Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Drosophila Microbiota Modulates Host Metabolic Gene Expression via IMD/NF-κB Signaling

Most metazoans engage in mutualistic interactions with their intestinal microbiota. Despite recent progress the molecular mechanisms through which microbiota exerts its beneficial influences on host physiology are still largely uncharacterized. Here we use axenic Drosophila melanogaster adults associated with a standardized microbiota composed of a defined set of commensal bacterial strains to study the impact of microbiota association on its host transcriptome. Our results demonstrate that Drosophila microbiota has a marked impact on the midgut transcriptome and promotes the expression of genes involved in host digestive functions and primary metabolism. We identify the IMD/Relish signaling pathway as a central regulator of this microbiota-mediated transcriptional response and we reveal a marked transcriptional trade-off between the midgut response to its beneficial microbiota and to bacterial pathogens. Taken together our results indicate that microbiota association potentiates host nutrition and host metabolic state, two key physiological parameters influencing host fitness. Our work paves the way to subsequent mechanistic studies to reveal how these microbiota-dependent transcriptional signatures translate into host physiological benefits.
Social perception of faces and bodies : the relationships among motivational salience, social perception, and hormones

Social perception (i.e., the formation of impressions based on perceivable cues) of both faces and bodies is an integral part of social interaction and can influence and can be influenced by many variables, such as motivational salience (i.e., the amount of effort an individual will expend to continue viewing faces and bodies) and hormone levels of the perceiver. The first empirical chapter (i.e., Chapter 2) investigated social perception of faces and bodies using multiple trait ratings. First, participants rated face and body stimuli on the same 13 traits as those used in the seminal article on social perception of faces. Replicating previous work, I found that social perception of faces can be summarized by the two-component pattern of valence (i.e., intent to cause harm) and dominance (i.e., ability to cause harm). Social perception of bodies, though, can be summarized by one main component. Therefore, social perception of faces and bodies followed different, distinct patterns. The second empirical chapter (i.e., Chapter 3) investigated the relationship between the social perception components established in Chapter 2 and motivational salience. I assessed motivational salience using a standard key-press task in which participants could increase or decrease stimulus viewing time by pressing specified keys on the keyboard. Replicating previous work, valence and dominance positively and independently predicted the motivational salience of faces. Additionally, the one main social perception component of bodies positively predicted the motivational salience of bodies. The third empirical chapter (i.e., Chapter 4) investigated the relationship among the previously established social perception component of bodies, motivational salience of bodies, and hormone levels of the perceivers. I used the passive drool method of hormone measurement to determine exact hormone levels at five weekly test sessions. Similar to studies of faces, motivational salience of bodies was greater when testosterone was higher. While the one social perception component for bodies positively predicted motivational salience separately for male and female bodies, there was no interaction between testosterone and the social perception component, failing to conceptually replicate previous interactions between testosterone and stimulus valence. Overall, I first replicated the two-component social perception pattern of valence and dominance for faces before finding a different, one-component social perception pattern for bodies. In turn, each of these social perception components predicted motivational salience of faces and bodies. Additionally, motivational salience of bodies was greater when testosterone was high, but this effect was not qualified by the main social perception component for bodies. I conclude by discussing the similarities and differences between faces and bodies in this and other work on social perception and motivational salience.
Site specificity in vimentin-membrane interactions: intermediate filament subunits associate with the plasma membrane via their head domains

