Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Root growth potential and seedling morphological attributes of narra ( Pterocarpus indicus Willd . ) transplants

The lack of simple and reliable nursery grading practice to assess quality of planting stocks led to the failure of many reforestation projects in the Philippines. Thus, it is important to develop a mechanism to evaluate nursery seedling quality and performance prior to field planting. The study was conducted to evaluate two measures of root growth potential (RGP; number and length of new roots) as seedling performance attributes of narra (Pterocarpus indicus Willd.), one of the most valuable native reforestation species in the Philippines. RGP was determined in response to three different soil moisture regimes (50, 75 and 100% of field capacity). Effects of these treatments on height, root-collar diameter, stem diameter, length of taproot, shoot biomass, root biomass, total biomass, root:shoot ratio and seedling quality index were also investigated. Measurements were made on 7, 14 and 21 days after transplanting. The experiment was laid out using a completely randomized design. RGP and length of taproot were significantly affected by moisture treatment at 7 days. High RGP and longer taproots were observed in soil at 50% of field capacity. Increased stem diameter, shoot biomass, total biomass and quality index were observed in the reduced soil moisture condition at 7 and 14 days. Results confirm that narra is capable of producing new roots in response to reduced soil moisture on a relatively short period of time. This response would enable narra plants to counteract transplanting shock thereby ensuring their survival in the nursery. Correlation analysis of new root counts and length measurements revealed a strong positive correlation with each other. Thus, either will provide a good estimate of RGP in narra. # 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Two Independent Pathways Mediated by cAMP and Protein Kinase A Enhance Spontaneous Transmitter Release atDrosophila Neuromuscular Junctions

cAMP is thought to be involved in learning process and known to enhance transmitter release in various systems. Previously we reported that cAMP enhances spontaneous transmitter release in the absence of extracellular Ca2+ and that the synaptic vesicle protein neuronal-synaptobrevin (n-syb), is required in this enhancement (n-syb-dependent; Yoshihara et al., 1999). In the present study, we examined the cAMP-induced enhancement of transmitter release in the presence of external Ca2+. We raised the intracellular concentration of cAMP by application of either forskolin, an activator of adenylyl cyclase, or by 4-chlorophenylthio-(CPT)-cAMP, a membrane-permeable analog of cAMP, in the presence of external Ca2+, while recording miniature synaptic currents (mSCs) at the neuromuscular junction in n-syb null mutant embryos. The frequency of mSCs increased in response to elevation of cAMP, and this effect of cAMP was completely blocked by Co2+ (n-syb-independent pathway). In contrast, in wild-type embryos the cAMP-induced mSC frequency increase was partially blocked by Co2+. In a mutant, DC0, defective in protein kinase A (PKA), nerve-evoked synaptic currents were indistinguishable from the control, but mSCs were less frequent. In this mutant the enhancement by cAMP of both nerve-evoked and spontaneous transmitter release was completely absent, even in the presence of external Ca2+. Taken together, these results suggest that cAMP enhances spontaneous transmitter release by increasing Ca2+ influx (n-syb-independent) as well as by modulating the release mechanism without Ca2+influx (n-syb-dependent) in wild-type embryos, and these two effects are mediated by PKA encoded by the DC0 gene.
Me, myself, and I: self-referent word use as an indicator of self-focused attention in relation to depression and anxiety

Self-focused attention (SFA) is considered a cognitive bias that is closely related to depression. However, it is not yet well understood whether it represents a disorder-specific or a trans-diagnostic phenomenon and which role the valence of a given context is playing in this regard. Computerized quantitative text-analysis offers an integrative psycho-linguistic approach that may help to provide new insights into these complex relationships. The relative frequency of first-person singular pronouns in natural language is regarded as an objective, linguistic marker of SFA. Here we present two studies that examined the associations between SFA and symptoms of depression and anxiety in two different contexts (positive vs. negative valence), as well as the convergence between pronoun-use and self-reported aspects of SFA. In the first study, we found that the use of first-person singular pronouns during negative but not during positive memory recall was positively related to symptoms of depression and anxiety in patients with anorexia nervosa with varying levels of co-morbid depression and anxiety. In the second study, we found the same pattern of results in non-depressed individuals. In addition, use of first-person singular pronouns during negative memory recall was positively related to brooding (i.e., the assumed maladaptive sub-component of rumination) but not to reflection. These findings could not be replicated in two samples of depressed patients. However, non-chronically depressed patients used more first-person singular pronouns than healthy controls, irrespective of context. Taken together, the findings lend partial support to theoretical models that emphasize the effects of context on self-focus and consider SFA as a relevant trans-diagnostic phenomenon. In addition, the present findings point to the construct validity of pronoun-use as a linguistic marker of maladaptive self-focus.
Burden of comorbidities among Japanese patients with atrial fibrillation: a case study of dyspepsia

