Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Herschel view of massive star formation in G035.39-00.33: dense and cold filament of W48 undergoing a mini-starburst

The filament IRDC G035.39-00.33 in the W48 molecular complex is one of the darkest infrared clouds observed by Spitzer. It has been observed by the PACS (70 and 160 micron) and SPIRE (250, 350 and 500) cameras of the \textit{Herschel} Space Observatory as part of the W48 molecular cloud complex in the framework of the HOBYS key programme. The observations reveal a sample of 28 compact sources (deconvolved FWHM sizes 20 solar mass. The cloud characteristics we derive from the analysis of their spectral energy distributions (20-50 solar mass with sizes of 0.1-0.2 pc and average densities of 2-20 x 10^5 cm^3) make these massive dense cores excellent candidates to form intermediate- to high-mass stars. Most of the massive dense cores are located inside the G035.39-00.33 filament and host IR-quiet high-mass protostars. The large number of protostars found in this filament suggests that we are witnessing a mini-burst of star formation with an efficiency of ~20% and a rate density of ~40 solar mass per year per kpc^2 within a ~8 pc^2 area. Part of the extended SiO emission observed toward G035.39-00.33 is not associated with obvious protostars and may originate from low-velocity shocks within converging flows, as advocated by previous studies.
Somatic Translocation: A Novel Mechanism of Granule Cell Dendritic Dysmorphogenesis and Dispersion

Pronounced neuronal remodeling is a hallmark of temporal lobe epilepsy. Here, we use real-time confocal imaging of tissue from mouse brain to demonstrate that remodeling can involve fully differentiated granule cells following translocation of the soma into an existing apical dendrite. Somatic translocation converts dendritic branches into primary dendrites and shifts adjacent apical dendrites to the basal pole of the cell. Moreover, somatic translocation contributes to the dispersion of the granule cell body layer in vitro, and when granule cell dispersion is induced in vivo, the dispersed cells exhibit virtually identical derangements of their dendritic structures. Together, these findings identify novel forms of neuronal plasticity that contribute to granule cell dysmorphogenesis in the epileptic brain.
“Off with the Old”: Mindfulness Practice Improves Backward Inhibition

Mindfulness practice has been linked to reduced depressive rumination and described as involving inhibition of information that has been relevant in the past and is no longer relevant in the present moment. Backward inhibition (BI) is considered to be one of the purest measures of task set inhibition, and impaired BI has been linked to depressive rumination. BI was contrasted with Competitor Rule Suppression (CRS), which is another phenomenon observed in task switching, yet one which involves episodic memory tagging of information that is currently conflicting rather than active inhibition. Although similar at baseline level, a randomly assigned group (n = 38) who underwent an eight session mindfulness training program exhibited improved BI but not CRS compared to a waiting list group (n = 38). Findings indicate that mindfulness improves the specific component of task set inhibition, which has previously been linked to reduced rumination. Implications regarding the potential role of task set inhibition in mediating between mindfulness and reduced rumination, as well as the role of mindfulness in “being in the present moment” are discussed.
The Economics of All-You-Can-Read Pricing: Tariff Choice, Contract Renewal, and Switching for E-Book Purchases

E-book markets are currently moving through a period of disequilibrium as new pricing structures (i.e., flat-fee subscriptions) are rapidly embraced by major vendors. On the basis of a novel dataset, we investigate how the availability of “all-you-can-read” pricing programs influences consumers’ tariff choice, contract renewal, and switching behaviors. Consistent with the rational choice framework, the findings suggest that most e-book consumers significantly gain from subscription-based tariffs. However, we also find some other intriguing results. Among the three subscription designs examined, the 1-week plan affords consumers more economic benefits than do 1-day or 1-month programs. The economic gains derived from subscription-based tariffs diminish as consumers renew their subscriptions under the same contract duration. Consumers who switch to other plans also suffer from reduced savings. Finally, iOS users are more inclined to select subscription models than are Android users because of the absence of in-app purchase functionalities for the former.
Heterogeneous Computing and Parallel Genetic Algorithms

This paper analyzes some technical and practical issues concerning the heterogeneous execution of parallel genetic algorithms (PGAs). In order to cope with a plethora of different operating systems, security restrictions, and other problems associated to multi-platform execution, we use Java to implement a distributed PGA model. The distributed PGA runs at the same time on different machines linked by different kinds of communication networks. This algorithm benefits from the computational resources offered by modern LANs and by Internet, therefore allowing researchers to solve more difficult problems by using a large set of available machines. We analyze the way in which such heterogeneous systems affect the genetic search for two problems. Our conclusion is that super-linear performance can be achieved not only in homogeneous but also in heterogeneous clusters of machines. In addition, we study some special features of the running platforms for PGAs, and basically find out that heterogeneous computing can be as efficient or even more efficient than homogeneous computing for parallel heuristics.
Strong Mg II Systems in Quasar and Gamma-Ray Burst Spectra

