Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional responses and molecular mechanisms involved in histone-mediated platelet activation

Summary Histones are highly alkaline proteins found in cell nuclei and they can be released by either dying or inflammatory cells. The recent observations that histones are major components of neutrophil extracellular traps and promote platelet aggregation and platelet-dependent thrombin generation have shown that these proteins are potent prothrombotic molecules. Because the mechanism(s) of platelet activation by histones are not completely understood, we explored the ability of individual recombinant human histones H1, H2A, H2B, H3 and H4 to induce platelet activation as well as the possible molecular mechanisms involved. All histones were substrates for platelet adhesion and spreading and triggered fibrinogen binding, aggregation, von Willebrand factor release, P-selectin and phosphatidylserine (PS) exposure and the formation of platelet-leukocyte aggregates; however, H4 was the most potent. Histone-mediated fibrinogen binding, P-selectin and PS exposure and the formation of mixed aggregates were potentiated by thrombin. Histones induced the activation of ERK, Akt, p38 and NFkB. Accordingly, histone-induced platelet activation was significantly impaired by pretreatment of platelets with inhibitors of ERK (U 0126), PI3K/Akt (Ly 294002), p38 (SB 203580) and NFkB (BAY 11–7082 and Ro 106–9920). Preincubation of platelets with either aspirin or dexamethasone markedly decreased fibrinogen binding and the adhesion mediated by histones without affecting P-selectin exposure. Functional platelet responses induced by H3 and H4, but not H1, H2A and H2B, were partially mediated through interaction with Toll-like receptors –2 and –4. Our data identify histones as important triggers of haemostatic and proinflammatory platelet responses, and only haemostatic responses are partially inhibited by anti-inflammatory drugs.
Whole Page Performance

This paper explores the user-perceived Web performance of downloading entire pages, and how various common Web enhancements impact overall page performance. We use Medusa, a non-caching forwarding proxy, to collect user traces and replay them under various configurations of HTTP request optimizations. These optimizations include parallel and persistent connections, DNS caching, and the use of CDNs. We then use Medusa to characterize whole-page performance and measure the impact of request optimizations on downloading entire Web pages. We find that the most effective optimization is parallel connections. Other optimizations provide incremental benefits due to limited opportunity for use or due to limited benefit of the optimization itself. When there is more opportunity for use, we find that optimizations in the former case provide substantial benefit.
CD43 Is Required for Optimal Growth Inhibition of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Macrophages and in Mice1

We explored the role of macrophage (Mφ) CD43, a transmembrane glycoprotein, in the pathogenesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Using gene-deleted mice (CD43−/−), we assessed the association of the bacterium with distinct populations of Mφ and found that CD43−/− Mφ bound less M. tuberculosis than CD43+/+ Mφ. Increased infective doses did not abrogate this difference. However, reduced association due to the absence of CD43 could be overcome by serum components. Mφ from heterozygote mice, which express 50% of wild-type CD43, bound more bacteria than CD43−/− but less than CD43+/+, proving that the gene dose of CD43 correlates with binding of M. tuberculosis. Furthermore, the reduced ability of CD43−/− Mφ to bind bacteria was restricted to mycobacterial species. We also found that the survival and replication of M. tuberculosis within Mφ was enhanced significantly in the absence of CD43, making this the first demonstration that the mechanism of mycobacterial entry influences its subsequent growth. Most importantly, we show here that the absence of CD43 in mice aerogenically infected with M. tuberculosis results in an increased bacterial load during both the acute and chronic stages of infection and more rapid development of granulomas, with greater lung involvement and distinctive cellularity.
The relationship between visuospatial sketchpad capacity and children's mathematical skills

This study examined the association between visuospatial sketchpad (VSSP) capacity and children's mathematics attainment. The aim of the study was to explore age-related differences in the relationship between the visual and spatial memory subcomponents of the VSSP (Logie, 1995) and a range of mathematical skills. Fifty-one 7- to 8-year-old and fifty-six 9- to 10-year-old primary schoolchildren participated in the study. The Visual Patterns Test and the Block Recall task were employed as VSSP measures. The results revealed a differential pattern of associations between children's visual and spatial working memory abilities and their mathematical skills. In younger children, the Block Recall task predicted mathematics performance, whereas, in the older children, the Visual Patterns Test was a significant predictor of mathematics performance.
Machine Vision and Applications Automatic Segmentation of Adherent Biological Cell Boundaries and Nuclei from Brightfield Microscopy Images

