Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phragmites australis in North America and Europe Phragmites australis management in the United States : 40 years of methods and outcomes

Studies on invasive plant management are often short in duration and limited in the methods tested, and lack an adequate description of plant communities that replace the invader following removal. Here we present a comprehensive review of management studies on a single species, in an effort to elucidate future directions for research in invasive plant management. We reviewed the literature on Phragmites management in North America in an effort to synthesize our understanding of management efforts, identify gaps in knowledge and improve the efficacy of management. Additionally, we assessed recent ecological findings concerning Phragmites mechanisms of invasion and integrated these findings into our recommendations for more effective management. Our overall goal is to examine whether or not current management approaches can be improved and whether they promote reestablishment of native plant communities. We found: (i) little information on community-level recovery of vegetation following removal of Phragmites; and (ii) most management approaches focus on the removal of Phragmites from individual stands or groups of stands over a relatively small area. With a few exceptions, recovery studies did not monitor vegetation for substantial durations, thus limiting adequate evaluation of the recovery trajectory. We also found that none of the recovery studies were conducted in a landscape context, even though it is now well documented that land-use patterns on adjacent habitats influence the structure and function of wetlands, including the expansion of Phragmites. We suggest that Phragmites management needs to shift to watershed-scale efforts in coastal regions, or larger management units inland. In addition, management efforts should focus on restoring native plant communities, rather than simply eradicating Phragmites stands. Wetlands and watersheds should be prioritized to identify ecosystems that would benefit most from Phragmites management and those where the negative impact of management would be minimal.
A comparison in germ‐free mice of the pathogenesis of Sendai virus and mouse pneumonia virus infections

The poathogenesis of Sendai virus and pneumonia virus of mice (PVM) was studied using the immunoperoxidase technique on paraffin lung sections. The pathology of Sendai virus corresponds to that of a bronchopneumonia, with virus demonstrated by immunoperoxidase in the bronchial epithelium, and sometimes in macrophages, for a period of 2--9 days post-infection. Pneumonia virus of mice produces an interstitial pneumonia with virus demonstrated in the bronchial epithelium but also in the alveolar walls and alveolar macrophages. This virus can be demonstrated between 2 and 7 days post-infection. This technique was used to demonstrate PVM in the case of a natural outbreak of this disease and may eventually become a routine technique for the screening of lung tissue for respiratory viruses.
The magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent mangafodipir exerts antitumor activity via a previously described superoxide dismutase mimetic activity.

To the Editor: It was recently described in Cancer Research by Laurent et al. ( [1][1]) how low molecular weight superoxide dismutase (SOD) mimetics increase H2O2 levels, which in turn killed colon (CT26) and liver (Hepa 1-6) tumor cells. In contrast, the SOD mimetics stimulated proliferation of
Emotional prejudice, essentialism, and nationalism - The 2002 Tajfel lecture

In explaining differences between groups, people ascribe the human essence to their ingroup and consider outgroups as less human. This phenomenon, called infra-humanization, occurs outside people's awareness. Because secondary emotions (e.g. love, hope, contempt, resentment) are considered uniquely human emotions, people not only attribute more secondary emotions to their ingroup than to outgroups, but are reluctant to associate these emotions with outgroups. Moreover, people behave less cooperatively (in terms of altruism, imitation, and approach) with an outgroup member who expresses himself through secondary emotions. Infra-humanization occurs for high and low status groups, even in the absence of conflict between groups. It does not occur when the outgroup target is adequately individualized, by a complete name or through perspective taking, for instance.
Informed Audio Source Separation Using Linearly Constrained Spatial Filters

