Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical and radiological features of brainstem variant of hypertensive encephalopathy.

BACKGROUND The "posterior reversible leukoencephalopathy" syndrome, generally observed in the setting of severe, acute hypertension, often correlates with radiological abnormalities that involve the occipital lobes and other hemispheric areas. A predominant involvement of the brainstem in this syndrome is rare. PATIENTS We report three patients with previously known or newly diagnosed severe hypertension, who presented with a combination of headache and visual disturbances, along with diffuse abnormalities demonstrated on magnetic resonance imaging in the brainstem and cerebellum. The absence of clinical features of brainstem or cerebellar dysfunction contrasted with the severity of the radiological abnormalities. CONCLUSIONS We discuss the pathophysiological, clinical, and radiographic features of this variant of posterior reversible leukoencephalopathy.
Comparison of the tissue response during the loading with voltage-sensitive dye in two animal models

Two animal models - guinea pig and rabbit - were used to record monophasic action potentials using voltage sensitive dye di-4-ANEPPS in isolated hearts perfused according to Langendorf. The hearts undergo the same isolation and loading procedures. Changes in electrogram and coronary flow are followed. During the loading and washout, prominent electrophysiological changes occur (mainly decrease of spontaneous heart rate and changes in the shape of T wave), accompanied with decrease in mean coronary flow. However, these changes differ in the two species. It may be concluded that rabbit heart is more resistant to the changes which are triggered with VSD application. Although these changes are partially reversible in guinea pig heart, this model seems to be more sensitive and thus less reliable
Very deep convolutional neural networks for LVCSR

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have achieved state-of-the-art performance when embedded in large vocabulary continuous speech recognition (LVCSR) systems due to its capability of modeling local correlations and reducing translational variations. In all previous related works for ASR, only up to two convolutional layers are employed. In light of the recent success of very deep CNNs in image classiﬁcation, it is of interest to investigate the deep structure of CNNs for speech recognition in detail. In contrast to image classiﬁcation, the dimensionality of the speech feature, the span size of input feature and the relationship between temporal and spectral domain are new factors to consider while designing very deep CNNs. In this work, very deep CNNs are introduced for LVCSR task, by extending depth of convolutional layers up to ten. The contribution of this work is two-fold: performance improvement of very deep CNNs is investigated under different conﬁgurations; further, a better way to perform convolution operations on temporal dimension is proposed. Experiments showed that very deep CNNs offer a 8-12% relative improvement over baseline DNN system, and a 4-7% relative improvement over baseline CNN system, evaluated on both a 15-hr Callhome and a 51-hr Switchboard LVCSR tasks.
A distinct type of sialyl Lewis X antigen defined by a novel monoclonal antibody is selectively expressed on helper memory T cells.

A subset of human helper memory T cells is known to adhere to E-selectin expressed on cytokine-activated endothelial cells. However, sialyl Lex antigen, the carbohydrate ligand for E-selectin, has been hardly detectable on these cells, at least when typical anti-sialyl Lex antibodies were used for detection. One of the MoAbs (2F3, IgM), which we raised against a chemically synthesized sialyl Lex glycolipid preparation, is found to react selectively to CD4+ CD45RObright+ CD45RA- helper memory T cells among peripheral lymphocytes in healthy individuals. The specificity of the antibody is in clear contrast to that of the hitherto reported typical anti-sialyl Lex antibodies FH-6 and SNH-3. These classical anti-sialyl Lex antibodies were known to react to a subset of natural killer (NK) cells, but were not reactive with any particular subset of resting peripheral T or B cells of healthy individuals if the cells were not activated. On the other hand, the newly generated 2F3 antibody specifically reacted to helper memory T cells, and did not react to NK cells, B cells, or any T cells other than helper memory T cells. When tested against the sialyl Lex-active glycolipid antigen, the reactivity of 2F3 was not significantly different from that of the classical anti-sialyl Lex antibodies. But when tested against oligosaccharides prepared from cellular glycoproteins, 2F3 detected a distinct set of O-linked oligosaccharides, which were not reactive to the classical anti-sialyl Lex antibodies. Our results suggest that various molecular species of sialyl Lex antigens are present on carbohydrate side chains of cellular glycoproteins, and that helper memory T cells express a distinct type of sialyl Lex antigen that is defined by 2F3 but is not efficiently detected by other typical anti-sialyl Lex antibodies. Among cultured lymphocytic leukemia cells, the adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) cells preferentially expressed the 2F3-defined antigen, and acute lymphocytic leukemia cells rarely expressed the antigen. The cultured ATL cells expressing the 2F3-defined antigen showed a clear E-selectin-dependent adhesion to cytokin-activated endothelial cells, and the 2F3-defined sialyl Lex antigen served as a ligand for E-selectin as ascertained by the clear inhibition of adhesion with the 2F3 antibody. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Olfactory Sex Recognition Investigated in Antarctic Prions

