Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional, biochemical and 3D studies of Mycobacterium tuberculosis protein peptides for an effective anti-tuberculosis vaccine

Abstract Tuberculosis (TB) is an air-born, transmissible disease, having an estimated 9.4 million new TB cases worldwide in 2009. Eventual control of this disease by developing a safe and efficient new vaccine able to detain its spread will have an enormous impact on public health policy. Selecting potential antigens to be included in a multi-epitope, minimal subunit-based, chemically-synthesized vaccine containing the minimum sequences needed for blocking mycobacterial interaction with host cells is a complex task due to the multiple mechanisms involved in M. tuberculosis infection and the mycobacterium’s immune evasion mechanisms. Our methodology, described here takes into account a highly robust, specific, sensitive and functional approach to the search for potential epitopes to be included in an anti-TB vaccine; it has been based on identifying short mycobacterial protein fragments using synthetic peptides having high affinity interaction with alveolar epithelial cells (A549) and monocyte-derived macrophages (U937) which are able to block the microorganism’s entry to target cells in in vitro assays. This manuscript presents a review of the results obtained with some of the MTB H37Rv proteins studied to date, aimed at using these high activity binding peptides (HABPs) as platforms to be included in a minimal subunit-based, multiepitope, chemically-synthesized, antituberculosis vaccine.
SPICE and the CMM : is the CMM compatible with ISO / IEC 15504 ?

The newly approved international standard for Software Process Assessment, ISO/IEC 15504, provides a mechanism for interchange of results of assessments based upon different process models, through the definition of a reference model for software processes and process capability. It is intended that there should be a ready migration path for existing methods and models. In this context, the Software Capability Maturity Model, the best known and most widely adopted of current models, has been examined to identify barriers to achievement of compatibility with the new standard. A number of significant areas of difficulty have been identified, and some possible mechanisms for resolution are proposed.
Using reading behavior to predict grammatical functions

This paper investigates to what extent grammatical functions of a word can be predicted from gaze features obtained using eye-tracking. A recent study showed that reading behavior can be used to predict coarse-grained part of speech, but we go beyond this, and show that gaze features can also be used to make more finegrained distinctions between grammatical functions, e.g., subjects and objects. In addition, we show that gaze features can be used to improve a discriminative transition-based dependency parser.
Social Representations of Social Media Use in Government

Social media use in government has gained a rapid growth in the last few years around the world. China has witnessed a boom in social media use in government, especially government microblogging. In this study, we employ social representation theory as the primary theoretical lens to investigate Chinese government microblogging. We hope the employment of social representation theory could help us overcome the limitation that previous studies focused on the technology and government side. Interviewing data are drawn from a number of Chinese citizens for eliciting their understandings of Chinese government microblogging, followed by structural analytical procedure on the collected data. The social representation elements are obtained and presented in a map. The findings indicate that (1) social media use in government in China is at the stage of fast growth but at low interaction level; (2) governance and social media user experiences are two new but significant concepts that might have been missed in literature; (3) government microblogging does improve citizens’ perceptions toward government; however, the final outcomes like trust and accountability cannot be achieved by relying on social media use in government alone. Theoretical contributions and practitioner implications are then discussed, followed by the limitations. Finally, we present the concluding remarks for this study.
Teaching Healthcare Professionals About Drug‐Induced Disease: An Innovative Clinical Therapeutic Approach

An innovative conference on the general principles of recognition and management of drug‐induced disease was developed for healthcare professionals (particularly primary care). The full‐day conference used a clinical therapeutic approach and was a cooperative effort of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) Staff College and Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC). Linked with the FDA MedWatch postmarketing surveillance initiative, the conference used multiple formats, including didactic presentations, panel discussions, and case discussions led by faculty from various disciplines (e.g., internal and family medicine, psychiatry, clinical pharmacology, dentistry, clinical pharmacy, nursing, epidemiology). Conference topics included new drug approval, pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic considerations, and clinical assessment of adverse drug events. Tests were administered to participants before and after the conference, and participants completed a conference evaluation. Mean scores for the pre‐ and posttests were compared globally and by professional discipline. Conference evaluations were assessed for responses to eight standardized statements and elicited comments. After the conference, mean and median test scores were improved both globally and by discipline in comparison to pretest results, with improvement on almost all individual test questions. Comparison of median scores for the pre‐ and posttests showed small differences between physicians and pharmacists. Evaluations showed markedly positive response to standardized statements, including enhancement of professional growth; elicited comments were supportive of conference effectiveness and attendee acceptance. This conference, which utilized a combination of educational formats, was designed to present material of an innovative nature. Results indicate that the conference was well‐received and fulfilled specified learning objectives, including recognition of populations particularly vulnerable to adverse drug events and understanding of how individual providers can contribute to FDA postmarketing surveillance. Continuing educational efforts using this approach are encouraged.
The Effects of Referential Oriented Activity in the Structured Input Task on the Development of Learners' Pragmatic Proficiency

