Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parasitic Infection Improves Survival from Septic Peritonitis by Enhancing Mast Cell Responses to Bacteria in Mice

Mammals are serially infected with a variety of microorganisms, including bacteria and parasites. Each infection reprograms the immune system's responses to re-exposure and potentially alters responses to first-time infection by different microorganisms. To examine whether infection with a metazoan parasite modulates host responses to subsequent bacterial infection, mice were infected with the hookworm-like intestinal nematode Nippostrongylus brasiliensis, followed in 2–4 weeks by peritoneal injection of the pathogenic bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae. Survival from Klebsiella peritonitis two weeks after parasite infection was better in Nippostrongylus-infected animals than in unparasitized mice, with Nippostrongylus-infected mice having fewer peritoneal bacteria, more neutrophils, and higher levels of protective interleukin 6. The improved survival of Nippostrongylus-infected mice depends on IL-4 because the survival benefit is lost in mice lacking IL-4. Because mast cells protect mice from Klebsiella peritonitis, we examined responses in mast cell-deficient KitW-sh/KitW-sh mice, in which parasitosis failed to improve survival from Klebsiella peritonitis. However, adoptive transfer of cultured mast cells to KitW-sh/KitW-sh mice restored survival benefits of parasitosis. These results show that recent infection with Nippostrongylus brasiliensis protects mice from Klebsiella peritonitis by modulating mast cell contributions to host defense, and suggest more generally that parasitosis can yield survival advantages to a bacterially infected host.
A noncooperative power control game for multirate CDMA data networks

The authors consider a multirate code-division multiple acess system, in which all users have the same chip rate and vary their data rate by adjusting the processing gain. The receivers are assumed to be implemented using conventional matched filters, whose performance is sensitive to the received power levels. The authors' goal is to maximize the total system throughput by means of power control. A game theoretic approach is adopted. It is shown that for a certain type of pricing function, a unique Nash equilibrium solution exists and it possesses nice global properties. For example, it can be shown that for the optimal solution a high-rate connection should maintain a higher energy per bit than low-rate ones. The asymptotic spectral efficiency is also derived.
Delayed-type hypersensitivity in mice immunized with Trypanosoma rhodesiense antigens

When mice were immunized intravenously, subcutaneously, or by the footpad route with formaldehyde-killed Trypanosoma rhodesiense, delayed-type hypersensitivity was elicited by the use of frozen-thawed trypanosomal antigen. The delayed footpad swelling technique was used to measure delayed hypersensitivity. Hypersensitivity induction was dose dependent (greater than or equal to 10(6) formaldehyde-treated T. rhodesiense) and was affected by the route of immunization. The footpad route induced higher levels of hypersensitivity than other routes of immunization. Mice immunized with a single dose of formaldehyde-treated antigen and challenged with live T. rhodesiense did not survive. Yet, mice immunized subcutaneously with formaldehyde-treated antigen and then injected with frozen-thawed antigen and challenged 28 days after immunization survived. The results suggest that T-cell activation, manifested by delayed hypersensitivity responses, was a necessary component in the protective response, perhaps functioning in a helper cell capacity.
A measurement method based on Kalman filtering for ultrasonic time-of-flight estimation

A new digital signal-processing method for ultrasonic time-of-flight (TOF) estimation is presented. The method applies the discrete extended Kalman filter (EDKF) to the acquired ultrasonic signal in order to accurately estimate the shape factors of echo envelope as well as locate its onset. It is so possible to assure reduced bias and uncertainty also in critical TOF measurements, such as those involving low signal to noise ratio (SNR) as well as severe distortion of echo shape. A number of numerical tests ate conducted on simulated signals with the aim of highlighting the good performance of the method when operating in critical conditions. Results attained in TOF based distance measurements finally asses the reliability and efficacy of the method also in the presence of actual ultrasonic signals.
Psychotic experiences and risk of death in the general population: 24–27 year follow-up of the Epidemiologic Catchment Area study

Background Psychotic experiences are common in the general population and are associated with adverse psychiatric and social outcomes, even in the absence of a psychotic disorder. Aims To examine the association between psychotic experiences and mortality over a 24–27 year period. Method We used data on 15 049 adult participants from four sites of the Epidemiologic Catchment Area baseline survey in the USA in the early 1980s, linked to the National Death Index and other sources of vital status up until 2007. Psychotic experiences were assessed by the Diagnostic Interview Schedule. Results Lifetime psychotic experiences at baseline (n = 855; weighted prevalence, 5.5%) were significantly associated with all-cause mortality at follow-up after adjustment for sociodemographic characteristics and psychiatric diagnoses, including schizophrenia spectrum disorders (P<0.05). Baseline psychotic experiences were associated with over 5 years' shorter median survival time. Among the underlying causes of death, suicide had a particularly high hazard ratio (9.16, 95% CI 3.19–26.29). Conclusions Future research needs to explore the association of psychotic experiences with physical health and lifestyle factors that may mediate the relationship of psychotic experiences with mortality.
Are Big Cities Bad Places to Live? Estimating Quality of Life Across Metropolitan Areas

