Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The metabolic balance of the planktonic community in the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre : The role of mesoscale instabilities

Fig. 1. Cruise tracks of BIO Hespérides showing CTD stations sampled in August 1998 and April 1999. Station number indicates that there are metabolic balance measurements and those underlined are within mesoscale features. A contour plot of the depth (m) of the 168C isotherm is included to show the location of Leticia. Abstract—We have studied the net community production (NCP) balance in the Eastern region of the Subtropical North Atlantic during two cruises, in August 1998 and April 1999. In August, heterotrophic bacteria were more abundant than picophytoplankton, which resulted in net heterotrophy (NCP 5 2129 mmol O2 m22 d21 6 18; mean 6 SE), whereas these differences in plankton components were not apparent in April 1999, when the community was in metabolic balance (NCP 5 213 mmol O2 m22 d21 6 19). In April, the metabolic balance of microplankton communities was net heterotrophic outside (NCP 5 257 mmol O2 m22 d21 6 26) and lower than inside (NCP 5 19 mmol O2 m22 d21 6 19) the mesoscale structures present in the area (subtropical front, cyclonic eddy Leticia, and the Great Meteor Tablemount). Positive NCP inside the cyclonic eddy (NCP 5 20 mmol O2 m22 d21 6 17) was due to lower respiration rather than to higher gross primary production rates. Gross extrapolation suggests that the regional organic carbon deficit within the Eastern Subtropical Gyre (0.98–1.88 Gt C yr21) should increase by ;14% and 52% in the absence of mesoscale structures.
Tumor models for efficacy determination

The first in vivo tumor models were developed in the mid-1960s. These models were mouse leukemia models grown as ascites. The growth pattern was like that of bacteria in vivo and therefore it was possible to apply similar mathematics of growth and response to these tumors as had been worked out for bacteria. Since the development of the murine leukemia models, investigators have devoted a large effort to modeling solid tumors in mice. There are now a variety of models including syngeneic mouse tumors and human tumor xenografts grown as s.c. nodules, syngeneic mouse tumors and human tumor xenografts grown in orthotopic sites, models of disseminated disease, “labeled” tumor models that can be visualized using varied technologies, and transgenic tumor models. Each of these types of models has advantages and disadvantages to the “drug hunter” searching for improved treatments. [Mol Cancer Ther 2006;5(10):2435–43]
Technology for promoting scientific practice and personal meaning in life-relevant learning

Children often report that school science is boring and abstract. For this reason, we have developed Life-relevant Learning (LRL) environments to help learners understand the relevance that scientific thinking, processes, and experimentation can have in their everyday lives. In this paper, we detail findings that aim to increase our understanding of the ways in which technology can support learners' scientific practice and their personal meaning in LRL through the integration of two mobile apps into an LRL environment. Our analysis of the artifacts created in these systems show that technology must strike a balance between structured scaffolds and flexible personal design to support learners' scientifically meaningful experiences. Our data suggests that integration of media forms and mobile technology can provide creative ways for learners to express their scientific thinking, make artifacts of their personally meaningful experiences, and individualize artifacts in scientifically meaningful ways.
Birth-and-Death of KLK3 and KLK2 in Primates: Evolution Driven by Reproductive Biology

The kallikrein (KLK) gene family comprises the largest uninterrupted locus of serine proteases in the human genome and represents a notable case for studying the evolutionary fate of duplicated genes. In primates, a recent duplication event gave rise to KLK2 and KLK3, both encoding essential proteins for the cascade of seminal plasma liquefaction. We reconstructed the evolutionary history of KLK2 and KLK3 by comparative analysis of the orthologous sequences from 22 primate species, calculated dN/dS ratios, and addressed the hypothesis of coevolution with their substrates, the semenogelins (SEMG1 and SEMG2). Our findings support the placement of the KLK2–KLK3 duplication in the Catarrhini ancestor and unveil the frequent loss of KLK2 throughout primate evolution by different genomic mechanisms, including unequal crossing-over, deletions, and pseudogenization. We provide evidences for an adaptive evolution of KLK3 toward an expanded enzymatic spectrum, with an effect on the hydrolysis of semen coagulum. Furthermore, we found associations between mating system, the number of SEMG repeat units, and the number of functional KLK2 and KLK3, suggesting complex evolutionary dynamics shaped by reproductive biology.
Reiki therapy in social work practice

