Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gradient auxiliary selection and impersonal passivization in German: an experimental investigation

The main purpose of this paper is to provide experimental evidence that two syntactic reflexes of split intransitivity in German – the selection of perfective auxiliaries and the impersonal passive construction – are sensitive to an aspectual/thematic hierarchy of verb classes. We show that there is a split between ‘core’ verbs that elicit categorical intuitions from native speakers, and ‘intermediate’ verbs that exhibit gradience. Furthermore, crossdialectal differences between northern and southern German with respect to auxiliary selection tend to occur only with intermediate verbs. We argue that these findings lend support to the view that the unaccusative/unergative distinction is considerably more unstable than often assumed, and suggest that projectionist theories of the lexicon-syntax interface such as those directly derived from the Unaccusative Hypothesis may not be able to account for the systematic variation exhibited by the data.
An Optimal Transportation Metric for Solutions of the Camassa-Holm Equation

In this paper we construct a global, continuous flow of solutions to the Camassa-Holm equation on the entire space H. Our solutions are conservative, in the sense that the total energy ∫ (u + ux) dx remains a.e. constant in time. Our new approach is based on a distance functional J(u, v), defined in terms of an optimal transportation problem, which satisfies d dtJ(u(t), v(t)) ≤ κ · J(u(t), v(t)) for every couple of solutions. Using this new distance functional, we can construct arbitrary solutions as the uniform limit of multi-peakon solutions, and prove a general uniqueness result. 1 Introduction The Camassa-Holm equation has the form ut − utxx + 3uux = 2uxuxx + uuxxx . Equivalently, it can be written as a scalar conservation law with an additional integro-differential term: ut + (u /2)x + Px = 0 , (1.1) where P is defined as a convolution: P . = 1 2 e−|x| ∗ ( u + ux 2 ) . (1.2) For the physical motivations of this equation we refer to [CH], [CM1], [CM2], [J]. Earlier results on the existence and uniqueness of solutions can be found in [XZ1], [XZ2]. One can regard (1.1) as an evolution equation on a space of absolutely continuous functions with derivatives ux ∈ L. In the smooth case, differentiating (1.1) w.r. t. x one obtains uxt + uuxx + u 2 x − ( u + ux 2 ) + P = 0 . (1.3)
Neuropsychological performance in long-term cannabis users.

BACKGROUND Although cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States, its long-term cognitive effects remain inadequately studied. METHODS We recruited individuals aged 30 to 55 years in 3 groups: (1) 63 current heavy users who had smoked cannabis at least 5000 times in their lives and who were smoking daily at study entry; (2) 45 former heavy users who had also smoked at least 5000 times but fewer than 12 times in the last 3 months; and (3) 72 control subjects who had smoked no more than 50 times in their lives. Subjects underwent a 28-day washout from cannabis use, monitored by observed urine samples. On days 0, 1, 7, and 28, we administered a neuropsychological test battery to assess general intellectual function, abstraction ability, sustained attention, verbal fluency, and ability to learn and recall new verbal and visuospatial information. Test results were analyzed by repeated-measures regression analysis, adjusting for potentially confounding variables. RESULTS At days 0, 1, and 7, current heavy users scored significantly below control subjects on recall of word lists, and this deficit was associated with users' urinary 11-nor-9-carboxy-Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol concentrations at study entry. By day 28, however, there were virtually no significant differences among the groups on any of the test results, and no significant associations between cumulative lifetime cannabis use and test scores. CONCLUSION Some cognitive deficits appear detectable at least 7 days after heavy cannabis use but appear reversible and related to recent cannabis exposure rather than irreversible and related to cumulative lifetime use.
Surface antigens of Leishmania donovani promastigotes

