Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contrasting Effects of Extreme Drought and Snowmelt Patterns on Mountain Plants along an Elevation Gradient

Despite the evidence that increased frequency and magnitude of extreme climate events (ECE) considerably affect plant performance, there is still a lack of knowledge about how these events affect mountain plant biodiversity and mountain ecosystem functioning. Here, we assessed the short-term (one vegetation period) effects of simulated ECEs [extreme drought (DR), advanced and delayed snowmelt (AD and DE), respectively] on the performance of 42 plant species occurring in the Bavarian Alps (Germany) along an elevational gradient of 600–2000 m a.s. l. in terms of vegetative growth and reproduction performance. We demonstrate that plant vegetative and generative traits respond differently to the simulated ECEs, but the nature and magnitude treatment effects strongly depend on study site location along the elevational gradient, species’ altitudinal origin and plant functional type (PFT) of the target species. For example, the negative effect of DR treatment on growth (e.g., lower growth rates and lower leaf nitrogen content) and reproduction (e.g., lower seed mass) was much stronger in upland sites, as compared to lowlands. Species’ response to the treatments also differed according to their altitudinal origin. Specifically, upland species responded negatively to extreme DR (e.g., lower growth rates and lower leaf carbon concentrations, smaller seed set), whereas performance of lowland species remained unaffected (e.g., stable seed set and seed size) or even positively responded (e.g., higher growth rates) to that treatment. Furthermore, we were able to detect some consistent differences in responses to the ECEs among three PFTs (forbs, graminoids, and legumes). For instance, vegetative growth and sexual reproduction of highly adaptable opportunistic graminoids positively responded to nearly all ECEs, likely on the costs of other, more conservative, forbs and legumes. Our results suggest that ECEs can significantly modify the performance of specific plant groups and therefore lead to changes in plant community structure and composition under ongoing climate change. Our study therefore underlines the need for more experimental studies on the effects of extreme climate events to understand the potential consequences of climate change for the alpine ecosystem.
Militarization and demilitarization processes in the Israeli and American police forces: Organizational and social aspects

Mainly during the first half of the 20th century American police departments tended to adopt a military organizational structure and pattern of work due to a gradual process within them of professionalization and consequently militarization. In the 1960s this approach started to draw criticism, leading to a demand for the development of a more ‘civilian’ rather than ‘military’ model of policing. Paradoxically, a renewed trend of militarization was simultaneously taking place in the police departments. Changes in more recent years suggest a similar demilitarization trend in the Israeli police, bringing about a ‘policing revolution’. This study analyzes the organizational and social characteristics and sources of these two consecutive trends in these two different policing models and countries.
Geographic accessibility of community pharmacies in ontario.

BACKGROUND Proximity is an important component of access to healthcare services. Recent changes in generic pricing in Ontario have caused speculation about pharmacy closures. However, there is little information on the current geographic accessibility of pharmacies. Therefore, we studied geographic access to pharmacies and modelled the impact of possible closures. METHODS We used location data on the 3,352 accredited community pharmacies from the Ontario College of Pharmacists and population estimates at the census dissemination block level. Using network analysis, we determined the share of Ontario's population who reside in a census dissemination block within three road travel distances of a community pharmacy: 800 m (walking), 2 km and 5 km (driving). We then simulated the effects on these measures of 10% to 50% reductions in the number of community pharmacies in Ontario. RESULTS Approximately 63.6% of the Ontario population reside in a dissemination block located within walking distance of one or more pharmacies; 84.6% and 90.7% reside within 2-km and 5-km driving distances, respectively. Randomly removing 30% of Ontario's community pharmacies reduces these estimates to 56.0%, 81.4% and 89.0% for each distance, respectively; a 50% reduction results in 48.3%, 77.1% and 87.2%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Pharmacies are geographically accessible for a majority of the Ontario population. Moreover, it appears that modest closures would have only a small impact on geographic access to pharmacies. However, closures may have other impacts on access, such as cost, waiting time and reduced patient choice.
Clonal Composition and Community Clustering of Drug-Susceptible and -Resistant Escherichia coli Isolates from Bloodstream Infections

