Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Signaling Regulates β Cell Proliferation in Adult Mice*

A thorough understanding of the signaling pathways involved in the regulation of β cell proliferation is an important initial step in restoring β cell mass in the diabetic patient. Here, we show that epidermal growth factor receptor 1 (EGFR) was significantly up-regulated in the islets of C57BL/6 mice after 50% partial pancreatectomy (PPx), a model for workload-induced β cell proliferation. Specific deletion of EGFR in the β cells of adult mice impaired β cell proliferation at baseline and after 50% PPx, suggesting that the EGFR signaling pathway plays an essential role in adult β cell proliferation. Further analyses showed that β cell-specific depletion of EGFR resulted in impaired expression of cyclin D1 and impaired suppression of p27 after PPx, both of which enhance β cell proliferation. These data highlight the importance of EGFR signaling and its downstream signaling cascade in postnatal β cell growth.
The Effects of Light

Myla and Pru Wolfe blazed a luminous path through childhood, encouraged by their brilliant professor father to follow their bliss. Separated by 5, Myla and Pru bonded intensely in their shared sense of loss, their unquenchable thirst for knowledge and their status as favorite subjects for family friend and photographer Ruth Handel. For a time, Ruth's celebrated photographs-many involving nudity-fired each girl's psyche with a sense of artistic accomplishment. Then, suddenly, their idyll was shattered. 13 years later, Myla, still traumatized and teaching under an alias at a small east-coast college, receives a strange communication that calls her back to her past. Fleeing the one man who's managed to pierce her defenses, she flies home to be told by a lawyer that his anonymous client wishes her to receive a series of packages in measured installments. The packages contain artifacts of Myla's past and ignite a burst of revelations, forcing her to relive-and come to terms with-the awful truth.A novel that speaks of artistic responsibility and triumph over loss, THE EFFECTS OF LIGHT rushes headlong to an ending that is drenched in poignancy. It marks the debut of a remarkable talent.
A CMOS-Compatible, Low-Noise ISFET Based on High Efficiency Ion-Modulated Lateral-Bipolar Conduction

Ion-sensitive, field-effect transistors (ISFET) have been useful biosensors in many applications. However, the signal-to-noise ratio of the ISFET is limited by its intrinsic, low-frequency noise. This paper presents an ISFET capable of utilizing lateral-bipolar conduction to reduce low-frequency noise. With a particular layout design, the conduction efficiency is further enhanced. Moreover, the ISFET is compatible with the standard CMOS technology. All materials above the gate-oxide are removed by simple, die-level post-CMOS process, allowing ions to modulate the lateral-bipolar current directly. By varying the gate-to-bulk voltage, the operation mode of the ISFET is controlled effectively, so is the noise performance measured and compared. Finally, the biasing conditions preferable for different low-noise applications are identified. Under the identified biasing condition, the signal-to-noise ratio of the ISFET as a pH sensor is proved to be improved by more than five times.
Anthropogenic signals recorded in an ice core from Eclipse Icefield, Yukon Territory, Canada

Trends in the annual flux of sulfate and nitrate in a new ice core collected at an elevation of 3017 m on Eclipse Icefield, 45 km northeast of Mt. Logan were examined to determine the effect of anthropogenic activity on precipitation chemistry in the remote northwest North America mid‐troposphere. The annual flux of both sulfate and nitrate at Eclipse began increasing in the 1940s, demonstrating, for the first time, the anthropogenic sulfate and nitrate pollution of the northwest North American Arctic in an ice core from this region. Comparison of the Eclipse record with regional emission estimates for total sulfur and nitrogen oxides suggests that Eurasia is the dominant source of pollutants reaching Eclipse. The available data does not permit a confident assessment of the relative importance of European versus Soviet emissions in producing the observed trends in sulfate and nitrate at Eclipse.
Learning styles and academic achievement among undergraduate medical students in Thailand

Purpose: This study aimed to explore the associations between learning styles and high academic achievement and to ascertain whether the factors associated with high academic achievement differed between preclinical and clinical students. Methods: A survey was conducted among undergraduate medical students in Chiang Mai University, Thailand. The Index of Learning Styles questionnaire was used to assess each student’s learning style across four domains. High academic achievement was defined as a grade point average of at least 3.0. Results: Of the 1,248 eligible medical students, 1,014 (81.3%) participated. Learning styles differed between the preclinical and clinical students in the active/reflective domain. A sequential learning style was associated with high academic achievement in both preclinical and clinical students. A reflective learning style was only associated with high academic achievement among preclinical students. Conclusion: The association between learning styles and academic achievement may have differed between preclinical and clinical students due to different learning content and teaching methods. Students should be encouraged to be flexible in their own learning styles in order to engage successfully with various and changing teaching methods across the curriculum. Instructors should be also encouraged to provide a variety of teaching materials and resources to suit different learning styles.
Simplifying the Welfare Quality assessment protocol for broilers = Vereenvoudiging van het Welfare Quality protocol voor het meten van welzijn bij vleeskuikens

