Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sequence and phylogenetic analysis of the gp200 protein of Ehrlichia canis from dogs in Taiwan

Ehrlichia (E.) canis is a Gram-negative obligate intracellular bacterium responsible for canine monocytic ehrlichiosis. Currently, the genetic diversity of E. canis strains worldwide is poorly defined. In the present study, sequence analysis of the nearly full-length 16S rDNA (1,620 bp) and the complete coding region (4,269 bp) of the gp200 gene, which encodes the largest major immunoreactive protein in E. canis, from 17 Taiwanese samples was conducted. The resultant 16S rDNA sequences were found to be identical to each other and have very high homology (99.4~100%) with previously reported E. canis sequences. Additionally, phylogenetic analysis of gp200 demonstrated that the E. canis Taiwanese genotype was genetically distinct from other reported isolates obtained from the United States, Brazil, and Israel, and that it formed a separate clade. Remarkable variations unique to the Taiwanese genotype were found throughout the deduced amino acid sequence of gp200, including 15 substitutions occurring in two of five known species-specific epitopes. The gp200 amino acid sequences of the Taiwanese genotype bore 94.4~94.6 identities with those of the isolates from the United States and Brazil, and 93.7% homology with that of the Israeli isolate. Taken together, these results suggest that the Taiwanese genotype represents a novel strain of E. canis that has not yet been characterized.
Exploring the perceptions of student teachers about ‘creative school’ in early childhood education

ABSTRACT Creative school environments use creative approaches in their curriculum, content, and teaching and learning. Considering that creativity is fostered by all elements of educational processes such as teachers, classrooms, and school environments, the purpose of the current study was to explore perceptions of Turkish student teachers in an early childhood education program about the concept of 'creative school' as a holistic system of creativity in early childhood. A case study design was used in the current study. Findings indicated that the student teachers described the 'creative school' as a space for active engagement, supporting inquiries of children through play-based activities, design of nature- and community-based schools, child participation and freedom of speech, and open-ended experiences. Moreover, descriptive analyses of drawings reflected the same or similar perceptions. Themes that emerged in the current study reflected the philosophy, curriculum, teachers, or children within a 'creative school'. Further, the importance of a creative school in early childhood education is discussed.
Effect of Prenatal Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Exposure on Birth Outcomes: The Polish Mother and Child Cohort Study

The aim of this study was to assess the impact of PAH exposure on various anthropometric measures of birth outcomes. The study population consisted of 210 nonsmoking pregnant women. Urine samples collected between 20th and 24th week of pregnancy were used for analysis of the following PAH metabolites: 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 9-hydroxyphenanthrene (1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 9-OH-PHE), 1-hydroxypyrene (1-OH-PYR), 1,6 + 1,8-dihydroxypyrene (DI-OH-PYR), phenanthrene trans-1,2-dihydrodiol (PHE-1,2-diol), and phenanthrene trans-9,10-dihydrodiol (PHE-9,10-diol) by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Environmental tobacco smoke exposure (ETS) was assessed by cotinine level in saliva using a stable isotope dilution LC-ESI-MS/MS method. The mean PAH metabolite concentrations were in the range of 0.15 µg/g creatinine for 9-OH-PHE to 5.9 µg/g creatinine for PHE-9,10-diol. It was shown that none of the individual PAH exposure markers demonstrate a statistically significant influence on birth outcomes. Interestingly a statistically significant association was found between the sum of OH-PHE along with cotinine level and the cephalization index after adjusting for potential confounders (P = 0.04). This study provides evidence that combined exposure of pregnant women to common environmental pollutants such as PAH and ETS might adversely affect fetal development. Thus, reduction of human exposure to these mixtures of hazardous compounds would in particular result in substantial health benefits for newborns.
5-fluorouracil kinetics in the interstitial tumor space: clinical response in breast cancer patients.

Several anticancer drugs fail to exhibit sufficient activity against solid tumors in vivo despite effective inhibition of tumor cell growth in vitro. This may be due to impaired drug transfer from plasma into solid tumors. The present study, therefore, aimed at measuring interstitial tumor 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) pharmacokinetics and 5-FU transfer rates from plasma into the tumor interstitium in breast cancer patients. Microdialysis probes were inserted into the primary tumor and the periumbilical s.c. adipose layer of 10 breast cancer patients (8 females and 2 males) scheduled to receive neoadjuvant chemotherapy due to locally advanced breast cancer. Thereafter, patients received 5-FU (600 mg/m2, i.v). 5-FU kinetics were followed in plasma and tumor and s.c. interstitial fluid. Mean interstitial 5-FU load, expressed as area under curve (AUC), in breast tumors was 61 +/- 11% (means +/- SE) of the mean plasma 5-FU load. 5-FU displayed similar kinetics in the interstitial space of s.c. adipose tissue and tumor tissue. A high interstitial tumor AUC was associated with increased tumor response. There was no association with tumor response for s.c. or plasma AUC of 5-FU. Measurement of interstitial drug concentrations in breast tumors by in vivo microdialysis may predict response to chemotherapy. This information may explain drug resistance in some patients and help to optimize dosing and administration schedules. In the future, selection of novel cytotoxic compounds with favorable tumor penetration characteristics may become possible.
Quasi-triangular structures on Hopf algebras with positive bases