Surface antigen profiles of Leishmania donovani promastigote isolates have been studied. Surface patterns of Brazilian and African isolates display remarkable similarities and are extremely simple, consisting of three major peptides of 65,000, 25,000, and 23,000 mol wt. Surface iodination and biosynthetic labeling coupled to immunoprecipitation techniques revealed that a single major determinant of 65,000 mol wt is recognized in all strains by sera from kala-azar patients from both Brazil and Africa. This major determinant is not brought down by sera from normal individuals and shows no significant cross-reactivity with sera from Chagas' disease, leprosy, or syphilis patients. Binding to concanavalin A suggests a glycoprotein nature for this antigen. Sera from patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis (L. braziliensis) also recognized the same 65,000-mol wt determinant, although to a lesser extent. The possibility that this major surface antigen is shared, with minor differences, not only by L. donovani strains but between Leishmania species in general is suggested.
Vitamin D Receptor Deficiency Enhances Wnt/β-Catenin Signaling and Tumor Burden in Colon Cancer

Aberrant activation of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway is critical for the initiation and progression of most colon cancers. This activation provokes the accumulation of nuclear β-catenin and the induction of its target genes. Apcmin/+ mice are the most commonly used model for colon cancer. They harbor a mutated Apc allele and develop intestinal adenomas and carcinomas during the first months of life. This phenotype is caused by the mutation of the second Apc allele and the consequent accumulation of nuclear β-catenin in the affected cells. Here we describe that vitamin D receptor (VDR) is a crucial modulator of nuclear β-catenin levels in colon cancer in vivo. By appropriate breeding of Apcmin/+ mice and Vdr+/− mice we have generated animals expressing a mutated Apc allele and two, one, or none Vdr wild type alleles. Lack of Vdr increased the number of colonic Aberrant Crypt Foci (ACF) but not that of adenomas or carcinomas in either small intestine or colon. Importantly, colon ACF and tumors of Apcmin/+Vdr-/- mice had increased nuclear β-catenin and the tumors reached a larger size than those of Apcmin/+Vdr+/+. Both ACF and carcinomas in Apcmin/+Vdr-/- mice showed higher expression of β-catenin/TCF target genes. In line with this, VDR knock-down in cultured human colon cancer cells enhanced β-catenin nuclear content and target gene expression. Consistently, VDR depletion abrogated the capacity of 1,25(OH)2D3 to promote the relocation of β-catenin from the nucleus to the plasma membrane and to inhibit β-catenin/TCF target genes. In conclusion, VDR controls the level of nuclear β-catenin in colon cancer cells and can therefore attenuate the impact of oncogenic mutations that activate the Wnt/β-catenin pathway.
Speech Characteristics of Monozygotic Twins and a Same-Sex Sibling: An Acoustic Case Study of Coarticulation Patterns in Read Speech

Abstract This case study reports on an acoustic investigation of the motor speech characteristics of a set of young adult male monozygotic (MZ) twins and compares them to those of an age- and sex-matched sibling who participated in the study 2 years later to match for demographic factors. Coarticulation patterns were investigated from read samples of consonant-vowel sequences in monosyllabic words containing a variety of consonants and vowels. This was done by examining F2 vowel onsets and F2 vowel targets, plotted as F2 locus equations. Data were processed for between-sibling differences using a number of statistical tests. Results indicated that the MZ twins displayed F2 parameters and coarticulation patterns which were more similar than those of their age- and sex-matched sibling. The results of this case study therefore suggest that acoustic phonetic parameters used to index coarticulation patterns have the potential to profile some of the similarities and differences in the speech characteristics of genetically related individuals.
The Structure of Human Prosociality Revisited

In a recent publication, we employed factor analyses to integrate 14 measures of prosocial behavior, proposing four subcomponents of human prosociality: altruistically motivated, norm motivated, strategically motivated, and self-reported prosocial behavior. However, the reported confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) yielded standardized regression weights above 1, resulting from an improper solution (Heywood cases), which precludes straightforward interpretation of results. Here, we present two adjusted CFA models that rectify this problem. Model 1 resolves the issue of Heywood cases by implementing equality constraints, yielding a four-factor structure that is largely similar to the original model. Model 2 accommodates additional methodological considerations and presents a revised structure of prosociality with three subcomponents: altruistically motivated, norm motivated, and self-reported prosocial behavior. We also report minor corrections of descriptive results, none of which alter the pattern of results and interpretations of the original publication.
Multiple sequence alignment using partial order graphs

