Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Steady Versus Oscillating Flow on Porcine Coronary Arterioles: Involvement of NO and Superoxide Anion

Abstract— Coronary blood vessels are compressed by the contracting myocardium. This leads to oscillations in flow in especially the subendocardium. We examined the effects of steady and oscillating flow on isolated, cannulated subendocardial and subepicardial porcine arterioles. Steady flow–induced dilation in both vessel types, up to 12.9±0.8% of the passive diameter in subendocardials and 9.6±1.4% in subepicardials at 40 dyne/cm2. Dilation was completely abolished after treatment with 10 &mgr;mol/L L-NNA. Sinusoidal modulation of steady flow at 1.5 Hz and 50% to 200% amplitude did not affect dilation. Oscillating flow without a net forward component with peak-peak shear values up to 100 dyne/cm2 caused no dilation at all in these vessels. However, in the presence of 100 U/mL superoxide dismutase (SOD), oscillating flow induced dilation up to 19.5±2.3% in subendocardial vessels and 11.5±4.3% in subepicardials. LNNA (10 &mgr;mol/L) blocked this dilation by approximately 50%. SOD did not affect the magnitude of steady flow-induced dilation, but the response time after onset of steady flow shortened from 23.4±1.5 to 14.3±2.1 seconds. Diphenyleneiodinium, an inhibitor of NAD(P)H oxidase, uncovered dilation to oscillating flow in subendocardial vessels up to 9.5±1.6%. Flow causes production of both NO and O2−. During steady flow, the bioavailability of NO is sufficient to cause vasodilation. During oscillating flow, NO is quenched by the O2−, suppressing vasodilation. Considering the pulsatile nature of subendocardial flow and the vulnerability of this layer, pharmacological manipulation of the balance between NO and O2− may improve subendocardial perfusion.
Absence of interferon-gamma release assay conversion following tuberculin skin testing.

BACKGROUND The tuberculin skin test (TST) has been the established screening method for tuberculosis (TB) for over a century. Interferon-gamma release assays (IGRAs) using Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific antigens are increasingly used as diagnostic tests for TB. Tuberculin comprises multiple antigens, including the antigens used in the QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT-GIT) assay. Exposure to these antigens by means of a TST may prime an immune response that leads to a false-positive result in a subsequent IGRA, limiting the validity of IGRAs in patients in whom these tests are performed sequentially. The current data on the influence of prior TST on IGRAs show inconsistent results. METHODS Sixteen non-bacille Calmette-Guérin immunised medical students with no history of TB exposure and minimal risk of exposure to TB during the study period were tested simultaneously with a TST and QFT-GIT. The QFT-GIT assay was repeated 6 and 10 weeks later. RESULTS At baseline, all TST and QFT-GIT results were negative and remained negative 6 and 10 weeks after the TST. CONCLUSION These data show that negative QFT-GIT results are reproducible and suggest that a TST does not result in conversion of subsequent QFT-GIT assays in the absence of concomitant TB exposure. Therefore, a positive QFT-GIT should not be attributed to boosting induced by a previous TST.
Poly(I:C) Enhances the Susceptibility of Leukemic Cells to NK Cell Cytotoxicity and Phagocytosis by DC

