Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantum cohomology of the Hilbert scheme of points on A_n-resolutions

We determine the two-point invariants of the equivariant quantum cohomology of the Hilbert scheme of points of surface resolutions associated to type A_n singularities. The operators encoding these invariants are expressed in terms of the action of the affine Lie algebra \hat{gl}(n+1) on its basic representation. Assuming a certain nondegeneracy conjecture, these operators determine the full structure of the quantum cohomology ring. A relationship is proven between the quantum cohomology and Gromov-Witten/Donaldson-Thomas theories of A_n x P^1. We close with a discussion of the monodromy properties of the associated quantum differential equation and a generalization to singularities of type D and E.
Little therapy, little physical activity: rehabilitation within the first 14 days of organized stroke unit care.

OBJECTIVE To examine rehabilitation interventions and resulting physical activity patterns of patients managed in acute stroke units to help inform development of a randomized controlled trial of very early rehabilitation. DESIGN An open observational study of patient activity and therapist report of patient interventions. A survey of stroke unit resources. METHODS Patients less than 14 days post-stroke from 5 metropolitan stroke units were observed over 2 consecutive weekdays at 10-minute intervals between 08.00 h and 17.00 h. Physical activity, location and person(s) present were ascertained at each observation. Therapists completed treatment records. Senior staff completed stroke unit surveys. RESULTS Patients after stroke (n=58) were with therapists 5.2% of the observed day. Few patients (17.1%) received daily therapy by more than one therapist. When patients received therapy, average session times were 24 minutes of physiotherapy, 23 minutes of occupational therapy and 33 minutes of speech pathology. The more time that family members were present, the longer the treatment time. Four to 11 min of upper-limb therapy was provided. Muscle weakness and left hemiparesis were associated with less upper-limb activity. CONCLUSION These acute stroke care units were resourced according to recommended staff-patient ratios. Patients received little therapy and had low levels of physical activity.
A Genome-Wide Association Study Reveals Genes Associated with Fusarium Ear Rot Resistance in a Maize Core Diversity Panel

Fusarium ear rot is a common disease of maize that affects food and feed quality globally. Resistance to the disease is highly quantitative, and maize breeders have difficulty incorporating polygenic resistance alleles from unadapted donor sources into elite breeding populations without having a negative impact on agronomic performance. Identification of specific allele variants contributing to improved resistance may be useful to breeders by allowing selection of resistance alleles in coupling phase linkage with favorable agronomic characteristics. We report the results of a genome-wide association study to detect allele variants associated with increased resistance to Fusarium ear rot in a maize core diversity panel of 267 inbred lines evaluated in two sets of environments. We performed association tests with 47,445 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) while controlling for background genomic relationships with a mixed model and identified three marker loci significantly associated with disease resistance in at least one subset of environments. Each associated SNP locus had relatively small additive effects on disease resistance (±1.1% on a 0–100% scale), but nevertheless were associated with 3 to 12% of the genotypic variation within or across environment subsets. Two of three identified SNPs colocalized with genes that have been implicated with programmed cell death. An analysis of associated allele frequencies within the major maize subpopulations revealed enrichment for resistance alleles in the tropical/subtropical and popcorn subpopulations compared with other temperate breeding pools.
Implications of the HIV-1 Rev dimer structure at 3.2 Å resolution for multimeric binding to the Rev response element

HIV-1 Rev is a small regulatory protein that mediates the nuclear export of viral mRNAs, an essential step in the HIV replication cycle. In this process Rev oligomerizes in association with a highly structured RNA motif, the Rev response element. Crystallographic studies of Rev have been hampered by the protein’s tendency to aggregate, but Rev has now been found to form a stable soluble equimolar complex with a specifically engineered monoclonal Fab fragment. We have determined the structure of this complex at 3.2 Å resolution. It reveals a molecular dimer of Rev, bound on either side by a Fab, where the ordered portion of each Rev monomer (residues 9–65) contains two coplanar α-helices arranged in hairpin fashion. Subunits dimerize through overlapping of the hairpin prongs. Mating of hydrophobic patches on the outer surface of the dimer is likely to promote higher order interactions, suggesting a model for Rev oligomerization onto the viral RNA.
Language Models and Smoothing Methods for Collections with Large Variation in Document Length