The incidence of strong Mg II systems in gamma-ray burst (GRB) spectra is a few times higher than in quasar (QSO) spectra. We investigate several possible explanations for this effect, including dust obscuration bias, clustering of the absorbers, different beam sizes of the sources, multiband magnification bias of GRBs, and association of the absorbers with the GRB event or the circumburst environment. We find that (1) the incidence rate of Mg II systems in QSO spectra could be underestimated by a factor of 1.3-2 due to dust obscuration; (2) the equivalent width distribution of the Mg II absorbers along GRBs is consistent with that observed along QSOs, thus suggesting that the absorbers are more extended than the beam sizes of the sources; (3) on average, GRB afterglows showing more than one Mg II system are a factor of 1.7 brighter than the others, suggesting a lensing origin of the observed discrepancy; (4) gravitational lensing (in different forms, from galaxy lensing to microlensing) can bias high the counts of Mg II systems along GRBs if the luminosity functions of the prompt gamma-ray emission and of the optical afterglows have a mean faint-end slope approaching -5/3 to -2; and (5) some of the absorbers can be associated with the circumburst environment or produced by supernova remnants unrelated to the GRB event itself but lying in the same star-forming region. With the possible exception of magnification bias, it is unlikely that one of these effects on its own can fully account for the observed counts. However, the combined action of some of them can substantially reduce the statistical significance of the discrepancy.
The role of accounting in economic development: case of IFRS adoption in Western Africa

L’adoption des normes comptables IFRS represente un enjeu economique majeur dans la region d’Afrique de l’Ouest. La visibilite internationale, le developpement du secteur prive, la comparabilite des informations sont autant de criteres qui justifient l’application des standards internationaux par les entreprises. Ces dernieres se heurtent a diverses difficultes dans la mise en œuvre des normes IFRS liees en particulier a la culture, a la rapidite des changements imposes, aux differences notables avec le systeme en vigueur SYSCOHADA. Un systeme de communication fiable, une formation adequate et la reduction du secteur informel sont les conditions de reussite d’un tel changement.
Further studies on the mechanism of action of 6-thioguanine.

Evidence reported earlier, indicating that the tumor-inhibitory properties of 6-thioguanine resulted from the incorporation of this guanine analog into the nucleic acids of the tumor, was supported by the following additional findings: ( a ) susceptible tumors showed maximum response to treatment initiated at any time during the rapid-growth phase; ( b ) incorporation of thioguanine into tumor-cell nucleic acids was much greater in young, rapidly growing cell populations than in older populations; ( c ) maximum incorporation of thioguanine into the tumor-cell nucleic acids of susceptible tumors was reached with three treatments; multiple treatments of a resistant tumor did not increase the incorporation; ( d ) three treatments with thioguanine were sufficient to produce an essentially maximum tumor inhibition; ( e ) in susceptible tumors, a large part of the incorporation was in DNA; in two resistant tumors, the small incorporation observed was largely in UNA; ( f ) in tumor cells labeled with thioguanine-C14 and transferred to unlabeled hosts the radioactivity in DNA was completely retained over the time studied (in excess of twice the intermitotic time); retention was also almost complete in RNA. Such cells appear to remain viable but be unable to grow. The evidence all supports the concept that the tumor-inhibitory properties of 6-thioguanine result from its incorporation into the nucleic acids, probably specifically the DNA, with the result that the cells cannot reduplicate this material.
Explaining Groupware Implementation Through Group Learning

Implementation of groupware tends to be an evolutionary process. We apply a theory of group learning as a framework to highlight relevant aspects of such a process. Here we present the results of a longitudinal case study to which this framework was applied. A human resource information system introduced in a hospital was successfully implemented with one user group but failed in another group. Analysis shows a marked difference in the group learning processes, which significantly contributes to the differences in success. The results confirm our assumption about the importance of learning processes in groupware implementation.
The effect of serum levels of vitamin C on asthmatic children: a systematic review

