Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A study of synchronisation between the flagella of bull spermatozoa, with related observations

SUMMARY Flagellar synchronisation has been observed between bull spermatozoa as they swam in a viscous medium, confined to a glass surface. This process is of interest in understanding the regulation of flagellar oscillation in general. Exact and persisting synchrony between bull spermatozoa occurred only when the spermatozoan heads were tightly coupled mechanically. For these cells, viscous coupling between the flagella was not by itself sufficient to establish synchronisation. Immediately on synchronisation, with the spermatozoan heads superposed, the paired spermatozoa showed rises in conjoint beat frequency, wave velocity and swimming velocity, i.e. in nearly all cases, the new conjoint values were greater than those shown by either of the two singleton spermatozoa. In our interpretation of these results, we put forward hydrodynamic arguments for seeing the primary change as a rise in wave velocity, via a decreased viscous resistance to bend propagation. Mechanistically, the rise in beat frequency is mysterious unless, as we suggest, it is consequential to the rise in wave velocity, and mediated by an as-yet-unknown mechanical feedback process. The rise in swimming velocity is not surprising given the rise in wave velocity but there is evidence for an additional influence due to a subtle re-orientation of the conjoint spermatozoan heads, such that they experienced less frictional drag.
Driving Circumstances and Accidents Among Novice Drivers

Objective. The study evaluated the accident risk of certain driving circumstances and driving motives among novice drivers. Methods. Self-reported exposure and accidents according to driving circumstances and driving motives were compared between young (n = 6,847) and middle-aged (n = 942) male and female novice drivers. For young drivers, self-reported accidents were further compared to fatal accidents (n = 645) in terms of the driving conditions in which they occurred. The survey was conducted in 2002 and the questions regarding the quantity and quality of driving exposure and accidents covered the first four years of the novice drivers' driving career after licensing. Data on fatal accidents related to the period of 1990 to 2000. Results. Leisure-time driving, driving just for fun, and driving with passengers and during evenings and at night was more typical for young drivers than for middle-aged drivers. For middle-aged drivers, the most typical driving was driving to or from work. Driving on errands was more typical for females than males. Nighttime driving was overrepresented in young drivers' self-reported and fatal accidents, compared to the share of young drivers' driving at night. Slippery road conditions were over-represented in young male drivers' self-reported accidents, but not in their fatal accidents, whereas for young females slippery road conditions seemed to increase the propensity of fatal accidents. Conclusions. The study concluded that some driving conditions increase the risk of certain types of accidents among certain driver groups, but not among all drivers. For example, slippery road conditions were overrepresented in young male drivers' minor (self-reported) accidents, but not in their fatal accidents. For young female drivers slippery road conditions seem to increase the propensity of fatal accidents. Driving circumstances are different in minor (self-reported) and fatal accidents. When drawing conclusions regarding accident risk, it is important to determine the seriousness of the accidents which take place.
Target’s earnings quality and bidders’ takeover decisions

This study examines how takeover decisions are influenced by the quality of information in target firms’ earnings. We show that bidders prefer negotiated takeovers in deals involving targets with poor earnings quality. Moreover, earnings quality and takeover premiums are negatively related in negotiated takeovers, suggesting that bidders obtain valuable private information through negotiations. We also find that bidders share information risk with target shareholders by paying with more equity for targets with poor earnings quality. These findings are driven primarily by the asymmetric information component of earnings quality (as opposed to the symmetric component) and are observed mainly in inter-industry takeovers, where asymmetric information concerns are greater, rather than in intra-industry takeovers. We conclude that targets’ earnings quality affects bidders’ takeover decisions, particularly in cases of large asymmetric information between targets and bidders.
Randomized Initialization of a Wireless Multihop Network