The detection and segmentation of adherent eukaryotic cells from brightfield microscopy images represent challenging tasks in the image analysis field. This paper presents a free and open-source image analysis package which fully automates the tasks of cell detection, cell boundary segmentation, and nucleus segmentation in bright-field images. The package also performs image registration between brightfield and fluorescence images. The algorithms were evaluated on a variety of biological cell lines and compared against manual and fluorescence-based ground truths. When tested on HT1080 and HeLa cells, the cell detection step was able to correctly identify over 80% of cells, whilst the cell boundary segmentation step was able to segment over 75% of the cell body pixels, and the nucleus segmen-tation step was able to correctly identify nuclei in over 75% of the cells. The algorithms for cell detection and nucleus segmentation are novel to the field, whilst the cell boundary segmentation algorithm is contrast-invariant, which makes it more robust on these low-contrast images. Together, this suite of algorithms permit brightfield microscopy image processing without the need for additional fluorescence images. Finally our sephaCe application, which is available at http:// www.sephace. com, provides a novel method for integrating these methods with any motorised microscope, thus facilitating the adoption of these techniques in biological research labs.
Towards accurate measurement of the frequency dependence of capacitance and resistance standards up to 10 MHz

Progress toward an understanding of the frequency dependence of capacitance and resistance standards at frequencies up to 10 MHz is presented. A qualitative comparison is also made for capacitance and dissipation factor measurements between the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) high-frequency four terminal-pair (4TP) bridge and a commercial impedance analyzer for the first time. A set of novel high-frequency calculable coaxial resistance standards, of nominal 100 /spl Omega/ and 1 k/spl Omega/ values, have been developed and their calculated frequency dependence up to 1 MHz is given.
VIP and PACAP 38 Modulate Ibotenate‐Induced Neuronal Heterotopias in the Newborn Hamster Neocortex

Intracerebral administration of ibotenate produces, through activation of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, neuronal heterotopias in the newborn hamster neocortex: high doses of ibotenate induce periventricular and subcortical neuronal heterotopias, while low doses of ibotenate produce intracortical heterotopias and molecular layer ectopias. Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) are closely related peptides with neurotrophic properties. They share common VPAC1 and VPAC2 receptors, which use cAMP as a second messenger. Previous studies have shown that VIP prevents excitotoxic neuronal death and exacerbates glutamate-induced c-fos neuronal expression. In order to gain new insight into the molecular control of neuronal migration, the present study examined the effects of VIP and PACAP on ibotenate-induced heterotopias in the newborn hamster. Co-treatment with VIP and a high dose of ibotenate produced a pattern of neuronal heterotopias similar to the one observed in animals treated with low doses of ibotenate alone. Pups co-injected with a low dose of ibotenate and a VIP antagonist displayed cortical dysgeneses similar to those observed in animals treated with high doses of ibotenate alone. The modulating effects of VIP on excitotoxin-induced heterotopias were mimicked by forskolin, PACAP, and by a specific VPAC2 receptor agonist but not by a VPAC1 agonist, and were blocked by a protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitor. Taken together, these data suggest that VIP and PACAP can attenuate ibotenate-induced heterotopias in newborn hamster and that this effect is mediated by the VPAC2 receptor utilizing the cAMP-PKA pathway.
Striving and Competing and its Relationship to Self-Harm in Young Adults

Previous research has found that competitive, insecure striving (striving to avoid inferiority) has strong links with mood disorders, self-harm, and appearance anxiety. However, with rates of reported self-harm in young people rising, it seems important to explore the link between competitive striving and self-harm in young adults. Ninety participants completed a series of questionnaires which measured striving to avoid inferiority, self-harm, mood, social comparison, goal orientation, and self-ideals. The results indicated that competitive insecure striving was significantly related to self-harm, depression, anxiety, and stress.
Verbal fluency of bidialectal speakers of SMG and the role of language-in-education practices in Cyprus

Whether the use of dialects should be forbidden in formal education and whether standard languages should be imposed upon users of nonstandard languages or dialects has been discussed for many years. Views on the matter are diverse and the debate continues. The present study describes, presents and discusses the language practices in primary education and attempts to ascertain the degree of influence of various factors that may have a bearing on the expressive skills of the users' standard form.
An accumulator model for spontaneous neural activity prior to self-initiated movement