Introduction: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disorder that is distinguished by coughing, wheezing, and dyspnea. It is the most common chronic disease among children. Epidemiological trials have suggested that there may be a correlation between vitamin C intake and the incidence of asthma. Specifically, according to these studies, a rapid increase in the occurrence of asthma may be caused by a decreased intake of dietary antioxidants and various vitamins such as vitamin C. A systematic review was performed to determine the role that vitamin C, in terms of both dietary intake and serum levels, had on asthma in children. Methods: PubMed and Scopus databases were searched for studies that provide information on the effects of vitamin C on asthma in children aged between 1 and 17 years. The inclusion criteria specified that the studies involved needed to be cohort and case series involving at least ten patients. Exclusion criteria were non-English articles, case reports, and articles involving children who were aged below or above the age 1 and 17 respectively.Result: A total of 13 studies involving 6503 patients met the inclusion criteria. Dietary vitamin C intake was lower in people with asthma than in those without asthma. Lower quantity dietary intakes and serum levels of vitamin C were also associated with increased incidents of asthma.Conclusion: According to the extracted data, a relatively low dietary intake of vitamin C is associated with an increased risk of asthma and wheezing. Moreover, asthmatic patients who consumed vitamin C exhibited an improvement in their diseases.
New ulceration, new major amputation, and survival rates in diabetic subjects hospitalized for foot ulceration from 1990 to 1993: a 6.5-year follow-up.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate 1) the new ulceration, the new major amputation, and the survival rates of 115 diabetic subjects hospitalized for foot ulceration from 1990 to 1993, with an average follow-up of 6.5 years, and 2) the demographic and clinical characteristics associated with these events. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 115 subjects, 31 women and 84 men, were monitored until 31 December 1998. All subjects were provided with therapeutic shoes and received intense education. Data concerning new ulceration, new major amputation, and reamputation events and the date and cause of death were recorded for each patient. The prognostic factors for these events were then evaluated. RESULTS The average follow-up was 78.3 +/- 15.3 months (range 60-106). During this time, 13 homolateral and 12 contralateral episodes of new ulceration occurred. At univariate analysis, none of the variables considered were significantly associated with the new ulceration. There were three major amputations: two of the limb previously healed and one of the contralateral limb. Of the 115 subjects, 51 (44.3%) died: 24 of the 31 women (77.4%) and 27 of the 84 men (32.1%). Ischemic cardiopathy was the most frequent cause of death (60.8%). Mortality concerned 20 of the 27 subjects (74.1%) undergoing major amputation from 1990 to 1993 and 31 of the 88 healed subjects (35.2%), with a significant difference (P < 0.0001). Multivariate analysis showed the independent role of the ankle-brachial index < or =0.5 (P = 0.005), age (P = 0.003), and female sex (P = 0.027). CONCLUSIONS We believe that the use of therapeutic shoes and intense educational training, including the education of the family, have contributed to the low incidence of new ulceration and major amputation in our study population. The high frequency of ischemic cardiopathy as a cause of death should, perhaps, lead to a more aggressive diagnostic and therapeutic attitude toward this pathology in diabetic subjects admitted to hospitals for foot ulceration.
Warped accretion discs and the unification of active galactic nuclei

Orientation of parsec-scale accretion discs in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is likely to be nearly random for different black hole feeding episodes. Because AGN accretion discs are unstable to self-gravity on parsec scales, star formation in these discs will create young stellar discs, similar to those recently discovered in our Galactic Centre. The discs blend into the quasi-spherical star cluster enveloping the AGN on time-scales much longer than a likely AGN lifetime. Therefore, the gravitational potential within the radius of the black hole influence is at best axisymmetric rather than spherically symmetric. Here we show that, as a result, a newly formed accretion disc will be warped. For the simplest case of a potential resulting from a thin stellar ring, we calculate the disc precession rates, and the time-dependent shape. We find that, for a realistic parameter range, the disc becomes strongly warped in a few hundred orbital times. We suggest that this, and possibly other mechanisms of accretion disc warping, have a direct relevance to the problem of AGN obscuration, masing warped accretion discs, narrow Fe Ka lines, etc.
Desert Hedgehog Links Transcription Factor Sox10 to Perineurial Development

Schwann cells are the main glial cell type in the PNS. They develop along nerves during embryogenesis and rely on the HMG domain containing Sox10 transcription factor for specification, lineage progression, and terminal differentiation. Sox10 deletion in immature Schwann cells caused peripheral nerve defects in mice that were not restricted to this glial cell type, although expression in the nerve and gene loss were. Formation of the perineurium as the protecting sheath was, for instance, heavily compromised. This resembled the defect observed after loss of Desert hedgehog (Dhh) in mice. Here we show that Sox10 activates Dhh expression in Schwann cells via an enhancer that is located in intron 1 of the Dhh gene. Sox10 binds this enhancer in monomeric form via several sites. Mutation of these sites abolishes both Schwann-cell-specific activity and Sox10 responsiveness in vitro and in transgenic mouse embryos. This argues that Sox10 activates Dhh expression by direct binding to the enhancer and by increasing Dhh levels promotes formation of the perineurial sheath. This represents the first mechanism for a non-cell-autonomous function of Sox10 during peripheral nerve development.
Convolutional restricted boltzmann machines for feature learning