Chemical signals can yield information about an animal such as its identity, social status or sex. Such signals have rarely been considered in birds, but recent results have shown that chemical signals are actually used by different bird species to find food and to recognize their home and nest. This is particularly true in petrels whose olfactory anatomy is among the most developed in birds. Recently, we have demonstrated that Antarctic prions, Pachyptila desolata, are also able to recognize and follow the odour of their partner in a Y-maze. However, the experimental protocol left unclear whether this choice reflected an olfactory recognition of a particular individual (i.e. partner) or a more general sex recognition mechanism. To test this second hypothesis, male and female birds' odours were presented simultaneously to 54 Antarctic prions in a Y-maze. Results showed random behaviour by the tested bird, independent of its sex or reproductive status. Present results do not support the possibility that Antarctic prions can distinguish the sex of a conspecific through its odour but indirectly support the hypothesis that they can distinguish individual odours.
The Role of Public Opinion in Policy Argument: An Examination of Public Opinion Rhetoric in the Federal Budget Process

Public opinion plays a vital role in a democracy. Scholars have yet to explore how public opinion is constructed in policy argument in many significant policy areas. Through an examination of budget rhetoric over a three-year period, this study uncovers several argument patterns that incorporate public opinion. These patterns, in their totality, yield two major conclusions. First, public opinion arguments rarely surface in budget rhetoric. Second, in budget debates politicians construct a discursive conception of public opinion. The revealed relationship between public opinion and public argument has both helpful and harmful implications for the public sphere and democratic governance.
Self-Efficacy of Teachers in Zarqa Governorate in the Light of some Variables

The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers self-efficacy in Zarqa Governorate in the light of variables: gender, school level and teacher experience. Four hundreds and one teachers is participated in this study by completing teacher self-efficacy scale (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk, 2001). The results of the study revealed that teachers described themselves as have high self-efficacy. Furthermore, it was found that there were differences among teachers in perceiving their self-efficacy that are attributed to the school level, interaction between gender and school level, and gender and teacher’s experience. Finally, the study ended by offering a number of recommendations for practice and research. هدفت هذه الدراسة تعرف الفاعلية الذاتية لمعلمي مدارس محافظة الزرقاء ومعلماتها في ضوء متغيرات الجنوسة، والمرحلة الدراسية، والخبرة التدريسية للمعلم. تكونت عينة الدراسة من (401) معلماً ومعلمة قاموا بالإجابة عن أسئلة مقياس الفاعلية الذاتية للمعلمين لتشانن - موران وولفولك (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk, 2001). وقد توصلت الدراسة إلى أن مستوى الفاعلية الذاتية للمعلمين كان مرتفعاً، وأن المعلمين أكثر فاعلية في بعد الإدارة الصفية وأقلها في بعد مشاركة الطلبة في العملية التعليمية التعلمية. كما توصلت الدراسة إلى وجود فروق في تقديرات المعلمين لفاعليتهم الذاتية تعزى إلى متغير المرحلة الدراسية، والتفاعل الثنائي بين متغيري المرحلة الدراسية والجنوسة، ومتغيري الجنوسة والخبرة التدريسية للمعلم. وقد عرضت الدراسة لمجموعة من التوصيات استناداً إلى النتائج التي تمخضت عنها.
Etiology and early prognosis of newly diagnosed partial seizures in adults: A quantitative hippocampal MRI study