The standard revealed-preference estimate of a city's quality of life is proportional to that city's cost-of-living relative to its wage-level. Adjusting estimates to account for federal taxes, non-housing costs, and non-labor income produces more plausible quality-of-life estimates than in the previous literature. Unlike previous estimates, adjusted quality-of-life measures successfully predict how housing costs rise with wage levels, are positively correlated with popular "livability" rankings and stated preferences, and do not decrease with city size. Mild seasons, sunshine, hills, and coastal proximity account for most inter-metropolitan quality-of-life differences. Amendments to quality-of-life measures for labor-market disequilibrium and household heterogeneity provide additional insights.
On the use of binary feature descriptors for loop closure detection

We propose an appearance-based loop closure detection algorithm based on binary features and a Bag-of-Words scheme. Unlike other approaches that build the visual dictionary offline, we introduce an indexing method for binary features, which, in combination with an inverted index, enable us to obtain loop closure candidates in an online manner. These structures are used in a discrete Bayes filter to select final loop candidates and to ensure temporal coherency between predictions. Our approach is validated using two publicly available datasets of outdoor environments and compared with the state-of-the-art FAB-MAP algorithm, showing very promising results and demonstrating that binary features can be used for visual loop closure detection.
Contraction Analysis of Time-Delayed Communications Using Simplified Wave Variables

We study stability of interacting nonlinear systems with time-delayed communications, using contraction theory and a simplified wave variable design inspired by robotic teleoperation. We show that contraction is preserved through specific time-delayed feedback communications, and that this property is independent of the values of the delays. The approach is then applied to group cooperation with linear protocols, where it shown that synchronization can be made robust to arbitrary time delays.
Second Order Function Approximation with a Single Small Multiplication

This paper presents a new scheme for the hardware evaluation of elementary functions, based on a piecewise second order minimax approximation. The novelty is that this evaluation requires only one small rectangular multiplication. Therefore the resulting architecture combines a small table size, thanks to second-order evaluation, with a short critical path: Consisting of one table lookup, the rectangular multiplication, and one addition, the critical path is shorter than that of a plain first-order evaluation. Synthesis results for several functions show that this method outperforms all the previously published methods in both area and speed for precisions ranging from 12 to 24 bits.
D1 and D2 dopamine receptor function in the striatum: coactivation of D1- and D2-dopamine receptors on separate populations of neurons results in potentiated immediate early gene response in D1-containing neurons

D1- and D2-dopamine receptor-mediated regulation of immediate early gene levels in identified populations of neurons in the striatum was examined with quantitative in situ hybridization histochemical techniques. Levels of messenger RNA (mRNA) encoding the immediate early genes zif268 and c-fos were examined in two experiments in rats with unilateral lesions of the nigrostriatal dopamine pathway. In a dose- response study, animals were treated with doses of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 mg/kg of the D1 agonist SKF-38393 either alone or in combination with the D2 agonist quinpirole (1 mg/kg). Levels of immediate early gene mRNAs 60 min following drug treatments showed a dose-related increase to the D1 agonist alone and a potentiation to combined D1 and D2 against treatment. In a second experiment, in animals receiving 1 mg/kg SKF-38393 either alone or in combination with 1 mg/kg quinpirole, the level of zif268 mRNA was measured with a double-labeling method in striatal neurons containing enkephalin mRNA, a marker of D2-containing neurons, and in neurons not containing enkephalin, putative D1- containing neurons. In the dopamine-depleted striatum, D1 agonist treatment alone did not affect enkephalin-positive neurons but significantly elevated zif268 mRNA levels in nearly all enkephalin- negative neurons. Combined D1 and D2 agonist treatment further increased zif268 mRNA levels in this population of enkephalin-negative neurons and decreased zif-268 mRNA levels in enkephalin-positive neurons. These data indicate that the synergistic response to combined D1- and D2-receptor stimulation is mediated by interneuronal interactions involving the activation of D1 and D2 receptors on separate populations of striatal neurons.
Antimonite is accumulated by the glycerol facilitator GlpF in Escherichia coli

In a search for genes responsible for the accumulation of antimonite in Escherichia coli, TnphoA was used to create a pool of random insertional mutants, from which one antimonite-resistant mutant was isolated. Sequence analysis showed that the TnphoA insertion was located in the glpF gene, coding for the glycerol facilitator GlpF. The mutant was shown to be defective in polyol transport by GlpF. These results suggest that in solution Sb(III) is recognized as a polyol by the glycerol facilitator.
[Impact of shared-decision making on patient satisfaction].

