Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Incompatibility of Underspecification and Markedness in Optimality Theory

Underspecification in the underlying representation cannot give rise to marked structure on the surface, because Optimality Theory grammars force an output to be equally or less marked than the input. Underspecification can still account for alternations involving unmarked structure, but it is only useful when such alternations exist along with forms that do not alternate. The evidence for the existence of such grammatical systems is not very convincing, casting doubts about the usefulness of underspecification in general.
Creativity and Learners' Performance on Argumentative and Narrative Written Tasks

This study explores the differential role of creativity in Iranian EFL learners’ performance on argumentative and narrative written tasks. The study involved the measurement of learners’ (N=70) creativity using the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA) in terms of features of fluency, elaboration, flexibility and originality as well as the elicitation of the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of their performance on written narrative and argumentative tasks. Whereas the argumentative task required that learners wrote an argumentative essay giving their opinions concerning the effect of technology on human’s life, the narrative task involved learners in narrating a story based on a picture as a visual cue. With regards to the argumentative task, the results shows negative relationships between two measures of argumentative task fluency and students’ creative originality score. However, the syntactic complexity of argumentations was affected by creative elaboration. Concerning the narrative task, significant positive correlations were observed between creative fluency and the three fluency measures of narrations. Besides, all three fluency measures correlated positively with the total creativity score. Yet the number of words was found
[Healthcare-associated urinary tract infections in patients with a urinary catheter: Risk factors, microbiological characteristics and patterns of antibiotic resistance].

OBJECTIVE Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) are the most common nosocomial acquired infections, with high resistance rates. CAUTIs are a potentially severe complication in hospitalized patients and imply higher costs. Our aim was to analyze the characteristics of CAUTIs in our Urology department. METHODS Between November 2011 and October 2013, a prospective observational study was carried out analyzing the incidence of healthcare-associated urinary tract infections in patients admitted to the urology ward with an indwelling urinary catheter. Furthermore, we evaluated associated risks factors and comorbidities such as urinary catheter at the time of admission or urological surgery during the hospitalization. We also presented our results regarding the microbiological characteristics and patterns of resistance to antibiotics in patients with CAUTI admitted in our service. RESULTS The incidence of CAUTI was 8.2% (189/2283 patients who had urinary catheter). Mean age was 67.4±14.26 years, 90.2% underwent a surgical procedure (p<0.001), 14.8% had a urinary stone (p=0.058) and 46% had a urinary catheter before admission (p<0.001). The most commonly isolated pathogens were Escherichia coli (22.6%), Enterococcus (21.9%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (13.9%). E.coli showed resistance rates of 41.9% for quinolones, 33.3% of them produced extended spectrum Β-lactamase (ESBL). P.aeruginosa showed resistance rates of 42.1% for quinolones and 21.1% for carbapenems. CONCLUSIONS Healthcare-associated CAUTI in patients hospitalized in a urology ward are related to risks factors such as having a urinary catheter before admission and undergoing a surgical procedure. Moreover, CAUTIs have higher incidence of pathogens with antibiotic resistances and non-common pathogens such as Enterococcus spp.
Binding of the C-Terminal Domain of the α Subunit of RNA Polymerase to the Phage Mu Middle Promoter

ABSTRACT The C-terminal domain of the α subunit (αCTD) of Escherichia coli RNA polymerase is often involved in transcriptional regulation. The αCTD typically stimulates transcription via interactions with promoter UP element DNA and transcriptional activators. DNase I footprinting and gel mobility shift assays were used to look for potential interaction of the αCTD with the phage Mu middle promoter Pm and its activator protein Mor. Binding of RNA polymerase to Pm in the presence of Mor resulted in production of a DNase I footprint downstream of Mor due to open complex formation and generation of a second footprint just upstream of the Mor binding site. Generation of the upstream footprint did not require open complex formation and also occurred in reactions in which the αCTD or His-α proteins were substituted for RNA polymerase. In gel mobility shift assays, the formation of a supershifted ternary complex demonstrated that Mor and His-α bind synergistically to Pm DNA. Gel shift assays with short DNA fragments demonstrated that only the Mor binding site and a single upstream αCTD binding site were required for ternary complex formation. These results suggest that the αCTD plays a role in Pm transcription by binding to Pm DNA just upstream from Mor and making protein-protein interactions with Mor that stabilize the binding of both proteins.
EVALUATION OF EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

