Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Titanium ions form particles that activate and execute interleukin‐1β release from lipopolysaccharide‐primed macrophages

Background and Objective Peri‐implantitis is a destructive inflammatory process characterized by destruction of the implant‐supporting bone. Inflammasomes are large intracellular multiprotein complexes that play a central role in innate immunity by activating the release of proinflammatory cytokines. Although inflammasome activation has previously been linked to periodontal inflammation, there is still no information on a potential association with peri‐implantitis. The aim of this study was to examine cytotoxic and proinflammatory effects, including inflammasome activation, of metals used in dental implants, in an in vitro model, as well as from clinical tissue samples. Material and methods Human macrophages were exposed to different metals [titanium (Ti), cobalt, chromium and molybdenum] in a cell‐culture assay. Cytotoxicity was determined using the neutral red uptake assay. Cytokine secretion was quantified using an ELISA, and the expression of genes of various inflammasome components was analysed using quantitative PCR. In addition, the concentrations of interleukin‐1β (IL‐1β) and Ti in mucosal tissue samples taken in the vicinity of dental implants were determined using ELISA and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, respectively. Results Ti ions in physiological solutions stimulated inflammasome activation in human macrophages and consequently IL‐1β release. This effect was further enhanced by macrophages that have been exposed to lipopolysaccharides. The proinflammatory activation caused by Ti ions disappeared after filtration (0.22 μm), which indicates an effect of particles. Ti ions alone did not stimulate transcription of the inflammasome components. The Ti levels of tissue samples obtained in the vicinity of Ti implants were sufficiently high (≥ 40 μm) to stimulate secretion of IL‐1β from human macrophages in vitro. Conclusion Ti ions form particles that act as secondary stimuli for a proinflammatory reaction.
REITs, IPO Waves and Long-Run Performance

The real estate investment trust (REIT) industry has undergone three waves of initial public offerings (IPOs) since 1980. In this article we examine these waves within the context of the general IPO wave literature. We note that the unique nature of REITs may render them more transparent than other stocks, and that this may affect their IPO performance. Specifically we document the initial and long-run performance of equity REIT IPOs during and after each wave, and we then examine which of the general IPO clustering and pricing theories best fits that performance data. We find evidence of much smaller initial returns than is typically found for non-REIT IPOs. We also find no evidence of the long-run negative abnormal performance for REITs that is normally found for other stocks. Our findings support the idea that the Capital Demand Hypothesis best describes the REIT IPO market, although we also find some weak evidence in favor of the Information Asymmetry Hypothesis. We find evidence against the Investor Sentiment Hypothesis. Copyright 2005 by the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association
Brief Research Communication Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in Sibling Pairs Concordant for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Priscila Chacon,* Maria Conceicao Rosario-Campos, David L. Pauls, Ana Gabriela Hounie, Mariana Curi, Fernando Akkerman, Fabiana Harumi Shimabokuro, Maria Alice de Mathis, Antonio Carlos Lopes, Gregor Hasler, and Euripedes Constantino Miguel Department of Psychiatry, University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine, Sao Paulo, Brazil Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland
Effects of cocaine in an experimental model of traumatic brain injury.

BACKGROUND Cocaine intoxication is found in a significant subset of emergency department (ED) patients presenting with traumatic brain injury (TBI). OBJECTIVES To investigate the effects of acute cocaine intoxication on physiologic and metabolic parameters in a model of experimental TBI. METHODS Under inhalational anesthesia, swine were instrumented and subjected to fluid percussion TBI of 3 atm. Two groups were studied: TBI and cocaine (n = 7) and TBI only (n = 7). Two sequential doses of cocaine hydrochloride were administered intravenously to the animals receiving cocaine: 4 mg/kg 10 minutes prior to injury and 2 mg/kg 1 minute prior to injury. Control animals received normal saline. Cardiorespiratory and cerebral physiologic data were monitored for 180 minutes following injury. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) was measured using dye-labeled microspheres. Serum cocaine levels were measured by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. RESULTS Mean (+/- SD) cocaine levels at the time of injury were 1,771 (+/- 403) ng/mL. All animals survived the 180-minute observation period. There was a trend toward higher intracranial pressure (ICP) in the control (15.4 +/- 8.2) vs. cocaine-treated (11.1 +/- 5.8) animals, although this did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.18). Cerebral venous lactate (CVL) levels also trended higher in the control (1.14 +/- 0.22) vs. cocaine-treated (0.91 +/- 0.19) groups (p = 0.06). Cerebral perfusion pressures (CPPs), however, did not differ between groups. The CBF values decreased significantly from baseline in both groups but were not different between groups. CONCLUSIONS Cocaine-intoxicated animals subjected to TBI showed no significant difference in primary outcome measures of CPP or CBF, although a nonsignificant trend toward lower ICP was noted. Overall, acute cocaine intoxication did not adversely affect the physiologic parameters examined in this TBI model.
The Effect of Evoked Conflict on Executive Control in a Realistic Task

