Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of Empathy Deficits following Prefrontal Brain Damage: The Role of the Right Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex

Impaired empathic response has been described in patients following brain injury, suggesting that empathy may be a fundamental aspect of the social behavior disturbed by brain damage. However, the neuroanatomical basis of impaired empathy has not been studied in detail. The empathic response of patients with localized lesions in the prefrontal cortex (n = 25) was compared to responses of patients with posterior (n = 17) and healthy control subjects (n = 19). To examine the cognitive processes that underlie the empathic ability, the relationships between empathy scores and the performance on tasks that assess processes of cognitive flexibility, affect recognition, and theory of mind (TOM) were also examined. Patients with prefrontal lesions, particularly when their damage included the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, were significantly impaired in empathy as compared to patients with posterior lesions and healthy controls. However, among patients with posterior lesions, those with damage to the right hemisphere were impaired, whereas those with left posterior lesions displayed empathy levels similar to healthy controls. Seven of nine patients with the most profound empathy deficit had a right ventromedial lesion. A differential pattern regarding the relationships between empathy and cognitive performance was also found: Whereas among patients with dorsolateral prefrontal damage empathy was related to cognitive flexibility but not to TOM and affect recognition, empathy scores in patients with ventromedial lesions were related to TOM but not to cognitive flexibility. Our findings suggest that prefrontal structures play an important part in a network mediating the empathic response and specifically that the right ventromedial cortex has a unique role in integrating cognition and affect to produce the empathic response.
How high the spin? Allowed and forbidden spin states in transition-metal chemistry.

The quest for new homoleptic complexes (those with identical ligands) is a common target of several research groups in the field of synthetic transition-metal chemistry. For instance, Menj n, Forni! s, and co-workers have prepared a series of organometallic [MRx] complexes (M= transition metal; R= polyhalophenyl group; x= 4–6) that cover almost all the d electron configurations and in most cases are paramagnetic. Even simpler in composition, a variety of homoleptic complexes with methyl ligands were reported by Seppelt and co-workers. Homoleptic cyano compounds have been known for a long time, but some new elegant examples were recently reported in view of their potential use as building blocks for polynuclear and extended structures with interesting magnetic properties. Even such large families of complexes as the metal carbonyls and alkoxides are continuously expanding. To date, hundreds of thousands of transitionmetal complexes have been structurally characterized, and the mainstream lines of research in that area are concerned with the self-assembly of large polynuclear systems that contain hundreds of atoms, tens or even hundreds of which can be transition-metal atoms. The question is thus asked: Why then is there a renaissance of the chemistry of mononuclear complexes with only one type of relatively simple ligand? Clearly, there is a synthetic challenge as the preparation of compounds with only one type of ligand is not always an easy task. In our view, though, there is also the perception that the stereochemistry, electronic structure, and chemical properties of such compounds are not so well understood, despite the tremendous advances in our capabilities to analyze them both crystallographically and computationally. Especially for those electron configurations that allow for more than one spin state, it is not always easy to predict which will be the ground state for a given combination of metal ion and ligands. The concepts of high-spin and low-spin states, and the related classification of lowand high-field ligands, derived from the crystal-field treatment of an octahedral compound, are usually extrapolated to other cases in a straightforward way, leading in some instances to ambiguities. The case of the homoleptic cyano complexes illustrates the problems and lack of a unified use of the low-spin and high-spin labels. The [Mn(CN)4] 2 anion reported recently by Miller and coworkers is a textbook example of the general tendency of tetrahedral complexes to have their d electrons arranged with parallel spins, resulting in the highest possible spin state (Figure 1a). (We will see in the last section of the Essay
Cerebrovascular Responsiveness to Hypercapnia Is Stable over Six Months in Older Adults

The primary purpose of this Brain in Motion (BIM) sub-study was to determine the 6-month stability of resting blood flow velocity and cerebrovascular responsiveness to a euoxic hypercapnic challenge in a group of physically inactive community dwelling men and men aged ≥55 yrs (range 55–92 yrs). At baseline and 6 months later 88 women (65±6 yr) and 78 men (67±7 yr) completed a hypercapnic challenge (step changes from resting end-tidal PCO2 ((PETCO2) to +1, +5 and +8 mmHg above rest) while cerebral blood flow velocity was assessed using transcranial Doppler ultrasound. Peak velocity of the middle cerebral artery (MCAv) was increased (p<0.05) at the second visit during rest (51±2 vs. 52±4); however, these differences were abolished (p>0.05) when MCAv was normalized to PETCO2. During hypercapnia, MCAv tended to be increased at follow-up, but this finding was absent when MCAv/PETCO2 was compared across time. Cerebrovascular reactivity (i.e., ΔMCAv/ΔPETCO2) was similar (p>0.05) between testing occasions regardless of the approach taken (i.e., considering only the lower step [from +1 to +5 mmHg]; the upper step [+5 to +8 mmHg]; or the complete test taken together). In conclusion, this study has shown that cerebral blood flow and cerebrovascular responsiveness to acute euoxic hypercapnia are stable in older, healthy adults over a 6-month period. Modest changes in MCAv over time must be viewed in the context of underlying differences in PETCO2, an important finding with implications for future studies considering cerebral blood flow velocity.
The Effectiveness of Students Redrafting Continuous Assessment Tasks: The Pivotal Role of Tutors and Feedback