α Active specific immunotherapy aims at stimulating the host's immune system to recognize and eradicate malignant cells. The concomitant activation of dendritic cells (DC) and natural killer (NK) cells is an attractive modality for immune-based therapies. Inducing immunogenic cell death to facilitate tumor cell recognition and phagocytosis by neighbouring immune cells is of utmost importance for guiding the outcome of the immune response. We previously reported that acute myeloid leukemic (AML) cells in response to electroporation with the synthetic dsRNA analogue poly(I:C) exert improved immunogenicity, demonstrated by enhanced DC-activating and NK cell interferon-γ-inducing capacities. To further invigorate the potential of these immunogenic tumor cells, we explored their effect on the phagocytic and cytotoxic capacity of DC and NK cells, respectively. Using single-cell analysis, we assessed these functionalities in two- and three-party cocultures. Following poly(I:C) electroporation AML cells become highly susceptible to NK cell-mediated killing and phagocytosis by DC. Moreover, the enhanced killing and the improved uptake are strongly correlated. Interestingly, tumor cell killing, but not phagocytosis, is further enhanced in three-party cocultures provided that these tumor cells were upfront electroporated with poly(I:C). Altogether, poly(I:C)-electroporated AML cells potently activate DC and NK cell functions and stimulate NK-DC cross-talk in terms of tumor cell killing. These data strongly support the use of poly(I:C) as a cancer vaccine component, providing a way to overcome immune evasion by leukemic cells.
Dynamic assessment of children with language impairments: A pilot study

This article describes the construction of a procedure for dynamic assessment of the expressive grammar of children already identified with language impairments. Few instruments exist for the dynamic assessment of language, and those that have been developed have been largely used to successfully differentiate language impaired from culturally different or typically developing populations. The emphasis in this study was on eliciting clinically useful information that may be used to inform intervention for children with specific language impairment (SLI). The method was piloted on three children with specific language impairments.The test—train—retest format made use of standardized administration of the CELF-3 (UK) before and after a designated training protocol. The training procedure required the children to formulate sentences from randomly presented words, assisted by mediation from the assessor. Results showed that the task used was valuable and appropriate for use as a dynamic measure, and elicited differentiated amounts of change in the children in response to the mediated training phase. Pre-test—post-test results were inconclusive, however, and the frameworks for summarizing information could benefit from revision.
Who Advocates? Determinants of Political Advocacy in Presidential Election Years

Political discussion research often focuses on general discussion without analyzing interesting subsets of interpersonal communication, such as political advocacy. Political advocacy is crucial to study because it is where citizens make clear statements of their beliefs when trying to influence others, which democratic theorists cite as valuable in spreading information in discussion networks. In this project, we test theoretically relevant determinants of political advocacy, focusing on campaign spending. Using multilevel logistic regression models of American National Election Study survey data from presidential elections between 1976 and 2008, we find that campaign spending correlates with an increase in the likelihood of advocating. We also find that the likelihood of being an advocate correlates with greater political discussion, television usage, interest in politics, partisanship, efficacy, and socioeconomic status. Additionally, we break these results down by party spending and party identification, and find differentiated results by party. Generally, these results show how the electoral environment shapes interpersonal communication.
(S)excerpts from a Life Told: Sex, Gender and Learning Disability

This is an article about Sarah's sexual teenage journey, seen through the lens of her mother, the author. It tackles learning disability, sexual experimentation, education, governance and responsibility. By using an autoethnographical method the article speaks personally to these intimate lived experiences and yet broadly and contextually these issues can give further insight into the difficult social processes that permeate surveillance and control, of sexual activity amongst a particular group of adults (young, learning disabled), by way of legal practice and sex education; family practices and the negotiation of power and control over sexual activity; and sexual citizenship and rights to a sexual identity.
Power and the Quality of Same-Sex Friendships

Does the quality of same-sex friendship depend on the gender of the friends and the balance of power between friends? Fifty-four men and 60 women undergraduates evaluated two of their same-sex friendships, one equal in power and one unequal in power. The quality of each friendship was rated in terms of emotional closeness, satisfaction, liking, self-disclosure, and rewards. In general, most young adults evaluated their friendships positively. Mixed-model multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) found significant main effects of gender and power on ratings of quality, but no interactions. Consistent with previous research, women generally evaluated their same-sex friendships more positively than did men. Gender differences were relatively small in magnitude and were not found for all indices of relationship quality, however. As predicted, participants rated equal-power friendships significantly higher than unequal-power friendships on all measures of quality. Power appears to be an important but largely neglected element of friendship.
Longitudinal data indicate that hemispheric independence increases during early adolescence

