Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regulation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa internalization after contact lens wear in vivo and in serum-free culture by ocular surface cells.

PURPOSE To determine the effects of contact lenses (CLs) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) infection on localization of cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) on corneal surface epithelial cells and the association between lipid raft formation and CFTR in mediating PA binding and internalization in ocular surface epithelium. METHODS CFTR immunolocalization was evaluated in vivo in rabbit corneal-conjunctival epithelium (with/without CL wear) before and after PA exposure and in serum-free human corneal epithelial cell culture (hTCEpi). Lipid raft formation was visualized with Alexa555-conjugated cholera toxin beta-subunit. Lipid raft involvement in PA internalization was assayed in vivo by gentamicin survival assays after topical filipin pretreatment. Involvement of CFTR in PA binding and internalization was evaluated by blockade with CFTR peptides or LPS. RESULTS CL wear in vivo enhanced anti-CFTR staining, but CFTR localization did not correlate with the PA binding by ocular surface cells. Conjunctival epithelial cells stained for CFTR but did not bind or internalize PA. Corneal epithelial cells in vivo did not stain for CFTR unless challenged by contact lens-induced hypoxia. PA internalization by hTCEpi was significantly inhibited by LPS (P < 0.01), but not by CFTR peptides. Remarkably, normal conjunctival epithelial cells showed lipid raft formation and CFTR staining but did not bind PA. Inhibition of raft formation by filipin blocked PA internalization in vivo after CL wear. CONCLUSIONS CFTR is not the predominant receptor for ocular surface PA infection, and after hypoxic CL challenge, neither lipid rafts nor CFTR localization alone predicts PA binding; however, lipid rafts are critical to CL-mediated PA internalization.
Increasing Inequality in Higher Education: The role of term-time working

As the costs of higher education in the UK have moved increasingly from the state to students (and their parents), more university students have term-time jobs. Based on a survey of students in four universities, this paper identifies the pattern of term-time working, its effects on studying and its implications for equity and for the higher education system. The study found term-time employment affected the quality of education. Both cultural and financial factors affected who worked during term-time. Students whose father did not have a degree and female students (especially those from ethnic minorities) were more likely to work during term-time and, hence, benefit less educationally from university. The extent of term-time working varied across the four universities. The research suggested that the financial system might lead to an increasingly polarised university system: those that facilitate term-time working and those that do not, with the more prestigious universities tending to be in the latter category. This would distort the university choice of those who needed to work during term-time, inhibiting their access to prestigious universities, and lead to greater disadvantage amongst those who worked despite being at universities which made fewer concessions for term-time working.
Age, aerobic fitness, executive function, and episodic memory

Free recall, executive function, and aerobic fitness were investigated in young (M = 26.10 years) and older adults (M = 66.61 years). Participants encoded words in both active and passive conditions. Results suggested that higher aerobic fitness was positively associated with free recall in older adults, and that this effect was stronger in the more cognitively demanding passive encoding condition. However, within-group analyses suggested that the strength of association between aerobic fitness and free recall might diminish between the ages of 60 and 75 years. Aerobic fitness did not moderate age differences in executive function. The results raise important questions concerning the upper age limit at which aerobic fitness benefits cognition in older adults. Results are discussed with regard to pressing unresolved issues, and future work investigating aerobic fitness and cognition in older adults.
Neighborhood Evaluation within a Multiplace Perspective on Urban Activities

Within place theory, the research investigated relationships between activities carried out in a place and evaluative aspects of the same place. In the study, 152 inhabitants, ages 18 to 55, all living in the same neighborhood of Rome (Italy) were sampled by sex. An individual questionnaire included three scales to measure frequency of activities (23 items for neighborhood, 32 items for city center, and 11 items for suburbs) and a 47-item scale to measure degree of satisfaction/dissatisfaction toward various aspects of neighborhood. Multivariate data analyses identified four groups of inhabitants (neighborhood confined, marginal escape users, multiplace hyperactive, and quality users), each characterized by a specific pattern of multiplace urban activity. Each group was characterized by sociodemographic and/or residential variables. Finally, each group was also characterized by a specific pattern of neighborhood evaluations, with respect to three main aspects (building/population density and uninhabitability, social-spatial insecurity, and functional inadequacy/unavailability).
Naming and comprehension in primary progressive aphasia: The influence of grammatical word class

