Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Osteoblast differentiation inﬂuences androgen and estrogen receptor- (cid:1) and - (cid:2) expression

Signiﬁcant levels of estrogen and androgens circulate in men and women, and both play an important role in bone metabolism. While it is well established that either estrogen or androgen replacement therapy is e ﬀ ective at ameliorating bone loss associated with hypogonadism, recent evidence nevertheless suggests that estrogen and androgens have distinct molecular actions on the skeleton. In this study, we have employed normal rat calvarial osteoblast cultures to characterize relative expression proﬁles of estrogen (ER (cid:1) and ER (cid:2) ) and androgen receptors (AR) during osteoblast di ﬀ erentiation. Normal osteoblast cultures can proceed through in vitro di ﬀ erentiation with distinct stages of proliferation, matrix maturation and mineralization in the appropriate di ﬀ erentiation medium containing ascorbic acid. Expression proﬁles of AR, ER (cid:1) and ER (cid:2) in primary cultures during osteoblast di ﬀ erentiation were characterized both by semi-quantitative relative RT-PCR and by Western analysis. In cultures induced to di ﬀ erentiate by growth in the presence of ascorbic acid, the expression proﬁle for each receptor was unique during the course of di ﬀ erentiation. ER (cid:1) levels were elevated during matrix maturation and then declined during mineralization. ER (cid:2) expression was relatively constant throughout di ﬀ erentiation, exhibiting more constitutive expression. In contrast, AR levels were lowest during proliferation, and then increased throughout di ﬀ erentiation with highest levels in the most mature mineralizing cultures. Since steroid hormone action is generally mediated by speciﬁc cognate receptors, these results suggest that androgen actions may target cells during the mineralization stage of osteoblast di ﬀ erentiation, while estrogen action through either receptor isoform is more likely to a ﬀ ect osteoblasts earlier during matrix maturation. Interestingly, sex steroid receptor expression proﬁles did not exhibit the same patterns of regulation if osteoblast cultures were grown without ascorbic acid in medium that did not support extracellular matrix deposition. Thus, sex steroids may distinctly inﬂuence skeletal health by di ﬀ erential modulation of function during osteoblast di ﬀ erentiation.
ROLE OF WORK VALUES IN PREDICTING CAREER ADAPTABILITY: A STUDY OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS OF THE STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH

The present study aims to examine the relationship between work values and career adaptability of university students. The data was collected from students of private universities located in Shimla and Solan districts of Himachal Pradesh. Questionnaires were distributed among 225 students out of which 129 questionnaires were returned by the respondents yielding a response rate of 57%. The participants consisted of graduate and post graduate students. Data thus collected have been analyzed with the help of SPSS 17. The various statistical tools viz. principal components analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis were used to examine the data. Exploratory factor analysis using PCA with varimax rotation was used to analyze the dimensional structure of participants work values. The results of the study showed a positive relationship between the work values of students and their career adaptability. Further, the results of the study indicated the intrinsic values as more influential factors in predicting the career adaptability of the university students as compared to extrinsic values
Fostering environmental citizenship: the motivations and outcomes of civic recreation

What is the role of civic recreation – recreation-based volunteering – in the human–nature relationship? Through a mixed-method research design, this article investigates what motivates outdoor recreationists, what predicts higher levels of volunteer engagement, and the outcomes volunteers report. Importantly, civic recreation volunteers are motivated by similar reasons to other volunteers. Findings reveal six dimensions of volunteer motivation: civic engagement, environmental values, identity/enduring involvement, social/career networking, personal learning, and obligation. Individuals were most motivated by civic engagement and environmental values. Results from a multiple regression analysis indicated individuals who were motivated by identity/enduring involvement were more likely to have a higher level of volunteer engagement, whereas individuals motivated out of obligation had the lowest volunteer engagement. Finally, individuals report developing a stronger connection to nature, enhanced self-efficacy, self-enhancement, social connections, improved management, and increased civic engagement. These results suggest civic recreation has the potential to create advocates for the environment.
Excavations at a hunter-gatherer site known as 'Grootrif G' shell midden, Lamberts Bay, Western Cape Province

