Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beneficial microvascular and anti-inflammatory effects of pravastatin during sepsis involve nitric oxide synthase III.

BACKGROUND Sepsis induces microvascular inflammation and production of the vasodilator nitric oxide (NO) via endothelial and inducible nitric oxide synthase (eNOS or NOS III and iNOS or NOS II). Statins are cholesterol-lowering drugs; however, they also attenuate inflammation. This study aimed to determine whether pravastatin protected against sepsis-induced hypotension, loss of vascular tone, and microvascular inflammation via NOS pathways. METHODS Male Wistar rats (n=18) were anaesthetized and the mesentery prepared for fluorescent intravital microscopy. Animals received either lipopolysaccharide (LPS; n=6); LPS+pravastatin (18 and 3 h before LPS; n=6), or saline as a control, for 4 h. RESULTS Mean arterial pressure decreased in LPS-treated animals (P<0.05), but not in those also receiving pravastatin. Acetylcholine-induced relaxation of venules was abolished by LPS but improved by pravastatin. Pravastatin also reduced the increase in nitrite concentration and macromolecular leak from venules induced by LPS (P<0.05). The increased leucocyte adhesion seen in LPS-treated rats was also reduced in those also treated with pravastatin. Immunohistochemical analysis showed that pravastatin increased endothelial cell expression of NOS III during sepsis, but had no effect on LPS-induced up-regulation of NOS II. CONCLUSIONS Pravastatin improved NOS III-mediated vessel relaxation and exerted anti-inflammatory effects within the microcirculation after LPS administration in rats. Pravastatin therefore appears to have beneficial effects during sepsis, as a result of increased microvascular expression and function of NOS III.
Data fusion improves the coverage of wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been increasingly available for critical applications such as security surveillance and environmental monitoring. An important performance measure of such applications is sensing coverage that characterizes how well a sensing field is monitored by a network. Although advanced collaborative signal processing algorithms have been adopted by many existing WSNs, most previous analytical studies on sensing coverage are conducted based on overly simplistic sensing models (e.g., the disc model) that do not capture the stochastic nature of sensing. In this paper, we attempt to bridge this gap by exploring the fundamental limits of coverage based on stochastic data fusion models that fuse noisy measurements of multiple sensors. We derive the scaling laws between coverage, network density, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We show that data fusion can significantly improve sensing coverage by exploiting the collaboration among sensors. In particular, for signal path loss exponent of k (typically between 2.0 and 5.0), rho_f=O(rho_d^(1-1/k)), where rho_f and rho_d are the densities of uniformly deployed sensors that achieve full coverage under the fusion and disc models, respectively. Our results help understand the limitations of the previous analytical results based on the disc model and provide key insights into the design of WSNs that adopt data fusion algorithms. Our analyses are verified through extensive simulations based on both synthetic data sets and data traces collected in a real deployment for vehicle detection.
Demonstration of additivity failure in human circadian phototransduction.

OBJECTIVES Published data, both on nocturnal melatonin suppression in humans and on widely accepted retinal structure and function, suggest that spectral opponency plays a role in human circadian phototransduction. We directly test subadditivity, implied by spectral opponency, in human circadian phototransduction in response to nearly monochromatic and to polychromatic light. METHODS Adult male human subjects were exposed for 60 minutes to two intensities each of two lighting conditions, during nighttime experimental sessions. One condition consisted of light from mercury vapor lamps (450 and 1050 lx), and one condition consisted of light from these lamps filtered such that only the spectral line from this lamp at 436 nm was presented to subjects (7.5 and 15 lx). RESULTS Melatonin suppression from the filtered illumination at 436 nm alone was greater than mercury lamp illumination (containing energy at 436 nm in addition to other wavelengths), even when the sources exposed subjects' retinae to equal amounts of irradiance at 436 nm. CONCLUSION This direct test of subadditivity, together with evidence from neuroanatomy, supports the inference that spectral opponency is a fundamental characteristic of human circadian phototransduction.
Functional HIV‐2‐ and SIVsmmPBj‐ derived lentiviral vectors generated by a novel polymerase chain reaction‐based approach