ABSTRACT Multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli strains belonging to a single lineage frequently account for a large proportion of extraintestinal E. coli infections in many parts of the world. However, limited information exists on the community prevalence and clonal composition of drug-susceptible E. coli strains. Between July 2007 and September 2010, we analyzed all consecutively collected Gram-negative bacterial isolates from patients with bloodstream infection (BSI) admitted to a public hospital in San Francisco for drug susceptibility and associated drug resistance genes. The E. coli isolates were genotyped for fimH single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and multilocus sequence types (MLSTs). Among 539 isolates, E. coli accounted for 249 (46%); 74 (30%) of them were susceptible to all tested drugs, and 129 (52%) were multidrug resistant (MDR). Only five MLST genotypes accounted for two-thirds of the E. coli isolates; the most common were ST131 (23%) and ST95 (18%). Forty-seven (92%) of 51 ST131 isolates, as opposed to only 8 (20%) of 40 ST95 isolates, were MDR (P < 0.0001). The Simpson's diversity index for drug-susceptible ST genotypes was 87%, while the index for MDR ST genotypes was 81%. ST95 strains were comprised of four fimH types, and one of these (f-6) accounted for 67% of the 21 susceptible isolates (P < 0.003). A large proportion (>70%) of both MDR and susceptible E. coli BSI isolates represented community-onset infections. These observations show that factors other than the selective pressures of antimicrobial agents used in hospitals contribute to community-onset extraintestinal infections caused by clonal groups of E. coli regardless of their drug resistance.
U.S. Immigrants in Dispersed and Traditional Settlements: National Origin Heterogeneity 1

This paper uses confidential ACS data to compare the characteristics of immigrants from ten Asian and Latino origins and the total foreign born in traditional, emerging, and dispersed areas. The correlates of dispersed settlement were estimated for each group and the total foreign born using multinomial logistic regression. The findings show that the characteristics of immigrants in dispersed settlements differ both within and across national origin groups and also between national groups and the total foreign born. Several relationships, particularly those for education and occupation measures, differ significantly and call into question the homogeneity assumption commonly made by studies of the total foreign born or pan-ethnic groups.
Lessons learned from unsuccessful modelling interventions

This paper reports several related failures of modelling interventions. Atrive, an organizational consulting company, set out to adapt a canonical housing association model named ITS to the specific circumstances of its clients. The ITS adaptation process, however, demonstrated rather annoying dynamics and finally had to be terminated due to negative business results. This paper provides a background on the relevance of failure case studies and ventures into the symptoms and warning signs. We reflect on a systems thinking intervention within Atrive to learn from these experiences and improve business strategy. The problems encountered correspond to several archetypes. We end this paper by summarizing several known and one possibly new factor in explaining failure of modelling projects and pose several questions for further research. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DSRC 2 - Industry-oriented compression of FASTQ files

SUMMARY Modern sequencing platforms produce huge amounts of data. Archiving them raises major problems but is crucial for reproducibility of results, one of the most fundamental principles of science. The widely used gzip compressor, used for reduction of storage and transfer costs, is not a perfect solution, so a few specialized FASTQ compressors were proposed recently. Unfortunately, they are often impractical because of slow processing, lack of support for some variants of FASTQ files or instability. We propose DSRC 2 that offers compression ratios comparable with the best existing solutions, while being a few times faster and more flexible. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION DSRC 2 is freely available at http://sun.aei. polsl.pl/dsrc. The package contains command-line compressor, C and Python libraries for easy integration with existing software and technical documentation with examples of usage. CONTACT sebastian.deorowicz@polsl.pl SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Understanding Other People's Perspectives

ABSTRACT This article reports on qualitative data collected in interviews with the adoptive parents of young, recently placed children in 30 families. The mean ages of the children at placement and at the time of study were 21 months and 53 months respectively. All adopters were involved in face-to-face contact arrangements with adult birth relatives. Ratings of ‘empathy for birth relatives’ and ‘empathy for the adopted child’ were developed from interview transcripts. These ratings took into account the capacity of adopters to understand the perspective of their child and the birth relatives. Empathic, understanding adopters were more likely to maintain or increase face-to-face contact arrangements, and to view such contact positively, even in situations where meetings presented significant challenges.
Epigenetic Modulation with HDAC Inhibitor CG200745 Induces Anti-Proliferation in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Cells

Histone modification plays a pivotal role on gene regulation, as regarded as global epigenetic markers, especially in tumor related genes. Hence, chemical approaches targeting histone-modifying enzymes have emerged onto the main stage of anticancer drug discovery. Here, we investigated the therapeutic potentials and mechanistic roles of the recently developed histone deacetylase inhibitor, CG200745, in non-small cell lung cancer cells. Treatment with CG200745 increased the global level of histone acetylation, resulting in the inhibition of cell proliferation. ChIP-on-chip analysis with an H4K16ac antibody showed altered H4K16 acetylation on genes critical for cell growth inhibition, although decreased at the transcription start site of a subset of genes. Altered H4K16ac was associated with changes in mRNA expression of the corresponding genes, which were further validated in quantitative RT-PCR and western blotting assays. Our results demonstrated that CG200745 causes NSCLC cell growth inhibition through epigenetic modification of critical genes in cancer cell survival, providing pivotal clues as a promising chemotherapeutics against lung cancer.
Inflammation, Hemostatic Markers, and Antithrombotic Agents in Relation to Long-Term Risk of New Cardiovascular Events in First-Ever Ischemic Stroke Patients

