Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural characteristics of the alloantigens determined by the major histocompatibility complex of the guinea pig

The GPLA B and Ia (I region-associated) antigens are the products of genes found in the guinea pig major histocompatibility complex. Because of their importance in immune response phenomena, a structural study of these antigens was undertaken. [3H]leucine and [3H]fucose were internally incorporated into guinea pig lymph node cells. The GPLA B and Ia antigens were solubilized by the nonionic detergent Nonidet P- 40, purified by affinity chromatography using an adsorbent column of lentil lectin, isolated by immunoprecipitation, and examined by discontinuous polyacrylamide-sodium dodecyl sulfate gel electrophoresis. The GPLA antigens B.1, B.2, B.3, and B.4, were shown to be glycoproteins of mol wt 40,000 daltons and to be noncovalently associated with a 12,000 dalton protein. The molecules bearing B.2 and B.3 in a B.2/B.3 heterozygote are shown to be separable, suggesting the antigenic determinant is a primary gene product. In addition, a new GPLA determinant, S, which resembles the B antigen in that it is found on a molecule of approximately 40,000 daltons, was studied. In a B.2/B.3 S+ animal the molecule bearing antigen S was shown to be independent of those bearing B.2 and B.3, providing evidence that the genes determining B and S are at separate loci. The Ia-bearing molecules identified by anti-Ia.2,4 are glycoproteins of mol wt 58,000 daltons which are composed of two subunits of 33,000 and 25,000 daltons, respectively, linked by disulfide bonds. The Ia-bearing molecules are independent of GPLA-bearing molecules, indicating different loci determining these antigens. By all criteria, the guinea pig GPLA B antigens appear homologous to the murine H-2D and H-2K antigens, while the guinea pig Ia antigens appear homologous to the Ia antigens of the mouse.
An introduction to Japanese society

1. The Japan phenomenon and the social sciences 2. Class and stratification: an overview 3. Geographical and generational variations 4. Varieties in work and labor 5. Diversity and unity in education 6. Gender stratification and the family system 7. Minority groups: ethnicity and discrimination 8. Collusion and competition in the establishment 9. Popular culture and everyday life 10. Friendly authoritarianism.
Inbreeding Patterns in La Cabrera, Spain: Dispensations, Multiple Consanguinity Analysis, and Isonymy

Marital structure and inbreeding coefficients were analyzed in La Cabrera, an isolated mountain region in northwestern Spain. A total of 5,714 marriages were celebrated from 1880 to 1989 in the 37 parishes of the area. The total frequency of consanguineous marriages (up to the fourth degree) is 23.05%; multiple consanguineous marriages are remarkably common, reaching 5.43% of the total. The first cousin/second cousin ratio (referred to as kinship-type frequencies) is 0.43. The inbreeding values are the highest recorded in Spain and in Europe: α3 is 4.82x10-3 for the whole period and α4 is 6.78x10-3 for 1880-1919. The temporal trend of inbreeding shows high values (α3>4.5x10-3) for a particularly long period (1900-1959) and a rapid decline from 1960 onward. This historical inbreeding trend is clearly related to changes in population size. The frequencies of multiple consanguineous marriages and the analysis of isonymy show that the inbreeding structure is related to geographic and demographic factors. Comparing the results at two hierarchical levels (La Cabrera as a whole and the 37 parishes individually), we conclude that the inbreeding values are affected by internal geographic subdivision of the population (Wahlund effect). Social and cultural factors, such as avoidance of or preference for consanguineous marriages, are less important but depend on the kinship type involved.
African American Girls’ Smoking Habits and Day-to-Day Experiences With Racial Discrimination

