Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cellular and Humoral Immune Responses and Protection against Schistosomes Induced by a Radiation-Attenuated Vaccine in Chimpanzees

ABSTRACT The radiation-attenuated Schistosoma mansoni vaccine is highly effective in rodents and primates but has never been tested in humans, primarily for safety reasons. To strengthen its status as a paradigm for a human recombinant antigen vaccine, we have undertaken a small-scale vaccination and challenge experiment in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Immunological, clinical, and parasitological parameters were measured in three animals after multiple vaccinations, together with three controls, during the acute and chronic stages of challenge infection up to chemotherapeutic cure. Vaccination induced a strong in vitro proliferative response and early gamma interferon production, but type 2 cytokines were dominant by the time of challenge. The controls showed little response to challenge infection before the acute stage of the disease, initiated by egg deposition. In contrast, the responses of vaccinated animals were muted throughout the challenge period. Vaccination also induced parasite-specific immunoglobulin M (IgM) and IgG, which reached high levels at the time of challenge, while in control animals levels did not rise markedly before egg deposition. The protective effects of vaccination were manifested as an amelioration of acute disease and overall morbidity, revealed by differences in gamma-glutamyl transferase level, leukocytosis, eosinophilia, and hematocrit. Moreover, vaccinated chimpanzees had a 46% lower level of circulating cathodic antigen and a 38% reduction in fecal egg output, compared to controls, during the chronic phase of infection.
Image based flow visualization

A new method for the visualization of two-dimensional fluid flow is presented. The method is based on the advection and decay of dye. These processes are simulated by defining each frame of a flow animation as a blend between a warped version of the previous image and a number of background images. For the latter a sequence of filtered white noise images is used: filtered in time and space to remove high frequency components. Because all steps are done using images, the method is named Image Based Flow Visualization (IBFV). With IBFV a wide variety of visualization techniques can be emulated. Flow can be visualized as moving textures with line integral convolution and spot noise. Arrow plots, streamlines, particles, and topological images can be generated by adding extra dye to the image. Unsteady flows, defined on arbitrary meshes, can be handled. IBFV achieves a high performance by using standard features of graphics hardware. Typically fifty frames per second are generated using standard graphics cards on PCs. Finally, IBFV is easy to understand, analyse, and implement.
Machine Sharing in Manufacturing Systems : Flexibility versus Chaining

In this paper, we present an alternative configuration for sharing manufacturing resources, such as machines, among multiple part types. This configuration, termed chaining, is shown to capture most of the benefits of full machine flexibility while limiting the number of part types that are processed on any individual machine to only two. This is important in systems where higher machine flexibility is achieved with additional investments and/or higher operating costs. We present analytical models for the performance evaluation of both chained and fully flexible configurations. The two configurations are compared under different control policies, and varying buffer sizes, loading conditions, and number of machines. The effect of setup time on the desirability of the two configurations is also examined.
The stability of the Islamic State (IS) narrative: implications for the future

Abstract Quantitative analysis of IS thought leader discourse is used to examine the extent to which the IS narrative has changed throughout its history, and the degree to which it has been similar to the rhetoric of other extremist organizations. The IS narrative has remained remarkably stable, indicating an ideological commitment to the narrative by its propagandists. Furthermore, the narrative has worked well for IS as a recruiting and inspirational tool. Therefore, their core narrative is predicted to remain stable, despite future manifestations of the organization. This stability has implications for how the narrative can be countered and the need for credible allies in that effort.
Challenges and weaknesses in the use of concept maps as a learning strategy in undergraduate health programs

This paper considers the analysis of concept maps utilized as a learning tool in disciplines dealing with immunological responses in two undergraduate Health programs. In total, 48 concept maps were assessed regarding their propositions and structure. The clarity of the propositions was analyzed by using the Propositional Clarity Table and they were classified as adequate propositions (AP) and inadequate propositions (IP). In 48 concept maps, 648 propositions were analyzed in order to determine semantic clarity and conceptual mistakes. Assessments revealed that 69 % of the propositions were classified as adequate and 31 % as inadequate. All the maps analyzed were categorized as showing a network structure. However, when correlating the connections established among the several types of response by the immune system, it was found that despite being structured as a network, only 31.2 % of the concept maps indicated conceptual relationships between the modes of immune response. 27% of the concept maps were made with a high rate of proficiency. Upon the results of our analysis, we realized that there is still a long way in developing the mapping strategy. For us, this low percentage is related to the way undergraduates assimilate the mapping processes. This is a challenge which also reveals limits and weaknesses that may be addressed in future studies. It was noted that results bring into focus that the undergraduates’ learning of concepts associated with the bases of the immunological responses occurred in a meaningful way. https://doi.org/10.34105/j.kmel. 2017.09. 023
Complete identification of the Parkes half-Jansky sample of GHz peaked spectrum radio galaxies

