Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mycobacterium tuberculosis Eis Regulates Autophagy, Inflammation, and Cell Death through Redox-dependent Signaling

The “enhanced intracellular survival” (eis) gene of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is involved in the intracellular survival of M. smegmatis. However, its exact effects on host cell function remain elusive. We herein report that Mtb Eis plays essential roles in modulating macrophage autophagy, inflammatory responses, and cell death via a reactive oxygen species (ROS)-dependent pathway. Macrophages infected with an Mtb eis-deletion mutant H37Rv (Mtb-Δeis) displayed markedly increased accumulation of massive autophagic vacuoles and formation of autophagosomes in vitro and in vivo. Infection of macrophages with Mtb-Δeis increased the production of tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 over the levels produced by infection with wild-type or complemented strains. Elevated ROS generation in macrophages infected with Mtb-Δeis (for which NADPH oxidase and mitochondria were largely responsible) rendered the cells highly sensitive to autophagy activation and cytokine production. Despite considerable activation of autophagy and proinflammatory responses, macrophages infected with Mtb-Δeis underwent caspase-independent cell death. This cell death was significantly inhibited by blockade of autophagy and c-Jun N-terminal kinase-ROS signaling, suggesting that excessive autophagy and oxidative stress are detrimental to cell survival. Finally, artificial over-expression of Eis or pretreatment with recombinant Eis abrogated production of both ROS and proinflammatory cytokines, which depends on the N-acetyltransferase domain of the Eis protein. Collectively, these data indicate that Mtb Eis suppresses host innate immune defenses by modulating autophagy, inflammation, and cell death in a redox-dependent manner.
Differences of pitch profiles in Germanic and slavic languages

This study investigates cross-language differences in pitch range and variation in four languages from two language groups: English and German (Germanic) and Bulgarian and Polish (Slavic). The analysis is based on large multi-speaker corpora (48 speakers for Polish, 60 for each of the other three languages). Linear mixed models were computed that include various distributional measures of pitch level, span and variation, revealing characteristic differences across languages and between language groups. A classification experiment based on the relevant parameter measures (span, kurtosis and skewness values for pitch distributions for each speaker) succeeded in separating the language groups.
Toward a Mechanistic Understanding of Human Decision Making

This article considers the contribution of functional neuroimaging toward understanding the computational underpinnings of human decision making. We outline the main processes likely underlying the capacity to make simple choices and describe their associated neural substrates. Relevant processes include the ability to encode a representation of the expected value or utility associated with each option in a decision problem, to learn such expectations through experience, and to modify action selection in order to choose those actions leading to the greatest reward. We provide several examples of how functional neuroimaging data have helped to shape and inform theories of decision making over and above results available from traditional behavioral measures.
Model Bimbingan Kelompok menggunakan Games untuk Meningkatkan Hubungan Interpersonal Siswa

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk: (1) mengetahui pelaksanaan bimbingan kelompok, (2) menganalisis tingkat hubungan interpersonal siswa di SMP Negeri 5 Kota Kupang, (3) menghasilkan model bimbingan kelompok menggunakan games untuk meningkatkan hubungan interpersonal siswa (4) mengetahui efektivitas model bimbingan kelompok yang dikembangkan. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah Research and Development (RD (2) hasil penyebaran skala hubungan interpersonal pada 62 siswa kelas IX SMP Negeri 5 Kota Kupang diketahui bahwa 45,16% siswa berada pada kategori kurang; (3) dihasilkan model bimbingan kelompok menggunakan games untuk meningkatkan hubungan interpersonal siswa, (4) model bimbingan kelompok efektif untuk meningkatkan hubungan interpersonal siswa.This study aimed to: (1) investigate the implementation of group guidance, (2) analyze the level of student interpersonal relationships, (3) produce model of group guidance using games to improve students' interpersonal relationships, (4) determine the effectiveness of the group guidance model. The method used in this study was Research and Development (R & D). The population in this study were the entire nine grade students totaling 256 people, whereas the total sample was 10 students selected by purposive sampling. The results showed that: (1) the group guidance has been implemented, however they have not used certain techniques in practice, (2) the results of scale deployment of interpersonal relationships in 62 students of class IX known that 45,16% of students are in the low category, (3) produce a model of group guidance using games to increase students interpersonal relationships, (4) the model of group guidance using games is effective to improve students’s interpersonal relationships.
Uncovering Hedge Fund Skill from the Portfolio Holdings They Hide