A gradual buildup of neuronal activity known as the “readiness potential” reliably precedes voluntary self-initiated movements, in the average time locked to movement onset. This buildup is presumed to reflect the final stages of planning and preparation for movement. Here we present a different interpretation of the premovement buildup. We used a leaky stochastic accumulator to model the neural decision of “when” to move in a task where there is no specific temporal cue, but only a general imperative to produce a movement after an unspecified delay on the order of several seconds. According to our model, when the imperative to produce a movement is weak, the precise moment at which the decision threshold is crossed leading to movement is largely determined by spontaneous subthreshold fluctuations in neuronal activity. Time locking to movement onset ensures that these fluctuations appear in the average as a gradual exponential-looking increase in neuronal activity. Our model accounts for the behavioral and electroencephalography data recorded from human subjects performing the task and also makes a specific prediction that we confirmed in a second electroencephalography experiment: Fast responses to temporally unpredictable interruptions should be preceded by a slow negative-going voltage deflection beginning well before the interruption itself, even when the subject was not preparing to move at that particular moment.
Immune activation and degradation of tryptophan in coronary heart disease

Background Inflammation and immune activation appear to be important in the pathogenesis of coronary heart disease (CHD). Cytokine interferon‐γ, which is released during cell‐mediated immune responses, induces indoleamine (2,3)‐dioxygenase (IDO), an enzyme degrading tryptophan to kynurenine. Therefore, immune stimulation is commonly associated with an increased kynurenine to tryptophan ratio (kyn trp−1) indicative for activated indoleamine (2,3)‐dioxygenase and a measurable decline of tryptophan.
Individual Motivations, The Group Process and Organisational Strategies in Suicide Terrorism

ABSTRACT The phenomenon of suicidal terrorism is analysed here on three levels. The individual level considers the motivations, developmental phases, and temperamental predispositions that may foster the readiness to embark on suicidal missions. The group level considers the social influence processes, the construction of shared realities and the ideological value systems these contain. Finally, the organisational level considers the strategic and tactical aspects of launching suicidal terrorism in terms of a means–end analysis. It is suggested that all three levels of analysis contribute insights into the phenomenon of suicidal terrorism and imply ways of addressing it.
Contingency and Action: A Comparison of Two Forms of Requesting

In this article, we explore the syntactic forms speakers use when making requests. An initial investigation of ordinary telephone calls between family and friends and out-of-hours calls to the doctor showed a difference in the distribution of modal verbs (e.g., Can you …), and requests prefaced by I wonder if. Modals are most common in ordinary conversation, whereas I wonder if … is most frequent in requests made to the doctor. This distributional difference seemed to be supported by calls from private homes to service organizations in which speakers also formatted requests as I wonder if. Further investigation of these and other corpora suggests that this distributional pattern is related not so much with the sociolinguistic speech setting but rather with speakers' orientations to known or anticipated contingencies associated with their request. The request forms speakers select embody, or display, their understandings of the contingencies associated with the recipient's ability to grant the request.
Selection for the Science Foundation Programme (University of Natal): the development of a selection instrument

The Science Foundation Programme (SFP) is a one-year access programme to the Faculty of Science and Agriculture at the University of Natal (Pietermaritzburg). It was launched in 1991 and has grown from a programme for 31 students to the current programme with 280 students. One of the means used for selection was the Joint Selection Programme for Science and Applied Science (JSPSAS). An evaluation of this selection procedure, however, indicated a low correlation with student performance during their SFP year. For the year 2000, this procedure was abandoned and selection was made on the basis of Senior certificate results. For the 2001 cohort a new selection test, developed by SFP staff, was piloted. Whereas the previous selection procedure aimed at assessing for learning potential, a number of shifts were made in the test piloted in 2001. The test consisted of Mathematics, General Science and English subtests. The Mathematics test was designed to assess for minimum proficiency. The Science test consisted of items aimed at testing basic reasoning, synthesis and logical deductions not dependent on prior school content knowledge; and the English subtest was designed to assess for basic comprehension, grammar and syntax. For selection, a combination of the selection test and Senior certificate results was used. The students were tracked throughout their SFP year in 2001 and correlations between the selection test results and the June and November SFP examinations were monitored. Preliminary investigations of the correlations indicated that this selection procedure resulted in a group of students with a higher success rate than previous years. This article will describe the assessment of the pilot selection procedure's relative value in predicting student performance during the SFP year. SAJHE Vol.18(1) 2004: 265-272
Depression symptoms in help-seeking adolescents: A comparison between adolescents at-risk for psychosis and other help-seekers