Hemispheric cooperation is traditionally thought of as the ability to share information between the hemispheres. In addition to hemispheric sharing, cooperation between the hemispheres may involve hemispheric shielding. This requires inhibition or restriction of information rather than sharing of information and enables the two hemispheres to work with minimal interference. Results of our longitudinal study suggest that the ability to use the two cerebral hemispheres as relatively independent work stations undergoes an important developmental transition during early adolescence. This study was a follow‐up of 65 of 120 children from a previous study by Merola and Liederman (1985). The mean ages of the children were 12.0 years, 13.9 years, and 15.9 years at follow‐up. Results indicated that (a) almost all the children who could not use their hemispheres independently at age 10 were able to do so at age 12.0, (b) almost all the children with this ability retained it 1½ years later, and (c) this developmental.
Evaluation of Using Intranasal Desmopressin, Parenteral Diclofenac or their Combination in the Management of Acute Renal Colic Pain in Iraqi Patients

There is a suggestion that an antidiuretic hormone-induced decrease in diuresis might contribute to the rapid relief of the acute pain in renal colic. This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of desmopressin nasal spray compared with diclofenac given intramuscularly in patients with acute renal colic. The study included 75 patients randomized into three different groups; group A received desmopressin (40 μg, nasal spray), group B diclofenac (75 mg) intramuscularly and group C, both desmopressin and diclofenac. Pain was assessed using a visual analogue scale (a 10-cm horizontal scale ranging from `no pain' to `unbearable pain') at baseline, 10, 20 and 30 min after administering the treatments. On admission, the pain level was the same in all three groups. At 10 min the pain decreased in all groups to a level that was not significantly different. At 20 min groups B and C had similar mean pain levels (5.8), whereas in group A it was 5.7. At 30 min, groups B and C scored 3.0 and 2.5 respectively, and group A 6.1. All three treatments were equally effective at 10 and 20 min but at 30 min there was a stabilization/slight increase in pain level in group A. In conclusion, these results indicate that desmopressin may be used to treat renal colic either alone or combined, increasing the analgesic effect of other drugs like diclofenac
Abnormal functional specialization within medial prefrontal cortex in high-functioning autism: a multi-voxel similarity analysis

Multi-voxel pattern analyses have proved successful in ‘decoding’ mental states from fMRI data, but have not been used to examine brain differences associated with atypical populations. We investigated a group of 16 (14 males) high-functioning participants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 16 non-autistic control participants (12 males) performing two tasks (spatial/verbal) previously shown to activate medial rostral prefrontal cortex (mrPFC). Each task manipulated: (i) attention towards perceptual versus self-generated information and (ii) reflection on another person's mental state (‘mentalizing'versus ‘non-mentalizing’) in a 2 × 2 design. Behavioral performance and group-level fMRI results were similar between groups. However, multi-voxel similarity analyses revealed strong differences. In control participants, the spatial distribution of activity generalized significantly between task contexts (spatial/verbal) when examining the same function (attention/mentalizing) but not when comparing different functions. This pattern was disrupted in the ASD group, indicating abnormal functional specialization within mrPFC, and demonstrating the applicability of multi-voxel pattern analysis to investigations of atypical populations.
What do wages buy

Jim Lincoln kindly provided me with the dataset. I have also benefited from reading his and his co-authors' research. Libby Bishop and Ishak Saporta provided expert research assistance, funded by the Institute of Industrial Relations and the Consortium on Competitiveness and Cooperation, U.C. , Berkeley. Helpful comments from Jim Baron, Bill Dickens, Jonathan Leonard, Lee Levine, Jim Lincoln, Janet Yellen, seminar participants at Stanford, Wharton, the Sloan School, and U.C. , Berkeley and from the editors and referees are gratefully acknowledged. This study examines data on more than 8,000 employees of nearly 100 manufacturing plants in the United States and Japan to measure the effects of differences in wages on workplace attitudes and behaviors. In both the U.S. and Japan, workers receiving high wages are less likely to quit, are more satisfied with their pay, and report that they work harder than they have to. These results support theories of segmented labor markets and of social comparison, but not theories of human capital or compensating differences. In the U.S. data there is no evidence that the effects of high wages are less powerful than the effects of low wages. This result contradicts some variants of status-inconsistency and distributive justice theories. In Japan, workers who are highly paid compared with others in their plant appear to experience discomfort. This result indicates the important role social comparison plays in Japan. '
Gigantic jets with negative and positive polarity streamers

