Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Greenery versus Aquatic: Cognitive Restoration of Different Components of Nature for Improvement in Environmental Design

Prior research has indicated that aquatic components (e.g., lakes, rivers) of a nature environment have been perceived to be more restorative than nature environments containing greenery components (e.g., trees, grass); this finding has been coined as the “dose effect of water. ” However, the validity of this finding has been questioned as researchers have failed to generalize the dose effect of water to novel photos. Although subsequent research has been unable to generalize the dose effect of water to an individual’s perceived restoration, no studies have observed the cognitive restoration of different nature scenes using performance measures on a sustained attention task. The current study was conducted to determine if certain nature components lead to higher levels of cognitive restoration. Our results indicate there is not a certain nature component that leads to higher cognitive restoration via performance on a brief sustained attention task.
Results of Long‐Term Experimental Studies on the Carcinogenicity of Methyl Alcohol and Ethyl Alcohol in Rats

Abstract: Methyl alcohol was administered in drinking water supplied ad libitum at doses of 20,000, 5,000, 500, or 0 ppm to groups of male and female Sprague‐Dawley rats 8 weeks old at the start of the experiment. Animals were kept under observation until spontaneous death. Ethyl alcohol was administered by ingestion in drinking water at a concentration of 10% or 0% supplied ad libitum to groups of male and female Sprague‐Dawley rats; breeders and offspring were included in the experiment. Treatment started at 39 weeks of age (breeders), 7 days before mating, or from embryo life (offspring) and lasted until their spontaneous death. Under tested experimental conditions, methyl alcohol and ethyl alcohol were demonstrated to be carcinogenic for various organs and tissues. They must also be considered multipotential carcinogenic agents. In addition to causing other tumors, ethyl alcohol induced malignant tumors of the oral cavity, tongue, and lips. These sites have been shown to be target organs in man by epidemiologic studies.
A 60 000‐year record of environmental change for the Wet Tropics of north‐eastern Australia based on the ODP 820 marine core

Palynomorphs from the ODP Site 820 marine core have provided a detailed record of terrestrial environmental responses to glacial–interglacial forcing over the last 250 000 years in the Australian Wet Tropics. The development of an accurate geochronological framework for this key sequence has proved challenging. Consequently, different dominant forcing mechanism(s) have been proposed to drive environmental change in the low latitudes. A new chronology for the last 60 000 years, based on accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (14C) dates of pollen concentrate material and the existing Marine Isotope Stage boundaries (MIS 4 to 1) has been produced. This new chronology provides a robust geochronological framework for interpreting environmental records across the region. In particular, our age model helps to resolve several debates concerning the timing of climatic changes and their impacts on both the marine and the terrestrial systems, as well as possible human arrival and associated impacts on the region's ecosystems. Our findings suggest 14C dating of terrestrial pollen concentrate in marine sediments is a valuable tool for resolving major chronological uncertainties in potentially diagenetically altered marine CaCO3 sediments and should play a role in future multi‐dating strategies. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Column-Integrated Moist Static Energy Budget Analysis on Various Time Scales during TOGA COARE

AbstractMoist static energy (MSE) budgets on different time scales are analyzed in the TOGA COARE data using Lanczos filters to separate variability with different frequencies. Four different time scales (~2-day, ~5-day, ~10-day, and MJO time scales) are chosen based on the power spectrum of the precipitation and previous TOGA COARE studies. The lag regression-slope technique is utilized to depict characteristic patterns of the variability associated with the MSE budgets on the different time scales.This analysis illustrates that the MSE budgets behave in significantly different ways on the different time scales. On shorter time scales, the vertical advection acts as a primary driver of the recharge–discharge mechanism of column MSE. As the time scale gets longer, in contrast, the relative contributions of the other budget terms become greater, and consequently, on the MJO time scale all the budget terms have nearly the same amplitude. Specifically, these results indicate that horizontal advection plays a.
Alcohol use before and during unwanted pregnancy.

