Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systematic Review of the Relationship between Vitamin D and Parkinson’s Disease

Background: Although vitamin D may have both protective and symptomatic effects in Parkinson’s disease (PD), the evidence is scarce and not well understood. Also, 25-hydroxyvitamin D (vitamin D) is suggested to play a neuroprotective and neurotrophic role in the brain. Therefore, this review investigates the relationship between vitamin D and PD. Objective: Investigate the evidence for a relationship between vitamin D and PD by summarizing observational and interventional studies in humans, as well as relevant experimental studies. Methods: A systematic search was made in the Medline, Cochrane and Embase databases (from inception to March 2014). All identified titles were independently evaluated by two reviewers. Articles were selected based on the presence of PD-related outcome data. Included were observational studies (including genetic studies) and interventional studies in humans, as well as relevant animal studies. Results: A total of 20 studies (14 observational, 1 interventional and 5 rodent studies) were selected for analysis. Eight observational studies showed that serum 25(OH) D levels tend to be low in PD. One observational study indicated that low serum 25(OH) D may worsen automatic postural responses and one interventional study suggested that vitamin D supplementation can prevent worsening (based on the Hoehn and Yahr rating scale). Studies in rodent models of PD showed a protective effect of vitamin D treatment on dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. Results of genetic studies on the association between vitamin D receptor polymorphisms and the risk of PD were contradictory. Conclusion: The literature supports possible protective and symptomatic effects of vitamin D in PD. However, more observational and interventional studies in humans are needed to confirm and further elucidate the suggested beneficial effect of vitamin D on PD.
Coordination on egalitarian Networks from Asymmetric Relations in a Social Game of chicken

We present a model of social interaction in which actors choose their partners and play the Chicken Game with them. In contrast to most previous models of the coevolution of games and networks, we assume that the actors can employ different actions against different partners. This allows us to derive two different solutions to the coordination and asymmetry problems in the game: egalitarian stationary conventions (based on indirect reciprocity at the network level) and alternating conventions (based on direct reciprocity in dyads). We derive predictions on the occurrence of the possible convention structures and test our theoretical findings in a computerized experiment. The experimental results indicate that the egalitarian conventions indeed emerge and persist and that the alternating conventions are much more likely than the stationary ones. However, although egalitarian in terms of payoffs, the convention structures tend to have hierarchical action distributions.
A New Crested Pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Spain: The First European Tapejarid (Pterodactyloidea: Azhdarchoidea)

Background The Tapejaridae is a group of unusual toothless pterosaurs characterized by bizarre cranial crests. From a paleoecological point of view, frugivorous feeding habits have often been suggested for one of its included clades, the Tapejarinae. So far, the presence of these intriguing flying reptiles has been unambiguously documented from Early Cretaceous sites in China and Brazil, where pterosaur fossils are less rare and fragmentary than in similarly-aged European strata. Methodology/Principal Findings Europejara olcadesorum gen. et sp. nov. is diagnosed by a unique combination of characters including an unusual caudally recurved dentary crest. It represents the oldest known member of Tapejaridae and the oldest known toothless pterosaur. The new taxon documents the earliest stage of the acquisition of this anatomical feature during the evolutionary history of the Pterodactyloidea. This innovation may have been linked to the development of new feeding strategies. Conclusion/Significance The discovery of Europejara in the Barremian of the Iberian Peninsula reveals an earlier and broader global distribution of tapejarids, suggesting a Eurasian origin of this group. It adds to the poorly known pterosaur fauna of the Las Hoyas locality and contributes to a better understanding of the paleoecology of this Konservat-Lagerstätte. Finally, the significance of a probable contribution of tapejarine tapejarids to the early angiosperm dispersal is discussed.
Food Price Subsidies and Nutrition: Evidence from State Reforms to India’s Public Distribution System

We investigate whether food price subsidies affect household nutrition using a dramatic expansion of the availability of subsidized rice in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh in the early 2000s. Households in Chhattisgarh improved their nutritional intake relative to households in districts bordering the state as the availability of subsidized rice expanded. This increase is driven by households most likely to be eligible for rice subsidies, and we do not find evidence that households least likely to be eligible changed their diet. These results differ from recent studies suggesting that food subsidies may have little effect on nutrition.
Gamma Oscillations and Neural Field DCMs Can Reveal Cortical Excitability and Microstructure

