Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Self-referencing enhances recollection in both young and older adults

Processing information in relation to the self enhances subsequent item recognition in both young and older adults and further enhances recollection at least in the young. Because older adults experience recollection memory deficits, it is unknown whether self-referencing improves recollection in older adults. We examined recollection benefits from self-referential encoding in older and younger adults and further examined the quality and quantity of episodic details facilitated by self-referencing. We further investigated the influence of valence on recollection, given prior findings of age group differences in emotional memory (i.e., “positivity effects”). Across the two experiments, young and older adults processed positive and negative adjectives either for self-relevance or for semantic meaning. We found that self-referencing, relative to semantic encoding, increased recollection memory in both age groups. In Experiment 1, both groups remembered proportionally more negative than positive items when adjectives were processed semantically; however, when adjectives were processed self-referentially, both groups exhibited evidence of better recollection for the positive items, inconsistent with a positivity effect in aging. In Experiment 2, both groups reported more episodic details associated with recollected items, as measured by a memory characteristic questionnaire, for the self-reference relative to the semantic condition. Overall, these data suggest that self-referencing leads to detail-rich memory representations reflected in higher rates of recollection across age.
Chlorophyll a + b Content and Chlorophyll Fluorescence in Avocado

Tonnage (T), Simmonds (S) avocado trees, and TxS crosses were evaluated for differences in chlorophyll content and maximal quantum yield of photosystem II in sun and shade-type leaves. Total chlorophyll content by area (Chl a+bar) ranged from 984 mg m -2 in TxS240 to 4320 mg m -2 in Simmonds. Chlorophyll a/b ratio (Chl a/b) ranged from 9.8 to 5.5 in TxS238 and TxS243, respectively. Tonnage and Simmonds had similar Chl a/b with a wide range in values found among the avocado trees tested. Shade leaves contained more Chl a, Chl b and Chl a+bwt than sun leaves. Differences in Chl a/b were insignificant or greater in shade adapted leaves for all trees except TxS238; this did not follow the expected sun/shade pattern. A low chlorophyll a/b ratio indicates more light harvesting proteins and higher stacking of thylakoids. Chl a+bar indicates Simmonds, Tonnage and to a lesser extent TxS238 had dense packing of chloroplasts in both sun and shade adapted leaves. Shade leaves had more efficient Fv/Fm values than those adapted to sun for all varieties except TxS240. Tonnage had the largest range of total chlorophyll content between shade and sun adapted leaves and likely has the largest genetic variation in its ability to acclimate to changing light intensities. The range in efficiency of photosystem 11 found between the avocado trees tested indicates a potential for improvements through selective breeding. More research is needed to evaluate the entire USDA avocado germplasm collection for traits associated with photosynthetic efficiency and to determine their heritability.
Impact test of a crash-energy management passenger rail car

On December 3, 2003, a single-car impact test was conducted to assess the crashworthiness performance of a modified passenger rail car. A coach car retrofitted with a crash energy management (CEM) end structure impacted a fixed barrier at approximately 35 mph. This speed is just beyond the capabilities of current equipment to protect the occupants. The test vehicle was instrumented with accelerometers, string potentiometers, and strain gages to measure the gross motions of the car body in three dimensions, the deformation of specific structural components, and the force/crush characteristic of the impacted end of the vehicle. The CEM crush zone is characterized by three structural components: a pushback coupler, a sliding sill (triggering the primary energy absorbers), and roof absorbers. These structural mechanisms guide the impact load and consequent crush through the end structure in a prescribed sequence. Pre-test activities included quasi-static and dynamic component testing, development of finite element and collision dynamics models and quasi-static strength tests of the end frame. These tests helped verify the predicted structural deformation of each component, estimate a force-crush curve for the crush zone, predict the gross motions of the car body, and determine instrumentation and test conditions for the impact test. During the test, the passenger car sustained approximately three feet of crush. In contrast to the test of the conventional passenger equipment, the crush imparted on the CEM vehicle did not intrude into the passenger compartment. However, as anticipated the car experienced higher accelerations than the conventional passenger car. Overall, the test results for the gross motions of the car are in close agreement. The measurements made from both tests show that the CEM design has improved crashworthiness performance over the conventional design. A two-car test is performed to study the coupled interaction of CEM vehicles as well as the occupant environment. The train-to-train test results are expected to show that the crush is passed sequentially down the interfaces of the cars, consequently preserving occupant volume.
Enhanced gradient crystal-plasticity study of size effects in B.C.C. metal