In order to improve academic language competence, students in two academic literacy modules at the University of Johannesburg were given opportunities to resubmit continuous assessment tasks utilising tutor feedback to improve performance. Despite the potential benefits to the students, not all of them were taking advantage of this opportunity. The main purpose of this study was to establish the reasons for this and to describe a strategy that could be used to enhance learning. Performance records were kept on each student to determine the number of students resubmitting and whether or not marks subsequently improved. Data was also gathered through a questionnaire to establish the reasons for taking advantage or not of the opportunities provided. Small group interviews were conducted to follow up on some questionnaire results. It was found that when students are provided with an opportunity to resubmit assessment tasks, they do benefit, provided that they are sufficiently motivated; clear, specific, constructive feedback is given; and tutoring is of a good quality.
Modification of the Sendai virus-specific antibody and CD8+ T-cell responses in mice homozygous for disruption of the interleukin-4 gene

Homozygous disruption (-/-) of the interleukin-4 (IL-4) gene did not obviously modify the severity of Sendai virus infection in the highly susceptible 129/J mouse strain. The virus was cleared from the respiratory tract, and potent cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) effectors were present in the cell population recovered by bronchoalveolar lavage. However, the prevalence of virus-specific CTL precursors (p) was consistently diminished in the spleen and regional lymph nodes of the IL-4 -/- mice at day 7 after infection. Also, virus-specific serum immunoglobulin G1 (IgG1) levels were greatly reduced and few IgG1-producing cells were detected in the lymphoid tissue. The effect on IgG1 class switching was to be expected, but the decrease in CTLp numbers has not been observed previously for a virus-specific immune response.
Teaching marginalized children primary science teachers professional development through collaborative action research

This paper discusses an attempt on teachers’ professional development through collaborative action research to enhance marginalized children’s learning. Despite all efforts to overcome the difficulties of learning encountered by marginalized children, their performance both in the external as well as in the school-based assessments show poor performance especially in subjects like Science and Mathematics. This situation prevails and has resulted in dropout of the students at the primary level before they pursue for secondary education. Based on a series of observations, focus group discussions (FGD) with teachers and consecutive school visits, it was identified that the teachers face some difficulties in teaching Science, Mathematics and language. Teachers tend to use similar teaching approaches as those were being used in the urban schools, which are more teacher-directed in nature. Further, many teachers do not possess sound pedagogical skills to teach Science and Mathematics and to employ alternative approaches suitable for marginalized children in their context. To overcome this situation, teaching modules are developed by the teachers and researchers to provide alternative ways of teaching science. Additionally, teachers become known to the concept of action research. Two professional development workshops have been conducted to introduce some alternative approaches to teach primary science. Preliminary findings show that teachers perceive the modules very useful and beneficial to them. Moreover, the students demonstrate better motivation to learn as well as active involvement in the learning activities. Keywords: Teachers’ professional development, marginalized children, teaching and learning science, collaborative action research, primary school
A Meta-Analytic Study of the Neural Systems for Auditory Processing of Lexical Tones

The neural systems of lexical tone processing have been studied for many years. However, previous findings have been mixed with regard to the hemispheric specialization for the perception of linguistic pitch patterns in native speakers of tonal language. In this study, we performed two activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses, one on neuroimaging studies of auditory processing of lexical tones in tonal languages (17 studies), and the other on auditory processing of lexical information in non-tonal languages as a control analysis for comparison (15 studies). The lexical tone ALE analysis showed significant brain activations in bilateral inferior prefrontal regions, bilateral superior temporal regions and the right caudate, while the control ALE analysis showed significant cortical activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus and left temporo-parietal regions. However, we failed to obtain significant differences from the contrast analysis between two auditory conditions, which might be caused by the limited number of studies available for comparison. Although the current study lacks evidence to argue for a lexical tone specific activation pattern, our results provide clues and directions for future investigations on this topic, more sophisticated methods are needed to explore this question in more depth as well.
The SAP Story: Evolution of SAP within the German Software Industry

The success of the German company SAP and its enterprise software contradicts the widespread assumption of American dominance in the computer software industry. In this combined business and technology history of SAP, the author explores the individuals and ideas behind the concept of standardized, integrated business software and how SAP developed from a small company to a global market leader.
Population-Level Metrics of Trophic Structure Based on Stable Isotopes and Their Application to Invasion Ecology

