Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Translating Effects of Inbreeding Depression on Component Vital Rates to Overall Population Growth in Endangered Bighorn Sheep

Abstract: Evidence of inbreeding depression is commonly detected from the fitness traits of animals, yet its effects on population growth rates of endangered species are rarely assessed. We examined whether inbreeding depression was affecting Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis sierrae), a subspecies listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Our objectives were to characterize genetic variation in this subspecies; test whether inbreeding depression affects bighorn sheep vital rates (adult survival and female fecundity); evaluate whether inbreeding depression may limit subspecies recovery; and examine the potential for genetic management to increase population growth rates. Genetic variation in 4 populations of Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep was among the lowest reported for any wild bighorn sheep population, and our results suggest that inbreeding depression has reduced adult female fecundity. Despite this population sizes and growth rates predicted from matrix‐based projection models demonstrated that inbreeding depression would not substantially inhibit the recovery of Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep populations in the next approximately 8 bighorn sheep generations (48 years). Furthermore, simulations of genetic rescue within the subspecies did not suggest that such activities would appreciably increase population sizes or growth rates during the period we modeled (10 bighorn sheep generations, 60 years). Only simulations that augmented the Mono Basin population with genetic variation from other subspecies, which is not currently a management option, predicted significant increases in population size. Although we recommend that recovery activities should minimize future losses of genetic variation, genetic effects within these endangered populations—either negative (inbreeding depression) or positive (within subspecies genetic rescue)—appear unlikely to dramatically compromise or stimulate short‐term conservation efforts. The distinction between detecting the effects of inbreeding depression on a component vital rate (e.g., fecundity) and the effects of inbreeding depression on population growth underscores the importance of quantifying inbreeding costs relative to population dynamics to effectively manage endangered populations.
Charging and rate control for elastic traffic

This paper addresses the issues of charging, rate control and routing for a communication network carrying elastic traffic, such as an ATM network offering an available bit rate service. A model is described from which max-min fairness of rates emerges as a limiting special case; more generally, the charges users are prepared to pay influence their allocated rates. In the preferred version of the model, a user chooses the charge per unit time that the user will pay; thereafter the user's rate is determined by the network according to a proportional fairness criterion applied to the rate per unit charge. A system optimum is achieved when users' choices of charges and the network's choice of allocated rates are in equilibrium.
Epithelioid osteosarcoma presenting as a rapidly expanding maxillary mass

Osteosarcomas of the jaws account for less than 10% of reported neoplasms of this type. Patients with osteosarcoma in this region tend to be in the late‐third to mid‐fourth decades of life. The osteoblastic, chondroblastic, and fibroblastic variants constitute the majority of lesions.
What the Study of Eminence Can Teach Us: Presidential Address to Division 10 of the American Psychological Association.

This article presents a revised theory of what eminence is, its relation to productivity, its measurement, and the markers for it. The historical, systematic, and informational bases of families are used for this revised theory, with the Bronte; family being used for illustration. One important conclusion is that persons who are truly eminent (i.e., who create original and significant work), and persons who are simply high achievers, tend to come from different families entirely. Another important conclusion, which exemplifies the revised theory, is that gifted children may not change their families. In earlier work, gifted children had been described as organizers within families, but they may primarily organize families in terms of what the family wants and has already been doing. It may thus be best to describe families as ongoing systems. There is much that goes on within a family that is not going to be changed for gifted children that includes a richness of talent.
Making Sense of Parenthood

Research into parents’ experiences of becoming parents is widespread. However research regarding therapy for parents, and how that may impact on the meanings parents give to parenthood is rare. In response to this lack of knowledge, this study explores parents’ experiences of counselling at SureStart children’s centres and how that experience affects their perceptions of themselves as parents, and their on-going experience of parenthood. The study was conducted using phenomenological methodology. Data was collected via four semi-structured interviews. Participants were parents who had received counselling at a local children’s centre. They had between two and four children each, aged between eight months and four years. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Three superordinate themes are evidenced – i. Who am I? , ii. Feeling out of Control and iii. Parenthood and Counselling. Parents’ sense of a parental identity and sense of agency changed when they became parents and over time, and therapy was used to explore these differences in experience. Despite accessing therapy, participants did not identify with people whom they thought of as needing mental health services. It is suggested that children’s centre counselling services could become a “gateway” to other parenting support as the parent learns to experience a therapeutic relationship, gains a better sense of agency, and trusts that the professionals are not judging them. The findings are examined in the light of the extant literature which suggests, for example, that parents may experience dissonance between their concept of “parent” and their concept of “client. ” They may also find parenthood harder if their thinking is not “principle led”. The research findings indicate that there is still much to learn about this participant group, and suggestions are made for further research in this area.
Influence of FCGR3A genotype on the therapeutic response to rituximab in rheumatoid arthritis: an observational cohort study

