Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Serological diversity in Haemophilus somnus

Serological interrelations among 46 strains of Haemophilus somnus of various geographical and pathological origins were studied by agglutination and agglutinin adsorption procedures. Sera prepared against nine representative American and Swiss isolates agglutinated all other strains to various titers. Adsorption of antisera to American strains by Swiss cultures tended to remove mainly the reactivity with Swiss antigens, whereas adsorption of such antisera to American strains in most instances abolished all agglutinating activity. Analogous observations were made when sera against Swiss cultures were adsorbed with cells of American and Swiss origin, respectively. Results of tests involving unadsorbed and adsorbed sera suggest the existence of at least three sets of antigen in H. somnus: American, Swiss, and common, which appear to exist in various combinations, accounting for four agglutination groups. These reflect to a considerable degree the geographical, although not the pathological or anatomical, origin of the respective strains.
A Brief Report on a Large Mountain-Top Community of Dioscorea Praehensilis in the Tropical Rainforest of Southeastern Cameroon

Wild yam tubers have been considered to be key food to resolving the question of whether hunter-gatherers could live independently of agriculture in a tropical rainforest, or what made it possible. Above all Dioscorea praehensilis is known as the most reliable staple food in Africa. In February 2000, the author found a large community of D. praehensilis on the upper part of a small mountain in southeastern Cameroon. Using the belt-transect method, the author estimated the density of stems and the productivity of edible tubers at 147 per hectare and 118 kg per hectare, respectively. These values are much higher than found in other studies. This mountain is one of several areas which local Baka hunter-gatherers recognize as rich in D. praehensilis. Such places would have made it possible for old huntergatherers who had never lived in the forest interior to have done so.
A critique of the ontology of consumer enchantment

The concept of enchantment offers a plausible explanation of the lures and thrills of consumer culture. We examine the theoretical foundation of the concept through a critique of Ritzer’s enchantment thesis. We begin by assessing the enchantment/disenchantment discourse through a review of the main theoretical contributions to the area, first summarizing Max Weber’s initial outline of the notion of disenchantment in the ProtestantEthicandSpiritofCapitalism.WethenconsiderColinCampbell’scritiqueof WeberandGeorgeRitzer’sdevelopmentinEnchanting a Disenchanted World. Finally, we apply Jean Baudrillard’s Order of Simulacra to further resolve some of the open questions concerning the possibility of enchantment in contemporary consumer culture. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Parental Values and Practices Relevant to Young Children’s Social Development in Taiwan and the United States

Self-reported parental values and child-rearing practices, and teacher-reported and observed children’s social skills, were compared among families of 40 preschool and kindergarten children in each of three cultural groups: Chinese in Taiwan, first-generation Chinese in the United States, and European Americans in the United States. As expected, both samples of Chinese parents more strongly endorsed traditional Chinese values and exerted more parental control over their children than did American parents. Observations of child social competence during a videotaped family interaction revealed no significant differences among the three ethnic groups. Ratings of parental directiveness and warmth during the videotaped family interaction showed that Chinese American parents, as compared to European American parents, were rated as significantly more directive but equally warm.
Female Representation in Law Enforcement: The Influence of Screening, Unions, Incentives, Community Policing, CALEA, and Size

Using data over 4,000 agencies, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of community, organization, and economic factors on the representation of women in law enforcement. The results highlight the influence that police executives and community leaders have on gender diversity by way of creating a greater demand for women in the profession. Higher levels of female officer representation were associated with organizations that emphasize community policing; have higher education requirements, more incentives and benefits, no physical fitness screening criteria, and no collective bargaining rights; belong to the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies; and serve larger and more racially and ethnical diverse communities.
Leveraging a Rapid, Round-the-Clock HIV Testing System to Screen for Acute HIV Infection in a Large Urban Public Medical Center

Objective:To describe the prevalence and location of new and acute HIV diagnoses in a large urban medical center. Secondary objectives were to evaluate rapid HIV test performance, the added yield of acute HIV screening, and linkage-to-care outcomes. Design:Cross-sectional study from November 1, 2008, to April 30, 2009. Methods:The hospital laboratory performed round-the-clock rapid HIV antibody testing on venipuncture specimens from patients undergoing HIV testing in hospital and community clinics, inpatient settings, and the emergency department (ED). For patients with negative results, a public health laboratory conducted pooled HIV RNA testing for acute HIV infection. The laboratories communicated positive results from the hospital campus to a linkage team. Linkage was defined as 1 outpatient HIV-related visit. Results:Among 7927 patients, 8550 rapid tests resulted in 137 cases of HIV infection [1.7%, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.5% to 2.0%], of whom 46 were new HIV diagnoses (0.58%, 95% CI: 0.43% to 0.77%). Pooled HIV RNA testing of 6704 specimens (78.4%) resulted in 3 cases of acute HIV infection (0.05%, 95% CI: 0.01% to 0.14%) and increased HIV case detection by 3.5%. Half of new HIV diagnoses and two thirds of acute infections were detected in the ED and urgent care clinic. Rapid test sensitivity was 98.9% (95% CI: 93.8% to 99.8%) and the specificity 99.9% (95% CI: 99.7% to 99.9%). More than 95% of newly diagnosed and out-of-care HIV-infected patients were linked to care. Conclusions:Patients undergoing HIV testing in EDs and urgent care clinics may benefit from being simultaneously screened for acute HIV infection.
Gelsolin secretion in interleukin-4-treated bronchial epithelia and in asthmatic airways.