[1] The ISUAL gigantic jets (GJs) are categorized into three types from their generating sequence and spectral properties. Generating sequence of the type I GJs resembles that reported previously; after the fully developed jet (FDJ) established the discharge channel, the ISUAL photometers registered a peak that was from a return-stroke-like process. The associated ULF (ultra-low-frequency) sferics of these type I GJs indicates that they are negative cloud-to-ionosphere discharges (−CIs). Type II GJs begin as blue jets and then developed into GJs in ∼100 ms. Blue jets also frequently occurred at the same region before and after the type II GJs. No identifiable ULF sferics of the type II GJs were found, though an extra event that has +CI ULF signature is probably a type II GJ. The FDJ streamer brightness of the type I GJs is ∼3.4 times of that of the type II GJs. These evidences suggest that the type II GJs are composed of positive streamers. Type III GJs were preceded by lightning, and a GJ subsequently occurred near this preceding lightning. The spectral data of the type III GJs are dominated by lightning signals and the ULF data have high background noise; thus both cannot be properly analyzed. However, the average brightness of the type III GJs falls between those of the other two types of GJs. We propose that the discharge polarity of the type III GJs can be either negative or positive, depending on the type of the charge imbalance left by the trigger lightning.
Doppler Velocity Characteristics During Tropical Cyclones Observed Using ScanSAR Raw Data

Doppler velocity can be derived by calculating Doppler shift anomalies between predicted and estimated Doppler centroids. The predicted Doppler centroid is calculated based on a geometric model of satellite assuming that the target is not moving. The estimated Doppler centroid can be directly extracted from the raw SAR signal data by applying the average cross-correlation coefficient method. It is known that wind-generated ocean waves can significantly contribute to Doppler velocity due to the correlation between orbital motions of the waves and (tilt and hydrodynamic) modulated radar cross sections, in addition to what sea surface current contributes. In this study, the characteristics of Doppler velocities under hurricane conditions were investigated using RADARSAT-1 ScanSAR raw data. Five different hurricanes (Hurricane Dean, Hurricane Ivan, Hurricane Kyle, Hurricane Lili, and Typhoon Xangsane) and sequential acquisitions of two hurricanes (Hurricane Kyle and Hurricane Lili) were selected to study the contribution of wind-induced waves to Doppler velocities and compared with in situ measurements of drifting buoys. The results show that hurricane-generated seas and associated winds and waves appear to be different from ordinary sea state. This leads to lower estimates of Doppler velocities than expected and much closer to sea surface current velocities.
Employment uncertainty and the role of authentic leadership and positive psychological capital

This study investigates the role of authentic leadership and positive psychological capital as critical mechanisms for managing employment uncertainty in adverse labor market conditions. The theoretical model of the present study proposes that authentic leadership and positive psychological capital will mediate the relationships between employment uncertainty and stress and meaning in life, while job embeddedness will moderate the effects of authentic leadership and positive psychological capital on outcomes. Structural equation modeling analyses of a sample of 207 employed professionals from 24 organizations in Greece support most study hypotheses. The results provide strong support for the mediating role of positive psychological capital and moderate support for the mediating role of authentic leadership in the relationship between employment uncertainty and employee outcomes. They further show that the positive effects of authentic leadership and positive psychological capital on meaning in life as wel.
A Brief Form of the Ethnic Identity Scale: Development and Empirical Validation

