Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Vocalization on the Sense of Pitch of Beginning Band Class Students

Studies have shown that wind instrumentalists tend to score lower on tests of aural acuity than do string players and pianists. Several explanations have been advanced to explain this deficiency among wind players. Research studies show that the students participating in both an instrumental and a vocal ensemble tend to score highest on tests of aural acuity. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the effect of daily vocalization practice on the sense of pitch of students in selected beginning band classes. The experimental sample consisted of six selected beginning band classes of heterogeneous grouping. The six groups were equal in size, academic achievement, and extracurricular musical activities. A pretest of pitch discrimination and tonal memory revealed the groups were similar with respect to these abilities also. There were three control groups and three experimental groups. Instructors for the control groups were allowed to conduct their band classes as usual throughout the school year. Experimental-group instructors conducted their classes in the usual manner except to teach their students to vocalize previously designated pitches and exercises selected from the class text. A posttest given to all groups at the end of the school year revealed that: (1) Regular participation in band class resulted in improved pitch discrimination and tonal memory abilities. (2) Regular practice in vocalization during the band class had a significant effect on the sense of pitch of students in the experimental groups, who scored significantly higher on the posttest than the students in the control groups. (3) Brass and woodwind players were affected equally by the vocalization procedure. (4) Private piano study was a factor in the posttest results, especially on the test where subjects had to match musical sounds with notation. (5) Regular participation in an extracurricular vocal ensemble had little effect on posttest results.
GRB 071003: Broadband Follow-up Observations of a Very Bright Gamma-Ray Burst in a Galactic Halo

The optical afterglow of long-duration GRB 071003 is among the brightest yet to be detected from any GRB, with R ≈ 12 mag in KAIT observations starting 42 s after the GRB trigger, including filtered detections during prompt emission. However, our high-S/N afterglow spectrum displays only extremely weak absorption lines at what we argue is the host redshift of z = 1.60435, in contrast to the three other, much stronger Mg II absorption systems observed at lower redshifts. Together with Keck adaptive optics observations, which fail to reveal a host galaxy coincident with the burst position, our observations suggest a halo progenitor and offer a cautionary tale about the use of Mg II for GRB redshift determination. We present early- through late-time observations spanning the electromagnetic spectrum, constrain the connection between the prompt emission and early variations in the light curve (we observe no correlation), and discuss possible origins for an unusual, marked rebrightening that occurs a few hours after the burst: likely either a late-time refreshed shock or a wide-angle secondary jet. Analysis of the late-time afterglow is most consistent with a wind environment, suggesting a massive star progenitor. Together with GRB 070125, this may indicate that a small but significant portion of star formation in the early universe occurred far outside what we consider a normal galactic disk.
The impact of extensive medial frontal lobe damage on 'Theory of Mind' and cognition.

The ability of humans to predict and explain other people's behaviour by attributing to them independent mental states, such as desires and beliefs, is considered to be due to our ability to construct a 'Theory of Mind'. Recently, several neuroimaging studies have implicated the medial frontal lobes as playing a critical role in a dedicated 'mentalizing' or 'Theory of Mind' network in human brains. Here, we report a patient, G.T. , who suffered an exceptionally rare form of stroke-bilateral anterior cerebral artery infarction, without rupture or the complications associated with anterior communicating artery aneurysms. Detailed high-resolution neuroanatomical investigations revealed extensive damage to the medial frontal lobes bilaterally, including regions identified to be critical for 'Theory of Mind' by functional neuroimaging of healthy human subjects. For the first time in such a patient, we carried out a thorough assessment of her cognitive profile including, critically, an experimental investigation of her performance on a range of tests of 'Theory of Mind'. G.T. had a dysexecutive syndrome characterized by impairments in planning and memory, as well as a tendency to confabulate. Importantly, however, she did not have any significant impairment on tasks probing her ability to construct a 'Theory of Mind', demonstrating that the extensive medial frontal regions destroyed by her stroke are not necessary for this function. These findings have important implications for the functional anatomy of 'Theory of Mind', as well as our understanding of medial frontal function. Possible reasons for the discrepancies between our results and neuroimaging studies are discussed. We conclude that our findings urge caution against using functional imaging as the sole method of establishing cognitive neuroanatomy.
Multiplication of Legionella pneumophila Sequence Types 1, 47, and 62 in Buffered Yeast Extract Broth and Biofilms Exposed to Flowing Tap Water at Temperatures of 38°C to 42°C

