Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contribution of delayed rectifier potassium currents to the electrical activity of murine colonic smooth muscle

1 We used intracellular microelectrodes to record the membrane potential (Vm) of intact murine colonic smooth muscle. Electrical activity consisted of spike complexes separated by quiescent periods (Vm≈−60 mV). The spike complexes consisted of about a dozen action potentials of approximately 30 mV amplitude. Tetraethylammonium (TEA, 1–10 mM) had little effect on the quiescent periods but increased the amplitude of the action potential spikes. 4‐Aminopyridine (4‐AP, ? 5 mM) caused continuous spiking. 3 Voltage clamp of isolated myocytes identified delayed rectifier K+ currents that activated rapidly (time to half‐maximum current, 11.5 ms at 0 mV) and inactivated in two phases (τf= 96 ms, τs= 1.5 s at 0 mV). The half‐activation voltage of the permeability was −27 mV, with significant activation at −50 mV. 4 TEA (10 mM) reduced the outward current at potentials positive to 0 mV. 4‐AP (5 mM) reduced the early current but increased outward current at later times (100–500 ms) consistent with block of resting channels relieved by depolarization. 4‐AP inhibited outward current at potentials negative to −20 mV, potentials where TEA had no effect. 6 Qualitative PCR amplification of mRNA identified transcripts encoding delayed rectifier K+ channel subunits Kv1.6, Kv4.1, Kv4.2, Kv4.3 and the Kvβ1. 1 subunit in murine colon myocytes. mRNA encoding Kv 1.4 was not detected. 7 We find that TEA‐sensitive delayed rectifier currents are important determinants of action potential amplitude but not rhythmicity. Delayed rectifier currents sensitive to 4‐AP are important determinants of rhythmicity but not action potential amplitude.
Why Students Choose STEM Majors

This study draws upon social cognitive career theory and higher education literature to test a conceptual framework for understanding the entrance into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors by recent high school graduates attending 4-year institutions. Results suggest that choosing a STEM major is directly influenced by intent to major in STEM, high school math achievement, and initial postsecondary experiences, such as academic interaction and financial aid receipt. Exerting the largest impact on STEM entrance, intent to major in STEM is directly affected by 12th-grade math achievement, exposure to math and science courses, and math self-efficacy beliefs—all three subject to the influence of early achievement in and attitudes toward math. Multiple-group structural equation modeling analyses indicated heterogeneous effects of math achievement and exposure to math and science across racial groups, with their positive impact on STEM intent accruing most to White students and least to underrepresented minority students.
Equivalent circuits for single-sided linear induction motors

Single-sided linear induction motors (SLIMs) have lately been applied in transportation system traction drives, especially in the intermediate speed range. They have merits such as the ability to exert thrust on the secondary without mechanical contact, high acceleration or deceleration, less wheel wear, small turning circle radius and flexible road line. The theory of operation for these machines can be directly derived from rotary induction motors, but several issues involving the transversal edge and the longitudinal end effects, and half-filled slots at the primary ends, need to be investigated. In this paper, a T model equivalent circuit is proposed which is based on one-dimensional magnetic equations of the air-gap, where half-filled slots are considered by an equivalent pole number. Then, it deduces two-axis equivalent circuits to study the SLIM dynamic performance. The theoretical analyses have been validated by experimental results on SLIM prototypes.
Gendered interactions in corporate annual report photographs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the gendered nature of interactions in mixed sex Canadian corporate annual report (CAR) photographs.Design/methodology/approach – Quantitative content analysis of 106 CAR photographs is performed to evaluate, at the level of the photograph, how women and men interact in mixed sex photographs to reveal their relative prominence, power and status.Findings – Women in CAR photographs overall are under‐represented. In mixed sex photographs, however, the relative proportions of women and men approximate those of women in the Canadian workforce, but men are more prominent in most photographs. Mixed sex photographs are relatively similar in composition (depicting largely passive, smiling subjects, few of whom are talking or in positions of authority). Where there are differences in mixed sex photographs, however, women are portrayed as less powerful than the men in the photographs. Supplemental testing suggests that the findings are persisting over time.Originalit.
Differential Biosynthesis of Polysialic or Disialic Acid Structure by ST8Sia II and ST8Sia IV*