This paper studies the confidential holdings of institutional investors, especially hedge funds, where the quarter-end equity holdings are disclosed with a delay through amendments to the Form 13F and are usually excluded from the standard databases. Evidence supports private information as the dominant motive for confidentiality. Funds managing large risky portfolios with non-conventional strategies seek confidentiality more frequently. Stocks in these holdings are disproportionately associated with information-sensitive events or share characteristics indicating greater information asymmetry. Confidential holdings exhibit superior performance up to twelve months. The probability of SEC approval is associated with the fraction of portfolios seeking confidentiality and the filer's track records.
High cycle tensile fatigue of unidirectional fiberglass composite tested at high frequency

This thesis is part of a more general study of high cycle fatigue resistance of composite materials for use in wind turbine blades. Wind turbine blades experience roughly 10^8 to 10^9 significant loading-unloading fatigue cycles in their 20 to 30 year lifetime. This number of fatigue cycles would require 100 to 1000 days for a single fatigue test using a typical test frequency of 10 Hz. (cycles per second). Frequency limitations with conventional composite fatigue tests derive from hysteretie heating and poor thermal conductivity. The objectives of this research were to develop a test method for unidirectional fiberglass composites which would allow testing at a frequency of up to 100 Hz, and to obtain tensile fatigue (R=0.1) data beyond 10^8 cycles. Attempts were made to develop a very small specimen while maintaining the fundamental material properties in order to improve the heat transfer. By modelling the heat transfer in a finite element analysis, it was shown that the thin specimens used in this study should not generate significant heating. This was confirmed by surface temperature measurements. Stress distributions in the specimen tab area were also analyzed by finite element analysis. Fatigue tests were run over a range of stresses and lifetimes out to 1.8 x 10^8 cycles at frequencies ranging from 30 to 100 Hz. The S/N data trend was consistent with standard coupon data tested at low frequency in the low to moderate cycle range. Direct comparisons of 75 and 10 Hz tests show a slightly longer average lifetime at 10 Hz. The high cycle data indicate a less-steep S/N trend at higher cycles than is commonly observed in low to moderate cycle data sets for fiberglass materials. HIGH CYCLE TENSILE FATIGUE OF UNIDIRECTIONAL FIBERGLASS COMPOSITE TESTED AT HIGH FREQUENCY by Richard Francis Creed, Jr. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Chemical Engineering MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY Bozeman, Montana
Tinnitus treatment with precise and optimal electric stimulation: opportunities and challenges

Purpose of reviewElectric stimulation is a potent means of neuromodulation that has been used to restore hearing and minimize tremor, but its application on tinnitus symptoms has been limited. We examine recent evidence to identify the knowledge gaps in the use of electric stimulation for tinnitus treatment. Recent findingsRecent studies using electric stimulation to suppress tinnitus in humans are categorized according to their points of attacks. First, noninvasive, direct current stimulation uses an active electrode in the ear canal, tympanic membrane, or temporal scalp. Second, inner ear stimulation uses charge-balanced biphasic stimulation by placing an active electrode on the promontory or round window, or a cochlear implant array in the cochlea. Third, intraneural implants can provide targeted stimulation of specific sites along the auditory pathway. Although these studies demonstrated some success in tinnitus suppression, none established a link between tinnitus suppression efficacy and tinnitus-generating mechanisms. SummaryElectric stimulation provides a unique opportunity to suppress tinnitus. Challenges include matching electric stimulation sites and patterns to tinnitus locus and type, meeting the oftentimes-contradictory demands between tinnitus suppression and other indications, such as speech understanding, and justifying the costs and risks of electric stimulation for tinnitus symptoms.
Alterations in development of hippocampal and cortical memory mechanisms following very preterm birth

Deficits in memory function have been described in children and adolescents who were born very preterm (VPT), which can have profound effects on their school achievement and everyday life. However, to date, little is known about the development of the neuroanatomical substrates of memory following VPT birth. Here we focus on episodic and working memory and highlight key recent functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies that have advanced our understanding of the relationship between alterations seen in the VPT brain and typical neurodevelopment of networks supporting these memory functions. We contrast evidence from the episodic and working memory literatures and suggest that knowledge gained from these functional and neuroanatomical studies may point to specific time windows in which working memory interventions may be most effective.
What keeps family physicians busy in Portugal? A multicentre observational study of work other than direct patient contacts