Lentiviral vectors allow stable gene transfer into nonreplicating cells and are increasingly used in clinical gene therapy approaches. Vectors derived from different origins can show distinct target cell transduction properties. Therefore, the construction of modern vector systems of different viral origin remains desirable. The generation of safe and efficient lentivirus‐derived transfer vectors by gradual enhancing cloning steps is a time‐consuming process that depends on the presence of suitable restriction sites. Multiple‐step cloning protocols also enhance the risk of acquisition of mutations or other genetic instabilities.
Preincubation of Pneumococci with β-Lactams Alone or Combined with Levofloxacin Prevents Quinolone-Induced Resistance without Increasing Intracellular Levels of Levofloxacin

ABSTRACT Preincubation of pneumococci with sub-MIC concentrations of ceftriaxone (1/16× MIC), cefotaxime (1/8× MIC), and meropenem (1/4× MIC) alone or combined with levofloxacin (1/8× MIC) over 6 h prevents the emergence of levofloxacin-resistant mutants after 96 h of incubation but does not affect the intracellular accumulation of levofloxacin in two penicillin-resistant pneumococcal strains, suggesting a link between the mechanism of action of β-lactams and the emergence of quinolone-induced resistance in pneumococci.
Validation of the Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale in pediatric emergency department patients.

OBJECTIVES The Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale (WBS), used in children to rate pain severity, has been validated outside the emergency department (ED), mostly for chronic pain. The authors validated the WBS in children presenting to the ED with pain by identifying a corresponding mean value of the visual analog scale (VAS) for each face of the WBS and determined the relationship between the WBS and VAS. The hypothesis was that the pain severity ratings on the WBS would be highly correlated (Spearman's rho > 0.80) with those on a VAS. METHODS This was a prospective, observational study of children ages 8-17 years with pain presenting to a suburban, academic pediatric ED. Children rated their pain severity on a six-item ordinal faces scale (WBS) from none to worst and a 100-mm VAS from least to most. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare mean VAS scores across the six ordinal categories. Spearman's correlation (rho) was used to measure agreement between the continuous and ordinal scales. RESULTS A total of 120 patients were assessed: the median age was 13 years (interquartile range [IQR] = 10-15 years), 50% were female, 78% were white, and six patients (5%) used a language other than English at home. The most commonly specified locations of pain were extremity (37%), abdomen (19%), and back/neck (11%). The mean VAS increased uniformly across WBS categories in increments of about 17 mm. ANOVA demonstrated significant differences in mean VAS across face groups. Post hoc testing demonstrated that each mean VAS was significantly different from every other mean VAS. Agreement between the WBS and VAS was excellent (rho = 0.90; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.86 to 0.93). There was no association between age, sex, or pain location with either pain score. CONCLUSIONS The VAS was found to have an excellent correlation in older children with acute pain in the ED and had a uniformly increasing relationship with WBS. This finding has implications for research on pain management using the WBS as an assessment tool.
Modeling spectro - temporal modulation perception in normal - hearing listeners

The ability of human listeners to detect and discriminate spectro-temporal ripples in sound has been shown to be correlated with speech intelligibility performance in several conditions. Thus, if a model would be able to account for the spectro-temporal processing limits in the auditory system, such a framework could be used to analyze the auditory processes contributing to and limiting speech intelligibility. Here, a model is presented that combines the concepts of the power spectrum model of masking (PSM; Patterson and Moore, 1986) with those of the speech based envelope power spectral model of masking (EPSM; Jørgensen and Dau, 2011). Effects of masking and changes in the signal-to-noise ratio in both domains are considered in the decision device of the model. The model was evaluated in experimental conditions of temporal, spectral and combined spectro-temporal modulation detection and discrimination using identical stimuli as input to the model as to the human listeners. The predictions were compared to the measured data obtained with 15 normal-hearing listeners. The model could account for the mean data in most of the considered conditions and might provide a valuable framework for investigating effects of hearing impairment both on spectro-temporal perception as well as speech intelligibility.
Long-Latency ERPs and Recognition of Facial Identity

