Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Noninflammatory Interleukin-1β Fragment Stimulates Fetal Lung Fluid Absorption in Guinea Pigs

We have previously demonstrated that full-length interleukin (IL)-1β can induce and stimulate lung fluid absorption in near-term guinea pig fetuses via stimulation of fetal cortisol synthesis and release. To develop a potentially clinically useful drug, we tested the hypothesis that maternal administration of a noninflammatory IL-1β-fragment (IL-1βFr) induced cortisol synthesis and stimulated lung fluid absorption in preterm fetuses. IL-1βFr was administered s.c. daily to timed-pregnant guinea pigs for 3 days with and without simultaneous cortisol synthesis inhibition by metyrapone. Fetuses were obtained by abdominal hysterotomy at 61 and 68 days gestation and instilled with isosmolar 5% albumin into the lungs, and lung fluid absorption was measured over 1 h by mass balance. Lung fluid absorption was induced at 61 days and stimulated at 68 days gestation by IL-1βFr, which both were attenuated by cortisol synthesis inhibition. Moreover, induction of labor by oxytocin stimulated lung fluid absorption at 61 days but had no stimulatory effect at 68 days gestation when given with the IL-1βFr. Plasma adrenocorticotropin and cortisol concentrations were increased by IL-1βFr at 61 days gestation and remained high but unstimulated by IL-1βFr at 68 days gestation, and metyrapone always reduced cortisol concentrations. Prenatal lung fluid absorption, when present as well as IL-1βFr-induced, was always propranolol- and amiloride-sensitive, suggesting that β-adrenoceptor stimulation and the epithelial Na+ channel (ENaC) were critical for the induced/stimulated lung fluid absorption. ENaC expression was increased by IL-1βFr and attenuated by cortisol synthesis inhibition. Thus, our results suggest a potential clinical use of IL-1βFr therapeutically to induce lung fluid absorption in fetuses at risk of preterm delivery.
İlk ve Orta Okullarda Bürokratikleşme Düzeyinin Öğretmen Profesyonelliğine Etkisi

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between the level of bureaucratization of schools and professionalism of teachers from the perceptions of primary and secondary school teachers. This a survey research the sample of the study consists of 515 teachers working in the central districts of Antalya province. The data were collected by using “The Scale for the Bureaucratic Characteristics of Schools” and “Teacher Professionalism Inventory” developed by the researchers. Results indicate that there is a high congruence between the perceptions of the teachers on the level of bureaucracy in schools and the level of professionalism. The level of bureaucracy of schools can predict professionalism in schools in all sub dimensions.
Dynamic Hedging in Incomplete Markets: A Simple Solution

Despite much work on hedging in incomplete markets, the literature still lacks tractable dynamic hedges in plausible environments. In this article, we provide a simple solution to this problem in a general incomplete-market economy in which a hedger, guided by the traditional minimum-variance criterion, aims at reducing the risk of a non-tradable asset or a contingent claim. We derive fully analytical optimal hedges and demonstrate that they can easily be computed in various stochastic environments. Our dynamic hedges preserve the simple structure of complete-market perfect hedges and are in terms of generalized "Greeks," familiar in risk management applications, as well as retaining the intuitive features of their static counterparts. We obtain our time-consistent hedges by dynamic programming, while the extant literature characterizes either static or myopic hedges, or dynamic ones that minimize the variance criterion at an initial date and from which the hedger may deviate unless she can pre-commit to follow them. We apply our results to the discrete hedging problem of derivatives when trading occurs infrequently. We determine the corresponding optimal hedge and replicating portfolio value, and show that they have structure similar to their complete-market counterparts and reduce to generalized Black-Scholes expressions when specialized to the Black-Scholes setting. We also generalize our results to richer settings to study dynamic hedging with Poisson jumps, stochastic correlation and portfolio management with benchmarking.
Crystallization and preliminary crystallographic analysis of latent, active and recombinantly expressed aurone synthase, a polyphenol oxidase, from Coreopsis grandiflora

Latent and active aurone synthase purified from petals of C. grandiflora (cgAUS1) were crystallized. The crystal quality of recombinantly expressed latent cgAUS1 was significantly improved by co-crystallization with the polyoxotungstate Na6[TeW6O24] within the liquid–liquid phase-separation zone.
Virus-replicating T cells in the immune response of mice. II. Characterization of T cells capable of replicating vesicular stomatitis virus