Background The aim of this study was to investigate the link between atrial fibrillation (AF) and dyspepsia, as well as the contribution of dyspepsia to the overall burden of AF. Methods The 2008, 2009, and 2010 Japan National Health and Wellness Survey (NHWS) datasets were used in this study. The NHWS is an Internet-based survey administered to the adult population in Japan using a random stratified sampling framework to ensure demographic representativeness. The presence of dyspepsia was compared between those with and without AF. Among those with AF, the effect of dyspepsia on health status, work productivity, and activity impairment was examined, along with health care resource use using multivariable regression modeling and controlling for baseline differences. Results Among patients with AF (n = 565), the three most commonly reported comorbidities were hypertension (38.76%), dyspepsia (37.35%), and overactive bladder (28.72%). Patients with AF had 48.59% greater odds of reporting dyspepsia than those without AF (P < 0.05). Patients with dyspepsia used more AF medications (2.05 versus 1.54) and had been diagnosed more recently (9.97 versus 10.58 years). Dyspepsia was associated with significantly worse physical health status (P < 0.05) and significantly more absenteeism, overall work impairment, activity impairment, physician visits, and emergency room visits (all P < 0.05). Conclusion Patients with AF in Japan experience a number of comorbidities, with dyspepsia being the most common noncardiovascular comorbidity. Given the prevalence and additional burden of this comorbidity across both humanistic and economic outcomes, the management of dyspepsia among patients with AF should be an area of greater focus.
Comparative rectal bacterial flora of four species of flying fox (Pteropus sp.).

The rectal anaerobic and aerobic bacterial flora of four species of flying foxes were determined and compared. Four bacterial species were found in > or = 1 individual from each bat species at a significant (> or = 10%) level of the bacterial population: alpha-hemolytic Streptococcus sp. (41 of 56 bats), Enterococcus sp. (25/56), Escherichia coli (21/ 56), and group D Streptococcus sp. , not Enterococcus sp. (9/56). Five other microbial species were also found in all four flying fox species, but at less significant percentages (found in at least one bat species, > or = 5% and < or = 10% of the recovered microbial population). These were nonhemolytic Streptococcus sp. (30/56), yeast (26/56), Corynebacterium sp. (25/56), Staphylococcus sp. (25/56), and Staphylococcus aureus (22/56). The majority of the species found were gram-positive, and only two obligate anaerobes, a Lactobacillus and a Bacteroides sp. , were recovered from one bat.
Intramuscular gold decreases cytokine expression and macrophage numbers in the rheumatoid synovial membrane.

OBJECTIVES--Cytokines, released from mononuclear cells (MNC) are mediators of joint destruction in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The mechanisms of action of gold salts used in the treatment of RA are unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate cytokine expression and intensity of MNC infiltrate in the RA synovial membrane (SM) following treatment with sodium aurothiomalate (SAT). METHODS--Sequential blind needle biopsies were obtained at entry into the study and at two and 12 weeks after the start of SAT therapy in 10 patients with active RA. SMs were stained with a panel of monoclonal antibodies to assess cytokine expression (IL-1 alpha, IL-1 beta, TNF-alpha, IL-6, and GM-CSF). RESULTS--There was a significant decrease in IL-1 alpha, IL-1 beta, IL-6 and TNF-alpha expression 12 weeks after treatment (p < 0.004, p < 0.002, p < 0.009 and p < 0.004 respectively). This was noted in the lining layer, the perivascular aggregates and the connective tissue areas. Detailed examination of the MNC infiltrate showed a significant reduction in inflammatory monocytes (MONO) in the lining layer at two weeks (p < 0.03). A decrease in the number of CD68+ macrophages (MAC) was noted in the perivascular and connective tissue areas at 12 weeks. No significant changes were observed in the number of T and B cells and blood vessels. CONCLUSION--The results suggest that gold may suppress RA disease activity by diminishing MONO and MAC numbers and consequently monokine production in the SM.
Is a Majority Enough? Psychological Well-being and Its Relation to Academic and Prosocial Motivation, Self-regulation and Achievement at school