In this work we readdress the issue of audio source separation in an informed scenario, where certain information about the sound sources is embedded into their mixture as an imperceptible watermark. In doing so, we provide a description of an improved algorithm that follows the linearly constrained minimum-variance filtering approach in the subband domain, in order to obtain perceptually better estimates of the source signals in comparison to other published approaches. Just as its predecessor, the algorithm does not impose any restrictions on the number of simultaneously active sources, neither on their spectral overlap. It rather adapts to a given signal constellation and provides the best possible estimates under given constraints in linearithmic time. The validity of the approach is demonstrated on a stereo mixture with two levels of sound complexity. It is also shown by means of both objective and subjective evaluation that the proposed algorithm outperforms a reference algorithm by at least one grade. Bearing high perceptual resemblance to the original signals at a fairly tolerable data rate of 10-20 kbps per source, the algorithm hence seems well-suited for active listening applications such as re-mixing or re-spatialization in real time.
Injuries to Officers and Suspects in Police Use-of-Force Cases: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation

The Conducted Energy Device (CED) weapon holds the potential to reduce injuries for officers/suspects. However, the dearth of research on CEDs makes it difficult to make informed decisions about its deployment. We conducted a quasi experiment to compare 4 years of data from seven law enforcement agencies (LEAs) with CED deployment with six matched LEAs without CED deployment. Compared with non-CED sites, CED sites had lower rates of officer injuries, suspect severe injuries, and officers and suspects receiving injuries requiring medical attention. Our results suggest that CEDs can be effective in helping minimize physical struggles and resulting injuries in use-of-force cases.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and accounting quality: a comprehensive examination

This paper investigates the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act on the quality of financial statement information. Where other papers have only investigated the short-term effects of SOX, this paper takes a longer post-SOX period. A distinction is also made between technology and non-technology based firms. Earnings management, conservatism and value relevance measures were used in order to examine the impact of SOX on accounting quality. A significant increase was found on both the earnings management and value relevance measures, which was persistent over a four-year post-SOX period. On the contrary, a slight increase in conservatism was observed, however these results are not significant. Moreover, the technology based firms score worse on the earnings management measure, thus, the separate investigation between technology and non-technology based firms has revealed interesting information which would otherwise have stayed undetected.
Mutation operator characterization: Exhaustiveness, locality, and bias

When designing an evolutionary algorithm, one question which arises is what a good mutation operator should look like. In order to be able to anticipate which operators may perform well and which may perform poorly, knowledge about the behavior of the mutation operator is necessary. To this end, we formally define three operator properties: Exhaustiveness, locality and unbiasedness. Furthermore, we provide statistical measures that allow to compare operators that work on the same optimization problem. The novelty of our approach is that the properties are formally defined in a unified manner, and that the measures can be calculated on arbitrary decision spaces, only assuming that a distance measure between solutions in decision space is given. Tests on a binary decision space using several mutation operators with known properties show that the statistical measures presented in this paper are able to reflect the properties well. Also, the measures are calculated for mutation operators of a more complex problem, namely the cluster partitioning problem. To test the validity of our measures, we introduce an exploration benchmark that measures how well the solutions can move across the decision space when applying a mutation operator to them. Tests on both the binary and the partitioning problem show that our measures reflect the operator behavior well.
Initial results, reliability, and validity of a mental health survey of Mount Pinatubo disaster victims.

This report presents the initial results of a mental health survey of 351 tribal and non-tribal Mount Pinatubo disaster victims 6 years after they were displaced following the volcanic eruption in the Philippines on June 12, 1991. Mental illness prevalence rates in both Filipino ethnic groups were comparable to those found in a U.S. study using the same assessment instrument. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; 27.6%) and major depression (14.0%) were the two most frequent diagnoses. Diagnostic test-retest interviewer agreement was good for probable alcohol abuse (kappa = .65, agreement = 97%) and any mood disorder (kappa = .53, agreement = 91%) but was reduced for any anxiety disorder (kappa = .15, agreement = 81%) and separately evaluated PTSD (kappa = .18, agreement = 69%). Diagnostic test-retest agreement was good among typical Filipinos (mean kappa = .66, mean agreement = 93%) but was reduced among tribal aborigines (mean = .30, mean agreement = 86%). Internal consistency of the PTSD rating scale was high within and across both ethnic groups, including total scale (alpha = .91) and DSM-IV Criteria B, C, and D sub-scales (alpha = .80, 81, and .78, respectively). With the exception of probable alcohol abuse, construct and criterion validity was demonstrated among both tribal and non-tribal Filipinos for all classes of psychiatric disorders by comparing diagnostic results with respondents' views of their physical and mental health and level of functional impairment. Overall, DSM-IV mood, anxiety, alcohol use, and PTSDs with adequate reliability and construct and criterion validity were made in this culturally diverse, non-Western, disaster victim population. However, test-retest diagnostic agreement was reduced for anxiety disorders and among aboriginal respondents, and validity was not demonstrated for probable alcohol abuse.
Distinct Strategies Employed by Dendritic Cells and Macrophages in Restricting Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection: Different Philosophies but Same Desire