Immunocytological properties of the splenic T cell (Tv) which develop into virus plaque-forming cells in response to the antigenic challenge in vitro were investigated in relation to the properties of helper T cells and suppressor T cells in antibody response. Tv was observed in spleen around 1 wk after the intravenous injection of mice with 10(7) sheep erythrocytes. This contrasted with the finding that both helper T cells and suppressor T cells developed as early as 3 days after the immunization. Tv was proliferative in response to the antigenic stimulation, whereas helper T-cell activity could be expressed without cell division. Development of Tv to virus plaque-forming cells was much more dependent on macrophages than the generation of helper activity. Tv was found in nylon wool adherent fraction, whereas helper T cell was found in both nylon adherent and nonadherent fractions. Tv belongs to the short-lived and nonrecirculating T-cell population (T1), whereas the major part of helper T cells belongs to the long-lived and recirculating T-cell population (T2). These results strongly suggest that vesicular stomatitis virus infect and replicate in the different subset(s) of T cell(s) to which the major part of helper T cells belong.
Regulating deviance with emotions: Emotional expressions as signals of acceptance and rejection

An individual group member’s deviant behavior can provoke strong emotional reactions from other group members. I have investigated the role of such emotional reactions in regulating deviance by investigating how the deviant is influenced by these emotional reactions. The idea that angry reactions signal rejection, and that happy reactions signal acceptance is introduced to predict this influence. In the first empirical chapter, I find that happy are implicitly associated with acceptance, and that angry expressions are associated with rejection. In the second empirical chapter, I investigated the mathematical relation between the number of angry reactions and the extent to which a deviant feels rejected, and found that every single angry reaction to deviance increases the extent to which the deviant feels rejected. In the last empirical chapter, I find that angry reactions to deviance can elicit lasting conformity if (a) re-acceptance is desirable and (b) conformity is instrumental in gaining re-acceptance. Together, these findings indicate that group members influence each other through the emotional reactions to each others' behavior, and that the emotional reactions that deviance provokes helps regulate deviance in groups. Based on these findings, I propose an extended theoretical model in which emotional reactions to deviance influence the deviant's behavior through two simultaneous motives, retaliation and reconnection. I discuss new insights that follow from this model, as well as more general implications that follow from my dissertation as a whole, for theorizing about the social functions of emotions in general, and in groups specifically.
The Irrationality of Categorical Perception

Perception is often categorical: the perceptual system selects one interpretation of a stimulus even when evidence in favor of other interpretations is appreciable. Such categorization is potentially in conflict with normative decision theory, which mandates that the utility of various courses of action should depend on the probabilities of all possible states of the world, not just that of the one perceived. If these probabilities are lost as a result of categorization, choice will be suboptimal. Here we test for such irrationality in a task that requires human observers to combine perceptual evidence with the uncertain consequences of action. Observers made rapid pointing movements to targets on a touch screen, with rewards determined by perceptual and motor uncertainty. Across both visual and auditory decision tasks, observers consistently placed too much weight on perceptual uncertainty relative to action uncertainty. We show that this suboptimality can be explained as a consequence of categorical perception. Our findings indicate that normative decision making may be fundamentally constrained by the architecture of the perceptual system.
Bodies and Bullying: The Interaction of Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Weight, and Inequality With School Victimization

Abstract The problem of bullying among youth is receiving more attention because of long-lasting detrimental consequences of victimization at school. Research demonstrates that gender, race, ethnicity, and weight are separately linked to bullying victimization; however, little is known about the interaction of these factors in relationship to victimization at school. This study utilizes the 2005/2006 Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC) data to investigate how bodies (i.e., gender, race, ethnicity, and weight) matter with youth victimization. Drawing from the 2005/2006 HBSC sample consisting of 7,143 youth, findings indicate that interactions of gender, race, ethnicity, and weight are linked to school bullying victimization.
BABESIA CAPREOLI INFECTIONS IN ALPINE CHAMOIS (RUPICAPRA R. RUPICAPRA), ROE DEER (CAPREOLUS C. CAPREOLUS) AND RED DEER (CERVUS ELAPHUS) FROM SWITZERLAND