The initialization problem consists to give a unique identifier ranging from 1 to n for a set of n indistinguishable nodes. We consider here a wireless network where n nodes (processors) are randomly thrown in a square X, uniformly and independently. We assume that the network is synchronous and two nodes are able to communicate if they are within distance at most of r of each other. We design a distributed protocol to achieve the initialization task for a wireless multihop network of n nodes uniformly scattered in a square X. We show how the transmitting range of the deployed stations can affect the typical characteristics such as the degrees and the diameter of the network. By allowing the nodes to transmit at a specific range, we show how to design a randomized protocol running in expected time O(n^{3/2} log^2 n) for the initialization problem.
Treatment of neurosarcoidosis

Objective: To compare the efficacy of methotrexate (MTX) and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) in the prevention of relapses in neurosarcoidosis. Methods: We conducted a retrospective multicenter study including patients who received MTX or MMF for the treatment of histologically proven neurosarcoidosis. The efficacy of the immunosuppressive drug was assessed by determining the time to relapse. Results: Forty patients with a diagnosis of neurosarcoidosis (24 men, 16 women, median age at diagnosis 43.5 years) who received at least 3 months of MTX (n = 32) or MMF (n = 14) were included. The immunosuppressive drug was always associated with steroids. The rate of relapse was 47% in the MTX group (0.2 relapses per year of exposure) and 79% in the MMF group (0.6 relapses per year of exposure) (p = 0.058). The median time to relapse was significantly shorter in the MMF group (11 months) compared with the MTX group (28 months) (p = 0.049). Adverse events occurred in 11 patients during MTX therapy and in 1 patient during MMF therapy (p = 0.12). Conclusions: Relapses of neurosarcoidosis occur frequently, despite the use of an immunosuppressive drug in addition to corticosteroids. MTX significantly increases the survival time without relapse compared to MMF and should be preferred over MMF for the treatment of neurosarcoidosis. This study provides Class IV evidence that for patients with neurosarcoidosis taking steroids, MTX is superior to MMF in reducing the risk of relapse.
BETTER STORIES AND BETTER CONSTRUCTS: THE

building from case study research. I focused on multiple cases and how to develop theory from them, but I paid scant attention to the important role of single-case research. This response provides an opportunity to begin redressing that imbalance. One of the central arguments of "Building Theories from Case Study Research" was that multiple cases are a powerful means to create theory because they permit replication and extension among individual cases. Replication simply means that individual cases can be used for independent corroboration of specific propositions. This corroboration helps researchers to perceive patterns more easily and to eliminate chance associations. Extension refers to the use of multiple cases to develop more elaborate theory. Different cases often emphasize complementary aspects of a phenomenon. By piecing together the individual patterns, the researcher can draw a more complete theoretical picture. A second central argument of the article stressed the importance of methodological rigor. I described the need to identify research questions, develop well-designed instruments such as interview schedules and questionnaires, consider theoretical sampling and controls, and so forth. Of course, I recognized that these would often shift over the course of the study. Nonetheless, unlike the stereotype of case research as free-form, the implicit position of the article was that both theory-building and theory-testing studies have similar, although not identical, demands for methodological rigor. In particular, the importance of creating precise and measurable constructs was emphasized because such constructs are the foundation of powerful theory. In contrast, the critique by Dyer and Wilkins argues that single cases are superior to multiple cases for creating high-quality theory. The authors refer to the caliber and the quantity of theory emerging from such cases. Further, the critique calls into question the need for methodological rigor, by challenging the appropriateness of a research focus, sampling, controls, and other trappings of rigor. They termed such methods paradoxical and
Multiwalled carbon nanotube-induced pulmonary inflammatory and fibrotic responses and genomic changes following aspiration exposure in mice: A 1-year postexposure study