Objectives To quantify the time spent by family physicians (FP) on tasks other than direct patient contact, to evaluate job satisfaction, to analyse the association between time spent on tasks and physician characteristics, the association between the number of tasks performed and physician characteristics and the association between time spent on tasks and job satisfaction. Design Cross-sectional, using time-and-motion techniques. Two workdays were documented by direct observation. A significance level of 0.05 was adopted. Setting Multicentric in 104 Portuguese family practices. Participants A convenience sample of FP, with lists of over 1000 patients, teaching senior medical students and first-year family medicine residents in 2012, was obtained. Of the 217 FP invited to participate, 155 completed the study. Main outcomes measured Time spent on tasks other than direct patient contact and on the performance of more than one task simultaneously, the number of direct patient contacts in the office, the number of indirect patient contacts, job satisfaction, demographic and professional characteristics associated with time spent on tasks and the number of different tasks performed, and the association between time spent on tasks and job satisfaction. Results FP (n=155) spent a mean of 143.6 min/day (95% CI 135.2 to 152.0) performing tasks such as prescription refills, teaching, meetings, management and communication with other professionals (33.4% of their workload). FP with larger patient lists spent less time on these tasks (p=0.002). Older FP (p=0.021) and those with larger lists (p=0.011) performed fewer tasks. The mean job satisfaction score was 3.5 (out of 5). No association was found between job satisfaction and time spent on tasks. Conclusions FP spent one-third of their workday in coordinating care, teaching and managing. Time devoted to these tasks decreases with increasing list size and physician age.
Effective calculation of LEED intensities using symmetry- adapted functions

The calculation of LEED intensities in a spherical-wave representation can be substantially simplified by symmetry relations. The wave field around each atom is expanded in symmetry-adapted functions where the local point symmetry of the atomic site applies. For overlayer systems with more than one atom per unit cell symmetry-adapted functions can be used when the division of the crystal into monoatomic subplanes is replaced by division into subplanes containing all symmetrically equivalent atomic positions.
Assessment of microbial diversity in human colonic samples by 16S rDNA sequence analysis.

Abstract The bacterial species diversity of three colonic tissue samples from elderly people was investigated by sequence analysis of randomly cloned eubacterial 16S rDNA. The majority of sequences (87%) clustered within three bacterial groups: (1) Bacteroides; (2) low G+C content Gram-positives related to Clostridium coccoides (cluster XIVa); (3) Gram-positives related to Clostridium leptum (cluster IV). These groups have been shown to dominate the human faecal flora. Only 25% of sequences were closely related (>97%) to current species type strains, and 28% were less than 97% related to any database entry. 19% of sequences were most closely related to recently isolated butyrate-producing bacteria belonging to clusters XIVa and IV, with a further 18% of the sequences most closely related to Ruminococcus obeum and Ruminococcus torques (members of cluster XIVa). These results provide the first molecular information on the microbial diversity present in human colonic samples.
How does a brain build a cognitive code?

This article indicates how competition between afferent data and learned feedback expectancies can stabilize a developing code by buffering committed populations of detectors against continual erosion by new environmental demands. Tille gating phenomena that result lead to dynamically maintained critical peri(Jlds, and to attentional phenomena such as overshadowing in the adult. The fuillctional unit of cognitive coding is suggested to be an adaptive resonance, or amplification and ,prolongation of neural activity, that occurs when afferent data and efferent expectancies reach consensus through a matching process. The resonant state embodies the perceptual event, or attentional focus, and its amplified and sustained activities are capable of driving slow changes of long-term memor:r"' Mismatch between afferent data and efferent expectancies yields a global sulppression of activity and triggers a reset of short-term memory, as well as raJ~id parallel search and hypothesis testing for uncommitted cells. These mechanisms help to explain and predict, as manifestations of the unified theme of stable code development, positive and negative aftereffects, the McCollough effect, spatial frequency adaptation, monocular rivalry, binocular rivalry and hysteresis, pattern completion, and Gestalt switching; analgesia, partial reinforcement acquisition effect, conditioned reinforcers, underaroused versus overaroused depression; the contingent negative variation, P300, and pontoge]lliculo-occipital waves; olfactory coding, corticogeniculate feedback, matching of proprioceptive and terminal motor maps, and cerebral dominance. The psychophysiological mechanisms that unify these effects are inherently nonlinear and parallel and are inequivalent to the computer, probabilistic, and linear models currently in use.
Discrete Radon transform has an exact, fast inverse and generalizes to operations other than sums along lines

Götz, Druckmüller, and, independently, Brady have defined a discrete Radon transform (DRT) that sums an image's pixel values along a set of aptly chosen discrete lines, complete in slope and intercept. The transform is fast, O(N2log N) for an N × N image; it uses only addition, not multiplication or interpolation, and it admits a fast, exact algorithm for the adjoint operation, namely backprojection. This paper shows that the transform additionally has a fast, exact (although iterative) inverse. The inverse reproduces to machine accuracy the pixel-by-pixel values of the original image from its DRT, without artifacts or a finite point-spread function. Fourier or fast Fourier transform methods are not used. The inverse can also be calculated from sampled sinograms and is well conditioned in the presence of noise. Also introduced are generalizations of the DRT that combine pixel values along lines by operations other than addition. For example, there is a fast transform that calculates median values along all discrete lines and is able to detect linear features at low signal-to-noise ratios in the presence of pointlike clutter features of arbitrarily large amplitude.
Maximum Brightness and Postmaximum Decline of Light Curves of Type Supernovae Ia: A Comparison of Theory and Observations