Fragments of vimentin, generated by chemical or enzymatic cleavages, were analyzed for their capacity to bind to human inverted erythrocyte membrane vesicles. Only peptides comprising the amino-terminal head domain of vimentin molecules were competent in associating with the membranes. In vitro studies also demonstrated that isolated ankyrin (the major vimentin acceptor site on the membrane) binds to an oligomeric species of vimentin and prevents the formation of characteristic 10-nm filaments. These data, taken together with the observation that the NH2-terminal end of vimentin is implicated in the polymerization process (Traub, P., and C. Vorgias, J. Cell Sci., 1983, 63:43-67), imply that intermediate filaments may contact the membrane in an end-on fashion, using the exposed head domains of their terminal subunits.
Factors influencing help seeking in mentally distressed young adults: a cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND Young adults, especially men, are among those least likely to consult healthcare professionals when mentally distressed or suicidal. AIMS To investigate the help-seeking behaviours of mentally distressed young adults. DESIGN OF STUDY Cross-sectional survey. SETTING Bristol and surrounding areas, including inner-city, suburban and urban locations. METHOD A questionnaire was sent to a sample of 3004 young adults aged 16-24 years. This assessed probable mental disorder (using the 12-item general health questionnaire [GHQ-12]), suicidal thoughts (GHQ-28 suicide subscale), and help-seeking behaviours. RESULTS Most responders who were assessed as having probable mental disorders (GHQ "cases") had not sought help. Help seeking was more common in female GHQ cases than male cases (34.8% and 21.8%,respectively; P = 0.003) and women with suicidal thoughts more commonly sought help than men with suicidal thoughts (41.6% and 30.9%, respectively; P = 0.15). Small proportions of male and female GHQ cases (7.5% and 8.9%, respectively; P = 0.6), and less than one in five responders with suicidal thoughts, had consulted a general practitioner. In more female than male cases, help was sought from family and friends (30.7% and 18.4%, respectively; P = 0.004). GHQ score was the strongest predictor of help seeking. Men had a higher threshold of severity at which they would seek help than women. Recent experience of suicidal thoughts appeared to be a stronger predictor of formal help seeking in mentally distressed women than mentally distressed men. CONCLUSION Distressed young adults are reluctant to seek help. Men are particularly unlikely to do so unless severely distressed and tend not to seek lay support. Sex differences in help seeking may be important in understanding the high suicide rate for men.
Image retargeting based on delaunay triangle mesh

Accurate presentation of high resolution images on wide varieties of multimedia devices, especially on pervasive mobile multimedia devices, faces great challenge. In this paper, we present an angle preserved warping method for image retargeting which allows resizing images to arbitrary aspect ratios while minimizing the loss of important information. To accomplish this, we first cover the original image with a Delaunay triangle mesh based on saliency map of the image, which is computed by considering the lumination, color, gradient and position features of the pixels comprehensively; and then the triangle mesh is deformed to target aspect ratios subject to a deformation loss function, to drive the visual prominent features to undergo similarity transformations. The deformation loss function is constrained by the angle's changes of the triangles in the triangle mesh. Compared with previous approaches using grid mesh, our method can transfer the distortion caused by the change of the image aspect ratios to less saliency regions much more effectively.
How does intrinsic and extrinsic motivation drive performance culture in organizations?

Abstract The performance culture of an organization is impacted by the motivation of an organization’s employee. Determining whether or not an employee’s motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic is helpful for organizations to see what is more of a drive in their performance. The following article reviews literature on the subject of employee motivation to determine whether intrinsic or extrinsic motivation is becoming the driving force of business. Upon review, it has been shown that there is a mixed approach in whether or not employee’s motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic. The type of motivation is also based on one’s role within their organization. The implications of the review are given.
Approximate mathematical morphology. Rough set approach

Mathematical morphology is a well-established discipline whose aim is to provide speciic tools, based originally on Minkowski operators in aane spaces, for feature selection in complex objects, primarily patterns and images. Complexity of morphological operations makes it desirable to propose a theoretical scheme of an approximate morphological calculus within a general paradigm of soft computing. We propose a scheme based on ideas of rough set theory. In this scheme, the underlying space of points (e.g. pixels) is partitioned into disjoint cells (classes) by means of some primitive attributes (features) and morphological operations are performed on classes, which allows for compression of data. In our chapter, we discuss topological foundations of morphology, in particular spaces of rough fractals as well as morphological approximate operations and we also point to plausible applications by proving the approximate collage theorem.
Some Useful Functions for Functional Large Deviations

