Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Afferents of the ventral tegmental area in the rat‐anatomical substratum for integrative functions

The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is critically important to an organism's capacity to detect rewards and novelty and to enlist appropriate behavioral responses. Although there has been substantial progress concerning information processing at the single cell and molecular levels in the VTA, our knowledge of its overall afferent connections is based principally on the benchmark description by Phillipson ([1979] J. Comp. Neurol. 187:117–144). Given that, since then, the sensitivity of tracing methods and knowledge about the organization of brain structures have increased considerably, we undertook to reevaluate the VTA afferents of the rat. The retrograde tracer Fluoro‐Gold was injected into different parts of the VTA, and labeled neurons were visualized by immunocytochemistry. Retrogradely labeled neurons were not confined to nuclei but rather constituted an elongated formation stretching from the prefrontal cortex rostrally to the medulla oblongata caudally. In the case of descending afferents, this formation was centered on the medial forebrain bundle and the fasciculus retroflexus. The input to the VTA in general was bilateral, with a smaller descending and comparable ascending projection from the contralateral side. Injections of the anterograde tracers Phaseolus vulgaris‐leucoagglutinin or biotinylated dextran amine into selected forebrain structures revealed a surprisingly sparse terminal arborization in the VTA. Furthermore, structures projecting to the VTA innervate other brain areas with similar or greater robustness, which in turn also provide a strong input to the VTA, indicating an anatomical network. Given the importance of the VTA in basic behaviors, this organization might provide a basis for an extraordinary level of afferent integration. J. Comp. Neurol. 490:270–294, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A highly efficient UHF RFID frontend approach

The passive radio frequency identification (RFID) presents a key technology for unattended wireless networks. To achieve a higher reading range and to improve the operational reliability of passive RFID tags, the design of integrated circuits with an ultra low power consumption and novel concepts for high-efficiency energy harvesting are required. This paper presents a highly efficient analog frontend for passive UHF RFID transponders. This frontend includes a multistage Schottky rectifier, a backscatter modulator, an ASK demodulator, a current reference source, and power limiting circuits. These building blocks are implemented in a 0.14 µm CMOS technology. The measured overall RF-to-DC conversion efficiency of the analog frontend for a DC output power of 10 µW (1V and 10 µA) is about 20%. The DC power consumption of the analog building blocks is about 1 µW for a supply voltage of 1V.
A Dynamical Approach to Gestural Patterning in Speech Production

In this article, we attempt to reconcile the linguistic hypothesis that speech involves an underlying sequencing of abstract, discrete, context-independent units, with the empirical observation of continuous, context-dependent interleaving of articulatory movements. To this end, we first review a previously proposed task-dynamic model for the coordination and control of the speech articulators. We then describe an extension of this model in which invariant speech units (gestural primitives) are identified with context-independent sets of parameters in a dynamical system having two functionally distinct but interacting levels. The intergestural level is defined according to a set of activation coordinates; the interarticulator level is defined according to both model articulator and tractvariable coordinates. In the framework of this extended model, coproduction effects in speech are described in terms of the blending dynamics defined among a set of temporally overlapping active units; the relative timing .
Domestic Violence and Sexuality: What's Love Got To Do with It?

This book provides the first detailed discussion of domestic violence and abuse in same sex relationships, offering a unique comparison between this and domestic violence and abuse experienced by heterosexual women and men. It examines how experiences of domestic violence and abuse may be shaped by gender, sexuality and age, including whether and how victims/survivors seek help, and asks, what’s love got to do with it? A pioneering methodology, using both quantitative and qualitative research, provides a reliable and valid approach that challenges the heteronormative model in domestic violence research, policy and practice. The authors develops a new framework of analysis – practices of love – to explore empirical data. Outlining the implications of the research for practice and service development, the book will be of interest to policy makers and practitioners in the field of domestic violence, especially those who provide services for sexual minorities, as well as students and academics interested in issues of domestic and interpersonal violence.
Fat and Bone: An Odd Couple

In this review, we will first discuss the concept of bone strength and introduce how fat at different locations, including the bone marrow, directly or indirectly regulates bone turnover. We will then review the current literature supporting the mechanistic relationship between marrow fat and bone and our understanding of the relationship between body fat, body weight, and bone with emphasis on its hormonal regulation. Finally, we will briefly discuss the importance and challenges of accurately measuring the fat compartments using non-invasive methods. This review highlights the complex relationship between fat and bone and how these new concepts will impact our diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in the very near future.
Triglyceride Pools, Flight and Activity Variation at the Gpdh Locus in Drosophila melanogaster