MOTIVATION Progressive Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) methods depend on reducing an MSA to a linear profile for each alignment step. However, this leads to loss of information needed for accurate alignment, and gap scoring artifacts. RESULTS We present a graph representation of an MSA that can itself be aligned directly by pairwise dynamic programming, eliminating the need to reduce the MSA to a profile. This enables our algorithm (Partial Order Alignment (POA)) to guarantee that the optimal alignment of each new sequence versus each sequence in the MSA will be considered. Moreover, this algorithm introduces a new edit operator, homologous recombination, important for multidomain sequences. The algorithm has improved speed (linear time complexity) over existing MSA algorithms, enabling construction of massive and complex alignments (e.g. an alignment of 5000 sequences in 4 h on a Pentium II). We demonstrate the utility of this algorithm on a family of multidomain SH2 proteins, and on EST assemblies containing alternative splicing and polymorphism. AVAILABILITY The partial order alignment program POA is available at http://www.bioinformatics. ucla.edu/poa.
A combination of a ribonucleotide reductase inhibitor and histone deacetylase inhibitors downregulates EGFR and triggers BIM-dependent apoptosis in head and neck cancer

Head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) are the sixth most common malignant neoplasm and more than 50% of patients succumb to this disease. HNSCCs are characterized by therapy resistance, which relies on the overexpression of anti-apoptotic proteins and on the aberrant regulation of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). As inherent and acquired resistance to therapy counteracts improvement of long-term survival, novel multi-targeting strategies triggering cancer cell death are urgently required. We investigated how induction of replicational stress by the ribonucleotide reductase inhibitor hydroxyurea (HU) combined with histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) exerts anti-tumor activity. We treated HNSCC cell lines and freshly isolated tumor cells with HDACi, such as the clinically approved anti-epileptic drug valproic acid (VPA), in combination with HU. Our data demonstrate that at clinically achievable levels VPA/HU combinations efficiently block proliferation as well as clonogenic survival, and trigger apoptosis of HNSCC cells. In the presence of VPA/HU, such tumor cells increase expression of the pro-apoptotic BCL-2 family protein BIM, independent of wild-type p53 signaling and in the absence of increased expression of the p53 targets PUMA and BAX. The pro-apoptotic activity of BIM in HNSCCs was found critical for tumor cell death; ectopic overexpression of BIM induced HNSCC apoptosis and RNAi-mediated depletion of BIM protected HNSCC cells from VPA/HU. Also, significantly elevated BIM levels (p<0.01) were detectable in the apoptotic tumor centers versus proliferating tumor margins in HNSCC patients (n=31), underlining BIM's clinical relevance. Importantly, VPA/HU treatment additionally reduces expression and cell surface localization of EGFR. Accordingly, in a xenograft mouse model, VPA/HU efficiently blocked tumor growth (P<0.001) correlating with BIM induction and EGFR downregulation. We provide a molecular rationale for the potent anti-cancer activities of this drug combination. Our data suggest its exploitation as a potential strategy for the treatment of HNSCC and other tumor entities characterized by therapy resistance linked to dysregulated EGFR activation.
Black Girls Rock: The Impact of Integration and Involvement on the Success of Black College Women

Given that individual and institutional characteristics are suggested to work collectively in promoting optimal student success, the purpose of this quantitative study was to understand factors that contribute to the success of Black college women at predominantly White institutions (PWIs). Of particular interest was the relationship between self-reported gains of Black women and the level of social integration and student involvement these women reported. The College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ) was used to analyze a purposeful sample of 736 Black undergraduate women who completed the survey between 2005 and 2010. Statistical analyses, including multiple regression tests and Pearson product moment correlations, were conducted to examine relationships between social integration, student involvement, and self-reported gains. Results of the analyses indicated that each of the variables was positively correlated, statistically significant, and that social integration had a stronger relationship to each of the self-reported gains factors than student involvement.
Regulation of the Nucleocytoplasmic Distribution of Snf1-Gal83 Protein Kinase

