Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Down-regulation Induced by UVA in Human Keratinocytes Does Not Require the Receptor Kinase Activity*

Activation of the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor by EGF, its ligand, results in receptor internalization and down-regulation, which requires receptor kinase activity, phosphorylation, and ubiquitination. In contrast, we have found here in human HaCaT keratinocytes that exposure to UVA induces EGF receptor internalization and down-regulation without receptor phosphorylation and ubiquitination. The presence of the receptor kinase activity inhibitor AG1478 increased UVA-induced receptor down-regulation, whereas it inhibited EGF-induced receptor down-regulation. These observations demonstrate that, in contrast to EGF, receptor kinase activity is not required for receptor down-regulation by UVA. Concurrent with receptor down-regulation, caspases were activated by UVA exposure. The presence of caspase inhibitors blocked receptor down-regulation in a pattern similar to poly(ADP)-ribose polymerase cleavage. Much more receptor down-regulation was observed after UVA exposure in apoptotic detached cells in which caspase is activated completely. These results indicate that UVA-induced receptor down-regulation is dependent on caspase activation. Similar to UVA, both UVB and UVC induced receptor down-regulation, in which receptor kinase activity is not required, whereas caspase activation is involved. Inhibition of EGF receptor down-regulation increased receptor activation and activation of its downstream survival signaling ERK and AKT after UVA exposure. Preventing the activation of each of these pathways enhanced apoptosis induced by UVA. These findings suggest that EGF receptor down-regulation by UVA may play an important role in the execution of the cell suicide program by attenuating its anti-apoptotic function and thereby preventing cell transformation and tumorigenesis in vivo.
A Preliminary Investigation of Suicidality in Psychiatrically Hospitalized Veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury

The objective of this study was to explore suicidal behaviors documented at time of discharge from acute psychiatric hospitalization. Data from 114 acute psychiatric admissions were reviewed for 22 veterans with a history of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Information extracted included presence of suicidal ideation, nature of suicide attempts, and TBI characteristics. The Lethality of Suicide Attempt Rating Scale was used to classify veterans' non-lethal self-harm behavior. Post-TBI, 6 patients (27.3%) made a total of 14 suicide attempts. Half of those attempts required wounds being sutured, stomach lavage, or other medical attention. Clinicians and researchers are strongly encouraged to focus increased attention on suicide prevention in those with a history of TBI.
The SEEDS platform for evolutionary and ecological simulations

Over the past few decades, evolutionary computation (EC) has grown substantially in use for biologists and engineers alike. Its transparency makes it an indispensable tool for studying evolutionary- and ecological dynamics, and it has provided researchers with new insights that would be tremendously difficult, if not impossible, to gain using natural systems. In addition, EC has proven to be a powerful search algorithm for engineering applications, and has produced numerous novel and human-competitive solutions to complex problems. Although several well-established packages are readily available, it seems that when most users harness the power of evolutionary computation, they do so using "home-grown" solutions. This can likely be attributed to the ease with which simple models are created, the user's need for customization, and the sizeable learning barrier imposed by available solutions, as well as difficulties in extending them. We present SEEDS, a modular, open-source platform for conducting evolutionary computation experiments. SEEDS provides a simple, flexible, and extensible foundation that enables users with minimal programming experience to perform complex evolutionary and ecological simulations without having to first implement core functionality. In addition, SEEDS provides the tools necessary to make sharing data and reproducing experiments both easy and convenient.
Perceived relationship quality and post‐purchase perceived value

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the formation of a consumer's attitude towards a supplier, given the identification of the key indicators of perceived relationship quality, and their links with one another and with the perceived value of a purchase.Design/methodology/approach – Three cities were chosen, in different regions of Spain, and of different sizes. A total of 402 valid interviews were carried out in two industries: tile manufacturing and tourism. The selection procedure was random.Findings – The results show that the consumer's satisfaction is the main basis for perceived relationship quality. The paper likewise verifies the importance of transaction‐level evaluations for perceived relationship quality. The automatic affective reactions generated in the consumer in the first moments, and the social impact of the purchase, are aspects that determine perceived relationship quality. The paper also looks at the importance of considering commitment as an attitude.Research limitations/i.
Session Switching between IP/PSTN Connectivity for Voice Application

Session switching or session transfer across devices has become a common feature in today's telecommunication world, given that a single user could easily own more than one device. However, most of the systems in the literature are designed for homogeneous network, i.e. switching session within a common network such as across only IP devices. In this paper, we design a prototype to support session switching across devices in different network, which is from IP to Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) and vice versa. Our prototype is built on top of an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) to leverage on its standard convergence interface with media gateway. Experimental results shown that our session transfer took an extra of 0.31 second more than the IP-to-IP session switching.
Clustering of HCV coinfections on HIV phylogeny indicates domestic and sexual transmission of HCV.

