Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Synthetic Chloride Channel Relaxes Airway Smooth Muscle of the Rat

Synthetic ion channels may have potential therapeutic applications, provided they possess appropriate biological activities. The present study was designed to examine the ability of small molecule-based synthetic Cl– channels to modulate airway smooth muscle responsiveness. Changes in isometric tension were measured in rat tracheal rings. Relaxations to the synthetic chloride channel SCC-1 were obtained during sustained contractions to KCl. The anion dependency of the effect of SCC-1 was evaluated by ion substitution experiments. The sensitivity to conventional Cl– transport inhibitors was also tested. SCC-1 caused concentration-dependent relaxations during sustained contractions to potassium chloride. This relaxing effect was dependent on the presence of extracellular Cl– and HCO3 −. It was insensitive to conventional Cl– channels/transport inhibitors that blocked the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator and calcium-activated Cl– channels. SCC-1 did not inhibit contractions induced by carbachol, endothelin-1, 5-hydroxytryptamine or the calcium ionophore A23187. SCC-1 relaxes airway smooth muscle during contractions evoked by depolarizing solutions. The Cl– conductance conferred by this synthetic compound is distinct from the endogenous transport systems for chloride anions.
Factors influencing college students' choice of a charity sport event

This study investigated the relative importance of five selected charity sport event (CSE) attributes that influence the likelihood of college students attending a CSE. The result of a conjoint analysis (N = 397) revealed that college students, when choosing a CSE, were most concerned about the sport activity provided, followed by the cause or host organization, participation fee, reference source, and participation gift. The study also found gender differences related to the relative importance of the selected CSE attributes. Subsequent cluster and sensitivity analyses were conducted as practical applications of a conjoint analysis.
The Market Premium for the Option to Close: Evidence from Australian Gold Mining Firms

This study shows the market value of gold mining firms contains a premium for the option to close. The sample uses 41 gold mining producers listed on the Australian Stock Exchange from 1987 to 2013. The premium of the market price over the present value of cash flows is isolated and a pooled cross-sectional regression tests the degree of association between that premium and theoretical option premiums. The results show market prices incorporate a premium reflecting the option to temporarily close operations. The magnitude of the option premium to close depends on whether firms are out or in the money options.
Sex-Dependent Effects of High-Fat-Diet Feeding on Rat Pancreas Oxidative Stress

Objectives: The objective of the study was to investigate whether sex differences in oxidative stress-associated insulin resistance previously reported in rats could be attributed to a possible sex dimorphism in pancreas redox status. Methods: Fifteen-month-old male and female Wistar rats were fed a control diet or a high-fat diet for 14 weeks. Serum glucose, lipids, and hormone levels were measured. Insulin immunohistochemistry and morphometric analysis of islets were performed. Pancreas triglyceride content, oxidative damage, and antioxidant enzymatic activities were determined. Lipoprotein lipase, hormone-sensitive lipase, and uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) levels were also measured. Results: Male rats showed a more marked insulin resistance profile than females. In control female rats, pancreas Mn-superoxide dismutase activity and UCP2 levels were higher, and oxidative damage was lower compared with males. High-fat-diet feeding decreased pancreas triglyceride content in female rats and UCP2 levels in male rats. High-fat-diet female rats showed larger islets than both their control and sex counterparts. Conclusions: These results confirm the existence of a sex dimorphism in pancreas oxidative status in both control and high-fat-diet feeding situations, with female rats showing higher protection against oxidative stress, thus maintaining pancreatic function and contributing to a lower risk of insulin resistance.
Loss of mTOR repressors Tsc1 or Pten has divergent effects on excitatory and inhibitory synaptic transmission in single hippocampal neuron cultures

The Pten and Tsc1 genes both encode proteins that repress mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling. Disruption of either gene in the brain results in epilepsy and autism-like symptoms in humans and mouse models, therefore it is important to understand the molecular and physiological events that lead from gene disruption to disease phenotypes. Given the similar roles these two molecules play in the regulation of cellular growth and the overlap in the phenotypes that result from their loss, we predicted that the deletion of either the Pten or Tsc1 gene from autaptic hippocampal neurons would have similar effects on neuronal morphology and synaptic transmission. Accordingly, we found that loss of either Pten or Tsc1 caused comparable increases in soma size, dendrite length and action potential properties. However, the effects of Pten and Tsc1 loss on synaptic transmission were different. Loss of Pten lead to an increase in both excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission, while loss of Tsc1 did not affect excitatory neurotransmission and reduced inhibitory transmission by decreasing mIPSC amplitude. Although the loss of Pten or Tsc1 both increased downstream mTORC1 signaling, phosphorylation of Akt was increased in Pten-ko and decreased in Tsc1-ko neurons, potentially accounting for the different effects on synaptic transmission. Despite the different effects at the synaptic level, our data suggest that loss of Pten or Tsc1 may both lead to an increase in the ratio of excitation to inhibition at the network level, an effect that has been proposed to underlie both epilepsy and autism.
Genomic investigation of a suspected outbreak of Legionella pneumophila ST82 reveals undetected heterogeneity by the present gold-standard methods, Denmark, July to November 2014