Owing to continuous miniaturization, many modern high-technology applications such as medical and optical devices, thermal barrier coatings, electronics, micro- and nano-electro mechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS), gems industry and semiconductors increasingly use components with sizes down to a few micrometers and even smaller. Understanding their deformation mechanisms and assessing their mechanical performance help to achieve new insights or design new material systems with superior properties through controlled microstructure at the appropriate scales. However, a fundamental understanding of mechanical response in surface-dominated structures, different than their bulk behaviours, is still elusive. In this thesis, the size effect in a single-crystal Ti alloy (Ti15V3Cr3Al3Sn) is investigated. To achieve this, nanoindentation and micropillar (with a square cross-section) compression tests were carried out in collaboration with Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (EMPA), Switzerland. Three-dimensional finite element models of compression and indentation with an implicit time-integration scheme incorporating a strain-gradient crystal-plasticity (SGCP) theory were developed to accurately represent deformation of the studied body-centered cubic metallic material. An appropriate hardening model was implemented to account for strain-hardening of the active slip systems, determined experimentally. The optimized set of parameters characterizing the deformation behaviour of Ti alloy was obtained based on a direct comparison of simulations and the experiments. An enhanced model based on the SGCP theory (EMSGCP), accounting for an initial microstructure of samples in terms of different types of dislocations (statistically stored and geometrically necessary dislocations), was suggested and used in the numerical analysis. This meso-scale continuum theory bridges the gap between the discrete-dislocation dynamics theory, where simulations are performed at strain rates several orders of magnitude higher than those in experiments, and the classical continuum-plasticity theory, which cannot explain the dependence of mechanical response on a specimen s size since there is no length scale in its constitutive description. A case study was performed using a cylindrical pillar to examine, on the one hand, accuracy of the proposed EMSGCP theory and, on the other hand, its universality for different pillar geometries. An extensive numerical study of the size effect in micron-size pillars was also implemented. On the other hand, an anisotropic character of surface topographies around indents along different crystallographic orientations of single crystals obtained in numerical simulations was compared to experimental findings. The size effect in nano-indentation was studied numerically. The differences in the observed hardness values for various indenter types were investigated using the developed EMSGCP theory.
Deletion of the Protein Kinase A/Protein Kinase G Target SMTNL1 Promotes an Exercise-adapted Phenotype in Vascular Smooth Muscle*

In vivo protein kinases A and G (PKA and PKG) coordinately phosphorylate a broad range of substrates to mediate their various physiological effects. The functions of many of these substrates have yet to be defined genetically. Herein we show a role for smoothelin-like protein 1 (SMTNL1), a novel in vivo target of PKG/PKA, in mediating vascular adaptations to exercise. Aortas from smtnl1-/- mice exhibited strikingly enhanced vasorelaxation before exercise, similar in extent to that achieved after endurance training of wild-type littermates. Additionally, contractile responses to α-adrenergic agonists were greatly attenuated. Immunological studies showed SMTNL1 is expressed in smooth muscle and type 2a striated muscle fibers. Consistent with a role in adaptations to exercise, smtnl1-/- mice also exhibited increased type 2a fibers before training and better performance after forced endurance training compared smtnl1+/+ mice. Furthermore, exercise was found to reduce expression of SMTNL1, particularly in female mice. In both muscle types, SMTNL1 is phosphorylated at Ser-301 in response to adrenergic signals. In vitro SMTNL1 suppresses myosin phosphatase activity through a substrate-directed effect, which is relieved by Ser-301 phosphorylation. Our findings suggest roles for SMTNL1 in cGMP/cAMP-mediated adaptations to exercise through mechanisms involving direct modulation of contractile activity.
A Nearest Neighbor Data Structure for Graphics Hardware