This study explores the perspectives of individuals with reiki and social work credentials, or "practitioners", regarding any benefits, risks, and barriers to the integration of reiki therapy and social work practice in the healthcare system. An organizational representative from each the College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers, The Canadian Reiki Association, and The Ontario Health Department was interviewed regarding their response to the prospect of integration and for the purpose of providing an organizational context to the practitioners' responses. Practitioners identified benefits to integration such as relief of physical pain, relaxation and stress reduction, relief of emotional pain, increased mental clarity and self awareness, increased receptivity to therapy, enhanced spiritual connection, and a sense of empowerment. The fit that was described between the two practices demonstrated complementary goals, values, and ethics of practice. Barriers to integration were described to be a lack of standardization in reiki and issues around credibility, financial costs of reiki, lack of education and scientific research about reiki, a Western mind-set, and issues regarding touch in practice. Such barriers demonstrated the impact of cultural differences and social structures due to a conservatism around the East-West paradigm clash and the struggle to establish and maintain boundaries within both CAM groups and within the conventional medical community. None of the participants saw any risks or dangers of integrating social work and reiki therapy. The responses of the organizational representatives demonstrated that the Canadian Reiki Association was very supportive of integration while the College and Ontario Health Department representatives took a more neutral and formalized position. These representatives cited the importance of adhering to standards of practice in their respective fields, which did not allow for an in-depth exploration of potential issues involved with integration.
GSTO1-1 modulates metabolism in macrophages activated through the LPS and TLR4 pathway

ABSTRACT Macrophages mediate innate immune responses that recognise foreign pathogens, and bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) recruits a signalling pathway through Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) to induce pro-inflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen species (ROS). LPS activation also skews the metabolism of macrophages towards a glycolytic phenotype. Here, we demonstrate that the LPS-triggered glycolytic switch is significantly attenuated in macrophages deficient for glutathione transferase omega-1 (GSTO1, note that GSTO1-1 refers to the dimeric molecule with identical type 1 subunits). In response to LPS, GSTO1-1-deficient macrophages do not produce excess lactate, or dephosphorylate AMPK, a key metabolic stress regulator. In addition, GSTO1-1-deficient cells do not induce HIF1α, which plays a key role in maintaining the pro-inflammatory state of activated macrophages. The accumulation of the TCA cycle intermediates succinate and fumarate that occurs in LPS-treated macrophages was also blocked in GSTO1-1-deficient cells. These data indicate that GSTO1-1 is required for LPS-mediated signalling in macrophages and that it acts early in the LPS–TLR4 pro-inflammatory pathway.
Moral Reasoning and Personal Behavior: A Meta-Analytical Review

The meta-analysis examined the effect of moral development on 4 domains of action (real life, honesty, altruism, and resistance to conformity), and on action in general. The database, comprised by 151 studies across 71 years, stemmed from a previous narrative synthesis conducted by Blasi (1980), updated with studies published up to 2013. Results showed that (a) moral development was significantly related to action in general and to each domain, (b) the effect sizes were similar for altruism, real life, and resistance to conformity, with coefficients higher than r = . 20, (c) the effect size for honesty was lower than for the other 3 types of behaviors, and (d) demographic or methodological variables did not affect the association between moral development and action. Discussion centers on similarities among domains of action, perfect and imperfect duties, and the need for other constructs to account for moral action.
The Ciliary Neurotrophic Factor / Leukemia Inhibitory Factor / gp 130 Receptor Complex Operates in the Maintenance of Mammalian Forebrain Neural Stem Cells

The cytokines that signal through the common receptor subunit gp130, including ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), interleukin-6, leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) and oncostatin M, have pleiotropic functions in CNS development. Given the restricted expression domain of the CNTF receptor (CNTFR) in the developing forebrain germinal zone and adult forebrain periventricular area, we have examined the putative role of CNTFR/LIFR/gp130-mediated signaling in regulating forebrain neural stem cell fate in vivo and in vitro. Analysis of LIFRdeficient mice revealed that a decreased level of LIFR expression results in a reduction in the number of adult neural stem cells. In adult LIFR heterozygote ( / ) mice, the number of neural stem cells and their progeny in the forebrain subependyma and TH-immunoreactive neurons in the olfactory bulb were significantly reduced. Intraventricular infusion of CNTF into the adult mouse forebrain, in the absence or presence of epidermal growth factor (EGF), enhanced self-renewal of neural stem cells in vivo. Analyses of EGF-responsive neural stem cells proliferating in vitro found that CNTF inhibits lineage restriction of neural stem cells to glial progenitors, which in turn results in enhanced expansion of stem cell number. These results suggest that CNTFR/LIFR/gp130-mediated signaling supports the maintenance of forebrain neural stem cells, likely by suppressing restriction to a glial progenitor cell fate.
University brand image as competitive advantage: a two-country study