In this paper we present a new language model based on an odds formula, which explicitly incorporates document length as a parameter. Furthermore, a new smoothing method called exponential smoothing is introduced, which can be combined with most language models. We present experimental results for various language models and smoothing methods on a collection with large document length variation, and show that our new methods compare favorably with the best approaches known so far.
Practical Physical and Behavioral Measures to Assess the Socialization Spectrum of Cats in a Shelter-Like Setting during a Three Day Period

Simple Summary Animal welfare organizations accept large numbers of cats with no known history. Because shelters are often highly stressful environments for cats, it is likely to be difficult to differentiate a frightened cat that is socialized to humans from a feral cat that is not. However, this distinction can help channel cats into appropriate dispositions. We conducted structured assessments to measure various behaviors and their potential to distinguish socialization levels. Our results show that a specific set of behaviors are only exhibited by more socialized cats. Many cats needed time to adjust to the shelter-type setting to show these socialized behaviors. Abstract Animal welfare organizations routinely accept large numbers of cats with unknown histories, and whose backgrounds vary from well-socialized pets to cats that have had little or no contact with humans. Agencies are challenged with making the determination of socialization level in a highly stressful environment where cats are often too frightened to show typical behaviors. A variety of structured behavioral assessments were conducted in a shelter-like environment, from intake through a three day holding period, on cats from the full range of socialization as reported by their caregivers. Our results show that certain behaviors such as rubbing, playing, chirping, having the tail up or being at the front of the cage were found to be unique to More Socialized cats. While not all more socialized cats showed these behaviors, cats that did were socialized. Assessing the cats throughout the three day period was beneficial in eliciting key behaviors from shyer and more frightened cats. These results will be used in future work to develop an assessment tool to identify the socialization status of cats as a standardized guide for transparent and reliable disposition decisions and higher live release rates for cats in animal shelters.
Thermal monitoring of the diamond deposition process using regenerated FBG

In this work, Bragg gratings were used to monitor, in real time, the temperature during the diamond deposition process obtained by hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD). Due to the instability of uniform fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) to high temperatures, regenerated fiber Bragg gratings (RFBGs) were utilized. The results reveal that the diamond deposition process occurs at about 832 ºC (in the experimental conditions used in this case). The work also suggests that RFBGs are suitable devices to monitor processes which, as in the diamond deposition, the temperature is a critical parameter, and where other traditional methods have a little feasibility due to the own experimental setup or samples type under study.
Ocular findings in a diabetic retinopathy screening clinic in Southwest Nigeria

Diabetics in the developing nations are unlikely to report for eye check except they have poor vision. This study was aimed to determine the types of eye disorders among diabetics seen at a tertiary eye clinic in Nigeria. Semi structured questionnaire were administered to obtain demographic parameters, duration of DM diagnosis, type of hypoglycemic drug and document eye findings after detailed ocular examination. Data was entered into SPSS version 20 and analysed. A total of 150 patients were seen. Most patients were in the age range 51 – 70 years with a mean of 60.42 ± 11.72 years. Females constituted 65.3% of the study population. Majority (97.3%) had type 2 DM. Majority (>90%) never had dilated fundus examination. The commonest eye disorder was diabetic retinopathy (32.6%) accounting for 7.2% of blindness. Cataract, refractive error and glaucoma were also sizeable disorders among the patients. Only 4.6% had no detectable eye disorder at the time of eye examination. Majority of the patients never had dilated eye examination and had some form of eye disorder at presentation. Diabetic retinopathy was the leading cause of visual impairment. There is still a great need to advocate regular dilated eye examination among the diabetic population in our environment.
The Aquila Digital Community The Aquila Digital Community Differential Effects of Munc18s on Multiple Degranulation- Differential Effects of Munc18s on Multiple Degranulation-Relevant Trans-SNARE Complexes Relevant Trans-SNARE Complexes