BACKGROUND There is little information about pregnancy-related changes in alcohol use and factors contributing to changes among women with unwanted pregnancies. This study describes changes in alcohol use from before pregnancy recognition to during pregnancy and identifies important predictors of alcohol use severity among women with unwanted pregnancies. METHODS Data are from the Turnaway Study of 956 women seeking pregnancy termination at 30 U.S. facilities between 2008 and 2010, some of whom were denied care because they were past the gestational limit of the facility where they were recruited and were still pregnant at the baseline interview, 1 week after termination seeking. Predictors of alcohol use severity (a latent variable) were identified. RESULTS About 56% of the total sample reported any alcohol use the month before pregnancy recognition, with 23% reporting 6 or more drinks on an occasion. Among the total sample, 35% of those drinking before pregnancy recognition had quit and 20% had reduced 1 week after termination seeking. Among those denied terminations and still pregnant, 71% had quit and 14% had reduced. In a multivariate model predicting alcohol severity, younger age, still pregnant, 1 or more previous births, later gestation, childhood physical abuse, and marijuana and other drug use were associated with lower severity; having completed college, tobacco use, and recent physical violence were associated with higher severity. CONCLUSIONS The proportion of the total sample drinking before pregnancy recognition is similar to national samples of women of childbearing age, while the proportion binge drinking appears higher. Of women denied terminations, who were still pregnant, the proportion having quit is similar to other populations of pregnant women. More research is needed to examine whether pregnant women may be substituting alcohol for marijuana and other drugs. Interventions focusing on alcohol use severity during pregnancy may need to also focus on tobacco.
Two distinct mechanisms are involved in 6‐hydroxydopamine‐ and MPP+‐induced dopaminergic neuronal cell death: Role of caspases, ROS, and JNK

In this study, we examined the possibility that MPTP and 6‐hydroxydopamine (6‐OHDA) act on distinct cell death pathways in a murine dopaminergic neuronal cell line, MN9D. First, we found that cells treated with 6‐OHDA accompanied ultrastructural changes typical of apoptosis, whereas MPP+ treatment induced necrotic manifestations. Proteolytic cleavage of poly(ADP‐ribose)polymerase by caspase was induced by 6‐OHDA, whereas it remained uncleaved up to 32 h after MPP+ treatment and subsequently disappeared. Accordingly, 6‐OHDA‐ but not MPP+‐induced cell death was significantly attenuated in the presence of a broad‐spectrum caspase inhibitor, N‐benzyloxy‐carbonyl‐Val‐Ala‐Asp‐fluomethylketone (Z‐VAD‐fmk). As measured by fluorometric probes, the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) significantly increased after 6‐OHDA treatment. In contrast, the level of dihydroethidium‐sensitive ROS following MPP+ treatment remained unchanged while a slight increase in dichlorofluorescin‐sentive ROS was temporarily observed. As demonstrated by immunoblot analysis, the level of superoxide dismutase was down‐regulated following 6‐OHDA treatment, whereas it remained unchanged after MPP+ treatment. Cotreatment of cells with antioxidants such as N‐acetylcysteine or Mn(III)tetrakis(4‐benzoic acid)porphyrin chloride (MnTBAP, cell‐permeable superoxide dismutase mimetic) rescued 6‐OHDA‐ but not MPP+‐induced cell death, whereas inclusion of catalase or NG‐nitro‐l‐arginine had no effect in both cases. In addition, 6‐OHDA induced ROS‐mediated c‐Jun N‐terminal kinase (JNK) activation that was attenuated in the presence of N‐acetylcysteine or MnTBAP but not catalase or Z‐VAD‐fmk. In contrast, MPP+ has little effect on JNK activity, indicating that ROS and/or ROS‐induced cell death signaling pathway seems to play an essential role in 6‐OHDA–mediated apoptosis but not in MPP+‐induced necrosis in a mesencephalon‐derived, dopaminergic neuronal cell line. J. Neurosci. Res. 57:86–94, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Distinct signaling events promote resistance to mitoxantrone and etoposide in pediatric AML: a Children’s Oncology Group report