ABSTRACT Snf1 protein kinase containing the β subunit Gal83 is localized in the cytoplasm during growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells in abundant glucose and accumulates in the nucleus in response to glucose limitation. Nuclear localization of Snf1-Gal83 requires activation of the Snf1 catalytic subunit and depends on Gal83, but in the snf1Δ mutant, Gal83 exhibits glucose-regulated nuclear accumulation. We show here that the N terminus of Gal83, which is divergent from those of the other β subunits, is necessary and sufficient for Snf1-independent, glucose-regulated localization. We identify a leucine-rich nuclear export signal in the N terminus and show that export depends on the Crm1 export receptor. We present evidence that catalytically inactive Snf1 promotes the cytoplasmic retention of Gal83 in glucose-grown cells through its interaction with the C terminus of Gal83; cytoplasmic localization of inactive Snf1-Gal83 maintains accessibility to the Snf1-activating kinases. Finally, we characterize the effects of glucose phosphorylation on localization. These studies define roles for Snf1 and Gal83 in determining the nucleocytoplasmic distribution of Snf1-Gal83 protein kinase.
The comprehension of passives in Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study investigates the comprehension of passives in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Subsets of children with ASD have been previously found to present linguistic profiles reminiscent of Specific Language Impairment (SLI), a condition including difficulties with certain constructions displaying noncanonical word orders. However, research on one such construction, passives, is sparse and remains inconclusive. Furthermore, studies on typical development of passives in French are lacking. Twenty French-speaking children with ASD (mean age 9;3), including children with both normal and delayed nonverbal levels, were compared to 20 age-matched typically-developing (TD) children and to 65 younger TD children split into groups of children aged 4–5, 6–7 and 8–9 years. Various passive types were assessed via a sentence-picture matching task: eventive versus psychological, and short versus long. Most children with ASD showed difficulties on passive constructions as compared to age controls, although with the same basic pattern of performance. More subtle delay on passives was evident in a subgroup who was otherwise unimpaired on standardized assessments of vocabulary and morphosyntax, while a pronounced delay on passives was detectable in another subgroup also displaying more general lexical and morphosyntactic impairment. Difficulties with passives were dissociated from nonverbal abilities and working memory. The findings reveal that the syntax of passives is delayed in ASD, not deviant. This delay was attested even in the subgroup with seemingly intact general language skills as revealed by standardized assessments, suggesting that subtle difficulties with this construction may be present and go undetected by global language tests. Performance on passives was unrelated to nonverbal abilities, in line with work suggesting that the linguistic phenotype of some children with ASD resembles SLI. This underscores the importance of careful assessment of the language abilities of children with ASD, including those within normal IQ range.
Comparative Study of the Effects of Different Growth Hormone Doses on Growth and Spatial Performance of Hypophysectomized Rats

This study was designed to examine the effects of recombinant human growth hormone replacement on somatic growth and cognitive function in hypophysectomized (HYPOX) female Sprague-Dawley rats. Rats (5 per group) were randomized by weight to 3 experimental groups: group 1, administered 200 µg/kg of GH once daily for 9 days; group 2, administered 200 µg/kg of GH twice daily; and group 3, administered saline daily. Somatic growth was evaluated by measurement of body weight daily and of the width of the proximal tibial growth plate of the HYPOX rats. Cognitive function was evaluated using the Morris water maze (MWM) test. The results indicated that GH replacement therapy in HYPOX rats promoted an increase in the body weight and the width of the tibial growth plate in a dose-dependent manner. On the third day of the MWM test, the escape latency in the GH-treated groups 1 and 2 was significantly shorter than that in the control rats (P<0.001 and P=0.032, respectively), suggesting that rhGH improved spatial memory acquisition in the MWM test. Therefore it is concluded that rhGH replacement therapy in HYPOX rats stimulates an increase in somatic growth in a dose-dependent manner and also has beneficial effects on cognitive functions.
Retinal blood vessel segmentation using gabor filter and top-hat transform

