Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pitch scaling as a perceptual cue for questions in German

Recent studies on the intonation of German suggest that the phonetic realization may contribute to the signaling of questions. In a previous production study polar questions, alternative questions and continuous statements were found to differ by a gradual increase in pitch scaling of a phonologically identical final rising contour [1]. Based on similar findings for Dutch Haan [2] concludes that the meaning signaled by the phonetic realization indicates an attitude rather than a categorical function. This is supported by Chen’s [3] perception studies on question intonation in Dutch, Hungarian and Mandarin Chinese as well as early findings for German by Batliner [4]. This paper investigates whether the phonetic realization of intonation in questions signals the categorical pragmatic function of ‘interrogativity’ or rather a ‘questioning’ attitude. Additionally, we investigate, which phonetic parameter is the decisive cue to this meaning. Three perception studies are reported: a combination of an identification and discrimination task, an imitation task, and a semantic rating task. Results suggest that the phonetic implementation of intonation in German questions signals an attitude rather than a linguistic category and that this function is primarily signaled by the offset of the final rising pitch movement.
Cancer incidence in Czech black coal miners in association with coalworkers’ pneumoconiosis

ObjectiveThe aim of the study was comparison of cancer incidence risk of lungs, stomach, colon, bladder and kidneys from ex-miners of black coal mines and the general male population of the Czech Republic.Materials and methodsThe analysis was conducted in two cohorts of ex-miners according to the presence of coalworkers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP). The first cohort included the miners without CWP (N = 6705), and the second cohort included the miners who were compensated for CWP (N = 2158). Personal and occupational data was merged with the data in the National Population Register and the National Oncological Register for the period from 1992 to 2006. Cancer risk in miners in comparison to the general male population of the Czech Republic was evaluated by SIR (Standardized Incidence Ratio) and 95% confidence interval (CI). ResultsAbout twice as high risk of lung cancer was found in miners with CWP (SIR = 2.21; 95% CI: 1.75–2.76). Lung cancer risk correlated with the severity of CWP (simple CWP SIR=1.96; 95% CI: 1.48–2.56, progressive massive fibrosis SIR = 4.29; 95% CI: 2.09–7.87). No increased risk of lung cancer was found in ex-miners without CWP. The risk of malignant neoplasm at the other selected sites was comparable with the risk in the general male population of the Czech Republic.ConclusionsThis study found increased lung cancer risk in coal miners with CWP, but not in those without CWP, comparing with the general population. These results served as the basis for the inclusion of lung cancer in association with CWP into a new Czech list of occupational diseases.
Ontogenesis of the scapula in marsupial mammals, with special emphasis on perinatal stages of didelphids and remarks on the origin of the therian scapula

The development of the scapula was studied in embryonic and postnatal specimens of Monodelphis domestica and perinatal specimens of Philander opossum, Caluromys philander, and Sminthopsis virginiae using histological sections and 3D reconstructions. Additionally, macerated skeletons of postnatal M. domestica were examined. This study focused on the detachment of the scapulocoracoid from the sternum and on the acquisition of a supraspinous fossa, a supraspinatus muscle, and a scapular spine, all these events associated with the origin of the therian shoulder girdle. In none of the specimens is there a continuity of the cartilaginous scapulocoracoid with the sternum, even though the structures are in close proximity, especially in S. virginiae. At birth, the first rib laterally presents a pronounced boss that probably contacts the humerus during certain movements. Only the acromial portion of the scapular spine, which originates from the anterior margin of the scapular blade, is preformed in cartilage. The other portion is formed by appositional bone (“Zuwachsknochen”), which expands from the perichondral ossification of the scapula into an intermuscular aponeurosis between the supra‐ and infraspinous muscles. This intermuscular aponeurosis inserts more or less in the middle of the lateral surface of the developing scapula. Thus, the floor of the supraspinous fossa is present from the beginning of scapular development, simultaneously with the infraspinous fossa. The homology of the therian spine with the anterior border of the sauropsid and monotreme scapula is questioned. We consider the dorsal portion (as opposed to the ventral or acromial portion) of the scapular spine a neomorphic structure of therian mammals. J. Morphol. 258:115–129, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Review of space charge measurement systems: acoustic, thermal and optical methods

