Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antimicrobial Effect of Lippia sidoides and Thymol on Enterococcus faecalis Biofilm of the Bacterium Isolated from Root Canals

The species Lippia sidoides Cham. (Verbenaceae) is utilized in popular medicine as a local antiseptic on the skin and mucosal tissues. Enterococcus faecalis is the bacterium isolated from root canals of teeth with persistent periapical lesions and has the ability to form biofilm, where it is responsible for the failure of endodontic treatments. Essential oil of L. sidoides (EOLS) and its major component, thymol, were evaluated for reducing the CFU in biofilms of E. faecalis in vitro. The essential oil was obtained by hydrodistillation and examined with respect to the chemical composition, by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The GC-MS analysis has led to the identification of thymol (84.9%) and p-cymene (5.33%). EOLS and thymol reduced CFU in biofilms of E. faecalis in vitro (time of maturation, 72 h), with an exposure time of 30 and 60 min at concentrations of 2.5 and 10%. There was no statistical difference in effect between EOLS and thymol, demonstrating that this phenolic monoterpene was the possible compound responsible for the antimicrobial activity of EOLS. This study provides a basis for the possible utilization of EOLS as an adjuvant in the treatment of root canals that show colonization by E. faecalis.
Genetic Structure and Gene Flows within Horses: A Genealogical Study at the French Population Scale

Since horse breeds constitute populations submitted to variable and multiple outcrossing events, we analyzed the genetic structure and gene flows considering horses raised in France. We used genealogical data, with a reference population of 547,620 horses born in France between 2002 and 2011, grouped according to 55 breed origins. On average, individuals had 6.3 equivalent generations known. Considering different population levels, fixation index decreased from an overall species FIT of 1.37%, to an average of −0.07% when considering the 55 origins, showing that most horse breeds constitute populations without genetic structure. We illustrate the complexity of gene flows existing among horse breeds, a few populations being closed to foreign influence, most, however, being submitted to various levels of introgression. In particular, Thoroughbred and Arab breeds are largely used as introgression sources, since those two populations explain together 26% of founder origins within the overall horse population. When compared with molecular data, breeds with a small level of coancestry also showed low genetic distance; the gene pool of the breeds was probably impacted by their reproducer exchanges.
A Link between Visual Disambiguation and Visual Memory

Sensory information in the retinal image is typically too ambiguous to support visual object recognition by itself. Theories of visual disambiguation posit that to disambiguate, and thus interpret, the incoming images, the visual system must integrate the sensory information with previous knowledge of the visual world. However, the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of human subjects, we have found evidence for functional specialization for storing disambiguating information in memory versus interpreting incoming ambiguous images. Subjects viewed two-tone, “Mooney” images, which are typically ambiguous when seen for the first time but are quickly disambiguated after viewing the corresponding unambiguous color images. Activity in one set of regions, including a region in the medial parietal cortex previously reported to play a key role in Mooney image disambiguation, closely reflected memory for previously seen color images but not the subsequent disambiguation of Mooney images. A second set of regions, including the superior temporal sulcus, showed the opposite pattern, in that their responses closely reflected the subjects' percepts of the disambiguated Mooney images on a stimulus-to-stimulus basis but not the memory of the corresponding color images. Functional connectivity between the two sets of regions was stronger during those trials in which the disambiguated percept was stronger. This functional interaction between brain regions that specialize in storing disambiguating information in memory versus interpreting incoming ambiguous images may represent a general mechanism by which previous knowledge disambiguates visual sensory information.
Applying the Technology Acceptance Model to Evaluation of Recommender Systems

In general, the study of recommender systems emphasizes the efficiency of techniques to provide accurate recommendations rather than factors influencing users' acceptance of the system; however, accuracy alone cannot account for users' satisfying experience. Bearing in mind this gap in the research, we apply the technology acceptance model (TAM) to evaluate user acceptance of a recommender system in the movies domain. Within the basic TAM model, we incorporate a new latent variable representing self-assessed user skills to use a recommender system. The experiment included 116 users who answered a satisfaction survey after using a movie recommender system. The results evince that perceived usefulness of the system has more impact than perceived ease of use to motivate acceptance of recommendations. Additionally, users' previous skills strongly influence perceived ease of use, which directly impacts on perceived usefulness of the system. These findings can assist developers of recommender systems in their attempt to maximize users' experience. that go beyond the quality of the prediction algorithm. Several models attempted to address this problem, explaining and predicting the use of a system; nonetheless the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been the one that has met with approval within the Information Systems community (3). This paper aims at exploring potential user acceptance issues on a traditional recommender system, using the TAM. Within the basic TAM model, we incorporate a new latent variable representing self-assessed user skills to use a recommender system. We conducted an empirical user study using a movie recommender system as a testbed, as well as a questionnaire applicable to any recommender system in the entertainment domain (books, music, movies, etc.). The results evidence that the two main factors impacting on user acceptance are perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, which is also affected by supposed skills in the use of recommender systems. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the Technology Acceptance Model used in our study. Section 3 presents some related work regarding the application of TAM to recommender systems. Section 4 describes the methodology used in our study and Section 5 presents the results obtained. Finally, Section 6 presents our conclusions.
Pseudo-optimal solutions of FLP problems by using the Cumulative Membership Function.