Objectives To determine whether a polymorphism in the Fcγ receptor type IIIA (FCGR3A-F158V), influencing immunoglobulin G binding affinity, relates to the therapeutic efficacy of rituximab in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. Design Observational cohort study. Setting Three university hospital rheumatology units in Sweden. Participants Patients with established RA (n=177; 145 females and 32 males) who started rituximab (Mabthera) as part of routine care. Primary outcome measures Response to rituximab therapy in relation to FCGR3A genotype, including stratification for sex. Results The frequency of responders differed significantly across FCGR3A genotypes (p=0.017 in a 3×2 contingency table). Heterozygous patients showed the highest response rate at 83%, as compared with patients carrying 158FF (68%) or 158VV (56%) (p=0.028 and 0.016, respectively). Among 158VV patients, response rates differed between male and female patients (p=0.036), but not among 158FF or 158VF patients (p=0.72 and 0.46, respectively). Conclusions Therapeutic efficacy of rituximab in RA patients is influenced by FCGR3A genotype, with the highest response rates found among heterozygous patients. This may suggest that different rituximab mechanisms of action in RA are optimally balanced in FCGR3A-158VF patients. Similar to the previously described associations with RA susceptibility and disease course, the impact of 158VV on rituximab response may be influenced by sex.
Investigations of neuronal network responses to electrical stimulation in murine spinal cultures.

Spontaneous activity in neuronal networks in vitro is common and has been well documented. However, alteration of spontaneous activity in such networks via conditioning electrical stimulation has received much less experimental attention. Two different patterns of electrical stimulation were used to enhance or depress the level of spontaneous activity in spinal cord cultures. High-frequency stimulation (HFS), a method routinely shown to increase the efficacy of synaptic transmission, was employed to augment spontaneous activity. Low-frequency stimulation (LFS), the technique often applied to depress synaptic efficacy, was employed to decrease spontaneous activity. In addition, LFS was used to reverse the effect of HFS on spontaneous activity. Likewise, HFS was applied to counter the effect of LFS. Because these networks were grown on multi-microelectrode plates (MMEPs), this allowed the simultaneous stimulation of any combination of the 64 electrodes in the array. Thus, the possible differences in response to single versus multi-electrode stimulation were also addressed. Finally, test-pulses were delivered before and after the conditioning stimulation on the same stimulation electrode(s) in order to assess the change in mean evoked action potentials (MEAPs). Dissociated spinal tissue from embryonic mice was allowed to mature into self-organized networks that exhibited spontaneous bursting activity after two weeks of incubation. Spontaneous activity was monitored from up to 14 recording channels simultaneously. Although uniform responses to stimulation across all recording electrodes were rarely observed, a large majority of the recording channels had similar responses. Spontaneous activity was increased in 52% of 89 HFS trials, whereas activity was decreased in 35% of 75 LFS trials. The duration of most of these increases was less than 5 minutes. When there were substantial and long-term (> 15 min) changes in spontaneous activity, the opposing stimulation pattern successfully reversed the effect of the previous stimulation. The percent change in MEAPs following conditioning stimulation suggested that synaptic modification had taken place in 75% of all test-pulse stimulation trials.
Evaluation of elbow incongruency using reconstructed CT in dogs suffering fragmented coronoid process.

OBJECTIVES A retrospective study was undertaken to evaluate elbow joint congruency in dogs suffering fragmented coronoid process (FCP). METHODS Based on clinical, radiographic and computed tomographic (CT) examinations, elbows were divided into control and FCP groups. Standardised CT reconstructions were formatted in the frontal and sagittal planes. Humeroradial and humeroulnar joint space measurements were obtained from the Images and incongruencies were calculated by comparing the two measurements. RESULTS Forty-two FCP and 29 control elbows were identified. No incongruencies were noted at the coronoid base. At the level of the coronoid apex, FCP elbows exhibited a significant radioulnar incongruency compared with controls (P < 0.0001), though incongruency was not identified in all cases. Comparing FCP and control elbows at the level of the apex, the humeroradial joint space was increased in FCP elbows (P = 0.0006) whereas no difference was noted in the humeroulnar space. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE This study supports the hypothesis that joint incongruency is associated with FCP in dogs, though is not present in every case at the time of diagnosis. The precise mechanism of development of this incongruency cannot be determined from these data.
The effects of a co-operative perceptual-motor program on the development of motor skills and social co-operation in the learning disabled child