We have created a set of P-element excision-derived Gpdh alleles that generate a range of GPDH activity phenotypes ranging from zero to full activity. By placing these synthetic alleles in isogenic backgrounds, we characterize the effects of minor and major activity variation on two different aspects of Gpdh function: the standing triglyceride pool and glycerol-3-phosphate shuttle-assisted flight. We observe small but statistically significant reductions in triglyceride content for adult Gpdh genotypes possessing 33–80% reductions from normal activity. These small differences scale to a notable proportion of the observed genetic variation in triglyceride content in natural populations. Using a tethered fly assay to assess flight metabolism, we observed that genotypes with 100 and 66% activity exhibited no significant difference in wing-beat frequency (WBF), while activity reductions from 60 to 10% showed statistically significant reductions of ∼7% in WBF. These studies show that the molecular polymorphism associated with GPDH activity could be maintained in natural populations by selection in the triglyceride pool.
Guidelines for the treatment of Crohn’s disease in children

This paper shows guidelines for the treatment of Crohn’s disease in children by the Working Group of the Japanese Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (Chair: Yuichiro Yamashiro) and the Japanese Society for Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Chair: Akio Kobayashi). The points in which these guidelines differ from those for adult patients are as follows. (i) Total enteral nutrition in the form of an elemental formula is indicated as primary therapy for children with Crohn’s disease at onset as well as the active stage. Oral mesalazine is used together. (ii) Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) with oral mesalazine is required for children with serious illness. The use of a corticosteroid should be withheld for at least 1 week after TPN has been started. (iii) When TPN is not considered to be effective, additional corticosteroid is used. Full doses of corticosteroid should be used for at least 2 weeks after clinical improvement has been achieved, and then the dose of the corticosteroid should be tapered carefully. (iv) When surgery is indicated in pediatric patients with stricture or fistula formation and complicated by persistent growth failure despite medical therapy, the optimum time for surgery is thought to be before epiphyseal plates have been closed.
Mental time in amnesia: Evidence from bilateral medial temporal damage before and after recovery

The human mind is continuously involved in “projecting” the self in time in order to process past memories and predict future occurrences. “Self-projection” in time involves episodic and spatial memory, relying on medial-temporal structures, but also engages visuo-spatial imagery, relying on occipito-temporal structures, and self-location, relying on temporo-parietal structures. Here we had the rare opportunity to investigate the relation between self-projection in time and memory, using a novel behavioural paradigm, in a patient with subacute bilateral medial-temporal damage during a period of amnesia as well as after recovery. Despite her memory deficit the patient was able to “project” herself to past and future, yet with significant improvement after recovery. We discuss our findings with respect to the relations between episodic memory and medial-temporal structures with self-projection in time to past and future.
Moral Distress

Moral distress is a common but frequently overlooked concept in the nursing profession, though not exclusive to nursing. Many professionals experience this distress, but nurses encounter this phenomenon more often than other professions. Moral distress can cause many physical and emotional symptoms that affect how a person perceives satisfaction in his/her profession. These include anxiety, fear, frustration, feeling of powerlessness, poor sense of safety and security, nursing turnover, and nursing professionals leaving the profession. This project targeted medical-surgical nurses and aimed to provide them with education to identify moral distress as well as appropriate coping skills that may be used to deal with the moral situation. The AACN Rise Above Moral Distress education plan, which uses the 4 A’s of Ask, Affirm, Assess and Act, was utilized for the staff education sessions. Nurses on the unit believed that they knew how to define moral distress, identify moral distress situations, have institutional support services, and are able to be a support resource to co-workers to help identify moral distress situations Comparison of pre-post surveys showed a 40% increase in knowledge, a 30% increase in moral distress confidence and a 15% increase in co-worker support confidence. Institutions often lack required employee education for identifying ethical and moral distress situations or the appropriate coping skills to be utilized. Training on dealing with ethical situations and development of uniform coping skills are needed. Recommendation from this study focused on the need for increased training on moral distress in specific
Fast image/video upsampling

We propose a simple but effective upsampling method for automatically enhancing the image/video resolution, while preserving the essential structural information. The main advantage of our method lies in a feedback-control framework which faithfully recovers the high-resolution image information from the input data, without imposing additional local structure constraints learned from other examples. This makes our method independent of the quality and number of the selected examples, which are issues typical of learning-based algorithms, while producing high-quality results without observable unsightly artifacts. Another advantage is that our method naturally extends to video upsampling, where the temporal coherence is maintained automatically. Finally, our method runs very fast. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm by experimenting with different image/video data.
LANGUAGE STRUCTURE , LEXICAL 13 MEANING , AND COGNITION Whorf and Vygotsky Revisited