This chapter deals with experiential learning evaluation. Its purpose is to review the literature appropriate for assessing the effectiveness of experiential instructional methods in order to draw conclusions about the value and effectiveness of experiential learning. This paper will be in four sections. The first consists of a discussion of issues which frame the scope of this review. The second contains a discussion of problems inherent in both experiential learning and the process of evaluating it, problems which make it difficult to undertake rigorous experiential learning evaluation studies. The third consists of a review of experiential evaluation research. The fourth consists of tentative conclusions drawn from the first three sections, a further discussion of research related issues, and suggestions for further research.
Macroeconomic Impacts of Foreign Exchange Reserve Accumulation : A Theory and Some International Evidence

Recently, a dramatic accumulation of foreign exchange reserves has been widely observed among developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to explore what macroeconomic impacts accumulated foreign reserves have in developing countries. In the first part, we analyze a simple open economy model where increased foreign reserves reduce costs of liquidity risk. Given the amount of foreign reserves, the utility-maximizing representative agents decide consumption and the amounts of liquid and illiquid foreign debts. The equilibrium values of these macro variables depend on the amount of foreign reserves. When the government increases its foreign reserves, not only liquid debt but also total debt increases, while the debt maturity becomes shorter. The increased foreign reserves also lead to permanent decline of consumption, depreciation of real exchange rate, and temporal improvement of current account. In the second part, we show several empirical supports to the theoretical implications. We provide several supportive evidences by using the panel data of the Penn World Table. We also explore how foreign debt maturity structures changed in East Asia. We find that many East Asian economies reduced short-term borrowings temporarily after the crisis but increased short-term borrowings in the early 2000s. Since short-term debt is liquid debt, the instantaneous change after the crisis is consistent with the case where only private agents responded to increased aversion to liquidity risk. However, accompanied by substantial rises in foreign exchange reserves, the change in the early 2000s is consistent with our model implications. JEL Classification Numbers: F21, F32, F34
Vestibular Schwannoma Presenting with Bilateral Papilledema Without Hydrocephalus: Case Study

Bilateral papilledema secondary to obstructive or communicating hydrocephalus in patients with vestibular schwannomas is a known presentation; however, papilledema in the absence of hydrocephalus is rarely reported and its mechanism is poorly understood. We report a case of a 20-year-old woman presenting with visual deterioration and bilateral papilledema on fundoscopy. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a giant vestibular schwannoma with no sign of hydrocephalus. The only imaging evidence of increased pressure on preoperative imaging studies was seen on a T2-weighted MRI, where there was subtle dilatation of the arachnoid space of the optic sleeve. We presume that this patient developed papilledema by some mechanism not connected to hydrocephalus. In a young patient, papilledema may be a sign preceding hydrocephalus, or she may have had pseudotumor cerebri concomitant with her vestibular schwannoma. In either case, removal of the vestibular schwannoma solved the problem. She had complete visual recovery, irrespective of the mechanism.
Structural Characterization of the Nickel-binding Properties of Bacillus pasteurii Urease Accessory Protein (Ure)E in Solution*

