Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ergovaline, an endophytic alkaloid. 1. Animal physiology and metabolism

Ergovaline is an ergot alkaloid found in some endophyte-infected ryegrasses and it has been implicated in the expression of ergotism-like symptoms of grazing livestock, as well as in the protection of the plant against invertebrate predation and abiotic stresses. These selection pressures have resulted in a conflict between the needs of the pasture for persistence and the needs of the animal for production. Ergovaline has not been well studied in terms of animal physiology until recently. There are several putative mechanisms that limit the bioavailability of ergovaline, ranging from microbial biotransformation to post-absorptive hepatic detoxification. Although there are mechanisms that protect the animal from ergovaline exposure, tissues are very sensitive to ergovaline, indicating that ergovaline is very potent and that small quantities have the potential to cause noticeable physiological effects. The range of physiological effects, including decreased circulating prolactin, vasoconstriction and increased susceptibility to heat stress are all linked to the interaction of ergovaline with biogenic amine receptors found throughout the body. This review will focus on understanding the variation of ergovaline concentration in terms of bioavailability, the myriad of hurdles a molecule of ergovaline must overcome to cause an effect, what the ergovaline-induced effects are in New Zealand livestock and how this relates to the potency of ergovaline.
New evidence of the Cretaceous overstep of the Mendip Hills , Somerset , UK .

The Mendip Hills, located on the north-western margin of the Wessex Basin, clearly show the onlap of Upper Triassic to Middle Jurassic sediments onto folded Palaeozoic strata. Recent field mapping on the crest of the Beacon Hill pericline at Tadhill, near Frome, augmented by a suite of shallow boreholes, proved up to 6.2 m of glauconitic grey and green silty sand. These glauconitic sands rest unconformably on Silurian volcanic rocks and Devonian sandstone. Lithological and palaeontological analyses of these glauconitic sands indicate that they are part of the Lower Cretaceous Upper Greensand Formation. This provides the first evidence for the Albian transgression across the Mendip Hills. The implications for the Cretaceous overstep on the margins of the Wessex Basin, and the analogies with the Upper Greensand succession in Devon are discussed.
ACE: And/Or-parallel Copying-based Execution of Logic Programs

In this paper we present a novel execution model for parallel implementation of logic programs which is capable of exploiting both independent and-parallelism and or-parallelism in an efficient way. This model extends the stack copying approach, which has been successfully applied in the Muse system to implement or-parallelism, by integrating it with proven techniques used to support independent and-parallelism. Recomputation is used to deal with non-determinism, as in Prolog, i.e., solutions of and-parallel goals are not shared. We propose a scheme for the efficient management of the address space in a way that is compatible with the apparently incompatible requirements of both and- and or-parallelism. We also show how the full Prolog language, with all its extra-logical features, can be supported in our and-or parallel system so that its sequential semantics is preserved. The stack copying scheme together with our proposed memory management scheme can also be used to implement models that combine dependent and-parallelism and or-parallelism, such as Andorra and Prometheus.
Perceptual Evaluation of Focused Sources in Wave Field Synthesis

Wave Field Synthesis provides the possibility to reproduce virtual sound sources located between the loudspeaker array and the listener. Such sources are known as focused sources. A previously published study including an informal listening test has shown that the reproduction of focused sources is subject to audible artifacts, especially for large loudspeaker arrays. The combination of the time-reversal nature of focused sources and spatial sampling leads to pre-echos. The perception of these artifacts is quite different depending on the relative listener position. This paper describes a formal test which was conducted to verify the perceptual relevance of the physical properties found in previous papers.
Effects of Inhibition of O6‐Alkylguanine‐DNA Alkyltransferase in Rats on Carcinogenesis by Methylnitrosourea and Ethylnitrosourea

Many alkylating agents are potent carcinogens and there is considerable evidence that the formation of O6‐alkylguanine in DNA can lead to mutations and the initiation of neoplastic growth. The repair of O6‐methyl‐ or O6‐ethylguanine in DNA is known to be brought about by the action of a protein termed O6‐alkylguanine‐DNA alkyltransferase. In order to investigate the role of this activity in the carcinogenic action of methylnitrosourea and ethylnitrosourea, O6‐benzylguanine, a potent inhibitor of the alkyltransferase, was used. Groups of 20 female F344 rats were treated with the nitrosourea (0.2 mmol) by gavage in 10 weekly doses and a parallel group was also treated with 4 mg of O6‐benzylguanine, 2 h prior to each dose of the nitrosourea. This dose of O6‐benzylguanine was sufficient to reduce the alkyltransferase activity to zero in the liver for at least 8 h but activity had returned to about 60% of normal within 24 h. Animals were maintained until they became moribund, when they were killed, or until death related to tumors. The median week of death in the animals receiving methylnitrosourea was reduced from 60 wk to 52 wk by co‐treatment with O6‐benzylguanine. There was a smaller reduction from 55 to 50 wk in the rats receiving ethylnitrosourea. The treatment with O6‐benzylguanine caused no significant change in the incidence of the principal tumors induced by the alkylnitrosoureas and there were no liver tumors produced by the combined treatments. These results show that the level of inactivation of alkyltransferase produced by this dose of O6‐benzylguanine was not sufficient to greatly alter the potent carcinogenic effect of these doses of alkylnitrosoureas in this system.
An Investigation of the Effectiveness of Teaching Pronunciation to Malaysian TESL Students.