BACKGROUND HCV coinfection remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality among HIV-infected individuals and its incidence has increased dramatically in HIV-infected men who have sex with men(MSM). METHODS Hepatitis C virus (HCV) coinfection in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study(SHCS) was studied by combining clinical data with HIV-1 pol-sequences from the SHCS Drug Resistance Database(DRDB). We inferred maximum-likelihood phylogenetic trees, determined Swiss HIV-transmission pairs as monophyletic patient pairs, and then considered the distribution of HCV on those pairs. RESULTS Among the 9748 patients in the SHCS-DRDB with known HCV status, 2768(28%) were HCV-positive. Focusing on subtype B(7644 patients), we identified 1555 potential HIV-1 transmission pairs. There, we found that, even after controlling for transmission group, calendar year, age and sex, the odds for an HCV coinfection were increased by an odds ratio (OR) of 3.2 [95% confidence interval (CI) 2.2, 4.7) if a patient clustered with another HCV-positive case. This strong association persisted if transmission groups of intravenous drug users (IDUs), MSMs and heterosexuals (HETs) were considered separately(in all cases OR>2). Finally we found that HCV incidence was increased by a hazard ratio of 2.1 (1.1, 3.8) for individuals paired with an HCV-positive partner. CONCLUSIONS Patients whose HIV virus is closely related to the HIV virus of HIV/HCV-coinfected patients have a higher risk for carrying or acquiring HCV themselves. This indicates the occurrence of domestic and sexual HCV transmission and allows the identification of patients with a high HCV-infection risk.
Purpose in Life Predicts Better Emotional Recovery from Negative Stimuli

Purpose in life predicts both health and longevity suggesting that the ability to find meaning from life’s experiences, especially when confronting life’s challenges, may be a mechanism underlying resilience. Having purpose in life may motivate reframing stressful situations to deal with them more productively, thereby facilitating recovery from stress and trauma. In turn, enhanced ability to recover from negative events may allow a person to achieve or maintain a feeling of greater purpose in life over time. In a large sample of adults (aged 36-84 years) from the MIDUS study (Midlife in the U.S., http://www.midus.wisc.edu/), we tested whether purpose in life was associated with better emotional recovery following exposure to negative picture stimuli indexed by the magnitude of the eyeblink startle reflex (EBR), a measure sensitive to emotional state. We differentiated between initial emotional reactivity (during stimulus presentation) and emotional recovery (occurring after stimulus offset). Greater purpose in life, assessed over two years prior, predicted better recovery from negative stimuli indexed by a smaller eyeblink after negative pictures offset, even after controlling for initial reactivity to the stimuli during the picture presentation, gender, age, trait affect, and other well-being dimensions. These data suggest a proximal mechanism by which purpose in life may afford protection from negative events and confer resilience is through enhanced automatic emotion regulation after negative emotional provocation.
The Debate on Shall-Issue Laws

â€œShall-issueâ€ laws require authorities to issue concealed-weapons permits to anyone who applies, unless the applicant has a criminal record or a history of mental illness. A large number of studies indicate that shall-issue laws reduce crime. Only one study, an influential paper in the Stanford Law Review (2003) by Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue III, implies that these laws lead to an increase in crime. We apply an improved version of the Ayres and Donohue method to a more extensive data set. Our analysis, as well as Ayres and Donohueâ€™s when projected beyond a five-year span, indicates that shall-issue laws decrease crime and the costs of crime. Purists in statistical analysis object with some cause to some of methods employed both by Ayres and Donohue and by us. But our paper upgrades Ayres and Donohue, so, until the next study comes along, our paper should neutralize Ayres and Donohueâ€™s â€œmore guns, more crimeâ€ conclusion.
Mito‐nuclear discord in six congeneric lineages of Holarctic ducks (genus Anas)

Many species have Holarctic distributions that extend across Europe, Asia and North America. Most genetics research on these species has examined only mitochondrial (mt) DNA, which has revealed wide variance in divergence between Old World (OW) and New World (NW) populations, ranging from shallow, unstructured genealogies to deeply divergent lineages. In this study, we sequenced 20 nuclear introns to test for concordant patterns of OW–NW differentiation between mtDNA and nuclear (nu) DNA for six lineages of Holarctic ducks (genus Anas). Genetic differentiation for both marker types varied widely among these lineages (idiosyncratic population histories), but mtDNA and nuDNA divergence within lineages was not significantly correlated. Moreover, compared with the association between mtDNA and nuDNA divergence observed among different species, OW–NW nuDNA differentiation was generally lower than mtDNA divergence, at least for lineages with deeply divergent mtDNA. Furthermore, coalescent estimates indicated significantly higher rates of gene flow for nuDNA than mtDNA for four of the six lineages. Thus, Holarctic ducks show prominent mito‐nuclear discord between OW and NW populations, and we reject differences in sorting rates as the sole cause of the within‐species discord. Male‐mediated intercontinental gene flow is likely a leading contributor to this discord, although selection could also cause increased mtDNA divergence relative to weak nuDNA differentiation. The population genetics of these ducks contribute to growing evidence that mtDNA can be an unreliable indicator of stage of speciation and that more holistic approaches are needed for species delimitation.
AEMS: An Anytime Online Search Algorithm for Approximate Policy Refinement in Large POMDPs