ABSTRACT Legionella pneumophila proliferates in freshwater environments at temperatures ranging from 25 to 45°C. To investigate the preference of different sequence types (ST) for a specific temperature range, growth of L. pneumophila serogroup 1 (SG1) ST1 (environmental strains), ST47, and ST62 (disease-associated strains) was measured in buffered yeast extract broth (BYEB) and biofilms grown on plasticized polyvinyl chloride in flowing heated drinking water originating from a groundwater supply. The optimum growth temperatures in BYEB were approximately 37°C (ST1), 39°C (ST47), and 41°C (ST62), with maximum growth temperatures of 42°C (ST1) and 43°C (ST47 and ST62). In the biofilm at 38°C, the ST47 and ST62 strains multiplied equally well compared to growth of the environmental ST1 strain and an indigenous L. pneumophila non-SG1 strain, all attaining a concentration of approximately 107 CFU/cm−2. Raising the temperature to 41°C did not impact these levels within 4 weeks, but the colony counts of all strains tested declined (at a specific decline rate of 0.14 to 0.41 day−1) when the temperature was raised to 42°C. At this temperature, the concentration of Vermamoeba vermiformis in the biofilm, determined with quantitative PCR (qPCR), was about 2 log units lower than the concentration at 38°C. In columns operated at a constant temperature, ranging from 38 to 41°C, none of the tested strains multiplied in the biofilm at 41°C, in which also V. vermiformis was not detected. These observations suggest that strains of ST47 and ST62 did not multiply in the biofilm at a temperature of ≥41°C because of the absence of a thermotolerant host. IMPORTANCE Growth of Legionella pneumophila in tap water installations is a serious public health concern. The organism includes more than 2,100 varieties (sequence types). More than 50% of the reported cases of Legionnaires' disease are caused by a few sequence types which are very rarely detected in the environment. Strains of selected virulent sequence types proliferated in biofilms on surfaces exposed to warm (38°C) tap water to the same level as environmental varieties and multiplied well as pure culture in a nutrient-rich medium at temperatures of 42 and 43°C. However, these organisms did not grow in the biofilms at temperatures of ≥41°C. Typical host amoebae also did not multiply at these temperatures. Apparently, proliferation of thermotolerant host amoebae is needed to enable multiplication of the virulent L. pneumophila strains in the environment at elevated temperatures. The detection of these amoebae in water installations therefore is a scientific challenge with practical implications.
Predicting outcomes for linguistically specific sentence treatment protocols

Background: Linguistically motivated treatment protocols like the Treatment of Underlying Forms (TUF: Thompson & Shapiro, 2005) have shown significant success in remediating aphasic individuals' sentence production deficits. However, adults with aphasia are not uniform in their response to TUF: not all individuals trained with TUF successfully acquire the sentence types they are trained on or generalise to untrained sentence types. More research is therefore needed to determine which individuals are most likely to benefit from TUF treatment. Aims: The current study analysed existing TUF treatment studies in an effort to determine what measures may be predictive of TUF outcomes for different aphasic individuals. Three different measures were tested: aphasia severity, auditory comprehension ability, and complex sentence comprehension ability. Methods & Procedures: A meta-analysis was conducted based on existing TUF treatment studies drawn from the aphasiological literature. These studies included individual demographic, language-testing, and treatment data from 30 aphasic individuals. Regression analyses were conducted comparing these individuals' improvements on production of treated and untreated sentence types (treatment and generalisation effects) with the three predictor measures (severity, auditory comprehension, and complex sentence comprehension scores). Outcomes & Results: Only one of the measures tested, general auditory comprehension, was predictive of the size of individuals' gains on treated sentence types. None of the measures tested was predictive of these individuals' generalisation to untrained structures. Conclusions: The current results suggest that general auditory comprehension appears to be related to improved sentence production following TUF treatment. In contrast, neither overall aphasia severity nor performance with complex sentence stimuli is a strong predictor of TUF treatment outcomes. Interestingly, there were no strong relationships between any of the measures and the generalisation effect scores. These findings suggest that clinicians should consider a patient's general auditory comprehension when deciding whether TUF would be appropriate. They also suggest that partially different cognitive mechanisms may underlie treatment and generalisation effects following treatment, at least for TUF protocols.
Women and children in a neighborhood advocacy group: engaging community and refashioning citizenship at the United States–Mexico border

