Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of Sleep and Sleep Deprivation on Ictal and Interictal Epileptiform Activity

Sleep is probably one of the most important physiological factors implicated both in epileptic seizures and interictal epileptiform discharges. The neurophysiology concerning the relationship between sleep and epilepsy is well described in the literature; however, the pathological events that culminate in the seizures are poorly explored. The present paper intends to make a rigorous approach to the main mechanisms involved in this reciprocal relation. Knowledge of sleep and sleep deprivation effects in epilepsy stands as crucial in the understanding of how seizures are produced, their possible lines of treatment, and future research.
Regulation of NK Cell-Mediated Cytotoxicity by the Adaptor Protein 3BP21

Stimulation of lymphocytes through multichain immune recognition receptors activates multiple signaling pathways. Adaptor proteins play an important role in integrating these pathways by their ability to simultaneously bind multiple signaling components. Recently, the 3BP2 adaptor protein has been shown to positively regulate the transcriptional activity of T cells. However, the mechanisms by which signaling components are involved in this regulation remain unclear, as does a potential role for 3BP2 in the regulation of other cellular functions. Here we describe a positive regulatory role for 3BP2 in NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity. We also identify p95vav and phospholipase C-γ isoforms as binding partners of 3BP2. Our results show that tyrosine-183 of 3BP2 is specifically involved in this interaction and that this residue critically influences 3BP2-dependent function. Therefore, 3BP2 regulates NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity by mobilizing key downstream signaling effectors.
Excitation of Oscillations in the Magnetic Network on the Sun

We examine the excitation of oscillations in the magnetic network of the Sun through the footpoint motion of photospheric magnetic flux tubes located in intergranular lanes. The motion is derived from a time series of high-resolution G-band and continuum filtergrams using an object-tracking technique. We model the response of the flux tube to the footpoint motion in terms of the Klein-Gordon equation, which is solved analytically as an initial value problem for transverse (kink) waves. We compute the wave energy flux in upward-propagating transverse waves. In general we find that the injection of energy into the chromosphere occurs in short-duration pulses, which would lead to a time variability in chromospheric emission that is incompatible with observations. Therefore, we consider the effects of turbulent convective flows on flux tubes in intergranular lanes. The turbulent flows are simulated by adding high-frequency motions (periods 5-50 s) with an amplitude of 1 km s-1. The latter are simulated by adding random velocity fluctuations to the observationally determined velocities. In this case, we find that the energy flux is much less intermittent and can in principle carry adequate energy for chromospheric heating.
Vitamin E protects human lymphocytes from genotoxicity induced by oxaliplatin

Abstract Oxaliplatin is a platinum-based anticancer drug that has been shown to be genotoxic to the normal cells. Vitamin E is a potent antioxidant that may protect and enhance the repair of the damaged DNA. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the genotoxic effect of oxaliplatin on DNA by measuring the frequency of chromosomal aberrations (CAs) and sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs) in cultured human lymphocytes. We also attempted to explore the potential protective effect of vitamin E on chromosomal damage induced by oxaliplatin. Results showed that oxaliplatin significantly increased the frequency of CAs (p < 0.001) and SCEs (p < 0.001) as compared to control. This chromosomal damage, caused by oxaliplatin, was significantly decreased by pretreatment of cells with vitamin E. Moreover, the results showed that oxaliplatin caused a significant reduction in the cell kinetic parameters, the mitotic index (MI) and the proliferative index (PI). However, vitamin E did not affect this reduction in the MI and PI. Therefore, we conclude that oxaliplatin is genotoxic, and vitamin E can prevent the chromosomal damage induced by oxaliplatin but it has no effect on oxaliplatin-induced cytotoxicity.
Firing rate and theta‐phase coding by hippocampal pyramidal neurons during ‘space clamping’

In the hippocampus, spatial representation of the environment has been suggested to be coded by either the firing rate of pyramidal cell assemblies or the relative timing of the action potentials during the theta EEG cycle. Here, we used a behavioural ‘space clamp’ method, which involved the confinement of the actively running animal in a defined position in space (running wheel) to examine how ‘spatial’ and other inputs affect firing rate and timing of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells and interneurons. Nineteen per cent of the recorded CA1 pyramidal cells were selectively active while the rat was running in the wheel in a given direction (‘wheel’ cells). Spatial rotation of the apparatus showed that selective discharge of pyramidal cells in the wheel was under the combined influence of distal and apparatus cues. During steady running, both discharge rate and theta phase were constant. Rotation of the wheel apparatus resulted in a shift of both firing rate and preferred theta phase. The discharge frequency of ‘wheel’ cells increased threefold (on average) with increasing running velocity. In contrast, change in running speed had relatively little effect on the theta phase‐related discharge of ‘wheel’ cells. Our findings indicate that mechanisms that regulate rate and phase of spikes are overlapping but not necessarily identical.
Core Knowledge and the Emergence of Symbols: The Case of Maps

