Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Visual attention and temporal discrimination: Differential effects of automatic and voluntary cueing

Yeshurun and Levy (2003) reported that visual attention impairs temporal discrimination in a temporal gap detection task. To assess whether this counterintuitive finding generalizes to another temporal discrimination task, we examined the influence of visual attention on temporal-order discrimination. Experiment 1 showed that an exogenous cue (automatic orienting) impairs temporal-order discrimination. In contrast, however, Experiment 2 revealed that an endogenous cue (voluntary orienting) facilitates temporal-order discrimination. Experiment 3 addressed whether these discrepant results are due to cue type or to cue predictability and revealed that a nonpredictive endogenous cue induces the same effect on temporal discrimination as the exogenous cue in Experiment 1. The complete pattern of results shows that automatically oriented attention impairs temporal-order discrimination, whereas voluntary oriented attention enhances it. Thus, the results emphasize the different nature of automatic and voluntary orienting. It is suggested that both kinds of attentional orienting operate at different processing levels within the visual system.
Teaming Up for Inclusive Volunteering: A Case Study of avolunteer Program for Youth with and without Disabilities

Abstract Volunteerism is a recreational activity that may hold the key to greater social inclusion for individuals with disabilities into our communities. Facilitating inclusive volunteering opportunities for youth with and without disabilities has a potential scope of impact that must not be ignored, including benefits to the youth and our communities. A case study of an inclusive youth volunteer program is described. Outcomes for participants included increased knowledge of volunteerism, increased social interaction, and psychosocial outcomes such as increased belief in self and increased sense of responsibility. The feasibility and sustainability of inclusive volunteer programs, as well as future programming and research needs are also discussed.
Including immigrants in elite and recreational sports: the experiences of athletes, sport providers and immigrants

Sport participation is one way in which immigrants interact with established and long-term community residents. This involvement has the potential for facilitating immigrants' sense of inclusion and belonging in their new communities, and for long-term residents to learn the traditional cultural practices of immigrants, which may differ from those of the dominant groups. This study explores the involvement of immigrants in sports in two ways: first, how immigrants experience the sport delivery system and, second, how volunteer and paid coaches and sport officials address the needs of immigrants who want to participate in sports. The study, conducted in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2007, provides recommendations for how sport, recreation and leisure policies may play a significant role in facilitating the social inclusion of Canadian immigrants in communities across the country.
Protection against CD95-Induced Apoptosis by Chlamydial Infection at a Mitochondrial Step

ABSTRACT Chlamydiae are obligate intracellular bacteria that infect human epithelial and myeloid cells. Previous work has established that chlamydiae are able to protect a cell against apoptosis induced by certain experimentally applied stimuli. Here we provide an analysis of this protective activity against the signal transduction during CD95-induced apoptosis. In HeLa cells overexpressing CD95, infection with Chlamydia trachomatis inhibited the appearance of apoptotic morphology, effector caspase activity, the activation of caspase-9 and -3, and the release of cytochrome c from mitochondria. However, caspase-8-processing and activity (measured as cleavage of Bid) were unaffected by the chlamydial infection. Similarly, infection with the species C. pneumoniae did not prevent the activation of caspase-8 but inhibited the appearance of effector caspase activity upon signaling through CD95. Furthermore, infection with C. trachomatis was able to inhibit CD95-induced apoptosis in Jurkat lymphoid cells, where a mitochondrial contribution is required, but not in SKW6.4 lymphoid cells, where caspase-8 directly activates caspase-3. Taken together, these data show that chlamydial infection can protect cells against CD95-induced apoptosis but only where a mitochondrial signaling step is necessary for apoptotic signal transduction.
Characterization and comparative analyses of transcriptomes from the normal and neoplastic human prostate

The prostate gland is a highly specialized organ with functional attributes that serve to enhance the fertility of mammalian species. Pathological processes affecting the prostate include benign prostate hypertrophy and prostate carcinoma; diseases that account for major morbidity and mortality in middle‐aged and elderly men. To facilitate studies of biological processes uniquely represented in the prostate and assess molecular alterations associated with prostate carcinoma, we sought to establish the diversity of gene expression in the normal and neoplastic prostate through the compilation and analysis of a prostate transcriptome.
Focusing on Connected Personal Leisure Networks: Selected Results from a Snowball Sample

Explanations of leisure travel must take the influence of participants' social contacts into account. To analyze this influence, transport planning uses social network analysis methods. While most past projects have focused on isolated network components, this paper presents a study collecting data on connected personal networks by taking a snowball sample. The paper explains difficulties for transport planning in approaching and explaining leisure travel and then introduces both the survey methodology and the instrument in detail. Advantages and disadvantages of snowball sampling are addressed, and the question why this strategy is important for approaching leisure travel, followed by experiences from the field about response rate, the fit between survey and target population, and sources of bias are given. Descriptive analyses highlight the potential of the data to produce new empirical insights.
Postoperative Complications After Esophagectomy for Adenocarcinoma of the Esophagus Are Related to Timing of Death Due to Recurrence