This article is the result of an investigation into the pronunciation training component of a TESL programme. Although it focuses on teaching pronunciation in a specific context in Malaysia, the article raises issues that will be of interest to ESL practitioners in other contexts. It begins with a description of the pronunciation training component under investigation. Then, based on students’ responses to a questionnaire, it discusses three issues: can pronunciation be taught to near-adult L2 learners, should pronunciation be explicitly taught, and what should be the goal and focus of pronunciation teaching?
Who, Where, and How of Interviewing Peers

Research within a phenomenological framework is aimed at understanding the lived experience of participants to capture the essences of their combined stories to provide new insights and truths surrounding a particular phenomenon. Essential to this process is the acquiring of data representative of the experience being researched. The art of unstructured interviews is to acknowledge and value participants’ stories as each participant traverses deeply personal experiences with the interviewer. This article examines the impact of factors that influence the successful interviewing of peers and explores how ignoring the foundational elements of “who, where, and how” may result in lean or even skewed data. Aimed at accessing the essence of a phenomenon through conversational interviews, the authors offer an adaptable framework that considers the additional elements of “space, language, role, and trust” which is aligned with the intent of phenomenological studies.
Exploring Factors Related to Young Children’s Word-Meaning Derivations During Read-Alouds

This study explores how child and text clues were related to 31 kindergarteners’ word-meaning derivation outcomes for 372 words presented in books read aloud to children. Data were analyzed using a multilevel, cross-classification, ordered logit model. Children showed no word-meaning derivation 40% of the time, indicating a need for instruction. Better word-meaning outcomes were related to text factors (written text clues in close proximity to the word) and child factors (literal comprehension and metacognition). Thus, using text with written clues in close proximity to the word and building children's literal comprehension and metacognition may improve word-meaning derivation.
Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency

This paper documents that strategies that buy stocks that have performed well in the past and sell stocks that hav e performed poorly in the past generate significant positive returns o ver three- to twelve-month holding periods. The authors find that the profitability of these strategies are not due to their systematic risk or to delay ed stock price reactions to common factors. However, part of the abnorm al returns generated in the first year after portfolio formation dissipates in the following two years. A similar pattern of returns around the earnings announcements of past winners and losers is also documented. Copyright 1993 by American Finance Association.
Suppression of Intestinal Polyp Development by Nimesulide, a Selective Cyclooxygenase‐2 Inhibitor, in Min Mice

Nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) suppress colon carcinogenesis in man and experimental animals. However, conventional NSAIDs inhibit both cyclooxygenase (COX) isoforms, COX‐1 and COX‐2, and cause gastrointestinal side‐effects. Nimesulide, a selective inhibitor of COX‐2, is much less ulcerogenic. We, therefore, examined its influence on the development of intestinal polyps in Min mice. Female Min mice at 4 weeks old were given 400 ppm nimesulide in their diet for 11 weeks. This treatment resulted in a significant reduction of the numbers of both small and large intestinal polyps, the total being 52% of that in untreated control Min mice. The size of the polyps in the nimesulide‐treated group was also significantly decreased. The results suggest that nimesulide is a good candidate as a chemopreventive agent for human colon cancer with low toxicity.
Adverse drug reactions in a different context

Here we describe how Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) can play an important role in pharmaceutical research and drug development. Not only do ADRs represent the risks and drawbacks associated with drugs but they can also be related to other knowledge available in pharmaceutical and medical research. We offer a model that can be used to systematically map the pathways through which ADRs can lead to innovative research. These pathways include chemical, therapeutic or (patho)physiological steps that can be taken to arrive at new knowledge based on ADRs. In this chapter we present the development of the Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme inhibitors, especially Captopril, as a case study. We show that the similarity between the ADR-profiles of Captopril and Penicillamine has been a starting point for further drug innovation in this area. Historical analysis shows that in several instances research in the field of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme inhibitors has been triggered by ADRs. The model, presented here might be applicable to other areas of innovative drug research.
Cigarette smoking and the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus

ABSTRACT Introduction: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a multi-system inflammatory autoimmune disease of incompletely understood etiology. It is thought that environmental exposures ‘trigger’ or accelerate the disease in genetically-predisposed individuals. Areas covered: Substantial epidemiological evidence exists to support the association between cigarette smoking and the risk of incident SLE. Recent evidence points to current smoking as the specific risk factor, with decreasing risk 5 years after smoking cessation, and the greatest risk for disease characterized by the presence of SLE-specific autoantibodies. Research has begun to search for possible explanations for the temporal nature of the relationship between current smoking and autoantibody positive-SLE. Here we review potential biologic mechanisms linking smoking and SLE risk, including effects upon T and B cells, inflammatory cytokines, oxidative stress, and the formation of short-lived DNA adducts. Expert commentary: The directions for future research in this field include studies of gene-environment interactions, epigenetics, metabolomics and putative biologic mechanisms.
Recommendations for the Design and Use of Standard Virus Panels To Assess Neutralizing Antibody Responses Elicited by Candidate Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Vaccines

Laboratory measures of antigen-specific immunity are an essential component of the vaccine discovery process. For human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), this process will likely require iterative evaluations of vaccine immunogens to choose the most promising vaccine candidates to advance into human trials. To optimally evaluate and compare vaccine immunogens, we will need high-throughput assays that allow accurate and reproducible measurements of immune responses. In addition, vaccine sponsors and regulatory agencies appropriately require that immune assays associated with human trials be performed in laboratories that comply with guidelines for good laboratory practices (GLP). The rigorous process of assay validation associated with GLP can improve the accuracy of immune assessment assays and contribute to vaccine development by advancing our ability to distinguish incremental improvements in immune responses elicited by novel immunogens. In this commentary, we address several of these issues with regard to the measurement of anti-HIV-1 neutralizing antibodies (NAbs). We recommend the use of DNA plasmids encoding full-length functional HIV-1 envelope glycoproteins (Env); these env clones, when transfected with an HIV-1 envdefective molecular clone, produce well-characterized HIV-1 Env pseudovirions. Additionally, we recommend the establishment of standardized panels of Env-pseudotyped viruses to assess the potencies and breadths of NAbs elicited by vaccine immunogens. These virus panels would form the basis for GLP neutralization assays used to assess sera from clinical vaccine studies, and the same virus panels could be used by investigators interested in the preclinical evaluation of vaccine immunogens.
The role of learner autonomy for learning English out-of-class in Chinese universities

Out-of-class learning constitutes a significant part of language learning since it provides a realistic setting which is quite different from in-class and instruction-based teaching and learning. Most language educators believe that learners should be responsible for their own learning and use opportunities to practise language actively outside the classroom. This paper aims to define learner autonomy and identify the benefits and difficulties of learner autonomy in learning a second language as well as investigate the tendencies of different types of autonomous out-of-class English learning activities Chinese students choose and the reasons for these choices. A review of literature revealed that among autonomous learning activities outside the classroom, students tend to choose receptive activities more than productive learning activities. The reason relates to the difficulties students face in developing their autonomy; teachers thus play a significant role in providing students with an autonomous learning environment and proper instruction.
Youth Volunteering in Countries in the European Union

The reasons why people volunteer their time and services are of great interest and they have been the subject of academic research. This article helps identify some of the underlying reasons for the marked differences in youth volunteering among member states of the European Union. Our objective is to describe the similarities and differences in countries’ youth volunteer rates on individual and national levels. To this end, we identified individual and contextual factors and compared volunteer activities. We used data from the European Values Survey (EVS) for that purpose. As a methodological strategy, we carried out Logit models to estimate individual probabilities of working as a volunteer. The main result shows that social capital variables are the most relevant when young people decide to participate in voluntary activities.
Broken Rotor Bars Detection in Induction Motors Running at Very Low Slip Using a Hall Effect Sensor

This paper proposes the use of a Hall effect sensor installed between two stator slots of a squirrel cage induction motor, spectral analysis of the air gap disturbances and machine learning approaches for diagnosing fully broken rotor bars in motors running at very low slip. This paper overcomes a typical drawback of broken bars diagnosis by using the traditional analysis of the motor current signature, usually when machines operate under low or no-load conditions. A fast Fourier transform has been performed in Hall sensor data to identify some harmonic features, and also, some statistical data have been extracted to get time-domain properties. These values were used as inputs for a multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network classifier, a k-nearest neighbor classifier, and a support vector machine classification technique. In addition, principal component analysis has been applied to reduce data dimension among some original values, i.e., for both time and frequency features, and contribute to rotor failure detection. A cross-validation method has been used for classifier performance evaluation on each case. The efficiency of this approach was evaluated from a 7.5-kW squirrel cage induction machine running at very low slip conditions, and MLP classifier has achieved better results than the other intelligent methods.
Examining Islamic religiosity and civic engagement in Melbourne