N400 brain event-related potential (ERP) is a mismatch negativity originally found in response to semantic incongruences of a linguistic nature and is used paradigmatically to investigate memory organization in various domains of information, including that of faces. In the present study, we analyzed different mismatch negativities evoked in N400-like paradigms related to recognition of newly learned faces with or without associated verbal information. ERPs were compared in the following conditions: (1) mismatching features (eyes-eyebrows) using a facial context corresponding to the faces learned without associated verbal information (pure intradomain facial processing); (2) mismatching features using a facial context corresponding to the faces learned with associated occupations and proper names (nonpure intradomain facial processing); (3) mismatching occupations using a facial context (cross-domain processing); and (4) mismatching names using an occupation context (intra-domain verbal processing). Results revealed that mismatching stimuli in the four conditions elicited a mismatch negativity analogous to N400 but with different timing and topo-graphical patterns. The onset of the mismatch negativity occurred earliest in Conditions 1 and 2, followed by Condition 4, and latest in Condition 3. The negativity had the shortest duration in Task 1 and the longest duration in Task 3. Bilateral parietal activity was confirmed in all conditions, in addition to a predominant right posterior temporal localization in Condition 1, a predominant right frontal localization in Condition 2, an occipital localization in Condition 3, and a more widely distributed (although with posterior predominance) localization in Condition 4. These results support the existence of multiple N400, and particularly of a nonlinguistic N400 related to purely visual information, which can be evoked by facial structure processing in the absence of verbal-semantic information.
RNA Interference, Transposons, and the Centromere

Centromeres evolve rapidly and display a remarkable lack of sequence conservation ([Henikoff et al., 2001][1]). They can be small (125 bp in Saccharomyces cerevisiae ) or large (9 million bp in maize) and show a relatively ordered arrangement of long repeats ( Schizosaccharomyces pombe ) or a wider
Peer learning for change in higher education

This paper draws upon small scale, qualitative research at a UK university to present a Learning Development (LD) perspective on peer learning. This approach is offered as a lens for exploring social aspects of learning, cultural change in higher education and implications for pedagogy and policy. Views of a small group of peer learning leaders are considered in relation to notions of learning and identity, within disciplinary or broader student communities.
NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF UTILITY BOILERS WITH ADVANCED COMBUSTION TECHNOLOGIES

This paper presents calculations of a pulverized coal flame and a coal-fired utility boiler with advanced combustion technologies. A combustion model based on an extended Eddy Dissipation Concept (EDC) combined with finite rate chemistry is described and some applications are shown. This model can be regarded as an extension of the previously used Eddy Breakup model (EBU) where infinite fast chemistry is assumed. It is part of a 3D-prediction code for quasi-stationary turbulent reacting flows which is based on a conservative finite-volume solution procedure. Equations are solved for the conservation of mass, momentum and scalar quantities. A domain decomposition method is used to introduce locally refined grids. Validation and comparison of both combustion models are made by comparison with measure-ment data of a swirled flame with air staging in a semi-industrial pulverized coal combustion facility. The application to three-dimensional combustion systems is demonstrated by the simulation of an industrial coal-fired boiler.
Controlled Distortion for High Capacity Data-in-Speech Spectrum Steganography