This cross-sectional study analyzed psychological well-being at school using the SelfDetermination theory as a theoretical frame-work. The study explored basic psychological needs fulfillment (BPNS), academic (SRQ-A), prosocial self-regulation (SRQ-P) and motivation, and their relationship with achievement in general, special and selective education (N=786, 444 boys, 345 girls, mean age 12 yrs 8 mths). Motivation starts behavior which becomes guided by self-regulation. The perceived locus of control (PLOC) affects how self-determined this behavior will be; in other words, to what extent it is autonomously regulated. In order learn and thus to be able to accept external goals, a student has to feel emotionally safe and have sufficient ego-flexibility—all of which builds on satisfied psychological needs. In this study those conditions were explored. In addition to traditional methods Self-organizing maps (SOM), was used in order to cluster the students according to their well-being, self-regulation, motivation and achievement scores. The main impacts of this research were: a presentation of the theory based alternative of studying psychological well-being at school and usage of both the variable and person-oriented approach. In this Finnish sample the results showed that the majority of students felt well, but the well-being varied by group. Overall about for 11–15% the basic needs were deprived depending on the educational group. Age and educational group were the most effective factors; gender was important in relation to prosocial identified behavior. Although the person-oriented SOM-approach, was in a large extent confirming what was noticed by using comparison of the variables: the SEN groups had lower levels of basic needs fulfillment and less autonomous self-regulation, interesting deviations of that rule appeared. Some of the SELand GEN-group members ended up in the more unfavorable SOM-clusters, and not all SEN-group members belonged to the poorest clusters (although not to the best either). This evidence refines the well-being and self-regulation picture, and may re-direct intervention plans, and turn our focus also on students who might otherwise remain unnoticed. On the other hand, these results imply simultaneously that in special education groups the average is not the whole truth. On the basis of theoretical and empirical considerations an intervention model was suggested. The aim of the model was to shift amotivation or external motivation in a more intrinsic direction. According to the theoretical and empirical evidence this can be achieved first by studying the self-concept a student has, and then trying to affect both inner and environmental factors—including a consideration of the basic psychological needs.
Smart Attacks on the Integrity of the Internet of Things: Avoiding Detection by Employing Game Theory

The Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to connect billions of devices, that will interact with their physical environment through sensors or actuators. The measurements created from these sensors have varying levels of precision, leading to measurements that follow a distribution, whose variance presents an additional challenge for the employed security schemes. In this work we assume a smart attacker would attempt to mask his attack in the inherent uncertainty of the measurements, and attempt to manipulate the distribution of measurements as covertly as possible to affect the final meaningful value that the system would result in. We employ Game Theory to examine the best strategies to slowly corrupt the integrity of an IoT network, similar to ETSI's Low Throughput Networks (LTN). We examine the extent of the changes that can be made to the distribution without assuming a priori knowledge of it by the attacker, for different scenarios and compromisation patterns. To the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to examine the limits of the compromise that could be applied by a smart attacker on an IoT/LTN-type network without triggering outlier-alarms, and can be applied in the design of better targeted defensive measures.
Psychological debriefing is a waste of time

People who experience serious traumatic events may become distressed and are at risk of developing psychological illness. Because of the perceived need to ease the distress and to prevent chronicity, various forms of psychological therapy have been deployed. One such therapy is psychological debriefing. Some claim that it is helpful, others claim it may not do any good but at least it does no harm, but still others claim that it increases the risk of people developing long-term psychological symptoms following a traumatic event. Statutory agencies, charities and commercial organisations offer their services to victims following traumatic events. Fearing litigation, some companies require their employees to undergo debriefing following certain incidents. But is psychological debriefing the right treatment? Is it cost-effective? And what of the concerns that it may lead to long-term problems? Could litigation be joined because of exposure to psychological debriefing? We asked two experts who have published widely on the subject – Professor Simon Wessely and Professor Martin Deahl – to debate the proposition that psychological debriefing is a waste of time.
Optimal Approximate Matrix Product in Terms of Stable Rank

We prove, using the subspace embedding guarantee in a black box way, that one can achieve the spectral norm guarantee for approximate matrix multiplication with a dimensionality-reducing map having $m = O(\tilde{r}/\varepsilon^2)$ rows. Here $\tilde{r}$ is the maximum stable rank, i.e. squared ratio of Frobenius and operator norms, of the two matrices being multiplied. This is a quantitative improvement over previous work of [MZ11, KVZ14], and is also optimal for any oblivious dimensionality-reducing map. Furthermore, due to the black box reliance on the subspace embedding property in our proofs, our theorem can be applied to a much more general class of sketching matrices than what was known before, in addition to achieving better bounds. For example, one can apply our theorem to efficient subspace embeddings such as the Subsampled Randomized Hadamard Transform or sparse subspace embeddings, or even with subspace embedding constructions that may be developed in the future. Our main theorem, via connections with spectral error matrix multiplication shown in prior work, implies quantitative improvements for approximate least squares regression and low rank approximation. Our main result has also already been applied to improve dimensionality reduction guarantees for $k$-means clustering [CEMMP14], and implies new results for nonparametric regression [YPW15]. We also separately point out that the proof of the "BSS" deterministic row-sampling result of [BSS12] can be modified to show that for any matrices $A, B$ of stable rank at most $\tilde{r}$, one can achieve the spectral norm guarantee for approximate matrix multiplication of $A^T B$ by deterministically sampling $O(\tilde{r}/\varepsilon^2)$ rows that can be found in polynomial time. The original result of [BSS12] was for rank instead of stable rank. Our observation leads to a stronger version of a main theorem of [KMST10].
Experiences in improving risk management processes using the concepts of the Riskit method