Urease activation is critical to the virulence of many human and animal pathogens. Urease possesses multiple, nickel-containing active sites, and UreE, the only nickel-binding protein among the urease accessory proteins, activates urease by transporting nickel ions. We performed NMR experiments to investigate the solution structure and the nickel-binding properties of Bacillus pasteurii (Bp) UreE. The secondary structures and global folds of BpUreE were determined for its metal-free and nickel-bound forms. The results indicated that no major structural change of BpUreE arises from the nickel binding. In addition to the previously identified nickel-binding site (Gly97–Cys103), the C-terminal tail region (Lys141–His147) was confirmed for the first time to be involved in the nickel binding. The C-terminally conserved sequence (144GHQH147) was confirmed to have an inherent nickel-binding ability. Nickel addition to 1.6 mm subunit, a concentration where BpUreE predominantly forms a tetramer upon the nickel binding, induced a biphasic spectral change consistent with binding of up to at least three nickel ions per tetrameric unit. In contrast, nickel addition to 0.1 mm subunit, a concentration at which the protein is primarily a dimer, caused a monophasic spectral change consistent with more than 1 equivalent per dimeric unit. Combined with the equilibrium dialysis results, which indicated 2.5 nickel equivalents binding per dimer at a micromolar protein concentration, the nickel-binding stoichiometry of BpUreE at a physiological concentration could be three nickel ions per dimer. Altogether, the present results provide the first detailed structural data concerning the nickel-binding properties of intact, wild-type BpUreE in solution.
Antioxidant status in neonatal jaundice before and after phototherapy

Background: Neonatal jaundice refers to yellow coloration of the skin and the sclera (whites of the eyes) of newborn babies that result from the accumulation of bilirubin in the skin and mucous membranes. Because bilirubin is potentially toxic to the central nervous system. Genetic disorders of bilirubin conjugation, particularly the common Gilbert's syndrome, can also contribute to neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the lipid per-oxidation and antioxidant enzyme activities in patients with neonatal jaundice before and after phototherapy. Materials and Methods: The study includes 50 neonatal jaundice patients with average age 2-15 days. All patients of neonatal jaundice receiving phototherapy except feeding, cleaning. Subjects selected were from the patients attending Pediatrics Department. Plasma malondialdehyde (MDA), erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase (GPX), superoxide dismutase and catalase (CAT) to monitor the bilirubin level. Results: The results show increased levels of bilirubin compared with controls (P < 0.001) shows the level of plasma MDA in control, before and after phototherapy. Represents the level of GPX was significantly increased in after the phototherapy group when compared with before phototherapy and control SPSS soft ware: (P < 0.001). Shows the reduced glutathione (GSH) level in plasma was significantly decreased in the after phototherapy group when compared with before phototherapy and control (P < 0.001). And finally with ascorbic acid and CAT. Conclusion: It is evident from the study that increased oxidative stress in neonatal jaundice babies leads to decrease in the levels of antioxidants like GSH and ascorbic acid and disturb their metabolism, that weaken their ability to fight the growing stress. Intense oxidative stress and decreased antioxidants may contribute to neural cell death and alter the erythrocytomembrane structure processing in neonatal jaundice.
Career Prospects and Effort Incentives: Evidence from Professional Soccer

It is difficult to test the prediction that future career prospects create implicit effort incentives because researchers cannot randomly “assign” career prospects to economic agents. To overcome this challenge, we use data from professional soccer, where employees of the same club face different external career opportunities depending on their nationality. We test whether the career prospect of being selected to a Euro Cup national team affects players’ pre-cup performances, using nationals of countries that did not participate in the Euro Cup as a control group. We find that the Euro Cup career prospect has positive effects on the performances of players with intermediate chances of being selected to their national team, but negative effects on the performances of players whose selection is very probable. Our findings have implications for the incentive effects of within-firm promotions and of external career opportunities. This paper was accepted by John List, behavioral economics.
Modular Invariance of Strings on PP-Waves with RR-flux

We study the modular invariance of strings on pp-waves with RR-flux. We explicitly show that the one-loop partition functions of the maximally supersymmetric pp-waves and their orbifolds can be modular invariant in spite of the mass terms in the light-cone gauge. From this viewpoint, we also determine the spectrum of type 0B theory on pp-wave and discuss its gauge theory dual. Furthermore, we investigate the spectrum of a non-supersymmetric orbifold and point out its supersymmetry enhancement in the Penrose limit.
Two new troglobiotic palpigrades (Palpigradi: Eukoeneniidae) from Brazil.

