Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Staff and offender perspectives of Integrated Offender Management and the impact of its introduction on arrests and risk of reoffending in one police force region

ABSTRACT The Integrated Offender Management (IOM) framework was introduced in England and Wales in 2009. The aims of the research outlined in this paper were to examine the impact of the introduction of an IOM approach in one large police force region and the perceptions of it by offenders and staff. There were two parts to the study. The first involved the use of a within-participant approach to establish whether IOM supervision reduced the level of arrests and risk of reoffending in a sample of offenders. The second involved interviewing offenders and staff involved in IOM regarding their perceptions of it with a focus on effectiveness. The findings showed that the level of arrests (medium effect) and the risk of reoffending (large effect) reduced in the 18 months following the introduction of IOM in comparison to the 18 months prior to the introduction of IOM. Six superordinate themes were identified from staff and offender interviews that highlighted the core elements of IOM, the effectiveness of IOM in reducing offending, how reoffending is reduced, communication, the offender manager role, and the challenges of IOM. The findings offer tentative support for the effectiveness of IOM provision in this geographic region in reducing offending and in identifying factors that staff and offenders believe contribute to the effectiveness of this approach and can improve future IOM provision.
Autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine regulates the expression of LC3, Beclin-1 and ZnTs in rat cerebral cortex following recurrent neonatal seizures.

BACKGROUND Autophagy is a homeostatic process for intracellular recycling of bulk proteins and aging organelles. Increased autophagy has now been reported in experimental models of traumatic brain injury, stroke and excitotoxicity, and in patients with Alzheimer's disease and critical illness. The role of autophagy in developmental epilepsy, however, is unknown. The present study was to investigate the effects of recurrent neonatal seizure, in the presence and absence of autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine (3-MA), on the acute phase gene expression of ZnTs, LC3 and Beclin-1 in rat cerebral cortex and the interaction among them. METHODS Thirty-six Sprague-Dawley neonatal rats at postnatal day 6(P6) were randomly divided into three groups: a recurrent-seizures group (RS, n=12), a 3-MA treated-seizure group (3-MA group, each rat pretreated with 3-methyladenine before seizures, 100nmol/μl/day, i.p., n=12) and a control group (n=12). At 1.5 and 6 hours after the last seizures, the mRNA levels of ZnT1-ZnT3, microtubule-associated protein 1A/1B light chain 3 (LC3) and beclin-1 were detected using the real-time RT-PCR method. The LC3 protein level was examined by Western blotting. RESULTS The levels of LC3, beclin-1 and ZnT-2 transcripts in the RS group elevated significantly at 1.5 and 6 hours after the last seizures compared with those in the control and 3-MA groups. At the interval of 1.5 hours, the mRNA level of ZnT-1 increased significantly after the last seizure compared with that in the control group. There was no significant difference in the transcript levels of ZnT-3 among the three groups. Linear correlation analysis showed that the expression of the five genes in the control group exhibited a significant inter-relationship. In the 3-MA group, however, the inter-relationship was only found between beclin-1 and ZnT-1. In the RS group, the inter-relationship was not observed. CONCLUSIONS The autophagy/lysosomal pathway is immediately activated along with the elevated expression of ZnT1 and ZnT2 in the cerebral cortex after recurrent seizures. 3-MA is involved in the regulation of the autophagy/lysosomal pathway and ZnTs by down-regulating the expression of LC3 and beclin-1.
The Effect of Aerobic Exercise on Intrahepatocellular and Intramyocellular Lipids in Healthy Subjects