Despite aggressive chemotherapy including mitoxantrone and etoposide, relapse occurs for almost half of children with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Since both drugs inhibit topoisomerase II and cause DNA double strand breaks, resistance could be achieved by enhanced DNA damage repair (DDR), via homologous recombination (HR) and/or non-homologous end joining (NHEJ). An important source of extrinsic chemoresistance is the bone marrow stroma. We aimed to reveal intrinsic and stroma-induced signaling pathways that contribute to chemoresistance. Sixty diagnostic pediatric AML samples were cultured on or off stromal cells, with or without chemotherapy. We measured apoptosis, DNA damage signaling, and NHEJ/HR pathway activity by FACS analysis of intracellular cleaved PARP, γH2AX, pDNA-PKcs and pATM, respectively. Mitoxantrone strongly increased γH2AX and pDNA-PKcs. Neither chemotherapy drug induced pATM. DNA-PK inhibition alleviated mitoxantrone resistance for AML cells on and off stromal cells. Regarding stroma-induced signaling pathways, ERK1/2 was most consistently activated in primary AML cells by stromal cells. ERK1/2 inactivation partially restored chemosensitivity to AML cells on stromal cells. Additionally, low stroma-induced STAT3 activity and strong stroma-induced mitoxantrone resistance were associated with inferior clinical outcome. Taken together, the NHEJ DDR and ERK1/2 pathways are potential targets for reducing intrinsic and extrinsic chemotherapy resistance in pediatric AML.
Seismic and electromagnetic controlled‐source interferometry in dissipative media

Seismic interferometry deals with the generation of new seismic responses by crosscorrelating existing ones. One of the main assumptions underlying most interferometry methods is that the medium is lossless. We develop an ‘interferometry‐by‐deconvolution’ approach which circumvents this assumption. The proposed method applies not only to seismic waves, but to any type of diffusion and/or wave field in a dissipative medium. This opens the way to applying interferometry to controlled‐source electromagnetic (CSEM) data. Interferometry‐by‐deconvolution replaces the overburden by a homogeneous half space, thereby solving the shallow sea problem for CSEM applications. We demonstrate this at the hand of numerically modeled CSEM data.
Unified effects of aggregation reveal larger prey groups take longer to find

Previous work has suggested that larger groups of prey are more conspicuous to predators. However, this ignores that prey populations are finite. As groups get larger they become fewer, hence the encounter rate between predator and prey decreases with prey aggregation. Here, we present a two-dimensional model based on visual angle to unify these encounter and conspicuousness effects of aggregation. With experimental support using three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus L.), searching for chironomid larvae, we demonstrate that the increase in visual angle with increasing group size is outweighed by its corresponding decrease as the groups become fewer and thus further away from the searching predator. The net effect is that prey are found with more difficulty when they aggregate, giving an additional anti-predatory benefit to group living rather than a cost.
Active Manipulation of ECM Stiffness and Its Effect on Endothelial Cell Migration during Angiogenesis

We have developed an engineering approach for actively manipulating the local stiffness of the extracellular matrix (ECM) and studied its effect on the migration of endothelial cells (ECs). In this approach, magnetic beads are embedded in an ECM through bio-conjugation between the Streptavidin-coated beads and the collagen fibers in order to alter the local stiffness of the ECM with the application of an external magnetic field. Our experimental results show that the magnetic forces acting on the embedded beads influence the behaviour of ECs during angiogenesis. These results suggest the possibility of creating desired stiffness gradients in an ECM for manipulating cell behavior in vitro.
Excretory/secretory products from plerocercoids of Spirometra erinacei reduce iNOS and chemokine mRNA levels in peritoneal macrophages stimulated with cytokines and/or LPS

During infection with plerocercoids of Spirometra erinacei, organisms in the peritoneal cavity of infected animals have many bound inflammatory leukocytes yet survive apparently unharmed. Coculture of IFNγ and LPS stimulated mouse peritoneal macrophages with live plerocercoids suppressed the mRNA expression of the inducible isoform of nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and JE, the murine homologue of monocyte chemotactic protein‐1 (MCP‐1). Excretory/secretory (ES) products from plerocercoids also suppressed the induced iNOS and JE mRNA and reduced nitrite production of macrophages in a dose dependent manner. The suppression of inducible mRNA levels in macrophages cultured for 24 h with ES products varied with the nature of the stimuli; IFNγ/LPS‐induced iNOS mRNA levels were effected less than were iNOS mRNA levels induced by IFNγ/IL‐2 or IFNγ/TNFα. Similar findings were obtained when nitrite production was measured. Thus modulation of LPS and cytokine inducible mRNA levels appear to be the primary target of ES products. We speculate that a major physiological role for this inhibitory activity in ES products might be the down regulation of pro‐inflammatory gene expression.
Design and Optimization of an EEG-Based Brain Machine Interface (BMI) to an Upper-Limb Exoskeleton for Stroke Survivors

