Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibition modulates experimental acute necrotizing pancreatitis-induced oxidative stress, bacterial translocation and neopterin concentrations in rats

Various studies have been performed to find out novel treatment strategies for acute necrotizing pancreatitis (ANP). Inhibition of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) is shown to reduce inflammation in several pathological conditions. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of benzamide, a PARP inhibitor, in an experimental model of ANP. Thirty Sprague–Dawley rats were divided into three groups: sham-operated, ANP and ANP + benzamide groups. All groups except the sham-operated group were subjected to the ANP procedure, induced by infusing of 1 mL/kg of 3% sodium taurocholate into the common biliopancreatic duct. The ANP + benzamide group received 100 mg/kg/day benzamide intraperitoneally for a total of three days after induction of pancreatitis. The surviving animals were killed at the fourth day and the pancreas was harvested for biochemical, microbiological and histological analysis. Blood samples were also obtained from the animals. In the ANP group, a significant increase was observed in concentrations of serum amylase and neopterin and tissue oxidative stress indices (malondialdehyde, superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase). Almost all of these changes were found to be reversed to near their normal values in the ANP + benzamide group. Histological injury scores were significantly higher in the ANP group than in the sham group (P < 0.05, ANP versus sham), and were significantly lower in the ANP + benzamide group than in the ANP group (P < 0.05, ANP + benzamide versus ANP). Evaluation of bacterial translocation identified significantly fewer infected sites in the ANP + benzamide group than in the ANP animals (P < 0.01). We observed that inhibition of PARP with benzamide reduced the severity, the mortality, the bacterial translocation rates and the neopterin concentrations in an experimental ANP model in rats. These findings suggest that it may be possible to improve the outcome of ANP by using PARP inhibitors.
Method for early diagnostics of lymphatic system tumors on the basis of the analysis of chromatin constitution in cell nucleus images

In this paper, a new criterion for early diagnostics of lymphatic system tumor from images of cell nuclei of lymphatic nodes is considered. A method for image analysis of chromatin structure is developed on the basis of the scale-space approach. A diagnostically important criterion is defined as a total amount of points of spatial intensity extrema in the families of blurred images generated by the given image of a cell nucleus. The procedure for calculating criterion values is presented. Testing of the obtained criterion is carried out.
Not a job for ‘girly-girls’: horseracing, gender and work identities

Women began to work in the British horseracing industry in the late 1960s, early 1970s. In order to be accepted they had to be as strong, tough and able as the ‘lads’. Drawing upon historical accounts and an ethnographic study of work relations in British horseracing, including semi-structured interviews with female stable ‘lads’, this paper analyzes how class and gender shape the way these women negotiate masculinity. Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, capital and field provide the tools to help explore the masculine work identities that are embodied by those working in the racing industry, and whether women working in the racing industry can in any sense be regarded as embodying masculinity in a ‘field’ of power that can be characterized as patriarchal and masculinized.
Characterization of the Functional Domain of β2-Microglobulin from the Asian Seabass, Lates calcarifer

Background β2-Microglobulin (β2M) is the light chain of major histocompatibility class I (MHC I) that binds non-covalently with the α heavy chain. Both proteins attach to the antigen peptide, presenting a complex to the T cell to be destroyed via the immune mechanism. Methodology/Principal Findings In this study, a cDNA sequence encoding β2M in the Asian seabass (Lates calcarifer) was identified and analyzed using in silico approaches to predict and characterize its functional domain. The β2M cDNA contains an open reading frame (ORF) of 351 bases with a coding capacity of 116 amino acids. A large portion of the protein consists of the IG constant domain (IGc1), similar to β2M sequences from other species studied thus far. Alignment of the IGc1 domains of β2M from L. calcarifer and other species shows a high degree of overall conservation. Seven amino acids were found to be conserved across taxa whereas conservation between L. calcarifer and other fish species was restricted to 14 amino acids at identical conserved positions. Conclusion/Significance As the L. calcarifer β2M protein analyzed in this study contains a functional domain similar to that of β2M proteins in other species, it can be postulated that the β2M proteins from L. calcarifer and other organisms are derived from a common ancestor and thus have a similar immune function. Interestingly, fish β2M genes could also be classified according to the ecological habitat of the species, i.e. whether it is from a freshwater, marine or euryhaline environment.
D-penicillamine-induced pemphigus vulgaris in a patient with scleroderma-rheumatoid arthritis overlap syndrome.