Biological invasions are a significant driver of human-induced global change and many ecosystems sustain sympatric invaders. Interactions occurring among these invaders have important implications for ecosystem structure and functioning, yet they are poorly understood. Here we apply newly developed metrics derived from stable isotope data to provide quantitative measures of trophic diversity within populations or species. We then use these to test the hypothesis that sympatric invaders belonging to the same functional feeding group occupy a smaller isotopic niche than their allopatric counterparts. Two introduced, globally important, benthic omnivores, Louisiana swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) and carp (Cyprinus carpio), are sympatric in Lake Naivasha, Kenya. We applied our metrics to an 8-year data set encompassing the establishment of carp in the lake. We found a strong asymmetric interaction between the two invasive populations, as indicated by inverse correlations between carp abundance and measures of crayfish trophic diversity. Lack of isotopic niche overlap between carp and crayfish in the majority of years indicated a predominantly indirect interaction. We suggest that carp-induced habitat alteration reduced the diversity of crayfish prey, resulting in a reduction in the dietary niche of crayfish. Stable isotopes provide an integrated signal of diet over space and time, offering an appropriate scale for the study of population niches, but few isotope studies have retained the often insightful information revealed by variability among individuals in isotope values. Our population metrics incorporate such variation, are robust to the vagaries of sample size and are a useful additional tool to reveal subtle dietary interactions among species. Although we have demonstrated their applicability specifically using a detailed temporal dataset of species invasion in a lake, they have a wide array of potential ecological applications.
Temperature-independence-point properties for 0.1μm-scale pocket-implant technologies and the impact on circuit design

The temperature-independence point (TIP) of the drain current for MOS transistors in a 0. 1μm-scale pocket-implant technology is gate-length (<i>L</i><inf>g</inf>) dependent and has different magnitudes for n-MOSFET and p-MOSFET. Circuits such as ring-oscillators have a TIP, lying between the values for n- and p-MOSFET. The circuit TIP is close to the n-MOSFET TIP for long <i>L</i><inf>g</inf> and gets closer to the p-MOSFET TIP for short <i>L</i><inf>g</inf>. The reason is the different temperature dependence of electron and hole mobility as a function of <i>L</i><inf>g</inf>. Due to the high field effect, oscillation periods of ring-oscillators with short <i>L</i><inf>g</inf> hardly improve, when the supply voltage is raised beyond the TIP. Therefore, an advantageous supply-voltage (<i>V</i><inf>DD</inf>) choice for pocket-implant technologies is near the TIP of circuits, allowing a favorable combination of short switching delay and minimized temperature dependence. By designing the <i>V</i><inf>th,p</inf> closer to <i>V</i><inf>th,n</inf>, not only the low power dissipation, due to the reduction of the TIP, but also the suppressed TIP fluctuation can be realized.
Traços de personalidade e habilidades sociais em universitários

This study analyzed the relationship between social skills and personality traits, particularly agreeableness trait, based on Big Five model. To assess the social skills, the Social Skills Inventory (Inventario de Habilidades Sociais - IHS) and the Agreeableness Scale (Escala Fatorial de Socializacao - EFS) measured agreeableness. The participants were 126 college students with mean age of 21 years old (SD=3,37), 53,5% men composed the sample. The sex comparison of the IHS and EFS measures pointed significant differences in six of ten measures. It was ascertain significant correlations between cordiality, coping and assertion and the total score of IHS. Pro-sociability was associated with coping and assertion and self-control. Trust in people was significantly correlated with coping and assertion, expressing positive affection and aggressiveness self-control. This result suggests personality may influence different social skills aspects.
Traveling Waves in a Chain of Pulse-Coupled Oscillators

We derive conditions for the existence of traveling wave solutions in a chain of pulse-coupled integrate-and-fire oscillators with nearest-neighbor interactions and distributed delays. A linear stability analysis of the traveling waves is carried out in terms of perturbations of the firing times of the oscillators. It is shown how traveling waves destabilize when the detuning between oscillators or the strength of the coupling becomes too large. [S0031-9007(98)06205-X] PACS numbers: 87.10. + e, 05.45. + b Many processes in nature can be described in terms of finite chains of coupled nonlinear oscillators. Examples include the undulatory motion of swimming organisms such as the lamprey [1], leech [2], and the Xenopus tadpole [3], peristalsis in vascular and intestinal smooth muscle [4], and synchronization and waves of excitation that arise during sensory processing in the cortex [5,6]. Various physical systems such as Josephson junction arrays [7,8] and laser arrays [9] can also be modeled in terms of coupled oscillators. A basic question concerning these systems is the condition under which traveling waves of activity can occur. Traveling waves are typically phase-locked solutions in which each oscillator has the same frequency but the phase varies monotonically along the chain. Almost all analysis to date has been carried out for chains of oscillators in the weak-coupling regime where averaging methods can be used to reduce the model to a system of phase equations. For a chain of N 1 1 oscillators with nearest-neighbor coupling and natural frequencies vn, n › 1, . , N 1 1, these take the form [4] Ÿ un › vn 1e X
Determination and Validation of a Lower Cut Off Value of Cerebrospinal Fluid Adenosine Deaminase (CSF-ADA) Activity in Diagnosis of Tuberculous Meningitis.