Existing so-called conflict-based models of executive control aim to explain how an agent, without constantly controlling its own processing (what is both cognitively costly and inefficient), can know when to apply strong control, but when to withdraw it. These models predict that the strength of control is adjusted proportionally to the level of conflict among competing stimuli/response tendencies. However, so far the conflict-based models were verified with the use of relatively simple experimental paradigms, like the Stroop task. In the present study, we extended the effect of evoked conflict on the strength of executive control, exerted by participants, to a more realistic task (the search of information in a portal-like browser). The results indicate that also semantic conflicts (incompatible meaning of subsequent messages) can mobilize executive control, and help people to cope with experienced distraction and difficulty.
Seeking Temporal Predictability in Speech: Comparing Statistical Approaches on 18 World Languages

Temporal regularities in speech, such as interdependencies in the timing of speech events, are thought to scaffold early acquisition of the building blocks in speech. By providing on-line clues to the location and duration of upcoming syllables, temporal structure may aid segmentation and clustering of continuous speech into separable units. This hypothesis tacitly assumes that learners exploit predictability in the temporal structure of speech. Existing measures of speech timing tend to focus on first-order regularities among adjacent units, and are overly sensitive to idiosyncrasies in the data they describe. Here, we compare several statistical methods on a sample of 18 languages, testing whether syllable occurrence is predictable over time. Rather than looking for differences between languages, we aim to find across languages (using clearly defined acoustic, rather than orthographic, measures), temporal predictability in the speech signal which could be exploited by a language learner. First, we analyse distributional regularities using two novel techniques: a Bayesian ideal learner analysis, and a simple distributional measure. Second, we model higher-order temporal structure—regularities arising in an ordered series of syllable timings—testing the hypothesis that non-adjacent temporal structures may explain the gap between subjectively-perceived temporal regularities, and the absence of universally-accepted lower-order objective measures. Together, our analyses provide limited evidence for predictability at different time scales, though higher-order predictability is difficult to reliably infer. We conclude that temporal predictability in speech may well arise from a combination of individually weak perceptual cues at multiple structural levels, but is challenging to pinpoint.
Subsidiary-Task Assessment of Age Differences in Attentional Capacity During Real-World and Simulated Driving Draft Technical Paper

Advances in ITS in-vehicle technologies promise to impose new information-processing demands upon drivers. Potential information “overload” problems may become especially acute among older drivers -the fastest growing segment of the driving population. In this investigation, the efficacy of a subsidiary task technique for detecting and quantifying age-differences in the attentional demands of driving-related tasks was evaluated. Young (mean age = 19.6) and old (mean age = 71.3) licensed drivers participated in a simulated driving task while simultaneously performing a series of simple mental arithmetic computations. Response latencies on the mental arithmetic task slowed significantly for the old – but not young – drivers as the primary task of driving was made more difficult. Identical results were obtained when the study was repeated under real-world – rather than simulated – driving conditions. These findings suggest that subsidiary task techniques are sufficiently sensitive tools for detecting and quantifying age-related “shortfalls” in the attentional resources needed to safely and effectively operate a motor vehicle. These techniques may play an important role in assuring that older drivers are not “designed out” of next-generation transportation systems.
Silencing of Bmi-1 Gene Enhances Chemotherapy Sensitivity in Human Glioblastoma Cells

Background The aim of this study was to determine the influence of the BMI1 gene on chemotherapy sensitivity in human glioma cells. Material/Methods The expression of the BMI1 gene in 41 cases of human brain glioma was determined by quantitative real-time PCR. The silencing effect of RNA interference on the BMI1 gene was detected by Western blot. Methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium assay (MTT) and flow cytometry methods were used to determine the cell viability and apoptosis rate of the U251 cells with BMI1 silencing. After those U251 cells were treated with Cisplatin (DDP), the cell viability and apoptosis rate were further detected. Results The BMI1 mRNA in glioma was remarkably up-regulated, 176.3% as much as that in peri-cancerous tissues (P<0.05). The siRNA-BMI1 significantly and effectually inhibited the expression of BMI1 protein (P<0.05). The cell viability decreased in U251 cells with BMI1 silenced, and the apoptosis rate upgraded significantly (P<0.05 for both). After treating with DDP at various concentrations (1, 3, and 5 μg/ml), the cell viability in the BMI1-slienced U251 cells was much lower than that in corresponding control U251 cells at each DDP concentration (P<0.05 for all), and the apoptosis rate showed the opposite changing trends (P<0.05 for all). Conclusions There is a notable relationship between the over-expression of BMI1 and the carcinogenesis of gliomas. The silence of BMI1 inhibited cell proliferation and enhanced the apoptosis of the U251 cells, and increased the chemotherapy sensitivity of U251 cells to DDP.
An exploration of romantic adult attachment, marital satisfaction and parenting stress in couples participating in the Supporting Father Involvement Program