Background Intrahepatocellular (IHCL) and intramyocellular (IMCL) lipids are ectopic lipid stores. Aerobic exercise results in IMCL utilization in subjects over a broad range of exercise capacity. IMCL and IHCL have been related to impaired insulin action at the skeletal muscle and hepatic level, respectively. The acute effect of aerobic exercise on IHCL is unknown. Possible regulatory factors include exercise capacity, insulin sensitivity and fat availability subcutaneous and visceral fat mass). Aim To concomitantly investigate the effect of aerobic exercise on IHCL and IMCL in healthy subjects, using Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy. Methods Normal weight, healthy subjects were included. Visit 1 consisted of a determination of VO2max on a treadmill. Visit 2 comprised the assessment of hepatic and peripheral insulin sensitivity by a two-step hyperinsulinaemic euglycaemic clamp. At Visit 3, subcutaneous and visceral fat mass were assessed by whole body MRI, IHCL and IMCL before and after a 2-hours aerobic exercise (50% of VO2max) using 1H-MR-spectroscopy. Results Eighteen volunteers (12M, 6F) were enrolled in the study (age, 37.6±3.2 years, mean±SEM; VO2max, 53.4±2.9 mL/kg/min). Two hours aerobic exercise resulted in a significant decrease in IMCL (−22.6±3.3, % from baseline) and increase in IHCL (+34.9±7.6, % from baseline). There was no significant correlation between the exercise-induced changes in IMCL and IHCL and exercise capacity, subcutaneous and visceral fat mass and hepatic or peripheral insulin sensitivity. Conclusions IMCL and IHCL are flexible ectopic lipid stores that are acutely influenced by physical exercise, albeit in different directions. Trial Registration ClinicalTrial.gov NCT00491582
SRA-Domain Proteins Required for DRM2-Mediated De Novo DNA Methylation

De novo DNA methylation and the maintenance of DNA methylation in asymmetrical sequence contexts is catalyzed by homologous proteins in plants (DRM2) and animals (DNMT3a/b). In plants, targeting of DRM2 depends on small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), although the molecular details are still unclear. Here, we show that two SRA-domain proteins (SUVH9 and SUVH2) are also essential for DRM2-mediated de novo and maintenance DNA methylation in Arabidopsis thaliana. At some loci, SUVH9 and SUVH2 act redundantly, while at other loci only SUVH2 is required, and this locus specificity correlates with the differing DNA-binding affinity of the SRA domains within SUVH9 and SUVH2. Specifically, SUVH9 preferentially binds methylated asymmetric sites, while SUVH2 preferentially binds methylated CG sites. The suvh9 and suvh2 mutations do not eliminate siRNAs, suggesting a role for SUVH9 and SUVH2 late in the RNA-directed DNA methylation pathway. With these new results, it is clear that SRA-domain proteins are involved in each of the three pathways leading to DNA methylation in Arabidopsis.
Glycinergic “Inhibition” Mediates Selective Excitatory Responses to Combinations of Sounds

In the mustached bat's inferior colliculus (IC), combination-sensitive neurons display time-sensitive facilitatory interactions between inputs tuned to distinct spectral elements in sonar or social vocalizations. Here we compare roles of ionotropic receptors to glutamate (iGluRs), glycine (GlyRs), and GABA (GABAARs) in facilitatory combination-sensitive interactions. Facilitatory responses to 36 single IC neurons were recorded before, during, and after local application of antagonists to these receptors. The NMDA receptor antagonist CPP [(±)-3-(2-carboxypiperazin-4-yl)-propyl-1-phosphonic acid], alone (n = 14) or combined with AMPA receptor antagonist NBQX (n = 22), significantly reduced or eliminated responses to best frequency (BF) sounds across a broad range of sound levels, but did not eliminate combination-sensitive facilitation. In a subset of neurons, GABAAR blockers bicuculline or gabazine were applied in addition to iGluR blockers. GABAAR blockers did not “uncover” residual iGluR-mediated excitation, and only rarely eliminated facilitation. In nearly all neurons for which the GlyR antagonist strychnine was applied in addition to iGluR blockade (22 of 23 neurons, with or without GABAAR blockade), facilitatory interactions were eliminated. Thus, neither glutamate nor GABA neurotransmission are required for facilitatory combination-sensitive interactions in IC. Instead, facilitation may depend entirely on glycinergic inputs that are presumed to be inhibitory. We propose that glycinergic inputs tuned to two distinct spectral elements in vocal signals each activate postinhibitory rebound excitation. When rebound excitations from two spectral elements coincide, the neuron discharges. Excitation from glutamatergic inputs, tuned to the BF of the neuron, is superimposed onto this facilitatory interaction, presumably mediating responses to a broader range of acoustic signals.
Artificial bee colony algorithm for automatic leukocytes segmentation in histopathological images

