Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antigen-bearing dendritic cells regulate the diverse pattern of memory CD8 T-cell development in different tissues

Memory T cells of the effector type (TEM) account for the characteristic rapidity of memory T-cell responses, whereas memory T cells of the central type (TCM) account for long-lasting, vigorously proliferating memory T-cell responses. How antigen-stimulated (primed) T cells develop into different memory T-cell subsets with diverse tissue distributions is largely unknown. Here we show that after respiratory tract infection of mice with influenza virus, viral antigen associated with dendritic cells (DCs) was abundant in lung-draining lymph nodes (DLN) and the spleen for more than a week but was scant and transient in nondraining lymph nodes (NDLN). Correspondingly, activated CD8 T cells proliferated extensively in DLN and the spleen but minimally in NDLN. Strikingly, however, although most persisting CD8 T cells in DLN and spleen exhibited the TEM phenotype, those persisting in NDLN exhibited the TCM phenotype. Reducing antigen exposure by depleting DCs at the peak of primary T-cell responses enhanced the development of TCM, whereas subjecting primed CD8 T cells from NDLN to additional antigen stimulation inhibited TCM development. These findings demonstrate that differences in persistence of antigen-bearing DCs in various tissues regulate the tissue-specific pattern of memory CD8 T-cell development. The findings have significant implications for design of vaccines and immunization strategies.
Automated hippocampal segmentation in patients with epilepsy: Available free online

Hippocampal sclerosis, a common cause of refractory focal epilepsy, requires hippocampal volumetry for accurate diagnosis and surgical planning. Manual segmentation is time‐consuming and subject to interrater/intrarater variability. Automated algorithms perform poorly in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. We validate and make freely available online a novel automated method.
Linking Marketing Activities to Shareholder Value: Philosophical and Methodological Issues

The stream of marketing-finance interface has provided justification for marketing’s important value in the business world. However, little attention has been paid to address philosophical and methodological issues and to provide scientific rationales of marketing-finance. Therefore, the authors strive to address several philosophical and methodological issues in the marketing-finance interface research stream. The marketing-finance interface research appears to adopt a relativistic approach, seeking to apply rigorous empirical methods and secondary large-scale archival data for higher external validity. Recommendations for solidification of philosophical and methodological foundations are provided.
Anxiolytic Effect of Ocimum basilicum Extract in Rats Tested by Elevated Plus-Maze Task

Background: There are reports in traditional medicine about the effectiveness of Ocimum basilicum (OB) in the treatment of anxiety. The Elevated Plus-Maze (EPM) has been predominantly used to investigate anxiety levels in rodents. Objectives: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of extract of OB on rat behavior in the EPM test. Materials and Methods: Male Wistar rats weighing 220 - 250 g were used in the present study. Forty rats were divided into 4 groups: three OB groups (25, 50, 100 mg/kg oral administration of OB for 7 days) and a saline control group. One day after the last day of feeding, the animals’ behavior in EPM was videotaped for 10 minutes. Then, their behavior scored for formal indexes of anxiety, such as the total distance covered by animals, the percentage of entries into and the time spent in open and closed arms. Results: The results showed that after oral feeding of OB, the percentage of open arms entry and open arms time in EPM increased in the experimental groups. OB extract has no effect on the total distance covered by animals and number of closed arm entries. Conclusions: Our results demonstrated that the extract of OB could induce anxiolytic effect in rats after 1 week oral administration. The effect of OB was not induced through changes in motor activity. Further investigations are necessary for pharmacological providing of OB and better understanding of its anxiolytic properties and neurobiological mechanisms.
Acceptance of e-Government Services in Sudan: an Empirical Investigation

This paper uses the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to identify the factors influencing citizens' acceptance and intention to use e-government in Sudan. Specifically, a survey questionnaire was used to collect responses from a sample of (292) participants using the Electronic Passport and National ID services. Results from this study showed that the quality of services and advertising have significant impact on citizens' satisfaction and adoption of e-government services.
Evolution of massive haloes in non-Gaussian scenarios