We compare the observed correlations between the maximum brightness, postmaximum decline rate, and color at maximum light of Type Ia supernovae (SNs Ia) with model predictions. The observations are based on a total of 40 SNs Ia, including 29 SN of the Calan Tololo Supernova Search and 11 local SNs which cover a range of ≈ 2 mag in the absolute visual brightness. The observed correlations are not tight, one dimensional relations. Supernovae with the same postmaximum decline or the same color have a spread in visual magnitude of ≈ 0.7 mag. The dispersion in the color-magnitude relation may result from uncertainties in the distance determinations or the interstellar reddening within the host galaxy. The dispersion in the decline rate-magnitude relation suggests that an intrinsic spread in the supernova properties exists that cannot be accounted for by any single relation between visual brightness and postmaximum decline. Theoretical correlations are derived from a grid of models which encompasses delayed detonations, pulsating delayed detonations, the merging scenario, and helium detonations. We find that the observed correlations can be understood in terms of explosions of Chandrasekhar mass white dwarfs. Our models show an intrinsic spread in the relations of about 0.5 mag in the maximum brightness and ≈ 0.1 mag in the B - V color. Our study provides strong evidence against the mechanism of helium detonation for subluminous, red SNs Ia.
Quantitative Skills, Critical Thinking, and Writing Mechanics in Blended Versus Face-to-Face Versions of a Research Methods and Statistics Course

Hybrid or blended learning (BL) has been shown to be equivalent to or better than face-to-face (FTF) instruction in a broad variety of contexts. We randomly assigned students to either 50/50 BL or 100% FTF versions of a research methods and statistics in psychology course. Students who took the BL version of the course scored significantly lower on measures of quantitative mastery of statistical concepts than those who took the FTF version; however, the size of this effect was quite small. We detected no significant difference between BL and FTF in the expression of critical thinking through writing or writing mechanics. The greatest difference in performance was among instructors regardless of instruction type. We discuss these results in the context of increasing online and BL instruction, particularly with regard to teaching psychological statistics, research methods, and critical thinking.
Compressed Sensing for Moving Imagery in Medical Imaging

Numerous applications in signal processing have benefited from the theory of compressed sensing which shows that it is possible to reconstruct signals sampled below the Nyquist rate when certain conditions are satisfied. One of these conditions is that there exists a known transform that represents the signal with a sufficiently small number of non-zero coefficients. However when the signal to be reconstructed is composed of moving images or volumes, it is challenging to form such regularization constraints with traditional transforms such as wavelets. In this paper, we present a motion compensating prior for such signals that is derived directly from the optical flow constraint and can utilize the motion information during compressed sensing reconstruction. Proposed regularization method can be used in a wide variety of applications involving compressed sensing and images or volumes of moving and deforming objects. It is also shown that it is possible to estimate the signal and the motion jointly or separately. Practical examples from magnetic resonance imaging has been presented to demonstrate the benefit of the proposed method.
Noble Gases in Lakes and Ground Waters

In contrast to most other fields of noble gas geochemistry that mostly regard atmospheric noble gases as ‘contamination,’ air-derived noble gases make up the far largest and hence most important contribution to the noble gas abundance in meteoric waters, such as lakes and ground waters. Atmospheric noble gases enter the meteoric water cycle by gas partitioning during air/water exchange with the atmosphere. In lakes and oceans noble gases are exchanged with the free atmosphere at the surface of the open water body. In ground waters gases partition between the water phase and the soil air of the quasi-saturated zone, the transition between the unsaturated and the saturated zone. Extensive measurements have shown that noble gas concentrations of open waters agree well with the noble gas solubility equilibrium according to (free) air/(free) water partitioning, whereby the aquatic concentration is directly proportional to the respective atmospheric noble gas abundance (Henry law, Aeschbach-Hertig et al. 1999b). In applications in lakes and ground waters the gas specific Henry coefficient can simplifying be assumed to depend only on temperature and salinity of the water. Hence the equilibrium concentrations of noble gases implicitly convey information on the physical properties of the water during gas exchange at the air/water interface, i.e., air pressure, temperature and salinity of the exchanging water mass. The ubiquitous presence of atmospheric noble gases in the meteoric water cycle defines a natural baseline, which masks other noble gas components until their abundance is sufficiently large that these components can be separated against the natural atmospheric background. For most classical geochemical aspects this typical feature of natural waters may look at first sight as a disadvantage. In fact it turns out to be advantageous because in most cases the noble gas abundance in water can be understood as a binary mixture of two …