Psychologists often speak about language and meaning in terms of individual "words" that label "things" in the world. Such expressions emerge not only in casual speech, but also pervade the scholarly literature. Influential works such as Roger Brown's (1958) Words and Things lend support to this tendency in their titles, if not always in their detailed argu ments. Speaking in this way perpetuates the illusion that language and speaking are pri marily about individual words, words con ceived of as sturdy self-sufficient forms with straightforward referential meanings, forms that we take out into the world to attach to various objects we encounter in our experi ence, much the way a hunter might take a snare out into the forest to capture rabbits (or other "natural kinds"). This view, in turn, strongly entails another, namely, that word meanings are merely derivative of experience, simply labeling and thus ultimately responding to objects, rather than having their own internal value and logic that can play a dynamic role in the constitution and conceptualization of experience. This deriva tive view of word meaning, now serving as a proxy for all of language, leads quite naturally to a view of human cognition in which lan guage plays a secondary, handmaiden role at best. In this way, our own "fashion of speaking" about language in terms of "words" shapes our scientific understanding of the significance of language for thought. Yet over a century of systematic linguistic research shows that this view of words and hence word meaning is unsustainable on sev eral counts. First, what qualifies as a word form can be difficult to determine and is often the product of analysis rather than its starting point, not only for scientists but also for chil dren learning language. Although this point can be difficult to appreciate for speakers of languages (such as English) that happen to have large numbers of minimal, freestanding forms, it is transparently obvious in other lan guages in which most forms are internally complex or bound to other forms. Second, many word forms do not actually refer to "things" (or "objects") but rather to events or properties, or even to nothing external at all, having essentially a grammatical function (e.g., English of). And those words that do refer to objects may do so in remarkably dif ferent ways, selecting this or that feature as the basis for reference (compare Quine, 1960). Finally, perhaps most importantly, even refer ential word meanings depend heavily on the
Nontuberculous Mycobacteria in Respiratory Tract Infections, Eastern Asia

To characterize the distribution of nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) species isolated from pulmonary samples from persons in Asia and their association with pulmonary infections, we reviewed the literature. Mycobacterium avium complex bacteria were most frequently isolated (13%–81%) and were the most common cause of pulmonary NTM disease (43%–81%). Also pathogenic were rapidly growing mycobacteria (M. chelonae, M. fortuitum, M. abscessus). Among all NTM isolated from pulmonary samples, 31% (582/1,744) were considered clinically relevant according to American Thoracic Society diagnostic criteria. Most patients were male (79%) and had a history of tuberculosis (37%). In Asia, high prevalence of rapidly growing mycobacteria and a history of tuberculosis are distinct characteristics of pulmonary NTM disease. This geographic variation is not well reflected in the American Thoracic Society criteria for NTM infections and could be incorporated in future guidelines.
Community water fluoridation, bone mineral density, and fractures: prospective study of effects in older women

Abstract Objective: To determine whether fluoridation influences bone mineral density and fractures in older women. Design: Multicentre prospective study on risk factors for osteoporosis and fractures. Setting: Four community based centres in the United States. Participants: 9704 ambulatory women without bilateral hip replacements enrolled during 1986-8; 7129 provided information on exposure to fluoride. Main outcome measures: Bone mineral density of the lumbar spine, proximal femur, radius, and calcaneus plus incident fractures (fractures that occurred during the study) of vertebrae, hip, wrist, and humerus. Results: Women were classified as exposed or not exposed or having unknown exposure to fluoride for each year from 1950 to 1994. Outcomes were compared in women with continuous exposure to fluoridated water for the past 20 years (n=3218) and women with no exposure during the past 20 years (n=2563). In women with continuous exposure mean bone mineral density was 2.6% higher at the femoral neck (0.017 g/cm2, P<0.001), 2.5% higher at the lumbar spine (0.022 g/cm2, P<0.001), and 1.9% lower at the distal radius (0.007 g/cm2, P=0.002). In women with continuous exposure the multivariable adjusted risk of hip fracture was slightly reduced (risk ratio 0.69, 95% confidence interval 0.50 to 0.96, P=0.028) as was the risk of vertebral fracture (0.73, 0.55 to 0.97, P=0.033). There was a non-significant trend toward an increased risk of wrist fracture (1.32, 1.00 to 1.71, P=0.051) and no difference in risk of humerus fracture (0.85, 0.58 to 1.23, P=0.378). Conclusions: Long term exposure to fluoridated drinking water does not increase the risk of fracture.
Planning using situation calculus, prolog and a mobile robot

This paper presents a system that controls the behavior of a mobile robot. The system is based on situation calculus, the initial state is described and a goal is given, Prolog produces an answer to this goal and we use an interface in Visual Basic to interpret the answer given by it. After of interpreting the given actions in response we send commands to the mobile robot through a serial port from a computer. This is a tool aimed at researchers and instructors in cognitive robotic.
AGB stars as tracers of metallicity and mean age across M 33