ST8Sia II (STX) and ST8Sia IV (PST) are polysialic acid (polySia) synthases that catalyze polySia formation of neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) in vivo and in vitro. It still remains unclear how these structurally similar enzymes act differently in vivo. In the present study, we performed the enzymatic characterization of ST8Sia II and IV; both ST8Sia II and IV have pH optima of 5.8–6.1 and have no requirement of metal ions. Because the pH dependence of ST8Sia II and IV enzyme activities and the pK profile of His residues are similar, we hypothesized that a histidine residue would be involved in their catalytic activity. There is a conserved His residue (cf.His348 in ST8Sia II and His331 in ST8Sia IV, respectively) within the sialyl motif VS in all sialyltransferase genes cloned to date. Mutant ST8Sia II and IV enzymes in which this His residue was changed to Lys showed no detectable enzyme activity, even though they were folded correctly and could bind to CDP-hexanolamine, suggesting the importance of the His residue for their catalytic activity. Next, the degrees of polymerization of polySia in NCAM catalyzed by ST8Sia II and IV were compared. ST8Sia IV catalyzed larger polySia formation of NCAM than ST8Sia II. We also analyzed the (auto)polysialylated enzymes themselves. Interestingly, when ST8Sia II or IV itself was sialylated under conditions for polysialylation, the disialylated compound was the major product, even though polysialylated compounds were also observed. These results suggested that both ST8Sia II and IV catalyze polySia synthesis toward preferred acceptor substrates such as NCAM, whereas they mainly catalyze disialylation, similarly to ST8Sia III, toward unfavorable substrates such as enzyme themselves.
Preterm meconium staining of the amniotic fluid: associated findings and risk of adverse clinical outcome

Background: The incidence of preterm meconium staining of the amniotic fluid (MSAF) is uncertain. It may be an indicator of possible listeriosis. It is unclear how great this risk is or whether preterm MSAF is a risk factor for adverse neonatal outcome. Objective: To investigate the incidence of preterm MSAF, the incidence of associated maternal and neonatal infection, and the outcomes of the infants at discharge. Design: Retrospective case-control study. Methods: Infants < 33 weeks gestation with preterm MSAF born in the Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion, Edinburgh between 1 January 1994 and 2 January 2001 were matched with the next infant of the same sex and gestation with clear liquor. Maternal and infant characteristics, culture results, placental histology, and clinical outcomes were compared. Results: Preterm MSAF was observed in 45/1054 (4.3%) infants below 33 weeks gestation. No maternal or infant listeriosis was identified in cases or controls. There was no significant difference in birth weight, Apgar score, or first pH between cases and controls. Preterm MSAF was associated with prolonged rupture of the membranes (odds ratio (OR) 3.34, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.07 to 10.49), but not maternal hypertension, sepsis, or chorioamnionitis. Severe (grade 3/4) intraventricular haemorrhage was significantly more common in infants with preterm MSAF (OR 2.03, 95% CI 1.62 to 2.53). There was no significant difference in mortality. Early onset sepsis was observed in two cases and three controls. Conclusions: Preterm meconium staining of the amniotic fluid may be associated with increased risk of intraventricular haemorrhage. It does not appear to be a useful indicator of listeriosis.
Weeding Out the Truth: Adolescents and Cannabis

The use of cannabis for both legal (similar to alcohol) and medical purposes is becoming more common. Although cannabis remains an illegal Schedule 1 drug federally, as of November 2015, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized “medical” cannabis, and 4 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of cannabis for adults aged 21 years and older. It is very likely that more and more states will sooner rather than later allow cannabis for both medical and legal purposes. This review article will focus on a variety of issues relevant to the current debate about cannabis, and will address the following:Definitions of cannabis/cannabinoids/related; cannabis delivery methodsHistory of federal legality/illegality of cannabis in the United StatesCurrent status of cannabis in the US states: legal medical, decriminalization, legalUse of cannabis medically by adults and adolescents; medical cannabis legalization and impact on adolescent use of recreational cannabisMajor medical organizations position statements on cannabisEpidemiology of cannabis use among adolescentsEffects and side effects of legal cannabis use; DUICannabis use and the adolescent brainDSM-5 Criteria Cannabis Use Disorder and Withdrawal
Cell Interconnections in Normal Human Cervical Epithelium

Several recent electron microscope investigations have been concerned with the fine structure of various cell interconnections, notably in epidermis (5, 11, 17), heart muscle (intercalated discs (18), corneal epithelium (6), and capillary endothelium (4). These studies established that desmosomes represent specialized zones of attachment between separate cells. Similarly specialized at tachment zones appear in the form of "terminal bars" (3, 21). Recently, Odland described several specialized layers within the nodes of Bizzozero of human epidermis and presented a schematic diagram of these epidermal at tachment zones (9). The same layers have been recognized in oral mucosa by Fasske and Themann (2), and in cervical epithelium by Vogel (19) who also demonstrated the continuity of the plasma membranes with some of the desmosome layers. The present paper describes the fine structure of desmosomes in human cervical epithelium. A report on this subject seems in order because of the interesting relationship of the plasma membranes to different layers within the desmosomes. In addition, another type of a specialized cell interconnection will be described for the first time.
Biclustering gene expression data based on a high dimensional geometric method