This paper describes experiences from two organizations that have used the Riskit method for risk management in their software projects. This paper presents the Riskit method, the organizations involved, case study designs, and findings from case studies. We focus on the experiences and insights gained through the application of the method in industrial context and propose some general conclusions based on the case studies.
Hfq reduces envelope stress by controlling expression of envelope‐localized proteins and protein complexes in enteropathogenic Escherichia coli

Gram‐negative bacteria possess several envelope stress responses that detect and respond to damage to this critical cellular compartment. The σE envelope stress response senses the misfolding of outer membrane proteins (OMPs), while the Cpx two‐component system is believed to detect the misfolding of periplasmic and inner membrane proteins. Recent studies in several Gram‐negative organisms found that deletion of hfq, encoding a small RNA chaperone protein, activates the σE envelope stress response. In this study, we assessed the effects of deleting hfq upon activity of the σE and Cpx responses in non‐pathogenic and enteropathogenic (EPEC) strains of Escherichia coli. We found that the σE response was activated in Δhfq mutants of all E. coli strains tested, resulting from the misregulation of OMPs. The Cpx response was activated by loss of hfq in EPEC, but not in E. coli K‐12. Cpx pathway activation resulted in part from overexpression of the bundle‐forming pilus (BFP) in EPEC Δhfq. We found that Hfq repressed expression of the BFP via PerA, a master regulator of virulence in EPEC. This study shows that Hfq has a more extensive role in regulating the expression of envelope proteins and horizontally acquired virulence genes in E. coli than previously recognized.
Casual Sex and Women

Abstract Our objectives were to delineate important measurement issues involved in the study of casual sex and to determine women's motivations for engaging or not engaging in casual sex. Four different measures of casual sex were used with a Canadian university sample of 230 women. Thirteen percent reported having experienced sexual intercourse with someone they had just met and 36% had experienced intercourse with someone with whom they were not in a committed relationship. More had experienced non-coital casual sex. Sexual health concerns were the strongest deterrents to engaging in casual sex. Sexual pleasure was given as the most appealing aspect of casual sex. Researchers need to be aware of the differing interpretations of casual sex when measuring this type of sexual behavior.
Myocardial Injury After Noncardiac Surgery and its Association With Short-Term Mortality

Background— To identify patients at risk for postoperative myocardial injury and death, measuring cardiac troponin routinely after noncardiac surgery has been suggested. Such monitoring was implemented in our hospital. The aim of this study was to determine the predictive value of postoperative myocardial injury, as measured by troponin elevation, on 30-day mortality after noncardiac surgery. Methods and Results— This observational, single-center cohort study included 2232 consecutive intermediate- to high-risk noncardiac surgery patients aged ≥60 years who underwent surgery in 2011. Troponin was measured on the first 3 postoperative days. Log binomial regression analysis was used to estimate the association between postoperative myocardial injury (troponin I level >0.06 &mgr;g/L) and all-cause 30-day mortality. Myocardial injury was found in 315 of 1627 patients in whom troponin I was measured (19%). All-cause death occurred in 56 patients (3%). The relative risk of a minor increase in troponin (0.07–0.59 &mgr;g/L) was 2.4 (95% confidence interval, 1.3–4.2; P<0.01), and the relative risk of a 10- to 100-fold increase in troponin (≥0.60 &mgr;g/L) was 4.2 (95% confidence interval, 2.1–8.6; P<0.01). A myocardial infarction according to the universal definition was diagnosed in 10 patients (0.6%), of whom 1 (0.06%) had ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction. Conclusions— Postoperative myocardial injury is an independent predictor of 30-day mortality after noncardiac surgery. Implementation of postoperative troponin monitoring as standard of care is feasible and may be helpful in improving the prognosis of patients undergoing noncardiac surgery.
Eye Center Localization Using Adaptive Templates

We present a reliable eye center localization algorithm from one color image of a human face. The detection is based on deformable templates, which are only controlled by four parameters. Our algorithm works instantaneously and does not need a preprocessing step like the creation of a database or initial parameters. The experimental results show that the presented technique is very robust under different illumination conditions including pictures of people with glasses and different face sizes.