Methods applied to ensure privacy of digital data became essential in many real life applications. Efficient secrecy can be achieved, at least in part, by implementing steganography techniques. In this paper, we present a technique that limits the impact of high data capacity embedding on the quality of stego wideband speech. Our method uses the energy of each frequency bin component to determine the maximum number of bits that can be confined without inducing any noticeable distortion on the cover speech. To guarantee good quality of stego speech, the embedding in the selected frequency components occurs below a well defined distortion level to limit the impact of the hiding on the stego-speech. The algorithm uses multiple parameters that can be adjusted by the sender to render the steganalysis work more challenging. The objective and subjective results show that this approach is robust to noise addition and maintains a very good quality of the cover signal while achieving high hiding capacity.
Graphs with independent perfect matchings

A graph with at least two vertices is matching covered if it is connected and each edge lies in some perfect matching. A matching covered graph G is extremal if the number of perfect matchings of G is equal to the dimension of the lattice spanned by the set of incidence vectors of perfect matchings of G. We first establish several basic properties of extremal matching covered graphs. In particular, we show that every extremal brick may be obtained by splicing graphs whose underlying simple graphs are odd wheels. Then, using the main theorem proved in 2 and 3 , we find all the extremal cubic matching covered graphs. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 48: 19–50, 2005
How Infants Know Minds

* Acknowledgments *1. A Puzzle *2. Minding the Gap *3. A Second-Person Approach *4. Neonatal Imitation: First Contact *5. Early Conversations *6. Feeling Attention *7. Self-Consciousness *8. Playing with Intentions *9. Sharing Funniness *10. Early Deceiving: Lying, Faking, and Pretending *11. Other Minds and Other Cultures * Notes * Index
Legitimacy and Deterrence Effects in Counter- Terrorism Policing: A Study of Muslim Americans

This study considers the circumstances under which members of the Muslim American community voluntarily cooperate with police efforts to combat terrorism. Cooperation is defined to include both a general receptivity toward helping the police in antiterror work and the specific willingness to alert police to terror-related risks in a community. We compare two perspectives on why people cooperate with law enforcement, both developed with reference to general policing, in the context of antiterror policing and specifically among members of the Muslim American community. The first is instrumental. It suggests that people cooperate because they see tangible benefits that outweigh any costs. The second perspective is normative. It posits that people respond to their belief that police are a legitimate authority. On this view we link legitimacy to the fairness and procedural justice of police behavior. Data from a study involving interviews with Muslim Americans in New York City between March and June 2009 strongly support the normative model by finding that the procedural justice of police activities is the primary factor shaping legitimacy and cooperation with the police.
Delinking Legitimacies: A Pluriversal Perspective on Political CSR

This study critically examines the concept of political CSR, or legitimacy creation through deliberation, as something that can be universally agreed upon in places where incommensurable differences exist. Through a comparative case study of two local stakeholder groups – one urban and one rural – involved in a conflict over a pulp mill in the south of Chile, this paper asks: 1) why did the two groups choose different participation strategies in the deliberation over the desirability of the mill? Based on multiple data sources, the study finds differences in how each community made sense of the world through place-bound social imaginaries, which affected the stakeholders’ willingness to participate in deliberation. The findings suggest that legitimacy cannot be universally secured through dialogues that seek consensus at the expense of occluded imaginaries, rather it exists as a pluriversal construct. If political CSR is to play a role in legitimacy creation across imaginaries, the focus should be on constructing economic alternatives embedded in place that supports the co-existence of different forms of life.
Induction of human cardiomyocyte-like cells from fibroblasts by defined factors