Retinal blood vessel segmentation is a widely used process in diagnosis of various diseases such as diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and arteriosclerosis. Therefore, an automated tool developed for vessel segmentation could be employed in diagnosis of those illnesses to help ophthalmologists. In this paper, we suggest a method to segment retinal blood vessels automatically. In the method, we apply top-hat transform after Gabor filter to enhance blood vessels. Later on, the output of the transformation is converted to binary image with p-tile thresholding. In order to test the developed system 20 images obtained from STARE database are used for performance evaluation. The results shows 86.31% of true positive rate (sensivity) and 92.90% of accuracy, which is promising.
Parallel memory defragmentation on a GPU

High-throughput memory management techniques such as malloc/free or mark-and-sweep collectors often exhibit memory fragmentation leaving allocated objects interspersed with free memory holes. Memory defragmentation removes such holes by moving objects around in memory so that they become adjacent (compaction) and holes can be merged (coalesced) to form larger holes. However, known defragmentation techniques are slow. This paper presents a parallel solution to best-effort partial defragmentation that makes use of all available cores. The solution not only speeds up defragmentation times significantly, but it also scales for many simple cores. It can therefore even be implemented on a GPU. One problem with compaction is that it requires all references to moved objects to be retargeted to point to their new locations. This paper further improves existing work by a better identification of the parts of the heap that contain references to objects moved by the compactor and only processes these parts to find the references that are then retargeted in parallel. To demonstrate the performance of the new memory defragmentation algorithm on many-core processors, we show its performance on a modern GPU. Parallelization speeds up compaction 40 times and coalescing up to 32 times. After compaction, our algorithm only needs to process 2%--4% of the total heap to retarget references.
The application of cortex visual cognitive model on road environment perception

Rieseshuber and Poggio from MIT proposed a standard quantitative model of cortex visual cognitive. This feedforward hierarchical model perfect follows the visual perception mechanisms of the cortex from simple cells to the complex cells. This paper first adopts this cortex visual cognitive model (CVCM) into the street environment perception algorithm which is the hot issue in the intelligent transportation field. The algorithm works well in typical street objects detecting and localization in cluster street scene by combining the cortex perception model with the scaled windowing technique. The results show excellent detection rate and low false alarm rate.
Knowledge Representation with Ontologies: The Present and Future

Recently, we have seen an explosion of interest in ontologies as artifacts to represent human knowledge and as critical components in knowledge management, the semantic Web, business-to-business applications, and several other application areas. Various research communities commonly assume that ontologies are the appropriate modeling structure for representing knowledge. However, little discussion has occurred regarding the actual range of knowledge an ontology can successfully represent.
THE GASEOUS ENVIRONMENTS OF RADIO GALAXIES IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE : KINEMATICS OF THE LYMAN ALPHA EMISSION AND SPATIALLY RESOLVED HI ABSORPTION

We present intermediate resolution ($\sim3$ \AA ) spectra of the Ly$\alpha$ emission from 15 high redshift radio galaxies ($z>2$). Together with previously published spectra we analyze data for a sample of 18 objects. In 11 of the 18 radio galaxies we find deep troughs in the Ly$\alpha$ emission profile, which we interpret as H\,{\sc i} absorption with column densities in the range $10^{18}$--$10^{19.5}$ cm$^{-2}$. Since in most cases the Ly$\alpha$ emission is absorbed over its entire spatial extent (up to 50 kpc), the absorbers must have a covering fraction close to unity. Under plausible assumptions for the temperature and density of the absorbing gas this implies that the absorbing material must consist of $\sim 10^{12}$ clouds of typical size $\sim 0.03$ pc with a total mass of $\sim 10^8$ M$_{\odot}$. Our observations show that strong H\,{\sc i} absorption occurs in $>60$\% of the high redshift radio galaxies, while from the statistics of quasar absorption lines there is only a 2\% probability of such a strong H\,{\sc i} absorption line falling by chance in the small redshift interval of the Ly$\alpha$ emission line. These absorbers are therefore most likely to be physically associated with the galaxy hosting the radio source or its direct environment. There are strong correlations between the properties of the Ly$\alpha$ emission of the galaxies and the size of the associated radio source: (i) Of the smaller ($ 50$ kpc) radio galaxies show such strong absorption. (ii) Larger radio sources tend to have larger Ly$\alpha$ emission regions and (iii) a smaller Ly$\alpha$ velocity