In the last decade, remarkable developments have concerned the methods of space charge measurement in the field of insulation systems diagnostic. In particular, methods based on acoustic and thermal phenomena have been largely used. The present review provides a broad overview on the different techniques used describing, for each of them, the working principle, the main features and the most relevant applications. Further details are provided for the Pulsed Electro-Acoustic (PEA) method, as it seems to be the most used. This article provides more details on its historical evolution, showing evidence for its technological limits and taking into consideration the advantages and drawn from the different configurations of the measuring cell. A similar approach has been used for the group of thermal methods, whereas for the optical methods only the basic working principle and latest applications are reported.
The Epistemology of War Gaming

Abstract : Anyone who has conducted or has studied actual warfare knows well its massive complexities. These complexities do not relieve humans from the responsibility for making decisions--difficult decisions--aimed at navigating their organizations successfully through campaigns, be they in a theater of war or in the halls of the Pentagon. Minds must be prepared beforehand, both in their general, educated functioning and in the specific, sophisticated understanding of conflict and the competitive environments they face. This preparation must be predicated on the internalization of "valid" knowledge about the conflict environment. There are many ways of gaining such knowledge: the study of history and theory, practical experience, and exposure to the results of various kinds of research and analysis. Each of these methods of developing knowledge has its own particular epistemology--formally, a "theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge, especially with reference to its limits and validity," or more practically, rules by which error is distinguished from truth. War gaming is a distinct and historically significant tool that warriors have used over the centuries to help them understand war in general and the nature of specific upcoming operations. The importance of war gaming demands serious examination of the nature of the knowledge it produces.
Recognition of cytomegalovirus clinical isolate antigens by sera from cytomegalovirus‐negative blood donors

BACKGROUND: The most common way to prevent transmission of CMV by blood transfusion is to use blood products from seronegative donors. Screening of blood donors for CMV infection is usually based on detection of antigens obtained from the CMV laboratory strain AD 169. Recent evidence suggests that approximately up to 20 percent of CMV‐negative blood donors may in fact be CMV‐DNA positive by PCR analyses.
The Death of the Storyteller and the Poetics of (Un)Containment: Juan Rulfo’s El llano en llamas

Critics have often read Juan Rulfo's El Llano en llamas (1953) as a return to the oral storytelling tradition. My contention, however, is that his short stories constitute an eminently modern break from cultural, narrative tradition—or what Angel Rama has termed transculturation. I first explore how the death of the storyteller, prophesied by Walter Benjamin (1936), is staged within Rulfo's stories; and second, how Rulfo uses fragmentation as a literary device, which in turn potentiates further transculturative processes. I argue that it is in the ruins of traditional narrative that new meanings, stories, and relations emerge.
An expansive paranasal sinus tumour‐like lesion caused by Bipolaris spicifera in an immunocompetent patient