Two new species of troglobiotic Brazilian palpigrades are described: Eukoenenia jequitinhonha sp. n. , found in Lapa do Córrego do Vieira cave (Caraí, Minas Gerais) and E. cavatica sp. n. , found in Cazanga cave (Arcos, Minas Gerais). The importance of documenting the occurrence of troglobiotic species, even if they are represented by only a single specimen, is discussed.
In Vitro Endothelialization Test of Biomaterials Using Immortalized Endothelial Cells

Functionalizing biomaterials with peptides or polymers that enhance recruitment of endothelial cells (ECs) can reduce blood coagulation and thrombosis. To assess endothelialization of materials in vitro, primary ECs are generally used, although the characteristics of these cells vary among the donors and change with time in culture. Recently, primary cell lines immortalized by transduction of simian vacuolating virus 40 large T antigen or human telomerase reverse transcriptase have been developed. To determine whether immortalized ECs can substitute for primary ECs in material testing, we investigated endothelialization on biocompatible polymers using three lots of primary human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and immortalized microvascular ECs, TIME-GFP. Attachment to and growth on polymer surfaces were comparable between cell types, but results were more consistent with TIME-GFP. Our findings indicate that TIME-GFP is more suitable for in vitro endothelialization testing of biomaterials.
Human Fanconi Anemia Complementation Group A Protein Stimulates the 5’ Flap Endonuclease Activity of FEN1

In eukaryotic cells, Flap endonuclease 1 (FEN1) is a major structure-specific endonuclease that processes 5’ flapped structures during maturation of lagging strand DNA synthesis, long patch base excision repair, and rescue of stalled replication forks. Here we report that fanconi anemia complementation group A protein (FANCA), a protein that recognizes 5’ flap structures and is involved in DNA repair and maintenance of replication forks, constantly stimulates FEN1-mediated incision of both DNA and RNA flaps. Kinetic analyses indicate that FANCA stimulates FEN1 by increasing the turnover rate of FEN1 and altering its substrate affinity. More importantly, six pathogenic FANCA mutants are significantly less efficient than the wild-type at stimulating FEN1 endonuclease activity, implicating that regulation of FEN1 by FANCA contributes to the maintenance of genomic stability.
A Quasi-Resonant Switched-Capacitor Multilevel Inverter With Self-Voltage Balancing for Single-Phase High-Frequency AC Microgrids

In this paper, a quasi-resonant switched-capacitor (QRSC) multilevel inverter (MLI) is proposed with self-voltage balancing for single-phase high-frequency ac (HFAC) microgrids. It is composed of a QRSC circuit (QRSCC) in the frontend and an H-bridge circuit in the backend. The input voltage is divided averagely by the series-connected capacitors in QRSCC, and any voltage level can be obtained by increasing the capacitor number. The different operational mechanism and the resulting different application make up for the deficiency of the existing switched-capacitor topologies. The capacitors are connected in parallel partially or wholly when discharging to the load, thus the self-voltage balancing is realized without any high-frequency balancing algorithm. In other words, the proposed QRSC MLI is especially adapted for HFAC fields, where fundamental frequency modulation is preferred when considering the switching frequency and the resulting loss. The quasi-resonance technique is utilized to suppress the current spikes that emerge from the instantaneous parallel connection of the series-connected capacitors and the input source, decreasing the capacitance, increasing their lifetimes, and reducing the electromagnetic interference, simultaneously. The circuit analysis, power loss analysis, and comparisons with typical switched-capacitor topologies are presented. To evaluate the superior performances, a nine-level prototype is designed and implemented in both simulation and experiment, whose results confirm the feasibility of the proposed QRSC MLI.
Halo Effects and the Attractiveness Premium in Perceptions of Political Expertise