ABSTRACT Pulmonary exposure to multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) induces an inflammatory and rapid fibrotic response, although the long-term signaling mechanisms are unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of 1, 10, 40, or 80 μg MWCNT administered by pharyngeal aspiration on bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid for polymorphonuclear cell (PMN) infiltration, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity, and lung histopathology for inflammatory and fibrotic responses in mouse lungs 1 mo, 6 mo, and 1 yr postexposure. Further, a 120-μg crocidolite asbestos group was incorporated as a positive control for comparative purposes. Results showed that MWCNT increased BAL fluid LDH activity and PMN infiltration in a dose-dependent manner at all three postexposure times. Asbestos exposure elevated LDH activity at all 3 postexposure times and PMN infiltration at 1 mo and 6 mo postexposure. Pathological changes in the lung, the presence of MWCNT or asbestos, and fibrosis were noted at 40 and 80 μg MWCNT and in asbestos-exposed mice at 1 yr postexposure. To determine potential signaling pathways involved with MWCNT-associated pathological changes in comparison to asbestos, up- and down-regulated gene expression was determined in lung tissue at 1 yr postexposure. Exposure to MWCNT tended to favor those pathways involved in immune responses, specifically T-cell responses, whereas exposure to asbestos tended to favor pathways involved in oxygen species production, electron transport, and cancer. Data indicate that MWCNT are biopersistent in the lung and induce inflammatory and fibrotic pathological alterations similar to those of crocidolite asbestos, but may reach these endpoints by different mechanisms.
Polo-like Kinase Inhibitor Volasertib Exhibits Antitumor Activity and Synergy with Vincristine in Pediatric Malignancies.

BACKGROUND Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) controls the main cell-cycle checkpoints, suggesting utility of its inhibition for cancer treatment, including of highly proliferative pediatric cancer. This preclinical study explored the selective PLK1 inhibitor volasertib (BI 6727) alone and combined with chemotherapy in pediatric malignancies. MATERIALS AND METHODS Inhibition of proliferation was explored in vitro using dimethylthiazol carboxymethoxyphenyl sulfophenyl tetrazolium (MTS) assay. Mice bearing human xenografts were treated with weekly intravenous injections of volasertib. RESULTS Volasertib inhibited proliferation in all 40 cell lines tested, with a mean half-maximal growth inhibitory concentration of 313 nmol/l (range: 4-5000 nmol/l). Volasertib was highly active against RMS-1 alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma xenografts, resulting in 100% tumor regression. Activity was associated with complete and prolonged G2/M arrest and subsequent apoptotic cell death. Volasertib showed synergistic activity with vincristine but antagonistic effects with etoposide. CONCLUSION These findings support the further exploration of volasertib for pediatric malignancies, particularly alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, and its combination with mitotic spindle poison.
Minimum Cell Size for Information Capacity Increase in Cellular Wireless Network

In this paper results of mathematical analysis supported by simulation are used to find a theoretical limit for cell size reduction in mobile communication systems. Information capacity approach is used for the analysis. Attention is given to the active co-channel interfering cells. Because at microwave frequencies beyond 2 GHz, co-channel interfering cells beyond the first tier becomes dominant as the cell size reduces. We show that when the cell size limit is reached any further reduction in cell size will not increase the information capacity of the cellular network. A formula is derived for calculating the number of co-channel cells in subsequent tiers.
Race, Self-identity and Social Work

SUMMARY Many people seem to accept, as self-evident, the notion that black children harbour unfavourable cognitions about themselves and their racial group, and that they would rather be white. The present study investigated the prevalence of this notion amongst social work students, and also the extent of the influence of this view on professional practice. The study involved 102 postgraduate social work students at two British Universities in separate regions of the country. The respondents responded individually to three randomly distributed vignettes, which were identical except for the racial/ethnic origin of the principal characters: a white child, a child of 'mixed-race' parentage and a black child. The respondents were required to assess the causes of the children's behaviour, as well as their social and psychological needs. The results were analysed according to the number of respondents who mentioned particular causes of the children's behaviour and particular courses of action to meet their needs. The analyses revealed significant differences between the respondents' perception and interpretations of the children's behaviour. The analyses also revealed that the children were differenti ally treated according to their race or ethnic origin. The results are discussed in the light of assumptions about black self-concept, mainly derived from the social science literature. The implications of the findings for the social work profession, individual practitioners, and their black clients are also highlighted.
PLXNC1 and RDH13 associated with bilateral convergent strabismus with exophthalmus in German Brown cattle