Background:Esophagectomy is frequently accompanied by substantial complications with secondary disturbance of the immune system. After esophagectomy for adenocarcinoma of the distal esophagus and/or gastroesophageal junction, the majority of patients develops an early recurrence and dies within 2 years. The aim of this study was to determine the relevance of perioperative complications on the timing of death due to recurrence. Methods:A consecutive series of 351 patients who underwent esophagectomy for adenocarcinoma of the esophagus and gastroesophageal junction was reviewed. Results:Of the 351 included patients, 191 patients (54%) died due to recurrence of esophageal adenocarcinoma. Of these 191 patients, 77 (40%), 138 (72%), and 186 patients (97%) died before 12, 24, and 60 months, respectively. Multivariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated that T-stage, lymph node ratio >0.20, the presence of extracapsular lymph node involvement, but not complications were significant factors for the prediction of death due to cancer recurrence. However, in the patients who died, multivariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated that not only the presence of extracapsular lymph node involvement but also the occurrence of complications were significantly related with a shorter time interval until death due to recurrence. Conclusion:The relation between perioperative complications and cancer recurrence per se is not causal. However, postoperative complications are independently associated with the early timing of death due to cancer recurrence. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that immunologic host factors enhance microscopic residual disease to develop more rapidly into clinically manifest recurrence.
Conversations With Self and Settings: A Framework for Thinking About Teacher Empowerment

A framework for thinking about teacher empowerment is presented. Two important dimensions are used as a basis for highlighting some important similarities and differences emerging in the literature on empowerment. The first relates to the context in which the process occurs; some educators highlight the importance of the personal context (i.e., conversations with self), while others assume more of an outward perspective in their thinking about empowerment (i.e., conversations with settings). The second important dimension relates to the focus or agenda of the conversations. Here, a distinction is made between agendas that are more epistemological in nature and those that are more political. An illustration is provided of how this framework can be used to better understand the dynamics involved in collaborative work with teachers.
Volume ratio, sparsity, and minimaxity under unitarily invariant norms

This paper presents a non-asymptotic study of the minimax estimation of high-dimensional mean and covariance matrices. Based on the convex geometry of finite-dimensional Banach spaces, we develop a unified volume ratio approach for determining minimax estimation rates of unconstrained mean and covariance matrices under all unitarily invariant norms. We also establish the rate for estimating mean matrices with group sparsity, where the sparsity constraint introduces an additional term in the rate whose dependence on the norm differs completely from the rate of the unconstrained counterpart.
Model-driven autotuning of sparse matrix-vector multiply on GPUs

We present a performance model-driven framework for automated performance tuning (autotuning) of sparse matrix-vector multiply (SpMV) on systems accelerated by graphics processing units (GPU). Our study consists of two parts. First, we describe several carefully hand-tuned SpMV implementations for GPUs, identifying key GPU-specific performance limitations, enhancements, and tuning opportunities. These implementations, which include variants on classical blocked compressed sparse row (BCSR) and blocked ELLPACK (BELLPACK) storage formats, match or exceed state-of-the-art implementations. For instance, our best BELLPACK implementation achieves up to 29.0 Gflop/s in single-precision and 15.7 Gflop/s in double-precision on the NVIDIA T10P multiprocessor (C1060), enhancing prior state-of-the-art unblocked implementations (Bell and Garland, 2009) by up to 1.8× and 1.5× for single-and double-precision respectively. However, achieving this level of performance requires input matrix-dependent parameter tuning. Thus, in the second part of this study, we develop a performance model that can guide tuning. Like prior autotuning models for CPUs (e.g., Im, Yelick, and Vuduc, 2004), this model requires offline measurements and run-time estimation, but more directly models the structure of multithreaded vector processors like GPUs. We show that our model can identify the implementations that achieve within 15% of those found through exhaustive search.
Late effects of subarachnoid haemorrhage on the response of the primate cerebral circulation to drug-induced changes in arterial blood pressure

The ability of the cerebral circulation to maintain a constant level of cerebral blood flow with halothane-induced hypotension and angiotensin-induced hypertension was found to be impaired one week after subarachnoid haemorrhage in the baboon. No evidence of hypoxic brain damage was found. The clinical significance of these findings is discussed.
The Nonsense of Native American Sport Imagery

The pejorative use of Aboriginal imagery in professional and amateur sport has been criticized by Native Americans, public activists and academics from various disciplinary backgrounds. They have campaigned successfully to convince sport organizations to rid themselves of such slanderous signification. While sensitive to these activist and academic strategies such perspectives do not seriously take into account that many First Nations peoples and sport teams in Canada display these images in a variety of ways. The proliferation of these images in First Nations contexts motivated me to examine the issue of Native American sport imagery further, in particular how their use by First Nations peoples may problematize standard oppositional discourse that dominates academic literature on the subject. Through my interaction with these context specific uses of such imagery, I have come to formulate a reading that encourages the proliferation of these images, a call for their saturation in the sport and fashion industry. It is only then that their signifying potential of a reality that never was can be erased, giving way to new systems of meanings.
Reduced osmotic potential inhibition of photosynthesis : site-specific effects of osmotically induced stromal acidification.

