Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Specific Brainstem Neurons Switch Each Other into Pacemaker Mode to Drive Movement by Activating NMDA Receptors

Rhythmic activity is central to brain function. In the vertebrate CNS, the neuronal circuits for breathing and locomotion involve inhibition and also neurons acting as pacemakers, but identifying the neurons responsible has proven difficult. By studying simple hatchling Xenopus laevis tadpoles, we have already identified a population of electrically coupled hindbrain neurons (dINs) that drive swimming. During rhythm generation, dINs release glutamate to excite each other and activate NMDA receptors (NMDARs). The resulting depolarization enables a network mechanism for swimming rhythm generation that depends on reciprocal inhibition between antagonistic right and left sides. Surprisingly, a surgically isolated hemi-CNS without inhibition can still generate swimming-like rhythms. We have now discovered that activation of NMDARs transforms dINs, which normally fire singly to current injection, into pacemakers firing within the normal swimming frequency range (10–25 Hz). When dIN firing is blocked pharmacologically, this NMDAR activation produces 10 Hz membrane potential oscillations that persist when electrical coupling is blocked but not when the voltage-dependent gating of NMDARs by Mg2+ is removed. The NMDA-induced oscillations and pacemaker firing at swimming frequency are unique to the dIN population and do not occur in other spinal neurons. We conclude that NMDAR-mediated self-resetting switches critical neurons that drive swimming into pacemaker mode only during locomotion where it provides an additional, parallel mechanism for rhythm generation. This allows rhythm generation in a half-CNS and raises the possibility that such concealed pacemaker properties may be present underlying rhythm generation in other vertebrate brain networks.
ADHD and Adaptability: The Roles of Cognitive, Behavioural, and Emotional Regulation

Adaptability has been recently proposed as cognitive, behavioural, and emotional regulation assisting individuals to effectively respond to change, uncertainty and novelty. Given students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have known impairments with regulatory functions, they may be at particular disadvantage as they seek to navigate change, uncertainty, and novelty in their academic lives. This discussion summarises current research of adaptability as relevant to students with ADHD, presents preliminary exploration of data that suggests evidence for the difficulties students with ADHD face with regards to adaptability (particularly in regards to cognitive and behavioural regulation), and concludes with suggestions for counselling, psychological, and educational practices aimed at enhancing the adaptability of students with ADHD.
Salmonella infection increases porcine antibacterial peptide concentrations in serum

PR-39 is a multifunctional neutrophil peptide involved in host defense and inflammation. To investigate the involvement of PR-39 in a Salmonella choleraesuis infection, a PR-39 enzyme immunoassay was developed. The concentrations of PR-39 in serum were 13.6 +/- 1.9 ng/ml before challenge and increased (P < 0.01) threefold by 10 to 14 days postinfection. Peripheral blood neutrophil counts paralleled the changes in the concentrations of PR-39 in serum, both returned to basal values by 4 weeks postinfection. These findings suggest that the concentrations of serum PR-39 reflect the involvement of this antibacterial peptide in the host's response to an S. choleraesuis infection.
Post-Retirement Benefit Plans, Leverage, and Real Investment

This paper shows that off-balance sheet pension and health care benefit plans are important for firm leverage and real investment around the world. Post-retirement assets and liabilities of nonfinancial corporations are economically sizable in many countries (often more than in the U.S.), but are not fully reflected on the balance sheet despite plans generally being underfunded. While consolidating off-balance sheet post-retirement plans typically increases effective leverage by 32%, they do not matter for gearing of firms in about half the sample countries. Moreover, there is significant variation across countries with regards to the extent to which firms with large projected benefit obligations reduce their level of regular debt, ranging from no to perfect substitution. Since postretirement benefit obligations have more flexible terms than regular debt, they can be used as an instrument to investigate the effect of financial flexibility on real investment. The results show that the relation is conditional on the type of investment opportunity (i.e. type of growth option). Postretirement benefit obligations have a positive effect on R&D, which generates growth options, and a negative effect on capital expenditures, which exercises growth options. Compared to an otherwise similar firm without a post-retirement plan, the average plan sponsor has 5.4% less capital expenditures and 13.1% more research and development. The results are robust to other dimensions of financial policy, such as debt maturity, dividends, preferred stock, convertible debt, and leverage that also affect real investment.
Designing Learning Activities for an International Online Student Body: What Have We Learned?