Map reading is unique to humans but is present in people of diverse cultures, at ages as young as 4 years old. Here, we explore the nature and sources of this ability and ask both what geometric information young children use in maps and what nonsymbolic systems are associated with their map-reading performance. Four-year-old children were given two tests of map-based navigation (placing an object within a small three-dimensional [3D] surface layout at a position indicated on a two-dimensional [2D] map), one focused on distance relations and the other on angle relations. Children also were given two nonsymbolic tasks, testing their use of geometry for navigation (a reorientation task) and for visual form analysis (a deviant-detection task). Although children successfully performed both map tasks, their performance on the two map tasks was uncorrelated, providing evidence for distinct abilities to represent distance and angle on 2D maps of 3D surface layouts. In contrast, performance on each map task was associated with performance on one of the two nonsymbolic tasks: Map-based navigation by distance correlated with sensitivity to the shape of the environment in the reorientation task, whereas map-based navigation by angle correlated with sensitivity to the shapes of 2D forms and patterns in the deviant-detection task. These findings suggest links between one uniquely human, emerging symbolic ability, geometric map use, and two core systems of geometry.
Non-Projective Dependency Parsing using Spanning Tree Algorithms

We formalize weighted dependency parsing as searching for maximum spanning trees (MSTs) in directed graphs. Using this representation, the parsing algorithm of Eisner (1996) is sufficient for searching over all projective trees in O(n3) time. More surprisingly, the representation is extended naturally to non-projective parsing using Chu-Liu-Edmonds (Chu and Liu, 1965; Edmonds, 1967) MST algorithm, yielding an O(n2) parsing algorithm. We evaluate these methods on the Prague Dependency Treebank using online large-margin learning techniques (Crammer et al., 2003; McDonald et al., 2005) and show that MST parsing increases efficiency and accuracy for languages with non-projective dependencies.
Inverse problems for regular variation of linear filters, a cancellation property for σ-finite measures and identification of stable laws

We study a group of related problems: the extent to which the presence of regular variation in the tail of certain �-finite measures at the output of a linear filter determines the corresponding regular variation of a measure at the input to the filter. This turns out to be related to the presence of a particular cancellation property in �-finite measures, which, in turn, is related to the uniqueness of the solution of certain functional equations. The techniques we develop are applied to weighted sums of iid random variables, to products of independent random variables, and to stochastic integrals with
Mechanisms of protection against stroke in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats.

The purpose of this study was to examine mechanisms by which sympathetic nerves protect against cerebral hemorrhage and ischemic infarction (i.e., "stroke") in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRSP). When unilateral superior cervical ganglionectomy was performed in SHRSP at 1 mo of age, development of cerebral vascular hypertrophy was inhibited and stroke developed only in the denervated hemisphere in 79% of the rats (P less than 0.05). Because "trophic" effects of sympathetic nerves on vascular growth may be less in older animals, unilateral sympathetic denervation was performed in SHRSP at 3 mo of age. The incidence of stroke was similar in the innervated and denervated hemispheres. In another group of rats that had unilateral ganglionectomy at 1 mo, we examined regulation of cerebral blood flow (CBF) when the rats were 4-5 mo of age, before neurologic signs of stroke. CBF, measured with microspheres, was similar in the innervated and denervated hemispheres during control conditions and during maximal vasodilatation produced by bicuculline. In contrast, when mean arterial pressure was raised acutely, CBF increased more in the denervated hemisphere than in the innervated hemisphere. We conclude that 1) in contrast to effects of denervation at 1 mo, sympathetic denervation at 3 mo of age (when trophic effects are less) does not lead to stroke, and 2) chronic denervation impairs the cerebral vasoconstrictor response to acute increases in arterial pressure.
Race in the Making

A converter for use in a cable television system and interconnected between a transmission path and a television receiver for selecting any one of a plurality of television signals carried by the transmission path. The converter includes a broadband section for translating all received television signals to intermediate frequencies higher than the frequencies of the received television signals such that no images appear within the band of input signals. A selected one of the television signals at a predetermined higher intermediate frequency is then translated by a narrow band section to a lower frequency of a predetermined television channel for reception by the television receiver.
Hubble diagram dispersion from large‐scale structure