The effects of reduced reaction medium osmotic potential (0.67 molar sorbitol as compared to a control treatment with 0.33 molar sorbitol) on the enzymic steps of the photosynthetic carbon reduction cycle were investigated using isolated spinach (Spinacia oleracea L. var Longstanding Bloomsdale) chloroplasts. Reversal of reduced osmotic potential inhibition of photosynthetic rates by a stromal alkalating agent (NH(4)Cl) was associated with specific steps of the cycle. Low osmotic potential induced stromal acidification was found to be facilitated by osmotically induced chloroplast shrinkage. However, the action of the alkalating agent was found not to be associated with reversal of osmotically induced morphological changes of the stromal compartment.Labeled metabolite analyses indicated that the osmotic stress treatment caused the substrate for fructose 1,6-bisphosphatase (FBPase) to build up in the absence of NH(4)Cl, and the substrate for phosphoribulokinase to increase in the presence of NH(4)Cl. These data were interpreted as indicating that the most severe effect of osmotic stress on photosynthesis is at the site of FBPase, and that this inhibition is mediated by osmotically induced stromal acidification. Phosphoribulokinase activity inhibition at the low osmotic potential treatment was apparently less severe and not mediated by stromal acidification. A third site of osmotic inhibition, which was reversed by NH(4)Cl, and therefore was assumed to be mediated by stromal acidification, was at the step of ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase.Additions of NH(4)Cl also enhanced the activity of the pH-insensitive phase of the photosynthetic carbon reduction cycle, 3-phosphoglyceric acid reduction, at the stress treatment. This effect was thought to be mediated by the removal of the block at FBPase. A model was proposed to outline the relative severity of osmotic stress effects at various sites of the photosynthetic carbon reduction cycle.
Placental Aromatase Is Deficient in Placental Ischemia and Preeclampsia

Introduction Preeclampsia is a maternal hypertensive disorder with uncertain etiology and a leading cause of maternal and fetal mortality worldwide, causing nearly 40% of premature births delivered before 35 weeks of gestation. The first stage of preeclampsia is characterized by reduction of utero-placental blood flow which is reflected in high blood pressure and proteinuria during the second half of pregnancy. In human placenta androgens derived from the maternal and fetal adrenal glands are converted into estrogens by the enzymatic action of placental aromatase. This implies that alterations in placental steroidogenesis and, subsequently, in the functionality or bioavailability of placental aromatase may be mechanistically involved in the pathophysiology of PE. Methods Serum samples were collected at 32–36 weeks of gestation and placenta biopsies were collected at time of delivery from PE patients (n = 16) and pregnant controls (n = 32). The effect of oxygen tension on placental cells was assessed by incubation JEG–3 cells under 1% and 8% O2 for different time periods, Timed-mated, pregnant New Zealand white rabbits (n = 6) were used to establish an in vivo model of placental ischemia (achieved by ligature of uteroplacental vessels). Aromatase content and estrogens and androgens concentrations were measured. Results The protein and mRNA content of placental aromatase significantly diminished in placentae obtained from preeclamptic patients compared to controls. Similarly, the circulating concentrations of 17-β-estradiol/testosterone and estrone/androstenedione were reduced in preeclamptic patients vs. controls. These data are consistent with a concomitant decrease in aromatase activity. Aromatase content was reduced in response to low oxygen tension in the choriocarcinoma JEG–3 cell line and in rabbit placentae in response to partial ligation of uterine spiral arteries, suggesting that reduced placental aromatase activity in preeclamptic patients may be associated with chronic placental ischemia and hypoxia later in gestation. Conclusions Placental aromatase expression and functionality are diminished in pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia in comparison with healthy pregnant controls.
DECISION MODELS AND THE USE OF WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY

An apparatus for supporting a workpiece, such as a yoke having a body portion and a pair of opposed yoke arms, during a magnetic pulse welding operation includes a lower jaw, an upper jaw, and a support pin extending therebetween. During the magnetic pulse welding operation, the lower and upper jaws of the support apparatus engage the opposed yoke arms, and the support pin extends through respective openings formed through the opposed yoke arms. The support apparatus can also include a counter die that is disposed between the lower jaw and the upper jaw and has an arcuate recess formed therein that receives the outer portions of the opposed yoke arms therein. Lastly, the support apparatus can further include a pair of positioning rails that engage the body portion of the yoke. As a result, the support apparatus prevents deformation of the opposed yoke arms and absorbs shock waves that can be propagated through the yoke during the magnetic pulse welding operation.
Eliciting Affect Using the International Affective Picture System: Trajectories through Evaluative Space