This article looks at the community participation of recent Latina immigrant mothers and their children in a neighborhood advocacy group near the US–Mexico border. It documents the work that women and children do as they struggle to become involved in their new community and improve their quality of life – despite legal, social, economic and cultural obstacles. Local context, family and ethnic networks, gendered patterns of women's experiences as immigrants and children participation in ‘adult’ decision-making are hugely important in understanding their community engagement. The article reflects on the advocacy work that women and children perform through a neighborhood group to argue for a difference-centered perspective on citizenship that is inspired by feminist thinking. Such a perspective makes sense in light of the ironic tensions within neo-liberal policies that, on the one hand, burden people with more responsibilities while, on the other hand, legislating against their freedom to pursue those responsibilities.
Overlapping patterns of neural activity for different forms of novelty in fMRI

When stimuli are presented multiple times, the neural response to repeated stimuli is reduced relative to novel stimuli (repetition suppression). Responses to different types of novelty were examined. Stimulus novelty was examined by contrasting first vs. second presentation of triads of objects during memory encoding. Semantic novelty was contrasted by comparing unrelated (semantically novel) triads of objects to triads in which all three objects were related (e.g., all objects were tools). In recognition, associative novelty was examined by contrasting rearranged triads (previously seen objects in a new association) with intact triads. Activity was observed in posterior regions (occipital and fusiform), with the largest extent of activity for stimulus novelty and smallest for associational novelty. Frontal activity was also observed in stimulus and semantic novelty. Additional analysis indicated that the hemodynamic response in voxels identified in the stimulus and semantic novelty contrasts was modulated by reaction time on a trial-by-trial basis. That is, the duration of the hemodynamic response was driven by reaction time. This was not the case for associative novelty. The high level of overlap across different forms of novelty suggests a similar mechanism for reduced neural activity, which may be related to reduced visual processing time. This is consistent with a facilitation model of repetition suppression, which posits a reduced peak and duration of neuronal firing for repeated stimuli.
Celos y sexismo: un estudio comparativo entre una muestra española y una muestra cubana

Resumen El propósito de este estudio fue evaluar si existían diferencias entre hombres y mujeres en el tipo de infidelidad que más les afectaba (infidelidad sexual vs infidelidad emocional) en una muestra española (200 mujeres y 117 hombres) y en una muestra cubana (102 mujeres y 98 hombres), así como evaluar si el sexismo influía en la elección del tipo de infidelidad que más les molestaba. Se obtuvieron respuestas en el dilema (elegir entre la infidelidad sexual vs emocional), en la reacción emocional y en el dolor que provocaban ambas infidelidades. Se compararon los resultados obtenidos en la muestra española y en la muestra cubana. Se observó si los datos se adecuaban a los postulados evolucionistas que sostienen que los hombres se preocupan más por la infidelidad sexual y las mujeres por la infidelidad emocional. En la muestra española los hombres y las mujeres se preocuparon más por la infidelidad emocional. En la muestra cubana, los hombres se preocuparon más por la infidelidad sexual y las mujeres igualmente por los dos tipos de infidelidades. Fue analizada la relación entre el sexismo hostil y el sexismo benévolo con la infidelidad sexual y la infidelidad emocional.
Prognostic influence of tumor‐associated eosinophilic infiltrate in colorectal carcinoma