Mast cell exocytosis, which includes compound degranulation and vesicle-associated piecemeal degranulation, requires multiple Q- and R- SNAREs. It is not clear how these SNAREs pair to form functional trans-SNARE complexes and how these trans-SNARE complexes are selectively regulated for fusion. Here we undertake a comprehensive exami-nation of the capacity of two Q-SNARE subcomplexes (syntaxin3/SNAP-23 and syntaxin4/ SNAP-23) to form fusogenic trans-SNARE complexes with each of the four granule-borne R-SNAREs (VAMP2, 3, 7, 8). We report the identification of at least six distinct trans-SNARE complexes under enhanced tethering conditions: i) VAMP2/syntaxin3/SNAP-23, ii) VAMP2/syntaxin4/SNAP-23, iii) VAMP3/syntaxin3/SNAP-23, iv) VAMP3/syntaxin4/SNAP-23, v) VAMP8/syntaxin3/SNAP-23, and vi) VAMP8/syntaxin4/SNAP-23. We show for the first time that Munc18a operates synergistically with SNAP-23-based non-neuronal SNARE complexes (i to iv) in lipid mixing, in contrast to Munc18b and c, which exhibit no positive effect on any SNARE combination tested. Pre-incubation with Munc18a renders the SNARE-dependent fusion reactions insensitive to the otherwise inhibitory R-SNARE cytoplasmic domains, suggesting a protective role of Munc18a for its cognate SNAREs. Our findings substantiate the recently discovered but unexpected requirement for Munc18a in mast cell exocytosis,
Falls and Related Injuries in Hospitalized Patients With Cancer in Taiwan.

BACKGROUND Falls and fall-related injuries are important indicators for quality of nursing care in institutions. Few studies have been conducted specifically on this topic for hospitalized patients with cancer in Taiwan. PURPOSE The aims of this study were to understand falls and levels of injury; to identify associations among fall-related injuries, demographics, and causes of falling; and to predict fall-related injuries in hospitalized patients with cancer. METHODS A retrospective survey design was used. Data were retrieved from the Taiwan Patient-Safety Reporting system query fall incidences for persons hospitalized with cancer at a medical center in northern Taiwan from 2010 to 2012. Data were encoded and analyzed with descriptive statistics, the chi-square test, and multiple stepwise logistic regression analysis using IBM SPSS Statistics version 18.0. RESULTS One hundred fifty-six (85%) of the 184 hospitalized patients with cancer had fall-related injuries. Falling tended to be more frequent in men without a history of falls and more prevalentat night. The results of regression analysis showed that the variables being with companions at the time of a fall (OR = 5.411, 95% CI [1.619, 18.081]), lower limb weakness (OR = 0.284, 95% CI [0.097, 0.832]), postural hypotension (OR = 0.101, 95% CI [0.014, 0.733]), total score of fall risk factors (OR = 1.688, 95% CI [1.071, 2.660]), and a fall occurring at the bedside (OR = 3.493, 95% CI [1.119, 10.903]) were all positively associated with fall-related injuries, with a Nagelkerke R of 42.8%. CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE The risk factors for falls that affect hospitalized patients with cancer are complex. Nursing staff must evaluate the risk factors and treatment methods for each patient and facilitate fall prevention measures to achieve safety-centered quality of care. This study provides an example for nursing staff when assessing factors associated with falls and working to reduce fall-related injuries among patients with cancer.
Fgf8-Related Secondary Organizers Exert Different Polarizing Planar Instructions along the Mouse Anterior Neural Tube