BackgroundAlthough it is recognized that African Americans experience racial discrimination, relatively little research has explored the health implications of this experience. Few studies have examined the relationship between racial discrimination and specific health risks. ObjectivesTo examine the relationship between smoking habits and perceptions of racial discrimination among African American adolescent girls and to identify and test potential psychological mechanisms through which racial discrimination may operate to increase smoking among this group. MethodsA sample of 105 African American adolescent girls (mean age 15.45 years) derived from a larger cross-sectional research project comprised the sample. Univariate analyses were conducted to provide descriptive data on the participants of the study, including information about their use of licit and illicit substances. Bivariate correlational analyses were conducted to evaluate the relationship between perceptions of discrimination and smoking habits. The ability of stress to mediate the relationship between discrimination and smoking was examined by using standard analytical procedures for testing mediation models as outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986). ResultsThe sample (93%) reported experiencing discrimination and racial discrimination was highly correlated with cigarette smoking (r = .35, p > .001). Removing the effects of stress significantly reduced the relationship between racial discrimination and smoking (r = .17, p < .05), indicating that racial discrimination is related to smoking because of its stressful nature. ConclusionPerceptions of racial discrimination are related to the smoking habits of African American adolescent girls.
Integration of ICTs into subject teaching in pre-service English teacher education

The fast development of ICTs provides great opportunities and challenges as well to pre-service English teacher education in China. With ICTs students can access abundant information in English stored online, communicate and interact with one another quickly, conveniently and synchronously or asynchronously in English both orally and in written form. ICTs have been changing how English is learned in China as a foreign language and are beginning to change how English is taught as a foreign language. English teachers in China feel the strong urge to learn how to use ICTs in their teaching to facilitate their students' learning and making the learning meaningful to their students. Various approaches of teaching technologies to pre-service English teachers can be found in colleges and universities in China. However, among them the best one is to integrate technologies into subject teaching, from which pre-service teachers can learn best how to infuse technologies into their own subject teaching. In order to enhance pre-service English teachers' ability both as language learners and users of ICTs in their own teaching, this paper takes the course “Comprehensive English”, a compulsory course for English majors trained to be teachers, as an example to show how ICTs as educational technologies can be effectively infused into subject teaching and how the pre-service English teachers can benefit from the integration of ICTs both as English language learners and would-be teachers.
In search of the creative scientific personality

IN SEARCH OF THE CREATIVE SCIENTIFIC PERSONALITY by Maya V. Grosul This study investigates whether personality is a valid predictor of creativity in science above and beyond demographic characteristics, such as career age, gender, and scientific discipline. Creativity is an act of making something new, original, and useful. Creative achievement in science is the personal ability to generate original, useful, and adaptive scientific theories, research methods, or empirical findings. Personality characteristics can operate as valid predictors of creative achievement in science. This study surveyed 145 scientists throughout the United States. Total creativity index was computed by standardizing and summing the total number of publications, total number of citations, h-index, and Soler‘s creativity index. As expected, openness and neuroticism were significantly positively correlated to creativity in science, while, interestingly, psychoticism was negatively correlated with creativity.
The Structure of Pluto's Atmosphere from the 2002 August 21 Stellar Occultation

We have observed the 2002 August 21 occultation by Pluto of the R = 15.7 mag star P131.1, using 0.5 s cadence observations in integrated white light with the Williams College frame-transfer, rapid-readout CCD at the 2.24 m University of Hawaii telescope. We detected an occultation that lasted 5 minutes, 9.1 ± 0.7 s between half-light points. The "kinks" in the ingress and egress parts of the curve that were apparent in 1988 had become much less pronounced by the time of the two 2002 occultations that were observed, indicating a major change in the structure of Pluto's atmosphere. Analysis of our light curves shows that the pressure in Pluto's atmosphere has increased at all the altitudes that we probed. Essentially, the entire pressure scale has moved up in altitude, increasing by a factor of 2 since 1988. Spikes in our light curve reveal vertical structure in Pluto's atmosphere at unprecedentedly high resolution. We have confirmation of our spikes at lower time resolution as part of observations of the emersion made at 1.4 s and 2.4 s cadence with the 3.67 m AEOS telescope on Maui.
Mimicking the functional hematopoietic stem cell niche in vitro: recapitulation of marrow physiology by hydrogel-based three-dimensional cultures of mesenchymal stromal cells