Het doel van het hier beschreven project was om te bepalen of er mogelijkheden zijn om het protocol, zoals omschreven voor vleeskuikens, verder te vereenvoudigen, zodat de benodigde tijd om alle metingen uit te voeren kan worden teruggebracht. Dit bevordert de praktische toepasbaarheid van het protocol.This report describes the results of a study to simplify the Welfare Quality® assessment protocol for broiler chickens.
Isolated Impaired Fasting Glucose and Peripheral Insulin Sensitivity

OBJECTIVE—In a recent consensus statement, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) concluded that individuals with impaired fasting glucose (IFG) have “normal muscle insulin sensitivity. ” To subject this conclusion to further validation, we evaluated the relationship between glucose tolerance categories and peripheral insulin sensitivity in a large nondiabetic population. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—Insulin sensitivity was directly quantified by determining the steady-state plasma glucose (SSPG) concentration during an insulin suppression test in 446 nondiabetic individuals divided into four groups: normal glucose tolerance (NGT, n = 318), isolated IFG (n = 63), isolated impaired glucose tolerance (IGT, n = 33), and combined IFG and IGT (IFG/IGT, n = 32). RESULTS—Insulin sensitivity was significantly different in all three groups with pre-diabetes (IFG, IGT, IFG/IGT) as compared with NGT (P < 0.05). Using tertiles of SSPG concentration in the NGT group as operational definitions of insulin resistance (highest tertile) and insulin sensitivity (lowest tertile), there was considerable heterogeneity within the pre-diabetic groups. Thus, 57% of IFG individuals were insulin resistant, and 13% were insulin sensitive. The IFG/IGT group was most homogeneous, with 94% classified as insulin resistant and only 3% as insulin sensitive. CONCLUSIONS—Peripheral insulin sensitivity varies considerably in nondiabetic individuals, with IFG individuals showing the most heterogeneity within the pre-diabetes group. We believe that this heterogeneity in insulin sensitivity, and the relatively few patients in whom insulin sensitivity has been measured directly in the past, explain the discrepancy between our findings and those of the recent ADA consensus statement.
E-Care Project: A Promising E-Platform for Optimizing Management of Chronic Heart Failure and Other Chronic Diseases

Monitoring patients with heart failure by using telemedicine systems is a potential means for optimizing the management of these patients. The E-care project is developing an "intelligent" communicative platform enabling the home monitoring of patients with New York Heart Association (NYHA) Stage III heart failure using non-invasive sensors. As a result, this platform will assist health care professionals by providing an automated processing of these sensors' transmitted data in order to detect and report signs of cardiac decompensation early.
The Center for Latin American Issues Working Paper Series HOW POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTS AFFECT THE GROWTH OF FIRMS : EVIDENCE FROM SMALL AND LARGE ENTERPRISES IN LATIN AMERICA

This paper used data from firms operating in twenty Latin American countries to evaluate whether firms’ perceptions about the nature and predictability of governments’ regulatory policies, the prevalence of intervention in the domestic economy, and the degree to which corruption served as an obstacle to business activity influenced firms’ growth. The paper also tested whether firms’ size or multinationality influenced managers’ perceptions concerning whether the political environment posed serious obstacles to their business strategies and performance. Our empirical analysis showed that the presence of major regulatory obstacles, government market intervention, and extensive corruption were associated with lower sales growth among firms operating in a country. In addition, the predictability of a government’s policy agenda appeared to be as important to firm performance as the specific regulatory policies that were in place at a given point in time. Moreover, countries’ political environments had a differential effect on small firms and larger firms. Both business regulations and extensive market intervention appeared to pose greater obstacles for larger firms than smaller ones. In contrast, small firms reported more substantial obstacles stemming from political corruption than their larger rivals. Finally, a country’s political environment appeared to have a differential impact on foreign and domestic firms. Foreign firms perceived government policies as more predictable, and perceived fewer obstacles related to domestic political corruption than did domestic firms.
Brain Mechanisms of Serial and Parallel Processing during Dual-Task Performance