Dendritic cells (DCs) and macrophages (Mϕs) are professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs) that can efficiently phagocytose Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the etiological agent of tuberculosis (TB). It is quite interesting to mention here that DCs and Mϕs use distinct strategies to combat and eliminate Mtb. Similarly, Mtb employs different mechanisms to counteract the action of DCs and Mϕs. Mϕs are evolved with specialized, innate, defensive machinery to restrict growth of Mtb at the initial phase of infection. However, DCs are more endowed toward initiating adaptive immunity by activating naïve T cells. During encounter with Mtb, DCs and Mϕs deliver discrete functions via triggering through different pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) expressed by these APCs. Mtb-infected DCs and Mϕs show differential expression of genes encoding cytokines, chemokines, costimulatory molecules, and adhesion molecules. Interestingly, Mtb impairs the immune defensive machinery by exploiting various PRRs. Remarkably, selective signaling through PRRs by Mtb abrogates the bactericidal activity of Mϕs, but subverts differentiation of monocytes to DCs. In this article, we highlight the role of PRRs in inducing distinct immune response by DCs and Mϕs against Mtb. Concurrently, we also discuss smart strategies exploited by Mtb to impair the function of host DCs and Mϕs.
Does Audiovisual Congruency in Advertisements Increase Persuasion? The Role of Cultural Music and Products

ABSTRACT Given increasing advertisement clutter, advertisers are increasingly trying unconventional means to attract consumers' attention. One such method involves the use of incongruent ads, which are believed to attract viewers' attention. This research was conducted to ascertain the impact of audiovisual congruency in ads and the moderating role of product involvement on three facets of consumer response: attention to the ad, attention to the brand, and purchase intentions. Participants were shown one of eight TV ads for 30 seconds, following which they were asked to rate the ad on several dimensions. Results indicated, as expected, that congruent product and music type elicited favorable consumer responses. However, contrary to earlier findings that congruency in ads affects consumers in both high- and low-involvement conditions, we find that that the level of involvement moderated this effect on some consumer persuasion measures. In particular, participants under high-involvement conditions were found to be less influenced by congruent product–music situations. Implications for advertisers are discussed.
Gender, Class, and Gentrification: Enriching the Debate

In this paper I take up the debate about gender, class, and gentrification. I accept the importance of class formation in understanding the relationship between gender and gentrification, and seek to supplement existing empirical studies by further exploring gender and class practices in a range of neighbourhoods, Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative sources I present a detailed analysis of social change in two inner-urban neighbourhoods and one suburban neighbourhood in Edinburgh, Scotland. I emphasise the importance of the patterning of life courses in the articulation of class and gender practices, and draw attention to the different ways in which gender, class, and life course arc interwoven in particular cities and neighbourhoods.
Longitudinal Research: The Theory, Design, and Analysis of Change

The purpose of this article is to present cutting-edge research on issues relating to the theory, design, and analysis of change. Rather than a highly technical review, our goal is to provide management scholars with a relatively nontechnical single source useful for helping them develop and evaluate longitudinal research. Toward that end, we provide readers with “checklists” of issues to consider when theorizing and designing a longitudinal study. We also discuss the trade-offs among analytic strategies (repeated measures general linear model, random coefficient modeling, and latent growth modeling), circumstances in which such methods are most appropriate, and ways to analyze data when one is using each approach.
An exploration of social requirements for exercise group formation