Nearest neighbor search is a core computational task in database systems and throughout data analysis. It is also a major computational bottleneck, and hence an enormous body of research has been devoted to data structures and algorithms for accelerating the task. Recent advances in graphics hardware provide tantalizing speedups on a variety of tasks and suggest an alternate approach to the problem: simply run brute force search on a massively parallel system. In this paper we marry the approaches with a novel data structure that can effectively make use of parallel systems such as graphics cards. The architectural complexities of graphics hardware—the high degree of parallelism, the small amount of memory relative to instruction throughput, and the single instruction, multiple data design—present significant challenges for data structure design. Furthermore, the brute force approach applies perfectly to graphics hardware, leading one to question whether an intelligent algorithm or data structure can even hope to outperform this basic approach. Despite these challenges and misgivings, we demonstrate that our data structure—termed a Random Ball Cover—provides significant speedups over the GPUbased brute force approach.
Chromogenic factor VIII activity assay

Factor VIII (FVIII) may be measured by three different methodologies in the clinical laboratory: one‐stage clotting assay, two‐stage clotting assay, and chromogenic assay. These assays differ in ease of use, variety of reagents available, sensitivity to mild hemophilia A, and interference from lupus anticoagulants. This review will outline the methodology for each of the FVIII activity assays, with a discussion of assay interferences and variability. In some cases, chromogenic FVIII activity assays may be preferable to clot‐based assays, and these clinical situations will be reviewed as well. Am. J. Hematol. 89:781–784, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Postsynaptic Mechanisms Govern the Differential Excitation of Cortical Neurons by Thalamic Inputs

Thalamocortical (TC) afferents relay sensory input to the cortex by making synapses onto both excitatory regular-spiking principal cells (RS cells) and inhibitory fast-spiking interneurons (FS cells). This divergence plays a crucial role in coordinating excitation with inhibition during the earliest steps of somatosensory processing in the cortex. Although the same TC afferents contact both FS and RS cells, FS cells receive larger and faster excitatory inputs from individual TC afferents. Here, we show that this larger thalamic excitation of FS cells occurs via GluR2-lacking AMPA receptors (AMPARs), and results from a fourfold larger quantal amplitude compared with the thalamic inputs onto RS cells. Thalamic afferents also activate NMDA receptors (NMDARs) at synapses onto both cells types, yet RS cell NMDAR currents are slower and pass more current at physiological membrane potentials. Because of these synaptic specializations, GluR2-lacking AMPARs selectively maintain feedforward inhibition of RS cells, whereas NMDARs contribute to the spiking of RS cells and hence to cortical recurrent excitation. Thus, thalamic afferent activity diverges into two routes that rely on unique complements of postsynaptic AMPARs and NMDARs to orchestrate the dynamic balance of excitation and inhibition as sensory input enters the cortex.
Feature extraction combining spectral noise reduction and cepstral histogram equalization for robust ASR

This work is mainly focused on showing experimental results using a combination of two methods for noise compensation which are shown to be complementary: classical spectral subtraction algorithm and histogram equalization. While spectral subtraction is focused on the reduction of the additive noise in the spectral domain, histogram equalization is applied in the cepstral domain to compensate the remaining non-linear effects associated to channel distortion and additive noise. The estimation of the noise spectrum for the spectral subtraction method relies on a new algorithm for speech / non-speech detection (SND) based on order statistics. This SND classification is also used for dropping long speech pauses. Results on Aurora 2 and Aurora 3 are reported.
The Ins and Outs of B Cells in Multiple Sclerosis