The psychological refractory period (PRP) refers to the fact that humans typically cannot perform two tasks at once. Behavioral experiments have led to the proposal that, in fact, peripheral perceptual and motor stages continue to operate in parallel, and that only a central decision stage imposes a serial bottleneck. We tested this model using neuroimaging methods combined with innovative time-sensitive analysis tools. Subjects performed a dual-task visual–auditory paradigm in which a delay of 300 ms was injected into the auditory task either within or outside of the dual-task interference period. Event-related potentials indicated that the first ∼250 ms of processing were insensitive to dual-task interference, and that the PRP was mainly reflected in a delayed global component. By a clustering analysis based on time-resolved functional magnetic resonance imaging, we identified networks with qualitatively different timing properties: sensory areas tracked the objective time of stimulus presentation, a bilateral parietoprefrontal network correlated with the PRP delay, and an extended bilateral network that included bilateral posterior parietal cortex, premotor cortex, supplementary motor area, anterior part of the insula, and cerebellum was shared by both tasks during the extent of dual-task performance. The results provide physiological evidence for the coexistence of serial and parallel processes within a cognitive task.
Aids: Safety, Sexuality and Risk

Preventative measures - Strategies for avoiding the epidemic and perceptions of risk HIV-related discrimination in medical teaching texts Holidays abroad and sexual health risks Sexual behaviour in gay men: towards a sociology of risk Framing difference: sexuality, AIDS and organisation Trials and tribulations: the effectiveness of interventions to prevent HIV Making partnerships work between communities and governments Socially apart youth and AIDS Sex, drugs, intervention and research: from the individual to the social personal responsibility without personal control AIDS, HIV and the culture of certainty Sex, love and HIV: the impact of an HIV positive diagnosis on sexual relationships One of us, one of them, or one of those? The construction of identity and sexuality in relation to HIV/AIDS Sexuality, identity and community Discourses of power and empowerment in the fight against AIDS in Africa.
Testing intersection of XPath expressions under DTDs

XPath expressions play a central role in both querying XML databases and searching for XML data which is distributed over the Web. Our work focuses on XPath query optimization for XML data, which is distributed over several nodes in a database or several nodes on the Web, and which follows a single global schema defined by a DTD, i.e. multiple nodes contain fragments of a global 'virtual' XML document. Whenever the accessible XML content stored in a node is described by an XPath expression, it may be considerably advantageous to search for XML data only on those nodes which contain a relevant fragment of the distributed 'virtual' XML document. To enable this optimization, we present an intersection test for XPath expressions that works on the DTD and on the XPath expressions alone, i.e. it does not require any access to XML fragments. The key idea is to construct a graph containing all paths selected by one XPath expression and to show that none of these paths can be selected by the other XPath expression in any document that is valid according to a given DTD.
Hybrid model of the context dependent vestibulo-ocular reflex: implications for vergence-version interactions

The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is an involuntary eye movement evoked by head movements. It is also influenced by viewing distance. This paper presents a hybrid nonlinear bilateral model for the horizontal angular vestibulo-ocular reflex (AVOR) in the dark. The model is based on known interconnections between saccadic burst circuits in the brainstem and ocular premotor areas in the vestibular nuclei during fast and slow phase intervals of nystagmus. We implemented a viable switching strategy for the timing of nystagmus events to allow emulation of real nystagmus data. The performance of the hybrid model is evaluated with simulations, and results are consistent with experimental observations. The hybrid model replicates realistic AVOR nystagmus patterns during sinusoidal or step head rotations in the dark and during interactions with vergence, e.g., fixation distance. By simply assigning proper nonlinear neural computations at the premotor level, the model replicates all reported experimental observations. This work sheds light on potential underlying neural mechanisms driving the context dependent AVOR and explains contradictory results in the literature. Moreover, context-dependent behaviors in more complex motor systems could also rely on local nonlinear neural computations.
A Novel Anelloviridae Species Detected in Tadarida brasiliensis Bats: First Sequence of a Chiropteran Anellovirus

ABSTRACT Using metagenomic approaches, we identified a novel Torque teno virus from Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) (TT-TbV). The TT-TbV genome and deduced protein sequences share extremely low identity with known anelloviruses. Due to a high degree of phylogenetic divergence, such putative virus could not be allocated into any Anelloviridae genera.
Interactivity maintenance for event synchronization in massive multiplayer online games

Revenues generated by video games typically surpass those provided by the cinematography industry. The pace of development in hardware and software networking technologies is enabling a fast evolution of these kinds of online applications. This large and emerging game market is thus driving researchers and practitioners to develop innovative software techniques that allow game players to enjoy exciting and interactive game experiences, even when modern wireless handheld devices are used. In this scenario, there is a growing demand of distributed gaming architectures that are able to provide support to the development of interactive multiplayer networked game applications. In substance, providing a pleasant experience to players requires a rapid delivery of game actions among the various nodes in the network. Moreover, a high playability degree should be guaranteed independently of users location, utilized device (PC, PDA, cellphone), type of connection (wired, wireless), and number of contemporary players. To distribute all the activities concerned with the management of a game session, the basic idea is that of resorting to a loosely coupled distributed architecture where several servers (named Game State Servers or GSSs) are geographically distributed over the Internet. Each GSS maintains a local, replicated representation of the state of the game. With each new action performed by players connected to a given GSS, the GSS collects the corresponding event, updates the game state and, finally, notifies these updates to each other GSS.
A Comparison of Related and Unrelated Marrow Donors