Sixty-three adult patients with newly diagnosed partial seizures underwent MRI of the brain including hippocampal quantitation. Seventy-six percent of patients had normal MRI findings, 10% had hippocampal sclerosis (HS), and 14% had MRI abnormalities other than HS. Patients with HS had a worse early prognosis than patients with other MRI findings with respect to seizures. The extent of hippocampal damage appeared to be an important mediating factor in frequency of seizures, secondary generalization, and resistance to antiepileptic drug treatment. Because MRI provides prognostic information and can alter management for the individual patient, high-resolution MRI should be performed in all patients with newly diagnosed partial seizures.
Mannanase Components from Bacillus pumilus

β-d-Mannanase from Bacillus pumilus was purified into two components, A and B, which exhibited homogeneity on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. These components had molecular weights of 55,000 (A) and 37,000 (B); carbohydrate contents of 15.3% (A) and 7.2% (B); specific activities of 78 (A) and 1,616 (B) U/mg; pH optima of 5.5 to 6.9 (A) and 6.0 (B); and half-lives of 60 (A) and 21 (B) min at 70°C.
Angelica sinensis Improves Exercise Performance and Protects against Physical Fatigue in Trained Mice

Angelica sinensis (AS) is a well-known medicinal herb and food material with antioxidative and multifunctional pharmacological activities. However, we lack evidence of the effect of AS on exercise performance and physical fatigue. We aimed to evaluate the potential beneficial effect of AS on ergogenic and anti-fatigue functions after physiological challenge. Male ICR strain mice were randomly assigned to four groups (n = 10 per group) for treatment: (1) sedentary control and vehicle treatment (vehicle control); (2) exercise training with vehicle treatment (exercise control); (3) exercise training with AS treatment at 0.41 g/kg/day (Ex-AS1); and (4) 2.05 g/kg/day (Ex-AS5); both the vehicle and AS were orally administered for 6 weeks. Exercise performance and anti-fatigue function were evaluated by forelimb grip strength, exhaustive swimming time, and levels of serum lactate, ammonia, glucose, and creatine kinase (CK) after a 15-min swimming exercise. Trend analysis revealed that AS treatments significantly increased endurance swimming time and blood glucose level, and decreased serum lactate, ammonia and CK levels. Liver and muscle glycogen contents were higher for Ex-AS1 and Ex-AS5 groups than the exercise control. Therefore, AS supplementation improved exercise performance and had anti-fatigue properties in mice and may be an effective ergogenic aid in exercise training.
A Study of Self- and Peer-Assessment of Learners' Oral Proficiency *

To provide learners with SA/PA instruments through a learner training which would enable them to apply them in a context where a teacherevaluator is not present and where they would need to learn another language (L3) through the medium of L2 (i.e. English) was the ultimate aim of the study. This paper reports on a study of upper-intermediate learners in English which focussed on the following two questions: (1) To what extent can learners accurately assess their own and peers’ performances of tasks in the target language? (2) How does learner training in selfand peerassessment improve learners’ ability in appraising their own and their peers’ language ability? A fortnight’s task-based learner training programme was also conducted to develop the learners’ abilities in metalinguistic strategies, to enable them to understand and interpret their peers’ feedback by using two oral performance tasks. In order to determine how useful learner training is for both learners and tutors, the programme was evaluated as an ongoing process by means of a multi-method approach, using data from learners’ overall evaluation questionnaires, preand post-interviews with learners, interviews with tutors, learners’ selfand peer-assessment results and tutors’ rating scores. The results show that learners were able to assess their performances more accurately with repeated practice.
PPRS: Production skills and their relation to product, process, and resource

To model increasingly adaptive production systems, skills are used to describe generic capabilities of the system components. In this paper, the authors extend the well-known division of production entities into product, process, and resource (PPR) with a skill definition. There are two main advantages for this approach: First, using PPR for the skill definition allows easy integration into existing models and tools. Second, there is a natural tendency to define very generic skills to capture all possible use cases. But at some point, skills have to be translated into precise instructions for execution. The model makes this dichotomy explicit and provides a common taxonomy for stakeholders concerned with skills on different abstraction levels.
Downregulation of TIM-3 mRNA expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

