Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Como in Commute: The Travels of a Discourse Marker across Languages

Abstract The present investigation is a mixed-method study combining quantitative and qualitative analyses to explore the use of como as a discourse marker in the Spanish spoken in Southern Arizona, based on a corpus of twenty-four sociolinguistic interviews of young male and female Spanish-English bilinguals. In the speech of these bilinguals, the discourse marker como mirrors the grammaticalization of the focus and quotative discourse functions of like in English. The results of this study on the diffusion of the focus and quotative como to another Spanish-English bilingual community add to our knowledge of how discourse markers can travel both within and between communities as well as across languages and time.
Between Truth and Description

The philosophy behind game-theoretical modelling of conflict situations between “man” , attempting to describe the world, and “nature” trying, so it seems, to conceal the “truth” is discussed. An analysis of instances of such games related to the Maximum Entropy Principle is discussed. The possibility of entropy loss, a phenomenon related to distributions with ultra heavy tails is discussed. MSC 2000: 91A05, 91B50, 94A15, 94A17
Relationships between heart-rate variability and pulse-rate variability obtained from video-PPG signal using ZCA

In this paper, classical time– and frequency-domain variability indexes obtained by pulse rate variability (PRV) series extracted from video-photoplethysmography signals (vPPG) were compared with heart rate variability (HRV) parameters extracted from ECG signals. The study focuses on the analysis of the changes observed during a rest-to-stand manoeuvre (a mild sympathetic stimulus) performed on 60 young, normal subjects (age: 24±3 years). The objective is to evaluate if video-derived PRV indexes may replace HRV in the assessment of autonomic responses to external stimulation. Video recordings were performed with a GigE Sony XCG-C30C camera and analyzed offline to extract the vPPG signal. A new method based on zero-phase component analysis (ZCA) was employed in combination with a fully-automatic method for detection and tracking of region of interest (ROI) located on the forehead, the cheek and the nose. Results show an overall agreement between time and frequency domain indexes computed on HRV and PRV series. However, some differences exist between resting and standing conditions. During rest, all the indexes computed on HRV and PRV series were not statistically significantly different (p > 0.05), and showed high correlation (Pearson’s r > 0.90). The agreement decreases during standing, especially for the high-frequency, respiration-related parameters such as RMSSD (r = 0.75), pNN50 (r = 0.68) and HF power (r = 0.76). Finally, the power in the LF band (n.u.) was observed to increase significantly during standing by both HRV (28±14 versus 45±16 (n.u.); rest versus standing) and PRV (26±12 versus 30±13(n.u.); rest versus standing) analysis, but such an increase was lower in PRV parameters than that observed by HRV indexes. These results provide evidence that some differences exist between variability indexes extracted from HRV and video-derived PRV, mainly in the HF band during standing. However, despite these differences video-derived PRV indexes were able to evince the autonomic responses expected by the sympathetic stimulation induced by the rest-to-stand manoeuvre.
A backward progression of attentional effects in the ventral stream

The visual processing of behaviorally relevant stimuli is enhanced through top-down attentional feedback. One possibility is that feedback targets early visual areas first and the attentional enhancement builds up at progressively later stages of the visual hierarchy. An alternative possibility is that the feedback targets the higher-order areas first and the attentional effects are communicated “backward” to early visual areas. Here, we compared the magnitude and latency of attentional enhancement of firing rates in V1, V2, and V4 in the same animals performing the same task. We found a reverse order of attentional effects, such that attentional enhancement was larger and earlier in V4 and smaller and later in V1, with intermediate results in V2. These results suggest that attentional mechanisms operate via feedback from higher-order areas to lower-order ones.
Ectopic Overexpression of SlHsfA3, a Heat Stress Transcription Factor from Tomato, Confers Increased Thermotolerance and Salt Hypersensitivity in Germination in Transgenic Arabidopsis