This study demonstrates the feasibility of detecting motor intent from brain activity of chronic stroke patients using an asynchronous electroencephalography (EEG)-based brain machine interface (BMI). Intent was inferred from movement related cortical potentials (MRCPs) measured over an optimized set of EEG electrodes. Successful intent detection triggered the motion of an upper-limb exoskeleton (MAHI Exo-II), to guide movement and to encourage active user participation by providing instantaneous sensory feedback. Several BMI design features were optimized to increase system performance in the presence of single-trial variability of MRCPs in the injured brain: (1) an adaptive time window was used for extracting features during BMI calibration; (2) training data from two consecutive days were pooled for BMI calibration to increase robustness to handle the day-to-day variations typical of EEG, and (3) BMI predictions were gated by residual electromyography (EMG) activity from the impaired arm, to reduce the number of false positives. This patient-specific BMI calibration approach can accommodate a broad spectrum of stroke patients with diverse motor capabilities. Following BMI optimization on day 3, testing of the closed-loop BMI-MAHI exoskeleton, on 4th and 5th days of the study, showed consistent BMI performance with overall mean true positive rate (TPR) = 62.7 ± 21.4% on day 4 and 67.1 ± 14.6% on day 5. The overall false positive rate (FPR) across subjects was 27.74 ± 37.46% on day 4 and 27.5 ± 35.64% on day 5; however for two subjects who had residual motor function and could benefit from the EMG-gated BMI, the mean FPR was quite low (< 10%). On average, motor intent was detected −367 ± 328 ms before movement onset during closed-loop operation. These findings provide evidence that closed-loop EEG-based BMI for stroke patients can be designed and optimized to perform well across multiple days without system recalibration.
Blowup Estimates for a Mutualistic Model in Ecology

The cooperating two-species Lotka-Volterra model is dis- cussed. We study the blowup properties of the solution to a parabolic system with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. The upper and lower bounds of blowup rate are obtained. ut d1 u = u(a1 b1u c1v); x 2 ; t > 0; vt d2 v = v(a2 b2u c2v); x 2 ; t > 0; u(x) = v(x) = 0; x 2 @ ; t > 0; u(x; 0) = u0(x); v(x; 0) = v0(x); x 2 ;
Transgenic Mice Reveal Unexpected Diversity of On-Off Direction-Selective Retinal Ganglion Cell Subtypes and Brain Structures Involved in Motion Processing

On-Off direction-selective retinal ganglion cells (DSGCs) encode the axis of visual motion. They respond strongly to an object moving in a preferred direction and weakly to an object moving in the opposite, “null,” direction. Historically, On-Off DSGCs were classified into four subtypes according to their directional preference (anterior, posterior, superior, or inferior). Here, we compare two genetically identified populations of On-Off DSGCs: dopamine receptor 4 (DRD4)-DSGCs and thyrotropin-releasing hormone receptor (TRHR)-DSGCs. We find that although both populations are tuned for posterior motion, they can be distinguished by a variety of physiological and anatomical criteria. First, the directional tuning of TRHR-DSGCs is broader than that of DRD4-DSGCs. Second, whereas both populations project similarly to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus, they project differently to the ventral lateral geniculate nucleus and the superior colliculus. Moreover, TRHR-DSGCs, but not DRD4-DSGCs, also project to the zona incerta, a thalamic area not previously known to receive direction-tuned visual information. Our findings reveal unexpected diversity among mouse On-Off DSGC subtypes that uniquely process and convey image motion to the brain.
ICWSM - A Great Catchy Name: Semi-Supervised Recognition of Sarcastic Sentences in Online Product Reviews