positivity for cytokeratin (CK) 7 and was negative for chromogranin, CK20, CDX2, GCDFP-15, oestrogen and progesterone receptors and for synaptophysin. Mucin-producing breast carcinomas have been broadly categorized into mucinous carcinoma, in which malignant cells are suspended in extracellular mucin, and signet-ring cell carcinoma, in which the mucin is predominantly intracellular. Primary mucinous cystadenocarcinoma of the breast, however, demonstrates both intracellular and extracellular mucin and is histologically similar to primary mucinous cystadenocarcinoma of the pancreas and ovary. Although an in situ component was not present in this case, its primary origin in the breast can be inferred for the following reasons: (i) lack of evidence of primary ovarian or pancreatic carcinoma and the unlikely occurrence of a metastasis to the breast from such a primary without other clinical or pathological manifestations; (ii) as both primary pancreatic and ovarian mucinous cystadenocarcinomas are frequently CK20+ and CK7+, the immunohistochemical profile is more consistent with primary breast origin. Of the eight previously recorded cases, one case was associated with adjacent foci of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), mucinous cystadenocarcinoma in situ and invasive ductal carcinoma. One other case was associated with adjacent DCIS and a focus of ordinary mucinous carcinoma. Two cases had foci of mucinous cystadenocarcinoma in situ and one case had DCIS adjacent to the tumour. In addition, one of the cases showing mucinous cystadenocarcinoma in situ adjacent to the main tumour also had foci of sarcomatous differentiation including liposarcomatous differentiation. In three cases, similar to that reported here, there was no associated adjacent DCIS, mucinous cystadenocarcinoma in situ, invasive ductal or mucinous carcinoma. The patients ranged in age from 49 to 96 years, two had lymph node metastases and, although long-term follow-up is unavailable, none of the patients died of breast carcinoma. The differential diagnosis, in addition to metastatic carcinoma, includes primary papillary intracystic carcinoma of the breast. However, the usual papillary carcinoma is more predominantly papillary, non-invasive and the cores are not lined by columnar mucin-containing cells. The solid papillary variant, which may produce extracellular and intracellular mucin in a percentage of cases, displays morphological features which are distinctive and dissimilar. Despite the invasive nature of primary mucinous cystadenocarcinoma of the breast, these carcinomas appear to be associated with a good prognosis. J D Coyne L Irion
Prospective randomized study to evaluate the feasibility and outcome of transmesocolic laparoscopic pyeloplasty and compare it with retrocolic laparoscopic pyeloplasty in pediatric and adolescent patients

Objective: This prospective randomized study was designed to evaluate the feasibility and outcome of transmesocolic laparoscopic pyeloplasty (TMP) and compare it with retrocolic laparoscopic pyeloplasty (RLP) in pediatric and adolescent patients. Materials and Methods: Between September 2006 to May 2012, data of pediatric and adolescent patients undergoing laparoscopic pyeloplasty were recorded in a prospective manner. Data included age, pelvic volume, presence of stones, aberrant vessels, operative time, analgesics requirement and time to accept oral feeds and drain removal. Patients with left side pelviureteric junction obstruction with any size of pelvic volume, with or without renal stones and aberrant vessels were included in the study. Patients were assigned into two groups by simple randomization technique. A total of 38 TMP and 41 left sided RLP were performed. Median follow-up period for transmesocolic group was 12.5 months (9.5-62 months) and 14 months (8-66 months) for retro colic group. Outcome for this study was adequate drainage on renal scan, improvement in symptom and or resolution of hydronephrosis on ultrasound. Statistical analysis was performed using the Mann-Whitney test. Results: The mean patient age was 8.73 years in RLP and 7.73 years in TMP. In RLP group the mean operative time was 75.84 min (time from port insertion to pyeloplasty) and 135.4 min (total operative time) while it was 44.82 min and 104.82 min respectively in TMP group. Compared with classic RLP, TMP cases showed a significant reduction in operative time. Conclusions: The transmesocolic approach for left sided pyeloplasty enables a shorter operative time even in the presence of large pelvis, aberrant vessel and stones without increasing morbidity in comparison to RLP approach.
Clarithromycin therapy of experimental Treponema pallidum infections in hamsters

Clarithromycin was shown to be effective therapy for Treponema pallidum infections in hamsters. Clarithromycin therapy was effective when initiated either 1 or 8 days after infection. The delay in initiation of therapy allowed an active infection to develop. The treponemal burden in lymph tissue of treated hamsters was eradicated, as determined by dark-field microscopy and by inoculation of lymph material into susceptible hamsters. Treatments with clarithromycin and the 14-hydroxy metabolite of clarithromycin were equally effective. Therapy with clarithromycin and penicillin was not antagonistic and did not appear to be synergistic when the two drugs were given concurrently. Pharmacokinetic evaluation of clarithromycin in hamsters showed that the doses which produced effective therapy yielded concentrations in serum similar to those routinely achieved in human sera. These findings demonstrate that clarithromycin is effective in treating active or incubating syphilis in the hamster model and could be useful in treating humans.
Annual Variability of Black Carbon Concentrations Originating from Biomass and Fossil Fuel Combustion for the Suburban Aerosol in Athens, Greece