INTRODUCTION Since excavations at Elands Bay Cave thirty years ago, a small number of nearby sites were excavated in the late 1970s and early 1980s in order to provide complementary observations to those made from this large shelter (Horwitz 1979; Klein & Cruz-Uribe 1987; Manhire 1987; Noli 1988; Parkington & Poggenpoel 1987; Robey 1987). In the midst of these studies, Parkington et al. (1986) explored the nature of the impact of pastoralism on local hunter-gatherer populations by attempting to integrate various lines of evidence, a topic revived later with a rock art perspective and additional quantified data by Yates et al. (1994). A synthesis of the local cultural sequence was proposed by Parkington et al. (1988), in which various issues requiring further research were also highlighted. Some of these issues were taken up by further studies focusing on sites located to the north (Lamberts Bay) and south of Elands Bay and by refining the chronology of already excavated sites (Wahl 1994; Jerardino 1995a, 1996, 1998; Jerardino & Yates 1996, 1997; Jerardino et al., in press). While much of the published observations of this latter research have helped to reconstruct and re-model the local cultural sequence between 8000 and 2000 BP, the same measure of understanding is not yet available for the pottery period (last 2000 years). Instead, separate and sitespecific observations remain either unpublished or not fully integrated into one cultural sequence (Horwitz 1979; Klein & Cruz-Uribe 1987; Robey 1987; Noli 1988; Wahl 1994; Jerardino 1998). Moreover, emphasis on the analysis of spatial patterns and ceramic stylistic changes at Dunefield Midden has, unwittingly, channelled research efforts away from establishing a cultural sequence for the pottery period (Parkington et al. 1992; Kent 1998; Orton 2002; Stewart 2006). Clearly, quantified data pertaining to the last two millennia in the study area are in need of being updated and synthesized. Although this is a task beyond the purpose of this paper, a productive approach for now is to build a good empirical basis for the pottery period. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to report on the findings at ‘Grootrif G’ (GFG), a site with late-pottery period occupation in the Lamberts Bay area, and to discuss these in the light of available contemporary observations. Excavations were initially undertaken at GFG with the aim of rescuing material eroding from exposed sections. In later years it also became evident that excavations at GFG could also increase the number of observations for the pottery period in the northern-most part of the study area, as what is known about the pottery period has been derived almost entirely from sites located to the south around Elands Bay.
The Transformation of Open Source Software

A frequent characterization of open source software is the somewhat outdated, mythical one of a collective of supremely talented software hackers freely volunteering their services to produce uniformly high-quality software. I contend that the open source software phenomenon has metamorphosed into a more mainstream and commercially viable form, which I label as OSS 2.0. I illustrate this transformation using a framework of process and product factors, and discuss how the bazaar metaphor, which up to now has been associated with the open source development process, has actually shifted to become a metaphor better suited to the OSS 2.0 product delivery and support process. Overall the OSS 2.0 phenomenon is significantly different from its free software antecedent. Its emergence accentuates the fundamental alteration of the basic ground rules in the software landscape, signifying the end of the proprietary-driven model that has prevailed for the past 20 years or so. Thus, a clear understanding of the characteristics of the emergent OSS 2.0 phenomenon is required to address key challenges for research and practice.
Dopamine neurons code subjective sensory experience and uncertainty of perceptual decisions

Midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons respond to sensory stimuli associated with future rewards. When reward is delivered probabilistically, DA neurons reflect this uncertainty by increasing their firing rates in a period between the sensory cue and reward delivery time. Probability of reward, however, has been externally conveyed by visual cues, and it is not known whether DA neurons would signal uncertainty arising internally. Here we show that DA neurons code the uncertainty associated with a perceptual judgment about the presence or absence of a vibrotactile stimulus. We observed that uncertainty modulates the activity elicited by a go cue instructing monkey subjects to communicate their decisions. That is, the same go cue generates different DA responses depending on the uncertainty level of a judgment made a few seconds before the go instruction. Easily detected suprathreshold stimuli elicit small DA responses, indicating that future reward will not be a surprising event. In contrast, the absence of a sensory stimulus generates large DA responses associated with uncertainty: was the stimulus truly absent, or did a low-amplitude vibration go undetected? In addition, the responses of DA neurons to the stimulus itself increase with vibration amplitude, but only when monkeys correctly detect its presence. This finding suggests that DA activity is not related to actual intensity but rather to perceived intensity. Therefore, in addition to their well-known role in reward prediction, DA neurons code subjective sensory experience and uncertainty arising internally from perceptual decisions.
Sources of Cognitive Inflexibility in Set-Shifting Tasks: Insights Into Developmental Theories From Adult Data

Two experiments examined processes underlying cognitive inflexibility in set-shifting tasks typically used to assess the development of executive function in children. Adult participants performed a Flexible Item Selection Task (FIST) that requires shifting from categorizing by one dimension (e.g., color) to categorizing by a second orthogonal dimension (e.g., shape). The experiments showed performance of the FIST involves suppression of the representation of the ignored dimension; response times for selecting a target object in an oddity task immediately following were slower when the oddity target was the previously ignored stimulus of the FIST. However, proactive interference from the previously relevant stimulus dimension also impaired responding. The results are discussed with respect to two prominent theories of the source of difficulty for children and adults on dimensional shifting tasks: attentional inertia and negative priming. In contrast to prior work emphasizing one process over the other, the findings indicate that difficulty in the FIST, and by extension other set-shifting tasks, can be attributed to both the need to shift away from the previously attended representation (attentional inertia) and the need to shift to the previously ignored representation (negative priming). Results are discussed in relation to theoretical explanations for cognitive inflexibility in adults and children.
Differentially Positive Systems

