Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mental travel into the past: differentiating recollections of nostalgic, ordinary, and positive events

This research examined construal differences evoked by mental travel to nostalgic, ordinary, or positive autobiographical events. According to the Construal Level Theory, psychologically distant events are construed with abstract terms, proximal events with concrete terms. We argue that nostalgic recollections are characterized by a unique construal pattern. Nostalgia refers to unusual and meaningful memories that are preserved, if not idealized, across time. As such, nostalgic events involve psychological distance and will be construed with abstract terms. Secondarily, they will also be construed with concrete terms as they reflect relevance to the present or psychological proximity. Two experiments confirmed the hypotheses. The experiments compared narratives of nostalgic, ordinary, and positive recollections, as well as distance of pertinent events in time and location. Recollections of nostalgic (compared with ordinary) events included a greater number of abstract terms and higher-level construal while entailing concrete elements linking past to present. The experiments also identified unique consequences of nostalgic recollections in terms of affect, including a sense of authenticity.
The (be)comings and goings of ‘developmental disabilities’: the cultural politics of ‘impairment’

Disability should be a concern for those interested in analysing and subverting the cultural politics of education. In this paper we address this concern through connecting critical analyses of ‘developmental disabilities’ (formerly ‘mental retardation’), disability studies and poststructuralism. We target normative constructions of ‘developmental disabilities’ – and we propose alternative dynamic possibilities – through reference to narratives from our political and personal work with people with the label of ‘developmental disabilities’. Our aim is to unveil the ways in which we might understand the cultural formations of ‘impairment’ – as they relate to ‘developmental disabilities’ – in order to propel scholars, activists and practitioners towards a cultural politics of inclusion. First, we summarise some key debates from disability studies that have engaged with ‘impairment’: social model, relational and psychosocial models. We suggest that these debates benefit from a more grounded engagement with poststructuralist ideas. Second, we bring in the work of the poststructuralist thinkers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and the poststructuralist feminist Rosi Braidotti to tackle the social, historical, cultural and political conditions of ‘developmental disabilities’ through experimentation with rhizomes and nomads. In conclusion, we appeal for the development of a cultural politics of ‘impairment’ and ‘developmental disabilities’ that draws upon a vocabulary applicable to the post-modern subject of the contemporary world: as uncertain, productive and moveable.
3 P 2 − 3 F 2 pairing in neutron matter with modern nucleon-nucleon potentials

We present results for the $^3P_2 - ^3F_2$ pairing gap in neutron matter with several realistic nucleon-nucleon potentials, in particular with recent, phase-shift equivalent potentials. We find that their predictions for the gap cannot be trusted at densities above $\rho\approx 1.7\rho_0$, where $\rho_0$ is the saturation density for symmetric nuclear matter. In order to make predictions above that density, potential models which fit the nucleon-nucleon phase shifts up to about 1 GeV are required.
Proteomic Analysis of Frankliniella occidentalis and Differentially Expressed Proteins in Response to Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus Infection

ABSTRACT Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) is transmitted by Frankliniella occidentalis in a persistent propagative manner. Despite the extensive replication of TSWV in midgut and salivary glands, there is little to no pathogenic effect on F. occidentalis. We hypothesize that the first-instar larva (L1) of F. occidentalis mounts a response to TSWV that protects it from pathogenic effects caused by virus infection and replication in various insect tissues. A partial thrips transcriptome was generated using 454-Titanium sequencing of cDNA generated from F. occidentalis exposed to TSWV. Using these sequences, the L1 thrips proteome that resolved on a two-dimensional gel was characterized. Forty-seven percent of the resolved protein spots were identified using the thrips transcriptome. Real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) analysis of virus titer in L1 thrips revealed a significant increase in the normalized abundance of TSWV nucleocapsid RNA from 2 to 21 h after a 3-h acquisition access period on virus-infected plant tissue, indicative of infection and accumulation of virus. We compared the proteomes of infected and noninfected L1s to identify proteins that display differential abundances in response to virus. Using four biological replicates, 26 spots containing 37 proteins were significantly altered in response to TSWV. Gene ontology assignments for 32 of these proteins revealed biological roles associated with the infection cycle of other plant- and animal-infecting viruses and antiviral defense responses. Our findings support the hypothesis that L1 thrips display a complex reaction to TSWV infection and provide new insights toward unraveling the molecular basis of this interaction.
AMOS: comparison of scan matching approaches for self-localization in indoor environments