The increased use of the Internet to facilitate teaching and learning opportunities presents a number of potential benefits to higher education institutions. As well as opening up new markets, new technologies are believed also to afford economic bene fits, reduced time to market, international partnerships, and educational benefits. Of particular interest to many providers are the new market opportunities in terms of potential students who, for whatever reason, are otherwise unable to attend a physical location at particular times. These include students who live in rural and remote areas, those who have work and/or family commitments, and international students. The focus of this article is on the international students who will be studyingthrough the global campus. It provides an overview of the range of issues and challenges associated with provision of online learningopportunities in general and providingthose opportunities to international students in particular.
Characterization of 1,4‐dideoxy‐1,4‐imino‐d‐arabinitol (DAB) as an inhibitor of brain glycogen shunt activity

The pharmacological properties of 1,4‐dideoxy‐1,4‐imino‐d‐arabinitol (DAB), a potent inhibitor of glycogen phosphorylase and synthase activity in liver preparations, were characterized in different brain tissue preparations as a prerequisite for using it as a tool to investigate brain glycogen metabolism. Its inhibitory effect on glycogen phosphorylase was studied in homogenates of brain tissue and astrocytes and IC50‐values close to 400 nM were found. However, the concentration of DAB needed for inhibition of glycogen shunt activity, i.e. glucose metabolism via glycogen, in intact astrocytes was almost three orders of magnitude higher. Additionally, such complete inhibition required a pre‐incubation period, a finding possibly reflecting a limited permeability of the astrocytic membrane. DAB did not affect the accumulation of 2‐deoxyglucose‐6‐phosphate indicating that the transport of DAB is not mediated by the glucose transporter. DAB had no effect on enzymes involving glucose‐6‐phosphate, i.e. glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase, phosphoglucoisomerase and hexokinase. Furthermore, DAB was evaluated in a functional preparation of the isolated mouse optic nerve, in which its presence severely reduced the ability to sustain evoked compound action potentials in the absence of glucose, a condition in which glycogen serves as an important energy substrate. Based on the experimental findings, DAB can be used to evaluate glycogen shunt activity and its functional importance in intact brain tissue and cells at a concentration of 300–1000 μM and a pre‐incubation period of 1 h.
Entry into Nursing: An Ethnographic Study of Newly Qualified Nurses Taking on the Nursing Role in a Hospital Setting

The transition from student to working nurse has long been recognized as challenging. This paper presents the findings of research into the opportunities and limitations encountered by newly qualified nurses when taking on the nursing role. The study had an ethnographic design. Observation, interviews, and document analysis were used to gain insight into nurses' daily work from the perspective of recently graduated nurses. Thirteen nurses were monitored closely during their first year in a hospital setting in Norway. These new nurses generally entered the field with empathy for their patients, enthusiasm for the profession, and readiness to learn more about being a good nurse. However, their more experienced colleagues seemed to neither respect nor nurture this attitude. The new nurses experienced heavier responsibilities than expected, fragmentation of patient care, and stressful interactions with colleagues. The lack of a supportive work environment and role models increased the new nurses' experience of overwhelming responsibility in their daily work situations. The nurses learned to cope the hard way, despite the organizational culture, not because of it. Adjusting the profession's expectations of new nurses, and offering good role models and more comprehensive support programmes, would markedly ease the transition for new nurses.
Safe Control under Uncertainty with Probabilistic Signal Temporal Logic

Safe control of dynamical systems that satisfy temporal invariants expressing various safety properties is a challenging problem that has drawn the attention of many researchers. However, making the assumption that such temporal properties are deterministic is far from the reality. For example, a robotic system might employ a camera sensor and a machine learned system to identify obstacles. Consequently, the safety properties the controller has to satisfy, will be a function of the sensor data and the associated classifier. We propose a framework for achieving safe control. At the heart of our approach is the new Probabilistic Signal Temporal Logic (PrSTL), an expressive language to define stochastic properties, and enforce probabilistic guarantees on them. We also present an efficient algorithm to reason about safe controllers given the constraints derived from the PrSTL specification. One of the key distinguishing features of PrSTL is that the encoded logic is adaptive and changes as the system encounters additional data and updates its beliefs about the latent random variables that define the safety properties. We demonstrate our approach by deriving safe control of quadrotors and autonomous vehicles in dynamic environments.
Population Growth, the Natural Rate of Interest, and Inflation

Population growth rates have fallen considerably in most developed countries. An important question for monetary policy is whether this has led to a fall in the natural rate of interest. In representative agent models, the response of the natural rate to a fertility shock crucially depends on the preference parameter determining how households weight generations of different size. Estimating a medium-scale model of the US-economy featuring fertility shocks, I find that declining population growth has lowered both the natural rate and inflation by about 0.4 percentage points in recent decades.
Broadband Onset Inhibition Can Suppress Spectral Splatter in the Auditory Brainstem