Useful descriptions of stochastic models are often provided when they are represented as functions of well understood stochastic models. Properties of the well understood model can be preserved by the representation. For example, the large deviation principle (LDP) is preserved by continuous maps via the contraction principle and weak convergence is preserved by continuous maps via the continuous mapping theorem. In a recent paper, Ganesh and O'Connell demonstrate the value of particular topological space of functions indexed by the positive real line by showing: (1) a large class of partial sums process satisfy the functional LDP in the space; and (2) the supremum map is continuous when restricted to an appropriate subspace. This makes the space useful, for example, in proving logarithmic asymptotics for the stationary waiting-time distribution at a single server queue. This paper facilitates further deductions from the space by considering other useful maps: inversion, composition and first passage time. It is shown that composition and inversion are continuous when restricted to an appropriate subspace. First passage time is not continuous, but with additional rate-function assumptions the LDP can be deduced by explicit calculation. A number of examples of these results are presented.
Removing Rain from a Single Image via Discriminative Sparse Coding

Visual distortions on images caused by bad weather conditions can have a negative impact on the performance of many outdoor vision systems. One often seen bad weather is rain which causes significant yet complex local intensity fluctuations in images. The paper aims at developing an effective algorithm to remove visual effects of rain from a single rainy image, i.e. separate the rain layer and the de-rained image layer from an rainy image. Built upon a non-linear generative model of rainy image, namely screen blend mode, we proposed a dictionary learning based algorithm for single image de-raining. The basic idea is to sparsely approximate the patches of two layers by very high discriminative codes over a learned dictionary with strong mutual exclusivity property. Such discriminative sparse codes lead to accurate separation of two layers from their non-linear composite. The experiments showed that the proposed method outperformed the existing single image de-raining methods on tested rain images.
Testing the AGB scenario as the origin of the extreme-helium population in ω Centauri

The most massive Galactic globular cluster, ω Centauri, appears to have multiple populations. Its bluest main sequence and extended horizontal branch stars are suggested to have the common origin, that is, an extremely high helium abundance of Y ∼ 0.4. The high helium abundance is most often attributed to asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. In this study we test the AGB hypothesis. We simulate the 'maximum-AGB' models where the impact of AGB stars is maximized by assuming that supernova explosions do not affect the chemical evolution of the protocloud. We compare the enrichment history of helium, metals, carbon and nitrogen to the observed values. Even under the most generous condition, the maximum-AGB models fail to reproduce the large values of helium Y ∼ 0.4 and helium enrichment parameter ΔV/ΔZ ∼ 70 which were deduced from the colour-magnitude diagram fits. They also fail to reproduce the C and N contents of the blue population spectroscopically determined. We conclude that the AGB scenario with the canonical stellar evolution theory cannot explain the observational constraints and that the self-chemical enrichment does not provide a viable solution. Alternative processes are desperately called for.
Laboratory Assessment of Bunker Silo Density Part II: Whole-Plant Corn

To better understand and predict silage density in bunker silos, chopped whole-plant corn was placed in layers of 0.15, 0.30, 0.45, and 0.60 m in a 482- . 584-mm rectangular container simulating the footprint of a tractor tire. Pressure between 20 and 80 kPa was applied to the forage by a platen. The total time of compaction varied between 1 and 10 s. A total of 25 tests were conducted with crop dry matter (DM) content ranging between 33% and 44%. The pre-compressed density of the first layer (0.30 m high) averaged 95 kg DM/m3. The highest compressed density ranged between 169 and 261 kg DM/m3 with an average of 216 kg DM/m3. After releasing pressure, the relaxed density of the first layer ranged between 117 and 153 kg DM/m3 with an average of 131 kg DM/m3. After six layers, the average relaxed density became 185 kg DM/m3, a density 14% lower than the average highest compressed density. A logarithmic model fit the data very well (R2 . 0.93 in 24 out of 25 tests), indicating that density increased continually as the number of layers increased. Model parameters were significantly affected by pressure, layer thickness, and crop processing while time of compaction had a small effect. DM content was not significant. A model based on extrapolation of laboratory results is proposed to predict density for deep bunker silos, but field data are required to validate the model under such conditions.
Reverse Engineering of Biological Complexity