Purpose We performed an association study for bilateral convergent strabismus with exophthalmus (BCSE) in German Brown cattle using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located within six positional candidate genes and additional SNPs from bovine SNP databases surrounding these candidate genes. Mutation analyses included synaptotagmin 3 and 5 (SYT3, SYT5), carnitine palmitoyl-transferase 1C (CPT1C) on bovine chromosome 18 (BTA18), and plexin C1 (PLXNC1), intracellular suppressor of cytokine signaling-2 (SOCS2), and kinesin family member 21A (KIF21A) on BTA5. Methods For all six candidate genes, we performed cDNA analyses using eye tissues of three BCSE-affected and three unaffected controls and searched the sequences for polymorphisms. Furthermore, we screened a total of 213 SNPs on BTA5 and 136 SNPs on BTA18 from the bovine SNP databases in 29 BCSE-affected German Brown cattle and 23 breed and sex matched controls for association with BCSE. All SNPs detected within the open reading frame (ORF) of the candidate genes and all SNPs from bovine databases putatively associated with BCSE in the detection sample were genotyped in a random sample of 179 BCSE-affected German Brown cows and 161 breed and sex matched controls and tested for association with BCSE. Results In total, we detected five novel SNPs within the coding sequence of the candidate genes PLXNC1 and KIF21A. The association analyses for single SNPs and haplotypes in 340 German Brown cattle revealed significant associations for five SNPs with BCSE. Four of these five SNPs were located within PLXNC1 and RDH13 and one SNP in the neighborhood of PLXNC1. Each one SNP within PLXNC1 (DN825458:c.168G>T) and RDH13 (AM930553:c.703C>A) were significantly associated with BCSE after correcting for multiple testing whereas all other SNPs failed this significance threshold. The marker-trait associations for haplotypes confirmed the significant associations with BCSE for both genes, PLXNC1 and RDH13. Conclusions The association analyses for single SNPs and haplotypes corroborated the results of the linkage study that the centromeric region of BTA5 and the telomeric end of BTA8 harbor genes responsible for BCSE. Intragenic SNPs of the genes PLXNC1 and RDH13 were experiment-wide significantly associated with BCSE and seem to play an important role in the pathogenesis of BCSE.
The Neurotoxicity of Nitrous Oxide: The Facts and “Putative” Mechanisms

Nitrous oxide is a widely used analgesic agent, used also in combination with anaesthetics during surgery. Recent research has raised concerns about possible neurotoxicity of nitrous oxide, particularly in the developing brain. Nitrous oxide is an N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA)-antagonist drug, similar in nature to ketamine, another anaesthetic agent. It has been linked to post-operative cardiovascular problems in clinical studies. It is also widely known that exposure to nitrous oxide during surgery results in elevated homocysteine levels in many patients, but very little work has investigated the long term effect of these increased homocysteine levels. Now research in rodent models has found that homocysteine can be linked to neuronal death and possibly even cognitive deficits. This review aims to examine the current knowledge of mechanisms of action of nitrous oxide, and to describe some pathways by which it may have neurotoxic effects.
Clusterrank: a graph based method for meeting summarization

This paper presents an unsupervised, graph based approach for extractive summarization of meetings. Graph based methods such as TextRank have been used for sentence extraction from news articles. These methods model text as a graph with sentences as nodes and edges based on word overlap. A sentence node is then ranked according to its similarity with other nodes. The spontaneous speech in meetings leads to incomplete, informed sentences with high redundancy and calls for additional measures to extract relevant sentences. We propose an extension of the TextRank algorithm that clusters the meeting utterances and uses these clusters to construct the graph. We evaluate this method on the AM I meeting corpus and show a significant improvement over TextRank and other baseline methods.
Health economic modeling to assess short-term costs of maternal overweight, gestational diabetes, and related macrosomia – a pilot evaluation