The T-cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain (TIM) family is associated with autoimmune diseases, but its expression level in the immune cells of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients is not known. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the expression of TIM-3 mRNA is associated with pathogenesis of SLE. Quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analysis (qRT-PCR) was used to determine TIM-1, TIM-3, and TIM-4 mRNA expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 132 patients with SLE and 62 healthy controls. The PBMC surface protein expression of TIMs in PBMCs from 20 SLE patients and 15 healthy controls was assayed by flow cytometry. Only TIM-3 mRNA expression decreased significantly in SLE patients compared with healthy controls (P<0.001). No significant differences in TIM family protein expression were observed in leukocytes from SLE patients and healthy controls (P>0.05). SLE patients with lupus nephritis (LN) had a significantly lower expression of TIM-3 mRNA than those without LN (P=0.001). There was no significant difference in the expression of TIM-3 mRNA within different classes of LN (P>0.05). Correlation of TIM-3 mRNA expression with serum IgA was highly significant (r=0.425, P=0.004), but was weakly correlated with total serum protein (rs=0.283, P=0.049) and serum albumin (rs=0.297, P=0.047). TIM-3 mRNA expression was weakly correlated with the Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI; rs=-0.272, P=0.032). Our results suggest that below-normal expression of TIM-3 mRNA in PBMC may be involved in the pathogenesis of SLE.
Testing Paradigms of Ecosystem Change under Climate Warming in Antarctica

Antarctic marine ecosystems have undergone significant changes as a result of human activities in the past and are now responding in varied and often complicated ways to climate change impacts. Recent years have seen the emergence of large-scale mechanistic explanations–or “paradigms of change”–that attempt to synthesize our understanding of past and current changes. In many cases, these paradigms are based on observations that are spatially and temporally patchy. The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), one of Earth’s most rapidly changing regions, has been an area of particular research focus. A recently proposed mechanistic explanation for observed changes in the WAP region relates changes in penguin populations to variability in krill biomass and regional warming. While this scheme is attractive for its simplicity and chronology, it may not account for complex spatio-temporal processes that drive ecosystem dynamics in the region. It might also be difficult to apply to other Antarctic regions that are experiencing some, though not all, of the changes documented for the WAP. We use qualitative network models of differing levels of complexity to test paradigms of change for the WAP ecosystem. Importantly, our approach captures the emergent effects of feedback processes in complex ecological networks and provides a means to identify and incorporate uncertain linkages between network elements. Our findings highlight key areas of uncertainty in the drivers of documented trends, and suggest that a greater level of model complexity is needed in devising explanations for ecosystem change in the Southern Ocean. We suggest that our network approach to evaluating a recent and widely cited paradigm of change for the Antarctic region could be broadly applied in hypothesis testing for other regions and research fields.
Dimensions of Children's Motivations for Reading: An Initial Study. Reading Research Report No. 34.

A study examined the dimensions of children's motivation for reading. Eleven different dimensions of reading motivations were proposed, including intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for reading, perceptions of reading efficacy, social aspects of reading, and reading disincentives. Aa 82-item questionnaire was developed to measure each dimension, with several items assessing each dimension. The questionnaire was completed by 105 fourthand fifth-grade children in southern Maryland. Factor analyses showed that some of the proposed dimensions were clearly defined, whereas others were not. Several of the dimensions were correlated with children's book reading frequency in a school-based reading program. The dimensions that appear to be the most reliable include Reading Efficacy, Reading Challenge, Curiosity, Aesthetic Enjoyment, Recognition, Social, and Competition. A revised version of the questionnaire based on the statistical analyses was developed. (Contains 48 references and five tables of data. The original version of the Motivations for Reading Questionnaire is attached.)
Dynamic Contact Angle Analysis of Silicone Hydrogel Contact Lenses