This paper shows an alternative method to find optimal solutions of a Fuzzy Linear Programming (FLP) problems. The classical FLP problem is treated by using fuzzy restrictions in the form Ax ⩽ b̆ where˘indicates a Type-1 Fuzzy Set (T1 FS). The proposed approach uses joint Ӑ and b̆ fuzzy parameters to solve a FLP model. Nonlinear membership functions are used to represent imprecisions in their parameters and the Cumulative Membership Function (CMF) is used to solve the problem by means of an α-cut approach.
Collisionless magnetic reconnection in the presence of a guide field

The results of kinetic simulations of magnetic reconnection in Harris current sheets are analyzed. A range of guide fields is considered to study reconnection in plasmas characterized by different β values, β>me/mi. Both an implicit particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation method and a parallel explicit PIC code are used. Simulations with mass ratios up to the physical value are performed. The simulations show that the reconnection rate decreases with the guide field and depends weakly on the mass ratio. The off-diagonal components of the electron pressure tensor break the frozen-in condition, even in low β plasmas. In high β plasmas, evidence is presented that whistler waves play a key role in the fast reconnection physics, while in low β plasmas the kinetic Alfven waves are important. The in-plane and the out-of-plane ion and electron motion are also considered, showing that they are influenced by the mass ratio and the plasma β.
THE STORAGE AND PROCESSING OF MORPHOLOGICALLY COMPLEX WORDS IN L2 SPANISH

Research with native speakers indicates that, during word recognition, regularly inflected words undergo parsing that segments them into stems and affixes. In contrast, studies with learners suggest that this parsing may not take place in L2. This study’s research questions are: Do L2 Spanish learners store and process regularly inflected, morphologically complex words like native speakers? Does this depend on proficiency? Does type of inflection (verbal or adjectival) play a role? Native speakers, advanced learners, and intermediate learners of Spanish completed two lexical-decision tasks. Response times were measured to target words (verbs or adjectives) preceded by masked primes that were either identical to the targets, morphologically, orthographically, or semantically related, or unrelated. All groups responded more quickly to targets when they were preceded by identical and morphologically related primes than when they were preceded by unrelated primes, with no differences due to either proficiency or inflection type.
Changing homophobia : a global perspective

The present thesis aims to understand the global decrease of homophobia over the last few decades. In Chapter 1, I summarise previous research on homophobia, especially in the context of Romania and the UK. The next two chapters focus on psychological interventions to reduce homophobia. A systematic review and set of meta-analyses in Chapter 2 found that education and contact with LGB people were effective interventions. The same review found that most research was conducted with American college students, and that some high-quality research performed by postgraduates was left unpublished. In Chapter 3, a systematic qualitative review found that these interventions were often described by participants as ‘eye-opening’, but were sometimes criticised as ‘out of context’. In the following chapter (Chapter 4), I looked at the change in homophobia on a societal level. Reanalysing data from a large scale international survey, I found that the same model could explain homophobia in the US, the UK and Romania, but the decrease of homophobia over a 20-year period remained unexplained. In the next two chapters, I turned from the causes to the consequences of the decrease in homophobia, asking whether the acceptance of LGB people may have negative implications for ethnic prejudice. In Chapter 5, I performed discourse analysis on media reports of a gay pride parade in Romania, finding that LGB people were excluded from constructions of Romanian national identity. In Chapter 6, I proposed a questionnaire and an experimental task to study sexualised nationalism, a set of ideologies that either include or exclude LGB people from national identities. I found that more acceptance of LGB people in Romania and the UK was not linked to exclusion of ethnic minorities. In the conclusion (Chapter 7), I propose that reducing homophobia can be achieved within a plurality of theoretical and practical frameworks.
Trichostatin A Modulates Angiotensin II-induced Vasoconstriction and Blood Pressure Via Inhibition of p66shc Activation