Andrea Szegedi, Peter Suranyi, Gabriella Szucs, Maria Kiss, Janos Hunyadi and Janos Gaal Department of Dermatology, Medical and Health Science Center, University of Debrecen, Department of Rheumatology, Kenezy Gyula Hospital, Bartok B. str. 2-26, HU-4043 Debrecen, 3rd Department of Internal Medicine Medical and Health Science Center, University of Debrecen, Debrecen and Department of Dermatology, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary. *E-mail: gaalja@freemail.hu Accepted January 9, 2004.
A Portable 3D LIDAR-based System for Long-term and Wide-area People Behavior Measurement

It is important to measure and analyze people behavior to design systems which interact with people. This paper describes a portable people behavior measurement system using a 3D-LIDAR. In this system, an observer carries the system equipped with a 3D LIDAR and follows persons to be measured while keeping them in the sensor view. The system estimates the sensor pose in a 3D environmental map and tracks the target persons. It enables long-term and wide-area people behavior measurements which are hard for existing people tracking systems. As a ﬁeld test, we recorded the behavior of professional caregivers attending elderly persons with dementia in a hospital. The preliminary analysis of the behavior reveals how the caregivers decide the attending position while checking the surrounding people and environment. Based on the analysis result, empirical rules to design the behavior of attendant robots are proposed.
SUMMARY her 1 and the notch pathway function within the oscillator mechanism that regulates zebrafish somitogenesis

Somites are segments within the vertebrate embryo that are the precursors of the vertebrae and muscle of the trunk and tail. These segments form sequentially from anterior to posterior, concomitant with the posterior extension of the embryo. Embryological studies first suggested the existence of a prepattern within the morphologically unsegmented presomitic mesoderm (PSM) that presages segment border formation (Aoyama and Asamoto, 1988). Subsequently, this prepattern was linked to an oscillator mechanism (Cooke, 1998; Cooke and Zeeman, 1975; Meinhardt, 1982; Meinhardt, 1986; Palmeirim et al., 1997) that causes cells of the PSM to go through repeated cycles of expression and repression of homologues of the notchpathway target gene hairy (Palmeirim et al., 1997; Holley et al., 2000; Jouve et al., 2000; Sawada et al., 2000) and homologues of the notchpathway genes lunatic fringe (lfng) (Forsberg et al., 1998; McGrew et al., 1998; Aulehla and Johnson, 1999) and delta (Jiang et al., 2000). These studies show that the cells within the PSM undergo multiple cycles of expression and repression of these genes, in a manner that is coordinated intercellularly to create stripes of mRNA expression that travel through the cells of the PSM in a posterior-to-anterior direction. This oscillation halts in the anterior PSM as the pattern is stabilized and interpreted to give rise to regular somite borders. While earlier studies had demonstrated the involvement of the notch signaling pathway in somitogenesis (Conlon et al., 1995; Dornseifer et al., 1997; Evrard et al., 1998; Hrabé Angelis et al., 1997; Jen et al., 1997; Jen et al., 1999; Kusumi et al., 1998; McGrew et al., 1998; Oka et al., 1995; Takke and Campos-Ortega, 1999; Wong et al., 1997; Zhang and Gridley, 1998), the requirement for the notch pathway in creating the oscillations in gene expression was not appreciated until more recently (del Barco Barrantes et al., 1999; Holley et al., 2000; Jouve et al., 2000). Nevertheless, both the specific function(s) of the notch pathway in this process and the identity of the oscillator remain unknown. after eight (aei; dld – Zebrafish Information Network), deadly seven(des), fused somites (fss), beamter(bea) and white tail/mindbomb(wit) are the five genes that are necessary for normal somite formation isolated in our zebrafish genetic screen (van Eeden et al., 1996; Jiang et al., 1996). We have shown previously that aei codes for the notchligand deltaD (Dornseifer et al., 1997; Holley et al., 2000). Moreover, we have shown that aei/deltaD is required to create the oscillating pattern of her1, but that its mRNA expression does not oscillate (Holley et al., 2000). However, none of the genes shown to be ecessary to produce the oscillating pattern of mRNA expression actually oscillate themselves. Thus, it is not clear if these genes [aei/deltaD in the zebrafish and Delta-like1(Dll1) 1175 Development 129, 1175-1183 (2002) Printed in Great Britain © The Company of Biologists Limited 2002 DEV2837
Correlation-induction techniques for estimating quantiles in simulation experiments

To estimate selected quantiles of the response of a finite-horizon simulation, we develop statistical methods based on correlation-induction techniques for variance reduction, with emphasis on antithetic variates and Latin hypercube sampling. The proposed multiple-sample quantile estimator is the average of negatively correlated quantile estimators computed from disjoint samples of the response, where negative correlation is induced between corresponding responses in different samples while mutual independence of responses is maintained within each sample. The proposed single-sample quantile estimator is computed from negatively correlated responses within one overall sample. We establish a central limit theorem for the single-sample estimator based on Latin hypercube sampling, showing that asymptotically this estimator is unbiased and has smaller variance than the comparable direct-simulation estimator based on independent replications. We also show that if the response is monotone in the simulation's random-number inputs and if the response satisfies some other regularity conditions, then asymptotically the multiple-sample estimator is unbiased and has smaller mean square error than the direct-simulation estimator.
G-SPARQL: a hybrid engine for querying large attributed graphs