Most bipolar models of affective processing in social psychology assume that positive and negative valent processes are represented along a single continuum that rangesfrom very positive to very negative. Recent research has raised the possibility, however, that the motivational systems for positive/approach and negative/defensive valent processing (positivity and negativity, respectively) are separable. In this article, the authors use unipolar positivity, negativity, and ambivalence ratings and bipolar valence, dominance, and arousal ratings of 472 slides from the International Affective Picture System to examine several aspects of the bivariate model of evaluative space. Analysis confirmed a positivity offset and negativity bias in the activation functions of the valent systems as wel as multiple modes of evaluative activation (e.g., reciprocal, uncoupled positivity, uncoupled negativity). Together, these data suggest that the bipolar structure of affective processes should be tested rather than assumed.
On the tree level S matrix of Yang-Mills theory

In this note we further investigate the procedure for computing tree-level amplitudes in Yang-Mills theory from connected instantons in the B-model on P^{3|4}, emphasizing that the problem of calculating Feynman diagrams is recast into the problem of finding solutions to a certain set of algebraic equations. We show that the B-model correctly reproduces all 6-particle amplitudes, including non-MHV amplitudes with three negative and three positive helicity gluons. As a further check, we also show that n-particle amplitudes obtained from the B-model obey a number of properties required of gauge theory, such as parity symmetry (which relates an integral over degree d curves to one over degree n-d-2 curves) and the soft and collinear gluon poles.
Inquiry in the Physical Geology Classroom: Supporting Students' Conceptual Model Development

This study characterizes the impact of an inquiry-based learning (IBL) module versus a traditionally structured laboratory exercise. Laboratory sections were randomized into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was taught using IBL pedagogical techniques and included manipulation of large-scale data-sets, use of multiple representations and a physical model and exposure to ill-constrained problems common to the Texas Gulf Coast. The control groups were taught using traditional laboratory activities. The groups were not significantly different prior to exposure. Pre/post-expressed conceptual models and final written reports indicate that the experimental group had greater increases in their conceptual model development of sand-sediment transport.
Cognitive Impairment in Chinese Patients with Sporadic Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Background It has reached a consensus that patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) could display cognitive impairment characterized by executive dysfunction or even dementia, but cognitive spectrum of Chinese patients with ALS still waits to be documented. Methods A total of 106 incident patients with sporadic ALS were enrolled and comprehensive neuropsychological tests covering memory, executive function, attention, language, and visuospatial function were administered to them. Neuropsychological performances of 76 age- and education- matched healthy controls were used for the purpose of classification and comparison. Results 106 patients were categorized into 4 subtypes:84 (79.2%) ALS with normal cognition (ALS-NC), 12 (11.3%) ALS with executive cognitive impairment (ALS-ECI), 5 (4.7%) ALS with non-executive cognitive impairment (ALS-NECI), and 5 (4.7%) ALS with frontotemporal lobe degeneration (ALS-FTLD). Under the same criteria, 2 (2.6%) and 1 (1.3%) healthy controls were diagnosed as ECI and NECI, respectively. The proportion of ECI was significantly higher in non-demented ALS than that in healthy controls, but it was not for NECI. Patients with ALS-FTLD had significantly severer bulbar function and older age than those with ALS-NC. Conclusion Comorbid FTLD occurred in around 5% of Chinese sporadic ALS cases. Different genetic background and unique age distribution of Chinese ALS patients might be the reasons for the relatively low rate of comorbid FTLD. Cognitive dysfunction, predominant but not exclusive in executive area, was present in around 16% of non-demented ALS patients.
SELF-STEREOTYPING AS A ROUTE TO SYSTEM JUSTIFICATION

Endorsing complementary stereotypes about others (i.e., stereotypes consisting of a balance of positive and negative characteristics) can function to satisfy the need to perceive one's social system as fair and balanced. To what extent might this also apply to self-perception, or self-stereotyping? The present research aimed to investigate the links between perceiving oneself in terms of a complementary stereotype, and the system justification motivation. In one study, we experimentally activated this motivation by threatening men's and women's perceptions of the fairness of gender relations and examined the impact on complementary self-stereotyping. In a second study, we manipulated men's and women's self-perceptions either in the direction of or away from their gender's complementary stereotype, and examined the impact of these self-perceptions on their beliefs about system fairness. Results support the notion that self-stereotyping is a viable strategy for satisfying the system justification goal. Impl.