Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Discrimination of grasshopper (Orthoptera: Acrididae) diet and niche overlap using next-generation sequencing of gut contents

Species of grasshopper have been divided into three diet classifications based on mandible morphology: forbivorous (specialist on forbs), graminivorous (specialist on grasses), and mixed feeding (broad-scale generalists). For example, Melanoplus bivittatus and Dissosteira carolina are presumed to be broad-scale generalists, Chortophaga viridifasciata is a specialist on grasses, and Melanoplus femurrubrum is a specialist on forbs. These classifications, however, have not been verified in the wild. Multiple specimens of these four species were collected, and diet analysis was performed using DNA metabarcoding of the gut contents. The rbcLa gene region was amplified and sequenced using Illumina MiSeq sequencing. Levins’ measure and the Shannon–Wiener measure of niche breadth were calculated using family-level identifications and Morisita’s measure of niche overlap was calculated using operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Gut contents confirm both D. carolina and M. bivittatus as generalists and C. viridifasciata as a specialist on grasses. For M. femurrubrum, a high niche breadth was observed and species of grasses were identified in the gut as well as forbs. Niche overlap values did not follow predicted patterns, however, the low values suggest low competition between these species.
Donations of Human Organs or Bodies After Death: A Cultural Phenomenology of "Flesh" in the Greek Context

Several body theorists focus on the precultural materiality of the body as flesh to argue against the discursively constructed, supposedly fleshless or imagined bodies of postmodernity. This article is about body perceptions of 24 people sharing an exceptionally fleshly and seemingly imagined experience: their determination to donate their organs or bodies after their death. Approaching prospective donation as a culturally elaborated, somatic, intersubjective practice, I argue, first, that flesh in itself does not guarantee the material immediacy of one's self presence. Second, that the imaginary body as flesh may be as much painfully or pleasantly experienced as the non-imaginary one.
Determining the mechanisms of toxic action of phenols to Tetrahymena pyriformis

Phenols are environmentally important compounds that are widely used in agriculture and industry. Thus, phenols are of interest to environmental toxicologists, which has led to the development of several quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) models. The most successful QSARs have been established for compounds having a common mechanism of toxic action (MOA). However, correctly determining the MOA of a compound is not easy. Discriminant analysis was used in this study to separate phenols by their MOAs. The working hypothesis of this study was that phenols with different MOAs lie in different regions in the response surface described by the ionization‐corrected hydrophobicity descriptor, log D, the electrophilicity descriptor, ELUMO, and the interaction between hydrophobicity and electrophilicity, D ∗︁ ELUMO. Results of discriminant analysis showed a total error rate of 15%. In addition, it was difficult to separate phenols that had a polar narcosis MOA from phenols that had a proelectrophile MOA. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 17: 119–127, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/tox.10040
Locus of Control Beliefs in Male and Female Indian and White Schoolchildren in South Africa

The present study investigated locus of control differences in male and female Indian and White third-grade children in South Africa. Using the Nowicki-Strickland locus of control scale for children as the dependent variable, a 2 x 2 (Race x Sex) analysis of variance revealed no significant differences on a global locus of control index. However, Indian children were significantly more internal than their White counterparts on both the Helplessness and Achievement factors, although no significant differences were yielded on the Luck factor. In addition, neither significant sex main effects nor any interaction effects emerged on any of the three factors. Differences between the two cultural groups are discussed in terms of their relative positions in South African society, and the possible utility of a multidimensional approach to locus of control in cross-cultural research is evaluated.
Interference Mitigation via Joint Detection

This paper addresses the design of optimal and near-optimal detectors in an interference channel with fading and with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), where the transmitters employ discrete modulation schemes as in practical communication scenarios. The conventional detectors typically either ignore the interference or successively detect and then cancel the interference, assuming that the desired signal and/or the interference are Gaussian. This paper quantifies the significant performance gain that can be obtained if the detectors explicitly take into account the modulation formats of the desired and the interference signals. This paper first describes the optimal maximum-likelihood (ML) detector that minimizes the probability of detection error for a given modulation scheme, and the joint minimum-distance (MD) detector, which is a lower-complexity approximation of the ML detector. It is then demonstrated by analysis and by simulation that in an AWGN channel, while interference-ignorant and successive interference cancellation detectors are both prone to error floors, the optimal ML and joint MD detectors are not. This paper further analyzes the performance of joint detection in a Rayleigh fading environment. It is demonstrated that the joint detector can achieve symbol error rates that have the same dependence on the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as if the channel were interference free. Thus, the performance of joint detection is fundamentally limited by the SNR rather than the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR). Moreover, the joint detector enables the use of transmit diversity schemes to achieve the same diversity order as in the absence of interference. These results show that the use of interference-aware detectors can significantly alleviate the effect of interference thereby improving the achievable rates and the reliability of future wireless systems.
Reparative myogenesis in long‐term denervated skeletal muscles of adult rats results in a reduction of the satellite cell population

