Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of the Effects of Surface Roughness on the Relationship Between Soil BRF Data and Broadband Albedo

This paper reports a preliminary study on correctness of the broadband albedo (αb) of cultivated soils that could be calculated by their narrowband bidirectional reflectance factors (BRF) measured from many directions with a prototype goniometric device in a laboratory on their samples with similar roughness, as these soils revealed in the field. The correctness was tested on examples of Phaeozem, Luvisol, and Albeluvisol with roughness formed by a plow, disk harrow, pulverizing harrow, and smoothing harrow. The αb values of the soils calculated using the equation proposed here were not affected by the root mean square error higher than 0.01 as compared to the data measured in the field if the BRF data were obtained on the soil samples with a sufficiently low roughness. It was found that the roughness of those soil samples should be sufficiently low to ensure that the values of their height standard deviation along the length of the minor axis of a sensor field of view area are greater than 15.
C1q PRECIPITINS IN THE SERA OF PATIENTS WITH SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS AND OTHER HYPOCOMPLEMENTEMIC STATES: CHARACTERIZATION OF HIGH AND LOW MOLECULAR WEIGHT TYPES

Precipitin reactions of C1q in gel diffusion proved useful in detecting unknown complexes containing γ-globulin in the sera of patients with SLE. Using this method low molecular weight C1q reactants also have been detected in a number of sera from patients with SLE as well as other diseases. Both the circulating complexes and the unidentified low molecular weight reactants are associated with disease activity and in vivo complement depression. In some sera from patients with SLE, circulating complexes as detectable by C1q precipitation were closely associated with cryoprecipitins and an active nephritic process. Evidence is presented that both rheumatoid factors and C1q interact with circulating complexes in these patients and that the interaction is related to cryoprecipitation. The demonstration of the same rheumatoid factors in the cryoprecipitates and in the renal glomerular deposits suggests that rheumatoid factors have a special significance in the presence of circulating complexes.
INFLUENCE OF HORMONES ON LIVER

Modification of the endocrine milieu intérieur by administration or withdrawal of hormones considerably influenced the concentration in liver of lactic dehydrogenase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, and 6-phosphogluconic dehydrogenase. Hormones effective in this regard are thyroxine, estradiol-17β, dihydrotestosterone, and 3α-hydroxysteroids in the androstane series. These hormonal effects are both organ-selective and, in liver, enzyme-selective. Thyroxine and steroids are not equivalent in their influence on the 3 hepatic dehydrogenases. Thyroxine was preeminent in this regard among hormones investigated in the present experiments. Each of the pyridine nucleotide-linked dehydrogenases in liver had an individually characteristic response to the administration of various hormones which was reflected in its hepatic level. The concentration in liver of lactic dehydrogenase was profoundly raised or lowered, respectively, by the administration of thyroxine or by thyroidectomy, and injection of steroids had small influence on its level. The levels of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and of 6-phosphogluconic dehydrogenase were considerably influenced by injection of thyroxine, estradiol-17β, or testosterone. Sex steroids did not increase the levels of these enzymes in hypophysectomized or thyroidectomized rats unless thyroxine was administered concurrently. Under designated conditions, it was found that the concentration of 6-phosphogluconic dehydrogenase was increased by hormonal methods which did not elevate the concentration of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. But high levels of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase were not achieved without a considerable elevation of 6-phosphogluconic dehydrogenase as well.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND COGNITIVE OUTCOMES: THE ROLE OF PUBLIC AND FAMILY INPUTS

This thesis is composed by three chapters, dealing with the effects of policies for young children and parental child care decisions on subsequent child’s cognitive development. The first chapter presents a review of the most recent studies on this topic, considering in particular analyses that focus on public child care policies. The second chapter investigates the relationship between child care coverage in Italy and children’s scholastic achievement, as measured by the INVALSI test scores for the school year 2009-10. The third chapter evaluates the effects of maternal decisions concerning work and external child care use on subsequent child’s cognitive outcomes defining and estimating a behavioral model.
Statistical Dependency Parsing for Turkish