Purpose Given the competitive landscape in the higher education setting, it is important that universities adopt strategies that create competitive advantage for them. Universities must leverage their resources efficiently to address this goal. Creating a positive brand image is one such strategy. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize university brand image as its heritage, service quality and trustworthiness and investigate their relationship with student’s satisfaction. It also investigates the role of university reputation as a mediating variable. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through a mixed method approach. The first stage involved qualitative interviews and focused group discussions with students to understand the factors responsible for student satisfaction with their respective universities. The second stage involved administering a survey questionnaire in two geographies – the USA and India to investigate the hypothesized relationship. The authors use regression analyses to test these relationships. Findings Findings indicate that a distinct brand image plays an important role in students’ level of satisfaction across both the USA and India. Service quality has a greater impact on student satisfaction levels across both contexts (as compared to university heritage and trustworthiness). The authors also find a positive mediating effect of university reputation in the relationship between university brand image and student satisfaction levels. Originality/value The current research contributes to the services marketing literature in the university context. It offers a framework for decision making in universities. It suggests that universities must work toward developing their brand image by focusing on its three dimensions – heritage, trustworthiness and service quality.
Selecting MIS projects by steering committee

Steering committees have recently gained vast acceptance in organizations as the mechanism used to select management information systems (MIS) projects. Because of their widespread adoption and their differences from other selection mechanisms with respect to orientation, steering committees were chosen for study. Data from 92 projects selected from 32 organizations were analyzed. As hypothesized, projects selected by steering committees were found to differ significantly from those chosen via other selection mechanisms. The implications of this result for organizations using steering committees to select MIS projects are presented.
A Topological Analysis of the Space of Natural Images

In this paper we study the space of natural images locally. We apply the techniques of computational algebraic topology to the space of 3x3 and 5x5 high-contrast patches and show that in both cases, the subspace of linear and quadratic gradient patches, which forms a dense subset inside the space of all high-contrast patches, possesses an interesting topological filtration and is itself topologically equivalent to the Klein bottle.
Reprints Available Directly from the Publisher Photocopying Permitted by License Only Antigen-independent Selection of B-cell Ontogeny in Mice T15 Idiotype During

Precursors of B cells capable of responding to a T-independent form of phosphorylcholine (PC) in splenic focus assays were detected in the spleens of neonatal mice as early as 4 days after birth. The earliest anti-PC B cells were T15-. T15 foci-forming B cells were first detected 6 days after birth and expanded rapidly to constitute greater than 80% of the total PC-specific foci by day 10. Injection of heat-killed S. pneumoniae (R36A) into neonatal mice resulted in priming of the antibody response to PC, with an idiotype profile reflecting that of precursors of foci-forming B cells at the time of antigen administration. Priming of 2-day-old mice with 2 X10 and 2 X10 R36A induced a five-and tenfold increase in the antibody response to phosphorylcholine 6 to 8 weeks later. However, only 10 to 15% of the serum antibodies expressed the normally dominant T15 idiotype. Doses below 2 xl0 R36A showed no detectable priming activity. PC-specific hybridomas derived from mice injected with 2 X10 R36A 2 days after birth lacked the idiotypic and molecular characteristics typical of T15 antibodies. Antibodies to phosphorylcholine, raised by immunization of 6-week-old mice are normally protective against pneumococcal infection. However, serum antibodies from mice treated with R36A 2 days after birth and responding to phosphorylcholine following challenge with R36A at 6 weeks of age failed to protect against deliberate infection with virulent S. pneumoniae. These observations imply that the antigen phosphorylcholine does not play a role in the selective expansion and dominant expression of the T15 idiotype.
Emulation of IP-based video streaming through simultaneous satellite connections

This paper addresses the definition and testing, through a network emulation platform, of satellite IP-based live video streaming. Specifically, a High Throughput Satellite (HTS) VSAT commercial service operating at Ka-band was considered as core network for IP data transport. This approach opens the way to the definition of a new live “low cost - high quality” contribution model, compared to the classic Ku-band uplinks in use so far. On the other hand, the solution identified has to face some shortcomings that shall be carefully evaluated and are described in the paper.
Performance evaluation of Neighbor Discovery++ protocol for the provisioning of self-configuration services in IPv6 mobile ad hoc networks