Physical appearance, both our own and that of others, is a common influence on social interactions. In this article, we consider whether appearance also plays a role in how we come to understand politics. As a test, we use American National Election Study survey data, which includes the interviewer’s subjective ratings of respondents’ appearance and perceived political knowledge. We bolster the ANES results with a pair of survey experiments where subjects evaluated randomly assigned potential political discussion partners. Our results show that more attractive individuals are viewed as more knowledgeable and more persuasive, and are more likely to be sought out by others for political information. In addition, more attractive individuals (even the relatively uninformed) are more likely to report attempting to persuade others. These findings have implications for our understanding of how citizens identify political experts, the potential for the spread of misinformation, and the political judgments citizens make.
Adaptive Traffic Light Control in Wireless Sensor Network-Based Intelligent Transportation System

We investigate the problem of adaptive traffic light control using real-time traffic information collected by a wireless sensor network (WSN). Existing studies mainly focused on determining the green light length in a fixed sequence of traffic lights. In this paper, we propose an adaptive traffic light control algorithm that adjusts both the sequence and length of traffic lights in accordance with the real time traffic detected. Our algorithm considers a number of traffic factors such as traffic volume, waiting time, vehicle density, etc., to determine green light sequence and the optimal green light length. Simulation results demonstrate that our algorithm produces much higher throughput and lower vehicle's average waiting time, compared with a fixed-time control algorithm and an actuated control algorithm. We also implement proposed algorithm on our transportation testbed, iSensNet, and the result shows that our algorithm is effective and practical.
In vivo germination of Bacillus anthracis spores during murine cutaneous infection.

BACKGROUND Germination is a key step for successful Bacillus anthracis colonization and systemic dissemination. Few data are available on spore germination in vivo, and the necessity of spore and host cell interactions to initiate germination is unclear. METHODS To investigate the early interactions between B. anthracis spores and cutaneous tissue, spores were inoculated in an intraperitoneal cell-free device in guinea pigs or into the pinna of mice. Germination and bacterial growth were analyzed through colony-forming unit enumeration and electron microscopy. RESULTS In the guinea pig model, germination occurred in vivo in the absence of cell contact. Similarly, in the mouse ear, germination started within 15 minutes after inoculation, and germinating spores were found in the absence of surrounding cells. Germination was not observed in macrophage-rich draining lymph nodes, liver, and spleen. Edema and lethal toxin production were not required for germination, as a toxin-deficient strain was as effective as a Sterne-like strain. B. anthracis growth was locally controlled for 6 hours. CONCLUSIONS Spore germination involving no cell interactions can occur in vivo, suggesting that diffusible germinants or other signals appear sufficient. Different host tissues display drastic differences in germination-triggering capacity. Initial control of bacterial growth suggests a therapeutic means to exploit host innate defenses to hinder B. anthracis colonization.
Building a network highway for big data: architecture and challenges

Big data, with their promise to discover valuable insights for better decision making, have recently attracted significant interest from both academia and industry. Voluminous data are generated from a variety of users and devices, and are to be stored and processed in powerful data centers. As such, there is a strong demand for building an unimpeded network infrastructure to gather geologically distributed and rapidly generated data, and move them to data centers for effective knowledge discovery. The express network should also be seamlessly extended to interconnect multiple data centers as well as interconnect the server nodes within a data center. In this article, we take a close look at the unique challenges in building such a network infrastructure for big data. Our study covers each and every segment in this network highway: the access networks that connect data sources, the Internet backbone that bridges them to remote data centers, as well as the dedicated network among data centers and within a data center. We also present two case studies of real-world big data applications that are empowered by networking, highlighting interesting and promising future research directions.