RATIONALE The airway surface liquid, the thin layer of liquid covering the airways, is essential for mucociliary clearance and as a barrier against microbial and other noxious agents. Proteins secreted into the airway surface liquid by epithelial and nonepithelial cells may be important in innate immunity and to improve the fluidity of mucous secretions. OBJECTIVES We aimed to identify proteins specifically secreted into the airway surface liquid by human bronchial epithelial cells, in resting conditions and after treatment with interleukin 4 (IL-4), a cytokine released in asthma. METHODS AND MAIN RESULTS By using a proteomics approach, we found that one of the most abundant proteins was gelsolin, which breaks down actin filaments. Gelsolin mRNA and protein secretion were increased threefold in the airway surface liquid of epithelia treated with IL-4. These results were confirmed at the functional level by measuring actin depolymerization using a fluorescence assay. Gelsolin protein was also upregulated in the airways of subjects with asthma. CONCLUSIONS Our findings indicate that gelsolin is released by epithelial cells into the airways and that its secretion is increased by IL-4 in vitro. In addition, we found that the concentration of both IL-4 and gelsolin were raised in the bronchoalveolar lavage of patients with asthma. These results suggest that gelsolin might improve the fluidity of airway surface liquid in asthma by breaking down filamentous actin that may be released in large amounts by dying cells during inflammation.
Chronic Pain after Inguinal Hernia Repair

Background. Chronic postherniorrhaphy groin pain is defined as pain lasting >6 months after surgery, which is one of the most important complications occurring after inguinal hernia repair, which occurs with greater frequency than previously thought. Material and Methods. Patients undergoing elective inguinal hernioplasty in Victoria Hospital from November 2011 to May 2013 were included in the study. A total of 227 patients met the inclusion criteria and were available for followup at end of six months. Detailed preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative details of cases were recorded according to proforma. The postoperative pain and pain at days two and seven and at end of six months were recorded on a VAS scale. Results. Chronic pain at six-month followup was present in 89 patients constituting 39.4% of all patients undergoing hernia repair. It was seen that 26.9% without preoperative pain developed chronic pain whereas 76.7% of patients with preoperative pain developed chronic pain. Preemptive analgesia failed to show statistical significance in development of chronic pain (P = 0.079). Nerve injury was present in 22 of cases; it was found that nerve injury significantly affected development of chronic pain (P = 0.001). On multivariate analysis, it was found that development of chronic pain following hernia surgery was dependent upon factors like preoperative pain, type of anesthesia, nerve injury, postoperative local infiltration, postoperative complication, and most importantly the early postoperative pain. Conclusions. In the present study, we found that chronic pain following inguinal hernia repair causes significant morbidity to patients and should not be ignored. Preemptive analgesia and operation under local anesthesia significantly affect pain. Intraoperative identification and preservation of all inguinal nerves are very important. Early diagnosis and management of chronic pain can remove suffering of the patient.
Emotion Recognition in Improvised Music

The current study explored whether people of different cultures within the same country differ in emotion recognition, when recognizing emotions in improvisations played on different instruments. Participants (n = 202) from several cultures in Israel (i.e., Israeli-born Jews [IBJs], Israeli-Russian immigrants, and Israeli-Arabs and Druze) listened to 40 pieces conveying five emotions (anger, fear, sadness, happiness, and serenity) and decoded their emotional content. The improvisations were performed by four IBJ musicians on four instruments (piano, darbuka, voice, and kazoo). No differences were found between the groups regarding four of the emotions and three of the instruments. However, IBJs were more accurate in identifying fear and emotions conveyed by kazoo. These findings demonstrate that people from different cultures within the same country have a similar ability to recognize emotions expressed through different musical instruments, with the exception of specific emotions and mediums. The results of this study also emphasize the potential of communication of emotions through musical intercultural encounters. Nevertheless, since the study was not based on a balanced factorial design, its findings should be interpreted with caution. Future studies that are based on an orthogonal study design need to examine the replicability of its findings.
Further studies on the relationship of a rhabdomyosarcoma virus to muscle tissue