Background: Despite the interest in the impact of overweight and obesity on public health, little is known about the social and economic impact of being born large for gestational age or macrosomic. Both conditions are related to maternal obesity and/or gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and associated with increased morbidity for mother and child in the perinatal period. Poorly controlled diabetes during pregnancy, pre- pregnancy maternal obesity and/or excessive maternal weight gain during pregnancy are associated with intermittent periods of fetal exposure to hyperglycemia and subsequent hyperinsulinemia, leading to increased birth weight (e.g., macrosomia), body adiposity, and glycogen storage in the liver. Macrosomia is associated with an increased risk of developing obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus later in life. Objective: Provide insight in the short-term health-economic impact of maternal overweight, GDM, and related macrosomia. To this end, a health economic framework was designed. This pilot study also aims to encourage further health technology assessments, based on country- and population-specific data. Results: The estimation of the direct health-economic burden of maternal overweight, GDM and related macrosomia indicates that associated healthcare expenditures are substantial. The calculation of a budget impact of GDM, based on a conservative approach of our model, using USA costing data, indicates an annual cost of more than $1,8 billion without taking into account long-term consequences. Conclusion: Although overweight and obesity are a recognized concern worldwide, less attention has been given to the health economic consequences of these conditions in women of child-bearing age and their offspring. The presented outcomes underline the need for preventive management strategies and public health interventions on life style, diet and physical activity. Also, the predisposition in people of Asian ethnicity to develop diabetes emphasizes the urgent need to collect more country-specific data on the incidence of macrosomic births and health outcomes. In addition, it would be of interest to further explore the long-term health economic consequences of macrosomia and related risk factors.
How Family Structures and Processes Interrelate

The transitional nature of military life positions the family to serve as the primary and most stable influence for adolescents in military families. These military-related transitions and stressors may also put youth at risk for depression and academic challenges. This study examines the relative impact of family structure (family composition at a given time point) and family processes (interpersonal interactions developed over time) on important adolescent outcomes (depressive symptoms and academic performance) for a sample of military youth (N = 995). While family structure, particularly being part of a stepfamily or single-parent family, was related to greater depressive symptoms and poorer academic performance, family processes (family support and parent–adolescent connection) and personal resources (initiative) also accounted for depressive symptomology and academic performance. Importantly, when modeling family processes, no differences were found across family structures. Military youth thrive in diverse family forms in the presence of healthy family processes.
The New Spatial Planning Territorial Management with Soft Spaces and Fuzzy Boundaries

ment; the difficulty of promoting enterprise and entrepreneurialism; and the fragmented nature of governance. The authors present evidence that the small-scale, labour-intensive initiatives work best and should be mainstreamed, but note that these initiatives are more expensive, at least in the short term. Unfortunately, this leads us back to the problems of scale and complexity, and the apparent impossibility of being able to make improvements on a larger scale. Solutions are not the strength of this book. Rather, it provides a good evidence base for rethinking economic development policy, through its model of labour markets, its mix of empirical evidence, policy analysis and use of other academic sources, and its thorough understanding of policy dynamics and of governance issues (with the exception of UK devolution). There is surprisingly little about the impact of globalisation. Perhaps another weakness is the lack of emphasis on the fundamental question about the function of poor areas under capitalism, in particular the propensity of those who gain secure employment to move away. All in all, the book highlights the problems more than pointing us towards the solutions. As a work of research, this is entirely reasonable and the book makes a substantial contribution to the literature. It is up to policy makers to suggest viable solutions, which in the current economic climate will not be easy in the UK or elsewhere.