Over the years attachment theory and research have provided frameworks for understanding infant attachment and adult attachment. More recently, the phenomenon of romantic attachment between couples has been examined. The current mixed-methods study investigates the relationship between romantic adult attachment, marital satisfaction, and parenting stress in partners participating in the Supporting Father Involvement Program. Quantitative and qualitative results indicate that there is an association between adult attachment styles, marital satisfaction, and parenting stress. More specifically, fearful insecurities in mothers are associated with more parenting stress while secure attachments in mothers are connected to more satisfaction in the marital relationship. Fathers with a dismissive attachment have less parenting stress but are happier in their marriages in comparison to secure fathers. Current results shed light on the importance of attachment in reaching a deeper conceptualization of couple relationship dynamics. Future research with a larger and more diverse sample should be conducted in order to extend these initial findings. AN EXPLORATION OF ROMANTIC ADULT ATTACHMENT, MARITAL SATISFACTION AND PARENTING STRESS IN COUPLES PARTICIPATING IN THE SUPPORTING FATHER INVOLVEMENT PROGRAM A project based upon an independent investigation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work.
Mechanisms of Hippocampal Long-Term Depression Are Required for Memory Enhancement by Novelty Exploration

It is well known that novel environments can enhance learning and memory. However, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we report that, in freely moving rats, novelty exploration facilitates the production of hippocampal CA1 long-term depression (LTD), a well characterized form of synaptic plasticity believed to be a cellular substrate of spatial learning, and thereby converts short-term memory (STM) into long-term memory (LTM) in an inhibitory avoidance learning procedure. Blocking the induction or the expression of CA1 LTD with two mechanistically and structurally distinct inhibitors prevents not only novelty acquisition but also the novelty exploration-promoted conversion of STM into LTM. Moreover, production of LTD with a strong electrical stimulation induction protocol or facilitation of hippocampal LTD by pharmacological inhibition of glutamate transporter activity mimics the behavioral effects of novelty exploration, sufficiently promoting the conversion of STM into LTM. Together, our findings suggest that induction of LTD may play an essential role not only in novelty acquisition but also in novelty-mediated memory enhancement.
Bayesian Nonparametric Poisson Factorization for Recommendation Systems

We develop a Bayesian nonparametric Poisson factorization model for recommendation systems. Poisson factorization implicitly models each user’s limited budget of attention (or money) that allows consumption of only a small subset of the available items. In our Bayesian nonparametric variant, the number of latent components is theoretically unbounded and eectively estimated when computing a posterior with observed user behavior data. To approximate the posterior, we develop an ecient variational inference algorithm. It adapts the dimensionality of the latent components to the data, only requires iteration over the user/item pairs that have been rated, and has computational complexity on the same order as for a parametric model with xed dimensionality. We studied our model and algorithm with large realworld data sets of user-movie preferences. Our model eases the computational burden of searching for the number of latent components and gives better predictive performance than its parametric counterpart.
Boundary conditions for LES away from the wall

Artificial boundary conditions for LES away from the wall have been developed with the hope of avoiding the problem of grid refinement in the wall region of the LES. In the particular example of channel flow, the main idea is to replace the natural no-slip boundary conditions (at y = 0) by artificial boundary conditions at y = y1 > 0. The one-point statistics (mean velocity and turbulence intensities) of the flow at y1 are supposed to be provided externally. In practice, this information could be obtained from a RANS for the same flow. However, it is known that supplying only the one-point statistics of the velocity field is not sufficient for obtaining a reasonable core flow. The method developed here consists of building two-point statistics at the artificial boundary by using information from the core flow at y = y2 > y1. In particular, the time evolution of the velocity fields at y = y1 and y = y2 are assumed to be self-similar with a time scale ratio determined dynamically during the simulation. Encouraging results for the channel flow at Reτ = 1000 have been obtained when the domain removed from the simulation (0 < y < y1) contains half of the grid points used in “full domain” LES of the channel flow.
ATTITUDE AND PURCHASE INTENTION TOWARDS TEMPE PRODUCERS JOINING THE PROTESTS A Study in Central Java