This study, conducted on 25‐month denervated rat hindlimb muscles, was directed toward elucidating the basis for the poor regeneration that is observed in long‐term denervated muscles. Despite a ∼97.6% loss in mean cross‐sectional area of muscle fibers, the muscles retained their fascicular arrangement, with the fascicles containing ∼1.5 times more fibers than age‐matched control muscles. At least three distinct types of muscle fibers were observed: degenerating, persisting (original), and newly formed (regenerated) fibers. A majority of newly formed fibers did not appear to undergo complete maturation, and morphologically they resembled myotubes. Sites of former motor end‐plates remained identifiable in persisting muscle fibers. Nuclear death was seen in all types of muscle fibers, especially in degenerating fibers. Nevertheless, the severely atrophic skeletal muscles continued to express developmentally and functionally important proteins, such as MyoD, myogenin, adult and embryonic subunits of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, and neural‐cell adhesion molecule. Despite the prolonged period of denervation, slow and fast types of myosin were found in surviving muscle fibers. The number of satellite cells was significantly reduced in long‐term denervated muscles, as compared with age‐matched control muscles. In 25‐month denervated muscle, satellite cells were only attached to persisting muscle fibers, but were never seen on newly formed fibers. Our data suggest that the absence of satellite cells in a population of immature newly formed muscle fibers that has arisen as a result of continuous reparative myogenesis may be a crucial, although not necessarily the only, factor underlying the poor regenerative ability of long‐term denervated muscle. Anat Rec 263:139–154, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Job Involvement of Intrinsically and Extrinsically Motivated Indian Managers: To Each According to His Need

This study tests the notion that the attitude of job involvement is a function of the degree of satisfaction with one's salient needs, be they intrinsic or extrinsic. Data from 33 primarily intrinsically motivated and 43 primarily extrinsically motivated managers, selected from a sample of 215 Indian managers, were analyzed to test two hypotheses: (1) the attitude of job involvement will be positively correlated with the satisfaction of salient needs only; and (2) both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated managers will be equally job involved provided their salient needs are met and more job involved than those whose salient needs are not met. Hypothesis 1 was supported. Due to meager data only partial support for hypothesis 2 was obtained. Implications for job designs to promote employee involvement are discussed.
Cortical representations of symbols, objects, and faces are pruned back during early childhood.

Regions of human ventral extrastriate visual cortex develop specializations for natural categories (e.g., faces) and cultural artifacts (e.g., words). In adults, category-based specializations manifest as greater neural responses in visual regions of the brain (e.g., fusiform gyrus) to some categories over others. However, few studies have examined how these specializations originate in the brains of children. Moreover, it is as yet unknown whether the development of visual specializations hinges on "increases" in the response to the preferred categories, "decreases" in the responses to nonpreferred categories, or "both. " This question is relevant to a long-standing debate concerning whether neural development is driven by building up or pruning back representations. To explore these questions, we measured patterns of visual activity in 4-year-old children for 4 categories (faces, letters, numbers, and shoes) using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We report 2 key findings regarding the development of visual categories in the brain: 1) the categories "faces" and "symbols" doubly dissociate in the fusiform gyrus before children can read and 2) the development of category-specific responses in young children depends on cortical responses to nonpreferred categories that decrease as preferred category knowledge is acquired.
Ala67Thr mutation in the poliovirus receptor CD155 is a potential risk factor for vaccine and wild‐type paralytic poliomyelitis

Poliovirus infections can be asymptomatic or cause severe paralysis. Why some individuals develop paralytic poliomyelitis is unknown, but a role for host genetic factors has been suggested. To investigate if a polymorphism, Ala67Thr, in the poliovirus receptor, which has been found to facilitate increased resistance against poliovirus‐induced cell lysis and apoptosis, is associated with increased risk of paralytic poliomyelitis, poliovirus receptor genotyping was undertaken among Italian subjects with vaccine‐associated (n = 9), or with wild‐type paralytic poliomyelitis (n = 6), and control subjects (n = 71), using RFLP‐PCR and pyrosequencing. Heterozygous poliovirus receptor Ala67Thr genotype was found in 13.3% of the patients with paresis and in 8.5% of the controls (Odds Ratio = 1.667). The frequency of Ala67Thr among the controls is in agreement with earlier published data. It is concluded that the Ala67Thr mutation in the poliovirus receptor is a possible risk factor for the development of vaccine‐associated or paralytic poliomyelitis associated with wild‐type virus. J. Med. Virol. 81:933–936, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Crowdsourcing for Chromosome Segmentation and Deep Classification