This paper describes results from evaluating different self-localization approaches in indoor environments for mobile robots. The algorithms examined are based on 2D laser scans and an odometry position estimate and do not need any modifications in the environment. An important requirement for the self-localization is the ability to cope with office-like environments as well as with environments without orthogonal and rectilinear walls. Furthermore, the approaches have to be robust enough to cope with slight modifications in the daily environment and should be fast enough to be used online on board of the robot system. To fulfil these requirements we made some extensions to the existing approaches and combined them in a suitable manner. Real world experiments with our robot within the everyday environment of our institute show that the position error can be kept small enough to perform navigation tasks.
Hyponatraemia in Hip Fracture Patients

We performed a retrospective review of hyponatraemia in patients with hip fractures, before and after surgery. All patients admitted with fractures of the neck of femur who had a surgical intervention to deal with the fracture were included. Results were determined using two definitions for hyponatraemia. The incidence of preoperative and post-operative hyponatraemia were both 2.8% if hyponatraemia was defined as [Na]<130mmol/l. No cases of hyponatraemia were found pre-operatively when hyponatraemia was defined as [Na]<125mmol/l. Using this definition the post operative incidence of hyponatraemia was 0.93%. The incidence of hyponatraemia in this group of patients is small. However the potentially severe affects of hyponatraemia warrant close monitoring of these patients and the establishment of methods to prevent this problem from occurring.
Gli Regulates MUC5AC Transcription in Human Gastrointestinal Cells

MUC5AC is a well-known gastric differentiation marker, which has been frequently used for the classification of stomach cancer. Immunohistochemistry revealed that expression of MUC5AC decreases accompanied with increased malignant property of gastric mucosa, which further suggests the importance of MUC5AC gene regulation. Alignment of the 5′-flanking regions of MUC5AC gene of 13 mammal species denoted high homology within 200 bp upstream of the coding region. Luciferase activities of the deletion constructs containing upstream 451 bp or shorter fragments demonstrated that 15 bp region between −111 and −125 bp plays a critical role on MUC5AC promoter activity in gastrointestinal cells. We found a putative Gli-binding site in this 15 bp sequence, and named this region a highly conserved region containing a Gli-binding site (HCR-Gli). Overexpression of Gli homologs (Gli1, Gli2, and Gli3) clearly enhanced MUC5AC promoter activity. Exogenous modulation of Gli1 and Gli2 also affected the endogenous MUC5AC gene expression in gastrointestinal cells. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays demonstrated that Gli1 directly binds to HCR-Gli: Gli regulates MUC5AC transcription via direct protein-DNA interaction. Conversely, in the 30 human cancer cell lines and various normal tissues, expression patterns of MUC5AC and Gli did not coincide wholly: MUC5AC showed cell line-specific or tissue-specific expression whereas Gli mostly revealed ubiquitous expression. Luciferase promoter assays suggested that the far distal MUC5AC promoter region containing upstream 4010 bp seems to have several enhancer elements for gene transcription. In addition, treatments with DNA demethylation reagent and/or histone deacetylase inhibitor induced MUC5AC expression in several cell lines that were deficient in MUC5AC expression. These results indicated that Gli is necessary but not sufficient for MUC5AC expression: namely, the multiple regulatory mechanisms should work in the distal promoter region of MUC5AC gene.
THE FOURTH ESTATE AS SUPERPOWER?