In vivo intracellular responses to auditory stimuli revealed that, in a particular population of cells of the ventral nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (VNLL) of rats, fast inhibition occurred before the first action potential. These experimental data were used to constrain a leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) model of the neurons in this circuit. The post-synaptic potentials of the VNLL cell population were characterized using a method of triggered averaging. Analysis suggested that these inhibited VNLL cells produce action potentials in response to a particular magnitude of the rate of change of their membrane potential. The LIF model was modified to incorporate the VNLL cells’ distinctive action potential production mechanism. The model was used to explore the response of the population of VNLL cells to simple speech-like sounds. These sounds consisted of a simple tone modulated by a saw tooth with exponential decays, similar to glottal pulses that are the repeated impulses seen in vocalizations. It was found that the harmonic component of the sound was enhanced in the VNLL cell population when compared to a population of auditory nerve fibers. This was because the broadband onset noise, also termed spectral splatter, was suppressed by the fast onset inhibition. This mechanism has the potential to greatly improve the clarity of the representation of the harmonic content of certain kinds of natural sounds.
Humor styles in predicting loneliness among Turkish university students

The purpose of this investigation was two-fold. Firstly, to examine whether there were significant correlations between loneliness and four humor styles, and secondly to examine which humor style was the best predictor of loneliness among university students. In this study 483 undergraduate students participated at Cukurova University, Turkey. Data were collected through the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980) and the Humor Styles Questionnaire (Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, & Weir, 2003). Four Pearson product-moment correlations were computed for the scores on the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale and on each of four humor scales. The results provided evidence in support of a conceptual framework of humor styles and loneliness indicating strong negative correlations between loneliness and affiliative and self-enhancing humor, and moderate positive correlations between loneliness and self-defeating humor, but no significant correlations between loneliness and aggressive humor. The stepwise regression analysis results indicated that four variables contributed meaningfully to loneliness, and the affiliative humor style was the best predictor of loneliness.
Extending ALC ABoxes with Probabilities

The description logic PALC allows to express degrees of belief in concept and role assertions for individuals. We are concerned with the mathematical development of a theory for probabilistic ABoxes in PALC. The axioms of probability give us a set of linear constraints on the models of an ABox. Moreover, an independence assumption regarding the assertions for different individuals yields additional, nonlinear constraints.
Chandipura virus: A major cause of acute encephalitis in children in North Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, India

A hospital‐based surveillance was undertaken between May 2005 and April 2006 to elucidate the contribution of Chandipura virus (CHPV) to acute viral encephalitis cases in children, seroconversion in recovered cases and to compare the seroprevalences of anti‐CHPV IgM and N antibodies in areas reporting cases with those without any case of acute viral encephalitis. During this period, 90 cases of acute encephalitis were hospitalized in the pediatric wards of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) Hospital, Warangal. There were 49 deaths (Case Fatality Rate, i.e., CFR of 54.4%). Clinical samples and records were obtained from 52 suspected cases. The cases were below 15 years, majority in 0–4 years (35/52, 67.3%). Computerized tomography (CT) scans and cerebro‐spinal fluid (CSF) picture favored viral etiology. No neurological sequelae were observed. CHPV etiology was detected in 25 cases (48.1%, n = 52; RNA in 20, IgM in 3 and N antibody seroconversion in 2). JEV etiology was detected in 5 cases (IgM in 4 cases and seroconversion in 1 case). Anti‐CHPV IgM seroprevalence in contacts (26/167, 15.6%) was significantly higher (P < 0.05) than in non‐contacts (11/430, 2.6%); which was also observed in children <15 years (19/90, 21.1% vs. 3/109, 2.7%). Anti‐CHPV N antibody seroprevalence in <15 years contacts (66/90, 73.3%) and non‐contacts (77/109, 70.6%) was significantly lower (P < 0.05) than in contacts (75/77, 97.4%) and non‐contacts (302/321, 94.1%) more than 15 years respectively. CHPV appears to be the major cause of acute viral encephalitis in children in endemic areas during early monsoon months. J. Med. Virol. 80:118–124, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Linear vs. nonlinear effects for nonlinear Schrödinger equations with potential.