Plant heat stress transcription factors (Hsfs) are the critical components involved in mediating responses to various environmental stressors. However, the detailed roles of many plant Hsfs are far from fully understood. In this study, an Hsf (SlHsfA3) was isolated from the cultivated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum, Sl) and functionally characterized at the genetic and developmental levels. The nucleus-localized SlHsfA3 was basally and ubiquitously expressed in different plant organs. The expression of SlHsfA3 was induced dramatically by heat stress, moderately by high salinity, and slightly by drought, but was not induced by abscisic acid (ABA). The ectopic overexpression of SlHsfA3 conferred increased thermotolerance and late flowering phenotype to transgenic Arabidopsis plants. Moreover, SlHsfA3 played a negative role in controlling seed germination under salt stress. RNA-sequencing data demonstrated that a number of heat shock proteins (Hsps) and stress-associated genes were induced in Arabidopsis plants overexpressing SlHsfA3. A gel shift experiment and transient expression assays in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves demonstrated that SlHsfA3 directly activates the expression of SlHsp26.1-P and SlHsp21.5-ER. Taken together, our results suggest that SlHsfA3 behaves as a typical Hsf to contribute to plant thermotolerance. The late flowering and seed germination phenotypes and the RNA-seq data derived from SlHsfA3 overexpression lines lend more credence to the hypothesis that plant Hsfs participate in diverse physiological and biochemical processes related to adverse conditions.
Syllable reduction and articulation rates in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish

This investigation compares articulation rates of phonological and phonetic syllables in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish to investigate differences in degrees of syllable deletion (reduction) among these three languages. For the investigation two sets of data are used: one consisting of recorded speech from radio news and another consisting of sentences read aloud. The results of the comparative investigation show that in both data sets Danish exhibits a much larger degree of syllable reduction in speech than Norwegian and Swedish. The finding that certain syllable deletion processes take place in Danish but not in Norwegian and Swedish is viewed as typological. The results indicate that Danish words are shorter than their Norwegian and Swedish counterparts. This could be a contributing factor to problems that arise in inter-Scandinavian communication.
A note on the resonance counting function for surfaces with cusps

We prove sharp upper bounds for the number of resonances in boxes of size 1 at high frequency for the Laplacian on finite volume surfaces with hyperbolic cusps. As a corollary, we obtain a Weyl asymptotic for the number of resonances in balls of size $T \to \infty$ with remainder $O(T^{3/2} )$.
Bit-Optimal Lempel-Ziv compression

One of the most famous and investigated lossless data-compression scheme is the one introduced by Lempel and Ziv about 40 years ago. This compression scheme is known as "dictionary-based compression" and consists of squeezing an input string by replacing some of its substrings with (shorter) codewords which are actually pointers to a dictionary of phrases built as the string is processed. Surprisingly enough, although many fundamental results are nowadays known about upper bounds on the speed and effectiveness of this compression process and references therein), ``we are not aware of any parsing scheme that achieves optimality when the LZ77-dictionary is in use under any constraint on the codewords other than being of equal length'' [N. Rajpoot and C. Sahinalp. Handbook of Lossless Data Compression, chapter Dictionary-based data compression. Academic Press, 2002. pag. 159]. Here optimality means to achieve the minimum number of bits in compressing each individual input string, without any assumption on its generating source. In this paper we provide the first LZ-based compressor which computes the bit-optimal parsing of any input string in efficient time and optimal space, for a general class of variable-length codeword encodings which encompasses most of the ones typically used in data compression and in the design of search engines and compressed indexes.
Why vocational agriculture teachers in Ohio leave teaching

3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete.
"On the localization performance measure and optimal edge detection"

Tagare and deFigueiredo (see ibid., vol. 12, p. 1186-1189, 1990 ) present a localization performance measure for edge detectors. They correctly point out a flaw in Canny's formulation of the localization criterion, which was subsequently adopted by Sarkar and Boyer (1991). They motivate their form of the localization criterion along a different line of reasoning. In this comment, the authors show that although Canny's derivation was in error, the final form of his criterion is adequate and can, in fact, be derived from Tagare and deFigueiredo's formulation of the problem. The authors also point out some problems with Tagare and deFigueiredo's localization criterion. >
Rough evolution equations