We have performed high-resolution cosmological N-body simulations of a concordance � CDM model to study the evolution of virialized, dark matter haloes in the presence of primordial non-Gaussianity. Following a standard procedure, departures from Gaussianity are modelled through a quadratic Gaussian term in the primordial gravitational potential, characterized by a dimensionless non-linearity strength parameter fNL. We find that the halo mass function and its redshift evolution closely follow the analytic predictions of Matarrese, Verde & Jimenez. The existence of precise analytic predictions makes the observation of rare, massive objects at large redshift an even more attractive test to detect primordial non-Gaussian features in the large-scale structure of the Universe.
Risk Profiles for Weight Gain among Postmenopausal Women: A Classification and Regression Tree Analysis Approach

Purpose Risk factors for obesity and weight gain are typically evaluated individually while “adjusting for” the influence of other confounding factors, and few studies, if any, have created risk profiles by clustering risk factors. We identified subgroups of postmenopausal women homogeneous in their clustered modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors for gaining ≥ 3% weight. Methods This study included 612 postmenopausal women 50–79 years old, enrolled in an ancillary study of the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study between February 1995 and July 1998. Classification and regression tree and stepwise regression models were built and compared. Results Of 27 selected variables, the factors significantly related to ≥ 3% weight gain were weight change in the past 2 years, age at menopause, dietary fiber, fat, alcohol intake, and smoking. In women younger than 65 years, less than 4 kg weight change in the past 2 years sufficiently reduced risk of ≥ 3% weight gain. Different combinations of risk factors related to weight gain were reported for subgroups of women: women 65 years or older (essential factor: < 9.8 g/day dietary factor), African Americans (essential factor: currently smoking), and white women (essential factor: ≥ 5 kg weight change for the past 2 years). Conclusions Our findings suggest specific characteristics for particular subgroups of postmenopausal women that may be useful for identifying those at risk for weight gain. The study results may be useful for targeting efforts to promote strategies to reduce the risk of obesity and weight gain in subgroups of postmenopausal women and maximize the effect of weight control by decreasing obesity-relevant adverse health outcomes.
The Management of Refractory Status Epilepticus: An Update

Summary: Refractory status epilepticus (RSE) is an important and serious clinical problem that typically requires prolonged and high‐level intensive care, and is often associated with poor outcome. This review addresses some of the current issues concerning the management of RSE, including recent definitions used for clinical studies, epidemiology, clinical course, and outcome. Current approaches to treatment, including the now relatively standard use of intravenous anesthetic agents, as well as emerging therapies utilizing drugs such as valproate and topiramate, are discussed as well.
The efficiency of mitochondrial electron transport chain is increased in the long‐lived mrg19 Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Integrity of mitochondrial functionality is a key determinant of longevity in several organisms. In particular, reduced mitochondrial ROS (mtROS) production leading to decreased mtDNA damage is believed to be a crucial aspect of longevity. The generation of low mtROS was thought to be due to low mitochondrial oxygen consumption. However, recent studies have shown that higher mitochondrial oxygen consumption could still result in low mtROS and contribute to longevity. This increased mitochondrial efficiency (i.e. low mtROS generated despite high oxygen consumption) was explained as a result of mitochondrial biogenesis, which provides more entry points for the electrons to the electron transport chain (ETC), thereby resulting in low mtROS production. In this study, we provide evidence for the existence of an alternative pathway to explain the observed higher mitochondrial efficiency in the long‐lived mrg19 mutant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Although we observe similar amounts of mitochondria in mrg19 and wild‐type (wt) yeast, we find that mrg19 mitochondria have higher expression of ETC components per mitochondria in comparison with the wt. These findings demonstrate that more efficient mitochondria because of increased ETC per mitochondria can also produce less mtROS. Taken together, our findings provide evidence for an alternative explanation for the involvement of higher mitochondrial activity in prolonging lifespan. We anticipate that similar mechanisms might also exist in eukaryotes including human.
Emergence of colistin resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa at Tabriz hospitals, Iran