Sarcasm is a sophisticated form of speech act widely used in online communities. Automatic recognition of sarcasm is, however, a novel task. Sarcasm recognition could contribute to the performance of review summarization and ranking systems. This paper presents SASI, a novel Semi-supervised Algorithm for Sarcasm Identification that recognizes sarcastic sentences in product reviews. SASI has two stages: semi-supervised pattern acquisition, and sarcasm classification. We experimented on a data set of about 66000 Amazon reviews for various books and products. Using a gold standard in which each sentence was tagged by 3 annotators, we obtained precision of 77% and recall of 83.1% for identifying sarcastic sentences. We found some strong features that characterize sarcastic utterances. However, a combination of more subtle pattern-based features proved more promising in identifying the various facets of sarcasm. We also speculate on the motivation for using sarcasm in online communities and social networks.
Sexual selection accelerates signal evolution during speciation in birds

Sexual selection is proposed to be an important driver of diversification in animal systems, yet previous tests of this hypothesis have produced mixed results and the mechanisms involved remain unclear. Here, we use a novel phylogenetic approach to assess the influence of sexual selection on patterns of evolutionary change during 84 recent speciation events across 23 passerine bird families. We show that elevated levels of sexual selection are associated with more rapid phenotypic divergence between related lineages, and that this effect is restricted to male plumage traits proposed to function in mate choice and species recognition. Conversely, we found no evidence that sexual selection promoted divergence in female plumage traits, or in male traits related to foraging and locomotion. These results provide strong evidence that female choice and male–male competition are dominant mechanisms driving divergence during speciation in birds, potentially linking sexual selection to the accelerated evolution of pre-mating reproductive isolation.
Painful inflammation-induced increase in mu-opioid receptor binding and G-protein coupling in primary afferent neurons.

Opioids mediate their analgesic effects by activating mu-opioid receptors (MOR) not only within the central nervous system but also on peripheral sensory neurons. The peripheral analgesic effects of opioids are best described under inflammatory conditions (e.g., arthritis). The present study investigated the effects of inflammation on MOR binding and G-protein coupling of full versus partial MOR agonists in dorsal root ganglia (DRG) of primary afferent neurons. Our results show that Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA) unilateral hindpaw inflammation induces a significant up-regulation of MOR binding sites (25 to 47 fmol/mg of protein) on DRG membranes without affecting the affinity of either full or partial MOR agonists. In our immunohistochemical studies, the number of MOR-immunoreactive neurons consistently increased. This increase was mostly caused by small-diameter nociceptive DRG neurons. The full agonist DAMGO induced MOR G-protein coupling in DRG of animals without FCA inflammation (EC50 = 56 nM; relative Emax = 100%). FCA inflammation resulted in significant increases in DAMGO-induced MOR G-protein coupling (EC50 = 29 nM; relative Emax = 145%). The partial agonist buprenorphine hydrochloride (BUP) showed no detectable G-protein coupling in DRG of animals without FCA inflammation; however, partial agonist activity of BUP-induced MOR G-protein coupling was detectable in animals with FCA inflammation (EC50 = 1.6 nM; relative Emax = 82%). In behavioral studies, administration of BUP produced significant antinociception only in inflamed but not in noninflamed paws. These findings show that inflammation causes changes in MOR binding and G-protein coupling in primary afferent neurons. They further underscore the important differences in clinical studies testing peripherally active opioids in inflammatory painful conditions.
PDZRhoGEF and myosin II localize RhoA activity to the back of polarizing neutrophil-like cells

Chemoattractants such as formyl-Met-Leu-Phe (fMLP) induce neutrophils to polarize by triggering divergent pathways that promote formation of a protrusive front and contracting back and sides. RhoA, a Rho GTPase, stimulates assembly of actomyosin contractile complexes at the sides and back. We show here, in differentiated HL60 cells, that PDZRhoGEF (PRG), a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) for RhoA, mediates RhoA-dependent responses and determines their spatial distribution. As with RNAi knock-down of PRG, a GEF-deleted PRG mutant blocks fMLP-dependent RhoA activation and causes neutrophils to exhibit multiple fronts and long tails. Similarly, inhibition of RhoA, a Rho-dependent protein kinase (ROCK), or myosin II produces the same morphologies. PRG inhibition reduces or mislocalizes monophosphorylated myosin light chains in fMLP-stimulated cells, and myosin II ATPase inhibition reciprocally disrupts normal localization of PRG. We propose a cooperative reinforcing mechanism at the back of cells, in which PRG, RhoA, ROCK, myosin II, and actomyosin spatially cooperate to consolidate attractant-induced contractility and ensure robust cell polarity.