In gene expression data, a bicluster is a subset of genes exhibiting a consistent pattern over a subset of the conditions. In this paper, we propose a new method to detect biclusters in gene expression data. Our approach is based on the high dimensional geometric property of biclusters and it avoids dependence on specific patterns, which degrade many available biclustering algorithms. Furthermore, we illustrate that a biclustering algorithm can be decomposed into two independent steps and this not only helps to build up a hierarchical structure but also provides a coarse-to-fine mechanism and overcome the effect of the inherent noise in gene expression data. The simulated experiments demonstrate that our algorithm is very promising.
Cardiac ventricular aneurysm

A case of successful excision of a ventricular aneurysm due to myocardial infarction is presented. The aetiology, incidence, pathogenesis, pathology, clinical features, and diagnosis of the condition are discussed. An account is given of the haemodynamic upset caused by aneurysms of the ventricle. The prognosis of untreated aneurysms is discussed. Although there is difference of opinion, it is concluded that a ventricular aneurysm adversely affects the prognosis after myocardial infarction. The indications for, and the mortality and results of, resection of ventricular aneurysms are discussed. The conclusion is drawn that persistent cardiac failure and angina can be relieved and the risk of systemic embolism reduced by the excision of expansile ventricular aneurysms of a fibrous nature. It is possible that excision may also reduce the incidence of subsequent acute myocardial infarction.
Transformation Model with Constraints for High-Accuracy of 2D-3D Building Registration in Aerial Imagery

This paper proposes a novel rigorous transformation model for 2D-3D registration to address the difficult problem of obtaining a sufficient number of well-distributed ground control points (GCPs) in urban areas with tall buildings. The proposed model applies two types of geometric constraints, co-planarity and perpendicularity, to the conventional photogrammetric collinearity model. Both types of geometric information are directly obtained from geometric building structures, with which the geometric constraints are automatically created and combined into the conventional transformation model. A test field located in downtown Denver, Colorado, is used to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of the proposed method. The comparison analysis of the accuracy achieved by the proposed method and the conventional method is conducted. Experimental results demonstrated that: (1) the theoretical accuracy of the solved registration parameters can reach 0.47 pixels, whereas the other methods reach only 1.23 and 1.09 pixels; (2) the RMS values of 2D-3D registration achieved by the proposed model are only two pixels along the x and y directions, much smaller than the RMS values of the conventional model, which are approximately 10 pixels along the x and y directions. These results demonstrate that the proposed method is able to significantly improve the accuracy of 2D-3D registration with much fewer GCPs in urban areas with tall buildings.
Critical engagement, activist/academic subjectivities and organic agri-food research in Uganda

This paper provides a reflexive account of engagement in activist/academic organic agri-food research in Uganda. I argue that critical engagement across the third space – between and across activist and academic subjectivities – enables a re-thinking of the subjectivities of activist/academics and research participants and the place of research in social change and theory building. I demonstrate some of the multiple ways of enacting activism within the academy by reflecting on my critical engagement with the Katuulo Organic Pineapple Cooperative in Uganda, whose members grow certified organic pineapples for sale on the international market. While there is a growing interest in critical activist research, its agenda is also constrained by the corporatist turn in universities. As such, the subjectivities, methods and theory building of activist/academics in agri-food (and other) research represents part of the resistance to normalised ways of doing and being in contemporary neo-liberal universities.
Openness and Specialisation: Dealing with Patients in a Hospital Emergency Service

The hospital is characterized by a dual orientation : being open to the heterogenous demands for medical care that are spontaneously directed to it, and selecting patients in terms of their match with medical specialties represented in its different services. This tension is at the heart of the functioning of emergency services. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a French teaching hospital, the article examines the consequences of this duality on the concrete organisation of work. It shows the main dimensions that go to make up the patient's mobilizing worth : closeness to the core of real emergencies; social demands; the intellectual interest of the case; questions raised by transfers of responsibility between doctors. For each dimension, it studies staff reactions and gives some indications about their complexity. Finally it suggests some comparisons between these results and the observations made by several studies conducted in American and UK hospitals since the 1970s
Spatially Explicit Parameterization of a Terrestrial Ecosystem Model and Its Application to the Quantification of Carbon Dynamics of Forest Ecosystems in the Conterminous United States