Background A culture system that closely recapitulates marrow physiology is essential to study the niche-mediated regulation of hematopoietic stem cell fate at a molecular level. We investigated the key features that play a crucial role in the formation of a functional niche in vitro. Design and Methods Hydrogel-based cultures of human placenta-derived mesenchymal stromal cells were established to recapitulate the fibrous three-dimensional architecture of the marrow. Plastic-adherent mesenchymal stromal cells were used as controls. Human bone marrow-derived CD34+ cells were co-cultured with them. The output hematopoietic cells were characterized by various stem cell-specific phenotypic and functional parameters. Results The hydrogel-cultures harbored a large pool of primitive hematopoietic stem cells with superior phenotypic and functional attributes. Most importantly, like the situation in vivo, a significant fraction of these cells remained quiescent in the face of a robust multi-lineage hematopoiesis. The retention of a high percentage of primitive stem cells by the hydrogel-cultures was attributed to the presence of CXCR4-SDF1α axis and integrin beta1-mediated adhesive interactions. The hydrogel-grown mesenchymal stromal cells expressed high levels of several molecules that are known to support the maintenance of hematopoietic stem cells. Yet another physiologically relevant property exhibited by the hydrogel cultures was the formation of hypoxia-gradient. Destruction of hypoxia-gradient by incubating these cultures in a hypoxia chamber destroyed their specialized niche properties. Conclusions Our data show that hydrogel-based cultures of mesenchymal stromal cells form a functional in vitro niche by mimicking key features of marrow physiology.
Observation of Quantized Voltage Steps Using a Josephson Junction Array Driven by Optoelectronically Generated Pulses

In this paper, quantized voltage steps were observed by driving an overdamped Josephson junction array (JJA) with current pulse trains. The current pulse trains were generated by triggering a metal-semiconductor-metal photodetector installed close to JJA at 4.2 K with a mode-locked fiber laser. The intervals of the constant voltage steps were 10 muV, which agrees with the repetition frequency of the light source (49.7 MHz) and the number of Josephson junctions (100) in the JJA. This is the first step toward establishing an ac voltage standard at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
Circulating tumor DNA functions as an alternative for tissue to overcome tumor heterogeneity in advanced gastric cancer

Overcoming tumor heterogeneity is a major challenge for personalized treatment of gastric cancer, especially for human epidermal growth factor receptor‐2 targeted therapy. Analysis of circulating tumor DNA allows a more comprehensive analysis of tumor heterogeneity than traditional biopsies in lung cancer and breast cancer, but little is known in gastric cancer. We assessed mutation profiles of ctDNA and primary tumors from 30 patients with advanced gastric cancer, then performed a comprehensive analysis of tumor mutations by multiple biopsies from five patients, and finally analyzed the concordance of HER2 amplification in ctDNA and paired tumor tissues in 70 patients. By comparing with a single tumor sample, ctDNA displayed a low concordance of mutation profile, only approximately 50% (138/275) somatic mutations were found in paired tissue samples, however, when compared with multiple biopsies, most DNA mutations in ctDNA were also shown in paired tumor tissues. ctDNA had a high concordance (91.4%, Kappa index = 0.784, P < 0.001) of HER2 amplification with tumor tissues, suggesting it might be an alternative for tissue. It implied that ctDNA‐based assessment could partially overcome the tumor heterogeneity, and might serve as a potential surrogate for HER2 analysis in gastric cancer.
Robust design under uncertainties of electro-thermal microactuator