We generalize Lyons' rough paths theory in order to give a pathwise meaning to some nonlinear infinite-dimensional evolution equation associated to an analytic semigroup and driven by an irregular noise. As an illustration, we discuss a class of linear and nonlinear 1d SPDEs driven by a space--time Gaussian noise with singular space covariance and Brownian time dependence.
Gypenoside XVII Prevents Atherosclerosis by Attenuating Endothelial Apoptosis and Oxidative Stress: Insight into the ERα-Mediated PI3K/Akt Pathway

Phytoestrogens are estrogen-like compounds of plant origin. The pharmacological activities of phytoestrogens are predominantly due to their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and lipid-lowering properties, which are mediated via the estrogen receptors (ERs): estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) and estrogen receptor beta (ERβ) and possibly G protein-coupled estrogen receptor 1 (GPER). Gypenoside XVII (GP-17) is a phytoestrogen that is widely used to prevent cardiovascular disease, including atherosclerosis, but the mechanism underlying these therapeutic effects is largely unclear. This study aimed to assess the anti-atherogenic effects of GP-17 and its mechanisms in vivo and in vitro. In vivo experiments showed that GP-17 significantly decreased blood lipid levels, increased the expression of antioxidant enzymes and decreased atherosclerotic lesion size in ApoE−/− mice. In vitro experiments showed that GP-17 significantly prevented oxidized low-density lipoprotein (Ox-LDL)-induced endothelial injury. The underlying protective mechanisms of GP-17 were mediated by restoring the normal redox state, up-regulating of the ratio of Bcl-2 to Bax and inhibiting the expression of cleaved caspase-3 in Ox-LDL-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) injury. Notably, we found that GP-17 treatment predominantly up-regulated the expression of ERα but not ERβ. However, similar to estrogen, the protective effect of GP-17 could be blocked by the ER antagonist ICI182780 and the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) antagonist LY294002. Taken together, these results suggest that, due to its antioxidant properties, GP-17 could alleviate atherosclerosis via the ERα-mediated PI3K/Akt pathway.
Word Structure Effects in German and British Reading Beginners 1Dieser Beitrag wurde unter der geschäftsführenden Herausgeberschaft von Joachim C. Brunstein akzeptiert.

Abstract: Due to the late developmental onset of reading, it appears to be more malleable than other cognitive functions. In the present study, German- and English-spoken reading beginners were compared with respect to reading of words with increasingly novel word structure. A clear gradual effect of word novelty was found in English speakers only, while in German pupils a gradual word novelty effect was absent. For German reading beginners rhymed words were more difficult than scrambled words, probably because of the ambiguity of rhymed words being familiar and novel at the same time, with only the word onset distinguishing them from proper words. Another difference was that English speakers showed fast reading routines of familiar and rhymed words, while normally schooled German pupils read familiar words slower. This was different in German children with preschool education, who read familiar and rhymed words at the same speed as British pupils, and novel words even faster. Simultaneously their reading.
Influence of Exercise Order on Maximum Strength and Muscle Volume in Nonlinear Periodized Resistance Training