Between July and November 2014, 15 community-acquired cases of Legionnaires´ disease (LD), including four with Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 sequence type (ST) 82, were diagnosed in Northern Zealand, Denmark. An outbreak was suspected. No ST82 isolates were found in environmental samples and no external source was established. Four putative-outbreak ST82 isolates were retrospectively subjected to whole genome sequencing (WGS) followed by phylogenetic analyses with epidemiologically unrelated ST82 sequences. The four putative-outbreak ST82 sequences fell into two clades, the two clades were separated by ca 1,700 single nt polymorphisms (SNP)s when recombination regions were included but only by 12 to 21 SNPs when these were removed. A single putative-outbreak ST82 isolate sequence segregated in the first clade. The other three clustered in the second clade, where all included sequences had < 5 SNP differences between them. Intriguingly, this clade also comprised epidemiologically unrelated isolate sequences from the UK and Denmark dating back as early as 2011. The study confirms that recombination plays a major role in L. pneumophila evolution. On the other hand, strains belonging to the same ST can have only few SNP differences despite being sampled over both large timespans and geographic distances. These are two important factors to consider in outbreak investigations.
Speechbuilder: facilitating spoken dialogue system development

In this paper we report our attempts to facilitate the creation of mixed-initiative spoken dialogue systems for both novice and experienced developers of human language technology. Our efforts have resulted in the creation of a utility called S PEECHBUILDER, which allows developers to specify linguistic information about their domains, and rapidly create spoken dialogue interfaces to them. S PEECHBUILDER has been used to create domains providing access to structured information contained in a relational database, as well as to provide human language interfaces to control or transaction-based applications.
The effects of sequential attention shifts within visual working memory

Previous studies have shown conflicting data as to whether it is possible to sequentially shift spatial attention among visual working memory (VWM) representations. The present study investigated this issue by asynchronously presenting attentional cues during the retention interval of a change detection task. In particular, we focused on two types of sequential attention shifts: (1) orienting attention to one location, and then withdrawing attention from it, and (2) switching the focus of attention from one location to another. In Experiment 1, a withdrawal cue was presented after a spatial retro-cue to measure the effect of withdrawing attention. The withdrawal cue significantly reduced the cost of invalid spatial cues, but surprisingly, did not attenuate the benefit of valid spatial cues. This indicates that the withdrawal cue only triggered the activation of facilitative components but not inhibitory components of attention. In Experiment 2, two spatial retro-cues were presented successively to examine the effect of switching the focus of attention. We observed equivalent benefits of the first and second spatial cues, suggesting that participants were able to reorient attention from one location to another within VWM, and the reallocation of attention did not attenuate memory at the first-cued location. In Experiment 3, we found that reducing the validity of the preceding spatial cue did lead to a significant reduction in its benefit. However, performance was still better at first-cued locations than at uncued and neutral locations, indicating that the first cue benefit might have been preserved both partially under automatic control and partially under voluntary control. Our findings revealed new properties of dynamic attentional control in VWM maintenance.
Changing disturbance regimes, ecological memory, and forest resilience

Ecological memory is central to how ecosystems respond to disturbance and is maintained by two types of legacies – information and material. Species life-history traits represent an adaptive response to disturbance and are an information legacy; in contrast, the abiotic and biotic structures (such as seeds or nutrients) produced by single disturbance events are material legacies. Disturbance characteristics that support or maintain these legacies enhance ecological resilience and maintain a “safe operating space” for ecosystem recovery. However, legacies can be lost or diminished as disturbance regimes and environmental conditions change, generating a “resilience debt” that manifests only after the system is disturbed. Strong effects of ecological memory on post-disturbance dynamics imply that contingencies (effects that cannot be predicted with certainty) of individual disturbances, interactions among disturbances, and climate variability combine to affect ecosystem resilience. We illustrate these concepts and introduce a novel ecosystem resilience framework with examples of forest disturbances, primarily from North America. Identifying legacies that support resilience in a particular ecosystem can help scientists and resource managers anticipate when disturbances may trigger abrupt shifts in forest ecosystems, and when forests are likely to be resilient.
Time-Series Classification in Many Intrinsic Dimensions