Solving large Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) is a complex task which is often intractable. A lot of effort has been made to develop approximate offline algorithms to solve ever larger POMDPs. However, even state-of-the-art approaches fail to solve large POMDPs in reasonable time. Recent developments in online POMDP search suggest that combining offline computations with online computations is often more efficient and can also considerably reduce the error made by approximate policies computed offline. In the same vein, we propose a new anytime online search algorithm which seeks to minimize, as efficiently as possible, the error made by an approximate value function computed offline. In addition, we show how previous online computations can be reused in following time steps in order to prevent redundant computations. Our preliminary results indicate that our approach is able to tackle large state space and observation space efficiently and under real-time constraints.
The Topics of Psychotherapy Research: An Analysis Based on Keywords

A content analysis of the representative Journals in the field of psychothera-py research has been performed. The analysis focused on the articles’ keywords. We ana-lyzed 7,086 works published in 17 Journals, in the period 2005-2011, using a two-step multidimensional procedure. Firstly, a cluster analysis led to the extrapolation of 4 groups of keywords, each of them interpreted as the marker of a topic active within the literature. Secondly, a factorial analysis was carried out in order to picture the thematic orientation of the most representative Journals, namely the main topics they focus on and how they differ from each other in this respect.
Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader

Preface Acknowledgements An Introduction: Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory 1. Theorising Colonised Cultures and Anti-Colonial Resistance 2. Theorising the West: Theorising Gender 3. Theorising Post-Coloniality: Intellectuals and Institutions 4. Theorising Post-Coloniality: Discourse and Identity 5. Reading from Theory Bibliography
Çok Uyaranlı Eğitim Ortamlarının Öğrencilerin Kavram Gelişimine Etkisi

In this study it was searched whether multi stimuli educational environment has an impact on concept development of students or not. This empirical research, in essence, was carried out with two groups. In the experiment group, ten different lesson plans in which multi stimuli educational environment was used as basic means were carried out throughout the term. In the control group, education was implemented in the traditional form. Data were obtained through multiple choice “concept development test” which measures “concept development test” worked up by the researchers on “knowledge”, “comprehension”, “application”, levels. “Concept development test” was given to both the experiment and control groups at the beginning, at the end and three weeks after it was completed. The analysis of the data obtained, revealed an important difference in favor of the experiment group and hypothesis of the research was confirmed. As a conclusion, it has been determined that multi stimuli educational environments carried out in Turkish lessons in primary education are more effective than current approach, in concept development and its retention.
Receptive Field and Feature Map Formation in the Primary Visual Cortex via Hebbian Learning with Inhibitory Feedback

A linear neural network is proposed for mamalian vision system in which backward connections from the primary visual cortex (V1) to the lateral geniculate nucleus play a key role. The backward connections control the flow of information from the LGN to V1 in such a way as to maximize the rate of transfer of information from the LGN to V1. The application of hebbian learning to the forward and backward connections causes the formation of receptive fields which are sensitive to edges, bars, and spatial frequencies of preferred orientations. Receptive field types in V1 are shown to depend on the density of the afferent connections in the LGN. Orientational preferences are organized in the primary visual cortex by the application of lateral interactions during the learning phase. Change in the size of the eye between the immature and mature animal is shown be an important factor in the development of V1 organization. The orgainization of the mature network is compared to that found in the macaque monkey by several analytical tests.
Impact of genetic variants of CD14 and TLR4 on subgingival periodontopathogens