Contact angle measurements are used to infer the clinical wetting characteristics of contact lenses. Such characterization has become more commonplace since the introduction of silicone hydrogel contact lens materials, which have been associated with reduced in vivo wetting due to the inclusion of siloxane-containing components. Using consistent methodology and a single investigator, advancing and receding contact angles were measured for 11 commercially available silicone hydrogel contact lens types with a dynamic captive bubble technique employing customized, fully automated image analysis. Advancing contact angles were found to range between 20° and 72° with the lenses falling into six statistically discrete groupings. Receding contact angles fell within a narrower range, between 17° and 22°, with the lenses segregated into three groups. The relationship between these laboratory measurements and the clinical performance of the lenses requires further investigation.
The prevalence of kilometer-scale heterogeneity in the source region of MORB upper mantle

Observed Nd-Hf systematics in natural samples can be reproduced by melting a mantle with heterogeneities on kilometer scale. The source regions of mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORB) are heterogeneous, consisting of chemically and lithologically distinct domains of variable size. Partial melting of such heterogeneous mantle sources gives rise to diverse isotopic compositions of MORB and abyssal peridotites. Variations in radiogenic isotope ratios in MORB are attributed to mixing of melts derived from enriched and depleted mantle components. However, melt mixing alone cannot fully account for the difference between the average 143Nd/144Nd in abyssal peridotites and their spatially associated MORB. We show that the more depleted Nd isotope composition in abyssal peridotites is a natural consequence of melt migration–induced mixing or smearing in the melting column. Sub-kilometer scale enriched mantle components or heterogeneities are significantly damped or homogenized in both the residue and erupted melt during their transit through the melting region. Heterogeneities with larger size and higher incompatible trace element abundance are more resistive to the mixing processes. The size-sensitive mixing depends on a parameter called the enrichment strength, which is the product of the heterogeneity size and the ratio between incompatible trace element abundance in the enriched and depleted mantle sources. Observed Nd-Hf isotope variations in MORB and abyssal peridotites can be reproduced if the enrichment strength is 20 to 60 km. These heterogeneities could be on the kilometer scale and have similar isotope ratios to but less incompatible trace element abundances than recycled oceanic crust.
Recent Declines in Hospitalizations for Acute Myocardial Infarction for Medicare Fee-for-Service Beneficiaries: Progress and Continuing Challenges

Background— Amid recent efforts to reduce cardiovascular risk, whether rates of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in the United States have declined for elderly patients is unknown. Methods and Results— Medicare fee-for-service patients hospitalized in the United States with a principal discharge diagnosis of AMI were identified through the use of data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from 2002 to 2007, a time period selected to reduce changes arising from the new definition of AMI. The Medicare beneficiary denominator file was used to determine the population at risk. AMI hospitalization rates were calculated annually per 100 000 beneficiary-years with Poisson regression analysis and stratified according to age, sex, and race. The annual AMI hospitalization rate in the fee-for-service Medicare population fell from 1131 per 100 000 beneficiary-years in 2002 to 866 in 2007, a relative 23.4% decline. After adjustment for age, sex, and race, the AMI hospitalization rate declined by 5.8%/y. From 2002 to 2007, white men experienced a 24.4% decrease in AMI hospitalizations, whereas black men experienced a smaller decline (18.0%; P<0.001 for interaction). Black women had a smaller decline in AMI hospitalization rate compared with white women (18.4% versus 23.3%, respectively; P<0.001 for interaction). Conclusions— AMI hospitalization rates fell markedly in the Medicare fee-for-service population between 2002 and 2007. However, black men and women appeared to have had a slower rate of decline compared with their white counterparts.
Exploiting a Large Thesaurus for Information Retrieval

Accuracy in information retrieval, that is, achieving both high recall and precision, is challenging because the relationship between natural language and semantic conceptual structure is not straightforward. However, effective retrieval requires that the semantic conceptual structure (or content) of both queries and documents be known. Natural language processing is one way to determine the content of a text. But, due to the complexity involved in natural language processing, various methods have been used which simulate (or approximate) representation of the content of both queries and documents.