Metaphase chromosome analysis is one of the primary techniques utilized in cytogenetics. Observations of chromosomal segments or translocations during metaphase can indicate structural changes in the cell genome, and is often used for diagnostic purposes. Karyotyping of the chromosomes micro-photographed under metaphase is done by characterizing the individual chromosomes in cell spread images. Currently, considerable effort and time is spent to manually segment out chromosomes from cell images, and classifying the segmented chromosomes into one of the 24 types, or for diseased cells to one of the known translocated types. Segmenting out the chromosomes in such images can be especially laborious and is often done manually, if there are overlapping chromosomes in the image which are not easily separable by image processing techniques. Many techniques have been proposed to automate the segmentation and classification of chromosomes from spread images with reasonable accuracy, but given the criticality of the domain, a human in the loop is often still required. In this paper, we present a method to segment out and classify chromosomes for healthy patients using a combination of crowdsourcing, preprocessing and deep learning, wherein the non-expert crowd from CrowdFlower is utilized to segment out the chromosomes from the cell image, which are then straightened and fed into a (hierarchical) deep neural network for classification. Experiments are performed on 400 real healthy patient images obtained from a hospital. Results are encouraging and promise to significantly reduce the cognitive burden of segmenting and karyotyping chromosomes.
Teacher Survival Rates in St. Louis, 1969–1982

The paper reports teacher survival rates in the St. Louis metropolitan area and updates a similar 1978 study by the authors. High dropout rates continue to exist in the beginning years of teaching for each entering cohort. Survival rates appear to have peaked for cohorts entering in the early 1970s, with survival rates declining substantially for subsequent cohorts. Beginning with the cohort entering in 1975, females begin to have higher survival rates than do males. This is a reversal from the pre-1975 cohorts. Implications of the results are discussed, including those for teacher effectiveness, salaries, and future demand for new teachers.
Erasing Synapses in Sleep: Is It Time to Be SHY?

Converging lines of evidence strongly support a role for sleep in brain plasticity. An elegant idea that may explain how sleep accomplishes this role is the “synaptic homeostasis hypothesis (SHY). ” According to SHY, sleep promotes net synaptic weakening which offsets net synaptic strengthening that occurs during wakefulness. SHY is intuitively appealing because it relates the homeostatic regulation of sleep to an important function (synaptic plasticity). SHY has also received important experimental support from recent studies in Drosophila melanogaster. There remain, however, a number of unanswered questions about SHY. What is the cellular mechanism governing SHY? How does it fit with what we know about plasticity mechanisms in the brain? In this review, I discuss the evidence and theory of SHY in the context of what is known about Hebbian and non-Hebbian synaptic plasticity. I conclude that while SHY remains an elegant idea, the underlying mechanisms are mysterious and its functional significance unknown.
Relationship between energy from added sugars and frequency of added sugars intake in Irish children, teenagers and adults

A WHO report on diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases recommended that frequency of consumption of foods and/or drinks containing free sugars should be limited to a maximum of four times per d. In addition, they recommended a reduction in the intake of free sugars to a maximum of no more than 10 % of energy intake. These recommendations were developed with the aim of reducing the prevalence of dental caries. The aim of the present study was to establish if there is a quantitative relationship between energy from added sugars and frequency of added sugars intakes in Irish children, teenagers and adults. In addition, the intake of added and total sugars and main contributors to added sugar intakes were examined. Data for the present analysis were based on the North/South Ireland Food Consumption Survey (n 1379; aged 18–64 years), the National Children's Food Survey (n 594; aged 5–12 years) and the National Teen Food Survey (n 441; aged 13–17 years) which used 7 d food diaries to collect food and beverage intake data in representative samples of Irish adults, children and teenagers respectively. Results showed that in adults, frequency of intake of added sugar intake of four times per d corresponded to a mean added sugar intake of 9 %, which was similar to the WHO recommendation. In children and teenagers, a frequency of intake of four times per d corresponded to a mean added sugar intake of 14·6 and 12·4 % respectively and was therefore not in agreement with the WHO recommendation.
The Effects of Message Framing on College Students' Career Decision Making

Social cognitive career theory posits that verbal persuasion can affect individuals' career self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goals and/or intentions, and behaviors. Prospect theory holds that negatively framed messages can have a powerful effect on people's cognitions related to adopting particular behaviors in situations of uncertainty. Drawing from these two theories, this study explored the effect that persuasive messages have on college students' career decision-making cognitions and behaviors. Results indicated that written persuasive messages enhanced college students' career decision-making outcome expectations, intentions, and behaviors. How the message was framed (whether gain or loss framed) did not differentially affect students' career cognitions, yet students in the loss-framed condition engaged in more career-related behaviors in the week following the message than students in the gain-framed condition.
Spirituality and psychosocial factors in persons living with HIV.