Five cases of fatal babesiosis in free-ranging chamois (Rupicapra r. rupicapra) attributed to infections with Babesia capreoli were recently recorded in two regions of the Swiss Alps. To investigate the ecologic factors that possibly lead to those fatal B. capreoli infections in chamois, blood, ticks, and demographic data of 46 roe deer (Capreolus c. capreolus), 48 chamois, and nine red deer (Cervus elaphus) were collected in 2006 and 2007 in both affected regions. Whereas no parasitic inclusions were found by microscopical examination of blood smears, B. capreoli was identified by polymerase chain reaction/sequencing in blood of 12 roe deer (26%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 14.3–41.1), one chamois (2%, CI: 0–6.1), and one red deer (11%, CI: 0.3–48.2). Prevalence of B. capreoli was significantly higher in roe deer compared with chamois (P<0.001). All 214 ticks were identified as Ixodes ricinus, and significantly more roe deer (63%, CI: 47.5–76.8) were infested compared with chamois (21%, CI: 10.5–35.0, P<0.001). Overall, prevalences of both tick infestation and Babesia infection increased significantly (P<0.001) with decreasing altitude, and Babesia-positive samples were detected significantly more often from animals with tick infestation compared with animals without ticks (P=0.040). Our results indicate that roe deer may play an important reservoir role for B. capreoli. It is hypothesized that the expansion of the presumed vector I. ricinus to higher elevations and its increased abundance in overlapping habitats of roe deer and chamois may favor the spillover of B. capreoli from roe deer to chamois.
Density Evolution and Functional Threshold for the Noisy Min-Sum Decoder

This paper investigates the behavior of the Min-Sum decoder running on noisy devices. Our aim is to evaluate the robustness of the decoder to computation noise caused by the faulty logic in the processing units. This type of noise represents a new source of errors that may occur during the decoding process. To this end, we first introduce probabilistic models for the arithmetic and logic units of the finite-precision min-sum decoder and then carry out the density evolution analysis of the noisy min-sum decoder. We show that, in some particular cases, the noise introduced by the device can help the min-sum decoder to escape from fixed points attractors and may actually result in an increased correction capacity with respect to the noiseless decoder. We also point out a specific threshold phenomenon, referred to as functional threshold, which accurately describes the convergence behavior of noisy decoders. The behavior of the noisy MS is demonstrated in the asymptotic limit of the code length through a noisy version of density evolution and is also verified in the finite-length case by Monte Carlo simulations.
The Effect of Different Intensity Exercise-Induced Arousal on Discriminative Reaction Time

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of different exercise-induced arousal on Discriminative Reaction Time (DRT). Fifteen male (age=23.32 ± 0.6 y) were asked to attend the laboratory for 9 days. In five sessions, subjects' characteristics Conconi test on treadmill and variables of different exercises (Aerobic (AE), Anaerobic (ANE), Mixed (ME), Prolonged Intermittent (PIE), and Super Maximal Intermittent (SMIE)) were measured. In four sessions, participants did exercises randomly, also before and after exercises they did DRT and rating of perceived exertion (RPE). Results indicated that the greatest increase in reaction time occurred after ANE, ME, and SMIE and the least increase after AE and PIE. Different exercises affected DRT; however, the extent to which reaction time changed depended on amount of exercise induced arousal.
The Role of Exercise in the African‐American Woman with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Application of the Health Belief Model

Purpose To determine whether aging African‐American women with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes mellitus who maintain a regular exercise regimen possess different health beliefs and benefit from greater glycemic control than those who do not exercise regularly. Data Sources A 32‐item health belief model diabetes scale was administered to a convenience sample of 31 African‐American women with type 2 diabetes. Conclusions A group t‐test identified statistically significant differences between “exercisers” and “nonexercisers” in perceived benefits and barriers to exercise and glycemic control. Implications for Practice Findings may be utilized in the development of diabetic educational programs and compliance‐ enhancing treatment interventions that focus on the barriers and benefits of diabetes self‐management.
Guns, Gangs, and Gossip An Analysis of Student Essays on Youth Violence

Youth violence is an important public health problem, but few researchers have studied violence from youth’s perspectives. Middle school students’ essays about the causes of youth violence were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative methods. The causes of violence identified by students were categorized into individual, peer, family, and societal factors. Seven to 11 subcategories were identified within each factor. Variations in the frequency of quotes among factors, the independent effects of factor and sex, and their interaction were examined. Peer factors were identified most often and family factors least often as causes of violence. Females were more likely than males to report peer factors as a cause. The most frequently mentioned subcategories within each factor were lack of anger management, need for acceptance, harassment/lack of respect, violence in the media, and parenting practices. The discussion examines youth’s theories about the causation of violence and their implications for interventions.
Utilizing an empirically -supported parenting intervention in rural community settings: An investigation of effectiveness, mediators of change, and dropout