Exercising is often a social activity performed with other people, yet finding compatible exercise partners is difficult in practice. To gain a better understanding of the social requirements involved with forming exercise groups, we conducted a two-phased exploratory study involving an online web questionnaire with 96 respondents and two focus groups. Our results highlight various aspects of collaborating with exercise partners, but also indicate the limited utility of currently available systems to support such collaborations. We discuss implications for collaborative technologies supporting exercise group formation.
Drive Theory of Social Facilitation: Twelve Years of Theory and Research

Reviews research on social facilitation since 1965. It is concluded that the drive-theory analysis proposed by R. B. Zajonc in 1965 still provides the best overall theoretical framework for explaining social facilitation, but that N. B. Cottrell's (1968, 1972) elaboration, which emphasizes learned d
A Phase II Randomized, Controlled Trial of S-Adenosylmethionine in Reducing Serum α-Fetoprotein in Patients with Hepatitis C Cirrhosis and Elevated AFP

In animal models of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), deficiency of S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe) increased the risk of HCC whereas administration of SAMe reduced HCC. The aim of this trial was to determine whether oral SAMe administration to patients with hepatitis C cirrhosis would decrease serum α-fetoprotein (AFP) level, a biomarker of HCC risk in hepatitis C. This was a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial of SAMe, up to 2.4 g/d, for 24 weeks as compared with placebo among subjects with hepatitis C cirrhosis and a mildly elevated serum AFP. Primary outcome was change in AFP between baseline and week 24. Secondary outcomes included changes in routine tests of liver function and injury, other biomarkers of HCC risk, SAMe metabolites, markers of oxidative stress, and quality of life. One hundred ten subjects were randomized and 87 (44 SAMe and 43 placebo) completed treatment. There was no difference in the change in AFP during 24 weeks among subjects receiving SAMe as compared with placebo. Changes in markers of liver function, liver injury, and hepatitis C viral level were not significantly different between groups. Similarly, SAMe did not change markers of oxidative stress or serum glutathione level. SAMe blood level increased significantly among subjects receiving SAMe. Changes in quality of life did not differ between groups. Overall, this trial did not find that SAMe treatment improved serum AFP in subjects with advanced hepatitis C cirrhosis and a mildly elevated AFP. SAMe did not improve tests of liver function or injury or markers of oxidative stress or antioxidant potential. Cancer Prev Res; 8(9); 864–72. ©2015 AACR.
Quantitative expression of CD23 and its ligand CD21 in chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Cells from the great majority of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) express CD23. A recent histologic study has shown that CD23 is expressed more strongly in the proliferating centers of the lymph nodes, where the large prolymphocytoid cells are located. The aim of our study was to quantify the expression of CD23 and CD21 in small and prolymphocytoid cells from patients with CLL and B-cell lymphomas, and correlate this expression with clinical parameters. DESIGN AND METHODS Using quantitative flow cyto-metry we analyzed the antigen density of CD23 and CD21 in: 1) 101 cases of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, 84 typical, 14 with increased prolymphocytes (CLL/PL) and 3 atypical, 2) 15 cases of CD23 positive B-cell lymphoma with circulating lymphoma cells and 3) 8 normal subjects. The results were correlated with morphology and clinical staging. RESULTS Cells from CLL and CLL/PL have a significantly higher number of CD23 molecules than normal and lymphoma B-cells (p<0.001 and p<0.001, respectively). Differences were not significant for CD21. CLL and CLL/PL cases had similar values of CD23 and CD21 molecules, but analysis at a single level showed that prolymphocytes in typical CLL and CLL/PL expressed significantly higher CD23 (p=0.001, p=0.006) and CD21 (p=0.001, p=0.001) than small lymphocytes. There was no correlation between CD23 or CD21 antigen density and clinical stages although there was a trend for a brighter CD23 in stage C patients. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS Since interaction between CD23 and CD21 is important for B-cell activation, proliferation and tumor formation, findings that both molecules are upregulated in prolymphocytes suggest that this is the proliferating cell component in CLL and underline the association between progression and increased prolymphocytes in typical CLL and CLL/PL.
AmpC and OprD Are Not Involved in the Mechanism of Imipenem Hypersusceptibility among Pseudomonas aeruginosa Isolates Overexpressing the mexCD-oprJ Efflux Pump