The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of two types of structured input task design, monocomponential design (referential oriented activities alone) and polycomponential design (referential oriented and affective oriented activities) for teaching English polite requestive forms, involving 41 Japanese learners of English. Treatment group performance was compared to that of a control group on the pre-tests, post-tests, and follow-up tests: a non-timed discourse completion test and a non-timed acceptability judgment test. The results of data analysis indicate that the two treatment groups performed significantly better than the control group, and that there was no significant difference between the two treatment groups. Given this lack of significant difference between the two treatment groups, it seems that the referential oriented activities alone may be sufficient in the structured input task.
PUBLIC AND POLICE PERCEPTIONS OF CRIME SERIOUSNESS IN ENGLAND AND WALES

This article reviews briefly the uses and abuses of seriousness surveys and then examines the crime seriousness ratings and rankings of representative samples of the police and public from one Northern and one Southern police force area in England and Wales. It concludes that there is high concordance (both among the public and between police and public) on offences such as violence and theft by a police officer, but more disagreement on the rating of frauds, burglary, and "victimless crimes". The police understate the absolute and relative seriousness of business fraud offences, probably because of their occupational culture. Few significant differences appear between offenders and non-offenders or between victims and non-victims. Finally, the policy implications are discussed. In Britain, as in other Parliamentary democracies, "public opinion"— hypothetical or as measured by surveys—is frequently cited as a justification for criminal justice policies: by Sir Kenneth Newman as a rationale for devoting more police resources to street crime in London (Home Office, 1983); by the Director of Public Prosecutions when blaming juror attitudes for the low prosecution rate of offences by the police (though see Williams, 1985, for a critique); by Freedom of Information advocates as a reason for not prosecuting those who leak Official Secrets "in the public interest" (though a jury convicted Ms. Sarah Tisdall for leaking secrets to The Guardian)-, and by sentencers. Attempts to lead public opinion via denunciatory sentences may be ineffectual (Walker and Marsh, 1984), but public sentiments are given pride of place in justifying longer sentences for violent offenders and vendors of illegal narcotics.1 Indeed, the Home Office Working Paper Criminal Justice (1984, p. 7) makes the retributive role of the public quite explicit when it states: "[Sjentences . must also reflect the public's view that crimes of violence are evil and deserve punishment . [T]he most serious offenders must expect to pay dearly for their crimes. " When officials or interest groups wish to disobey vox populi, they make claims to special expertise or to the need to preserve The Law from political interference. There is seldom any attempt to make explicit the moral and/or intellectual basis for such professional autonomy. Rather, even
Sero-Prevalence and Cross-Reactivity of Chikungunya Virus Specific Anti-E2EP3 Antibodies in Arbovirus-Infected Patients

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) and clinically-related arboviruses cause large epidemics with serious economic and social impact. As clinical symptoms of CHIKV infections are similar to several flavivirus infections, good detection methods to identify CHIKV infection are desired for improved treatment and clinical management. The strength of anti-E2EP3 antibody responses was explored in a longitudinal study on 38 CHIKV-infected patients. We compared their anti-E2EP3 responses with those of patients infected with non-CHIKV alphaviruses, or flaviviruses. E2EP3 cross-reactive samples from patients infected with non-CHIKV viruses were further analyzed with an in vitro CHIKV neutralization assay. CHIKV-specific anti-E2EP3 antibody responses were detected in 72% to 100% of patients. Serum samples from patients infected with other non-CHIKV alphaviruses were cross-reactive to E2EP3. Interestingly, some of these antibodies demonstrated clearly in vitro CHIKV neutralizing activity. Contrastingly, serum samples from flaviviruses-infected patients showed a low level of cross-reactivity against E2EP3. Using CHIKV E2EP3 as a serology marker not only allows early detection of CHIKV specific antibodies, but would also allow the differentiation between CHIKV infections and flavivirus infections with 93% accuracy, thereby allowing precise acute febrile diagnosis and improving clinical management in regions newly suffering from CHIKV outbreaks including the Americas.
A FRAMEWORK FOR CHARACTERIZING REGIONAL ALTERATIONS IN DOPAMINE NEUROTRANSMISSION IN THE CONTEXT OF DRUGS AND DISEASE USING FAST-SCAN CYCLIC VOLTAMMETRY