Background Depression and psychosis are severe diseases with onset in adolescence. Aims The aim of this study was to investigate the association between an at-risk status of psychosis and depression symptoms in adolescents. Method The data were collected by an early intervention team in Finland. The PROD screen was used to assess the risk of psychosis, and Beck Depression Inventory-II was used as a measurement to assess the level of depression symptoms. Of 203 help-seeking respondents, 66 were classified as at-risk for psychosis, and 137 respondents were other help-seekers. The mean age of the subjects was 15.3 years. Results Subjects at-risk had significantly poorer scores in total scores for depression (p < 0.001), and in an item-by-item analysis, the subjects at-risk had poorer scores for sadness (p < 0.001), past failure (p = 0.001), suicidal thoughts (p < 0.001), crying (p = 0.002), agitation (p = 0.001), loss of energy (p = 0.002) and concentration difficulty (p < 0.001). In a logistic regression analysis of items that differed by risk status for psychosis, item of concentration difficulty (p = 0.038) explained the at-risk status after adjustment for sex. Conclusions The present results suggest that subjects that are at-risk for psychosis have more depression symptoms than other help-seekers. This should be considered in the psychiatric care of adolescents.
Unpacking Open Innovation: Absorptive Capacity, Exploratory and Exploitative Openness, and the Growth of Entrepreneurial Biopharmaceutical Firms

In this article, we explore the relationship between two key aspects of open innovation in small firms—absorptive capacity (ACAP) and external relationships—and their effects on growth in the U.S. and European biopharmaceutical sectors. Results from an international sample of 349 biopharmaceutical firms surveyed in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany suggest that realized ACAP plays an important role in determining firms’ growth. In terms of the interaction between firms’ ACAP and external relationships, we find that engagement with exploratory relationships depends strongly on the continuity of R&D, while participation in exploitative relationships is more conditional on firms’ realized ACAP.
Official language bilingualism to the exclusion of multilingualism: immigrant student perspectives on French as a second official language in ‘English-dominant’ Canada

This study explores the implications of Canada's official bilingual status on young immigrant adults who are presently studying at the undergraduate level at university. More precisely, I examine how these young adults have experienced and judge French as a second official language (FSOL) learning in ‘English-dominant’ regions of Canada. Through a questionnaire and interviews, the participants reveal that they invest in FSOL with the goal of adding French to their multilingual repertoire that includes English primarily in hopes of future economic gain. Examining the data through the lens of investment, I posit that access to FSOL as an investment and conversion of the investment into economic gain is mitigated by unequal positions of power that highlight Canada's emphasis on official language bilingualism to the practical exclusion of multilingualism. I suggest that means to change unequal practices may lie in the bi-directionality of relations between education and society and propose that rather than having language education in Canada reflect the official discourse, that education be used as a means to influence the discourse and practice thereof to be more inclusive of all languages.
INTEGRATION AND REGULATION MATTERS IN EDUCATIONAL TRANSITION: A THEORETICAL CRITIQUE OF RETENTION AND ATTRITION MODELS

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the appropriateness of models developed to understand why students do or do not complete their courses in higher education. It is suggested that emphasising integration above regulation has taken attention away from a possible anomic interpretation. A more contextualised, nuanced and psychosocial approach to understanding student participation and retention is needed to address difficulties and inequalities in the transition to higher education.
In Defence of Nationality

ABSTRACT The principle of nationality is widely believed to be philosophically disreputable and politically reactionary. As defined here, it embraces three propositions: national identities are properly part of personal identities; they ground circumscribed obligations to fellow-nationals; and they justify claims to political self-determination. To have a national identity is to think of oneself as belonging to a community constituted by mutual belief, extended in history, active in character, connected to a particular territory, and marked off from others by its members’distinct traits. Such identities are inevitably partly mythical in nature, yet they answer a pressing modern need, the maintenance of solidarity in large, anonymous societies. They are allied to no particular political programme. They do not require the suppression of minority cultures within the political community. They do not justify a secessionist free-for-all. Nor finally does recognition of the role of sentiments in constituting national communities commit us to a subjectivist view of social obligations. Philosophers should recognise the value of these loyalties even if they cannot be rationally grounded in a strong sense. [1]
The arts as an instrument? Notes on the controversy surrounding the value of art

In the last decade of the twentieth century a shift occurred in the way western governments defended their cultural policies. New, instrumental arguments were put forward. This collided with the way the arts had learned to see themselves in the twentieth century: autonomous, with a value of their own. This article elaborates this confrontation of the arts and policy in two ways. First, it is shown that the distinction between an instrumental and an intrinsic value of the arts originates in a misperception of recent history. It was the political constellation of the Cold War that made governments in the second half of the twentieth century support the arts to be free and independent. Next, an attempt is made to anchor the value of art in a unique kind of instrumentality. With the help of philosophers and historians of culture, it is argued that the arts should be considered instruments of experience.