In the context of many data mining tasks, high dimensionality was shown to be able to pose significant problems, commonly referred to as different aspects of the curse of dimensionality. In this paper, we investigate in the time-series domain one aspect of the dimensionality curse called hubness, which refers to the tendency of some instances in a data set to become hubs by being included in unexpectedly many k-nearest neighbor lists of other instances. Through empirical measurements on a large collection of time-series data sets we demonstrate that the hubness phenomenon is caused by high intrinsic dimensionality of time-series data, and shed light on the mechanism through which hubs emerge, focusing on the popular and successful dynamic time warping (DTW) distance. Also, the interaction between hubness and the information provided by class labels is investigated, by considering label matches and mismatches between neighboring time series. Following our findings we formulate a framework for categorizing time-series data sets based on measurements that reflect hubness and the diversity of class labels among nearest neighbors. The framework allows one to assess whether hubness can be successfully used to improve the performance of k-NN classification. Finally, the merits of the framework are demonstrated through experimental evaluation of 1-NN and k-NN classifiers, including a proposed weighting scheme that is designed to make use of hubness information. Our experimental results show that the examined framework, in the majority of cases, is able to correctly reflect the circumstances in which hubness information can effectively be employed in k-NN time-series classification.
Influence of a caffeine mouth rinse on sprint cycling following glycogen depletion

Abstract Attenuated performance during intense exercise with limited endogenous carbohydrate (CHO) is well documented. Therefore, this study examined whether caffeine (CAF) mouth rinsing would augment performance during repeated sprint cycling in participants with reduced endogenous CHO. Eight recreationally active males (aged 23 ± 2 yr, body mass 84 ± 4 kg, stature 178 ± 7 cm) participated in this randomized, single-blind, repeated-measures crossover investigation. Following familiarization, participants attended two separate evening glycogen depletion sessions. The following morning, participants completed five, 6 s sprints on a cycle ergometer (separated by 24 s active recovery), with mouth rinsing either (1) a placebo solution or (2) a 2% CAF solution. During a fifth visit, participants completed the sprints without prior glycogen depletion. Repeated-measures ANOVA identified significant main effect of condition (CAF, placebo, and control [P < .05; effect size (ES) = 0.850–0.897]), sprint (1–5 [P < .005; ES = 0.871–0.986]), and interaction (condition × sprint [P < .05; ES = 0.831–0.846]), for peak and mean power. The control condition exhibited the highest peak power (overall mean 760 ± 77 W) and mean power (overall mean 699 ± 83W) over the five sprints (P < .001 in both instances). CAF peak power (overall mean 643 ± 79 W) was significantly greater than placebo (mean 573 ± 79 W [P < .05; ES = 0.850]). Additionally, CAF mean power (overall mean 589 ± 80 W) was significantly greater than placebo (519 ± 82 W [P < .05; ES = 0.397]). These data indicate that mouth rinsing a caffeinated solution reduces decrements caused by CHO reduction, which may benefit athletes wishing to train in a low-CHO state.
Models and Fictions in (Micro-)Economics

How can an argument that is based on assumptions known to be false deliver any insightful conclusions let alone be used for policy recommendations? Over the years, a variety of concerns regarding (micro-)economic modelling and its relevance for real life have been expressed along these lines. Adding to this methodological discussion, I take seriously the recurrent comparison of economic models with literary fiction (fables, metaphors, parables,.) and argue that many of the concerns expressed can be alleviated in a coherent picture if one adopts the fiction view of models proposed by Frigg (2010a,b). In particular, I argue how adopting such a view not only opens a way for meaningful comparisons of economic models with reality but also relieves the pressure on assumptions to be empirically verifiable. Moreover, the argument suggests a distinctive role for strong mathematical theories such as expected utility theory (setting limits to the fictional world to be imagined), the often extensive story telling in economic modelling (adapting the model to a context and suggesting comparisons with "reality") as well as for empirical studies putting economic modelling to the test (exploring properties of the real world and how they relate to properties of the fictional model-world). Thus, suggesting a coherent framework in which various aspects of the discussion can be accommodated, I hope to add some valuable structure to the ongoing debate about how to interpret (micro-)economic modelling.
Comparison of three optical tracking systems in a complex navigation scenario

Three-dimensional rotational X-ray imaging with the SIREMOBIL Iso-C3D (Siemens AG, Medical Solutions, Erlangen, Germany) has become a well-established intra-operative imaging modality. In combination with a tracking system, the Iso-C3D provides inherently registered image volumes ready for direct navigation. This is achieved by means of a pre-calibration procedure. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the tracking system used on the overall navigation accuracy of direct Iso-C3D navigation. Three models of tracking system were used in the study: Two Optotrak 3020s, a Polaris P4 and a Polaris Spectra system, with both Polaris systems being in the passive operation mode. The evaluation was carried out at two different sites using two Iso-C3D devices. To measure the navigation accuracy, a number of phantom experiments were conducted using an acrylic phantom equipped with titanium spheres. After scanning, a special pointer was used to pinpoint these markers. The difference between the digitized and navigated positions served as the accuracy measure. Up to 20 phantom scans were performed for each tracking system. The average accuracy measured was 0.86 mm and 0.96 mm for the two Optotrak 3020 systems, 1.15 mm for the Polaris P4, and 1.04 mm for the Polaris Spectra system. For the Polaris systems a higher maximal error was found, but all three systems yielded similar minimal errors. On average, all tracking systems used in this study could deliver similar navigation accuracy. The passive Polaris system showed – as expected – higher maximal errors; however, depending on the application constraints, this might be negligible.
Engagement in post‐compulsory education: students' motivation and action