Objective The purpose of this investigation is to test whether related bone marrow donors experience more distress from marrow donation than volunteer unrelated donors. Method Participants in the study were 77 related and unrelated marrow donors who agreed to complete 11 pre- and 8 postdonation self report questionnaires. Related and unrelated donors were recruited from the Bone Marrow Transplant Programs at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA. Additional unrelated donors were recruited from the American Red Cross-Carolinas and the Heart of America Bone Marrow Donor Registry in Kansas City, MO. Results The 41 unrelated and 36 related marrow donors who participated in this prospective study had similar demographic backgrounds and predonation questionnaire results, although related donors endorsed more items on the Beck Depression Inventory, both before and after marrow harvesting. After marrow donation, related donors reported significantly more pain than unrelated donors (p = .0001). Conclusions It is unlikely that intraoperative events alone could account for the increased pain experienced by related donors. Related donors were more likely to experience moderate to severe physical pain after marrow donation than unrelated donors, on the basis of logistic regression analysis (odds ratio = 7.63; 95% confidence interval 2.74, 23.01).
Modeling of Lossy Curved Surfaces in 3-D FIT/FDTD Techniques

A conformal first-order or Leontovic surface-impedance boundary condition (SIBC) for the modeling of lossy curved surfaces in a Cartesian grid is presented for the finite-integration technique (FIT). Equivalently, the model can be derived using the contour-path formulation of the finite-difference time domain (FDTD) method. The SIBC is based on a lumped-element representation of the impedance combined with a conformal modeling scheme. The validity of the proposed model is evaluated by investigating the quality factors of rectangular, cylindrical and spherical cavity resonators. The convergence rate of the conformal SIBC model is shown to be of second order
Stereotype threat contributes to social difficulties in people with schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE The experience of stereotype threat (where the prospect of conforming to a stereotype, or of being treated in terms of it, becomes self-threatening) affects members of social groups about whom devaluing stereotypes exist. Although a widely endorsed stereotype of schizophrenia concerns social skill impairment, it is unclear whether the experience of stereotype threat impacts social functioning in this group. The purpose of the present study was to test whether people with schizophrenia would perform more poorly in a social setting in which they felt stereotyped as mentally ill. METHODS Thirty individuals with schizophrenia engaged in conversations with two confederates, one of whom they were told knew nothing about them (control conversation), and the other of whom they were told had been informed of their diagnosis (stereotype threat conversation). In reality, neither confederate had been informed of participants' mental health status. RESULTS Although participants with schizophrenia did not perceive any differences in their own social behaviour across the two conditions, their social skill was rated by the confederates as poorer in the stereotype threat conversation on three out of the six measures used. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that social skill difficulties in people with schizophrenia may be exacerbated by their awareness that others know of their diagnosis. These findings have implications for disclosure of mental health status.
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.): Nutrients, bioactive compounds, and potential impact on human health

ABSTRACT Sorghum is the fifth most produced cereal in the world and is a source of nutrients and bioactive compounds for the human diet. We summarize the recent findings concerning the nutrients and bioactive compounds of sorghum and its potential impact on human health, analyzing the limitations and positive points of the studies and proposing directions for future research. Sorghum is basically composed of starch, which is more slowly digested than that of other cereals, has low digestibility proteins and unsaturated lipids, and is a source of some minerals and vitamins. Furthermore, most sorghum varieties are rich in phenolic compounds, especially 3-deoxyanthocyanidins and tannins. The results obtained in vitro and in animals have shown that phenolics compounds and fat soluble compounds (polycosanols) isolated from sorghum benefit the gut microbiota and parameters related to obesity, oxidative stress, inflammation, diabetes, dyslipidemia, cancer, and hypertension. The effects of whole sorghum and its fractions on human health need to be evaluated. In conclusion, sorghum is a source of nutrients and bioactive compounds, especially 3-deoxyanthocyanidins, tannins, and polycosanols, which beneficially modulate, in vitro and in animals, parameters related to noncommunicable diseases. Studies should be conducted to evaluate the effects of different processing on protein and starch digestibility of sorghum as well as on the profile and bioavailability of its bioactive compounds, especially 3-deoxyanthocyanidins and tannins. Furthermore, the benefits resulting from the interaction of bioactive compounds in sorghum and human microbiota should be studied.