Investigating the impact of emotion on temporal orientation in a deep multitask setting.

Temporal orientation is an important aspect of human cognition which shows how an individual emphasizes past, present, and future. Theoretical research in psychology shows that one's emotional state can influence his/her temporal orientation. We hypothesize that measuring human temporal orientation can benefit from concurrent learning of emotion. To test this hypothesis, we propose a deep learning-based multi-task framework where we concurrently learn a unified model for temporal orientation (our primary task) and emotion analysis (secondary task) using tweets. Our multi-task framework takes users' tweets as input and produces three temporal orientation labels (past, present or future) and four emotion labels (joy, sadness, anger, or fear) with intensity values as outputs. The classified tweets are then grouped for each user to obtain the user-level temporal orientation and emotion. Finally, we investigate the associations between the users' temporal orientation and their emotional state. Our analysis reveals that joy and anger are correlated to future orientation while sadness and fear are correlated to the past orientation.

Effects of straight chain alcohols on specific isoforms of adenylyl cyclase.

BACKGROUND: Our previous studies showed that the activity of adenylyl cyclase (AC) was enhanced by pharmacologically relevant concentrations of ethanol, that this enhancing effect of ethanol on AC activity was AC isoform specific, and that the alcohol cutoff effect for n-alkanol potentiation of AC activity was also AC isoform specific. Therefore, we hypothesized that within the cyclic AMP-generating system, AC is the target of ethanol's action and that alcohols interact directly with the AC molecules. To characterize the interaction between alcohols and AC proteins, the effects of a series of straight chain alcohols would be very valuable in understanding alcohol action at the molecular level. To our knowledge, straight chain alcohols other than n-alkanols and 1,Omega-diols have not been used extensively to study alcohol effects on the activity of AC or other proteins important in the alcohol research field. METHODS: The effects of a series of straight chain alcohols on D1A dopamine receptor-stimulated activity of AC isoforms type 6, 7, and 9 (AC6, AC7, and AC9) were examined in transfected Hela cells by a cAMP accumulation assay. RESULTS: In general, all 3 AC isoforms responded to a series of straight chain alcohols in a similar manner. The order of responsiveness is as follows: monoalcohol > diol > triol and tetraol. Within monoalcohols, 1-alcohols had larger effects than 2-alcohols. Two of 3 stereoisomers of 2,3-butanediol, [D-(-)-2,3-butanediol and meso-2,3-butanediol] showed similar enhancing effects on all 3 AC isoforms. However, the third stereoisomer, L-(+)-2,3-butanediol, inhibited AC7 activity, while it stimulated AC6 and AC9. CONCLUSION: The number and the position of hydroxyl groups in straight chain alcohols play an important role in the magnitude of the enhancement on AC activity. Regardless of AC isoforms, the most effective of the straight chain alcohols seems to be the 1-alcohol (n-alkanol) for a given chain length. We found that one of the stereoisomers of 2,3-butanediol had opposite effects on AC activity depending on the AC isoform. Overall, the results are consistent with the hypotheses and demonstrate that a series of straight chain alcohols can be a valuable tool to study AC-alcohol interactions.

Resolution of grammatical tense into actual time, and its application in Time Perspective study in the tweet space.

Time Perspective (TP) is an important area of research within the 'psychological time' paradigm. TP, or the manner in which individuals conduct themselves as a reflection of their cogitation of the past, the present, and the future, is considered as a basic facet of human functioning. These perceptions of time have an influence on our actions, perceptions, and emotions. Assessment of TP based on human language on Twitter opens up a new avenue for research on subjective view of time at a large scale. In order to assess TP of users' from their tweets, the foremost task is to resolve grammatical tense into the underlying temporal orientation of tweets as for many tweets the tense information, and their temporal orientations are not the same. In this article, we first resolve grammatical tense of users' tweets to identify their underlying temporal orientation: past, present, or future. We develop a minimally supervised classification framework for temporal orientation task that enables incorporating linguistic knowledge into a deep neural network. The temporal orientation model achieves an accuracy of 78.7% when tested on a manually annotated test set. This method performs better when compared to the state-of-the-art technique. Secondly, we apply the classification model to classify the users' tweets in either of the past, present or future categories. Tweets classified this way are then grouped for each user which gives rise to unidimensional TP. The valence (positive, negative, and neutral) is added to the temporal orientation dimension to produce the bidimensional TP. We finally investigate the association between the Twitter users' unidimensional and bidimensional TP and their age, education and six basic emotions in a large-scale empirical manner. Our analysis shows that people tend to think more about the past as well as more positive about the future when they age. We also observe that future-negative people are less joyful, more sad, more disgusted, and more angry while past-negative people have more fear.