We propose a SPARQL-like language, G-SPARQL, for querying attributed graphs. The language expresses types of queries which of large interest for applications which model their data as large graphs such as: pattern matching, reachability and shortest path queries. Each query can combine both of structural predicates and value-based predicates (on the attributes of the graph nodes and edges). We describe an algebraic compilation mechanism for our proposed query language which is extended from the relational algebra and based on the basic construct of building SPARQL queries, the Triple Pattern. We describe a hybrid Memory/Disk representation of large attributed graphs where only the topology of the graph is maintained in memory while the data of the graph is stored in a relational database. The execution engine of our proposed query language splits parts of the query plan to be pushed inside the relational database while the execution of other parts of the query plan are processed using memory-based algorithms, as necessary. Experimental results on real datasets demonstrate the efficiency and the scalability of our approach and show that our approach outperforms native graph databases by several factors.
Duality Phase Transition in Type I String Theory

We show that the duality phase transition in the unoriented type I theory of open and closed strings is_first order_. The order parameter is the semiclassical approximation to the heavy quark-antiquark potential at finite temperature, extracted from the covariant off-shell string amplitude with Wilson loop boundaries wrapped around the Euclidean time direction. Remarkably, precise calculations can be carried out on either side of the phase boundary at the string scale T_C = 1/2\pi \alpha^{'1/2} by utilizing the T-dual, type IB and type I', descriptions of the short string gas of massless gluon radiation. We will calculate the change in the duality transition temperature in the presence of an electromagnetic background field.
Classroom conditions to secure enjoyment and achievement: the pupils' voice. Listening to the voice of Every child matters

This paper argues that pupil voice and the active engagement of pupils in shaping their own educational experience are integral to the success of the ‘Enjoy and Achieve’ strand of the Every child matters: Change for children programme. Through accessing the voice of Key Stage 2 pupils, insight was gained into what pupils believe to be the ideal ‘classroom conditions’ which enable them to enjoy and achieve at school. Pupil voice was accessed using an innovative form of group interview incorporating an Ishikawa or fishbone tool. The data was collected from 180 pupils, from Years 3–6 (aged 7–11) in a UK Junior school. The findings identify eight ‘classroom conditions’ which pupils see as being critical for them to be able to enjoy and achieve at school. Two of these ‘classroom conditions’ do not appear to be supported by previous research.
Cooperative Communications over Flat Fading Channels with Carrier Offsets: A Double-Differential Modulation Approach

We propose double-differential (DD) modulation for the amplify-and-forward protocol over Nakagami- fading channels with carrier offsets. We propose an emulated maximum ratio combining (EMRC) decoder, which could be used by the double-differential receiver in the absence of exact channel knowledge. Approximate bit error rate (BER) analysis is performed for the proposed double-differential modulation-based cooperative communication system. The proposed double-differential system is immune to random carrier offsets, whereas the conventional single-differential modulation-based cooperative system breaks down. In addition, the proposed scheme is able to perform better than the same rate training-based cooperative system which utilizes training data for finding estimates of carrier offsets and channel gains.
Analyzing non-negative matrix factorization for image classification

The Non-negative Matrix Factorization technique (NMF) has been recently proposed for dimensionality reduction. NMF is capable to produce a region- or part-based representation of objects and images. This paper experimentally compares NMF to Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in the context of image patch classification. A first finding is that the two techniques are complementary and that their respective performance is correlated to the with-in class scatter. This paper also analyses different techniques to combine these complementary methods. In the first combination scheme the best technique for each class is chosen and the results are merged. The second combination scheme builds a hierarchy of classifiers where again for each classification task the best technique is chosen. Additionally, incorporation of the classification results of neighboring image patches further improves the overall results.
A theoretical review and meta-analysis of the description-identification relationship in memory for faces

Verbal descriptions can sometimes impair (or “overshadow”) and other times facilitate subsequent attempts at perceptual identification of faces; however, understanding the relationship between these two tasks and the theoretical mechanisms that bridge this relationship has often proven difficult. Furthermore, studies that have attempted to assess the description-identification relationship have varied considerably in demonstrating significant and null results, often across a variety of paradigms and design parameters. In the present paper we review the relevant literatures and theoretical positions proposed to explain this relationship, and we present the first meta-analysis of this effect across 33 research papers and a total of 4278 participants. Our results suggest that there does appear to be a small, but significant, relationship between the description measures of accuracy, number of incorrect descriptors, and congruence with that of subsequent identification accuracy. Furthermore, certain conditions were found to strengthen the magnitude of this relationship, including the use of face recognition versus eyewitness identification paradigms and the length of delays between relevant tasks. We discuss both the theoretical and practical implications of this relationship for understanding memory for faces.
Plasma lutein and zeaxanthin and the risk of age-related nuclear cataract among the elderly Finnish population