Context. Gigahertz Peaked Spectrum (GPS) radio galaxies are generally thought to be the young counterparts of classical extended radio sources. Statistically complete samples of GPS sources are vital for studying the early evolution of radio-loud AGN and the trigger of their nuclear activity. The "Parkes half-Jansky" sample of GPS radio galaxies is such a sample, representing the southern counterpart of the 1998 Stanghellini sample of bright GPS sources. Aims. As a first step of the investigation of the sample, the host galaxies need to be identified and their redshifts determined. Methods. Deep R-band VLT-FORS 1 and ESO 3.6 m EFOSC II images and long slit spectra have been taken for the unidentified sources in the sample. Results. We have identified all twelve previously unknown host galaxies of the radio sources in the sample. Eleven have host galaxies in the range 21.0 1 they are on average a magnitude fainter than classical 3C radio galaxies, as found in earlier studies. However their restframe UV luminosities indicate that there is an extra light contribution from the AGN. or from a population of young stars.
Granivore impact on soil‐seed reserves in the central Monte desert, Argentina

1. Mechanisms of grass- and forb-seed input and output in the central Monte desert of Argentina were studied in 1995 to test the hypothesis that seed consumption by autumn–winter granivores, especially birds, has qualitative as well as quantitative effects on soil-seed reserves. 2. The abundance of perennial grass seeds in late summer soils (≈ 2400 seeds m–2 or 0·36 g m–2) remained unchanged the following early spring (≈ 2700 seeds m–2 or 0·39 g m–2), despite the incorporation of about 3000 seeds m–2 or 0·71 g m–2 newly produced grass seeds during autumn–winter. Grass seeds appeared to be heavily consumed, especially the medium-sized ones. 3. The annual forb-seed bank was about the same size in late summer (≈ 5500 seeds m–2 or 1·34 g m–2) as in early spring (≈ 6500 seeds m–2 or 1·53 g m–2). Since forb-seed production had been relatively low (≈ 400 seeds m–2 or 0·12 g m–2), these seeds apparently suffered negligible postdispersal losses. 4. This pattern of grass- and forb-seed loss coincides with the pattern of seed consumption by granivorous birds – on average, 93% of seed mass in bird stomachs was from grass seeds, while only 7% was from forb seeds. 5. Further evidence of a major impact of bird foraging on seed reserves is that the mass of particular grass seeds that was lost from soils was positively correlated with the mass of such seeds in bird diets, and that the main target of bird consumption, i.e. medium-sized grass seeds, suffered the highest postdispersal loss. 6. It is concluded that autumn–winter granivores in the central Monte desert, particularly birds, mainly consume newly produced grass seeds and that they might have major qualitative as well as quantitative impacts on soil-seed reserves.
Improving Recognition via Reconstruction and Other Constraints ∗

Learning a many-parameter model is generally an under-constrained problem that requires additional regularization. We study several information theoretic constraints and show that reconstruction constraints achieve improved performance. In addition to studying entropy and BCM constraints on the hidden units of a feed-forward architecture, we derive a new constraint that is based on the sum of the entropies of the hidden units. Results are demonstrated on two face recognition data-sets under various resolutions and image degradations. In particular, we show that networks trained with reconstruction constraints perform slightly better on non-degraded data and furthermore, they significantly outperform a regular classifier on degraded images – by blur, noise, partial occlusion, or by lossy compression. While there is a regularizer involved, we show that by integrating (averaging) over several networks with different regularization values we achieve more robustness and results which are near and sometimes better than the optimal (unknown) regularization results.
Representations with Weighted Frames and Framed Parabolic Bundles

Abstract There is a well-known correspondence (due to Mehta and Seshadri in the unitary case, and extended by Bhosle and Ramanathan to other groups), between the symplectic variety ${{M}_{h}}$ of representations of the fundamental group of a punctured Riemann surface into a compact connected Lie group $G$ , with fixed conjugacy classes $h$ at the punctures, and a complex variety ${{\mathcal{M}}_{h}}$ of holomorphic bundles on the unpunctured surface with a parabolic structure at the puncture points. For $G\,=\,\text{SU}\left( 2 \right)$ , we build a symplectic variety $P$ of pairs (representations of the fundamental group into $G$ , “weighted frame” at the puncture points), and a corresponding complex variety $\mathcal{P}$ of moduli of “framed parabolic bundles”, which encompass respectively all of the spaces ${{M}_{h}}$ , ${{\mathcal{M}}_{h}}$ , in the sense that one can obtain ${{M}_{h}}$ from $P$ by symplectic reduction, and ${{\mathcal{M}}_{h}}$ from $\mathcal{P}$ by a complex quotient. This allows us to explain certain features of the toric geometry of the $\text{SU(2)}$ moduli spaces discussed by Jeffrey and Weitsman, by giving the actual toric variety associated with their integrable system.
Characteristics of Neuromuscular Control of the Scapula after Stroke: A First Exploration