Dopamine (DA) has become a sort of buzzword as the ‘pleasure’ neurotransmitter that signals for natural rewards, but is ‘hijacked’ by drugs of abuse and the instant gratification we derive from our phones, Facebook, and fast-food diets in the fast-paced world we live in. In reality, DA has much more nuanced and varied functions that include the regulation of attention, working memory, motivation, movement, and even endocrine functions, which largely depends upon the region DA is acting in the brain. Dysfunction of DA neurotransmission is implicated in conditions like Parkinson’s disease (PD), attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), drug addiction, and traumatic brain injury (TBI) to name just a few. As such, the DAergic system represents a rational pharmaceutical target that act as DA receptor agonists, antagonists, indirect agonists, and DA reuptake inhibitors. Understanding how region-specific DA neurotransmission is altered in pathological states and following both acute and chronic drug administration, requires multi-faceted research approaches but can be significantly driven by advancements in research methodologies. It is for this reason that we hope readers will find the work contained herein particularly timely and important. Although the work contained here represents research conducted using fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV), an electrochemical method to monitor in vivo electrically stimulated DA neurotransmission that has been around since the mid 1980s, we describe the development of a novel quantitative interpretive framework for FSCV data that enhances the ability to characterize the region-specific DA neurotransmission in the context of drugs and diseases. To illustrate the utility of our framework, we demonstrate how our approach has been used to resolve the mechanistic actions of the most commonly used Parkinsonian drug, L-DOPA, on regiospecific DA neurotransmission. Moreover, our framework was utilized to characterize the regiospecific DAergic dysfunction following an experimental model of TBI and the robust neurorestorative effects of chronic methylphenidate treatment in this model. To this end, we not only describe a theoretical framework for characterizing regiospecific alterations in DA neurotransmission, but we also offer practical examples that may serve as a roadmap for studying DA neurotransmission kinetics in the context of drugs and other diseases.
The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever

The puzzle: Three gods A, R, and C are called, in some order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly o r falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, R, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language, in which the words for "yes" and "no" are "dam and "ja," in some order. You do not know which word means which2
Effects of Aircraft Noise on Reading and Quality of Life in Primary School Children in Germany: Results From the NORAH Study

A review of the literature shows that our knowledge concerning effects of chronic aircraft noise exposure on children is still limited and does not allow well-founded predictions for children living in specific noise-exposed areas. In this study, we investigated effects of aircraft noise on cognition and quality of life in 1,243 second graders from 29 schools around Frankfurt/Main Airport in Germany. Although exposure levels at schools were below 60 dB and thus considerably lower than in previous studies, multilevel analyses revealed that increasing exposure was linearly associated with less positive ratings of quality of life, increasing noise annoyance, and decreasing reading performance. A 20 dB increase in aircraft noise exposure was associated with a decrease in reading scores of one fifth of a standard deviation, corresponding to a reading delay of about 2 months. No effects were found for verbal precursors of reading acquisition. Teachers’ reports (N = 84) indicate that severe disruptions of classroom instruction due to aircraft noise may contribute to the effect on reading.
Beyond Harm and Fairness: A Study of Deviance and Morality

ABSTRACT Using data from 1,429 students, we test whether a moral foundations approach focusing on both individual- and group-oriented measures of morality improves our ability to predict deviant behavior over and above the effects of individual-oriented measures alone. Results show that the emphasis individuals place on group-oriented moral concerns is inversely associated with a range of deviant behaviors. Moreover, these associations are stronger and more pervasive than the emphasis placed on individual-level moral concerns. Additionally, we find that a recently developed “moral identity” measure does not add to the prediction of deviant behavior over and above group-oriented measures.
Nurses’ knowledge and practice regarding intravenous therapy in a teaching hospital, Bharatpur

Background: Intravenous (IV) therapy is a common procedure in clinical setting of any hospital and nurses are accountable for handling and man­agement to the patient with IV therapy. However, various serious medical complications were arisen due to nurses having inadequate knowledge and practice on IV therapy. Therefore, this study was conducted to find out the nurses’ knowledge and practice regarding IV therapy in a teaching hospital, Bharatpur, Chitwan. Methods: A cross- sectional study design was adopted with 177 nurses for assessment to knowledge and 53 nurses to observe practice on IV therapy. A systematic random sampling technique was used. Data were collected by using semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire for identifying knowledge and observation checklist for observing the practice of IV ther­apy among nurses. The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistic. Results: The level of knowledge was found inadequate and level of prac­tice was found unsatisfactory on IV therapy. The associated factors with level of knowledge regarding IV therapy were age (p=0.012), professional qualification (p=0.001), professional designation (p=0.005), professional experience (p=0.002) and in-service education (p=0.003). Similarly, the associated factors with level of practice on IV therapy were professional qualification (p=0.020) and professional designation (p=0.04). Conclusions: It is concluded that most of the nurses had inadequate knowledge and unsatisfactory practice on IV therapy. Hence, it is strongly recommended for need of protocol for IV therapy, in-service education, effective supervision and reinforcement for improvement of knowledge and practice regarding IV therapy among nurses.
Gender differences in motivation for physical education.