The theory of attribution has been widely used in marketing studies. However, this theory contains some limitations as well. Using the context of protests of tempe producers, this study aims at minimizing the limitations by integrating the attribution theory with collective action theories, prosocial theories, and expectancy-value theories in explaining and predicting the behavior of product consumers and individuals/groups that joined the protests. To answer the research objectives, this study proposed a model integrating the attribution of perceived motives of tempe producers joining the, empathy towards tempe producers, attitude towards tempe producers, and subsequent purchasing intention. The results indicate that the proposed model is supported by the data. This implies that the integration of the attribution theory with collective action theories, prosocial theories, and expectancy-value theories can minimize the limitations with regard to the criticism in neglecting motivation in attribution processes and confounding between attribution processes and attributional processes.
Assistive listening devices drive neuroplasticity in children with dyslexia

Children with dyslexia often exhibit increased variability in sensory and cognitive aspects of hearing relative to typically developing peers. Assistive listening devices (classroom FM systems) may reduce auditory processing variability by enhancing acoustic clarity and attention. We assessed the impact of classroom FM system use for 1 year on auditory neurophysiology and reading skills in children with dyslexia. FM system use reduced the variability of subcortical responses to sound, and this improvement was linked to concomitant increases in reading and phonological awareness. Moreover, response consistency before FM system use predicted gains in phonological awareness. A matched control group of children with dyslexia attending the same schools who did not use the FM system did not show these effects. Assistive listening devices can improve the neural representation of speech and impact reading-related skills by enhancing acoustic clarity and attention, reducing variability in auditory processing.
Life Skill Development of Youth Participants of the Tennessee 4-H Beef Skillathon

The purpose of this study was to examine youth leadership life skill development among Tennessee beef skillathon participants and determine factors influencing their motivation to participate. Youth perceived the skillathon to have a moderate impact on their leadership life skill development. As a result, we recommend the skillathon continue to be an integral part of the overall livestock program in Tennessee. The reasons for participating in the skillathon mainly focused on testing knowledge, future careers, winning an award, fun, friends, 4-H agent or school-based agricultural education teacher, and personal development. Thus, utilizing both short-term and long-term influences during recruitment may increase skillathon participation. Future research should be conducted on a national level to determine youth leadership life skill development and reasons for participating in the skillathon competition.
The Effects of Teacher Commitment on Student Achievement

Teacher commitment is an internal force that derives teachers to invest more time and energy in keeping up involvement in the school. This willingness of promoting the school creates emotional link between teachers and the school which ultimately inspires teachers to seek ways to enhance teaching profession and establish an effective learning environment to allow students to reach their targets. Commitment to teaching is a crucial factor to contribute to the achievement of students. This study explores the role of teacher commitment in student achievement.
Who Matters More for Technology Diffusion?

The increased adoption of fertiliser and improved seeds are key to raising land productivity in Ethiopian agriculture. However, as in much of sub-Saharan Africa, the adoption and diffusion of such technologies has been slow. We use data from Ethiopia between 1999-2009 to examine the role of learning from extension agents versus neighbours for both improved seeds and fertiliser. We use the structure of spatial networks of farmers and panel data to identify these influences and find that while the initial impact of extension agents was high, the effect wore off , in contrast to learning from neighbours.
Market orientation: a promising metaphor for culture and collaboration in industrial networks

Recent research on market orientation and close customer relationships addresses how firms create market intelligence and adapt to their environments. However, our understanding of market-oriented firms is incomplete because it does not fully incorporate with cultural linkages and collaboration in buyer-seller relationships. Actually, it has been neither investigated nor understood well the interplay between market orientation and close customer relationships, and, further, whether the interplay is affected by a firm’s internal cultural postures. The authors present a conceptual framework for examining the interplay between the key constructs in industrial context. Our results indicate a strong positive association between market orientation and customer intimacy, and, further, this interplay is influenced by our cultural factors market focus and industry recipe adopted.
Occupational and Skill Forecasting: A Survey of Overseas Approaches with Applications for New Zealand

Economists of various schools of thought have long differed over both the need for forecasts of employment by occupation and skill group and the ability of governments and other organisations to accurately carry this out. In addition to an overview of these conflicting views, this occasional paper provides a brief description of labour market projections that are regularly produced for the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada. The experiences of other countries indicate that the use of a macroeconomic model is essential for the preparation of employment forecasts in New Zealand. However, the cost involved in such projections implies that a sensible approach may be for the Department of Labour to commission them only every three or four years and draw on forecasts from other countries to provide an indication of trends for New Zealand in the intervening years. * This paper has benefited from useful comments provided by Paul Callister, Simon Chapple, David Grimmond, Tony Meagher, Adolf Stroombergen and Rob Wilson. The analysis and opinions presented in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Labour.