The objective of this work was to assess the yearly contribution of fossil fuel combustion (BCff) and wood burning (BCwb) to equivalent black carbon (eBC) concentrations, in Athens, Greece. Measurements were conducted at a suburban site from March 2013 to February 2014 and included absorption coefficients at seven wavelengths and PM2.5 chemical composition data for key biomass burning markers, i.e., levoglucosan, potassium (K) and elemental and organic carbon (EC, OC). A well-documented methodology of corrections for aethalometer attenuation coefficients was applied with a resulting annual dataset of derived absorption coefficients for the suburban Athens’ atmospheric aerosol. The Aethalometer model was applied for the source apportionment of eBC. An optimum Angstrom exponent for fossil fuel (αff) was found, based on the combined use of the model with levoglucosan data. The measured eBC concentrations were equal to 2.4 ± 1.0 μg m−3 and 1.6 ± 0.6 μg m−3, during the cold and the warm period respectively. The contribution from wood burning was significantly higher during the cold period (21 ± 11%, versus 6 ± 7% in the warm period). BCff displayed a clear diurnal pattern with a morning peak between 8 and 10 a.m. (during morning rush hour) and a second peak during the evening and night hours, due to the shallowing of the mixing layer. Regression analysis between BCwb concentrations and biomass burning markers (levoglucosan, K and OC/EC ratio) supported the validity of the results.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Type 1 Protease Substrate Specificity Is Limited by Interactions between Substrate Amino Acids Bound in Adjacent Enzyme Subsites (*)

The specificity of the retroviral protease is determined by the ability of substrate amino acid side chains to bind into eight individual subsites within the enzyme. Although the subsites are able to act somewhat independently in selection of amino acid side chains that fit into each pocket, significant interactions exist between individual subsites that substantially limit the number of cleavable amino acid sequences. The substrate peptide binds within the enzyme in an extended anti-parallel β sheet conformation with substrate amino acid side chains adjacent in the linear sequence extending in opposite directions in the enzyme-substrate complex. From this geometry, we have defined both cis and trans steric interactions, which have been characterized by a steady state kinetic analysis of human immunodeficiency virus, type-1 protease using a series of peptide substrates that are derivatives of the avian leukosis/sarcoma virus nucleocapsid-protease cleavage site. These peptides contain both single and double amino acid substitutions in seven positions of the minimum length substrate required by the retroviral protease for specific and efficient cleavage. Steady state kinetic data from the single amino acid substituted peptides were used to predict effects on protease-catalyzed cleavage of corresponding double substituted peptide substrates. The calculated Gibbs' free energy changes were compared with actual experimental values in order to determine how the fit of a substrate amino acid in one subsite influences the fit of amino acids in adjacent subsites. Analysis of these data shows that substrate specificity is limited by steric interactions between pairs of enzyme subsites. Moreover, certain enzyme subsites are relatively tolerant of substitutions in the substrate and exert little effect on adjacent subsites, whereas others are more restrictive and have marked influence on adjacent cis and trans subsites.
An Additive FAHP based sentence score function for text summarization

This study proposes a novel additive Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) based sentence score function for Automatic Text summarization (ATS), which is a method to handle growing amounts of textual data. ATS aims to reduce the size of a text while covering the important points in the text. For this aim, this study uses some sentence features, combines these features by an additive score function using some specific weights and produces a sentence score function. The weights of the features are determined by FAHP - specifically Fuzzy Extend analysis (FEA)-; which allows the human involvement in the process, uses pairwise comparisons, addresses uncertainty and allows a hierarchy composed of main features and sub-features. The sentences are ranked according to their score functions values and the highest scored sentences are extracted to create summary documents. Performance evaluation is based on the sentence coverage among the summaries generated by human and the proposed method. In order to see the performance of the proposed system, two different Turkish datasets are used and as a performance measure, the F-measure is used. Resulting performance improvements show that the porposed model will be useful for both researchers and practitioners working in this research area. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.5755/j01.itc. 46.1. 13051
MINI REVIEW P53: AN UBIQUITOUS TARGET OF ANTICANCER DRUGS