A doxycycline-inducible urokinase receptor (uPAR) upregulates uPAR activities including resistance to anoikis in human prostate cancer cell lines.

BACKGROUND: The urokinase receptor (uPAR) mediates a diverse array of cellular processes including several events involved in prostate cancer metastasis. Many of these activities are initiated or enhanced by uPAR binding to its proteolytic ligand, urokinase (uPA). Our objective in this study was to generate and test an inducible lentiviral system capable of expressing uPAR and DsRed fluorescent protein in human prostate cancer cell lines. RESULTS: A DsRed-uPAR fusion construct was inserted into a lentiviral vector. Transduction of human prostate cancer cell lines with this virus and with a virus containing a reverse-tetracycline transactivator (rt-TA) resulted in a stable transgene which induced both uPAR and DsRed proteins in a dose-responsive fashion upon stimulation with doxycycline. Immunoblots and immunofluorescence studies indicated no detectable uPAR expression in non-induced prostate cancer cell lines. Cells with induced-uPAR demonstrated increased cellular adhesion to the matrix substrate vitronectin and increased net cell proliferation compared to uninduced cells. Finally, induced uPAR-expressing prostate cancer cells were resistant to anoikis over an extended time period when grown in suspension. CONCLUSION: This doxycycline-inducible lentivirus system produces titerable levels of biologically active uPAR in vitro. This tool can be used to dissect cellular events following induction of uPAR in prostate cancer cells.

The superoxide scavenger TEMPOL induces urokinase receptor (uPAR) expression in human prostate cancer cells.

There is little understanding of the effect that reactive oxygen metabolites have on cellular behavior during the processes of invasion and metastasis. These oxygen metabolites could interact with a number of targets modulating their function such as enzymes involved in basement membrane dissolution, adhesion molecules involved in motility or receptors involved in proliferation. We investigated the effect of increased scavenging of superoxide anions on the expression of the urokinase receptor (uPAR) in PC-3M human prostate cancer cells. Urokinase receptor is a GPI-linked cell surface molecule which mediates multiple functions including adhesion, proliferation and pericellular proteolysis. Addition of the superoxide scavenger 4-hydroxy-2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidinyloxy (TEMPOL) to PC-3M cultures stimulated expression of uPAR protein peaking between 48 and 72 hours. Cell surface expression of the uPAR was also increased. Surprisingly, uPAR transcript levels increased only slightly and this mild increase did not coincide with the striking degree of protein increase. This disparity indicates that the TEMPOL effect on uPAR occurs through a post-transcriptional mechanism. TEMPOL presence in PC-3M cultures reduced intracellular superoxide-type species by 75% as assayed by NBT dye conversion; however this reduction significantly diminished within hours following TEMPOL removal. The time gap between TEMPOL treatment and peak uPAR protein expression suggests that reduction of reactive oxygen metabolites in prostate cancer cells initiates a multistep pathway which requires several hours to culminate in uPAR induction. These findings reveal a novel pathway for uPAR regulation involving reactive oxygens such as superoxide anion.

Understanding Bacterial Isolates in Blood Culture and Approaches Used to Define Bacteria as Contaminants: A Literature Review.