This paper shows how gamma oscillations can be combined with neural population models and dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to distinguish among alternative hypotheses regarding cortical excitability and microstructure. This approach exploits inter-subject variability and trial-specific effects associated with modulations in the peak frequency of gamma oscillations. Neural field models are used to evaluate model evidence and obtain parameter estimates using invasive and non-invasive gamma recordings. Our overview comprises two parts: in the first part, we use neural fields to simulate neural activity and distinguish the effects of post synaptic filtering on predicted responses in terms of synaptic rate constants that correspond to different timescales and distinct neurotransmitters. We focus on model predictions of conductance and convolution based field models and show that these can yield spectral responses that are sensitive to biophysical properties of local cortical circuits like synaptic kinetics and filtering; we also consider two different mechanisms for this filtering: a nonlinear mechanism involving specific conductances and a linear convolution of afferent firing rates producing post synaptic potentials. In the second part of this paper, we use neural fields quantitatively —to fit empirical data recorded during visual stimulation. We present two studies of spectral responses obtained from the visual cortex during visual perception experiments: in the first study, MEG data were acquired during a task designed to show how activity in the gamma band is related to visual perception, while in the second study, we exploited high density electrocorticographic (ECoG) data to study the effect of varying stimulus contrast on cortical excitability and gamma peak frequency.
Evaluating Dental Students’ Preferences of the Current Assessment Methods Used in Dental Education and their Impact on Learning Approaches

by Hanadi M. Alenezi University of the Pacific 2018 Assessment is a critical component of the educational experience. The purpose of this study was to examine dental students’ assessment preferences and their relation to students’ approaches to learning. The study also investigates the impact of gender, age, GPA and class level on dental students’ assessment preferences. Two hundred sixteen dental students at University of the Pacific Arthur Dugoni School of Dentistry have completed a self-reported 67-item questionnaire. Open-ended questions requiring long answers were the least preferred assessment method as perceived by the dental students, while multiple-choice questions are the most preferred assessment method. Deep approach to learning was significantly and positively correlated with oral test, alternative test, concept map, open-ended questions and questions that require higher order thinking. Surface approach to learning, however, was not significantly correlated with any assessment type. Age, gender, GPA and class level all have significant impact on dental students’ assessments preferences.
Development and Validation of the Tibetan Primary Care Assessment Tool

Objective. To develop a primary care assessment tool in Tibetan area and assess the primary care quality among different healthcare settings. Methods. Primary care assessment tool-Tibetan version (PCAT-T) was developed to measure seven primary care domains. Data from a cross-sectional survey of 1386 patients was used to conduct validity and reliability analysis of PCAT-T. Analysis of variance was used to conduct comparison of primary care quality among different healthcare settings. Results. A 28-item PCAT-T was constructed which included seven multi-item scales and two single-item scales. All of multi-item scales achieved good internal consistency and item-total correlations. Scaling assumptions tests were well satisfied. The full range of possible scores was observed for all scales, except first contact and continuity. Compared with prefecture hospital (77.42) and county hospital (82.01), township health center achieved highest primary care quality total score (86.64). Conclusions. PCAT-T is a valid and reliable tool to measure patients' experience of primary care in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Township health center has the best primary care performance compared with other healthcare settings, and township health center should play a key role in providing primary care in Tibet.
The disruption opportunity

Disruptive innovation has usually been considered by established businesses as an attack that must be met through defensive measures. And indeed, disruptive technologies and business models have toppled many established industry leaders and will likely continue to do so. The real story behind disruptive innovation, however, is not one of destruction, but of its opposite: In every industry changed by disruption, the net effect has been total market growth. Moreover, disruption can be a powerful avenue for growth through new market discovery for incumbents as well as for upstarts. There are several keys to the successful navigation of this growth path. The first is recognizing that disruption is not an immediate phenomenon ? it can take years and even decades before the upstart business encroaches heavily on the established market. The second is finding the new customers who are eager to be served by the disruption. The third key is building an organization that is capable of serving the new customers. The author explains each aspect in detail, drawing on extensive research involving online newspapers, minicomputers, cardiology and semiconductors.
Occurrence of Surface Active Agents in the Environment

Due to the specific structure of surfactants molecules they are applied in different areas of human activity (industry, household). After using and discharging from wastewater treatment plants as effluent stream, surface active agents (SAAs) are emitted to various elements of the environment (atmosphere, waters, and solid phases), where they can undergo numerous physic-chemical processes (e.g., sorption, degradation) and freely migrate. Additionally, SAAs present in the environment can be accumulated in living organisms (bioaccumulation), what can have a negative effect on biotic elements of ecosystems (e.g., toxicity, disturbance of endocrine equilibrium). They also cause increaseing solubility of organic pollutants in aqueous phase, their migration, and accumulation in different environmental compartments. Moreover, surfactants found in aerosols can affect formation and development of clouds, which is associated with cooling effect in the atmosphere and climate changes. The environmental fate of SAAs is still unknown and recognition of this problem will contribute to protection of living organisms as well as preservation of quality and balance of various ecosystems. This work contains basic information about surfactants and overview of pollution of different ecosystems caused by them (their classification and properties, areas of use, their presence, and behavior in the environment).
A multiview face identification model with no geometric constraints