This paper presents results from the first statistical dependency parser for Turkish. Turkish is a free-constituent order language with complex agglutinative inflectional and derivational morphology and presents interesting challenges for statistical parsing, as in general, dependency relations are between “portions” of words called inflectional groups. We have explored statistical models that use different representational units for parsing. We have used the Turkish Dependency Treebank to train and test our parser but have limited this initial exploration to that subset of the treebank sentences with only left-to-right non-crossing dependency links. Our results indicate that the best accuracy in terms of the dependency relations between inflectional groups is obtained when we use inflectional groups as units in parsing, and when contexts around the dependent are employed.
Definitions and conceptions of giftedness

About the Editors Series Introduction - Sally M. Reis Introduction to Definitions and Conceptions of Giftedness - Robert J. Sternberg 1. The Nature of Giftedness and Talent - A. Harry Passow 2. What Do We Mean by Giftedness? A Pentagonal Implicit Theory - Robert J. Sternberg, Li-fang Zhang 3. Moving Into the Mainstream? Reflections on the Study of Giftedness - Nancy Ewald Jackson 4. Metacognition, Intelligence and Giftedness - Bruce M. Shore, Arlene C. Dover 5. Divergent Thinking, Creativity and Giftedness - Mark A. Runco 6. Wisdom as a Form of Giftedness - Robert J. Sternberg 7. Giftedness and Talent: Reexamining a Reexamination of the Definitions - Francoys Gagne 8. Profiles of the Gifted and Talented - George T. Betts, Maureen Neihart 9. Childhood Traits and Environmental Conditions of Highly Eminent Adults - Herbert J. Walberg, Shiow-Ling Tsai, Thomas Weinstein, Cynthia L. Gabriel, Sue Pinzur Rasher, Teresa Rosecrans, Evangelina Rovai, Judith Ide, Miguel Trujillo, and Peter Vukosavich 10. Developmental Potential of the Gifted - Michael M. Piechowski, Nicholas Colangelo 11. Child Prodigies: A Distinctive Form of Giftedness - David Henry Feldman 12. A Developmental View of Giftedness - Frances Degen Horowitz 13. Wherefore Art Thou, Multiple Intelligences? Alternative Assessments for Identifying Talent in Ethnically Diverse and Low Income Students - Jonathan A. Plucker, Carolyn M. Callahan, and Ellen M. Tomchin Index
Update on rituximab

Rituximab is a chimeric monoclonal antibody that was developed for the treatment of B cell lymphomas.1 It is directed against the CD20 cell surface molecule.2 CD20 is a tetraspan membrane protein that is present only on B cells, and is expressed initially at the immature B cell stage, remaining until the final differentiation into plasma cells. The function of CD20 is not clear, although it may play some role in signalling or in calcium mobilisation.3 Curiously, mice that were genetically engineered to lack CD20 (CD20 knockout mice) have not shown any clear defects in their B cells.4 Nevertheless, the specificity of CD20 for the B cell lineage, and its failure to be easily shed or internalised, has made it an excellent target for depletion by monoclonal antibodies. Not only does rituximab kill CD20+ lymphoma cells, but it also substantially depletes normal B cells from the peripheral blood.5 Tissue depletion also occurs, but is perhaps less profound, and in any case has been little documented in patients.6 The mechanism of B cell depletion appears to be a combination of FcRγ dependent ADCC (antibody dependent cell mediated cytotoxocity), complement mediated lysis, and apoptosis,7 although the relative contributions of these mechanisms in vivo remains to be determined, In addition, stimulation of the inhibitory FcRγIIB may also play a role in rituximab therapeutic effects.8 In 1997, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved rituximab for the treatment of low grade non-Hodgkin’s B cell lymphomas.9 Since that time, it has been used in over 500 000 patients with generally excellent tolerability. Largely through a series of investigator sponsored trials supported in part by Genentech (South San Francisco, CA), the use of rituximab has been extended to a much wider spectrum of B cell malignancies, and strikingly, …
The mid IR - hard X-ray correlation in AGN and its implications for dusty torus models ,