Early brain patterning depends on proper arrangement of positional information. This information is given by gradients of secreted signaling molecules (morphogens) detected by individual cells within the responding tissue, leading to specific fate decisions. Here we report that the morphogen FGF8 exerts initially a differential signal activity along the E9.5 mouse neural tube. We demonstrate that this polarizing activity codes by RAS-regulated ERK1/2 signaling and depends on the topographical location of the secondary organizers: the isthmic organizer (IsO) and the anterior neural ridge (anr) but not on zona limitans intrathalamica (zli). Our results suggest that Sprouty2, a negative modulator of RAS/ERK pathway, is important for regulating Fgf8 morphogenetic signal activity by controlling Fgf8-induced signaling pathways and positional information during early brain development.
Determination of the efficiency coefficient of slag under various mixing and curing conditions

Currently the prediction of the strength of blended cement constitutes a major preoccupation leading the promoters of such constructions to be more and more interested in predicting the timing of removal of the framework or the prestressing at suitable ages. The prediction of the strength of the slag concrete, using simple models of prediction such as Feret's model, with the introduction of the concept of the equivalent binder, was studied and this led to the definition of an efficiency coefficient of the slag which defines the latter according to the cement. This efficiency coefficient, once deduced, characterised the slag from the El-Hadjar steel factory (Algeria) well and made it possible to predict the strength of a slag concrete of a given age and replacement level from the data of a reference concrete made without slag. This coefficient is defined on the basis of the age, the replacement level, the specific surface area of the slag and the curing temperature.
Mother–young vocal communication and acoustic recognition promote preferential nursing in sheep

SUMMARY In mammals with precocial neonates, exclusive maternal care and investment depend on mutual mother–young recognition. In sheep, this is ensured by rapid olfactory recognition of the neonate by its mother. However, recent studies suggest that other processes may participate in preferential maternal care. We investigated the possibility that acoustic communication promotes preferential nursing of the lamb. In the first of two studies, we examined the association between nursing and vocal activity in ewes and their lambs during the first 2 weeks of lactation. As early as 3 and 6 h postpartum, vocal activity was preferentially concentrated before nursing and by day 15 all vocal activity occurred within 2.5 min before nursing. In the second study, we tested the responses of ewes and lambs at 15 days postpartum to the playback of recorded bleats of their partner or from unrelated ewes and lambs. When playback was performed 30 min after a nursing episode, both ewes and lambs responded to bleats of their partner but not to bleats from alien subjects. When playback was performed 5 min after nursing, ewes did not respond to any lamb's bleats, while lambs continued responding to the bleats of their mothers, but significantly less than 30 min after nursing. Nursing therefore appears to play an important role in structuring very early vocal communication between the mother and her neonate. In turn, if the motivational state of the members of the mother–young dyad is adequate, this ensures the display of mutual acoustic recognition and prepares them for preferential nursing before maternal olfactory recognition of the lamb comes into play.
Primary Refractory and Relapsed Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma - Significance of Differential CD15 Expression in Hodgkin-Reed-Sternberg Cells

We recognized a few possible complications of classical Hodgkin lymphoma therapy in a cohort of 209 patients: 8 developed a primary refractory disease (primary progression), 36 showed an early relapse and 21 showed a late relapse. Sialyl-CD15 expression in Hodgkin-Reed-Sternberg cells was significantly more positive in primary refractory Hodgkin lymphoma, which confirms our previously published findings. Bcl-2 showed a significantly lower level of expression in primary refractory disease than in the other follow-up groups. This is in contrast with a previous finding of Bcl-2, associated with a poor prognosis in primary refractory illness. Another category of variables, old age and advanced stages, was significantly different in the various complications but this finding is probably to be expected. We could not demonstrate a difference between the sequels and the control group with regard to several clinical and immunohistochemical markers. Sialyl-CD15 and Bcl-2 expression, in contrast, were confirmed as prognostic factors, mainly of tumor progression into primary refractory disease.
Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 Action in the Brain Increases Energy Expenditure and Insulin Sensitivity in Obese Rats