This study aimed to characterize scapular muscle timing in stroke patients with and without shoulder pain. Muscle activity of upper trapezius, lower trapezius, serratus anterior, infraspinatus, and anterior deltoid (AD) was measured (Delsys Trigno surface EMG system, USA) in 14 healthy controls (dominant side) and 30 stroke patients (hemiplegic side) of whom 10 had impingement-like shoulder pain. Participants performed 45° and full range anteflexion, in two load conditions. The impact of group, anteflexion height, load condition, and muscle was assessed for onset and offset of the different muscles relative to the onset and offset of AD, using a 3 (group) × 2 (height) × 2 (load) × 4 (muscle) mixed model design. Recruitment patterns were additionally described. Across all load conditions and groups, serratus anterior had a significantly earlier onset and, together with lower trapezius, a significantly later offset in 45° compared to full range anteflexion tasks (p < 0.001). In stroke patients without pain, lower trapezius had furthermore a significantly earlier onset in comparison to stroke patients with shoulder pain (all tasks, p = 0.04). Serratus anterior also showed a significantly earlier offset in stroke patients with shoulder pain in comparison to controls (p = 0.01) and stroke patients without pain (p < 0.001). Analysis of muscle recruitment patterns indicated that for full range tasks, stroke patients without pain used early and prolonged activity of infraspinatus. In stroke patients with shoulder pain, recruitment patterns were characterized by delayed activation and early inactivity of serratus anterior. These timing results can serve as a reference frame for scapular muscle timing post-stroke, and when designing upper limb treatment protocols and clinical guidelines for shoulder pain after stroke.
In memory of Noel Baker ENTIRE FUNCTIONS WITH BOUNDED FATOU COMPONENTS

Starting with the work of I.N. Baker that appeared in 1981, many authors have studied the question of under what circumstances every component of the Fatou set of a transcendental entire function must be bounded. In particular, such functions have no domains now known as Baker domains, and no completely invariant domains. There may be wandering domains but not the familiar and more easily constructed unbounded ones that often appear for functions defined by simple explicit formulas. Two types of criteria are involved in the partial answers obtained for this question: the order of growth, and the regularity of the growth of the function. Baker himself showed that a function of sufficiently slow growth has only bounded Fatou components and noted that order 1/2 minimal type is the best condition one could hope for. Subsequently his results have been extended to order less than 1/2 except for wandering domains, and also to wandering domains if the growth satisfies, in addition, a mild regularity condition. Similar results have been obtained also for certain functions of faster growth provided that the growth is sufficiently regular. In this paper we review the results achieved and the methods involved in this area.
THE METAPHORS OF PROSPECTIVE ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS TEACHERS ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF GEOMETRY

The aim of this study is to investigate the perceptions of prospective elementary mathematics teachers about geometry via metaphors. Participants of the study consist of 100 prospective elementary mathematics teachers at Sinop University, Department of Elementary Mathematics Education in Turkey. The data of the research has been obtained by completing the following sentence for each teacher candidate: “Geometry is like …; because …”. Content analysis is used for the evaluation of the research data. A total of 53 different metaphors are produced by the participants and these metaphors are divided into a total of eight categories. As a result, it is understood that mostly “Puzzle” metaphor is produced and the category “Understanding Geometry and Strategy Use” has the most metaphors.
Low rank approximation with entrywise l1-norm error

We study the ℓ1-low rank approximation problem, where for a given n x d matrix A and approximation factor α ≤ 1, the goal is to output a rank-k matrix Â for which ‖A-Â‖1 ≤ α · min rank-k matrices A′ ‖A-A′‖1, where for an n x d matrix C, we let ‖C‖1 = ∑i=1n ∑j=1d |Ci,j|. This error measure is known to be more robust than the Frobenius norm in the presence of outliers and is indicated in models where Gaussian assumptions on the noise may not apply. The problem was shown to be NP-hard by Gillis and Vavasis and a number of heuristics have been proposed. It was asked in multiple places if there are any approximation algorithms. We give the first provable approximation algorithms for ℓ1-low rank approximation, showing that it is possible to achieve approximation factor α = (logd) #183; poly(k) in nnz(A) + (n+d) poly(k) time, where nnz(A) denotes the number of non-zero entries of A. If k is constant, we further improve the approximation ratio to O(1) with a poly(nd)-time algorithm. Under the Exponential Time Hypothesis, we show there is no poly(nd)-time algorithm achieving a (1+1/log1+γ(nd))-approximation, for γ > 0 an arbitrarily small constant, even when k = 1. We give a number of additional results for ℓ1-low rank approximation: nearly tight upper and lower bounds for column subset selection, CUR decompositions, extensions to low rank approximation with respect to ℓp-norms for 1 ≤ p < 2 and earthmover distance, low-communication distributed protocols and low-memory streaming algorithms, algorithms with limited randomness, and bicriteria algorithms. We also give a preliminary empirical evaluation.
Evaluation of the Effects of Honey on Acute-Phase Deep Burn Wounds