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a co-operative perceptual-motor program for learning disabled children on specific motor and social parameters. They included right-side-left-side orientation, static balance, dynamic balance, eye-hand co-ordination, throwing, striking, running, hopping and social co-operation. Nineteen elementary school boys with learning disabilities were assigned to either an experimental group or a control group through a process of matching. The experimental group was involved in a co-operative perceptual-motor program and the control group was involved in a traditional games program. Pre testing on motor skills and social skills took place prior to the commencement of the programs. The programs ran for approximately five weeks with activity sessions held daily, lasting from thirty to forty-five minutes. Upon completion of the programs the children were post tested on the same parameters as the pre test along with an added measure of social co-operation (i.e. the "doll pull game"). The resulting motor and social data were factor analysed separatelyOnce clusters were determined multivariate analyses of variance with repeated measures and multivariate post hoc tests were performed. Independent t-tests were used to analyse the results obtained from the
Online Passive Aggressive Active Learning and Its Applications

We investigate online active learning techniques for classification tasks in data stream mining applications. Unlike traditional learning approaches (either batch or online learning) that often require to request the class label of each incoming instance, online active learning queries only a subset of informative incoming instances to update the classification model, which aims to maximize classification performance using minimal human labeling effort during the entire online stream data mining task. In this paper, we present a new family of algorithms for online active learning called Passive-Aggressive Active (PAA) learning algorithms by adapting the popular Passive-Aggressive algorithms in an online active learning setting. Unlike the conventional Perceptron-based approach that employs only the misclassified instances for updating the model, the proposed PAA learning algorithms not only use the misclassified instances to update the classifier, but also exploit correctly classified examples with low prediction confidence. We theoretically analyse the mistake bounds of the proposed algorithms and conduct extensive experiments to examine their empirical performance, in which encouraging results show clear advantages of our algorithms over the baselines.
Cellular behaviours of bone marrow‐derived mesenchymal stem cells towards pristine graphene oxide nanosheets

Graphene oxide (GO), the derivative of graphene with unique properties, has attracted much attention for applications in dental implants. The aim of this study was, by two biomimetic cell culture methods, to investigate the quantitative relationship between the concentration of pristine GO nanosheets and their cellular behaviours towards bone marrow‐derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs).
Role ambiguity and role conflict amongst university academic and administrative staff: a Nigerian case study

The purpose of this study was to investigate role ambiguity and role conflict amongst the academic and administrative staff of the University of Lagos, Nigeria and to determine the differences that exist between them in this perception. The study also examined the impact of demographical variables such as gender, age, educational qualification and tenure on role perception. The questionnaire consisted of demographic questions and Role Perception Questionnaire developed by Rizzo et al., (1970) to measure role ambiguity and role conflict. A response rate of 53.5% from a total of 200 questionnaires was achieved. The results of the statistical analysis computed established a statistically significant difference in the perception of role ambiguity between the groups, but no significant difference was found in their perception of role conflict. The academic staff perceived significantly higher role ambiguity than the administrative staff, but no significant difference was recorded in their perception of role conflict. Educational qualification and gender had a significant impact on role perception of the academic staff, but did not have any significant relationship with the administrative staff’s perception of role. Tenure and age did not have any significant impact on role perception of the groups investigated. The study confirmed a positive correlation between role ambiguity with role conflict with an insignificant correlation value (r = .45). Recommendations for future research and implementation for universities administrators were made.
Effect of the Zataria multiflora on Systemic Inflammation of Experimental Animals Model of COPD

The effects of Zataria multiflora (Z. multiflora) on systemic inflammation in guinea pigs model of COPD were examined. Control animals, COPD (induced by exposing animals to cigarette smoke), COPD + drinking water containing three concentrations of the extract of Z. multiflora, and COPD + dexamethasone were studied (n = 6 for each group). Serum levels of IL-8 and malondialdehyde (MDA), total blood WBC (P < 0.01 for all cases), and eosinophil counts (P < 0.05) were higher and weight changes (P < 0.05) were lower in the COPD group compared to controls. IL-8 level (P < 0.001) and weight changes (P < 0.01 to P < 0.001) in all treated groups with Z. multiflora and total WBC number and MDA level in treated groups with two higher concentrations of the extract and lymphocytes percentage (P < 0.05) in the highest concentration of Z. multiflora and dexamethasone (P < 0.05 to P < 0.001) were significantly improved compared to the COPD group. Results showed a preventive effect of hydroethanolic extract from Z. multiflora on all measured parameters in animals model of COPD which was comparable or even higher (in the highest concentration) compared to the effect of dexamethasone at the concentration used.
Assessing the Robustness of Cremer-McLean with Automated Mechanism Design