Spineti, J, Freitas de Salles, B, Rhea, MR, Lavigne, D, Matta, T, Miranda, F, Fernandes, L, and Simão, R. Influence of exercise order on maximum strength and muscle volume in nonlinear periodized resistance training. J Strength Cond Res 24(11): 2962-2969, 2010-The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of exercise order on strength and muscle volume (MV) after 12 weeks of nonlinear periodized resistance training. The participants were randomly assigned into 3 groups. One group began performing large muscle group exercises and progressed to small muscle group exercises (LG-SM), whereas another group started with small muscle group exercises and advanced to large muscle group exercises (SM-LG). The exercise order for LG-SM was bench press (BP), machine lat pull-down (LPD), triceps extension (TE), and biceps curl (BC). The order for the SM-LG was BC, TE, LPD, and BP. The third group did not exercise and served as a control group (CG). Training frequency was 2 sessions per week with at least 72 hours of rest between sessions. Muscle volume was assessed at baseline and after 6 weeks and 12 weeks of training by ultrasound techniques. One repetition maximum strength for all exercises was assessed at baseline and after 12 weeks of training. Effect size data demonstrated that differences in strength and MV were exhibited based on exercise order. Both training groups demonstrated greater strength improvements than the CG, but only BP strength increased to a greater magnitude in the LG-SM group as compared with the SM-LG. In all other strength measures (LPD, TE, and BC), the SM-LG group showed significantly greater strength increases. Triceps MV increased in the SM-LG group; however, biceps MV did not differ significantly between the training groups. In conclusion, if an exercise is important for the training goals of a program, then it should be placed at the beginning of the training session, regardless of whether or not it is a large muscle group exercise or a small muscle group exercise.
A TEACHER'S ROLE IN WHOLE CLASS MATHEMATICAL DISCUSSION: FACILITATOR OF PERFORMANCE ETIQUETTE?

In the improvisation that occurs in a jazz ensemble, a soloist rarely develops a completely new idea but, instead, elaborates and builds on the previous player’s input. From an emergent perspective, classroom mathematical practice is akin to such improvisation. How this might happen in a whole-class situation is unclear. In this paper, a description is given of a whole-class discussion that took an unplanned trajectory. The teacher did not impose a particular structure on the lesson but focused pupils’ attention on productive mathematical ideas that emerged from the group. In the concluding discussion, it will be shown that the improvisation metaphor, while useful for describing mathematics as a socio-cultural activity, may have a different application in a whole-class situation than in small group settings.
Zero-Shot Hashing via Transferring Supervised Knowledge

Hashing has shown its efficiency and effectiveness in facilitating large-scale multimedia applications. Supervised knowledge (\emph{e.g.}, semantic labels or pair-wise relationship) associated to data is capable of significantly improving the quality of hash codes and hash functions. However, confronted with the rapid growth of newly-emerging concepts and multimedia data on the Web, existing supervised hashing approaches may easily suffer from the scarcity and validity of supervised information due to the expensive cost of manual labelling. In this paper, we propose a novel hashing scheme, termed \emph{zero-shot hashing} (ZSH), which compresses images of "unseen" categories to binary codes with hash functions learned from limited training data of "seen" categories. Specifically, we project independent data labels (i.e., 0/1-form label vectors) into semantic embedding space, where semantic relationships among all the labels can be precisely characterized and thus seen supervised knowledge can be transferred to unseen classes. Moreover, in order to cope with the semantic shift problem, we rotate the embedded space to more suitably align the embedded semantics with the low-level visual feature space, thereby alleviating the influence of semantic gap. In the meantime, to exert positive effects on learning high-quality hash functions, we further propose to preserve local structural property and discrete nature in binary codes. Besides, we develop an efficient alternating algorithm to solve the ZSH model. Extensive experiments conducted on various real-life datasets show the superior zero-shot image retrieval performance of ZSH as compared to several state-of-the-art hashing methods.
Acute Procedural Interventions Following Pediatric Blunt Abdominal Trauma: A Prospective Multicenter Evaluation.