Histone deacetylase (HDAC) has been recognized as a potentially useful therapeutic target for cardiovascular disorders. However, the effect of the HDAC inhibitor, trichostatin A (TSA), on vasoreactivity and hypertension remains unknown. We performed aortic coarctation at the inter-renal level in rats in order to create a hypertensive rat model. Hypertension induced by abdominal aortic coarctation was significantly suppressed by chronic treatment with TSA (0.5 mg/kg/day for 7 days). Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate-driven reactive oxygen species production was also reduced in the aortas of TSA-treated aortic coarctation rats. The vasoconstriction induced by angiotensin II (Ang II, 100 nM) was inhibited by TSA in both endothelium-intact and endothelium-denuded rat aortas, suggesting that TSA has mainly acted in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). In cultured rat aortic VSMCs, Ang II increased p66shc phosphorylation, which was inhibited by the Ang II receptor type I (AT1R) inhibitor, valsartan (10 µM), but not by the AT2R inhibitor, PD123319. TSA (1~10 µM) inhibited Ang II-induced p66shc phosphorylation in VSMCs and in HEK293T cells expressing AT1R. Taken together, these results suggest that TSA treatment inhibited vasoconstriction and hypertension via inhibition of Ang II-induced phosphorylation of p66shc through AT1R.
Collective Entity Resolution with Multi-Focal Attention

Entity resolution is the task of linking each mention of an entity in text to the corresponding record in a knowledge base (KB). Coherence models for entity resolution encourage all referring expressions in a document to resolve to entities that are related in the KB. We explore attention-like mechanisms for coherence, where the evidence for each candidate is based on a small set of strong relations, rather than relations to all other entities in the document. The rationale is that document-wide support may simply not exist for non-salient entities, or entities not densely connected in the KB. Our proposed sys-tem outperforms state-of-the-art systems on the CoNLL 2003, TAC KBP 2010, 2011 and 2012 tasks.
Emotion instruction in journalism courses: an analysis of introductory news writing textbooks

ABSTRACT This study explores how introductory news writing textbooks address issues surrounding emotional labor and its consequences, both for journalists and for those they interview. Eighteen of the highest-selling introductory news-writing textbooks were selected for qualitative analysis. Results showed the term and concept of emotional labor—the requirement to suppress, fake, or enhance emotions during professional interaction with others—is addressed neither explicitly nor substantively in these texts. While there are directives for journalists to manipulate their own emotions in order to be successful in their trade, there is little if any clear instruction on how this may be done. There is little acknowledgement of the emotional toll that engaging in the journalism profession can have, or discussion of the resources available to journalists to help manage emotional trauma. Results of this analysis suggest that textbooks need to enhance content in this important area.
“El pasado refleja el futuro”: Pre-service teachers’ memories of growing up bilingual

ABSTRACT This study examined the school memories of a cohort of bilingual pre-service teachers who experienced school as English Learners. As part of a course assignment, participants described a memory from elementary school and later used that memory to reflect on its future impact on their teaching. Data were inductively analyzed, and themes were identified that captured the struggles and promise of growing up as English Learners. The most robust themes were: (a) the vulnerability associated with school transitions, (b) embarrassing moments in the classroom, (c) English language acquisition, (d) turning points in students’ education, and (e) pre-service teachers’ call to teaching. Each memory-related theme was linked to anticipated dispositions and actions as bilingual teachers, as well as contrasted against the memories of pre-service teachers who experienced school as monolingual English speakers. Implications are offered for schools and practitioners.
Smooth Muscle Cell Genome Browser: Enabling the Identification of Novel Serum Response Factor Target Genes

Genome-scale expression data on the absolute numbers of gene isoforms offers essential clues in cellular functions and biological processes. Smooth muscle cells (SMCs) perform a unique contractile function through expression of specific genes controlled by serum response factor (SRF), a transcription factor that binds to DNA sites known as the CArG boxes. To identify SRF-regulated genes specifically expressed in SMCs, we isolated SMC populations from mouse small intestine and colon, obtained their transcriptomes, and constructed an interactive SMC genome and CArGome browser. To our knowledge, this is the first online resource that provides a comprehensive library of all genetic transcripts expressed in primary SMCs. The browser also serves as the first genome-wide map of SRF binding sites. The browser analysis revealed novel SMC-specific transcriptional variants and SRF target genes, which provided new and unique insights into the cellular and biological functions of the cells in gastrointestinal (GI) physiology. The SRF target genes in SMCs, which were discovered in silico, were confirmed by proteomic analysis of SMC-specific Srf knockout mice. Our genome browser offers a new perspective into the alternative expression of genes in the context of SRF binding sites in SMCs and provides a valuable reference for future functional studies.
Comparison of the Time Course of Morphine's Analgesic and Immunologic Effects