Aims. We investigate mid-infrared and X-ray properties of the dusty torus invoked in the unification scenario for active galactic nuclei by using the relation between mid IR and hard X-ray luminosities to constrain the geometry and physical state of the dusty torus. Methods. We present new VISIR observations of 17 nearby AGN and combined these with our earlier VISIR sample of 8 Seyfert galaxies. After combining these observations with X-ray data from the literature, we studied the correlation between their mid IR and hard X-ray luminosities. Results. A statistically highly significant correlation is found between the rest frame 12.3 μm (L MIR ) and 2-10 keV (L x ) luminosities. Furthermore, with a probability of 97%, we find that Sy 1 and Sy 2 nuclei have the same distribution of L MIR over L x . Conclusions. The high resolution of our MIR imaging allows us to exclude any significant non-torus contribution to the AGN mid IR continuum, thereby implying that the similarity in the L MIR /L X ratio between Sy 1s and Sy 2s is intrinsic to AGN. We argue that this is best explained by clumpy torus models. The slope of the correlation is in good agreement with the expectations from the unified scenario and indicates little to no change in the torus geometry with luminosity. In addition, we demonstrate that the high angular resolution is crucial for AGN studies in the IR regime.
Educational Travel to Israel in the Era of Globalization

Travel to Israel has been a central feature of Jewish and Zionist education yet it is time for this educational travel to be examined in the context of current cultural trends of travel and transnational experiences. The Jewish educational community has not yet internalized the impact of global trends on the field of travel to Israel from a variety of theoretical and practical perspectives. This article lays out the underlying assumptions of Jewish travel to Israel in the context of globalization and related cultural developments. The article refers primarily to the North American Jewish community, the largest demographic source of travelers.
Peritoneal macrophage from male and female SJL mice differ in IL‐10 expression and macrophage maturation

Injection of proteins and particulate antigens into the peritoneal cavity of male SJL mice preferentially activates T cells secreting Th2 cytokines. Identical immunizations of females activate T cells secreting Th1 cytokines. CD11b+F4/80hi LPM and CD11b+F4/80lo SPM populations were compared between naive males and females to define their role in supporting differential Th1 versus Th2 T cell activation. No sex‐dependent differences in the expression of MHC class II, costimulatory molecules, and MR were detected. Immunization induced influx of CD11bloF4/80lo cells in both sexes. CD11bloF4/80lo cells consist predominantly of Ly6Chi monocytes, which mature into a Ly6C− SPM subset. Following immunization, equivalent frequencies of LPM had taken up antigen. However, the CD11bloF4/80lo population, which had taken up antigen, was decreased significantly in males compared with females. Similar to naïve macrophages, antigen‐positive cells in immunized males and females exhibited no phenotypic differences. However, fewer Ly6C−F4/80+ cells were present in males compared with females, consistent with the reduced number of antigen‐positive cells. Furthermore, CD11bloF4/80lo cells, which had taken up antigen in males, expressed increased IL‐10 and limited IL‐12 mRNA compared with the predominant IL‐12 mRNA expression in female‐derived, antigen‐positive CD11bloF4/80lo cells. IL‐10 blockade increased the frequency of Ly6C−F4/80+ cells in males to the frequency in females, suggesting that preferential activation of Th2 T cells in male SJL mice is associated with increased IL‐10 expression and limited antigen presentation as a result of decreased macrophage maturation under the influence of IL‐10.
RECOMBINANT HUMAN SOLUBLE TUMOR NECROSIS FACTOR-ALPHA RECEPTOR FUSION PROTEIN PARTLY ATTENUATES VENTILATOR-INDUCED LUNG INJURY

Ventilator-induced lung injury is mediated, at least in part, by TNF-&agr;. We determined the effect of a recombinant human soluble TNF receptor fusion protein (etanercept) on mechanical ventilation (MV)-induced changes in a murine ventilator-induced lung injury model. After pretreatment with etanercept or placebo, C57Bl/6 mice were anesthetized and randomized to MV with either low tidal volumes (VT, ∼7.5 mL/kg) or high VT (∼15 mL/kg) for 5 h. Instrumented but spontaneously breathing mice served as controls. End points were lung wet-to-dry ratios, lung histopathology scores, protein levels, neutrophil cell counts and thrombin-antithrombin complex levels in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), and cytokine levels in lung homogenates. The number of caspase 3-positive cells was used as a measure for apoptosis. Etanercept treatment attenuated MV-induced changes, in particular, in MV with high VT. Compared with placebo, etanercept reduced the number of neutrophils in BALF and thrombin-antithrombin complex levels in BALF and cytokine levels in lung homogenates. Lung wet-to-dry ratios, histopathology scores, and local protein levels in BALF, however, were not influenced by etanercept treatment. The number of caspase 3-positive cells was significantly higher in etanercept-treated animals. Inhibition of TNF by etanercept attenuates, in part, MV-induced changes.
Enterococcal Meningitis: A Clinical Study of 39 Cases and Review of the Literature