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of shared-decision making on patient satisfaction. The study is significant since it focuses on developing appropriate methodologies and analyzing data to identify patient preferences, with the goals of optimizing treatment selection, and substantiating the relationship between such preferences and their impact on outcomes. METHODS A thorough literature review that developed the framework illustrating key dimensions of shared decision making was followed by a quantitative assessment and regression analysis of patient-perceived satisfaction, and the degree of shared-decision making. RESULTS A positive association was evident between shared-decision making and patient satisfaction. The impact of shared decision making on patient satisfaction was greater than other variable including gender, education, and number of visits. CONCLUSIONS Patients who participate in care-related decisions and who are given an explanation of their health problems are more likely to be satisfied with their care. It would benefit health care organizations to train their medical professionals in this communication method, and to include it in their practice guidelines.
Target assignment for robots constrained by limited communication range

This paper investigates the task assignment problem for multiple dispersed robots constrained by limited communication range. The robots are initially randomly distributed and need to visit several target locations while minimizing the total travel time. A centralized rendezvous-based algorithm is proposed, under which all the robots first move towards a rendezvous position until communication paths are established between every pair of robots either directly or through intermediate peers, and then one robot is chosen as the leader to make a centralized task assignment for the other robots. Furthermore, we propose a decentralized algorithm based on a single-traveling-salesman tour, which does not require all the robots to be connected through communication. We investigate the variation of the quality of the assignment solutions as the level of information sharing increases and as the communication range grows, respectively. The proposed algorithms are compared with a centralized algorithm with shared global information and a decentralized greedy algorithm respectively. Monte Carlo simulation results show the satisfying performance of the proposed algorithms.
Blogging while Black, British and female: a critical study on discursive activism

ABSTRACT This study explores Black British women's motivations for divulging racial and ethnic identity in the blogosphere (sometimes referred to as blogging while Black) and their use of blogs for discursive activism. It builds on previous research that gives voice to Black womens marginalized experiences through powerful counter narratives. The blogosphere is often perceived as a racially neutral space where shared interests across geographical and temporal boundaries limit the significance of racial and ethnic identity. However, the constructed narratives of Black British women in this study highlight their experiences of subtle forms of prejudice and discrimination perpetuated through dominant discourses in the mainstream media. The findings demonstrate how they use blogs as a medium for discursive activism to challenge stereotypical raced and gendered representation in the mainstream media. Much of the research on the blogosphere in Britain reflects its use by the White majority population. This study therefore extends understanding of the blogosphere and highlights alternative modes of political communication.
Attributions of responsibility and punishment for ingroup and outgroup members: The role of just world beliefs

People have a need to believe that the world is a just place. When confronted with injustice, this just world belief (JWB) is threatened. The present research, conducted in the context of relations between Israeli Jews and Arabs, examined how group membership of actor and participants’ beliefs in a just world affect attributions of responsibility and punishment as a function of culpability of the actor. In particular, after measuring their JWB, Jewish participants (n = 214) read a description of a Jewish or Arab driver who was guilty or nonguilty in a car accident in which an innocent pedestrian was injured. As predicted, participants attributed less blame and recommended less severe punishment for an ingroup than an outgroup member for the same event and stronger beliefs in a just world predicted recommendations for less severe punishment for ingroup members. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.
Scalable Logging through Emerging Non-Volatile Memory

Emerging byte-addressable, non-volatile memory (NVM) is fundamentally changing the design principle of transaction logging. It potentially invalidates the need for flush-before-commit as log records are persistent immediately upon write. Distributed logging---a once prohibitive technique for single node systems in the DRAM era---becomes a promising solution to easing the logging bottleneck because of the non-volatility and high performance of NVM. In this paper, we advocate NVM and distributed logging on multicore and multi-socket hardware. We identify the challenges brought by distributed logging and discuss solutions. To protect committed work in NVM-based systems, we propose passive group commit, a lightweight, practical approach that leverages existing hardware and group commit. We expect that durable processor cache is the ultimate solution to protecting committed work and building reliable, scalable NVM-based systems in general. We evaluate distributed logging with logging-intensive workloads and show that distributed logging can achieve as much as ~3x speedup over centralized logging in a modern DBMS and that passive group commit only induces minuscule overhead.
Elite communication and legitimization of violence during intergroup conflicts

A comparative content analysis was conducted across communication from elites involved in inter-group conflicts across two decades and from four different countries (the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Myanmar). A thematic coding scheme was developed using themes identified in the previous literature, Susan Benesch’s proposal on dangerous speech (2012) and perspectives from Social Identity Theory (1981). Coding and analysis revealed that across countries and temporal spans, elites bolster in-group and out-group distinctions and identity through their language choices, but typically avoid outright dehumanization as commonly assumed. Moreover, they excessively create non-falsifiable statements about current, past, or future events; and employ allegations against the intentions, plans and activities of the out-group. These non-falsifiable statements make a bulk of their speech or broadcasts. Several additional themes were identified as well which point to contextualization of communication.
Compensatory thio–redox interactions between DsbA, CcdA and CcmG unveil the apocytochrome c holdase role of CcmG during cytochrome c maturation