Background and Objectives: The prevalence of multidrug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the main reason of new drugs resurgence such as colistin. The main objectives of this study were to determine the antibiotic resistance pattern and the rate of colistin resistance along with its correlation with overexpression of MexAB-OprM and MexXY-OprM efflux pumps among P. aeruginosa isolates. Materials and Methods: Hundred clinical isolates were collected from 100 patients during 6 months in 2014. Susceptibility to the eight antibiotics was investigated using Kirby-Bauer and agar dilution methods. The Quantitative Real-time PCR was used to determine the expression levels of efflux genes. Results: Resistance rates to various antibiotics were as follows: ticarcillin (73%), ciprofloxacin (65%), aztreonam (60%), ceftazidime (55%), gentamicin (55%), imipenem (49%), piperacillin/tazobactam (34%) and colistin (2%). In disk diffusion method, only two isolates were non susceptible to colistin, however in agar dilution method the two isolates were confirmed as resistant and two others were intermediate resistant. Sixty eight (68%) isolates were multi-drug resistant and 10 isolates were susceptible to all tested antibiotics. Both colistin resistant isolates showed overexpression of both efflux pumps, but two intermediate resistant isolates exhibited reduction of efflux genes expression. Conclusions: Emergence of colistin resistance is increasing in P. aeruginosa indicating great challenge in the treatment of infections caused by MDR strains of this organism in Iran. ParRS may promote either induced or constitutive resistance to colistin through the activation of distinct mechanisms such as MDR efflux pumps, and LPS modification.
Improving the Neural Algorithm of Artistic Style

In this work we investigate different avenues of improving the Neural Algorithm of Artistic Style (by Leon A. Gatys, Alexander S. Ecker and Matthias Bethge, arXiv:1508.06576). While showing great results when transferring homogeneous and repetitive patterns, the original style representation often fails to capture more complex properties, like having separate styles of foreground and background. This leads to visual artifacts and undesirable textures appearing in unexpected regions when performing style transfer. We tackle this issue with a variety of approaches, mostly by modifying the style representation in order for it to capture more information and impose a tighter constraint on the style transfer result. In our experiments, we subjectively evaluate our best method as producing from barely noticeable to significant improvements in the quality of style transfer.
Transiently increased colocalization of vesicular glutamate transporters 1 and 2 at single axon terminals during postnatal development of mouse neocortex: a quantitative analysis with correlation coefficient

Vesicular glutamate transporter 1 (VGLUT1) and VGLUT2 show complementary distribution in neocortex; VGLUT1 is expressed mainly in axon terminals of neocortical neurons, whereas VGLUT2 is located chiefly in thalamocortical axon terminals. However, we recently reported a frequent colocalization of VGLUT1 and VGLUT2 at a subset of axon terminals in postnatal developing neocortex. We here quantified the frequency of colocalization between VGLUT1 and VGLUT2 immunoreactivities at single axon terminals by using the correlation coefficient (CC) as an indicator in order to determine the time course and spatial extent of the colocalization during postnatal development of mouse neocortex. The colocalization was more frequent in the primary somatosensory (S1) area than in both the primary visual (V1) and the motor areas; of area S1 cortical layers, colocalization was most evident in layer IV barrels at postnatal day (P) 7 and in adulthood. CC in layer IV showed a peak at P7 in area S1, and at P10 in area V1 though the latter peak was much smaller than the former. These results suggest that thalamocortical axon terminals contained not only VGLUT2 but also VGLUT1, especially at P7–10. Double fluorescence in situ hybridization confirmed coexpression of VGLUT1 and VGLUT2 mRNAs at P7 in the somatosensory thalamic nuclei and later in the thalamic dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus. As VGLUT1 is often used in axon terminals that show synaptic plasticity in adult brain, the present findings suggest that VGLUT1 is used in thalamocortical axons transiently during the postnatal period when plasticity is required.
On Multigrid Methods for Parabolic Problems