To describe the clinical features and outcome of enterococcal meningitis, we retrospectively reviewed the charts of 39 cases seen at 2 tertiary hospitals during a 25 years and collected 101 additional, previously reported cases for review. Among these 140 cases, there were 82 cases (59%) of postoperative meningitis and 58 cases (41%) of spontaneous meningitis. Eighty-six patients (61%) were adults and 54 (39%) were children. Patients with spontaneous meningitis had a higher frequency of community-acquired infection (50% versus 18%; p < 0.01), severe underlying diseases (67% versus 22%; p < 0.01), and associated enterococcal infection (29% versus 8%; p < 0.01) than patients with postoperative meningitis. The clinical presentation was similar in both groups, but patients with spontaneous infection had a higher frequency of bacteremia (58% versus 12%; p < 0.01), and a lower frequency of mixed infection (9% versus 29%; p < 0.01). Spontaneous meningitis in children was associated with a significantly lower frequency of fever, altered mental status, headache, and meningeal signs (p < 0.01), probably explained by the high proportion of neonates in this age-group. Most infections were caused by Enterococcus faecalis, which accounted for 76% of the isolates identified at the species level. Fifteen of the 25 cases due to Enterococcus faecium were produced by vancomycin-resistant strains. Most patients were treated with ampicillin, penicillin, or vancomycin, with or without aminoglycosides, for a median period of 18 days (range, 1–85 d). Overall mortality was 21%. The mortality rate was higher in spontaneous than in postoperative meningitis (33% versus 12%; p < 0.01), but was similar in patients treated with beta-lactams (18%), glycopeptides (14%), or other antibiotics (25%), as well as in patients treated with monotherapy (16%) or combination therapy (22%). An adverse outcome correlated significantly with advanced age, the presence of severe underlying diseases, associated enterococcal infection, bacteremia, septic shock, and the absence of fever at presentation. Shunt removal was associated with a lower mortality. Multivariate analysis showed that the presence of severe underlying diseases was the only prognostic factor associated with mortality (odds ratio = 6.8, 95% confidence intervals = 2.7–17.5, p < 0.01).
Functional MRI in the Investigation of Blast-Related Traumatic Brain Injury

This review focuses on the application of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to the investigation of blast-related traumatic brain injury (bTBI). Relatively little is known about the exact mechanisms of neurophysiological injury and pathological and functional sequelae of bTBI. Furthermore, in mild bTBI, standard anatomical imaging techniques (MRI and computed tomography) generally fail to show focal lesions and most of the symptoms present as subjective clinical functional deficits. Therefore, an objective test of brain functionality has great potential to aid in patient diagnosis and provide a sensitive measurement to monitor disease progression and treatment. The goal of this review is to highlight the relevant body of blast-related TBI literature and present suggestions and considerations in the development of fMRI studies for the investigation of bTBI. The review begins with a summary of recent bTBI publications followed by discussions of various elements of blast-related injury. Brief reviews of some fMRI techniques that focus on mental processes commonly disrupted by bTBI, including working memory, selective attention, and emotional processing, are presented in addition to a short review of resting state fMRI. Potential strengths and weaknesses of these approaches as regards bTBI are discussed. Finally, this review presents considerations that must be made when designing fMRI studies for bTBI populations, given the heterogeneous nature of bTBI and its high rate of comorbidity with other physical and psychological injuries.
Effect of oxidative stress on respiratory epithelium from children with Down syndrome