During cytochrome c maturation (Ccm), the DsbA‐dependent thio‐oxidative protein‐folding pathway is thought to introduce a disulphide bond into the haem‐binding motif of apocytochromes c. This disulphide bond is believed to be reduced through a thio‐reductive pathway involving the Ccm components CcdA (DsbD), CcmG and CcmH. Here, we show in Rhodobacter capsulatus that in the absence of DsbA cytochrome c levels were decreased and CcdA or CcmG or the putative glutathione transporter CydDC was not needed for Ccm. This decrease was not due to overproduction of the periplasmic protease DegP as a secondary effect of DsbA absence. In contrast, CcmH was absolutely necessary regardless of DsbA, indicating that compensatory thio–redox interactions excluded it. Remarkably, the double (DsbA–CcmG) and triple (DsbA–CcmG–CcdA) mutants produced cytochromes c at lower levels than the DsbA‐null mutants, unless they contained a CcmG derivative (CcmG*) lacking its thio‐reductive activity. Purified CcmG* can bind apocytochrome c in vitro, revealing for the first time a thiol‐independent, direct interaction between apocytochrome c and CcmG. Furthermore, elimination of the thio–redox components does not abolish cytochrome c production, restricting the number of Ccm components essential for haem–apocyt c ligation per se during Ccm.
Total anti-oxidant capacity, flavonoid, phenolic acid and polyphenol content in ten selected species of Zingiberaceae rhizomes.

BACKGROUND Natural products such as herbs, fruits, spices, beverages, vegetables are becoming more popular among scientific community and consumers because of their potential to arrest the effect of free radicals in human system. This study determined the total antioxidant capacity of ten selected species of Zingiberaceae (Ginger) used as spices and for medicinal purposes in Southeast Asia. MATERIALS AND METHODS Methanol was used as the extraction solvent, 2,2 - diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazil (DPPH) for free radical scavenging activity and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays. Phenolic compounds were measured using Total flavonoid, Phenolic acid and Polyphenols content assay to evaluate the quality of the antioxidant capacity of the rhizomes and vitamin C as positive control. RESULTS The results obtained revealed that Curcuma longa and Zingiber officinale had the highest free radical scavenging capacity of 270.07mg/TE/g DW and 266.95mg/TE/g DW and FRAP assay, Curcuma longa and Zingiber officinale also gave the highest ferric reducing power of 231.73mg/TE/g DW and 176.26mg/TE/g DW respectively. For Phenolic compounds, Curcuma longa and Curcuma xanthorrhiza gave the highest values of flavonoid (741.36mg/NGN/g DW and 220.53mg/NGN/g DW), phenolic acid (42.71mg/GAE/g DW and 22.03mg/GAE/g DW) and polyphenols (39.38mg/GAE/g DW and 38.01mg/GAE/g DW) respectively. Significant and positive linear correlations were found between Total antioxidant capacity and Phenolic compounds (R = 0.65 - 0.96). CONCLUSION This study provides evidence that extracts of Zingiberaceae (Ginger) rhizomes are a potential source of natural antioxidants and could serve as basis for future drugs and food supplements.
Therapeutic effect of transplanting magnetically labeled bone marrow stromal stem cells in a liver injury rat model with 70%-hepatectomy

Summary Background There are only few reports about the use of bone marrow stromal stem cells (BMSCs) for the treatment of traumatic liver injury. This study aimed to study the therapeutic effect of fluorescence-labeled BMSCs administered to rats subject to traumatic liver injury. Material/Methods Male SD rats with a 70% resection of the liver were injected with feridex-labeled BMSCs which could be induced to functional hepatocytes in vitro. Liver function was assayed and the liver scanned by 1.5-T MRI at 12 hrs and on days 1, 3, 5, 7, and 14 post-operation. The pathological changes of liver sections were monitored. Results The serum levels of alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, direct bilirubin, and total bilirubin in the transplantation group were significantly lower than the control group. The MRI showed rats of the transplantation group had an oval low signal area at 12 hr after operation; the low signal range gradually expanded and the signal intensity gradually decreased over 14 days after operation. The low signal range in the control group disappeared 12 hr after the operation. After Prussian blue staining, rats of the transplantation group contained blue granules with no significant hypertrophy or edema in hepatocytes, while the control group showed no blue granules with significant hypertrophy and edema. Conclusions The BMSCs transplanted into the injured rat liver gradually migrate to the surrounding liver tissue and partially repair the liver surgical injury in rats. BMSCs may represent an effective therapeutic approach for acute liver injury.