Multigrid methods with nested subspaces and inherited forms are analyzed in an abstract framework that permits application to linear systems of the type that have to be solved at each time level in time-stepping methods for nite element approximations of parabolic problems. Convergence rates that are independent of the space and time steps are obtained in an appropriate time step dependent norm.
Schema Representation in Patients with Ventromedial PFC Lesions

Human neuroimaging and animal studies have recently implicated the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in memory schema, particularly in facilitating new encoding by existing schemas. In humans, the most conspicuous memory disorder following vmPFC damage is confabulation; strategic retrieval models suggest that aberrant schema activation or reinstatement plays a role in confabulation. This raises the possibility that beyond its role in schema-supported memory encoding, the vmPFC is also implicated in schema reinstatement itself. If that is the case, vmPFC lesions should lead to impaired schema-based operations, even on tasks that do not involve memory acquisition. To test this prediction, ten patients with vmPFC damage, four with present or prior confabulation, and a group of twelve matched healthy controls made speeded yes/no decisions as to whether words were closely related to a schema (a visit to the doctor). Ten minutes later, they repeated the task for a new schema (going to bed) with some words related to the first schema included as lures. Last, they rated the degree to which stimuli were related to the second schema. All four vmPFC patients with present or prior confabulation were impaired in rejecting lures and in classifying stimulus belongingness to the schema, even when they were not lures. Nonconfabulating patients performed comparably to healthy adults with high accuracy, comparable reaction times, and similar ratings. These results show for the first time that damage to the human vmPFC, when associated with confabulation, leads to deficient schema reinstatement, which is likely a prerequisite for schema-mediated memory integration.
The relations between a ‘push-down’ and ‘push-up’ curriculum: A cultural-historical study of home-play pedagogy in the context of structured learning in international schools in Malaysia

Historically, ‘free play’ in many European heritage communities has been a valued practice. However, political imperatives have challenged these beliefs and necessitated a more academic curriculum to raise standards, resulting in a ‘push-down’ curriculum. By contrast, many Asia-Pacific communities have increasingly included play in their curricula and discussed the benefits of imagination and creativity. Contradictions and tensions associated with the differing perspectives on the value of play present themselves when families move countries. This is evident in some international schools, where a diversity of families and differing play and academic practices interact. In order to understand this complex problem, cultural-historical theory was drawn on to investigate three expatriate families as the children transitioned into a Malaysian international school context. An analysis of digital video recordings (90 hours) of everyday life of the children at home and in school, and interview data of parents and teachers, found that an increase in a child’s academic competence was associated with a change in motive orientation in the family home from play to learning. Unexpectedly, play practices in the home turned into academic learning activities, which the authors have termed a ‘push-up’ curriculum, supporting the learning agenda of the international schools.
How do users find things with PubMed?: towards automatic utility evaluation with user simulations

In the context of document retrieval in the biomedical domain, this paper explores the complex relationship between the quality of initial query results and the overall utility of an interactive retrieval system. We demonstrate that a content-similarity browsing tool can compensate for poor retrieval results, and that the relationship between retrieval performance and overall utility is non-linear. Arguments are advanced with user simulations, which characterize the relevance of documents that a user might encounter with different browsing strategies. With broader implications to IR, this work provides a case study of how user simulations can be exploited as a formative tool for automatic utility evaluation. Simulation-based studies provide researchers with an additional evaluation tool to complement interactive and Cranfield-style experiments.
Quality versus quantity: Ranking research records of economics departments in New Zealand

A comparison of research records of the current members of the 7 major economics departments in New Zealand, from 1990 onwards, using journal quality weights from the Laband and Piette (1994) study. The information, taken from the Econlit database, covers more than 500 economics journals, as of November 2000. 32 different ranking measures are computed. According to 29 of these, the top three departments are Auckland, VUW and Canterbury. By 27 measures, Auckland takes the number one spot, while the relative rankings of VUW and Canterbury, and the remaining departments, depend on the measures used.
Permutation Capacities of Families of Oriented Infinite Paths