The power of the media has long been at the centre of communication studies, mostly focusing on the effects they have on the public. Power over politics is far less studied, however many politicians complain about such media power after a lost election or when observing political cynicism among the public. In this paper, the results of a survey on politicians and journalists in Belgium and the Netherlands are presented, showing the perceptions of power they have about each other. The general picture is that in both countries, members of parliament have a negative image of political journalists, especially those who work on television: they have too much power, can make or break politicians and (too) often set the political agenda. Sometimes journalists share this view, but they accompany it with a rather negative view of politicians: they do anything to get attention from the media. Although often referred to as “the Low countries”, Belgium and the Netherlands do not reveal the same picture, with Belgian politicians generally more negative about journalists’ power than their Dutch colleagues.
Expression and regulation of scavenger receptor class B type I (SR-BI) in gall bladder epithelium

Background and aims: Biliary lipid absorption by the gall bladder mucosa and the cholesterol content of the gall bladder wall appear to play a role in cholesterol gall stone formation. As the scavenger receptor class B type I (SR- BI) regulates cellular cholesterol uptake, we studied its expression in human and murine gall bladders, its regulation by increased biliary lipid content, and its role in gall stone formation. Methods and results: Using immunohistochemistry, SR-BI was found in the apical domain of human gall bladder epithelial cells. Immunoblotting of isolated membranes from gall bladder epithelial cells showed a specific signal for the 82 kDa SR-BI protein. In C57BL/6 mice, SR-BI was also found in the gall bladder epithelium. Using western blot analysis, an inverse relationship was observed between biliary cholesterol concentration and SR-BI expression in murine gall bladder mucosa. By comparing lithogenic diet fed wild-type and SR-BI deficient mice, gall bladder wall cholesterol content and gall stone formation were not found to be dependent on SR-BI expression. Conclusions: (i) SR-BI is expressed in both human and murine gall bladder epithelium; (ii) biliary cholesterol hypersecretion is associated with decreased gall bladder SR-BI expression in mice; and (iii) murine SR-BI is not essential in controlling gall bladder wall cholesterol content and gall stone formation during diet induced cholelithiasis.
Three-dimensional stereotactic surface projection analysis of macaque brain PET: development and initial applications.

UNLABELLED To characterize better the local brain functions of conscious rhesus macaques, we developed automated image analysis techniques for monkey PET images, examined the cerebral glucose metabolism of monkeys, and compared it with that of humans. METHODS Glucose metabolic PET images from 11 monkeys were obtained using a high-resolution animal PET scanner after intravenous administration of FDG. T1-weighted MR images were obtained from 6 of the monkeys. Referencing a bicommissural stereotactic macaque brain atlas, we created a PET brain template using coregistered MR images. Each individual PET image set was transformed to the PET template through an automated affine transformation, followed by nonlinear warping along the directions of the major neuronal fiber bundles in the brain. For minimization of residual anatomic variability, metabolic activities were extracted using 3-dimensional stereotactic surface projections. The effects of anatomic standardization were evaluated using MR images. Patterns of cerebral glucose metabolism of young versus aged monkeys were examined. The metabolic activities of aged monkeys were compared with those of elderly healthy human volunteers that had been analyzed similarly. RESULTS Anatomic standardization reduced individuals' anatomic variability as evidenced by a reduction in the number of MR pixels with higher SDs calculated across monkeys. Coefficient-of-variation maps of conscious monkeys revealed that the greatest metabolic variances were near the central sulci and occipital cortices. Age-associated glucose metabolic reductions were most pronounced in the occipital lobe, caudate nucleus, and temporal lobe. Compared with human brains, the monkey frontal lobe and posterior cingulate gyrus had significantly less metabolic activity and the supramarginal gyrus and vermis had significantly more metabolic activity. CONCLUSION The proposed method permits pixel-by-pixel characterization of the metabolic activities of rhesus macaque brains in the stereotactic coordinate system. Greater metabolic variances in the central sulcus region and occipital lobe suggest potential difficulties in controlling sensory input and motor output or planning in conscious monkey experiments. The analyses revealed age-related metabolic reductions in monkeys and marked differences in metabolic patterns between aged monkey brains and aged human brains. The proposed brain-mapping technique enables reproducible and observer-independent analyses and will serve as an important investigative tool for primate brain imaging research.
No evidence of an MHC‐based female mating preference in great reed warblers