A basis B of a finite dimensional Hopf algebra H is said to be positive if all the structure constants of H relative to B are non-negative. A quasi-triangular structure $R\in H\otimes H$ is said to be positive with respect to B if it has non-negative coefficients in the basis $B \otimes B$ of $H\otimes H$. In our earlier work, we have classified all finite dimensional Hopf algebras with positive bases. In this paper, we classify positive quasi-triangular structures on such Hopf algebras. A consequence of this classification is a new way of constructing set-theoretical solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation.
Student Teachers’ Team Teaching during Field Experiences: An Evaluation by their Mentors

Since collaboration within schools gains importance, teacher educators are looking for alternative models of field experience inspired by collaborative learning. Team teaching is such a model. This study explores two team teaching models (parallel and sequential teaching) by investigating the mentors' perspective. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to map their attitudes, the advantages and disadvantages they observe and the conditions for implementation. Results indicate that mentors adopt an open attitude toward team teaching. They observe advantages for all actors involved, especially for student teachers (e.g. support, professional growth) and learners (e.g. rich and varied lessons). The study corroborates the findings retrieved in the literature, enlarges and refines them, and gives a clearer view on the importance of each (dis)advantage.
Age and emotion affect how we look at a face: Visual scan patterns differ for own-age versus other-age emotional faces

We investigated how age of faces and emotion expressed in faces affect young (n=30) and older (n=20) adults’ visual inspection while viewing faces and judging their expressions. Overall, expression identification was better for young than older faces, suggesting that interpreting expressions in young faces is easier than in older faces, even for older participants. Moreover, there were age-group differences in misattributions of expressions, in that young participants were more likely to label disgusted faces as angry, whereas older adults were more likely to label angry faces as disgusted. In addition to effects of emotion expressed in faces, age of faces affected visual inspection of faces: Both young and older participants spent more time looking at own-age than other-age faces, with longer looking at own-age faces predicting better own-age expression identification. Thus, cues used in expression identification may shift as a function of emotion and age of faces, in interaction with age of participants.
Adolescent Sexual Offenders: The Relationship Between Typology and Recidivism

Adolescent sexual offending represents an ongoing social, judicial, clinical, and policy issue for services. The current study investigated the characteristics, criminal versatility, and rates of recidivism of a cohort of 156 male adolescent sexual offenders who were referred for psychological assessments by the courts between 1996 and 2007 in Singapore. Analyses revealed that specialists (sex-only offenders; n = 71, M follow-up = 56.99 months, SD follow-up = 31.33) and generalists (criminally versatile offenders; n = 77, M follow-up = 67.83 months, SD follow-up = 36.55) differed with respect to offense characteristics (e.g., sexually assaulting familial victims) and recidivistic outcomes. Although both groups sexually reoffended at roughly the same rate (14.3% vs. 9.9%), consistent with their typology, significantly more of the generalists reoffended violently (18.2% vs. 1.4%), sexually and/or violently (27.3% vs. 11.3%), nonviolently (37.7% vs. 16.9%), and engaged in any further criminal behaviors (45.5% vs. 23.9%) during follow-up. Adjusting for total number of offenses and age at first sexual offense, Cox regression analyses showed that generalists were significantly more likely than specialists to reoffend violently (hazard ratio = 9.31; 95% confidence interval = 1.15-76.39). The differences between generalists and specialists suggest a valid typological distinction with a higher risk trajectory for the generalists. These findings therefore have important clinical implications for assessment, management, and intervention planning for adolescent sexual offenders.
Role of cysteine and glutathione in HIV infection and other diseases associated with muscle wasting and immunological dysfunction