Korner and Malvenuto asked whether one can find $\binom{n}{\lfloor n/2\rfloor}$ linear orderings (i.e., permutations) of the first $n$ natural numbers such that any pair of them places two consecutive integers somewhere in the same position. This led to the notion of graph-different permutations. We extend this concept to directed graphs, focusing on orientations of the semi-infinite path whose edges connect consecutive natural numbers. Our main result shows that the maximum number of permutations satisfying all the pairwise conditions associated with all of the various orientations of this path is exponentially smaller, for any single orientation, than the maximum number of those permutations which satisfy the corresponding pairwise relationship. This is in sharp contrast to a result of Gargano, Korner, and Vaccaro concerning the analogous notion of Sperner capacity of families of finite graphs. We improve the exponential lower bound for the original problem and list a number of open questions.
Long term patient satisfaction and quality of life with AMS700CX inflatable penile prosthesis.

OBJECTIVE Penile prosthesis implantation is the solution of choice in patients who have failed or present contraindication to the use of all conservative treatment for erectile dysfunction (ED). Overall, satisfaction rates are high, with more than 80% of patients and partners fully satisfied with cosmetic and functional result of surgery. Chronic postoperative pain, penile shortening, soft or hyposensitive glans, pencil like penis syndrome and difficulty to cycle the device represent the most common causes of patient's dissatisfaction. Satisfaction rates are better assessed with the use of validated questionnaires such as the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) and the Erectile Dysfunction Inventory of Treatment Satisfaction (EDITS) The aim of our study was to analyze the long-term mechanical reliability of the AMS 700CX/CXM inflatable penile prosthesis and the patient's satisfaction rate using IIEF and EDITS questionnaire as standard reference. MATERIALS AND METHODS A retrospective case notes review of all patients who have undergone implantation of a three pieces inflatable penile prosthesis AMS 700 CX and CXR between October 1997 and December 2010. Overall, 80 patients have undergone implantation of 3 pieces inflatable penile prosthesis AMS 700 CX InhibiZone. Patients have been administered the IIEF-5 and EDITS questionnaires in combination with a non validated 9 domain questionnaire that assesses penile rigidity, sensation, orgasmic function, frequency of intercourse, impact of surgery on the quality of life, satisfaction rate. RESULTS Overall 10 years survival estimate according to the Kaplan Meier method of AMS 700 CX touch pump and AMS 700 CX momentary squeeze pump are respectively 77.6% and 82.5%. The median postoperative IIEF5 and EDITS score were respectively 21.46 and 73.11, which show a high level of satisfaction. 59 patients (90.8%) were able to cycle the device and were engaging in penetrative sexual intercourse. CONCLUSIONS Penile prosthesis implantation yields excellent results in terms of cosmetic and functional outcome and therefore has a significant impact on patients' satisfaction, sex life and overall quality of life. Overall, long term reliability has been significantly improved and complication rates are low in the hands of experienced surgeons.
Determination of the NOx Loading of an Automotive Lean NOx Trap by Directly Monitoring the Electrical Properties of the Catalyst Material Itself

Recently, it has been shown that the degree of loading of several types of automotive exhaust aftertreatment devices can be directly monitored in situ and in a contactless way by a microwave-based method. The goal of this study was to clarify whether this method can also be applied to NOx storage and reduction catalysts (lean NOx traps) in order to obtain further knowledge about the reactions occurring in the catalyst and to compare the results with those obtained by wirebound NOx loading sensors. It is shown that both methods are able to detect the different catalyst loading states. However, the sensitivity of the microwave-based method turned out to be small compared to that previously observed for other exhaust aftertreatment devices. This may limit the practical applicability of the microwave-based NOx loading detection in lean NOx traps.