BACKGROUND Pediatric intraabdominal injuries (IAI) from blunt abdominal trauma (BAT) rarely require emergent intervention. For those children undergoing procedural intervention, our aim was to understand the timing and indications for operation and angiographic embolization. METHODS We prospectively enrolled children <16 years following BAT at 14 Level-One Pediatric Trauma Centers over a 1-year period. Patients with IAI who received an intervention (IAI-I) were compared to those who did not receive an intervention using descriptive statistics and univariate analysis; p < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS 261 of 2188 patients (11.9%) had IAI. 45 IAI patients (17.2%) received an acute procedural intervention (38 operations, 7 angiographic embolization). The mean age for patients requiring intervention was 7.1+/-4.1 years and not different from the population. The majority of patients with IAI-I were normotensive (88.9%). IAI-I patients were significantly more likely to have a mechanism of MVC (66.7% vs. 38.9%), more likely to present as a level I activation (44.4% vs. 26.9%), more likely to have a GCS < 14 (31.1% vs. 15.5%), and more likely to have an abnormal abdominal physical exam (93.3% vs. 65.7%) than patients that did not require acute intervention. All patients underwent CT scan before intervention. Operations consisted of laparotomy (n=21), laparoscopy converted to open (n=11), and laparoscopy alone (n=6). The most common surgical indications were hollow viscus injury (HVI) (11 small bowel, 10 colon, 6 small bowel/colon, 2 duodenum). All interventions for solid organ injury (SOI), including 7 angioembolic procedures, occurred within 8 hours of arrival; many had hypotension and received a transfusion. Procedural interventions were more common for HVI than for SOI (59.2% vs. 7.6%). Post-operative mortality from IAI was 2.6%. CONCLUSIONS Acute procedural interventions for children with IAI from BAT are rare, predominantly for HVI, are performed early in the hospital course, and have excellent clinical outcomes. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Prognostic/epidemiologic study, level III; therapeutic study, level IV.
The PD-1/PD-L costimulatory pathway critically affects host resistance to the pathogenic fungus Histoplasma capsulatum

The PD-1 costimulatory receptor inhibits T cell receptor signaling upon interacting with its ligands PD-L1 and PD-L2. The PD-1/PD-L pathway is critical in maintaining self-tolerance. In this study, we examined the role of PD-1 in a mouse model of acute infection with Histoplasma capsulatum, a major human pathogenic fungus. In a lethal model of histoplasmosis, all PD-1-deficient mice survived infection, whereas the wild-type mice died with disseminated disease. PD-L expression on macrophages and splenocytes was up-regulated during infection, and macrophages from infected mice inhibited in vitro T cell activation. Of interest, antibody blocking of PD-1 significantly increased survival of lethally infected wild-type mice. Thus, our studies extend the role of the PD-1/PD-L pathway in regulating antimicrobial immunity to fungal pathogens. The results show that the PD-1/PD-L pathway has a key role in the regulation of antifungal immunity, and suggest that manipulation of this pathway represents a strategy of immunotherapy for histoplasmosis.
Complications of circumcision in Israel: a one year multicenter survey.

BACKGROUND In Israel, virtually all children undergo circumcision in the neonatal period. Traditionally, it is commonly performed by a "Mohel" (ritual circumciser) but lately there is an increasing tendency among the educated secular population to prefer a medical procedure performed by a physician and with local anesthetic injection. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the outcome of this procedure and to compare the complication rate following circumcisions performed by ritual circumcisers and by physicians. METHODS In 2001, of the 19,478 males born in four major medical centers in Israel 66 had circumcision-related complications. All the children were circumcised in non-medical settings within the community. The patients were medically evaluated either urgently due to immediate complications or electively in outpatient clinics later on. Upon the initial assessment a detailed questionnaire was filled to obtain data regarding the procedure, the performer, and the subsequent complications. RESULTS All the circumcisions were performed during the early neonatal period, usually on day 8 of life (according to Jewish law). in 55 cases (83%) it was part of a ritual ceremony conducted by a ritual circumciser (Mohel), while in 11 babies (17%) physicians were involved. Acute bleeding after circumcision was encountered in 16 cases (24%), which required suturing in 8. In addition, we found two cases of wound infection and one case of partial amputation of glans penis in which the circumcision was performed by a ritual circumciser. Among the late complications, the most common was excess of skin in 38 cases (57%); 5 children (7.5%) had penile torsion and 4 children (6%) had shortages of skin, phimosis and inclusion cyst. The overall estimated complication rate of circumcision was 0.34%. CONCLUSIONS Complications of circumcision are rare in Israel and in most cases are mild and correctable. There appears to be no significant difference in the type of complications between medical and ritual circumcisions.