Morphine, an opioid analgesic commonly prescribed and abused, produces immune-altering effects. Whether morphine's antinociceptive and immunologic effects occur concurrently is unknown. Therefore, we investigated the time course of morphine's immunologic and antinociceptive effects. Rats were given a 15-mg/kg morphine injection (subcutaneously), and experimental assessments were taken at 30 min, 1 h, 2 h, 6 h, 12 h, and 24 h after treatment. Immune measures included natural killer (NK) cell activity, proliferation of splenic T and B lymphocytes, and cytokine production. Antinociception was assessed by using the tail withdrawal assay. Results show that morphine's immunomodulatory effects on NK cell activity begin within 30 min, continue for at least 12 h, and return to control values by 24 h. In contrast, proliferation of splenic T and B cells and interferon-gamma production are not altered within 30 min; maximal suppression occurs at 1 h, and recovery begins within 2 h. In all immune measures, therefore, maximal suppression is present at the 1-h time point, and recovery is complete within 24 h. Morphine induces antinociception 30 min to 2 h after drug administration; recovery is complete within 6 h. These results suggest the possibility that different mechanisms modulate morphine's immunologic and analgesic effects. Implications: Acute morphine treatment in rats produces immune alterations and antinociception. Although there are slight differences in morphine's maximal immunological and antinociceptive effects, morphine suppresses immune status at time points concordant with its antinociceptive effects. These effects should be considered when administering morphine to patients whose systems are immunocompromised. (Anesth Analg 1997;85:620-6)
Effects of correct answer position on multiple-choice item difficulty in educational settings

Sequence of presentation matters. This has been shown in various decision contexts ranging from effects related to the presentation sequence of political candidates on ballots to the position of food options on menus (e.g. Koppell & Steen, 2014). Usually, extreme positions were found to be more attractive and thus more likely to be chosen. Consequently, such effects can also be expected in multiple-choice (MC) items, especially when the test taker is not entirely sure about the correct answer to the question or engagement is low due to a lack of result-related consequences (e.g. in low-stakes assessment contexts). Previous research on this topic has been inconclusive whether there is an effect of the correct answer position and mostly focused on adult students. Studies showing an effect, were inconclusive whether extreme or middle positions of the correct answer were easier (e.g. Tellinghuisen & Sulikowski, 2008). The aim of the present paper is to provide the most comprehensive analysis of this question till date and to draw on data of the educational large-scale assessment context that due to economic reasons mostly relies on MC. We analyzed the effect of correct answer position in four different data sets (N > 13000) from Austria, Germany, and Luxembourg that varied concerning students’ age (between 10 and 19 year-olds) and tested subjects (reading comprehension, mathematics, vocabulary, and science). To overcome methodological limitations of previous studies, we used Fischer’s LLTM (1973) that is based within the IRT framework. Results suggest that effects of correct answer position can be neglected, especially when students are older than 10 years and if stakes are high. However, in younger students such effects are present but not consistent. Given an increase of large scale assessments also in younger cohorts, it is discussed what actions could be taken to tackle this position effect.
Exploration of the Canyon-Incised Continental Margin of the Northeastern United States Reveals Dynamic Habitats and Diverse Communities

The continental margin off the northeastern United States (NEUS) contains numerous, topographically complex features that increase habitat heterogeneity across the region. However, the majority of these rugged features have never been surveyed, particularly using direct observations. During summer 2013, 31 Remotely-Operated Vehicle (ROV) dives were conducted from 494 to 3271 m depth across a variety of seafloor features to document communities and to infer geological processes that produced such features. The ROV surveyed six broad-scale habitat features, consisting of shelf-breaching canyons, slope-sourced canyons, inter-canyon areas, open-slope/landslide-scar areas, hydrocarbon seeps, and Mytilus Seamount. Four previously unknown chemosynthetic communities dominated by Bathymodiolus mussels were documented. Seafloor methane hydrate was observed at two seep sites. Multivariate analyses indicated that depth and broad-scale habitat significantly influenced megafaunal coral (58 taxa), demersal fish (69 taxa), and decapod crustacean (34 taxa) assemblages. Species richness of fishes and crustaceans significantly declined with depth, while there was no relationship between coral richness and depth. Turnover in assemblage structure occurred on the middle to lower slope at the approximate boundaries of water masses found previously in the region. Coral species richness was also an important variable explaining variation in fish and crustacean assemblages. Coral diversity may serve as an indicator of habitat suitability and variation in available niche diversity for these taxonomic groups. Our surveys added 24 putative coral species and three fishes to the known regional fauna, including the black coral Telopathes magna, the octocoral Metallogorgia melanotrichos and the fishes Gaidropsarus argentatus, Guttigadus latifrons, and Lepidion guentheri. Marine litter was observed on 81% of the dives, with at least 12 coral colonies entangled in debris. While initial exploration revealed the NEUS region to be both geologically dynamic and biologically diverse, further research into the abiotic conditions and the biotic interactions that influence species abundance and distribution is needed.