Oxidative stress plays an important role in cataractogenesis. Previous studies have shown that long-term dietary intake of antioxidants (lutein and zeaxanthin) may decrease the risk of age-related cataracts. The aim of the present study was to examine whether plasma concentrations of lutein and zeaxanthin are related to age-related nuclear cataract in the elderly population. Subjects were participants in the Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study and they were classified into tertiles according to plasma concentrations of lutein and zeaxanthin. The association of plasma lutein and zeaxanthin concentrations with age-related nuclear cataract in 1689 elderly subjects (aged 61–80 years) was investigated in the present cross-sectional study by using the Cox proportional hazards model. A total of 113 cases of incident age-related cataracts were confirmed, of which 108 cases were nuclear cataracts. After adjustment for age, examination year, sex, BMI, smoking, alcohol consumption, serum LDL-cholesterol, serum HDL-cholesterol, years of education, use of oral corticosteroids, history of diabetes and history of hypertension with current use of antihypertensive medication, subjects in the highest tertiles of plasma concentrations of lutein and zeaxanthin had 42 and 41 % lower risks of nuclear cataract, respectively, compared with those in the lowest tertiles (relative risk (RR) = 0·58, 95 % CI 0·35, 0·98; P = 0·041 for lutein and RR = 0·59, 95 % CI 0·35, 0·99; P = 0·046 for zeaxanthin). In conclusion, we suggest that high plasma concentrations of lutein and zeaxanthin were associated with a decreased risk of age-related nuclear cataract in the elderly population.
Performance of tests for latent tuberculosis in different groups of immunocompromised patients.

BACKGROUND Immunocompromised persons infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) have increased risk of tuberculosis (TB) reactivation, but their management is hampered by the occurrence of false-negative results of the tuberculin skin test (TST). The T-cell interferon (IFN)-gamma release blood assays T-SPOT.TB (TS.TB) [Oxford Immunotec; Abingdon, UK] and QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-IT) [Cellestis Ltd; Carnegie, VIC, Australia] might improve diagnostic accuracy for latent TB infection (LTBI) in high-risk persons, although their performance in different groups of immunocompromised patients is largely unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS Over a 1-year period, we prospectively enrolled patients in three different immunosuppressed groups, as follows: 120 liver transplantation candidates (LTCs); 116 chronically HIV-infected persons; and 95 patients with hematologic malignancies (HMs). TST, TS.TB, and QFT-IT were simultaneously performed, their results were compared, and intertest agreement was evaluated. Overall, TST provided fewer positive results (10.9%) than TS.TB (18.4%; p < 0.001) and QFT-IT (15.1%; p = 0.033). Significantly fewer HIV-infected individuals had at least one positive test (9.5%) compared with LTCs (35.8%; p < 0.001) and patients with HMs (29.5%; p < 0.001). Diagnostic agreement between tests was moderate (kappa = 0.40 to 0.65) and decreased in the HIV-infected group when the results of the TS.TB were compared with either TST (kappa = 0.16) or QFT-IT (kappa = 0.19). Indeterminate blood test results due to low positive control values were significantly more frequent with QFT-IT (7.2%) than with TS.TB (0.6%; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Blood tests identified significantly more patients as being infected with MTB than TST, although diagnostic agreement varied across groups. Based on these results, we recommend tailoring application of the new blood IFN-gamma assays for LTBI in different high-risk groups and advise caution in their current use in immunosuppressed patients.
Assessing the Validity of an Annual Survey for Measuring Principal Leadership Practice

Because research has shown that principals' practices can significantly impact teaching and learning in their schools through multiple avenues, it is critical to understand the validity of tools that measure principal practice. While the field has relied heavily on self-report surveys, little is known about their validity. This study compares survey measures of principal leadership practice with comparable daily log measures. We construct a multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) matrix showing intercorrelations among 4 dimensions of principal leadership captured with the 2 instruments. Correlations were evaluated against criteria used for MTMM analyses. Considerable evidence attested to the principal survey's validity, with correlations between log and survey measures of all 4 dimensions exceeding . 50. Results suggest that surveys may be better at measuring principals' management of the school building and instructional leadership than measuring more irregular activities like planning and personal professional development. We discuss steps for improving the validity of principal surveys.