The paper introduces and studies differentially positive systems, that is, systems whose linearization along an arbitrary trajectory is positive. A generalization of Perron-Frobenius theory is developed in this differential framework to show that the property induces a conal order that strongly constrains the asymptotic behavior of solutions. The results illustrate that behaviors constrained by local order properties extend beyond the well-studied class of linear positive systems and monotone systems, which both require a constant cone field and a linear state space.
Star Formation and Extinction in Redshift z~2 Galaxies: Inferences from Spitzer MIPS Observations

We use very deep Spitzer MIPS 24 μm observations to examine the bolometric luminosities (Lbol) and UV extinction properties of more than 200 spectroscopically identified, optically selected (UnGℛ) z ~ 2 galaxies, supplemented with near-IR-selected ("BzK" and "DRG") and submillimeter galaxies at similar redshifts, in the GOODS-N field. Focusing on redshifts 1.5 < z < 2.6, where 24 μm observations measure the strength of the mid-IR PAH feature, we find that the rest-frame 5-8.5 μm luminosities (L5-8.5 μm) are particularly tightly constrained for objects in our sample with precise spectroscopic redshifts. We demonstrate, using stacked X-ray observations and a subset of galaxies with Hα measurements, that L5-8.5 μm provides a reliable estimate of LIR for most star-forming galaxies at z ~ 2. We show that the range of LIR in the optical/near-IR-selected samples considered extends from ≃1010 to >1012 L☉, with a mean ⟨LIR⟩ ≃ 2 × 1011 L☉. Using 24 μm observations as an independent probe of dust extinction, we find that, as in the local universe, the obscuration LIR/L1600 is strongly dependent on Lbol and ranges in value from <1 to ~1000 within the sample considered. However, the obscuration is generally ~10 times smaller at a given Lbol at z ~ 2 than at z ~ 0. We show that the values of LIR and obscuration inferred from the UV spectral slope β generally agree well with the values inferred from L5-8.5 μm for Lbol < 1012 L☉. Using the specific SFRs of galaxies as a proxy for cold gas fraction, we find a wide range in the evolutionary state of galaxies at z ~ 2, from galaxies that have just begun to form stars to those that have already accumulated most of their stellar mass and are about to become, or already are, passively evolving.
The Slow Afterhyperpolarization: A Target of β1-Adrenergic Signaling in Hippocampus-Dependent Memory Retrieval

In rodents, adrenergic signaling by norepinephrine (NE) in the hippocampus is required for the retrieval of intermediate-term memory. NE promotes retrieval via the stimulation of β1-adrenergic receptors, the production of cAMP, and the activation of both protein kinase A (PKA) and the exchange protein activated by cAMP. However, a final effector for this signaling pathway has not been identified. Among the many targets of adrenergic signaling in the hippocampus, the slow afterhyperpolarization (sAHP) is an appealing candidate because its reduction by β1 signaling enhances excitatory neurotransmission. Here we report that reducing the sAHP is critical for the facilitation of retrieval by NE. Direct blockers of the sAHP, as well as blockers of the L-type voltage-dependent calcium influx that activates the sAHP, rescue retrieval in mutant mice lacking either NE or the β1 receptor. Complementary to this, a facilitator of L-type calcium influx impairs retrieval in wild-type mice. In addition, we examined the role of NE in the learning-related reduction of the sAHP observed ex vivo in hippocampal slices. We find that this reduction in the sAHP depends on the induction of persistent PKA activity specifically in conditioned slices. Interestingly, this persistent PKA activity is induced by NE/β1 signaling during slice preparation rather than during learning. These observations suggest that the reduction in the sAHP may not be present autonomously in vivo, but is likely induced by neuromodulatory input, which is consistent with the idea that NE is required in vivo for reduction of the sAHP during memory retrieval.
Six-and 12-month follow-up of an interdisciplinary fibromyalgia treatment programme: results of a randomised trial.