In a classic result in the mechanism design literature, Cremerand McLean (1985) show that if buyers’ valuations are sufficiently correlated, a mechanism exists that allows the seller to extract the full surplus from efficient allocation as revenue. This result is commonly seen as “too good to be true” (in practice), casting doubt on its modeling assumptions. In this paper, we use an automated mechanism design approach to assess how sensitive the Cremer-McLean result is to relaxing its main technical assumption. That assumption implies that each valuation that a bidder can have results in a unique conditional distribution over the external signal(s). We relax this, allowing multiple valuations to be consistent with the same distribution over the external signal(s). Using similar insights to Cremer-McLean, we provide a highly efficient algorithm for computing the optimal revenue in this more general case. Using this algorithm, we observe that indeed, as the number of valuations consistent with a distribution grows, the optimal revenue quickly drops to that of a reserve-price mechanism. Thus, automated mechanism design allows us to gain insight into the precise sense in which Cremer-McLean is “too good to be true. ”
Adenosine triphosphate-dependent taurocholate transport in human liver plasma membranes.

Transport systems involved in uptake and biliary secretion of bile salts have been extensively studied in rat liver; however, little is known about these systems in the human liver. In this study, we investigated taurocholate (TC) transport in canalicular and basolateral plasma membrane vesicles isolated from 15 human livers (donor age 6-64 yr). ATP stimulated the uptake of TC into both canalicular and basolateral human liver plasma membrane vesicles (cLPM and blLPM, respectively). Considerable interindividual variations in the transport velocity were observed in the different membrane preparations used: 9.0 +/- 1.3 (mean +/- SEM, n = 17; range 1.6-18.0) and 9.3 +/- 2.0 (range 1.1-29.8) pmol TC.mg protein-1.min-1 at 1.0 microM TC for cLPM and blLPM, respectively. TC transport was temperature sensitive and showed saturation kinetics with a high affinity for TC (Km 4.2 +/- 0.7 microM and 3.7 +/- 0.5 microM for cLPM and blLPM, respectively). Transport was dependent on the ATP concentration and saturable (Km 0.25 +/- 0.03 mM, n = 3). Neither nitrate, which reduces membrane potential, nor the protonophore FCCP strongly inhibited ATP-dependent TC transport, indicating that membrane potential and proton gradient are not involved in this process. TC transport was significantly inhibited by the classical anion transport inhibitor 4,4'-diisothiocyanostilbene-2,2'-disulfonate (250 microM) and the glutathione conjugate S-(2,4-dinitrophenyl)glutathione (100 microM). In conclusion, high affinity ATP-dependent TC transport is present in human liver at both the canalicular and the basolateral sides of the hepatocyte.
Measurement-Based Assessments for Difficult-to-Treat Depression

Prevalence Michael E. Thase, MD, defined the clinical remission of a depressive episode as a complete relief of the signs and symptoms of the presenting episode. The individual should also return to his or her normal level of social and functional capacity. The Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study of 2,876 patients found that nearly 80% of patients had chronic or recurrent depression. Only 33% achieved a level of symptom resolution by the end of the acute phase of treatment that would place them within the remission range according to scores on the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (QIDS). Approximately 14% improved but had too many symptoms to be considered remitted. About 53% of patients did not improve or improved only minimally.
Carriage of multidrug-resistant bacteria among pediatric patients before and during their hospitalization in a tertiary pediatric unit in Tunisia

ABSTRACT The pandemic spread of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria (i.e., methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), extended-spectrum b-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (ESBLPE), vancomycin-resistant enterococci, carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE), multiresistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa and multiresistant Acinetobacter baumannii) pose a threat to healthcare Worldwide. We found limited data of MDR bacteria in pediatric patients hospitalized in Tunisian tertiary healthcare.The aim of the study is to evaluate the acquisition rate of MDR acquisition during hospitalization and to explore some of the associated risk factors for both carriage and acquisition at the pediatric department, Sahloul University Hospital. During September and October 2016, newly admitted patients were screened, at admission, during care and at discharge. Risk factors for colonization were explored by multivariate analysis. Of 112 newly admitted patients, 8.92% were colonized with at least one MDR. No risk factor was identified at admission. During hospitalization, five newly acquisition MDR (4.9%) were detected and eight (7.84%) at discharge. The specie most frequently detected on admission was Escherichia coli (50%), whereas, on discharge, Escherichia coli and K. pneumoniae were the species most frequently detected (52.7%). The pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) hospitalization, the length of hospital stay (more than 3days) and age under 2 years were identified as risk factor for acquisition of MDR during hospitalization. We identified several independent risk factors for contracting MDR bacteria during hospitalization in a tertiary pediatric department. The incidence of symptomatic MDR Infection among those colonized should be under close surveillance and long-term screening for those children is required. An institutional screening program for MDR especially in PICU might be discussed in regards to cost effectiveness.