Theory and research have long indicated that ethnic-racial identity is a complex and multifaceted construct. However, there is a paucity of brief, easily administered measures that adequately capture this multidimensionality. Two studies were conducted to develop an abbreviated version of the Ethnic Identity Scale (EIS) and to explore its psychometric properties in the United States. In Study 1, the use of item-reduction techniques with a sample of adolescent Latinos (n = 323) resulted in a 9-item brief version of the EIS (EIS-B), including subscales of Exploration, Resolution, and Affirmation; furthermore, longitudinal analyses provided initial support for the construct validity of the subscales. In Study 2, the factor structure of the EIS-B was examined among an ethnically diverse sample of college students (n = 9,492), and findings provided support for strong measurement invariance across ethnic groups for the EIS-B. Together, findings from both studies provided preliminary evidence for the validity and reliability of the EIS-B as a brief measure of the multidimensional construct of ethnic-racial identity, and indicated that the EIS-B assessed ethnic-racial identity in a comparable manner to the original version of the scale.
Lack of association between the kinetics of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) glycoprotein B (gB)‐specific and neutralizing serum antibodies and development or recovery from HCMV active infection in patients undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplant

The kinetics of the gB‐specific and neutralizing antibody responses to human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) were analyzed in 26 allogeneic stem‐cell transplant recipients who either did (n = 20) or did not (n = 6) develop asymptomatic HCMV active infection during the study period. Antibody response profiles varied widely among individuals in both groups, irrespective of whether HCMV active infection did or did not occur. Development of HCMV active infection was not preceded by a decline in functional serum antibody levels. Neither the absence nor the presence of HCMV active infection correlated with either high or low serum levels of gB‐specific and neutralizing antibodies, respectively. In most patients, episodes of HCMV replication were not followed by a marked increment in functional serum antibody titers. Therefore, resolution of an ongoing HCMV active infection was not associated with a vigorous antibody response to viral replication. In addition, this study supports previous data indicating that passive transfer of human immunoglobulins may result in an increment in gB‐specific and neutralizing serum antibody levels, the magnitude of which varies among recipients; however, both patients with and without measurable increments in serum antibody levels developed HCMV active infections with comparable frequency. J. Med. Virol. 65:77–84, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004: problems and prospects

As the United States has engaged in record levels of incarceration, there has been a concomitant rise in the number of persons incarcerated afflicted with severe mental illness (SMI) including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression. Legislation aimed at diverting SMI persons away from incarceration and toward treatment has been recently developed. This paper reviews the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 (MIOTCRA), and the potential of outpatient commitment laws to work in tandem with the experimental mental health courts program the MIOTCRA of 2004 helped to create.
Diffusion of volatile compounds in fibre networks: experiments and modelling by random walk simulation

Predictive migration models for polymers are already so well established that the European Commission intends to allow the use of the models as one quality assurance tool in product safety assessment of plastic materials and articles for food contact. The inhomogeneity of fibre-based materials makes modelling difficult--thus, little research has been done in this area. The authors compare experiments on the diffusion of certain volatile compounds through laboratory kraft pulp sheets with computer simulations in which the fibre network structure is modelled explicitly. The major advantage of the present random walk simulation is that it gives an estimate of the effective diffusion constant for the fibre network. For most compounds, the agreement between the experiments and simulations is good. The experiments and simulations indicate that gas diffusion rate is very sensitive to sheet porosity.
The Effects of Single Parenthood on School Achievement in a Gifted Population

The most obvious social trend affecting families during the past three decades has been the steadily rising number of single-parent households. Research indicates that students from single-parent families demonstrate is lower levels of school achievement than their peers livinq in two-parent homes. However, the impact of single parenthood on gifted children has not been established. A study of children who recently attended the University of Oregon's Summer Enrichment Program for Talented and Gifted Students suggests that the school achievement of gifted students is negatively affected if they come from a single-parent household.