In this thesis, we present a method for learning problem-specific hierarchical features specialized for vision applications. Recently, a greedy layerwise learning mechanism has been proposed for tuning parameters of fully connected hierarchical networks. This approach views layers of a network as Restricted Boltzmann Machines (RBM), and trains them separately from the bottom layer upwards. We develop Convolutional RBM (CRBM), an extension of the RBM model in which connections are local and weights are shared to respect the spatial structure of images. We switch between the CRBM and down-sampling layers and stack them on top of each other to build a multilayer hierarchy of alternating filtering and pooling. This framework learns generic features such as oriented edges at the bottom levels and features specific to an object class such as object parts in the top layers. Afterward, we feed the extracted features into a discriminative classifier for recognition. It is experimentally demonstrated that the features automatically learned by our algorithm are effective for object detection, by using them to obtain performance comparable to the state-of-the-art on handwritten digit classification and pedestrian detection.
Comparative analyses of morphological characters in Sphaerodoridae and allies (Annelida) revealed by an integrative microscopical approach

Sphaerodoridae is a group of benthic marine worms (Annelida) characterized by the presence of spherical tubercles covering their whole surface. They are commonly considered as belonging to Phyllodocida although sistergroup relationships are still far from being understood. Primary homology assessment of their morphological features are lacking, hindering the appraisal of evolutionary relationships between taxa. Therefore, our detailed morphological investigation focuses on different Sphaerodoridae as well as on other members of Phyllodocida using an integrative approach combining scanning electron microscopy (SEM) as well as immunohistochemistry with standard neuronal (anti-5-HT) and muscular (phalloidin-rhodamine) markers and subsequent CLSM analysis of whole mounts and sections. Furthermore, we provide histological (HES) and light microscopical data to shed light on the structures and hypothetical function of sphaerodorid key morphological features. We provide fundamental details into the sphaerodorid morphology supporting a Phyllodocida ancestry of these enigmatic worms. However, the muscular arrangement and the presence of an axial muscular pharynx is similar to conditions observed in other members of the Errantia too. Furthermore, nervous system and muscle staining as well as SEM and histological observations of different types of tubercles indicate a homology of the so called microtubercles, present in the long-bodied sphaerodorids, to the dorsal cirri of other Errantia. The macrotubercles seem to represent a sphaerodorid autapomorphy based on our investigations. Therefore, our results allow comparisons concerning morphological patterns between Sphaerodoridae and other Phyllodocida and constitute a starting point for further comparative investigations to reveal the evolution of the remarkable Sphaerodoridae.
TGF-β1 Regulation of Estrogen Production in Mature Rat Leydig Cells

Background Besides androgens, estrogens produced in Leydig cells are also crucial for mammalian germ cell differentiation. Transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) is now known to have multiple effects on regulation of Leydig cell function. The objective of the present study is to determine whether TGF-β1 regulates estradiol (E2) synthesis in adult rat Leydig cells and then to assess the impact of TGF-β1 on Cx43-based gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) between Leydig cells. Methodology/Principal Findings Primary cultured Leydig cells were incubated in the presence of recombinant TGF-β1 and the production of E2 as well as testosterone (T) were measured by RIA. The activity of P450arom was addressed by the tritiated water release assay and the expression of Cyp19 gene was evaluated by Western blotting and real time RT-PCR. The expression of Cx43 and GJIC were investigated with immunofluorescence and fluorescence recovery after photo-bleaching (FRAP), respectively. Results from this study show that TGF-β1 down-regulates the level of E2 secretion and the activity of P450arom in a dose-dependent manner in adult Leydig cells. In addition, the expression of Cx43 and GJIC was closely related to the regulation of E2 and TGF-β1, and E2 treatment in turn restored the inhibition of TGF-β1 on GJIC. Conclusions Our results indicate, for the first time in adult rat Leydig cells, that TGF-β1 suppresses P450arom activity, as well as the expression of the Cyp19 gene, and that depression of E2 secretion leads to down-regulation of Cx43-based GJIC between Leydig cells.
Prognostic Significance of Infection Acquisition Sites in Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis: Nosocomial versus Community Acquired

Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) is an ascitic fluid infection as a complication of end stage liver disease. The outcome is related to the severity of hepatorenal function, gastrointestinal bleeding, and many others; however it is not well known whether the infection acquisition sites have an effect on the prognosis of SBP. In order to identify the prognostic significance of the acquisition sites, we studied 106 patients who were diagnosed as culture positive SBP between October 1998 and August 2003. Thirty-two episodes were nosocomial and 74 were community acquired. Gram-negative bacilli such as Escherichia coli were dominant in both of the nosocomial and community-acquired SBPs. Despite significantly higher resistance to cefotaxime in nosocomial isolates compared to community-acquired isolates (77.8% vs. 13.6%, p=0.001), no difference was found regarding short or long term prognosis. Infection acquisition sites were not related to short or long term prognosis either. Shock, gastrointestinal bleeding and renal dysfunction were related to short term prognosis. Only Child-Pugh class C was identified as an independent prognostic factor of long-term survival.