www.sciencemag. org (this information is current as of January 8, 2009 ): The following resources related to this article are available online at http://www.sciencemag. org/cgi/content/full/295/5560/1664 version of this article at: including high-resolution figures, can be found in the online Updated information and services, http://www.sciencemag. org/cgi/content/full/295/5560/1664/DC1 can be found at: Supporting Online Material http://www.sciencemag. org/cgi/content/full/295/5560/1664#otherarticles , 10 of which can be accessed for free: cites 21 articles This article 251 article(s) on the ISI Web of Science. cited by This article has been http://www.sciencemag. org/cgi/content/full/295/5560/1664#otherarticles 49 articles hosted by HighWire Press; see: cited by This article has been http://www.sciencemag. org/cgi/collection/cell_biol Cell Biology : subject collections This article appears in the following http://www.sciencemag. org/about/permissions.dtl in whole or in part can be found at: this article permission to reproduce of this article or about obtaining reprints Information about obtaining
I Tell or You Tell: The Intersection Between Stigmas and Disclosure

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the interaction between disclosure of potentially stigmatizing information and the controllability of the stigma. A study was conducted with 298 participants (228 women, 70 men); participants were undergraduate students from a large public university. An experiment was conducted in order to measure the interaction between disclosure and the controllability of the stigma. The present study predicted that self disclosures about an uncontrollable stigma would be rated the most likeable, where as controllable stigmas revealed by another would be rated the least likeable. Past research (Hebl and Kleck, 2002) has shown that uncontrollable stigmas were perceived more favorably than controllable stigmas. Additionally, previous research (Hastorf et. al, 1979) indicates that uncontrollable stigmas are rated more favorably if the stigmatized acknowledges the stigma. Furthermore, Ward and Brenner (2006) contend that acknowledgement of a stigma can negate negative feelings, whereas acknowledgement of a stigma by a third party actually exacerbates the negative rating of the stigma. Therefore, the present study investigated participants’ opinions of the hireability of an applicant. Participants were presented with one of four conditions and asked to rate the overall applicant’s hireability. Contrary to the hypothesis, no interaction was found. Though, there was a significant mean difference in the uncontrolled category for success potential, hireability, and likeability. These findings suggest that, at least for uncontrolled disabilities, disclosing the disability can be seen as a positive and works to put others at ease as to the condition of the disabled individual.
Price Dispersion, Inflation, and Welfare

We examine the implications of inflation for both price dispersion and welfare in a monetary search economy. In our economy, if the degree of buyers' incomplete information about prices is fixed, both price dispersion and real prices are increasing in inflation. As the inflation rate approaches the Friedman rule, both price dispersion and welfare losses vanish. If households choose the number of prices to observe, then the optimal inflation rate may exceed the Friedman rule as inflation induces search and, up to a point, raises welfare by eroding market power.
Characterizing User Behavior and Network Performance in a Public Wireless LAN

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How money priming affects consumers in an advertising context: the role of product conspicuousness and consumers’ signalling needs

ABSTRACT Effects of money priming on basic psychological processes are well established in the literature. However, research that investigates money priming in an advertising context is scarce. This article presents two empirical studies examining consumer reactions after being primed with money and exposed to advertisements presenting either conspicuous or non-conspicuous products. Consumer reactions were investigated with respect to their attitude towards the ad, product evaluation and signalling needs. The findings indicate that the evaluation of a conspicuous product, and the respective ad promoting it, benefit from money priming while the evaluation of a non-conspicuous product is not affected. Moreover, money priming elicits signalling needs in situations where consumers are confronted with conspicuous products. Our moderated mediation models show that these signalling needs mediate the positive effects of money priming in conspicuous situations.
The Effects of Low-Valued Transactions on the Quality of U.S. International Export Estimates, 1994-1998

This paper uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM) to examine the effects that a growth of low-valued transactions likely has on the quality of export estimates provided in the U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services (FT-990) series. These transactions, valued at less than $2,500, do not legally require the filing of export declarations. As a result, they are often not captured in the administrative records data used to construct FT-990 estimates. By comparing industry-level estimates created from the ASM to related FT-990 estimates, this paper estimates that the undercounting of low-valued transactions in the FT-990 export series increases by roughly $30 billion over the period of 1994-1997. It also finds that regression analysis provides little insight into the undercounting issue as results are primarily driven by industries whose contributions to total manufacturing exports are small.