The combination of abnormally low plasma cystine and glutamine levels, low natural killer (NK) cell activity, skeletal muscle wasting or muscle fatigue, and increased rates of urea production defines a complex of abnormalities that is tentatively called “low CG syndrome. ” These symptoms are found in patients with HIV infection, cancer, major injuries, sepsis, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, chronic fatigue syndrome, and to some extent in overtrained athletes. The coincidence of these symptoms in diseases of different etiological origin suggests a causal relationship. The low NK cell activity in most cases is not life‐threatening, but may be disastrous in HIV infection because it may compromise the initially stable balance between the immune system and virus, and trigger disease progression. This hypothesis is supported by the coincidence observed between the decrease of CD4+ T cells and a decrease in the plasma cystine level. In addition, recent studies revealed important clues about the role of cysteine and glutathione in the development of skeletal muscle wasting. Evidence suggests that 1) the cystine level is regulated primarily by the normal postabsorptive skeletal muscle protein catabolism, 2) the cystine level itself is a physiological regulator of nitrogen balance and body cell mass, 3) the cyst(e)ine‐mediated regulatory circuit is compromised in various catabolic conditions, including old age, and 4) cysteine supplementation may be a useful therapy if combined with disease‐specific treatments such as antiviral therapy in HIV infection. —Dröge, W. , Holm, E. Role of cysteine and glutathione in HIV infection and other diseases associated with muscle wasting and immunological dysfunction. FASEB J. 11, 1077–1089 (1997)
A general formulation for standardization of rates as a method to control confounding by measured and unmeasured disease risk factors

Standardization, a common approach for controlling confounding in population-studies or data from disease registries, is defined to be a weighted average of stratum specific rates. Typically, discussions on the construction of a particular standardized rate regard the strata as fixed, and focus on the considerations that affect the specification of weights. Each year the data from the SEER cancer registries are analyzed using a weighting procedure referred to as "direct standardization for age. " To evaluate the performance of direct standardization, we define a general class of standardization operators. We regard a particular standardized rate to be the output of an operator and a given data set. Based on the functional form of the operators, we define a subclass of standardization operators that controls for confounding by measured risk factors. Using the fundamental disease probability paradigm for inference, we establish the conclusions that can be drawn from year-to-year contrasts of standardized rates produced by these operators in the presence of unmeasured cancer risk factors. These conclusions take the form of falsifying specific assumptions about the conditional probabilities of disease given all the risk factors (both measured and unmeasured), and the conditional probabilities of the unmeasured risk factors given the measured risk factors. We show the one-to-one correspondence between these falsifications and the inferences made from the contrasts of directly standardized rates reported each year in the Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer. We further show that the "direct standardization for age" procedure is not a member of the class of unconfounded standardization operators. Consequently, it can, and usually will, introduce confounding when confounding is not present in the data. We propose a particular standardization operator, the SCC operator, that is in the class of unconfounded operators. We contrast the mathematical properties of the SCC and the SEER operator (SCA), and present an analysis of SEER cancer registry data that demonstrates the consequences of these differences. We further prove that the SCC operator is a projection operator. We discuss how this property can enable the SCC operator to be developed as a method for comparing nested conditional expectations in the same manner as is currently done with regression methods that control for confounding.
Helical antennas for high powered RF

Radiating high power RF below 1 GHz can be difficult. Large structures are preferred for high voltage operation; however, large structures are difficult to deploy. Conversely, small geometries are more easily deployed, but insulating the high voltage can be difficult. Dipole structures have made their way into use due to the relatively simple and compact implementation; however, their radiation pattern is not desirable, since they radiate in a donut pattern, which can disrupt, or even destroy one's own electronic controls. Impulse Radiating Antennas have been configured for wideband operation; however, their large geometry is very difficult to deploy. Helical antennas offer many advantages over other methods. The helical antenna is relatively compact, with its cylindrical geometry. The antenna's geometry is wavelength dependent, but is acceptable from several hundred MHz and higher, with the upper limit being dominated by the high voltage operation. It offers a good gain factor and can be operated as a narrow band, or wide band device. Applied Physical Electronics, L.C. has been developing high voltage helical antennas for narrow band and wide band applications. This paper describes the fundamental operation of a 400 MHz helical antenna driven by Marx generators. Simulation and experimental results are provided.
Structural properties of discs and bulges of early-type galaxies