CD14 and toll‐like receptor 4 (TLR4) are involved in host's immune response to bacterial pathogens including periodontal bacteria. Functional important gene polymorphisms are described for both genes. The aim of this study was to evaluate links between genetic polymorphisms of CD14 and TLR4 and risk markers of periodontitis in a multivariate model. One hundred and thirty‐three periodontitis patients (chronic: n = 60, aggressive: n = 73) and 80 healthy controls without periodontitis were included in the study. Polymorphisms in CD14 c. –159C>T and in TLR4 Asp299Gly, Thr399Ile were determined by restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses. The clinical investigation included smoking status, plaque and bleeding indexes, pocket depth and attachment loss. Subgingival bacterial colonization was analysed molecularbiologically using the micro‐Ident®test. Prevotella intermedia occurred less frequently in individuals positive for the TT genotype of CD14 in bivariate analysis (odds ratio = 0.36%, confidence interval: 0.14–0.91, P = 0.045). In binary logistic regression analyses, the occurrence of this bacterium was significantly decreased in TT carriers (odds ratio = 0.31%, confidence interval: 0.81–0.12, P = 0.017) considering age, smoking and maximum clinical attachment loss at microbial test site as confounding factors. However, no significant association with chronic and or aggressive periodontitis and polymorphisms in CD14 and TLR4 could be proven. Although the CD14 c. –159C>T polymorphism could be shown to be associated with subgingival colonization with P. intermedia, there is no evidence that CD14 and TLR4 polymorphisms investigated are independent risk factors for chronic or aggressive periodontitis in German periodontitis patients.
A High-Performance Single-Phase Bridgeless Interleaved PFC Converter for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Battery Chargers

In this paper, a new front end ac-dc bridgeless interleaved power factor correction topology is proposed for level II plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) battery charging. The topology can achieve high efficiency, which is critical for minimizing the charger size, PHEV charging time and the amount and cost of electricity drawn from the utility. In addition, a detailed analytical model for this topology is presented, enabling the calculation of the converter power losses and efficiency. Experimental and simulation results are included for a prototype boost converter converting universal ac input voltage (85-265 V) to 400 V dc output at up to 3.4 kW load. The experimental results demonstrate a power factor greater than 0.99 from 750 W to 3.4 kW, THD less than 5% from half load to full load and a peak efficiency of 98.9% at 70 kHz switching frequency, 265 V input and 1.2 kW load.
The role of aromaticity, exposed surface, and dipole moment in determining protein aggregation rates

The mechanisms by which peptides and proteins form ordered aggregates are not well understood. Here we focus on the physicochemical properties of amino acids that favor ordered aggregation and suggest a parameter‐free model that is able to predict the change of aggregation rates over a large set of natural sequences. Furthermore, the results of the parameter‐free model correlate well with the aggregation propensities of a set of peptides designed by computer simulations.
Ciliate Epibionts Associated with Crustacean Zooplankton in German Lakes: Distribution, Motility, and Bacterivory

Ciliate epibionts associated with crustacean zooplankton are widespread in aquatic systems, but their ecological roles are little known. We studied the occurrence of ciliate epibionts on crustacean zooplankton in nine German lakes with different limnological features during the summer of 2011. We also measured the detachment and re-attachment rates of the ciliates, changes in their motility, and the feeding rates of attached vs. detached ciliate epibionts. Epibionts were found in all lakes sampled except an acidic lake with large humic inputs. Epibiont prevalence was as high as 80.96% on the cladoceran Daphnia cucullata, 67.17% on the cladoceran Diaphanosoma brachyurum, and 46.67% on the calanoid copepod Eudiaptomus gracilis. Both cladoceran groups typically had less than 10 epibionts per individual, while the epibiont load on E. gracilis ranged from 1 to >30 epibionts per individual. After the death of the zooplankton host, the peritrich ciliate epibiont Epistylis sp. detached in an exponential fashion with a half-life of 5 min, and 98% detached within 30 min, leaving behind the stalks used for attachment. Immediately after detachment, the ciliates were immotile, but 62% became motile within 60 min. When a new host was present, only 27% reattached after 120 min. The average measured ingestion rate and clearance rate of Epistylis were 11,745 bacteria ciliate−1 h−1 and 24.33 μl ciliate−1 h−1, respectively. Despite their high feeding rates, relatively low epibiont abundances were observed in the field, which suggests either diversion of energy to stalk formation, high metabolic loss by the epibionts, or high mortality among the epibiont populations.
The Diphthongs: The Obstacles for Indonesian Speakers of English

Article investigated the difficulties of Indonesian speaker of English in producing diphthongs /e ɪ / and /o ʊ /. Five postgraduate students and five spouses of students at University of Canberra participated in this study. The participants were recorded in pronouncing /e ɪ / and /o ʊ / by reading lists of words and a story. The data were analysed by two Australian native speakers. Interrater reliability was calculated by using Cohen’s Kappa. The percentage was used to see the accurate diphthong realisations. The results showed that diphthong /o ʊ / was relatively more problematic than diphthong/e ɪ / and the students produced more diphthongs accurately than the spouses. The results also revealed that the ability to produce the diphthongs accurately was influenced by English proficiency and the type of tasks where diphthongs were pronounced.