The pathogenesis of a rhabdomyosarcoma virus isolate was studied in a total of 300 newborn BALB/c mice, 11 different routes of inoculation being used. The latent periods, or time in days to palpable tumor, varied over a wide range among the inoculated groups. The growth of the tumor was very rapid in the muscle tissue. Regardless of the route of inoculation, the neoplasms arose from the adjacent muscle tissue attaching to and proliferating into the different organs and from their surfaces. Secondary tumor nodules were also observed in different areas of muscle tissue demonstrating the affinity of this virus to muscle tissue. Exceptions were found in some of the intrasplenically and intramyocardially inoculated mice where primary tumor nodules were found within these organs. Histologically the tumor cells were less differentiated toward myocytes than those described in a previous study.
Revising the Child and Adolescent Perfectionism Scale

This study examined the structure, reliability, and validity of the revised Chinese version of the Child and Adolescent Perfectionism Scale (N = 933). The results confirmed the four-factor structure of the Chinese version of the Child and Adolescent Perfectionism Scale. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are provided.
Frontal brain oscillation modulation in facial emotion comprehension: The role of reward and inhibitory systems in subliminal and supraliminal processing

Brain oscillation modulation in comprehension of facial expression of emotions was explored in the present study. Second, behavioural activation system (BAS) and behavioural inhibition system (BIS) was considered to verify the effect of motivational/emotional variable on alpha activity. In addition, alpha band variation was monitored when subjects attentively (supraliminal) or preattentively (subliminal) processed faces. In fact, it remains an open question whether it is possible to assign a specific function to cortical oscillations for facial emotion comprehension in unconscious perception. Eighteen participants looked at an ample range of facial expressions of emotions (anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happiness, sadness, neutral) in two different conditions: supraliminal and subliminal stimulation. The results showed that both attentive and preattentive processing can modulate the alpha power. Moreover, frontal right and left side responses varied as a function of emotional types, with increased right frontal activity for negative, aversive emotions versus an increased left response for positive emotion. Finally, higher scoring BIS participants generated more right hemisphere activation for some negative emotions, whereas higher scoring BAS participants were more responsive to a positive emotion measured over the left hemisphere. Motivational significance of facial expressions was considered to elucidate cortical differences in participants’ responses to emotional types.
Development of deep learning-based facial expression recognition system

Deep learning is considered to be a breakthrough in the field of computer vision, since most of the world records of the recognition tasks are being broken. In this paper, we try to apply such deep learning techniques to recognizing facial expressions that represent human emotions. The procedure of our facial expression recognition system is as follows: First, face is detected from input image using Haar-like features. Second, the deep network is used for recognizing facial expression using detected faces. In this step, two different deep networks can be used such as deep neural network and convolutional neural network. Consequently, we compared experimentally two types of deep networks, and the convolutional neural network had better performance than deep neural network.
Effects of bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4) on in vitro development and survival of bovine preantral follicles enclosed in fragments ovarian tissue

Summary The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of different concentrations of BMP4 on activation, development and mRNA expression of GDF9, BMP15, PCNA, Bax and Bcl2 in cultured bovine follicles enclosed in ovarian tissues. Ovarian tissue fragments were cultured for 6 days in α-MEM+ alone or supplemented with different concentrations of BMP4 (10, 50 or 100 ng/ml). Classical histology was performed to analyze follicle growth and morphology, while real-time PCR was used to analyze mRNA levels in fresh and cultured tissues. After 6 days, the culture of ovarian tissue in α-MEM+ alone or supplemented with 10, 50 or 100 ng/ml BMP4 promoted follicular activation. The different concentrations of BMP4 maintained the percentage of normal follicles similar to results of the control. The presence of 100 ng/ml BMP-4 in culture medium increased oocyte and follicular diameters of primary and secondary follicles when compared with those follicles from uncultured control or cultured in α-MEM+ alone (P < 0.05). The tissues cultured in the presence of increasing concentrations of BMP4 had an increase in mRNA expression of the tested genes, but despite this the differences were not statistically significant. In conclusion, 100 ng/ml BMP4 promotes an increase in diameters of follicles and oocytes of primary and secondary follicles after 6 days of in vitro culture.
Elementary Grade Retention in Texas and Reading Achievement Among Racial Groups: 1994–2002

Students who failed the Texas mandatory third grade reading test were followed through their sophomore year in high school. Comparisons of reading scores between third grade students who repeated the grade and their socially promoted classmates revealed that the positive effect of retention persisted over time. Retention in third grade benefited low-performing readers regardless of race. Supplemental analyses found that the results are not likely attributable to selection biases, differential attrition of students from the panel, changes in the special education status of students, and regression to the mean effects. Making students repeat a grade, when supplemented with additional educational assistance, can benefit academically challenged children. Copyright 2006 by The Policy Studies Organization.
Choice and Normative Preference