Background: Various clinical types of primary progressive aphasia have been associated with distinct areas of atrophy and pathological changes. Therefore, differences in the patterns of language deterioration in the various types might reveal the types of language processes and representations that depend on the areas of brain that are disproportionately affected. Aims: To test the hypotheses (1) that individuals with progressive nonfluent aphasia (associated with left posterior, inferior frontal, and insular atrophy) show progressive motor speech impairment and disproportionate deterioration in naming actions relative to objects, and (2) that individuals with semantic dementia (associated with anterior and inferior temporal atrophy) show disproportionate deterioration in semantic representations of objects relative to actions. Methods & Procedures: The study population consisted of 56 participants with primary progressive aphasia, including 27 with progressive nonfluent aphasia, 16 with semantic dementia, and 13 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis‐frontotemporal dementia (ALS‐FTD). Participants were given tests of oral and written naming and tests of picture and word association with object and action stimuli. Differences across tests within each group were evaluated. Associations between motor speech impairment (based on a clinical motor speech examination) and naming impairment in each grammatical word class were evaluated. Outcomes & Results: Participants with progressive nonfluent aphasia and ALS‐FTD showed significantly more impairment in naming actions than objects. In contrast, participants with semantic dementia were significantly more impaired in naming objects than actions, and more impaired on semantic tests of objects relative to actions. In all groups, all participants who were more impaired in naming actions also had impaired motor speech (dysarthria and/or apraxia of speech). Conclusions: Distinct patterns of deterioration across grammatical word classes in these clinical subtypes were documented. Together with evidence that these clinical subtypes are associated with different areas of brain atrophy in other studies, our results are consistent with a role of posterior inferior frontal cortex and insula in motor speech and naming actions, as well as the essential role of anterior temporal lobes in semantic representation of objects.
Verb argument structure predicts implicit causality: The advantages of finer-grained semantics

While the referent of a nonreflexive pronoun clearly depends on context, the nature of these contextual restrictions is controversial. The present study seeks to characterise one representation that guides pronoun resolution. Our focus is an effect known as “implicit causality”. In causal dependant clauses, the preferred referent of a pronoun varies systematically with the verb in the main clause (contrast Sally frightened Mary because she … with Sally feared Mary because she…). A number of researchers have tried to explain and predict such biases with reference to semantic classes of verbs. However, such studies have focused on a small number of specially selected verbs. In Experiment 1, we find that existing taxonomies perform near chance at predicting pronoun-resolution bias on a large set of representative verbs. However, a more fine-grained taxonomy recently proposed in the linguistics literature does significantly better. In Experiment 2, we tested all 264 verbs in two of the narrowly defined verb classes from this new taxonomy, finding that pronoun-resolution biases were categorically different. These findings suggest that the semantic structure of verbs tightly constrains the interpretation of pronouns in causal sentences, raising challenges for theories which posit that implicit causality biases reflect world knowledge or arbitrary lexical features.
Complications associated with peripherally inserted central catheter use during pregnancy.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the complications of peripherally inserted central catheter use in an obstetrics population at a single institution over a 5-year period. STUDY DESIGN We conducted a descriptive retrospective review of all obstetrics patients with peripherally inserted central catheter insertion during the antepartum period at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, from January 1, 1997, through September 30, 2001. RESULTS During the 5 years of the study, complete data regarding the primary admission diagnoses for peripherally inserted central catheter placement and associated complications were available for 52 cases. An associated complication rate of 50% (n = 26 cases) was noted. The complications included culture-proved line infection (n = 9/52 complications, 17%), presumed line infection (n = 6/52 complications, 12%), cellulitis (n = 4/52 complications, 8%), mechanical line failure (n = 4/52 complications, 8%), pain that required line discontinuation (n = 2/52 complications, 4%), and superficial thrombophlebitis (n = 1/52 complications, 2%). A chi(2) analysis was performed, and preterm labor may be associated with an increased risk for peripherally inserted central catheter complication (P =.012). CONCLUSION Patients who receive a peripherally inserted central catheter during pregnancy are at significant risk for infectious complications. Alternative treatment approaches are suggested, where appropriate.
I'm “better” than you: Social comparison language suggests quantitative differences

Abstract Comparison-induced distortion theory (Choplin, Toward a comparison-induced distortion theory of judgment and decision making, Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2007, Choplin and Hummel, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 131: 270–286, 2005) describes how comparison words like “better” suggest quantitative differences between compared values. When a comparison word is used to contrast a personal attribute value with some standard (e.g. “Your score is better than average”), the comparison-suggested difference for the word may bias estimates or recall of personal attribute values. Three studies investigated how comparison-suggested differences determine the effect of social comparison on estimates or recall of personal attribute values. The first study demonstrated that estimates of attributes are biased towards (assimilation) or away from (contrast) a comparison standard depending on whether the difference between the compared attribute values exceeds or falls below the comparison-suggested difference. The second study showed that the comparison language selected by participants (through the difference suggested by the language) mediated the effect of standard similarity on attribute estimates following a social comparison. The third study demonstrated concurrent assimilation and contrast effects in recall of attribute values due to the size of the observed difference between the self and the standard for the attribute. Unlike in previous research on social comparison, assimilation and contrast patterns in these studies can be explained through a single process.
Gender and migration background in intergenerational educational mobility