Background and Purpose— The measurement of markers of inflammation or thrombosis has been proposed as a method to improve the prediction of risk in patients with vascular disease. We evaluated the usefulness of these markers as predictors of cardiovascular events in ischemic stroke patients. Methods— We analyzed levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), fibrinogen, and D-dimer within the first 24 hours after stroke onset in 473 first-ever ischemic stroke patients and determined the cumulative survival curves free of cardiovascular events in relation to the level of each of these markers according to the Kaplan-Meier method. We adjusted for possible confounding variables using a multivariate Cox proportional-hazards model. Results— Patients in the highest tertiles of D-dimer, fibrinogen, and CRP were associated with an excess risk of new cardiovascular events of 36% (P =0.0134), 63% (P <0.0001), and 72% (P <0.0001), respectively, compared with patients in the lowest tertile. The patients in the highest tertile of CRP had 4 times the risk (hazard ratio, 4.04;P <0.0001) of a new cardiovascular event. Smoking, age, sex, and body mass index did not modify risk, and risk was independent of other confounding variables and of D-dimer and fibrinogen levels. The use of ticlopidine was associated with a significant risk reduction among patients with lower (86%, P =0.0159) and middle (69%, P <0.0001) levels of CRP, whereas a nonsignificant excess risk (27%, P =0.3896) was evident among those with the highest levels. Conclusions— Elevated levels of CRP, more than of D-dimer and fibrinogen, are related to the risk of new cardiovascular events after ischemic stroke. The efficacy of antiplatelet therapy in secondary prevention appears to be directly related to level of inflammatory and thrombotic markers.
Highbrow culture in Finland: Knowledge, taste and participation

This article explores the social distribution of involvement in highbrow culture in light of three issues being discussed in cultural sociology. One is that highbrow cultural orientation is an indicator of cultural capital or of social status. A second, the ‘meltdown scenario’, suggests that not only the popularity of highbrow activities, but also their distinctiveness, has decreased among younger cohorts in comparison to older cohorts. A third deals with the ‘feminization’ of highbrow culture. These issues are empirically addressed in contemporary Finland using nationally representative survey data. Highbrow culture is measured in three dimensions of cultural practices – knowledge, taste and participation – covering four different fields: music, literature, cinema and the visual arts. The results support all three arguments: First, education and occupational class are important social determinants of involvement in highbrow culture in Finland. Second, younger age cohorts show less interest in highbrow culture than do older Finns. Third, women tend to be more involved in highbrow culture than men. The results indicate considerable stability across the measures of highbrow culture and cultural fields. Social determinants of knowledge and cinema, however, are different from those in other dimensions and fields.
Robust multipath multicast routing algorithms for videos in Software-Defined Networks

IP multicast dictates high-end routers and incurs high administrative overhead, which prevent them from being deployed in many video streaming scenarios. In this paper, we study the problem of computing the multipath multicast routes for streaming videos in Software-Defined Networks (SDNs), which adopt less expensive switches and reduce administrative overhead for lower CAPEX/OPEX. The objectives of the considered problem are robustness, load balance, SDN compatibility, and adaptiveness. We formulate this routing problem into a mathematical optimization problem, and propose two algorithms to address this problem. We implement the proposed algorithms on a popular OpenFlow controller to demonstrate its practicality, and we conduct extensive experiments to evaluate the proposed algorithms. The experiment results clearly show the merits of our algorithms over the IP multicast, e.g., we observe: (i) frame loss rate reduction between 19% and 95%, (ii) video quality improvement between 4 dB and 15 dB, (iii) sink throughput increase between 25% and 66%, and (iv) maximal link utilization reduction between 15% and 50%. We also show the tradeoff between optimality and run time of the two proposed algorithms: one of them is more suitable for smaller and more static networks, and the other one is more suitable for larger and more dynamic networks.
Does parent education moderate relations between low birth weight and child cognitive development outcomes?