An automatic segmentation of leukocytes can assist pharmaceutical companies to take decisions in the discovery of drug and encourages for development of automated leukocytes recognition system. Segmentation of leukocytes in tissue images is a complex process due to the presence of various noise effects, large variability in the images, and shape of the nuclei. Surprisingly, rare efforts have been done to automate the segmentation of leukocytes in various disease models on Hematoxylin and Eosin stained tissue images. The present work proposes a novel method based on artificial bee colony algorithm to segment the leukocytes from the images of mice skin sections stained with Hematoxylin and Eosin staining and acquired at 40 x magnification. The results show that the proposed method outperforms when compared with the well known segmentation methods.
Which words are most iconic?: Iconicity in English sensory words

Some spoken words are iconic, exhibiting a resemblance between form and meaning. We used native speaker ratings to assess the iconicity of 3001 English words, analyzing their iconicity in relation to part-of-speech differences and differences between the sensory domain they relate to (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell). First, we replicated previous findings showing that onomatopoeia and interjections were highest in iconicity, followed by verbs and adjectives, and then nouns and grammatical words. We further show that words with meanings related to the senses are more iconic than words with abstract meanings. Moreover, iconicity is not distributed equally across sensory modalities: Auditory and tactile words tend to be more iconic than words denoting concepts related to taste, smell and sight. Last, we examined the relationship between iconicity (resemblance between form and meaning) and systematicity (statistical regularity between form and meaning). We find that iconicity in English words is more strongly related to sensory meanings than systematicity. Altogether, our results shed light on the extent and distribution of iconicity in modern English.
Intrinsic and extrinsic benefits as promoters of pro-environmental behaviour / Beneficios intrínsecos y extrínsecos como promotores de la conducta proambiental

Abstract The practice of pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) can generate positive consequences for the environment and for those who engage in such behaviour. This study suggests that such consequences can, in turn, promote the future practice of pro-environmental actions. A structural model was tested, including the intrinsic and extrinsic benefits of PEB experienced by people as exogenous variables, and PEB as the endogenous variable, on a sample of 360 inhabitants of Mexico City. The model fit the data adequately and explained 24% of variance in PEB. Intrinsic and extrinsic benefits positively and significantly affected PEB, and also presented a moderately strong relationship between them, which could indicate that both types of benefits might jointly foster pro-environmental actions.
In Silico Elucidation of the Recognition Dynamics of Ubiquitin

Elucidation of the mechanism of biomacromolecular recognition events has been a topic of intense interest over the past century. The inherent dynamic nature of both protein and ligand molecules along with the continuous reshaping of the energy landscape during the binding process renders it difficult to characterize this process at atomic detail. Here, we investigate the recognition dynamics of ubiquitin via microsecond all-atom molecular dynamics simulation providing both thermodynamic and kinetic information. The high-level of consistency found with respect to experimental NMR data lends support to the accuracy of the in silico representation of the conformational substates and their interconversions of free ubiquitin. Using an energy-based reweighting approach, the statistical distribution of conformational states of ubiquitin is monitored as a function of the distance between ubiquitin and its binding partner Hrs-UIM. It is found that extensive and dense sampling of conformational space afforded by the µs MD trajectory is essential for the elucidation of the binding mechanism as is Boltzmann sampling, overcoming inherent limitations of sparsely sampled empirical ensembles. The results reveal a population redistribution mechanism that takes effect when the ligand is at intermediate range of 1–2 nm from ubiquitin. This mechanism, which may be depicted as a superposition of the conformational selection and induced fit mechanisms, also applies to other binding partners of ubiquitin, such as the GGA3 GAT domain.
The Risk of Hypertension after Preoperative Discontinuation of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors or Angiotensin Receptor Antagonists in Ambulatory and Same-Day Admission Patients