Context. Wide-field JHKs near-infrared observations covering an area of 1.8 ◦ × 1.8 ◦ centred on M 33 were obtained using WFCAM at UKIRT. These data show a large population of intermediate-age asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. Aims. We have used both C-type and M-type AGB stars to determine spatial variations in metallicity and mean age across the galaxy. Methods. We distinguished between C-type and M-type AGB stars from their location in the colour-magnitude diagram (J − Ks, Ks). The distribution of these stars is supported by a cross-identification between our sample and a catalogue of optically confirmed, long-period variable stars, as well as with the list of sources detected by Spitzer in the mid-infrared. We calculated the C/M ratio and the orientation of the galaxy in the sky, and compared the Ks magnitude distribution with theoretical distributions spanning a range of metallicities and star formation rates (SFRs). Results. The C/M ratio surface map confirms a metallicity gradient in the galaxy corresponding to a spread in [Fe/H] = 0.6 dex with substructures in the inner and outer galaxy. Magnitude and colour variations suggest orientation and extinction effects on the galaxy disc. Maps showing the distribution of mean age and metallicity obtained from the Ks method suggest that: the outer galaxy disc/halo is metal poorer than the nuclear region and metal-rich clumps in the inner galaxy change location with time. The average outer ring and nuclear stellar population is ∼6 Gyr old while central regions are a few Gyr younger.
Clinical significance of midkine expression in sporadic desmoid tumors

The aim of the present study was to identify the prognostic factors for the propensity for recurrence in sporadic desmoid tumors. The catenin (cadherin-associated protein) β1 (CTNNB1) genotypes and expression of Wnt pathway proteins and midkine (also termed neurite growth-promoting factor 2) were investigated in 159 patients with sporadic desmoid tumors. Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues of the surgically resected desmoid tumors were examined by direct sequencing of CTNNB1 exon 3, and immunostained for the expression of β-catenin, T-cell factor 4 (TCF-4), phosphorylated protein kinase B (pAkt), midkine and menin using a tissue microarray method. Among the samples, 70% (111/159) exhibited point mutations of the CTNNB1 gene, including T41A (56%), S45F (8%), S45P (2%), S45N (2%) and T42A (1%). In addition, 100, 57, 24, 15 and 92% of the tumors expressed β-catenin, TCF-4, midkine, pAkt and menin, respectively. Positive midkine expression was significantly associated with the recurrence of tumors (P=0.001). The multivariate analysis of recurrence demonstrated that an extra-abdominal tumor site [hazard ratio (HR), 2.625; P=0.001] and midkine expression (HR, 2.077; P<0.009) were independent prognostic factors of tumor recurrence. In conclusion, the present results suggest that the tumor site and midkine expression may be predictive markers for the recurrence of sporadic desmoid tumors.
Interactions between Cognition and Hearing Aid Compression Release Time: Effects of Linguistic Context of Speech Test Materials on Speech-in-Noise Performance

Recent research has established a connection between hearing aid (HA) users’ cognition and speech recognition performance with short and long compression release times (RT). Contradictive findings prevent researchers from using cognition to predict RT prescription. We hypothesized that the linguistic context of speech recognition test materials was one of the factors that accounted for the inconsistency. The present study was designed to examine the relationship between HA users’ cognition and their aided speech recognition performance with short and long RTs using materials with various linguistic contexts. Thirty-four older HA users’ cognitive abilities were quantified using a reading span test. They were fitted with behind-the-ear style HAs with adjustable RT settings. Three speech recognition tests were used: the word-in-noise (WIN) test, the American four alternative auditory feature (AFAAF) test, and the Bamford-Kowal-Bench speech-in-noise (BKB-SIN) test. The results showed that HA users with high cognitive abilities performed better on the AFAAF and the BKB-SIN than those with low cognitive abilities when using short RT. None of the speech recognition tests produced significantly different performance between the two RTs for either cognitive group. These findings did not support our hypothesis. The results suggest that cognition might not be important in prescribing RT.
Synthesis-Dependent Strand Annealing in Meiosis

Recent studies led to the proposal that meiotic gene conversion can result after transient engagement of the donor chromatid and subsequent DNA synthesis-dependent strand annealing (SDSA). Double Holliday junction (dHJ) intermediates were previously proposed to form both reciprocal crossover recombinants (COs) and noncrossover recombinants (NCOs); however, dHJs are now thought to give rise mainly to COs, with SDSA forming most or all NCOs. To test this model in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we constructed a random spore system in which it is possible to identify a subset of NCO recombinants that can readily be accounted for by SDSA, but not by dHJ-mediated recombination. The diagnostic class of recombinants is one in which two markers on opposite sides of a double-strand break site are converted, without conversion of an intervening heterologous insertion located on the donor chromatid. This diagnostic class represents 26% of selected NCO recombinants. Tetrad analysis using the same markers provided additional evidence that SDSA is a major pathway for NCO gene conversion in meiosis.