We review some recent results on nonlinear Schrodinger equations with potential, with emphasis on the case where the potential is a second order polynomial, for which the interaction between the linear dynamics caused by the potential, and the nonlinear effects, can be described quite precisely. This includes semi-classical regimes, as well as finite time blow-up and scattering issues. We present the tools used for these problems, as well as their limitations, and outline the arguments of the proofs.
Water Safety Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviours of Young Pasifika New Zealanders

Preliminary findings on youth recreation show that swimming was the most popular out-of-school active leisure activity for both boys and girls in New Zealand (SPARC 2002). While this is generally perceived as a positive indicator of a healthy NZ lifestyle, it is not without risk. The issue of water safety is especially relevant to youth of Pacific Island origins because proportionally more fall into the high-risk children and youth categories than other ethnic groups within the population. The purpose of this study therefore was to examine the drowning risk of Pasifika youth resident in New Zealand in terms of their aquatic recreation and associated water safety knowledge, attitudes and behaviours.
Herbaceous vegetation productivity, persistence, and metals uptake on a biosolids-amended mine soil.

The selection of plant species is critical for the successful establishment and long-term maintenance of vegetation on reclaimed surface mined soils. A study was conducted to assess the capability of 16 forage grass and legume species in monocultures and mixes to establish and thrive on a reclaimed Appalachian surface mine amended with biosolids. The 0.15-ha coarse-textured, rocky, non-acid forming mined site was prepared for planting by grading to a 2% slope and amending sandstone overburden materials with a mixture of composted and dewatered, anaerobically digested biosolids at a rate of 368 Mg ha(-1) (dry weight). Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.), orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.), switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), caucasian bluestem (Bothriochloa caucasia L.), reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea L.), ladino clover (Trifolium repens L.), birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus L.), crownvetch (Coronilla varia L.), alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), common sericea lespedeza and AULotan sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata L.), tall fescue-ladino clover, tall fescue-alfalfa, orchardgrass-birdsfoot trefoil, switchgrass-AULotan, and an herbaceous species mix intended for planting on reforested sites consisting of foxtail millet [Setaria italica (L.) Beauv. ], perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.), redtop (Agrostis alba L.), kobe lespedeza (Kummerowia striata L.), appalow lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata L.), and birdsfoot trefoil were established between spring 1990 and 1991. Vegetative biomass and/or persistence were assessed in 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, and 2002. The high rate of biosolids applied provided favorable soil chemical properties but could not overcome physical property limitations due to shallow undeveloped soil perched atop a compacted soil layer at 25 cm depth. The plant species whose persistence and biomass production were the greatest after a decade or more of establishment (i.e., switchgrass, sericea lespedeza, reed canarygrass, tall fescue, and crownvetch) shared the physiological and reproductive characteristics of low fertility requirements, drought and moisture tolerance, and propagation by rhizome and/or stolons. Of these five species, two (tall fescue and sericea lespedeza) are or have been seeded commonly on Appalachian coal surface mines, and often dominate abandoned pasture sites. Despite the high rates of heavy metal-bearing biosolids applied to the soil, plant uptake of Cd, Cu, Ni, and Zn were well within critical concentrations more than a decade after establishment of the vegetation.
Investigation and comparison of aggression in Olympic and Non-Olympic athletes of sport fields

Aggression in sport is defined as a behavior against the legal standards of that sport as an attempt to injure the opponent, referee, teammate or spectators verbally or physically. Many of sport psychological researchers consider aggression and violence as a serious problem in sport especially in contact sports which is followed annually by a lot of harm for athletes. In the some direction this research deals with investigation of aggression situation in Olympic athletes of contact sport fields and non-Olympic, it compares these fields with each other and compares them with non-athletes. 96 elite athletes of different sport fields: taekwondo, judo, wrestling, boxing (as an athletes of Olympic sport fields), karate, wu shu, kickboxing and kung fu (as an athletes of non-Olympic sport fields) with having at least an international place in his field, along with 96 non-athletes have taken part in this research. Findings of research show significant difference in different components of aggression among research groups (p < 0.001). A significant difference was
Differentiation and Individuation as Mediators of Identity and Intimacy in Adolescence

The primary objective of this paper is to examine the interdependence of individual and family development as these relate to the coemergence of a mature sense of identity and the capacity for intimacy during adolescence. In focusing on these issues, the paper expands on the concepts of individuation and system differentiation thus placing adolescent development in the context of a life-long dialectic involving issues of family and individual separateness and connectedness. It is contended that by conceptualizing adolescence as a significant developmental transition for the family as well as the child, the significance of system differentiation and intimate parent-child interactions emerge as important mediators of the individuation process. The individuation construct is thereby utilized to elaborate the complex relationships between identity formation, the capacity for intimacy, and the systems level of differentiation.