HELLENTHAL, REBECCA L. , Ph.D., November 2009, Clinical Psychology Utilizing an Empirically-Supported Parenting Intervention in Rural Community Settings: an Investigation of Effectiveness, Mediators of Change, and Dropout (106 pp.) Director of Dissertation: John P. Garske This project investigated the effectiveness of a behavioral parent training program utilizing empirically-supported parenting techniques (Barkley, 1997) with low-income families in a Mental Health Professional Shortage Area (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2007), an underserved and understudied population. In addition, the study examined mediators of treatment effectiveness and factors associated with premature dropout. The overarching goals of the parenting intervention were to improve parent-child relationships and to prevent and/or reduce child behavior problems (e.g., noncompliance, oppositionality) through effective parenting practices. In all, eight parenting groups were facilitated by masters-level mental health clinicians across three Southeastern Ohio counties in non-clinical settings. Fifty-seven parents completed both the preand post-intervention questionnaires. Paired samples t-tests revealed that parents who attended at least four of eight sessions reported improved child behavior, increased family cohesion, enhanced parenting competence, increased sense of social reassurance of worth, reduced parenting stress, and more consistent discipline practices. The parents did not report a significant change with regard to perceived social guidance. However, the changes made by parents who continued in the program were not significantly different from those who attended three or fewer sessions. Parent age was the only variable related to premature dropout, such that younger parents were more likely to drop out before attending at least four sessions. Treatment satisfaction and change in parenting self-efficacy, reassurance of worth, and parenting stress were not found to be mediators of the relationship between attendance and change in parenting practices. Further, reduction in inconsistent discipline was not found to mediate the relationship between attendance and change in child behavior. Results from this investigation will help to inform future behavioral treatments for noncompliant children in this region, and particularly parenting groups. Approved: ______________________________________________________________ John P. Garske Professor Emeritus of Psychology
A pairwise algorithm for pitch estimation and speech separation using deep stacking network

Pitch information is an important cue for speech separation. However, pitch estimation in noisy condition is also a task as challenging as speech separation. In this paper, we propose a supervised learning architecture which combines these two problems concisely. The proposed algorithm is based on deep stacking network (DSN) which provides a method of stacking simple processing modules in building deep architecture. In the training stage, an ideal binary mask is used as target. The input vector includes the outputs of lower module and frame-level features which consist of spectral and pitch-based features. In the testing stage, each module provides an estimated binary mask which is employed to re-estimate pitch. Then we update the pitch-based features to the next module. This procedure is embedded iteratively in DSN, and we obtain the final separation results from the last module of DSN. Systematic evaluations show that the proposed approach produces high quality estimated binary mask and outperforms recent systems in generalization.
An Experimental Test of Flexible Combinatorial Spectrum Auction Formats

The simultaneous multi-round (SMR) auction, introduced by the FCC in 1994, has been successfully applied in the sales of high-valued market licenses around the world. The FCC has recently developed a new auction format, SMRPB, which incorporates the possibility of fully flexible package bids. This paper reports laboratory experiments based on SMRPB and other combinatorial formats, including a “combinatorial clock,” which have been proposed to replace the SMR auction. In general, the interest of policy makers in combinatorial auctions is justified by the laboratory data; when value complementarities are present, package bidding yields improved performance. We find clear differences among the package formats, however, both in terms of efficiency and seller revenue. Notably, the combinatorial clock provides the highest revenue. The SMRPB auction performed worse than the other combinatorial formats, which is one of the main reasons why the FCC has decided not to implement SMRPB procedure for package bidding.
Hold and Sign: A Novel Behavioral Biometrics for Smartphone User Authentication

The search for new authentication methods to replace passwords for modern mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets has attracted a substantial amount of research in recent years. As a result, several new behavioral biometric schemes have been proposed. Most of these schemes, however, are uni-modal. This paper presents a new, bi-modal behavioral biometric solution for user authentication. The proposed mechanism takes into account micro-movements of a phone and movements of the user's finger during writing or signing on the touchscreen. More specifically, it profiles a user based on how he holds the phone and based on the characteristics of the points being pressed on the touchscreen, and not the produced signature image. We have implemented and evaluated our scheme on commercially available smartphones. Using Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) 1-class verifier, we achieved approx. 95% True Acceptance Rate (TAR) with 3.1% False Acceptance Rate (FAR) on a dataset of 30 volunteers. Preliminary results on usability show a positive opinion about our system.