In 1983, Pretlow et al. reported one classical study of the prognostic influence of eosinophil infiltration in human colon carcinoma. Since then, very few reports have analyzed this supposed prognostic influence in this type of tumor, although there have been several reports of other types of tumors with different results. Eosinophils seem to play a central role in the immunologic defense against tumors; their activity can be induced through immunotherapy with interleukin in cases that are unresponsive to conventional therapies.
Numerical Modeling of Sub-Wavelength Anti-Reflective Structures for Solar Module Applications

This paper reviews the current progress in mathematical modeling of anti-reflective subwavelength structures. Methods covered include effective medium theory (EMT), finite-difference time-domain (FDTD), transfer matrix method (TMM), the Fourier modal method (FMM)/rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) and the finite element method (FEM). Time-based solutions to Maxwell’s equations, such as FDTD, have the benefits of calculating reflectance for multiple wavelengths of light per simulation, but are computationally intensive. Space-discretized methods such as FDTD and FEM output field strength results over the whole geometry and are capable of modeling arbitrary shapes. Frequency-based solutions such as RCWA/FMM and FEM model one wavelength per simulation and are thus able to handle dispersion for regular geometries. Analytical approaches such as TMM are appropriate for very simple thin films. Initial disadvantages such as neglect of dispersion (FDTD), inaccuracy in TM polarization (RCWA), inability to model aperiodic gratings (RCWA), and inaccuracy with metallic materials (FDTD) have been overcome by most modern software. All rigorous numerical methods have accurately predicted the broadband reflection of ideal, graded-index anti-reflective subwavelength structures; ideal structures are tapered nanostructures with periods smaller than the wavelengths of light of interest and lengths that are at least a large portion of the wavelengths considered.
Bioinformatic analysis of exon repetition, exon scrambling and trans-splicing in humans

MOTIVATION Using bioinformatic approaches we aimed to characterize poorly understood abnormalities in splicing known as exon scrambling, exon repetition and trans-splicing. RESULTS We developed a software package that allows large-scale comparison of all human expressed sequence tags (EST) sequences to the entire set of human gene sequences. Among 5,992,495 EST sequences, 401 cases of exon repetition and 416 cases of exon scrambling were found. The vast majority of identified ESTs contain fragments rather than full-length repeated or scrambled exons. Their structures suggest that the scrambled or repeated exon fragments may have arisen in the process of cDNA cloning and not from splicing abnormalities. Nevertheless, we found 11 cases of full-length exon repetition showing that this phenomenon is real yet very rare. In searching for examples of trans-splicing, we looked only at reproducible events where at least two independent ESTs represent the same putative trans-splicing event. We found 15 ESTs representing five types of putative trans-splicing. However, all 15 cases were derived from human malignant tissues and could have resulted from genomic rearrangements. Our results provide support for a very rare but physiological occurrence of exon repetition, but suggest that apparent exon scrambling and trans-splicing result, respectively, from in vitro artifact and gene-level abnormalities. AVAILABILITY Exon-Intron Database (EID) is available at http://www.meduohio. edu/bioinfo/eid. Programs are available at http://www.meduohio. edu/bioinfo/software.html. The Laboratory website is available at http://www.meduohio. edu/medicine/fedorov SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary file is available at http://www.meduohio. edu/bioinfo/software.html.
Comprehensive immunohistological analysis of the endothelin system in human kidney grafts.