B cells play a central role in multiple sclerosis (MS) pathology. B and plasma cells may contribute to disease activity through multiple mechanisms: antigen presentation, cytokine secretion, or antibody production. Molecular analyses of B cell populations in MS patients have revealed significant overlaps between peripheral lymphoid and clonally expanded central nervous system (CNS) B cell populations, indicating that B cell trafficking may play a critical role in driving MS exacerbations. In this review, we will assess our current knowledge of the mechanisms and pathways governing B cell migration into the CNS and examine evidence for and against a compartmentalized B cell response driving progressive MS pathology.
Expression and splicing of FGF receptor mRNAs during APRE-19 cell differentiation in vitro.

PURPOSE The expression and alternative splicing of the four FGF receptor (FGFR) mRNAs are regulated in a developmental- and tissue-specific fashion. Capability of differentiation in vitro of the retinal pigment epithelial cell line ARPE-19 has been previously demonstrated. In this study, the hypothesis that FGF receptor gene expression and the alternative splicing of the FGFR1 mRNA is regulated as a function of ARPE-19 differentiation in vitro was tested. METHODS ARPE-19 cells were plated at sparse or confluent densities and maintained in culture up to 14 months. The expression of FGF receptors and the ratio of the FGFR1beta to FGFR1alpha splice variants of the FGFR1 transcript were quantified by a published PCR technique. Two in vivo samples of human RPE served as controls. RESULTS Sparse cultures of ARPE-19 cells predominantly express FGFR1. When these cultures are allowed to differentiate, FGFR2 is also expressed. Samples of mRNA from RPE cells in vivo exhibit FGFR1 and FGFR2 expression as well as FGFR3 expression, a form that is minimally apparent in vitro. The ratio of the FGFR1beta to FGFR1alpha splice variant decreases as a function of cell differentiation in vitro and approaches the ratio observed in human RPE cells in vivo. Stimulation of cultures in vitro with FGF2 as a prototypical differentiation agent does not regulate the ratio of the FGFR1beta to FGFR1alpha splice variant. CONCLUSIONS Differentiation of the ARPE-19 cell line in vitro recapitulates many but not all the in vivo patterns of FGFR expression and splicing. This in vitro system may be useful for selected studies on how cellular differentiation regulates FGF receptor gene expression and splicing.
KBSH parvovirus: comparison with porcine parvovirus

We compared the molecular, antigenic, and pathogenic properties of KBSH parvovirus to those of porcine parvovirus (PPV) isolate NADL-8. KBSH, propagated in swine testes cells in culture, possessed two major capsid polypeptides of 83 and 64 kilodaltons that were similar in size to those of PPV. KBSH-infected cells also contained an 86-kilodalton nonstructural polypeptide that was identical in size to the PPV nonstructural polypeptide (NS-1). The KBSH polypeptides were structurally similar but not identical to the corresponding PPV polypeptides, as revealed by partial proteolysis mapping. Viral replicative-form DNA from KBSH-infected cells was similar in size to PPV replicative-form DNA and exhibited similar but not identical restriction endonuclease cleavage patterns to that of PPV replicative-form DNA. Antigenically, the two viruses were also very closely related. By using heterologous and homologous antisera, the two viruses were indistinguishable in hemagglutination inhibition and immunoprecipitation assays. However, pathogenically these viruses were dramatically different. NADL-8 caused fetal death when injected into swine fetuses in utero and viremia and high persisting antibody titers when administered orally to weaning-age swine. KBSH-inoculated fetuses were normal in appearance, and pigs orally exposed to KBSH failed to establish viremia and demonstrated only transient antibody titers. Thus, KBSH appears to be a PPV that is very closely related to a highly pathogenic PPV isolate, yet is itself nonpathogenic in swine. This reduced pathogenic potential of KBSH may be attributable to its poor ability to replicate in swine.
Organizational Structure and Performance Feedback: Centralization, Aspirations and Termination Decisions