Micromachining of micro electromechanical systems such as other fabrication processes has inherent variation that leads to uncertain dimensional and material properties. Methods for optimization under uncertainty analysis can be used to reduce micro device sensitivity to these uncertainties in order to create a more robust design, thereby increasing reliability and yield. In this paper, approaches for uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, and robust optimization of an electro-thermal micro actuator are applied to account the influence of dimensional and material property uncertainties on micro actuator tip deflection. These uncertainties include variation of thickness, length and width of cold and hot arms, gap, Young modulus and thermal expansion coefficient. A simple and efficient uncertainty analysis method is performed by creating second-order metamodel through Box-Behnken design and Monte Carlo simulation. Also, the influence of uncertainties has been examined using direct Monte Carlo Simulation method. The results show that the standard deviations of tip deflection generated by these uncertainty analysis methods are very close. Simulation results of tip deflection have been validated by a comparison with experimental results in literature. The analysis is performed at multiple input voltages to estimate uncertainty bands around the deflection curve. Experimental data fall within 95% confidence boundary obtained by simulation results. Also, the sensitivity analysis results demonstrate that micro actuator performance has been affected more by thermal expansion coefficient and micro actuator gap uncertainties. Finally, approaches for robust optimization to achieve the optimal designs for micro actuator are used. The proposed robust micro actuators are less sensitive to uncertainties. For this goal, two methods including Genetic Algorithm and Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm are employed to find the robust designs for micro actuator.
Nonsynchronous Accumulation of α‐Skeletal Actin and β‐Myosin Heavy Chain mRNAs During Early Stages of Pressure‐Overload‐Induced Cardiac Hypertrophy Demonstrated by In Situ Hybridization

The development of cardiac hypertrophy secondary to pressure overload is accompanied by isoformic changes of contractile proteins such as myosin and actin. 35S-Labeled complementary RNA (cRNA) probes and in situ hybridization procedures were used for analysis of the regional distribution of newly formed transcripts from α-skeletal actin (α-sk-actin) and β-myosin heavy chain (β-MHC) genes during the early stages of pressure overload. The study was performed in 25-day-old rats submitted to a thoracic aortic stenosis and killed after surgery at times ranging from 4 hours to 3 days. Neither α-sk-actin nor β-MHC messenger RNA (mRNA) was detected in the hearts of normal and sham-operated animals. However, α-sk-actin mRNA accumulated throughout the entire left ventricle as early as 4 hours after aortic stenosis, and by 12 hours was also detected in the left atrium. In contrast, β-MHC mRNA was hardly detectable before day 1, and by days 2-3 was mainly restricted to the inner part of the left ventricle and around the coronary arteries. The absence of spatial and temporal coordination in the accumulation of α-sk-actin and β-MHC mRNAs indicates that different signals and/or regulatory mechanisms are implicated in the induction of the two genes in response to hemodynamic overload.
Resolving "Other" Status:: Identity Development of Biracial Individuals

The current paper describes the phenomenological experience of marginal socio-ethnic status for biracial individuals. A metamodel for identity resolution for individuals who struggle with other status is proposed. Subsequently, multiple strategies in the resolution of ethnic identity development are proposed among which the individual may move and maintain a positive, stable self-image.
Upper extremity rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy using accelerometer feedback on a multitouch display

Cerebral palsy is a non-progressive neurological disorder caused by disturbances to the developing brain. Physical and occupational therapy, if started at a young age, can help minimizing complications such as joint contractures, and can improve limb range of motion and coordination. While current forms of therapy for children with cerebral palsy are effective in minimizing symptoms, many children find them boring or repetitive. We have designed a system for use in upper-extremity rehabilitation sessions, making use of a multitouch display. The system allows children to be engaged in interactive gaming scenarios, while intensively performing desired exercises. It supports games which require completion of specific stretching or coordination exercises using one or both hands, as well as games which use physical, or “tangible” input mechanisms. To encourage correct posture during therapeutic exercises, we use a wireless kinematic sensor, worn on the patient's trunk, as a feedback channel for the games. The system went through several phases of design, incorporating input from observations of therapy and clinical sessions, as well as feedback from medical professionals. This paper describes the hardware platform, presents the design objectives derived from our iterative design phases and meetings with clinical personnel, discusses our current game designs and identifies areas of future work.
Czym jest, komu jest potrzebne i do kogo należy dziedzictwo kulturowe?