INTRODUCTION Tuberculous meningitis is an infection of the meninges caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is one of the most common infectious diseases of the Central Nervous System (CNS) and a major health problem in developing countries like India. If there is delay in diagnosis and initiation of specific treatment, it causes significant morbidity and mortality. CSF-ADA 10 U/l is the standard cut off value that is used for differentiation between Tuberculous (TBM) and Non-Tuberculous Meningitis (non-TBM). AIM To determine and validate a lower cut off value for CSF-ADA for diagnosing TBM in an Indian setting. MATERIALS AND METHODS This was a prospective study involving 85 cases of meningitis whose CSF were analysed and ADA estimated using an enzymatic deamination assay kit. Diagnosis of various types of meningitis was made based on specified diagnostic criteria. The comparison of mean value of CSF- ADA activity of the two types of meningitis was done using two Sample t-test. A p-value of <0.05 was considered as significant. Cut off value to differentiate between TBM and non-TBM meningitis was determined using ROC curve analysis. RESULTS The CSF-ADA activity of TBM and non-TBM cases was compared. The mean CSF-ADA activity was found to be significantly higher in TBM patients (10.97±4.43; Mean±SD) than in non-TBM patients (5.09±1.53) which was statistically significant with a p-value of <0.001. A cut off value of 6.65 was calculated using ROC curve for the diagnosis of TBM which gave a sensitivity of 85.3% and a specificity of 84.3% for differentiating TBM from non-TBM. The positive predictive value was 78.3% and negative predictive value of 89.5% using the above cut off. The positive likelihood ratio was 5.44 and negative likelihood ratio of 0.17 when this lower cut off value was applied. CONCLUSION This study has demonstrated that CSF-ADA can be used as an important diagnostic tool in early diagnosis of TBM using a cut off value of 6.65. This cut off value gave a good sensitivity and specificity in differentiating it from non-TBM.
α-Syntrophin regulates ARMS localization at the neuromuscular junction and enhances EphA4 signaling in an ARMS-dependent manner

EphA4 signaling has recently been implicated in the regulation of synapse formation and plasticity. In this study, we show that ankyrin repeat-rich membrane spanning (ARMS; also known as a kinase D–interacting substrate of 220 kD), a substrate for ephrin and neurotrophin receptors, was expressed in developing muscle and was concentrated at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ). Using yeast two-hybrid screening, we identified a PDZ (PSD-95, Dlg, ZO-1) domain protein, α-syntrophin, as an ARMS-interacting protein in muscle. Overexpression of α-syntrophin induced ARMS clustering in a PDZ domain–dependent manner. Coexpression of ARMS enhanced EphA4 signaling, which was further augmented by the presence of α-syntrophin. Moreover, the ephrin-A1–induced tyrosine phosphorylation of EphA4 was reduced in C2C12 myotubes after the blockade of ARMS and α-syntrophin expression by RNA interference. Finally, α-syntrophin–null mice exhibited a disrupted localization of ARMS and EphA4 at the NMJ and a reduced expression of ARMS in muscle. Altogether, our findings suggest that ARMS may play an important role in regulating postsynaptic signal transduction through the syntrophin-mediated localization of receptor tyrosine kinases such as EphA4.
Fine detail of neurovascular coupling revealed by spatiotemporal analysis of the hemodynamic response to single whisker stimulation in rat barrel cortex.

The spatial resolution of hemodynamic-based neuroimaging techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging, is limited by the degree to which neurons regulate their blood supply on a fine scale. Here we investigated the spatial detail of neurovascular events with a combination of high spatiotemporal resolution two-dimensional spectroscopic optical imaging, multichannel electrode recordings and cytochrome oxidase histology in the rodent whisker barrel field. After mechanical stimulation of a single whisker, we found two spatially distinct cortical hemodynamic responses: a transient response in the "upstream" branches of surface arteries and a later highly localized increase in blood volume centered on the activated cortical column. Although the spatial representation of this localized response exceeded that of a single "barrel," the spread of hemodynamic activity accurately reflected the neural response in neighboring columns rather than being due to a passive "overspill. " These data confirm hemodynamics are capable of providing accurate "single-condition" maps of neural activity.