AIM OF THE STUDY This pilot study was designed to examine the relationships among spirituality and psychosocial factors in a sample of 52 adult males living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease and to determine the most reliable spirituality measure for a proposed longitudinal study. BACKGROUND HIV disease is among the most devastating of illnesses, having multiple and profound effects upon all aspects of the biopsychosocial and spiritual being. Although research has suggested relationships among various psychosocial and spiritual factors, symptomatology and physical health, much more research is needed to document their potential influences on immune function, as well as health status, disease progression, and quality of life among persons with HIV disease. METHODS This descriptive correlational study explored the relationships of spirituality and psychosocial measures. Spirituality was measured in terms of spiritual perspective, well-being and health using three tools: the Spiritual Perspective Scale, the Spiritual Well-Being Scale, and the Spiritual Health Inventory. Five psychosocial instruments were used to measure aspects of stress and coping: the Mishel Uncertainty in Illness Scale, Dealing with Illness Scale, Social Provisions Scale, Impact of Events Scale, and Functional Assessment of HIV Infection Scale. The sample was recruited as part of an ongoing funded study. The procedures from the larger study were well-defined and followed in this pilot study. Correlational analyses were done to determine the relationship between spirituality and the psychosocial measures. FINDINGS The findings indicate that spirituality as measured by the existential well-being (EWB) subscale of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale was positively related to quality of life, social support, effective coping strategies and negatively related to perceived stress, uncertainty, psychological distress and emotional-focused coping. The other spirituality measures had less significant or non significant relationships with the psychological measures. CONCLUSIONS The study findings support the inclusion of spirituality as a variable for consideration when examining the psychosocial factors and the quality of life of persons living with HIV disease. The spiritual measure that best captures these relationships is the EWB subscale of the Spiritual Well-Being Scale.
Teachers' Instructional Practices in Small Classes

Smaller classes have several immediate contextual benefits for teachers, but do they result in changes to instructional practices? Results from a study of 17 small grade 1 classes indicate that teachers used these contextual benefits to support a variety of grouping practices; individualization; active learning; integration of reading, writing, and speaking; and students' personal skill development in a creative and integrated curriculum. Some used an overall program format and adapted instruction for individuals and groups, whereas others designed for children's individual and social development and integrated this in their daily plans. Instructional practices were best described as fluid and holistic, complex, and multitask, and aimed at literacy achievement.
Accuracy of ICD-9-coded chief complaints and diagnoses for the detection of acute respiratory illness

ICD-9-coded chief complaints and diagnoses are a routinely collected source of data with potential for use in public health surveillance. We constructed two detectors of acute respiratory illness: one based on ICD-9-coded chief complaints and one based on ICD-9-coded diagnoses. We measured the classification performance of these detectors against the human classification of cases based on review of emergency department reports. Using ICD-9-coded chief complaints, the sensitivity of detection of acute respiratory illness was 0.44 and its specificity was 0.97. The sensitivity and specificity using ICD-9-coded diagnoses were no different. These properties of excellent specificity and moderate sensitivity, coupled with the earliness and electronic availability of such data, support the use of detectors based on ICD-9 coding of emergency department chief complaints in public health surveillance.
Sources of multi-decadal variability in Arctic sea ice extent

The observed dramatic decrease in September sea ice extent (SIE) has been widely discussed in the scientific literature. Though there is qualitative agreement between observations and ensemble members of the Third Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3), it is concerning that the observed trend (1979–2010) is not captured by any ensemble member. The potential sources of this discrepancy include: observational uncertainty, physical model limitations and vigorous natural climate variability. The latter has received less attention and is difficult to assess using the relatively short observational sea ice records. In this study multi-centennial pre-industrial control simulations with five CMIP3 climate models are used to investigate the role that the Arctic oscillation (AO), the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation (AMO) and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) play in decadal sea ice variability. Further, we use the models to determine the impact that these sources of variability have had on SIE over both the era of satellite observation (1979–2010) and an extended observational record (1953–2010). There is little evidence of a relationship between the AO and SIE in the models. However, we find that both the AMO and AMOC indices are significantly correlated with SIE in all the models considered. Using sensitivity statistics derived from the models, assuming a linear relationship, we attribute 0.5–3.1%/decade of the 10.1%/decade decline in September SIE (1979–2010) to AMO driven variability.