BACKGROUND:The continued use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin II subtype I receptor antagonists (ARBs) medications in the preoperative period has been reported to be associated with intraoperative hypotension that can be unresponsive to pressor drugs. As a result, several investigators suggested discontinuation of these medications before scheduled surgery but did not report on unintended consequences that might result from discontinuation. We conducted a prospective, single-blind, randomized trial to observe the effect of the medications on preoperative arterial blood pressure recordings in patients presenting for ambulatory and same-day surgery. METHODS:Six hundred forty-four patients presenting for ambulatory and same-day surgery were enrolled prospectively between 2006 and 2011 and randomly assigned to 2 groups based on continuation or discontinuation of ACEIs and ARBs. An intention-to-treat analysis was performed. The primary outcome was presence of hypertension (HTN) immediately before surgery. Secondary outcomes included surgical cancellations due to HTN, prolongation of hospitalization, adverse clinical events, and HTN in the postoperative period. RESULTS:Data for 526 patients were analyzed. There were 262 patients in the discontinuation group and 264 patients in the continuation group. Discontinuation of ACEIs and ARBs on the day of surgery was not associated with increased prevalence of preoperative HTN (P = 0.775). The upper bound of a 95% confidence interval for the difference in prevalence of Stage 1 and 2 HTN between study arms indicates that discontinuation of study medication is unlikely to be associated with an increase in Stage 1 HTN of >4.8 percentage points and in Stage 2 HTN of no >5.8 percentage points. Discontinuation was not associated with an increase in postoperative HTN, with prolongation of hospitalization or with adverse clinical events. CONCLUSIONS:Discontinuing ACEIs and ARBs in patients on the day of surgery did not result in a substantively increased incidence of pre- or postoperative HTN compared with patients who continued these medications on the day of surgery. The results provide an evidentiary basis for the safety of discontinuing ACEIs and ARBs on the day of surgery without increasing adverse hemodynamic outcomes.
Visual words assignment on a graph via minimal mutual information loss

Visual codewords assignment plays an important role in many Bag of Features (BoF) models for image understanding and visual recognition. It allocates image descriptors to the most similar codewords in the pre-configured visual dictionary to generate descriptive histogram for the consequent categorization. Nevertheless, existing assignment approaches, e.g. nearest neighbors strategy and Gaussian similarity, suffer from two problems:1) too strong Euclidean assumption and 2) neglecting the label information of the local features. Accordingly, in this paper, we propose an assignment method to simultaneously consider the above two issues in a unified model via graph learning and information theoretic criterions. For learning, the proposed model can be efficiently solved in a closed-form with the reasonable graph topology invariant approximation. Moreover, the learned projections enable us to extend the assignment ability to the out-of-sample visual features beyond the initial training graph. Experiments on our own manifold dataset and two benchmarks verify the effectiveness of the proposed graph assignment method.
Assortment Optimization Under General Choice

We consider the key operational problem of optimizing the mix of offered products to maximize revenues when product prices are exogenously set and product demand follows a general discrete choice model. The key challenge in making this decision is the computational difficulty of finding the best subset, which often requires exhaustive search. Existing approaches address the challenge by either deriving efficient algorithms for specific parametric structures or studying the performance of general-purpose heuristics. The former approach results in algorithms that lack portability to other structures; whereas the latter approach has resulted in algorithms with poor performance. We study a portable and easy-to-implement local search heuristic. We show that it efficiently finds the global optimum for the multinomial logit (MNL) model and derive performance guarantees for general choice structures. Empirically, it is better than prevailing heuristics when no efficient algorithms exist, and it is within 0.02% of optimality otherwise.
Stochastic Mean-Field Limit: Non-Lipschitz Forces & Swarming

We consider general stochastic systems of interacting particles with noise which are relevant as models for the collective behavior of animals, and rigorously prove that in the mean-field limit the system is close to the solution of a kinetic PDE. Our aim is to include models widely studied in the literature such as the Cucker-Smale model, adding noise to the behavior of individuals. The difficulty, as compared to the classical case of globally Lipschitz potentials, is that in several models the interaction potential between particles is only locally Lipschitz, the local Lipschitz constant growing to infinity with the size of the region considered. With this in mind, we present an extension of the classical theory for globally Lipschitz interactions, which works for only locally Lipschitz ones.
Endoglin Haploinsufficiency Promotes Fibroblast Accumulation during Wound Healing through Akt Activation