Due to factors such as temptation, choices may not respect normative prefer- ence (the agent.s own, subjective view of what constitutes his welfare). Neverthe- less, the evidence on preference reversals suggests a means of recovering normative preference from choice. A de.nition of normative preference in terms of choices between su¢ ciently delayed alternatives is formulated and studied. Mild condi- tions on behavior are shown to ensure the existence of a normative preference. Two characterizations are provided. It is demonstrated that a notion of welfare may exist inspite of dynamic inconsistency of preferences. An application shows that the evidence on hyperbolic discounting implies that agents.normative discount functions must be exponential.
A Low-Power, High-Fidelity Stereo Audio Codec in 0.13 $\mu$m CMOS

A 1.5 V low-power stereo audio codec in 0.13 μm CMOS is described. The microphone path includes a programmable gain stage with an enhanced transconductance cell followed by a continuous-time ΣΔ ADC with capacitive feed-forward and capacitive direct feedback. The speaker path employs a 1 mA Class-AB speaker amplifier with an improved quiescent current control circuit that delivers 30 mW to a 32 Ω speaker. The audio input and output paths achieve 92 and 98 dB dynamic range, respectively, with 6.5 mA total quiescent current.
Be Happy, don't Wait: The Role of Trait Affect in Job Search

In this study we developed and tested a self-regulatory model of trait affect in job search. Specifically, we theorized that trait positive and negative affect would influence both motivation control and procrastination, and these mediating variables would, in turn, influence job search outcomes through job search intensity. Using longitudinal data from 245 graduating students who were searching for a full-time position, we found that positive, but not negative, affect influenced the self-regulatory variables of motivation control and procrastination, which in turn influenced the job search outcomes. Procrastination had direct effects on the number of first interviews, controlling for job search intensity, and on the number of second interviews, controlling for first interviews, suggesting the importance of timeliness of job search activities. We discuss the implications of such results for understanding the role of affect and self-regulation in the job search process and for measuring the quality as well as quantity (i.e., intensity) of job search tactics.
Exploring the Multimodality of EFL Textbooks for Chinese College Students: A Comparative Study

To explore the multimodality of two representative EFL textbook series for Chinese college students, their visual and verbal semiotic modes were compared. The target textbooks are Experiencing English and New Century College English. Through multimodal discourse analysis, the study aims to shed some light on how to develop high-quality multimodal EFL textbooks. The main findings are: (1) EE and NCCE are similar in the fact that their representative multimodal texts are visually-verbally coherent and both demonstrate prominent features for intersemiotic semantic relations; (2) their differences are EE displays a higher degree of interpersonal intersemiotic complementarity and multimodality facilitates the realization of different modern educational concepts — constructivism in EE and humanism in NCCE; and (3) such differences are related to or may partially result from the differences in the language difficulty of textbooks and English proficiency of target learners. As a pioneering attempt to probe into the possible relationship between multimodality and modern educational concepts in EFL textbooks, the study shows the importance of properly arranging the different modes in a double-page spread. It also suggests that EFL textbook compilers consider the learners’ English proficiency and appropriately employ the variety and number of multimodal resources to achieve optimal intersemiotic complementarity.
Global biodiversity and the ancient carbon cycle

Paleontological data for the diversity of marine animals and land plants are shown to correlate significantly with a concurrent measure of stable carbon isotope fractionation for approximately the last 400 million years. The correlations can be deduced from the assumption that increasing plant diversity led to increasing chemical weathering of rocks and therefore an increasing flux of carbon from the atmosphere to rocks, and nutrients from the continents to the oceans. The CO2 concentration dependence of photosynthetic carbon isotope fractionation then indicates that the diversification of land plants led to decreasing CO2 levels, while the diversification of marine animals derived from increasing nutrient availability. Under the explicit assumption that global biodiversity grows with global biomass, the conservation of carbon shows that the long-term fluctuations of CO2 levels were dominated by complementary changes in the biological and fluid reservoirs of carbon, while the much larger geological reservoir remained relatively constant in size. As a consequence, the paleontological record of biodiversity provides an indirect estimate of the fluctuations of ancient CO2 levels.
Periodized Training Programme and Technical Performance of Age-Group Gymnasts

The present study evaluates the influence of a periodized training programme on the technical performance of beginner gymnasts. The sample population, consisting of 17 artistic gymnasts, all female, between 8 and 13 years of age, was divided into two groups: An experimental group (EG; n = 9) and a control group (CG; n = 8). Initially, both groups underwent a diagnostic evaluation to determine the baseline technical level of the athletes. Both groups then underwent a 24-week training programme involving three hour-long sessions per week. The EG participated in a periodized programme, while the CG had no periodization. At the end of the training period, both groups underwent another diagnostic evaluation (post-test), which revealed a higher technical level among those who had taken part in the periodized training programme.