Children with Down syndrome are at high risk for acute respiratory distress syndrome. In Down syndrome, both regulation of inflammation and apoptosis, important in acute respiratory distress syndrome pathophysiology, are abnormal. This has been linked to an imbalance in free radical scavengers. We investigated the expression of free radical scavengers and the effect of oxidative stress in terms of apoptosis and inflammation in respiratory epithelium from children with Down syndrome compared with control subjects. We cultured primary nasal epithelial cells from Down syndrome children (n=12) and controls (n=17) and exposed them to oxidative stress by supplementing superoxide. First we showed that the expression of the free radical scavengers CuZn-superoxide dismutase was 28% higher (p=0.06), catalase was 36% lower (p=0.04) and glutathione peroxidase was 73% lower (p=0.004) in Down syndrome children compared with controls. We found no significant difference in apoptosis, between Down syndrome and control subjects after exposure to oxidative stress. We also found no significant difference in levels of interleukin (IL)-1&bgr;, IL-6, IL-8, vascular endothelial growth factor and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor in primary nasal epithelial cell supernatant after exposure to oxidative stress between Down syndrome and control subjects. We found an imbalance in free radical scavengers in respiratory epithelial cells from children with Down syndrome, but this did not result in increased levels of either apoptosis or inflammation upon exposure to oxidative stress. Free radical scavenger imbalance: respiratory apoptosis or inflammation not increased in Down syndrome children http://ow.ly/mxypE
A Provably Efficient Algorithm for Separable Topic Discovery

We develop necessary and sufficient conditions and a novel provably consistent and efficient algorithm for discovering topics (latent factors) from observations (documents) that are realized from a probabilistic mixture of shared latent factors that have certain properties. Our focus is on the class of topic models in which each shared latent factor contains a novel word that is unique to that factor, a property that has come to be known as separability. Our algorithm is based on the key insight that the novel words correspond to the extreme points of the convex hull formed by the row-vectors of a suitably normalized word co-occurrence matrix. We leverage this geometric insight to establish polynomial computational and sample complexity bounds based on a few isotropic random projections of the rows of the normalized word co-occurrence matrix. Our proposed random-projections-based algorithm is naturally amenable to an efficient distributed implementation and is attractive for modern web-scale distributed data mining applications.
Type I IFN Receptor-Signaling Complex Functions as a Scaffold Protein Within the The WD Motif-Containing Protein RACK-1

The WD repeat-containing protein receptor for activated protein kinase C (RACK)-1 has been linked to a variety of signaling systems including protein kinase C, growth factors, and IFNs. In the IFN system, RACK-1 functions as an adaptor recruiting the transcription factor STAT1 to the receptor complex. However, RACK-1 should play a broader role in type I IFN signaling because mutation of the RACK-1 binding site in the IFN- (cid:1) receptor 2/ (cid:2) subunit of the type I IFN receptor abrogates not only STAT1, but also STAT2, activation. In this study, we demonstrate that RACK-1 serves as a scaffold protein for a multiprotein complex that includes the IFN- (cid:1) receptor 2/ (cid:2) -chain of the receptor, STAT1, Janus kinase 1, and tyrosine kinase 2. In vitro data further suggest that within this complex tyrosine kinase 2 is the tyrosine kinase responsible for the phosphorylation of STAT1. Finally, we provide evidence that RACK-1 may also serve as a scaffold protein in other cytokine systems such as IL-2, IL-4, and erythropoietin. The Journal of Immunology, 2003, 171: 2989–2994.
Acquiring Knowledge and Learning from Failure : Theory, Measurement, and Validation of Two Learning Goals

We report the development and validation of a measure that distinguished knowledge goals focused on acquiring knowledge and information from learning from failure goals focused on using failure as an opportunity to learn. In Study 1, the scale demonstrated a robust factor structure and adequate internal consistencies, and the two learning goals differently correlated with measures of ego-involved achievement goals. In Study 2, the goal to learn from failure interacted with academically contingent selfworth, reducing self-esteem vulnerability when people invested effort and failed. In Study 3, the goal to learn from failure reduced the effect of academic contingencies of self-worth on self-esteem, especially among the incremental theorists who invested effort prior to failure. Acquiring Knowledge and Learning from Failure: Theory, Measurement, and Validation of Two Learning Goals