This paper reports on one phase of a project on student engagement in Aotearoa New Zealand. It reports the results of a survey of students enrolled for the first time in a post‐compulsory education programme. The students were enrolled in one of nine institutions: two universities, one wānanga, four institutes of technology, a private training establishment and a community organisation. This paper reports on one aspect of the questionnaire. It uses Self‐Determination Theory to investigate motivators for student engagement and assesses how extensively they are acted on by students. Findings show that institutions are both different and similar; that students are motivated more by competence than agency or relationships; and that they act on agency needs more than on competency or relationship ones. Drawing on the similarities, the paper outlines some ways in which teachers and institutions might use the findings to improve student engagement.
When pseudowords acquire meaning: Effect of semantic associations on pseudoword repetition priming.

In Experiment 1, priming increased with additional presentations when the priming task was to generate a potential meaning for each pseudoword but not when the priming task was to read each pseudoword aloud. In Experiments 2 and 3, repetition effects were found when Ss attempted to learn definitions assigned to the pseudowords by the experimenter. Equivalent levels of priming were found regardless of whether the definition assigned to a pseudoword changed or remained the same over 3 trials, although recall of the definitions was better for the consistently defined pseudowords. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the same mechanism underlies both word and pseudoword priming, except that words (and pseudowords that acquire meaning) benefit from the priming of orthographic-semantic associations
Disruption of the methyltransferase-like 23 gene METTL23 causes mild autosomal recessive intellectual disability

We describe the characterization of a gene for mild nonsyndromic autosomal recessive intellectual disability (ID) in two unrelated families, one from Austria, the other from Pakistan. Genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism microarray analysis enabled us to define a region of homozygosity by descent on chromosome 17q25. Whole-exome sequencing and analysis of this region in an affected individual from the Austrian family identified a 5 bp frameshifting deletion in the METTL23 gene. By means of Sanger sequencing of METTL23, a nonsense mutation was detected in a consanguineous ID family from Pakistan for which homozygosity-by-descent mapping had identified a region on 17q25. Both changes lead to truncation of the putative METTL23 protein, which disrupts the predicted catalytic domain and alters the cellular localization. 3D-modelling of the protein indicates that METTL23 is strongly predicted to function as an S-adenosyl-methionine (SAM)-dependent methyltransferase. Expression analysis of METTL23 indicated a strong association with heat shock proteins, which suggests that these may act as a putative substrate for methylation by METTL23. A number of methyltransferases have been described recently in association with ID. Disruption of METTL23 presented here supports the importance of methylation processes for intact neuronal function and brain development.
An Asynchronous Consensus-Based Algorithm for Estimation From Noisy Relative Measurements

In this paper, we address the problem of optimal estimating the position of each agent in a network from relative noisy vectorial distances with its neighbors by means of only local communication and bounded complexity, independent of network size and topology. We propose a consensus-based algorithm with the use of local memory variables which allows asynchronous implementation, has guaranteed exponential convergence to the optimal solution under simple deterministic and randomized communication protocols, and requires minimal packet transmission. In the randomized scenario, we then study the rate of convergence in expectation of the estimation error and we argue that it can be used to obtain upper and lower bound for the rate of converge in mean square. In particular, we show that for regular graphs, such as Cayley, Ramanujan, and complete graphs, the convergence rate in expectation has the same asymptotic degradation of memoryless asynchronous consensus algorithms in terms of network size. In addition, we show that the asynchronous implementation is also robust to delays and communication failures. We finally complement the analytical results with some numerical simulations, comparing the proposed strategy with other algorithms which have been recently proposed in the literature.
Recent VLBA/VERA/IVS tests of general relativity

Abstract We report on recent VLBA/VERA/IVS observational tests of General Relativity. First, we will summarize the results from the 2005 VLBA experiment that determined gamma with an accuracy of 0.0003 by measuring the deflection of four compact radio sources by the solar gravitational field. We discuss the limits of precision that can be obtained with VLBA experiments in the future. We describe recent experiments using the three global arrays to measure the aberration of gravity when Jupiter and Saturn passed within a few arcmin of bright radio sources. These reductions are still in progress, but the anticipated positional accuracy of the VLBA experiment may be about 0.01 mas.