have been implemented in the TOMCAT laboratory of the Paul Scherrer Institute. In the context of near-atomic-resolution SPA, we need to cope with hundreds or thousands of noisy projections of macromolecules onto different micrographs. Moreover, each projection has an unknown orientation and is blurred by some space-dependent point-spread function of the microscope. Consequently, the determination of the structure of a macromolecule involves not only a reconstruction task, but also the deconvolution of each projection image. We formulate this problem as a constrained regularized reconstruction. We are able to directly include the contrast transfer function in the system matrix without any extra computational cost. The experimental results suggest that our approach brings a significant improvement in the quality of the reconstruction. Our framework also provides an important step toward the application of SPA for the {\textit{de novo}} generation of macromolecular models. The corresponding algorithms have been implemented in Xmipp

Determinación de sebo bovino en mantequilla utilizando un método integral

The detection of animal fats such as tallow in butter using standard criteria is more difficult than vegetable fats. In order to perform a complete assessment, several methods are likely to be used together. In the experimental design of this research, compositional characteristics such as fatty acids, sterols and triacylglycerols, along with the conventional physicochemical characteristics of butter mixed with different percentages of tallow (0–15% w/w) were evaluated. An increase of less than 5% (w/w) in bovine tallow content in butter physicochemical tests, sterols and fatty acids could not indicate the adulteration level but the ratio of C6+8+10+12/C18 fatty acids, C52/C50، C52/C48, C52/C46 triacylglycerols, S1, S3, S5-value equation and C52 triacylglycerols could show this adulteration level in butter. Also, the successive use of fatty acids and triacylglycerols resulted in the capability to determine adulteration in butter including bovine tallow above 1% (w/w).La detección de grasas animales, como el sebo en mantequilla, utilizando criterios estándares es más difícil que las grasas vegetales y esto probablemente se puede evaluar mediante la recopilación de métodos de evaluación y mediante un enfoque completo. En el diseño experimental de esta investigación, se evaluaron las características composicionales como los ácidos grasos, esteroles y triacilgliceroles junto con los índices fisicoquímicos convencionales, en mantequilla mezclada con un porcentaje diferente de sebo (0–15% p/p). Mediante un aumento de menos del 5% (p/p) de contenido de sebo bovino en mantequilla, las pruebas fisicoquímicas, los esteroles y los ácidos grasos no pudieron indicar el nivel de adulteración, pero sí lo hizo la relación de ácidos grasos C6+8+10+12/C18, la relación de triacilgliceroles C52C50; C52/C48; C52/C46; los valores de S1, S3, S5 en la ecuación y los triacilgliceroles C52. Además, el uso sucesivo de ácidos grasos y triacilgliceroles dio como resultado la capacidad de determinar la adulteración en la mantequilla, incluido el sebo bovino por encima del 1% (p/p)

The importance of preserving deciduous teeth: Assessing knowledge, attitude, and practice of parents of preschool and primary school children in Isfahan

Background and Aims: There is a traditional belief that the primary teeth can be replaced by permanent teeth and preserving them is not important. The aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge and attitude of parents of preschool and elementary school children referring to the Specialty Clinic of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences and Imam Hossein pediatric hospital about the importance of preserving deciduous teeth and related factors. Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on 323 parents of preschool and elementary school children referred to the special clinic of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences and Imam Hossein Pediatric hospital. The data collection method was a questionnaire and face-to-face interview. The questionnaire was made, it consisted of 21 multiple-choice questions and descriptive questions. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics tests and analytical tests such as t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient. Results: The mean score of knowledge of parents was 37.5 with a standard deviation of 16.9, the mean score of attitude was 55.8 with a standard deviation of 11.1 and the mean score of performance was 41.8 with a standard deviation of 15.6 out of 100. Pearson correlation coefficient showed that there was a direct relationship between knowledge, attitude, and performance scores (P<0.001). Parents' knowledge score was directly related to the mothers' and fathers' ages (P<0.001). Conclusion: According to the results, parents' awareness of the importance of the preservation of deciduous teeth and related factors is poor, their attitudes are neutral and their performance is poor to moderate. It is suggested to improve treatment facilities available for children in the family and to educate parents about the preservation of deciduous teeth

Replacing Sugar by Date Syrup in Gaz and Investigation of Texture Properties

Date Syrup is a natural sweetener that is suitable replacement for sugar in food stuffs formulation. In this Research Amounts of 25-100 percent of sugar in Gaz formulation were replaced with date syrup and to study effect of its use in product formulation, characteristics of texture, color and sensory analyse of treatments were investigated. Statistical analyse of data was also done by SPSS software and Dankan test. The results of this research showed that amount of used date syrup in formulation had a significant effect on color parameters (L*,a*,b*), texture characteristics and sensory analyse of samples. By increase of date syrup in Gaz formulation, samples texture became softer than control sample and yellowness and redness index of samples were increasedDoi: DOI: 10.12777/ijse.6.1.11-15 [How to cite this article: Shafiei, Z., Hojjatoleslami, M., Soha, S., and Shariati, M.A. 2014. The Influence of Malt Extraction Adding to UF Fresh Low Fat Cheese on Its Textural Properties. International Journal of Science and Engineering, 6(1):57-60. Doi: 10.12777/ijse.6.1.11-1

Fast multiscale reconstruction for Cryo-EM

We present a multiscale reconstruction framework for single-particle analysis (SPA). The representation of three-dimensional (3D) objects with scaled basis functions permits the reconstruction of volumes at any desired scale in the real-space. This multiscale approach generates interesting opportunities in SPA for the stabilization of the initial volume problem or the 3D iterative refinement procedure. In particular, we show that reconstructions performed at coarse scale are more robust to angular errors and permit gains in computational speed. A key component of the proposed iterative scheme is its fast implementation. The costly step of reconstruction, which was previously hindering the use of advanced iterative methods in SPA, is formulated as a discrete convolution with a cost that does not depend on the number of projection directions. The inclusion of the contrast transfer function inside the imaging matrix is also done at no extra computational cost. By permitting full 3D regularization, the framework is by itself a robust alternative to direct methods for performing reconstruction in adverse imaging conditions (e.g., heavy noise, large angular misassignments, low number of projections). We present reconstructions obtained at different scales from a dataset of the 2015/2016 EMDataBank Map Challenge. The algorithm has been implemented in the Scipion package