Using baseline and 3-year data from The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we examined the potential for mothers' and fathers' education to buffer at-risk and low birth weight (LBW) children from poor cognitive development outcomes at age 3. Findings suggest that mothers' and fathers' education may both buffer at-risk children from poor cognitive development outcomes, although in different ways. Whereas fathers' education was associated with better cognitive development among LBW boys, mothers' education was associated with better cognitive development among normal birth weight children, regardless of child gender. We further examined whether parent involvement mediated the relation between parent education and child cognitive development. After controlling for demographic variables and our variables of interest we found no significant associations between parent involvement and child cognitive development. Results suggest that other pathways, such as the development of financial and material capital, may be important for explaining the buffering effects of parent education.
Management of COPD exacerbations in primary care: a clinical cohort study

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations are associated with lung function decline, lower quality of life, and increased mortality, and can be prevented by pharmacological treatment and rehabilitation. Aims: To examine management including examination, treatment, and planned follow-up of COPD exacerbation visits in primary care patients and to explore how measures and management at exacerbation visits are related to subsequent exacerbation risk. Methods: A clinical population of 775 COPD patients was randomly selected from 56 Swedish primary healthcare centres. Data on patient characteristics and management of COPD exacerbations were obtained from medical record review and a patient questionnaire. In the study population of 458 patients with at least one exacerbation, Cox regression analyses estimated the risk of a subsequent exacerbation with adjustment for age and sex. Results: During a follow-up period of 22 months, 238 patients (52%) had a second exacerbation. A considerable proportion of the patients were not examined and treated as recommended by guidelines. Patients with a scheduled extra visit to an asthma/COPD nurse following an exacerbation had a decreased risk of further exacerbations compared with patients with no extra follow-up other than regularly scheduled visits (adjusted hazard ratio 0.60 (95% confidence interval 0.37 to 0.99), p=0.045). Conclusions: Guidelines for examination and emergency treatment at COPD exacerbation visits are not well implemented. Scheduling an extra visit to an asthma/COPD nurse following a COPD exacerbation may be associated with a decreased risk of further exacerbations in primary care patients.
Understanding of Science Classrooms in Different Countries through the Analysis of Discourse Modes for Building 'Classroom Science Knowledge' (CSK)

This study explored how teachers and students in different countries discursively interact to build ``Classroom Science Knowledge`` (CSK) - the knowledge generate situatedly in the context of the science classroom. Data came from publicly released 8th grade science classroom videos of five nations who participated in the Third TIMSS (Trend in International Mathematics and Science Study) video study. A total of ten video-recorded science lessons and their verbatim transcripts were selected and analyzed using a framework developed by the researchers of the study. It was revealed that a range of discourse modes were utilized and these modes were often sequentially connected to build CSK in the science classrooms. Although dominant discourse modes and their sequences varied among different lessons or different countries, the study identified three salient patterns of science classroom discourse: teacher-guided negotiation and the sequences of exploring - building on the shared and retrieving - elaborating. These patterns were found to be different form the discursive features commonly witnessed in the community of professional scientists and interpreted as implying the existence of unique epistemic cultures shared in science classrooms of different countries. Further studies are suggested to reveal characteristics of these epistemic cultures of science classrooms, as well as to confirm whether any cultural traits inherently shape the differences in science classroom discourse among different nations.
17th Century Theatre Therapy Shakespeare, Fletcher, Massinger, Middleton and Ford Five Jacobean Healing Dramas

Though in Hamlet and King Lear he wrote scenes in which the cathartic and healing potential of theatre was touched upon (Casson, 2004, 55 & 147) it is in his last play, The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613-14). that a doctor uses drama to treat a woman who has developed psychotic delusions (Casson, 2006). The doctor deliberately employs the dramatic ‘as if’ (he even uses these words) encouraging others to play along with the woman’s fantasies: he spontaneously plays the role of a significant other, arranges for others to play roles to facilitate a healing process, uses lighting and prescribes singing. These scenes are of enormous historic significance: they are the first such scenes I have been able to discover in which drama is used therapeutically; secondly they are the last scenes Shakespeare ever wrote; thirdly they occur in a play co-written with John Fletcher who went on to write other plays in which drama is deliberately used for psychological healing. In 1616 Fletcher wrote The Mad Lover which makes use of masques to prevent suicide. Whilst still coauthoring plays with Shakespeare (1612-14) Fletcher was also developing a partnership with Philip Massinger. They wrote A Very Woman, a tragicomedy, between 161922, in which a Doctor Paulo uses drama for therapeutic purposes. Massinger revised an earlier version, which is not now extant. At some time between 1615 1625 Fletcher wrote and Middleton revised a comedy titled alternately The Nice Valour or The Passionate Madman in which masques are used in an attempt to treat erotomania. John Ford wrote The Laver S Melancholy between 162 1 5 . Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621, may well have influenced Fletcher, Massinger, Middleton and Ford but certainly the latter. Thus, between 1613 and 1625 five plays containing scenes in which theatre is used therapeutically were staged. These plays predate all other references to the deliberate use of drama as therapy I have discovered after the ancient Greek and Roman Theatres. As I have already written about The Two Noble Kinsmen (Casson, 2006) I will now focus on these other plays.