OBJECTIVE The hormone fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) exerts diverse, beneficial effects on energy balance and insulin sensitivity when administered systemically to rodents with diet-induced obesity (DIO). The current studies investigate whether central FGF21 treatment recapitulates these effects. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS After preliminary dose-finding studies, either saline vehicle or recombinant human FGF21 (0.4 μg/day) was infused continuously for 2 weeks into the lateral cerebral ventricle of male Wistar rats rendered obese by high-fat feeding. Study end points included measures of energy balance (body weight, body composition, food intake, energy expenditure, and circulating and hepatic lipids) and glucose metabolism (insulin tolerance test, euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp, and hepatic expression of genes involved in glucose metabolism). RESULTS Compared with vehicle, continuous intracerebroventricular infusion of FGF21 increased both food intake and energy expenditure in rats with DIO, such that neither body weight nor body composition was altered. Despite unchanged body fat content, rats treated with intracerebroventricular FGF21 displayed a robust increase of insulin sensitivity due to increased insulin-induced suppression of both hepatic glucose production and gluconeogenic gene expression, with no change of glucose utilization. CONCLUSIONS FGF21 action in the brain increases hepatic insulin sensitivity and metabolic rate in rats with DIO. These findings identify the central nervous system as a potentially important target for the beneficial effects of FGF21 in the treatment of diabetes and obesity.
tRanslatome: an R/Bioconductor package to portray translational control

Summary: High-throughput technologies have led to an explosion of genomic data available for automated analysis. The consequent possibility to simultaneously sample multiple layers of variation along the gene expression flow requires computational methods integrating raw information from different ‘-omics’. It has been recently demonstrated that translational control is a widespread phenomenon, with profound and still underestimated regulation capabilities. Although detecting changes in the levels of total messenger RNAs (mRNAs; the transcriptome), of polysomally loaded mRNAs (the translatome) and of proteins (the proteome) is experimentally feasible in a high-throughput way, the integration of these levels is still far from being robustly approached. Here we introduce tRanslatome, a new R/Bioconductor package, which is a complete platform for the simultaneous pairwise analysis of transcriptome, translatome and proteome data. The package includes most of the available statistical methods developed for the analysis of high-throughput data, allowing the parallel comparison of differentially expressed genes and the corresponding differentially enriched biological themes. Notably, it also enables the prediction of translational regulatory elements on mRNA sequences. The utility of this tool is demonstrated with two case studies. Availability and implementation: tRanslatome is available in Bioconductor. Contact: t.tebaldi@unitn.it Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Effect of rearing systems on reproductive performance of turkey.

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of rearing systems on reproductive performance of turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). A total of 180 Beltsville Small White and Board Breasted Bronze turkeys were taken for the study and reared under three different rearing system viz. intensive system (full confinement), semi-intensive system (partial confinement and partial day scavenging) and free range system (all-day scavenging). Average egg weight (g), percentage of infertile eggs, embryonic mortalities, total egg hatchability, fertile egg hatchability, fertility and poults survivability values were significantly (P>0.01) higher in turkeys reared under intensive system of management followed by semi intensive system and free range system of management. The highest percentage of dead in shell was found in intensive system and was did not differ significantly from semi intensive and free range system. Hatched weight of poults (g) between semi intensive and intensive system did not differ significantly between them, but both groups found statistically significant (P>0.01) from free range system. From the study, it is concluded that higher reproductive performance was obtained in intensive system of management followed by semi intensive and free range system of management.
Solvent Debinding Process for ZK60 Magnesium Alloy Mim Compact

The influence of the leaching temperatures on the solvent debinding process of ZK60 magnesium alloy compact has been investigated. In this experiment, the soluble binder, palm stearin molecules were extracted out from the compact parts by immersing the compact parts in an n-heptanes solution. The solvent debinding rate was then investigated under the conditions of different leaching temperatures. The weight loss percentages of palm stearin were calculated and the pore structure evolution was analyzed by scanning electron micrograph. Results show that a complete diffusion of the palm stearin molecules out of the compact part best at 600C within 4 hours of extraction time.