Accurate regulation of dermal fibroblast function plays a crucial role in wound healing. Many fibrotic diseases are characterized by a failure to conclude normal tissue repair and the persistence of fibroblasts inside lesions. In the present study we demonstrate that endoglin haploinsufficiency promotes fibroblast accumulation during wound healing. Moreover, scars from endoglin-heterozygous (Eng+/−) mice show persisting fibroblasts 12 days after wounding, which could lead to a fibrotic scar. Endoglin haploinsufficiency results in increased proliferation and migration of primary cultured murine dermal fibroblasts (MDFs). Moreover, Eng+/− MDF have diminished responses to apoptotic signals compared with control cells. Altogether, these modifications could explain the augmented presence of fibroblasts in Eng+/− mice wounds. We demonstrate that endoglin expression regulates Akt phosphorylation and that PI3K inhibition abolishes the differences in proliferation between endoglin haploinsufficient and control cells. Finally, persistent fibroblasts in Eng+/− mice wound co-localize with a greater degree of Akt phosphorylation. Thus, endoglin haploinsufficiency seems to promote fibroblast accumulation during wound healing through the activation of the PI3K/Akt pathway. These studies open new non-Smad signaling pathway for endoglin regulating fibroblast cell function during wound healing, as new therapeutic opportunities for the treatment of fibrotic wounds.
Model-Based Hand Tracking Using an Unscented Kalman Filter

This paper presents a novel method for hand tracking. It uses a 3D model built from quadrics which approximates the anatomy of a human hand. This approach allows for the use of results from projective geometry that yield an elegant technique to generate the projection of the model as a set of conics, as well as providing an efficient ray tracing algorithm to handle self-occlusion. Once the model is projected, an Unscented Kalman Filter is used to update its pose in order to minimise the geometric error between the model projection and a video sequence on the background. Results from experiments with real data show the accuracy of the technique.
Error estimates in the numerical evaluation of some BEM singular integrals

In some applications of Galerkin boundary element methods one has to compute integrals which, after proper normalization, are of the form ∫ b ∫ 2 ∫(x,y) dxdy, ∫ a ∫ -1 x-y y where (a,b) ≡ (-1,1), or (a,b) ≡ (a,-1), or (a,b) ≡ (1,b), and f(x,y) is a smooth function. In this paper we derive error estimates for a numerical approach recently proposed to evaluate the above integral when a p-, or h - p. formulation of a Galerkin method is used. This approach suggests approximating the inner integral by a quadrature formula of interpolatory type that exactly integrates the Cauchy kernel, and the outer integral by a rule which takes into account the log endpoint singularities of its integrand. Some numerical examples are also given.
Dust and Atomic Gas in Dwarf Irregular Galaxies of the M81 Group: The SINGS and THINGS View

We present observations of the dust and atomic gas phase in seven dwarf irregular galaxies of the M81 group from the Spitzer SINGS and VLA THINGS surveys. The Spitzer observations provide a first glimpse of the nature of the nonatomic ISM in these metal-poor (Z ~ 0.1 Z☉), quiescent (SFR ~ 0.001-0.1 M☉ yr-1) dwarf galaxies. Most detected dust emission is restricted to H I column densities >1 × 1021 cm-2, and almost all regions of high H I column density (>2.5 × 1021 cm-2) have associated dust emission. Spitzer spectroscopy of two regions in the brightest galaxies (IC 2574 and Holmberg II) show distinctly different spectral shapes and aromatic features, although the galaxies have comparable gas-phase metallicities. This result emphasizes that the strength of the aromatic features is not a simple linear function of metallicity. We estimate dust masses of ~104-106 M☉ for the M81 dwarf galaxies, resulting in an average dust-to-gas ratio (Mdust/MH I) of ~3 × 10-4 (1.5 × 10-3 if only the H I that is associated with dust emission is considered); this is an order of magnitude lower than the typical value derived for the SINGS spirals. The dwarf galaxies are underluminous per unit star formation rate at 70 μm as compared to the more massive galaxies in SINGS by a factor of ~2. However, the average 70/160 μm ratio in the sample dwarf galaxies is higher than what is found in the other galaxies of the SINGS sample. This can be explained by a combination of a lower dust content in conjunction with a higher dust temperature in the dwarfs.