With geopolitical concerns surrounding the rise of militant, transnational groups who draw on Islamic texts for legitimacy, the place of Islam in western societies has become a source of anxiety, fear and suspicion. The central concern is whether Muslims living in the West have the capacity to become fully active citizens. This article uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine whether Islamic religiosity is a predictor for civic engagement and active citizenship among Muslims living in Melbourne, Australia. The findings show that organized religiosity can be a strong predictor of civic engagement, countering the discourses that demonize Islam as a source of radicalization and social disengagement. While the findings show that suspicion of divisive forces and lack of trust in public institutions might prevent some young Muslims from engaging in formal political participation, grassroots civic engagement enables Muslims to demonstrate care and feel like active citizens of the Australian community without compromising core religious values.
C‐kit Gene Abnormalities in Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (Tumors of Interstitial Cells of Cajal)

Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) is the most common mesenchymal tumor of the GI tract, and expresses KIT and CD34 in most cases. Gain‐of‐function mutation of the c‐kit proto‐oncogene has been described, but its significance in GIST has not yet been fully evaluated. Mutation in exon 11 of the c‐kit gene was determined by both polymerase chain reaction‐single strand conformation polymorphism (PCR‐SSCP) analysis and direct sequencing in primary and metastatic GISTs and esophageal leiomyomas in Japanese subjects. C‐kit gene mutation was identified in 15 of 48 primary GISTs (31%), four of seven metastatic GISTs, but none of the leiomyomas. Three mutations were mis‐sense point mutations, and 16 were in‐frame deletions of 3–48 bp. C‐kit gene mutation was observed equally in low‐ and high‐risk groups, and was not related to any clinical and pathologic factors, phenotypes or Ki‐67 labeling index (LI) of tumor cells. In five of 15 deletion mutations (four in primary tumors and one in a metastatic tumor), the mutations were present at the distal location of exon 11 of the c‐kit gene, which was a minor mutation in previous reports from Finland and the USA. C‐kit gene mutations in GIST are not always related to a poor prognosis, but further comparative studies are necessary in Western and Japanese populations.
Measuring entrepreneurial intent? Temporal construal theory shows it depends on your timing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of temporal construal theory on entrepreneurial intention models using a three-country study. Inclusion of temporal construal theory in intent models would suggest path dependent influence on intent, and more specifically, that intent may be subdivided into temporally based categories, broadly codified as short-term and long-term intent. Design/methodology/approach – A quasi-experimental study of 1,046 university students in business and engineering from the USA, Mexico, and Spain was conducted. A temporal construal model of intent is proposed, including measures of short-term and long-term intent. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), part of the perceived behavioral control in the theory of planned behavior, is utilized to structure the model antecedents. Findings – The results suggest the existence of differences in individual entrepreneurial intent measures depending on the individual’s perception of when the entrepreneurial event is a.
Chemical-genetic inhibition of a sensitized mutant myosin Vb demonstrates a role in peripheral-pericentriolar membrane traffic

Selective, in situ inhibition of individual unconventional myosins is a powerful approach to determine their specific physiological functions. Here, we report the engineering of a myosin Vb mutant that still hydrolyzes ATP, yet is selectively sensitized to an N6-substituted ADP analog that inhibits its activity, causing it to remain tightly bound to actin. Inhibition of the sensitized mutant causes inhibition of accumulation of transferrin in the cytoplasm and increases levels of plasma-membrane transferrin receptor, suggesting that myosin Vb functions in traffic between peripheral and pericentrosomal compartments.
On the ability of global sea level reconstructions to determine trends and variability

We investigate how well methods based on empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) can reconstruct global mean sea level (GMSL). We first explore the analytical solution of the method and then perform a series of numerical experiments using modelled data. In addition, we present a new GMSL reconstruction for the period 1900-2011 computed both with and without a spatially uniform EOF (EOF0). The method without the EOF0 uses global information, which leads to a better reconstruction of the variability, though with some underestimation. The trend, however, is not captured, which motivates the use of the EOF0. When the EOF0 is used the method reduces to the generalized weighted mean with regularization of altimetry records at tide gauge locations, and thus it uses no global information. This results in a poor reconstruction of the variability. Although the trend is better captured (biases smaller than ±25%) with the EOF0, using the covariance matrix of deseasonalized monthly time series as the basis for determining the contribution of each tide gauge to the trend is dubious because it assumes that the inter-annual variability and the trend are driven by the same mechanisms. A significant fraction of the inter-annual to decadal variability (~4mm peak-to-peak and ~2mm standard error) in the new GMSL reconstruction without the EOF0 is consistent with land hydrology changes associated with the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). When the EOF0 is used, we find no correlation with either the ENSO or land hydrology changes, and decadal fluctuations are ~5 times greater.