Face identification systems relying on local descriptors are increasingly used because of their perceived robustness with respect to occlusions and to global geometrical deformations. Descriptors of this type - based on a set of oriented Gaussian derivative filters - are used in our identification system. In this paper, we explore a pose-invariant multiview face identification system that does not use explicit geometrical information. The basic idea of the approach is to find discriminant features to describe a face across different views. A boosting procedure is used to select features out of a large feature pool of local features collected from the positive training examples. We describe experiments on well-known, though small, face databases with excellent recognition rate
Social and Economic Characteristics of Street Youth by Gender and Level of Street Involvement in Eldoret, Kenya

Background Street-connected youth are a neglected and vulnerable population, particularly in resource-constrained settings. The development of interventions and supports for this population requires insight into how they live. This study describes the social and economic characteristics of a convenience sample of street youth (SY) in Eldoret, Kenya. Methods Participants were eligible if they were aged 12–21, living in Eldoret, spending days only (part-time), or nights and days on the street (full-time) and able and willing to consent or assent. Data were collected using a standardized interview conducted in English or Kiswahili. Binary dependent variables were having been arrested and/or jailed, and first priority for spending money (food vs. other). Nominal categorical dependent variables included major source of support, and major reason for being street-involved. Multivariable analysis used logistic regression models to examine the association of gender and level of street-involvement with social and economic factors of interest adjusting for age and length of time on the street. Data were analyzed using SAS 9.3. Results Of the 200 SY enrolled, 41% were female, mean age of 16.3 years; 71% were on the street full-time, and 29% part-time. Compared with part-time SY, full-time SY were more likely to have been arrested (Adjusted Odds Ratio [AOR]: 2.33, 95% Confidence Interval [95%CI]:1.01–5.35), name food as their first spending priority (AOR: 2.57, 95%CI:1.03–6.45), have left home due to violence (AOR: 5.54, 95%CI: 1.67–18.34), and more likely to report friends on the street as a major source of support (AOR: 3.59, 95% CI: 1.01–12.82). Compared with females, males were more likely to have ever been arrested (AOR: 2.66, 95%CI:1.14–6.18), and to have ever been jailed (AOR: 3.22, 95%CI:1.47–7.02). Conclusions These results suggest a high degree of heterogeneity and vulnerability among SY in this setting. There is an urgent need for interventions taking into consideration these characteristics.
Measuring Well-being in the Functioning Space

This paper explores the possibility of a multidimensional analysis of deprivation and inequality by adopting the specific theoretical perspective of the “capability approach” proposed by Amartya Sen. The purpose is to assess the operational content of the approach, i.e. the empirical methods to measure functionings and capabilities. Some critical points of the capability approach and different strategies for its empirical application are investigated in detail. In the light of the difficulties encountered in providing practical solutions, it is suggested that the analysis can be fruitfully limited to functionings, possibly appropriately “refined”. The practical problems are further examined in an exploratory application to Italian data. * Contact address: Andrea Brandolini, Bank of Italy, Research Department, via Nazionale 91, 00184 Roma, Italy. Phone: +39 06 47923568. Fax: +39 06 47923720. Email: brandolini.andrea@insedia.interbusiness. it. We are very grateful to Tony Atkinson, François Bourguignon, Lars Osberg and Amartya Sen for invaluable comments and suggestions, although none of them is to be held responsible for the conclusions reached in the paper. We also benefited from comments from participants in seminars at Syracuse University, the World Bank, the Athens University of Economics and Business and the University of Siena, as well as from participants in the 12th World Congress of the International Economic Association and the 26th General Conference of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of Italy.
The-Latrotoxin Mutant LTXN 4 C Enhances Spontaneous and Evoked Transmitter Release in CA 3 Pyramidal Neurons