Female mate‐choice based on genetic compatibility is an area of growing interest. The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes are likely candidates for such mate‐choice since these highly polymorphic genes may both increase offspring viability and also provide direct cues for mate‐choice. In great reed warblers, females actively choose a breeding partner out of a handful of males that they visit and evaluate; thus, female preference for compatible or heterozygous MHC genes could have evolved. Here, I investigate whether great reed warbler females preferentially mate with males with dissimilar MHC class I alleles or with males that are heterozygous at MHC class I. Despite favourable conditions, a thorough screening method and a large sample size, there was no evidence of an MHC‐based female mating preference based on either genetic compatibility or heterozygosity in this population. Power analyses of the data sets revealed that relatively small differences (15% and 8%, respectively) between true and random pairs should have been detected.
Coding of Event Nodes and Narrative Context in the Hippocampus

Narratives may provide a general context, unrestricted by space and time, which can be used to organize episodic memories into networks of related events. However, it is not clear how narrative contexts are represented in the brain. Here we test the novel hypothesis that the formation of narrative-based contextual representations in humans relies on the same hippocampal mechanisms that enable formation of spatiotemporal contexts in rodents. Participants watched a movie consisting of two interleaved narratives while we monitored their brain activity using fMRI. We used representational similarity analysis, a type of multivariate pattern analysis, which uses across-voxel correlations as a proxy for neural-pattern similarity, to examine whether the patterns of neural activity can be used to differentiate between narratives and recurring narrative elements, such as people and locations. We demonstrate that the neural activity patterns in the hippocampus differentiate between event nodes (people and locations) and narratives (different stories) and that these narrative-context representations diverge gradually over time akin to remapping-induced spatial maps represented by rodent place cells. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Narratives, especially in movie format, are very engaging and can be used to investigate neural mechanisms underlying cognitive functions in more naturalistic settings than that of traditional paradigms. Narratives also provide a more general context, unrestricted by space and time, that can be used to organize memories into networks of related events. For this reason, narratives are ideally suited to engage neural mechanisms underlying episodic memory formation. In this study, participants watched a movie with two interleaved narratives while their brain activity was monitored using fMRI. We show that the hippocampus, which is involved in formation of spatiotemporal contexts in episodic memory, also represents gradually diverging narrative contexts as well as narrative elements, such as people and locations.
A atividade de alunos do 9.º ano com tarefas de modelação no estudo de funções

A natureza das tarefas determina a dinâmica das atividades da sala de aula. Entre a tipologia de tarefas, as caracteristicas das de modelacao proporcionam aos alunos a oportunidade de se envolverem na construcao do conhecimento matematico. Partindo deste pressuposto, pretende-se caracterizar a atividade que os alunos do 9.o ano de escolaridade realizam com tarefas de modelacao, com recurso a calculadora grafica e a sensores, no estudo de funcoes e as dificuldades que revelam nessas atividades. Trata-se de um estudo qualitativo de natureza interpretativa que recolheu a informacao atraves da gravacao de aulas, da analise de producoes dos alunos e de um questionario. Os resultados mostram que os alunos realizam uma diversidade de atividades com tarefas de modelacao, tais como interpretacao das situacoes dadas, recolha de dados e sua organizacao em tabelas, traducao da informacao desses dados atraves de graficos e de expressoes analiticas. Nestas atividades emerge algumas dificuldades, tais como distinguir a variavel dependente da independente, utilizar escalas na subdivisao dos eixos cartesianos, restringir o dominio que contextualiza as situacoes dadas, encontrar o melhor modelo que se ajuste a situacao dada e em distinguir os conceitos de proporcionalidade direta e inversa.
A worm's best friend: recruitment of neutrophils by Wolbachia confounds eosinophil degranulation against the filarial nematode Onchocerca ochengi