We employ 2011 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey data for Austria to perform uni- and multivariate econometric analyses to study the role of gender and migration background (MB) in intergenerational educational mobility. We find that there is more persistence in the educational attainment of girls relative to their parents than there is for boys. Migrant men are the most mobile group, and migrant women are the least mobile, showing the importance of conducting an analysis which looks at the intersections of MB and gender in social and economic outcomes.
The Membrane Attack Complex of Complement Causes Severe Demyelination Associated with Acute Axonal Injury1

Complement is implicated in pathology in the human demyelinating disease multiple sclerosis and in animal models that mimic the demyelination seen in multiple sclerosis. However, the components of the complement system responsible for demyelination in vivo remain unidentified. In this study, we show that C6-deficient (C6−) PVG/c rats, unable to form the membrane attack complex (MAC), exhibit no demyelination and significantly reduced clinical score in the Ab-mediated experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis model when compared with matched C6-sufficient (C6+) rats. In C6+ rats, perivenous demyelination appeared, accompanied by abundant mononuclear cell infiltration and axonal injury. Neither demyelination nor axonal damage was seen in C6− rats, whereas levels of mononuclear cell infiltration were equivalent to those seen in C6+ rats. Reconstitution of C6 to C6− rats yielded pathology and clinical disease indistinguishable from that in C6+ rats. We conclude that demyelination and axonal damage occur in the presence of Ab and require activation of the entire complement cascade, including MAC deposition. In the absence of MAC deposition, complement activation leading to opsonization and generation of the anaphylatoxins C5a and C3a is insufficient to initiate demyelination.
The relation of college student self-efficacy toward writing and writing self-regulation aptitude: writing feedback perceptions as a mediating variable

Despite the powerful effect feedback often has on student writing success more research is needed on how students emotionally react to the feedback they receive. This study tested the predictive and mediational roles of college student writing self-efficacy beliefs and feedback perceptions on writing self-regulation aptitude. Results suggested that students' perceptions of the feedback they receive on their writing assignments partially mediated the relationship between writing self-efficacy and writing self-regulation beliefs.
The Nonadditive Entropy Sq and Its Applications in Physics and Elsewhere: Some Remarks

The nonadditive entropy Sq has been introduced in 1988 focusing on a generalization of Boltzmann–Gibbs (BG) statistical mechanics. The aim was to cover a (possibly wide) class of systems among those very many which violate hypothesis such as ergodicity, under which the BG theory is expected to be valid. It is now known that Sq has a large applicability; more specifically speaking, even outside Hamiltonian systems and their thermodynamical approach. In the present paper we review and comment some relevant aspects of this entropy, namely (i) Additivity versus extensivity; (ii) Probability distributions that constitute attractors in the sense of Central Limit Theorems; (iii) The analysis of paradigmatic low-dimensional nonlinear dynamical systems near the edge of chaos; and (iv) The analysis of paradigmatic long-range-interacting many-body classical Hamiltonian systems. Finally, we exhibit recent as well as typical predictions, verifications and applications of these concepts in natural, artificial, and social systems, as shown through theoretical, experimental, observational and computational results.
The Circadian Clock in Skin

Historically, work on peripheral circadian clocks has been focused on organs and tissues that have prominent metabolic functions, such as the liver, fat, and muscle. In recent years, skin has emerged as a model for studying circadian clock regulation of cell proliferation, stem cell functions, tissue regeneration, aging, and carcinogenesis. Morphologically, skin is complex, containing multiple cell types and structures, and there is evidence for a functional circadian clock in most, if not all, of its cell types. Despite the complexity, skin stem cell populations are well defined, experimentally tractable, and exhibit prominent daily cell proliferation cycles. Hair follicle stem cells also participate in recurrent, long-lasting cycles of regeneration: the hair growth cycles. Among other advantages of skin is a broad repertoire of available genetic tools enabling the creation of cell type–specific circadian mutants. Also, due to the accessibility of skin, in vivo imaging techniques can be readily applied to study the circadian clock and its outputs in real time, even at the single-cell level. Skin provides the first line of defense against many environmental and stress factors that exhibit dramatic diurnal variations such as solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation and temperature. Studies have already linked the circadian clock to the control of UVB-induced DNA damage and skin cancers. Due to the important role that skin plays in the defense against microorganisms, it also represents a promising model system to further explore the role of the clock in the regulation of the body’s immune functions. To that end, recent studies have already linked the circadian clock to psoriasis, one of the most common immune-mediated skin disorders. Skin also provides opportunities to interrogate the clock regulation of tissue metabolism in the context of stem cells and regeneration. Furthermore, many animal species feature prominent seasonal hair molt cycles, offering an attractive model for investigating the role of the clock in seasonal organismal behaviors.
“We Weren't Like No Regular Dope Fiends”: Negotiating Hustler and Crackhead Identities1