The p53 tumor suppressor can induce growth arrest, apoptosis and cell senescence. Not surprisingly, p53 is an appealing target for therapeutic intervention. Although current anticancer agents do not directly interact with p53, these agents (including DNA damaging drugs, antimetabolites, microtubule-active drugs and inhibitors of the proteasome) cause accumulation of wt p53. Depending on the p53 status of cancer cells, diverse therapeutic strategies are under development. These include pharmacological rescue of mutant p53 function and reactivation of wt p53 in E6-expressing cells. For protection of normal cells, strategies range from abrogation of wt p53 induction, thereby decreasing the toxicity of DNA damaging agents, to activation of wt p53-dependent checkpoints, thereby protecting cells against cell cycle-dependent therapeutics. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Heat Shock Proteins Do Not Influence Wet Heat Resistance of Bacillus subtilis Spores

ABSTRACT Spores of Bacillus subtilis are significantly more resistant to wet heat than are their vegetative cell counterparts. Analysis of the effects of mutations in and the expression of fusions of a coding gene for a thermostable β-galactosidase to a number of heat shock genes has shown that heat shock proteins play no significant role in the wet heat resistance of B. subtilis spores.
Mechanisms of stimulation of protein synthesis by thyroid hormones in vivo.

Numerous studies have established that thyroid hormones stimulate protein synthesis,'-8 but the mechanism of the stimulation remains obscure and controversial. The first observations of the stimulation in cell-free systems also provided evidence of mitochondrial participation in the mechanism of the effect. " 2 Mfixing experiments with subcellular fractions from euthyroid and hyperthyroid rat liver implicated a change in the mitochondrial fraction as the cause of most of the increase in microsomal protein synthesis observed in hyperthyroid homogenates. Thyroxine added directly in vitro to the identical cell-free system which exhibited the effects of in vivo hormone administration also stimulated amino acid incorporation into microsomal protein. ", 2 The stimulation in vitro was localized to the transfer of transfer-RNA-bound amino acid to microsomal9 or ribosomal'0 protein but was not dependent on any effect on RNA synthesis. " Indeed, it was unaffected by inhibitors of RNA synthesis and was exerted equally well on synthetic polyribonucleotide-directed polypeptide synthesis. " Recent studies with a reticulocyte lysate system have demonstrated that thyroxine can stimulate the synthesis of the a and f3 chains of hemoglobin and that the stimulation is a translational effect exerted primarily at a late stage in the assembly or elongation of the nascent polypeptide chain. '2 In agreement with the evidence of mitochondrial involvement in the mechanism of the effect following its in vivo administration," 2 the stimulation of microsomal protein synthesis by thyroxine in vitro exhibited an absolute requirement for mitochondria in the reaction mixture.2 9 " Kinetic studies and studies of the partial reactions of the effect have demonstrated that it is not thyroxine itself but a consequence of a prior thyroxine-mitochondrial interaction which is responsible for the increased ribosomal protein synthetic activity.7' 1' The studies carried out in this laboratory, both in vivo and in vitro, have provided several independent lines of evidence all consistently pointing to a stimulation of microsomal protein synthesis by thyroid hormones which is cytoplasmic in origin, localized at the level of translation and not of transcription, and secondary to a reaction between the hormone and the mitochondrial components of the cell. AIlore recently, other workers observed that the depressed rate of protein synthesis in cell-free preparations from thyroid-deficient rats could be raised toward normal by prior replacement therapy in vivo and that the effect was manifest in reaction mixtures devoid of mitochondria. 3 4 The stimulation of protein synthesis did not become apparent, however, until at least 30 hours following a dose of hormone in vivo.4 In contrast, nuclear RNA turnover, 4 RNA polymerase activity,14 and microsomal RNA content4 were found to be increased after latent