-Latrotoxin (LTX) stimulates vesicular exocytosis by at least two mechanisms that include (1) receptor binding–stimulation and (2) membrane pore formation. Here, we use the toxin mutant LTX N4C to selectively study the receptor-mediated actions of LTX. LTX N4C binds to both LTX receptors (latrophilin and neurexin) and greatly enhances the frequency of spontaneous and miniature EPSCs recorded from CA3 pyramidal neurons in hippocampal slice cultures. The effect of LTX N4C is reversible and is not attenuated by La 3 that is known to block LTX pores. On the other hand, LTX N4C action, which requires extracellular Ca 2 , is inhibited by thapsigargin, a drug depleting intracellular Ca 2 stores, by 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate, a blocker of inositol(1,4,5)-trisphosphate-induced Ca 2 release, and by U73122, a phospholipase C inhibitor. Furthermore, measurements using a fluorescent Ca 2 indicator directly demonstrate that LTX N4C increases presynaptic, but not dendritic, free Ca 2 concentration; this Ca 2 rise is blocked by thapsigargin, suggesting, together with electrophysiological data, that the receptor-mediated action of LTX N4C involves mobilization of Ca 2 from intracellular stores. Finally, in contrast to wild-type LTX, which inhibits evoked synaptic transmission probably attributable to pore formation, LTX N4C actually potentiates synaptic currents elicited by electrical stimulation of afferent fibers. We suggest that the mutant LTX , lacking the ionophore-like activity of wild-type LTX, activates a presynaptic receptor and stimulates Ca 2 release from intracellular stores, leading to the enhancement of synaptic vesicle exocytosis.
Gender Differences in Conflict Resolution Styles (CRS) in Different Roles: A Systematic Review

A systematic review aimed at bringing together empirical evidences of conflict resolution styles used by men and women was carried out. It consisted of 28 published studies as well as four indigenous dissertations obtained from searching relevant databases. The review suggested that in home setting, women and men both collaborated while resolving conflicts, with men being more competitive. At workplace, gender differences diminished, with men or women being more dominating as managers, and more accommodating as subordinates. This is indicative of the significance of the power, role and setting in determination of the conflict resolution style. Unexplained directions of the empirical research (i.e., situations, types of conflicts, functions, effects and personality traits) as determinants of CRS have been discussed. Moreover, the outcome (i.e., satisfaction or distress, effectiveness and hostility) can particularly be assessed to ascertain constructive or destructive conflict resolution styles.
Plant species recognition using spatial correlation between the leaf margin and the leaf salient points

In this paper, we propose an automatic approach for plant species identification, based on the visual information provided by the plant leaves. More precisely, we consider two sources of information: the leaf margin and the leaf salient points. We investigate two shape context based descriptors: the first one describes the leaf boundary while the second descriptor represents the spatial correlation between salient points of the leaf and its margin. We also study the performance of the fusion of these two descriptors on the Image-CLEF 2011 and 2012 leaf datasets. Experiments show the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed method.
Detection of the staphylococcal enterotoxin D-like gene from staphylococcal food poisoning isolates over the last two decades in Tokyo

The plasmid is a very well-known mobile genetic element that participates in the acquisition of virulence genes, such as staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs), via horizontal transfer. SEs are emetic toxins and causative agents in staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP). We herein identified the types of plasmids harbored by seven SFP isolates and examined their production of plasmid-related SE/SEl to determine whether the new types of plasmid-related SE or SE-like (SEl) toxins (i.e. SElJ and SER) were involved in SFP. These isolates harbored pIB485-like plasmids, and all, except for one isolate, produced SElJ and SER. The amount of SER produced by each isolate accounted for the highest or second highest percentage of the total amount of SE/SEl produced. These new types of plasmid-related SE/SEls as well as classical SE may play a role in SFP. The seven isolates were classified into two SED-production types; a high SED-production type (>500 ng/ml) and no SED-production type. A nucleotide sequencing analysis revealed that three plasmids harbored by the SED-non-producing isolates had a single-base deletion in the sed gene with a resulting stop codon (from 233 amino acids of the intact SED to 154 amino acids of the mutant SED (mSED)). A real-time reverse transcription-PCR analysis showed that the mRNA of the msed gene was transcribed in the isolates. If the msed gene was translated as a protein, mSED may act as an emetic toxin instead of intact SED.
A novel spatial approach for classification of high-resolution image scene

In this paper, a novel multi-resolution multi-scale local binary pattern (M2LBP) approach for high-resolution remote sensing image scene classification is presented, characterizing the dominant spatial features in multiple resolution and multiple scale manner. In the proposed M2LBP approach, two different but complementary types of descriptors, the pixel value and radial difference, are utilized to extract both microstructure and macrostructure features from land use and land cover (LULC) classes with high-resolution remote sensing image scene. The proposed approach is extensively validated on two challenging LULC scene datasets and experimental results show that it has superior classification performance over several state-of-the-art classification methods.