This article applies to the definition of cultural heritage, its value to society and to the problem of its ownership, as well as to conflicts that arise around ownership of the cultural heritage. Human creations, as well as creations of nature that have spiritual values, may be called “cultural goods”. “Cultural heritage” is, however, this part of the past cultural goods, which had been considered valuable for the next generations and thus survived to the present. The notion of a “monument” should be reserved for the material remains of the past human activities. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, it was noted that cultural phenomena are the resources, analogous to natural resources. Cultural heritage is a limited resource, non-renewable and vulnerable to damage as a result of both external factors, such as the decay resulting from the passage of time, as well as a result of excessive and uncontrolled consumption. Moreover, the cultural resources are the subject of common ownership and there is a need to manage them wisely in the public interest. Most theorists as the most important criteria for the recognition of an object as belonging to the category of cultural heritage considers its cognitive and emotional values, which jointly are frequently described as „historical value”. The value of cultural heritage is multidimensional and can be measured on many scales. Some of the heritage values are the values of universal, transcendent, objective and unconditional character. Other values are related to the particular social or cultural context of the recipient. With regard to the ownership of cultural heritage, the author after considering various theories on this issue proposes to adopt the theory of common property, which as a consequence leads to the principle of free access to the cultural heritage. Cultural heritage needs to be public domain in the sense that everyone should have equal access to the spiritual values that the heritage contains. This does not mean necessarily expropriation of private owners of individual objects making up the cultural heritage. From the standpoint of the idea of free access it does not matter who owns the substance of an object in a legal sense, if only the ownership right does not affect the public interest. prof. dr hab. Zbigniew Kobylinski, archeolog, zabytkoznawca, teoretyk zarządzania dziedzictwem kulturowym. Jest dyrektorem Instytutu Archeologii Uniwersytetu Kardynala Stefana Wyszynskiego w Warszawie oraz profesorem w Instytucie Archeologii i Etnologii PAN. W latach 1995-1999 pelnil funkcje zastepcy Generalnego Konserwatora Zabytkow. Od roku 2007 pelni funkcje prezesa Stowarzyszenia Naukowego Archeologow Polskich. Jest autorem m.in. ksiązek „Teoretyczne podstawy konserwacji dziedzictwa archeologicznego” (2001) oraz „Wlasnośc dziedzictwa kulturowego” (2009), a takze licznych artykulow naukowych.
Assessment of oocyte quality in polycystic ovarian syndrome and endometriosis by spindle imaging and reactive oxygen species levels in follicular fluid and its relationship with IVF-ET outcome

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to examine meiotic spindle in oocytes along with reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels in follicular fluid of women undergoing IVF and to correlate these findings with embryo quality and pregnancy outcome. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 167 women aged 25–35 years with endometriosis (Group A), polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) (Group B) and tubal block (Group C) were included. Long protocol downregulation using recombinant follicular stimulating hormone was used for ovarian stimulation. Aspirated follicular fluid containing mature oocytes were analyzed for ROS levels and the oocytes were assessed for the presence of meiotic spindle using Cri-Oosight™ Polscope. Fertilization, embryo quality, endometrial assessment, and final pregnancy outcome were assessed. RESULTS: Meiotic spindles were visualized in a higher proportion of mature oocytes retrieved from women with endometriosis (66%) as compared to those with PCOS (50.5%) and tubal block (62.3%). ROS levels were also observed to be significantly less in the follicular fluid of oocytes in women with endometriosis (Group A) as compared to the other two groups (P ≤ 0.001). However, pregnancy rates were observed to be lower in Group A (32%) than Groups B (39%) and C (44%), respectively. Within each group, oocytes with spindle visualization yielded a higher number of Grade 1 embryos (P < 0.05) as well as lower ROS levels in follicular fluid (P ≤ 0.001) as compared to those where spindle could not be visualized. CONCLUSIONS: There was good correlation between spindle imaging and ROS levels as reliable predictors of oocyte assessment. Women with endometriosis had low ROS levels and good spindle imaging results suggesting a possible role of endometrial receptivity accounting for lower pregnancy rates in these women. Poor oocyte quality, as reflected by higher mean ROS levels and low number of oocytes with spindle visualization, could be the factor impeding pregnancy in women with PCOS as compared to women with tubal block.