Onchocerca ochengi, a filarial parasite of cattle, represents the closest relative of the human pathogen, Onchocerca volvulus. Both species harbour Wolbachia endosymbionts and are remarkable in that adult female worms remain viable but sessile for many years while surrounded by host cells and antibodies. The basis of the symbiosis between filariae and Wolbachia is thought to be metabolic, although a role for Wolbachia in immune evasion has received little attention. Neutrophils are attracted to Wolbachia, but following antibiotic chemotherapy they are replaced by eosinophils that degranulate on the worm cuticle. However, it is unclear whether the eosinophils are involved in parasite killing or if they are attracted secondarily to dying worms. In this study, cattle infected with Onchocerca ochengi received adulticidal regimens of oxytetracycline or melarsomine. In contrast to oxytetracycline, melarsomine did not directly affect Wolbachia viability. Eosinophil degranulation increased significantly only in the oxytetracycline group; whereas nodular gene expression of bovine neutrophilic chemokines was lowest in this group. Moreover, intense eosinophil degranulation was initially associated with worm vitality, not degeneration. Taken together, these data offer strong support for the hypothesis that Wolbachia confers longevity on O. ochengi through a defensive mutualism, which diverts a potentially lethal effector cell response.
Protein kinase C theta is required for efficient induction of IL-10-secreting T cells

Secretion of interleukin-10 (IL-10) by CD4+ T cells is an essential immunoregulatory mechanism. The work presented here assesses the role of the signaling molecule protein kinase C theta (PKCθ) in the induction of IL-10 expression in CD4+ T cells. Using wildtype and PKCθ-deficient Tg4 T cell receptor transgenic mice, we implemented a well-described protocol of repeated doses of myelin basic protein (MBP)Ac1-9[4Y] antigen to induce Tr1-like IL-10+ T cells. We find that PKCθ is required for the efficient induction of IL-10 following antigen administration. Both serum concentrations of IL-10 and the proportion of IL-10+ T cells were reduced in PKCθ-deficient mice relative to wildtype mice following [4Y] treatment. We further characterized the T cells of [4Y] treated PKCθ-deficient Tg4 mice and found reduced expression of the transcription factors cMaf, Nfil3 and FoxP3 and the surface receptors PD-1 and Tim3, all of which have been associated with the differentiation or function of IL-10+ T cells. Finally, we demonstrated that, unlike [4Y] treated wildtype Tg4 T cells, cells from PKCθ-deficient mice were unable to suppress the priming of naïve T cells in vitro and in vivo. In summary, we present data demonstrating a role for PKCθ in the induction of suppressive, IL-10-secreting T cells induced in TCR-transgenic mice following chronic antigen administration. This should be considered when contemplating PKCθ as a suitable drug target for inducing immune suppression and graft tolerance.
Glucocorticoids Significantly Influence the Transcriptome of Bone Microvascular Endothelial Cells of Human Femoral Head

Background: Appropriate expression and regulation of the transcriptome, which mainly comprise of mRNAs and lncRNAs, are important for all biological and cellular processes including the physiological activities of bone microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs). Through an intricate intracellular signaling systems, the transcriptome regulates the pharmacological response of the cells. Although studies have elucidated the impact of glucocorticoids (GCs) cell-specific gene expression signatures, it remains necessary to comprehensively characterize the impact of lncRNAs to transcriptional changes. Methods: BMECs were divided into two groups. One was treated with GCs and the other left untreated as a paired control. Differential expression was analyzed with GeneSpring software V12.0 (Agilent, Santa Clara, CA, USA) and hierarchical clustering was conducted using Cluster 3.0 software. The Gene Ontology (GO) analysis was performed with Molecular Annotation System provided by CapitalBio Corporation. Results: Our results highlight the involvement of genes implicated in development, differentiation and apoptosis following GC stimulation. Elucidation of differential gene expression emphasizes the importance of regulatory gene networks induced by GCs. We identified 73 up-regulated and 166 down-regulated long noncoding RNAs, the expression of 107 of which significantly correlated with 172 mRNAs induced by hydrocortisone. Conclusions: Transcriptome analysis of BMECs from human samples was performed to identify specific gene networks induced by GCs. Our results identified complex RNA crosstalk underlying the pathogenesis of steroid-induced necrosis of femoral head.