BACKGROUND In experimental models of renal transplantation, upregulation of the endothelin (ET) system and amelioration of renal injury by ET-receptor blockers have been documented. In contrast, little information is available on the expression of the ET system in human kidney allografts. It was the purpose of the present study to analyse by immunohistology the expression of ET-1 as well as of the two ET receptors (ET-RA and ET-RB) in the different cells and compartments of kidney grafts and control kidneys. METHODS Fifty-five graft biopsies were taken from 55 kidney allograft recipients (mean age: 32+/-2.8 years) who were all on a calcineurin inhibitor. The indication for biopsies was delayed graft function or suspected rejection. The underlying diagnoses were acute allograft rejection (n = 14), chronic allograft nephropathy (n = 14), cyclosporin A (CSA) toxicity (n = 10), post-operative acute tubular necrosis (ATN) (n = 11) and recurrent primary disease (n = 6). As control, tissues of non-grafted kidneys with ATN (mean age: 35+/-24 years), of primary glomerulonephritis (mean age: 69+/-10 years) and of non-tumour-bearing parts of eight tumour nephrectomy specimens (mean age: 67+/-5 years) were assessed. The biopsies were scored using the 1997 Banff criteria. Expression of ET-1, ET-RA and ET-RB as well as of vascular endothelial growth factor was evaluated by immunohistochemistry and a semi-quantitative scoring system. Interstitial infiltrating cells were characterized using antibodies against T cells, B cells and macrophages (CD3, CD20 and CD68). RESULTS Control cases showed only faint expression of ET-1 in glomeruli (in podocytes and endothelial cells), whereas marked expression was seen in distal, but less in proximal tubular cells. The interstitium was completely negative. ET-1 expression was seen in vascular endothelial cells (VEC) and vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC). Only faint expression of ET-RA and ET-RB was found in glomeruli and tubuli (distal more than proximal). Marked ET-RA and ET-RB expression was seen in VEC and VSMC. In all transplanted kidneys, irrespective of the underlying diagnosis, expression of ET-1, ET-RA and ET-RB was markedly higher compared with control kidneys. ET-1 was strikingly upregulated in glomeruli and tubuli, but surprisingly not in the vasculature of grafts with CSA toxicity. Expression of ET-RB was markedly increased in CSA toxicity in glomeruli, tubuli and vessels. In grafts with ATN and acute rejection, pronounced expression of ET-RA was noted. There was a strong correlation between proteinuria and expression of ET-1 in glomeruli and proximal tubuli and of ET-RB in proximal tubuli. CONCLUSIONS The above data in human kidney allograft biopsies are consistent with an important role of the ET system in different types of renal allograft damage. This finding extends and clarifies the somewhat contradictory results in animal models.
Planning with Continuous Actions in Partially Observable Environments

We present a simple randomized POMDP al gorithm for planning with continuous actions in partially observable environments. Our algorithm operates on a set of reachable belief points, sampled by letting the robot interact randomly with the environment. We perform value iteration steps, ensuring that in each step the value of all sampled belief points is improved. The idea here is that by sampling actions from a continuous action space we can quickly improve the value of all belief points in the set. We demonstrate the viability of our algorithm on two sets of experiments: one involving an active localization task and one concerning robot navigation in a perceptually aliased of fice environment.
Human Neutrophil Peptide 1 as immunotherapeutic agent against Leishmania infected BALB/c mice

Human Neutrophil Peptide 1 (HNP1) produced by neutrophils, is a well-known antimicrobial peptide which plays a role both in innate as well as in adaptive immunity and is under intensive investigation as a potential therapeutic agent. Previous in vitro experiments have indicated the leishmaniacidal effect of recombinant HNP1 on Leishmania major (L. major) promastigotes and amastigotes. In the current study, we further extended the idea to explore the remedial effect of HNP1 in the two modalities of peptide therapy (folded HNP1) and gene therapy in L. major infected BALB/c mice. To this end, mice in five different groups received synthetic folded HNP1 (G1), pcDNA-HNP1-EGFP (G2), pcDNA-EGFP (G3), Amphotericin B (G4) and PBS (G5), which was started three weeks after infection for three consecutive weeks. Footpad swelling was monitored weekly and a day after the therapy ended, IFN-γ, IL-4, IL-10, IL-6 and nitric oxide produced by splenocytes were analyzed together with the parasite load in draining lymph nodes. Arginase activity and dermal histopathological changes were also analyzed in the infected footpads. We demonstrated that both therapeutic approaches effectively induced Th1 polarization and restricted parasite burden. It can control disease progression in contrast to non-treated groups. However, pcDNA-HNP1-EGFP is more promising in respect to parasite control than folded HNP1, but less effective than AmB treatment. We concluded with the call for a future approach, that is, a DNA-based expression of HNP1 combined with AmB as it can improve the leishmaniacidal efficacy.