The provision of new services based on the interconnection of smart devices into the IPv6-based Internet of Things (IoT) calls for novel technology solutions offering the possibility of automated, unsupervised network configuration and operation. This aspect is especially important for the mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) as a key enabling technology for the IoT. The mechanisms of Stateless Address Autoconfiguration aim for providing basic self-configuration capabilities to the IPv6 networks, however they are still not sufficient to provide full support for MANET networks. To address this challenge we have proposed the Neighbor Discovery++ (ND++) - an extended IPv6 Neighbor Discovery protocol for efficient Duplicate Address Detection in MANETs. In this paper we present the simulation results verifying the ND++ behaviour in the NS-3 simulation environment. The initial results confirm the previous experimental evaluation, present the efficiency of the proposed solution and reveal guidelines for optimal ND++ set-up.
Are side-band tones beneficial for PAPR reduction in FBMC?

The Filter Bank Multicarrier (FBMC) modulation scheme has recently gained a lot of research interest due to its characteristics in time and frequency spanning. However, as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), it suffers from high Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) leading to in-band and out-of-band distortion induced by the non-linearities of the power amplifier. In OFDM, the problem of PAPR reduction has been widely investigated. However, the different techniques seen in OFDM could not be directly applied in FBMC due to the polyphase network filters utilized therein. In this paper, we propose to use the null-subcarriers of the side-bands to reduce the PAPR value. Indeed, due to the low side-band power level of the FBMC, these sub-carriers could be modulated with an acceptable value to accommodate the PAPR reduction. The proposed method is designed through a geometric method aiming at minimizing the power of the side-band while minimizing the PAPR value. Compared with the traditional Tone Reservation (TR) technique, we show that the proposed technique presents good results in terms of PAPR Complementary Cumulative Distributed Function (CCDF) and Magnitude Error Rate (MER) and with a low power increase.
To which extent is the membrane potential in a neuron between successive spikes adequately modelled by a (continuous) semimartingale

We consider $p$-variations in some membrane potential data --viewed as a function of the step size in case where $p$ is fixed, or viewed as a function of $p$ in case where the step size is fixed-- and compare their shape with results in Ait-Sahalia and Jacod (2009) which do hold for general semimartingales. We obtain the following conclusion: in non- or very rarely spiking cases the membrane potential behaves as a semimartingale, in some cases as a semimartingale with jumps. Once the neuron is spiking, a semimartingale modelization is no longer adequate for the membrane potential between successive spikes, even if interspike intervals are relatively long.
A Longitudinal Examination of the Moderating Influence of Peer and Parental Socialization on Alcohol-Related Social Media Self-Effects Among Late Adolescents

ABSTRACT This study is the first to empirically and longitudinally demonstrate that alcohol-related social media self-effects may occur via attitudes, and that the strength of this association is dependent on peers and parents. A 2-wave panel study with a 1-year interval (N = 1006) among late adolescents (age 16–20 at baseline) showed that especially individuals whose peers and parents engaged in alcohol-positive socialization behaviors, held more positive alcohol-related attitudes one year later when they shared alcohol-related self-presentations on social networking sites (SNS). The strength of the alcohol-related social media self-effect was dampened when peers and parents engaged in more negative alcohol-related socialization behaviors. Overall, these results do not only provide support for the idea that some individuals can affect themselves through displaying certain content on SNS, they also suggest that peers and parents continue to play a socializing role, even when adolescents transition into emerging adulthood.
Investigation of task performance variations according to task requirements and alertness across the 24-h day in shift workers

The study investigated time-of-day effects on task performance in shift workers in different tasks (reaction time, discrimination, probe recognition, free recall), by varying task-specific features. On each of six recordings, each programmed on a different day and in a randomised order, operators rated alertness and performed different tasks. Self-rated alertness varied according to a typical diurnal trend. Time of day also affected reaction time (slower responses at 03:00 hours), discrimination performance (lower accuracy at 03:00 hours in the most difficult condition) and recall (superior recall at 07:00 and 11:00 hours following deeper processing at encoding). The data demonstrated time-of-day effects on cognitive processes also involved in many real-job activities, despite the lack of control for a number of exogenous factors known to interfere with performance in work settings. Since in the cognitively more loaded tasks, time-of-day effects depended on task conditions, the findings are of operational concern in shift-work situations involving differential task requirements. In a real-job setting, performance variations were observed according to time of day and task requirements in a set of cognitively more or less demanding tasks. Task-specific research across the 24-h day enables a better understanding of operators' tasks and the development of supporting technology.