We investigate how participants in the street economy of crack cocaine construct a "hustler" identity by contrasting their social behaviors and styles with a dialectically contrastive crackhead identity. For those who are proximate to, or involved in, the crack cocaine economy, effort is required to avoid being labeled a crackhead. Would-be hustlers construct boundaries that separate them from others on the street through talk and behavior. We draw on interviews conducted with 28 men convicted of committing violent street crimes to explore how they distance themselves from those exhibiting distasteful symptoms of crack addiction. By examining the boundaries between these two street-based identities we increase sociological understanding of the significance of offenders' identity work for shaping their conceptions of self and other, as well as their interactions in everyday street life.
CD19‐deficient mice exhibit poor responsiveness to oral immunization despite evidence of unaltered total IgA levels, germinal centers and IgA‐isotype switching in Peyer's patches

CD19 exhibits a critical role as a response regulator in B cells, influencing activation, differentiation and survival. Accordingly, CD19‐deficient mice largely lack B‐1 cells, and their conventional B‐2 cells are poor responders to thymus‐dependent antigen. Since both B‐1 and B‐2 cells may contribute to the total intestinal IgA production, we investigated whether lack of CD19 negatively affected mucosal immunity. We found that CD19–/– mice have near normal total IgA levels in serum and gut mucosa and, contrary to systemic lymphoid tissues, Peyer's patches (PP) had germinal centers to which also IgA+ B cells localized. However, the mice demonstrated severely impaired responses to oral immunization with keyhole limpet hemocyanin plus cholera toxin adjuvant. Mucosal responses to oral immunization were significantly more impaired than systemic responses. Despite normal specific IL‐4 production, a selective defect in Th2‐regulated B cell isotypes was observed, with poor or no mucosal IgA, low serum IgG1 and no IgE, but intact serum IgA and IgG2a production. Ex vivo experiments revealed strongly inhibited CD40‐stimulated proliferation and IgA differentiation in CD19‐deficient PP B cells. Taken together, an impaired CD40 responsiveness selectively affected Th2, but not Th1, coordinated B cell responses. The CD19–/– mice provide compelling evidence for the differential regulation of serum and mucosal IgA immunity.
Mucinous Differentiation in Colorectal Cancer: Molecular, Histological and Clinical Aspects

Abstract Background : Mucinous colorectal carcinoma represents a subtype of colorectal carcinoma (CRC), which is characterized by abundant amount of extracellular mucin. We reviewed the molecular, histological and clinical aspects of mucinous CRC as compared to the non-mucinous type. Methods : A systematic web-based research was performed using Web of Knowledge. The combination of the Boolean search terms “COLO*” AND “MUC*” was used. The literature was searched until July 2013. Results : Patients with mucinous CRC have distinct clinical and pathological features. Mucinous CRC tends to occur in younger patients, are often seen in the proximal colon, are more diagnosed at an advanced stage and are more frequently associated with hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) and young-age sporadic colorectal cancer. The prognostic significance of mucinous differentiation remains uncertain; some studies have shown a poor response to ox-aliplatin and/or irinotecan based chemotherapy. Mucinous CRC is associated with a higher expression of MUC2 and MUC5AC, but a lower expression of MUC1. The differential expression of mucins has been related to altered risk of metastasis and death. Recently, mucins have been used as targets for molecular therapy and as a source of immune therapy. Mucinous differentiation is associated with other specific genetic and molecular features such as increased BRAF mutation rate and microsatellite instability. Conclusion : Mucinous CRC is a distinct clinical, pathological, and molecular entity. The implications of mucinous differentiation for treatment response and outcome are not fully elucidated, but the available data suggest an adverse effect. The use of mucins as immunotargets may show therapeutic promise for mucinous CRC.
Moving beyond the crises in secondary physical education: An Australian initiative

Recent literature suggests that secondary school physical education is in crisis due to uncertainties about focus, status, and accountability. After providing some background discussion to the crises, two curriculum approaches, one current and the other in trial, to secondary physical education in an Australian context are reviewed. Drawing upon empirical research, the various strengths and weaknesses of each approach are highlighted. The paper concludes with proposals that the movement-centered conceptualization of physical education in the trial approach offers a defensible physical education for secondary school students.