We consider the effects of large structures in the Universe on the Hubble diagram. This problem is treated non-linearly by considering a Swiss Cheese model of the Universe in which underdense voids are represented as negatively curved regions of space-time. Exact expressions for luminosity distances and redshifts are used to investigate the non-linear effects of structure on the magnitudes of astrophysical sources. It is found that the intervening voids we consider, between the observer and source, produce changes in apparent magnitude of less than 0.012. Sources inside voids, however, can be affected considerably at redshifts below z ~ 0.5. By averaging observable quantities over many randomly generated distributions of voids we find that the presence of these structures has the effect of introducing a dispersion around the mean, which itself can be displaced the background value. Observers in an inhomogeneous universe, who take averages of observables along many different lines of sight, may then introduce systematic biases, and underestimate errors, if these effects are not taken into account. Estimates of the potential size of these effects are made using data from simulated large-scale structure.
Indoor Semantic Segmentation using depth information

This work addresses multi-class segmentation of indoor scenes with RGB-D inputs. While this area of research has gained much attention recently, most works still rely on hand-crafted features. In contrast, we apply a multiscale convolutional network to learn features directly from the images and the depth information. We obtain state-of-the-art on the NYU-v2 depth dataset with an accuracy of 64.5%. We illustrate the labeling of indoor scenes in videos sequences that could be processed in real-time using appropriate hardware such as an FPGA.
Educational Services for Students with Mental Retardation in Kenya.

Research pertaining to issues on educational services for individuals with disabilities in developing countries is scarce. The purpose of this article is to two fold: first, to contribute to the already existing literature, and, secondly, and perhaps more importantly, to provide a foundation for prospective readers to better understand literature regarding educational services for students with mental retardation. This article guides the reader to understand the perspectives towards students with mental retardation, discusses the definition and causes of this condition, and discusses issues pertaining to the identification, assessment and evaluation of these students in Kenya. The core of the article contains a discussion of the various placement options available for this population along with the curriculum in operation in the various settings. Existing barriers to effectively serving this population in Kenya and in other developing countries is also discussed.
Homological algebra in bivariant K-theory and other triangulated categories. II

We use homological ideals in triangulated categories to get a sufficient criterion for a pair of subcategories in a triangulated category to be complementary. We apply this criterion to construct the Baum-Connes assembly map for locally compact groups and torsion-free discrete quantum groups. Our methods are related to the abstract version of the Adams spectral sequence by Brinkmann and Christensen.
Using Ultrasound Measurements For Real-Time Process Control Of Pipelines And Process Equipment Subjected To Corrosion And/Or Erosion

Corrosion and erosion remain two key issues in petroleum production. In the last few years, there has been an increasing demand for online process control where the rate of metal loss may be monitored. From an ultrasound perspective these challenges reduce to measuring the wallthickness over time. By combining permanently installed sensors, low noise measurements and temperature compensation, lab experiments have shown that it is possible to detect changes in wall thickness on the sub-micrometer scale. The results suggest that ultrasound technology is well suited for real-time corrosion monitoring applications, and that it may be used for inhibitor control and optimization as well.
Suppressor T cells activated in a primary in vitro response to non- major histocompatibility alloantigens

Normal mouse spleen cells are not capable of mounting a primary cytotoxic T lymphocyte (Tc) response to non-H-2 alloantigens in vitro, although a good secondary H-2-restricted response is observable after in vivo immunization of the responder animals. Suppressor cells are generated in such a primary responses provided a Mls incompatibility exists between the responder and stimulator. These suppressors are not antigen specific, are Thy-1+, Lyt-1+, 2-, I-J-, and are highly radiosensitive. The suppressor cell precursors in normal spleen express the same phenotype. These suppressor cells are probably implicated in the lack of a primary Tc response in a primary mixed lymphocyte reaction across non-H-2 incompatibilities that include an Mls difference.
Evolution of Decisions in Population Games with Sequentially Searching Individuals

In many social situations, individuals endeavor to find the single best possible partner, but are constrained to evaluate the candidates in sequence. Examples include the search for mates, economic partnerships, or any other long-term ties where the choice to interact involves two parties. Surprisingly, however, previous theoretical work on mutual choice problems focuses on finding equilibrium solutions, while ignoring the evolutionary dynamics of decisions. Empirically, this may be of high importance, as some equilibrium solutions can never be reached unless the population undergoes radical changes and a sufficient number of individuals change their decisions simultaneously. To address this question, we apply a mutual choice sequential search problem in an evolutionary game-theoretical model that allows one to find solutions that are favored by evolution. As an example, we study the influence of sequential search on the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation. For this, we focus on the classic snowdrift game and the prisoner’s dilemma game.
Management of tricuspid valve regurgitation: Position statement of the European Society of Cardiology Working Groups of Cardiovascular Surgery and Valvular Heart Disease

Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) is a very frequent manifestation of valvular heart disease. It may be due to the primary involvement of the valve or secondary to pulmonary hypertension or to the left-sided heart valve disease (most commonly rheumatic and involving the mitral valve). The pathophysiology of secondary TR is complex and is intrinsically connected to the anatomy and function of the right ventricle. A systematic multimodality approach to diagnosis and assessment (based not only on the severity of the TR but also on the assessment of annular size, RV function and degree of pulmonary hypertension) is, therefore, essential. Once considered non-important, treatment of secondary TR is currently viewed as an essential concomitant procedure at the time of mitral (and, less frequently, aortic valve) surgery. Although the indications for surgical management of severe TR are now generally accepted (Class I), controversy persists concerning the role of intervention for moderate TR. However, there is a trend for intervention in this setting, especially at the time of surgery for left-sided heart valve disease and/or in patients with significant tricuspid annular dilatation (Class IIa). Currently, surgery remains the best approach for the interventional treatment of TR. Percutaneous tricuspid valve intervention (both repair and replacement) is still in its infancy but may become a reliable option in future, especially for high-risk patients with isolated primary TR or with secondary TR related to advanced left-sided heart valve disease.
Assessing Systolic Time-Intervals from Heart Sound: A Feasibility Study

Systolic time intervals are highly correlated to fundamental cardiac functions. In this paper we investigate the feasibility of using heart sound (HS) to accurately measure the opening and closing moments of the aortic valve, since these are crucial moments to define the main systolic timings of the heart cycle, i.e. the pre-ejection period (PEP) and the left ventricular ejection time (LVET). We introduce a HS model, which is applied to define several features that provide clear markers to identify these moments in the HS. Using these features and a comparative analysis with registered echocardiographies from 17 subjects, the results achieved in this study suggest that HS can be used to accurately estimate LVET and PEP.
On The Brink Of Chaos : Study Of Fermi-Pasta-Ulam Effects In 2 D

This work represents an extended computational study of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam experiment for the dynamical nature of energy transfer among normal modes. A 2D lattice system with 40 particles is placed on a torus, where each particle is allowed to interact with its six nearest neighbors under the Lennard-Jones potential force law. Trajectories of the particles are analyzed through a Fourier transform method that calculates the amplitude and phase of each normal mode as a function of time. Results of the normal mode analyses and basic applications of the Lyapunov exponents show that Fermi-Pasta-Ulam effects are absent at small and large extremes of amplitude displacements. At an intermediate amplitude displacement, quasi-periodic behavior of the phase is seen initially and a secondary normal mode dominates the first one at irregular intervals. However, contrary to prediction, the system eventually reaches limited thermalization. This behavior resembles but is not characteristic of classical FPU effects.
Environmental factors and semen quality.

OBJECTIVES An increasing number of reports suggest that chemical and physical agents in the environment, introduced and spread by human activity, may affect male fertility in humans. This article aims at evaluating the impact of environmental exposures (pesticides, phthalates, PCBs, air pollution, trihalomethanes (THMs), mobile phones) on semen quality, by reviewing most recent published literature. MATERIALS AND METHODS Epidemiological studies focusing on exposure to environmental factors and semen quality for the last ten years were identified by a search of the Pubmed, Medline, Ebsco, Agricola and Toxnet literature bases. RESULTS The results from the presented studies suggest that there are strong and rather consistent indications that some pesticides besides DBCP (e.g. DDT/Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene [DDE], ethylenedibromide, organophosphates) affects sperm count. PCBs are detrimental to sperm motility. In case of air pollution, studies suggest a link between ambient air pollutants and various semen characteristics. Additional research is needed to corroborate this association and to establish the causal agents. Results of few studies on subfertile men demonstrate associations between phthalate levels commonly experienced by the public and impaired sperm quality (impact on sperm concentration, morphology, motility), but the findings have not been corroborated in studies of men from the general population. Mobile phones might adversely affect the quality of semen by decreasing mostly motility but also the sperm counts, viability and morphology. In spite of their consistent results, most of the studies are rather small. Association between exposure to THMs and poor semen quality was not observed. CONCLUSIONS Epidemiological studies suggest awareness of environmental factors which may affect semen quality. In case both of well proven and disputable reproductive and developmental hazards, it is necessary to prevent parental exposure to the agents associated with those hazards.