U radu su istraživane spolne razlike između ucenika i ucenica srednje skole u intrinzicnoj motiviranosti i orijentaciji u nastavi TZK-a. Kanonickom diskriminativnom analizom utvrđene su statisticki znacajne spolne razlike u motivaciji za nastavu. Ucenici su u odnosu na ucenice nesto vise intrinzicno motivirani i znatno vise ego orijentirani. U orijentaciji ucenika na svladavanje zadataka nema spolnih razlika. Dodatno je potvrđena visoka povezanost faktora intrinzicne motivacije i orijentacije na zadatak. Dobiveni rezultati ukazuju na potrebu spolno diferenciranog pristupa u modeliranju motivacije ucenika i ucenica u nastavi tjelesne i zdravstvene kulture.
Laser scanning cytometry and tissue microarray analysis of salinity effects on killifish chloride cells

SUMMARY The effects of salinity on chloride cells (CC) and Na+/K+-ATPase content in gill epithelium of euryhaline killifish Fundulus heteroclitus were analyzed using laser scanning cytometry (LSC) and tissue microarrays (TMAs). Salinity acclimations consisted of acute transfer from freshwater (FW) to 1× seawater (SW) and gradual transfer from FW to 2.4× SW. Suspensions of dissociated gill epithelial cells were stained with DASPMI and evaluated using LSC. CC number and volume are proportional to external salinity, being lower in FW (0.5±0.2×105 and 405±32 μm3, respectively) and higher after 5 weeks in 2.4× SW (3.7±0.9×105 and 2697±146 μm3, respectively). TMAs were constructed from fixed gill tissues and developed using antibody for Na+/K+-ATPase to visualize CCs in situ and compare their characteristics with isolated CCs. Na+/K+-ATPase content per CC increases transiently (from 2.2±0.5×106 to 4.8±1.1×106 relative fluorescence units, RFU) after 1 week of acute acclimation to 1× SW but returns to baseline values (2.4±0.5×106 RFU) within 5 weeks. In contrast, gradual acclimation to 2.4× SW permanently increases Na+/K+-ATPase content per CC (from 2.0±0.8×106 to 6.7±2.7×106 RFU after 5 weeks). CC size in situ did not correlate well to salinity because of basolateral membrane infoldings. Taken together, these data suggest that euryhaline fishes are capable of sensing environmental salinity to utilize transient short-term and permanent long-term adaptations for coping with salinity changes. These results also demonstrate the power of LSC and TMA for comparative biology.
Diagnosing difficult women and pathologising femininity: Gender bias in psychiatric nosology

The pathologisation of femininity and regulation of ‘difficult’ women through psychiatric nosology has a long history. If we look to accounts of hysteria, the most commonly diagnosed ‘female malady’ of the 18th and 19th century, we can trace the genealogy of the ‘regimes of truth’ reified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), which define and regulate women’s madness today. Whilst hysteria was first described by the ancient Greeks, appearing in the writings of Plato and Hippocrates, it was in the 17th century that it emerged as one of the most common diseases treated by medics. Thus Thomas Sydenham commented that ‘the frequency of hysteria is no less remarkable than the multiformity of the shapes which it puts on. Few of the maladies of miserable mortality are not imitated by it’ (Sydenham, 1679: 85). Although the causes of this nebulous disorder were widened to include the nervous system in the late 18th century, allowing men to receive a diagnosis of hysteria (Showalter, 1997:15), it was always considered to be ‘woman’s disease’, a disorder linked to the essence of femininity itself. Indeed, Laycock (1840), described hysteria as a woman’s ‘natural state’, whereas it was deemed a ‘morbid state’ in a man (Smith-Rosenberg, 1986: 206), and in 1903 Otto Weininger asserted that ‘hysteria is the organic crisis of the organic mendacity of woman’ (Bronfen, 1998:115). The 19th-century physicians were highly critical of this feminine ‘state’ describing hysterical women as difficult, narcissistic, impressionable, suggestible, egocentric and labile (Smith-Rosenberg, 1986: 202). The affluent hysteric was characterised as an idle, self-indulgent and deceitful woman, ‘craving for sympathy’, who had an ‘unnatural’ desire for privacy and independence (Donkin, 1892) and was ‘personally and morally repulsive, idle, intractable, and manipulative’ (Showalter, 1987: 133). Some
An Intergroup Perspective on Religion and Prejudice

Based on the reasoning that religious groups evidence intergroup processes that can create prejudice, two studies examined the relation between religiosity and attitudes toward religious and non-religious others. In both studies, among more religious individuals, attitudes toward religious others were very positive and attitudes toward non-religious others were quite negative. These relations emerged on all measures of traditional religiosity used. Some prejudice against religious others existed among less religious individuals, but it was less pronounced and less pervasive than the prejudice of more religious people. It is suggested that intergroup processes such as competition between religious groups for resources or value promotion likely foster prejudice against religious outgroup members, perhaps irrespective of personal religious orientation.