BACKGROUND: Interpretation of blood culture isolates is challenging due to a lack of standard methodologies for identifying contaminants. This problem becomes more complex when the specimens are from sick young infants, as a wide range of bacteria can cause illness among this group. METHODS: We used 43 key words to find articles published between 1970 and 2011 on blood culture isolates and possible contaminants in the PubMed database. Experts were also consulted to obtain other relevant articles. Selection of articles followed systematic methods considering opinions from more than 1 reviewer. RESULTS: After reviewing the titles of 3869 articles extracted from the database, we found 307 relevant to our objective. Based on the abstracts, 42 articles were selected for the literature review. In addition, we included 7 more articles based on cross-references and expert advice. The most common methods for differentiating blood culture isolates were multiple blood cultures from the same subject, antibiograms and molecular testing. Streptococcus pneumoniae, Hemophilus influenzae, Neisseria meningitidis and group A and B streptococcus were always considered as pathogens, whereas Bacillus sp., Diphtheroids, Propionibacterium and Micrococcus were commonly regarded as contaminants. Coagulase-negative staphylococci were the most frequent isolates and usually reported as contaminants unless the patient had a specific condition, such as long-term hospitalization or use of invasive devices (catheters). CONCLUSIONS: Inaccurate interpretation of blood culture may falsely guide treatment and also has long-term policy implications. The combination of clinical and microbiological knowledge, patient's clinical history and laboratory findings are essential for appropriate interpretation of blood culture.

Verification of degradation of n-alkanes in diesel oil by Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain WatG in soil microcosms.

Degradation of n-alkanes in diesel oil by Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain WatG (WatG) was verified in soil microcosms. The total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) degradation level in two bioaugmentation samples was 51% and 46% for 1 week in unsterilized and sterilized soil microcosms, respectively. The TPH degradation in the biostimulation was of control level (15%). The TPH degradation in aeration-limited samples was clearly reduced when compared with that in aeration-unlimited ones under both sterilized and unsterilized conditions. Addition of WatG into soil microcosms was accompanied by dirhamnolipid production only in the presence of diesel oil. These findings suggest that degradation of n-alkanes in diesel oil in soil microcosms would be facilitated by bioaugmentation of WatG, with production of dirhamnolipid, and also by participation of biostimulated indigenous soil bacteria.

Isolation and characterization of novel strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Serratia marcescens possessing high efficiency to degrade gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil, and lubricating oil.

Bacteria possessing high capacity to degrade gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil, and lubricating oil were screened from several areas of Hokkaido, Japan. Among isolates, two strains, WatG and HokM, which were identified as new strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Serratia marcescens species, respectively, showed relatively high capacity and wide spectrum to degrade the hydrocarbons in gasoline, kerosene, diesel, and lubricating oil. About 90-95% of excess amount of total diesel oil and kerosene added to mineral salts media as a sole carbon source could be degraded by WatG within 2 and 3 weeks, respectively. The same amount of lubricating oil was 60% degraded within 2 weeks. Strain HokM was more capable than WatG in degrading aromatic compounds in gasoline. This strain could also degrade kerosene, diesel, and lubricating oil with a capacity of 50-60%. Thus, these two isolates have potential to be useful for bioremediation of sites highly contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons.

Isolation, identification, and characterization of a novel, oil-degrading bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa T1.

A novel, oil-degrading bacterium (strain T1) was isolated from a hot spring in Hokkaido, Japan. It efficiently degrades different types of fats and oils, including edible oil waste. When grown in a mineral salt medium containing 1% triacylglycerol (as salad oil), hydrolysis products were 1,3- and 1,2-diacylglycerols, monoacylglycerol, and free fatty acid. However, these products were almost completely consumed during cultivation at 30 degrees C for 5 days, indicating that extracellular lipase acts randomly at different sn-positions of acylglycerols and that strain T1 has a high capacity to utilize free fatty acids. Secreted lipase activity was induced by salad oil and oleic acid. This strain was a Gram-negative straight rod shaped, aerobic, with a polar flagellum, capable of growing in temperature ranges between 15 degrees C and 55 degrees C. The 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis and DNA-DNA hybridization revealed it as a new strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The type strain was T1.