We have used the EFAR sample of galaxies to investigate the light distributions of early-type galaxies. We decompose the two-dimensional light distribution of the galaxies in a flattened spheroidal component with a Sersic radial light profile and an inclined disc component with an exponential light profile. We show that if we assume that all galaxies can have a spheroidal and a disc component, then the brightest, bulge-dominated elliptical galaxies have a fairly broad distribution in the Sersic profile shape parameter nB, with a median of approximately 3.7 and with σ ∼ 0.9. Other galaxies have smaller nB values. This means that spheroids are in general less concentrated than the de Vaucouleurs R 1/4 -law profile, which has n B = 4. While the result of our light decomposition is robust, we cannot prove without kinematic information that these components are spheroids and discs, in the usual sense of pressure- and rotation-supported stellar systems. However, we show that the distribution of disc inclination angles is consistent with a random orientation if we take our selection effects into account. If we assume that the detected spheroids and discs are indeed separate components, we can draw the following conclusions: (1) the spheroid and disc scale sizes are correlated; (2) bulge-to- total luminosity ratios, bulge effective radii and bulge nB values are all positively correlated; (3) the bivariate space density distribution of elliptical galaxies in the (luminosity, scale size)- plane is well described by a Schechter luminosity function in the luminosity dimension and a lognormal scale-size distribution at a given luminosity; (4) at the brightest luminosities, the scale size distribution of elliptical galaxies is similar to those of bright spiral galaxies, but extending to brighter magnitudes; at fainter luminosities the scale size distribution of elliptical galaxies peaks at distinctly smaller sizes than the size distribution of spiral galaxies; and (5) bulge components of early-type galaxies are typically a factor of 1.5-2.5 smaller than the discs of spiral galaxies with a slight luminosity dependence, while disc components of early-type galaxies are typically twice as large as the discs of spiral galaxies at all luminosities. Ke yw ords: galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD - galaxies: fundamental parameters - galax- ies: statistics - galaxies: structure.
The Association between Trauma Exposure, Maladjustment, and Aggression in Detained Boys

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Action observation in the infant brain: The role of body form and motion

Much research has been carried out to understand how human brains make sense of another agent in motion. Current views based on human adult and monkey studies assume a matching process in the motor system biased toward actions performed by conspecifics and present in the observer's motor repertoire. However, little is known about the neural correlates of action cognition in early ontogeny. In this study, we examined the processes involved in the observation of full body movements in 4-month-old infants using functional near-infrared spectroscopy to measure localized brain activation. In a 2 × 2 design, infants watched human or robotic figures moving in a smooth, familiar human-like manner, or in a rigid, unfamiliar robot-like manner. We found that infant premotor cortex responded more strongly to observe robot-like motion compared with human-like motion. Contrary to current views, this suggests that the infant motor system is flexibly engaged by novel movement patterns. Moreover, temporal cortex responses indicate that infants integrate information about form and motion during action observation. The response patterns obtained in premotor and temporal cortices during action observation in these young infants are very similar to those reported for adults. These findings thus suggest that the brain processes involved in the analysis of an agent in motion in adults become functionally specialized very early in human development.
A−β− Subtype of Ketosis-Prone Diabetes Is Not Predominantly a Monogenic Diabetic Syndrome

OBJECTIVE Ketosis-prone diabetes (KPD) is an emerging syndrome that encompasses several distinct phenotypic subgroups that share a predisposition to diabetic ketoacidosis. We investigated whether the A−β− subgroup of KPD, characterized by complete insulin dependence, absent β-cell functional reserve, lack of islet cell autoantibodies, and strong family history of type 2 diabetes, represents a monogenic form of diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Over 8 years, 37 patients with an A−β− phenotype were identified in our longitudinally followed cohort of KPD patients. Seven genes, including hepatocyte nuclear factor 4A (HNF4A), glucokinase (GCK), HNF1A, pancreas duodenal homeobox 1 (PDX1), HNF1B, neurogenic differentiation 1 (NEUROD1), and PAX4, were directly sequenced in all patients. Selected gene regions were also sequenced in healthy, unrelated ethnically matched control subjects, consisting of 84 African American, 96 Caucasian, and 95 Hispanic subjects. RESULTS The majority (70%) of the A−β− KPD patients had no significant causal polymorphisms in either the proximal promoter or coding regions of the seven genes. The combination of six potentially significant low-frequency, heterozygous sequence variants in HNF-1α (A174V or G574S), PDX1 (putative 5′–untranslated region CCAAT box, P33T, or P239Q), or PAX4 (R133W) were found in 27% (10/37) of patients, with one additional patient revealing two variants, PDX1 P33T and PAX4 R133W. The A174V variant has not been previously reported. CONCLUSIONS Despite its well-circumscribed, robust, and distinctive phenotype of severe, nonautoimmune-mediated β-cell dysfunction, A−β− KPD is most likely not a predominantly monogenic diabetic syndrome. Several A−β− KPD patients have low-frequency variants in HNF1A, PDX1, or PAX4 genes, which may be of functional significance in their pathophysiology.
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