Heart disease remains a leading cause of death worldwide. Owing to the limited regenerative capacity of heart tissue, cardiac regenerative therapy has emerged as an attractive approach. Direct reprogramming of human cardiac fibroblasts (HCFs) into cardiomyocytes may hold great potential for this purpose. We reported previously that induced cardiomyocyte-like cells (iCMs) can be directly generated from mouse cardiac fibroblasts in vitro and vivo by transduction of three transcription factors: Gata4, Mef2c, and Tbx5, collectively termed GMT. In the present study, we sought to determine whether human fibroblasts also could be converted to iCMs by defined factors. Our initial finding that GMT was not sufficient for cardiac induction in HCFs prompted us to screen for additional factors to promote cardiac reprogramming by analyzing multiple cardiac-specific gene induction with quantitative RT-PCR. The addition of Mesp1 and Myocd to GMT up-regulated a broader spectrum of cardiac genes in HCFs more efficiently compared with GMT alone. The HCFs and human dermal fibroblasts transduced with GMT, Mesp1, and Myocd (GMTMM) changed the cell morphology from a spindle shape to a rod-like or polygonal shape, expressed multiple cardiac-specific proteins, increased a broad range of cardiac genes and concomitantly suppressed fibroblast genes, and exhibited spontaneous Ca2+ oscillations. Moreover, the cells matured to exhibit action potentials and contract synchronously in coculture with murine cardiomyocytes. A 5-ethynyl-2′-deoxyuridine assay revealed that the iCMs thus generated do not pass through a mitotic cell state. These findings demonstrate that human fibroblasts can be directly converted to iCMs by defined factors, which may facilitate future applications in regenerative medicine.
Effects of Cognitive Strategy Interventions and Cognitive Moderators on Word Problem Solving in Children at Risk for Problem Solving Difficulties

This study investigated the role of strategy instruction and cognitive abilities on word problem solving accuracy in children with math difficulties (MD). Elementary school children (N = 120) with and without MD were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: general–heuristic (e.g., underline question sentence), visual–schematic presentation (diagrams), general–heuristic + visual–schematic, and an untreated control. When compared to the control condition that included children with MD, an advantage at posttest was found for children with MD for the visual–schematic–alone condition on measures of problem solving and calculation accuracy, whereas all strategy conditions facilitated posttest performance in correctly identifying problem solving components. The results also suggested that strategy conditions drew upon different cognitive resources. The General–heuristic condition drew primarily upon the executive component of working memory (WM), Visual–schematic condition drew upon the visual component of WM and the combined strategies condition drew upon number processing skills.
HOMOCYSTEINE LEVELS AND ROLE OF OXIDATIVE STRESS IN PRIMARY OPEN ANGLE GLAUCOMA

Objective: Primary open angle glaucoma is the most commonest form of glaucoma which leads to vision loss if untreated. It has been hypothesized that oxidative damage may be involved in the pathogenesis of glaucoma and homocysteine may also have a role in development of glaucoma. The aim of our present study is to evaluate the role of oxidative stress and Homocysteine in Primary open angle glaucoma patients. Methods: We tried to assess Serum Homocysteine levels and the role of oxidative stress in patients by estimating the levels of lipid peroxidation assessing plasma Malondialdehyde (MDA) levels and antioxidant status by reduced glutathione (GSH), Vitamin-E ,Vitamin-C in blood. For this, we have taken 50 cases of primary open angle glaucoma patients compared with 75 age matched controls. Results: There were significant increase in the levels of MDA and significant decreases in the levels of antioxidants like GSH whereas there are significant increases in the levels of vitamin-E and Vitamin-C in breast cancer patients when compared with controls. No statistical significant difference was observed with Serum Homocysteine levels in cases when compared with controls. Conclusion: Our results indicate that oxidative stress is associated with the development of Primary open angle glaucoma which needs further studies.
Conceptions of Critical HRD: Dilemmas for Theory and Practice

Critical human resource development (HRD) appears to be a newly emerging interest in HR study. Informed by literatures in critical management studies and critical pedagogy, this article proposes foundations and practical implications towards further developing critical HRD as one stream among existing theories and practice of HRD. Precepts for critical HRD may include purposes of workplace reform aligned with equity, justice, and organizational democracy; knowledge treated as contested, political, and non-performative; inquiry focused on denaturalizing organizational power and knowledge relations, and methods of reflexivity and critical challenge to prevailing conditions. Both theoretical and practical dilemmas of critical HRD are explored. Finally, drawing from existing examples, possible configurations of a critical HRD are presented as these might play out in contexts of organizational practice, academic study, and professional education.