OBJECTIVES To assess the efficacy of a 6-week interdisciplinary treatment that combines coordinated psychological, medical, educational, and physiotherapeutic components (PSYMEPHY) over time compared to standard pharmacologic care. METHODS Randomised controlled trial with follow-up at 6 months for the PSYMEPHY and control groups and 12 months for the PSYMEPHY group. Participants were 153 outpatients with FM recruited from a hospital pain management unit. Patients randomly allocated to the control group (CG) received standard pharmacologic therapy. The experimental group (EG) received an interdisciplinary treatment (12 sessions). The main outcome was changes in quality of life, and secondary outcomes were pain, physical function, anxiety, depression, use of pain coping strategies, and satisfaction with treatment as measured by the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Coping with Chronic Pain Questionnaire, and a question regarding satisfaction with the treatment. RESULTS Six months after the intervention, significant improvements in quality of life (p=0.04), physical function (p=0.01), and pain (p=0.03) were seen in the PSYMEPHY group (n=54) compared with controls (n=56). Patients receiving the intervention reported greater satisfaction with treatment. Twelve months after the intervention, patients in the PSYMEPHY group (n=58) maintained statistically significant improvements in quality of life, physical functioning, pain, and symptoms of anxiety and depression, and were less likely to use maladaptive passive coping strategies compared to baseline. CONCLUSIONS An interdisciplinary treatment for FM was associated with improvements in quality of life, pain, physical function, anxiety and depression, and pain coping strategies up to 12 months after the intervention.
Nash bargaining and proportional fairness for log-convex utility sets

For comprehensive convex compact positive utility sets, the Nash bargaining solution (NBS) is obtained by maximizing a product of utilities, a strategy which is also known as "proportional fairness". However, the standard assumption of convexity may not be fulfilled. This is especially true for wireless communication systems, where interference and adaptive techniques can lead to complicated non-convex utility sets (e.g. the 2-user SIR region with linear receivers). In this paper, we show that the Nash bargaining framework can be extended to certain non-convex utility sets, whose logarithmic transformation is strictly convex comprehensive. As application examples, we consider feasible sets of signal-to-interference ratios (SIR), based on axiomatic log-convex interference functions. The resulting SIR region is known to be log-convex. However, strict log-convexity and compactness is required here. We derive conditions under which this is fulfilled. In this case, there is a single-valued Nash bargaining solution, which is equivalent to the proportionally fair operating point. The results are shown for a total power constraint, as well as for individual power constraints.
The heterogeneous world of congruency sequence effects: an update

Congruency sequence effects (CSEs) refer to the observation that congruency effects in conflict tasks are typically smaller following incongruent compared to following congruent trials. This measure has long been thought to provide a unique window into top-down attentional adjustments and their underlying brain mechanisms. According to the renowned conflict monitoring theory, CSEs reflect enhanced selective attention following conflict detection. Still, alternative accounts suggested that bottom-up associative learning suffices to explain the pattern of reaction times and error rates. A couple of years ago, a review by Egner (2007) pitted these two rivalry accounts against each other, concluding that both conflict adaptation and feature integration contribute to the CSE. Since then, a wealth of studies has further debated this issue, and two additional accounts have been proposed, offering intriguing alternative explanations. Contingency learning accounts put forward that predictive relationships between stimuli and responses drive the CSE, whereas the repetition expectancy hypothesis suggests that top-down, expectancy-driven control adjustments affect the CSE. In the present paper, we build further on the previous review (Egner, 2007) by summarizing and integrating recent behavioral and neurophysiological studies on the CSE. In doing so, we evaluate the relative contribution and theoretical value of the different attentional and memory-based accounts. Moreover, we review how all of these influences can be experimentally isolated, and discuss designs and procedures that can critically judge between them.
Asymptomatic diverticulosis identified by computed tomography is not a risk factor for enteric peritonitis.

BACKGROUND Colonic diverticulitis is an important cause of polymicrobial peritonitis, which requires surgical treatment and cessation of peritoneal dialysis (PD). The aim of this study was to examine whether plain abdominal computed tomography (CT) is useful for evaluating colonic diverticulosis in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients and to explore whether colonic diverticulosis is a risk factor for enteric peritonitis. METHODS The subjects consisted of 137 consecutive CKD patients (Stage 4 or 5) who were candidates for PD from February 2005 to November 2009. Abdominal CT without contrast media was performed in all PD candidates. RESULTS Diverticula of the colon were detected by plain CT in 57 cases (41.6%). The number of diverticula tended to increase with age. The most common site of involvement of diverticulosis was the ascending colon. In patients treated with PD, the incidence of peritonitis was higher in patients with diverticulosis than in those without diverticulosis (P = 0.004). However, only one episode of enteric peritonitis was observed among patients with diverticulosis. The presence of diverticulosis did not affect cumulative or technical survival. PD was not selected in four cases due to a high frequency of diverticula with episodes of abdominal pain. Two cases developed severe diverticulitis with peritonitis and underwent resection of the colon. CONCLUSIONS Our study suggests that plain CT examination is useful for detecting diverticulosis in CKD patients. Silent diverticulosis is not a risk factor for enteric diverticulosis-related peritonitis. PD may be contraindicated in cases having frequent diverticulosis with episodes of lower abdominal pain.