This study aimed to clarify the effects of honey on acute-phase deep burn wounds. Two deep burn wounds were created on mice which were divided into four groups: no treatment, silver sulfadiazine, manuka honey, and Japanese acacia honey. Wound sizes were calculated as expanded wound areas and sampled 30 minutes and 1–4 days after wounding for histological observation. The wound sections were subjected to hematoxylin and eosin and immunohistological staining to detect necrotic cells, apoptotic cells, neutrophils, and macrophages. The no treatment group formed a scar. The redness around the wound edges in the silver sulfadiazine group was the most intense. All groups exhibited increased wound areas after wounding. The proportions of necrotic cells and the numbers of neutrophils in the manuka and acacia honey groups were lower than those in the no treatment and silver sulfadiazine groups until day 3; however, there were no significant differences between all groups on day 4. These results show that honey treatment on deep burn wounds cannot prevent wound progression. Moreover, comparing our observations with those of Jackson, there are some differences between humans and animals in this regard, and the zone of hyperemia and its surrounding area fall into necrosis, which contributes to burn wound progression.
The trophic-level-based ecosystem modelling approach: theoretical overview and practical uses

A trophic-level (TL)-based ecosystem modelling approach is presented, where ecosystem functioning is modelled as a flow of biomass up the foodweb through predation and ontogenetic processes. The approach, based on simple equations derived from fluid dynamics, provides insights into ecosystem functioning and the impact of fishing. A virtual ecosystem is simulated and the model shown to be capable of mimicking the effects of various exploitation patterns on ecosystem biomass expected from the theory. It provides the theoretical basis to explain complex patterns, such as cascading effects, maximum sustainable ecosystem yield, and fishing down the foodweb. The utility of the TL-based approach as a practical tool for determining fishing impacts in specific ecosystems is illustrated using the Guinean ecosystem as a case study, showing how current fishing effort levels led to full exploitation of higher TLs, confirming and generalizing previous single-species assessment results. Finally, catch trophic spectrum analysis is presented to show that it provides reliable biomass estimates when catches per TL and primary production are known.
Towards an understanding of behavioural intention to use online journalism

Online journalism as a new medium has challenged the meaning of the production capacity, policy, independency, difference of time and place, and in particular, the interaction between journalists and their audiences. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that determine the intention to adopt online journalism by journalists in Iran, using a research model based on the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB). DTPB is one of the models developed by Taylor and Todd (1995a) to recognise particular salient beliefs by examining three factors, namely; attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control that can influence the intention to use technology.
Newer aspects of micronutrients in chronic disease: copper

Cu ions are pro-oxidants when added to biological material in vitro and excessive levels of Cu in the body, such as in Wilson's Disease (Yarze et al. 1992) promote oxidant-related pathologies. In contrast there is now substantial evidence that an optimum level of Cu is required to maintain antioxidant defence and that Cu deficiency in animals increases oxidant stress. There are abundant mechanistic relationships linking Cu deficiency and processes associated with IHD, some of which do not directly involve oxidant damage. These mechanistic relationships, however, have mostly been demonstrated in animal models and more information is urgently required concerning possible chronic mild Cu deficiencies in human populations. A major hurdle to advances in this area is the lack of indices of Cu status which are sensitive enough to detect marginal Cu deficiency in humans. The question, therefore, of whether or not there is a role for mild Cu deficiency in the onset of chronic disease processes, including IHD, remains unanswered.
Epidemic spreading on complex networks with weighted adaptive strategy

We introduce a weighted adaptive network model to investigate the epidemic dynamics based on a susceptible-infective-susceptible (SIS) pattern, where the weight of a link describes the contact strength between two connected individuals. In the model, a susceptible node is able to transfer the weight of the link connecting an infected neighbor to a link connecting one of its susceptible neighbors. It is found that this weight adaption process could strongly aggravate the destructiveness of an epidemic and leads to a new population relation. Moreover, the effectiveness of a simple epidemic control strategy on a weighted adaptive network is examined. The results show that the weight adaption process may reduce the strategy efficiency. Analysis are presented and the results support our numerical simulations.