AbstractThe authors use a spatially explicit parameterization method and the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) to quantify the carbon dynamics of forest ecosystems in the conterminous United States. Six key parameters that govern the rates of carbon and nitrogen dynamics in TEM are selected for calibration. Spatially explicit data for carbon and nitrogen pools and fluxes are used to calibrate the six key parameters to more adequately account for the spatial heterogeneity of ecosystems in estimating regional carbon dynamics. The authors find that a spatially explicit parameterization results in vastly different carbon exchange rates relative to a parameterization conducted for representative ecosystem sites. The new parameterization method estimates that the net ecosystem production (NEP), the annual gross primary production (GPP), and the net primary production (NPP) of the regional forest ecosystems are 61% (0.02 Pg C; 1 Pg = 1015 g) higher and 2% (0.11 Pg C) and 19% (0.45 Pg C) lower, respectively, than.
Perception of the Structure of the Physical World Using Unknown Multimodal Sensors and Effectors

Is there a way for an algorithm linked to an unknown body to infer by itself information about this body and the world it is in? Taking the case of space for example, is there a way for this algorithm to realize that its body is in a three dimensional world? Is it possible for this algorithm to discover how to move in a straight line? And more basically: do these questions make any sense at all given that the algorithm only has access to the very high-dimensional data consisting of its sensory inputs and motor outputs? We demonstrate in this article how these questions can be given a positive answer. We show that it is possible to make an algorithm that, by analyzing the law that links its motor outputs to its sensory inputs, discovers information about the structure of the world regardless of the devices constituting the body it is linked to. We present results from simulations demonstrating a way to issue motor orders resulting in "fundamental" movements of the body as regards the structure of the physical world.
Polymorphisms in the Receptor Tyrosine Kinase MERTK Gene Are Associated with Multiple Sclerosis Susceptibility

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating, chronic demyelinating disease of the central nervous system affecting over 2 million people worldwide. The TAM family of receptor tyrosine kinases (TYRO3, AXL and MERTK) have been implicated as important players during demyelination in both animal models of MS and in the human disease. We therefore conducted an association study to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within genes encoding the TAM receptors and their ligands associated with MS. Analysis of genotype data from a genome-wide association study which consisted of 1618 MS cases and 3413 healthy controls conducted by the Australia and New Zealand Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium (ANZgene) revealed several SNPs within the MERTK gene (Chromosome 2q14.1, Accession Number NG_011607.1) that showed suggestive association with MS. We therefore interrogated 28 SNPs in MERTK in an independent replication cohort of 1140 MS cases and 1140 healthy controls. We found 12 SNPs that replicated, with 7 SNPs showing p-values of less than 10−5 when the discovery and replication cohorts were combined. All 12 replicated SNPs were in strong linkage disequilibrium with each other. In combination, these data suggest the MERTK gene is a novel risk gene for MS susceptibility.
REEXAMINING THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE HYPOTHESIS

The fundamental difference hypothesis (FDH), as formulated by Bley-Vroman (1990), claims that SLA tends to be nonconvergent because domain-specific linguistic mechanisms available in early childhood cannot be used for language learning in adulthood: Instead, second language (L2) learners deploy domain-general problem solving skills. I claim that nonconvergence is also true of some cases of unbalanced early bilingualism, when the target language was acquired in childhood, suggesting that nontarget attainment in these cases may have different roots—namely, inefficient learning mechanisms in L2 learners but insufficient input in early bilinguals. The FDH then predicts that early bilinguals should still be more successful at attaining nativelike knowledge than the L2 learners due to their early age of acquisition. This review article examines this prediction in light of recent studies of postpuberty L2 learners and unbalanced early bilinguals with nonconvergent knowledge of their first language. I show that the incidence of nativelike achievement is higher in the early bilingual groups than in the L2 groups and that differential performance by the two populations on different tasks lends some support to the processing claims of the FDH.
Prediction-based geometric monitoring over distributed data streams

Many modern streaming applications, such as online analysis of financial, network, sensor and other forms of data are inherently distributed in nature. An important query type that is the focal point in such application scenarios regards actuation queries, where proper action is dictated based on a trigger condition placed upon the current value that a monitored function receives. Recent work studies the problem of (non-linear) sophisticated function tracking in a distributed manner. The main concept behind the geometric monitoring approach proposed there, is for each distributed site to perform the function monitoring over an appropriate subset of the input domain. In the current work, we examine whether the distributed monitoring mechanism can become more efficient, in terms of the number of communicated messages, by extending the geometric monitoring framework to utilize prediction models. We initially describe a number of local estimators (predictors) that are useful for the applications that we consider and which have already been shown particularly useful in past work. We then demonstrate the feasibility of incorporating predictors in the geometric monitoring framework and show that prediction-based geometric monitoring in fact generalizes the original geometric monitoring framework. We propose a large variety of different prediction-based monitoring models for the distributed threshold monitoring of complex functions. Our extensive experimentation with a variety of real data sets, functions and parameter settings indicates that our approaches can provide significant communication savings ranging between two times and up to three orders of magnitude, compared to the transmission cost of the original monitoring framework.