ABSTRACT Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains that overexpress mexCD-oprJ become hypersusceptible to imipenem. Disruption of AmpC induction has been suggested to cause this phenotype. However, data from this study demonstrate that hypersusceptibility to imipenem can develop without changes in ampC expression or AmpC activity. Furthermore, hypersusceptibility is not caused by changes in expression of the outer membrane porin, OprD.
EFFECTS OF DIETARY OMEG-3 FATTY ACID SUPPLEMENTATION ON HBA1C, TOTAL ANTIOXIDANT CAPACITY AND SUPEROXIDE DISMUTASE AND CATALASE ACTIVITIES IN TYPE-2 DIABETIC PATIENTS: A RANDOMIZED CLINICAL TRIAL

1 شناد مولع دشرا يسانشراك هتخومآ رد يتشادهب ،هيذغت هدكشناد تشادهب يكشزپ مولع هاگشناد ، نارهت 2 لوئسم هدنسيون : ،يميشويب و هيذغت هورگ داتسا نارهت يكشزپ مولع هاگشناد ،تشادهب هدكشناد يكينورتكلا تسپ : djazayery@yahoo.com 3 نارهت يكشزپ مولع هاگشناد ،تشادهب هدكشناد ،يميشويب و هيذغت هورگ داتسا 4 رايشناد نارهت يكشزپ مولع هاگشناد ،تشادهب هدكشناد ،رامآ هورگ 5 ص و هيذغت مولع هدكشناد ،هعماج هيذغت هورگ رايداتسا هاگشناد ،يياذغ عيان يكشزپ مولع يتشهب ديهش 6 سانشراك هيذغت رد يتشادهب مولع دشرا 7 هاگشيامزآ سانشراك
International Migration of Doctors, and Its Impact on Availability of Psychiatrists in Low and Middle Income Countries

Background Migration of health professionals from low and middle income countries to rich countries is a large scale and long-standing phenomenon, which is detrimental to the health systems in the donor countries. We sought to explore the extent of psychiatric migration. Methods In our study, we use the respective professional databases in each country to establish the numbers of psychiatrists currently registered in the UK, US, New Zealand, and Australia who originate from other countries. We also estimate the impact of this migration on the psychiatrist population ratios in the donor countries. Findings We document large numbers of psychiatrists currently registered in the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia originating from India (4687 psychiatrists), Pakistan (1158), Bangladesh (149) , Nigeria (384) , Egypt (484), Sri Lanka (142), Philippines (1593). For some countries of origin, the numbers of psychiatrists currently registered within high-income countries' professional databases are very small (e.g., 5 psychiatrists of Tanzanian origin registered in the 4 high-income countries we studied), but this number is very significant compared to the 15 psychiatrists currently registered in Tanzania). Without such emigration, many countries would have more than double the number of psychiatrists per 100, 000 population (e.g. Bangladesh, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon); and some countries would have had five to eight times more psychiatrists per 100,000 (e.g. Philippines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Nigeria and Zambia). Conclusions Large numbers of psychiatrists originating from key low and middle income countries are currently registered in the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia, with concomitant impact on the psychiatrist/population ratio n the originating countries. We suggest that creative international policy approaches are needed to ensure the individual migration rights of health professionals do not compromise societal population rights to health, and that there are public and fair agreements between countries within an internationally agreed framework.