This study examines the effects of organizational structure and performance feedback on termination decisions-in particular, product phaseout. Using quarterly product-level data on the major mobile handset manufacturers for the period 2004-2009, we analyze how product-level feedback affects product phaseout and how these decisions are conditioned by organizational structure-the extent to which decision making is centralized. We argue that such structure affects termination in two ways: directly, through coordination, and indirectly, by shaping the interpretation of performance feedback. Our baseline models indicate that as performance increases above aspirations, the rate of phaseout decreases. We find that as performance declines below aspirations, the rate of phaseout decreases, but then increases when the product falls below a certain sales threshold. We also find evidence that centralization amplifies the feedback effect above aspirations but attenuates it below aspirations. This study links two pillars of the Carnegie school, aspiration levels and hierarchy, to explain the complexity of phaseout following perceived success or failure. We thereby augment the growing scholarship on performance feedback by considering some important conditional effects imposed by a centralized structure. Our focus on centralization expands the scope of theory concerning organization design by linking structure and cognition to explain firm behavior, especially termination decisions.
Gaussian Attention Model and Its Application to Knowledge Base Embedding and Question Answering

We propose the Gaussian attention model for content-based neural memory access. With the proposed attention model, a neural network has the additional degree of freedom to control the focus of its attention from a laser sharp attention to a broad attention. It is applicable whenever we can assume that the distance in the latent space reflects some notion of semantics. We use the proposed attention model as a scoring function for the embedding of a knowledge base into a continuous vector space and then train a model that performs question answering about the entities in the knowledge base. The proposed attention model can handle both the propagation of uncertainty when following a series of relations and also the conjunction of conditions in a natural way. On a dataset of soccer players who participated in the FIFA World Cup 2014, we demonstrate that our model can handle both path queries and conjunctive queries well.
The analysis of job related stress and health related quality of life (HRQoL) of lecturers: Using SPSS 16 and Structural Equation Modeling

In Malaysia, academicians have been one of the most important groups in the society that is at a higher risk of suffering from job related stress. A cross sectional study was conducted in the middle of the academic semester of a university from 25th September 2011 to 10th November 2011 to investigate factors that affect job related stress and to find out if job related stress in turn influence the health related quality of life (HRQoL) of lecturers. It was also conducted to find out if HRQoL of lecturers differ between gender and age group. Comparison of HRQoL was also made between the lecturers and the general Malaysian population norm. The target population for this study was lecturers at one of the public universities in Malaysia with a size of 4500 lecturers. Data was obtained via survey using SF36v2 (questions on HRQoL) and the Occupation Stress Indicator (OSI) to measure job related stress and was analyzed using SPSS16 and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) Sample size calculated was 393 using IBM Complex sampling for cluster, stratified and simple random techniques. However, only 277 lecturers responded with a response rate of 57.7%. Nevertheless, analysis using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) could still be conducted since a minimum of 200 respondents is suggested. The results showed that all the mean scores for the eight domains of SF36v2 are lower than that of the general Malaysian population norm. There are also significant differences in the mean scores for HRQoL domains between gender and age group. It is also discovered that there is significant and direct impact of conflict, work burden and time pressure on job stress which in turn influence health related quality of life. In conclusion, the management of this public university should pay attention to the results of this study by looking into ways of reducing job stress to enhance the HRQoL of lecturers. With better quality of life, it is hoped that this will improve their job performance and productivity.
Minimally invasive aortic valve replacement – pros and cons of keyhole aortic surgery

Over the last twenty years, minimally invasive aortic valve replacement (MIAVR) has evolved into a safe, well-tolerated and efficient surgical treatment option for aortic valve disease. It has been shown to reduce postoperative morbidity, providing faster recovery and rehabilitation, shorter hospital stay and better cosmetic results compared with conventional surgery. A variety of minimally invasive accesses have been developed and utilized to date. This concise review demonstrates and discusses surgical techniques used in contemporary approaches to MIAVR and presents the most important results of MIAVR procedures.