Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is the Migratory Behavior of Montane Elk Herds in Peril? The Case of Alberta's Ya Ha Tinda Elk Herd

Abstract There is growing concern that populations of migratory ungulates are declining globally. Causes of declines in migratory behavior can be direct (i.e., differential harvest of migrants) or indirect (i.e., habitat fragmentation or land-use changes). Elk (Cervus elaphus) are an important big game species in North America whose migratory behavior is changing in some montane ecosystems. We evaluated evidence and hypotheses for changes in migratory behavior and population decline in one of Canada's largest elk populations, the Ya Ha Tinda. We compared the ratio of migrant to resident elk (M:R) in the population and seasonal spatial distributions obtained from 22 winter and 13 summer helicopter surveys between 1972 and 2005. Timing of migration and the summer distribution for a sample of radiocollared elk also was compared for 1977–1980 (early period) and 2001–2004 (recent). The population M:R ratio decreased from 12.4 (SD = 3.22) in the early period to 3.0 (SD = 1.63). The decrease was greater than expected based on population change. Declines in M:R also mirrored behavior of radiocollared elk. More than 49% of radiocollared elk we monitored resided near the winter range year-round by 2001–2004, and migrants were spending less time on summer ranges. We found winter range enhancements, access to hay fed to wintering horses, recolonization by gray wolves (Canis lupus), and management relocations of elk were most consistent with observed elk population growth (adjusted for harvest and removals) and the change in migratory behavior. However, we could not isolate the effects of specific factors in time-series population modeling. We believe directly relating migrant and resident demography to habitat and mortality factors will be required to understand the mechanisms affecting migratory behavior in this and other montane elk herds.
Challenging the Rhetoric of Choice in Prenatal Screening

Prenatal screening, consisting of maternal serum screening and nuchal translucency screening, is on the verge of expansion, both by being offered to more pregnant women and by screening for more conditions. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have each recently recommended that screening be extended to all pregnant women regardless of age, disease history, or risk status. This screening is commonly justified by appeal to the value of autonomy, or women's choice. In this paper, I critically examine the value of autonomy in the context of prenatal screening to determine whether it justifies the routine offer of screening and the expansion of screening services. I argue that in the vast majority of cases the option of prenatal screening does not promote or protect women's autonomy. Both a narrow conception of choice as informed consent and a broad conception of choice as relational reveal difficulties in achieving adequate standards of free informed choice. While there are reasons to worry that women's autonomy is not being protected or promoted within the limited scope of current practice, we should hesitate before normalizing it as part of standard prenatal care for all.
The technology mismatch paradox of mobile e-mail access: When changed norms of responsiveness meet technology undersupply

ABSTRACT Connectivity, enabled by mobile devices and mobile e-mail access in particular, plays an increasingly important role at work. While there is a growing body of literature on employees who experience great levels of connectivity, little is known about those who have low levels of connectivity because they have not been provided with mobile devices for work. When highly connected individuals collaborate with less technologically equipped employees, the latter have to negotiate their work practices in a demanding space of expectations and technological constraints and affordances. This article examines these dynamics via mixed-methods case studies of two public-sector organizations in Germany.
Langerhans' cell granules in histiocytosis X. The epidermal Langerhans' cell as a macrophage.

Biopsy specimens of cutaneous lesions from two patients with histiocytosis X of the infantile type (Letterer-Siwe disease) were examined with the electron microscope. More than one half of the dermal macrophages in both specimens contained organelles identical to epidermal Langerhans' cell granules. These organelles appear to arise during the process of endocytosis of extracellular material and are ultimately found in various stages of degradation within Iysosomelike granules. The ultrastructural identity of these dermal macrophages to epidermal Langerhans' cells supports the hypothesis that the epidermal Langerhans' cell is a macrophage.
Research Note - In CARSs We Trust: How Context-Aware Recommendations Affect Customers' Trust and Other Business Performance Measures of Recommender Systems

Most of the work on context-aware recommender systems has focused on demonstrating that the contextual information leads to more accurate recommendations. Little work has been done, however, on studying how much the contextual information affects the business performance. In this paper, we study how including context in recommendations affects customers’ trust, sales, and other crucial business-related performance measures. To do this, we delivered content-based and context-aware recommendations through a live controlled experiment with real customers of a commercial European online publisher. We measured the recommendations’ accuracy and diversification, how much customers spent purchasing products during the experiment, the quantity and price of their purchases, and the customers’ level of trust. We show that collecting and using contextual information in recommendations affects business-related performance measures, such as company sales, by improving the accuracy and diversification of recommendations, which in turn improves trust and, ultimately, business performance results.
Design Guidelines for an Enhanced Interaction Experience in the Domain of Smartphone-Based Applications for Sport and Fitness

Nowadays, several research studies point up that an active lifestyle is essential for physical and mental health benefits. Mobile phones have greatly influenced people’s habits and attitudes also in the way they exercise. Our research work is mainly focused on investigating how to exploit mobile technologies to favour people’s exertion experience. To this end, we developed an exertion framework users can exploit through a real world mobile application, called EverywhereSport Run (EWRun), designed to act as a virtual personal trainer to support runners during their trainings. In this work, inspired by both previous findings in the field of interaction design for people with visual impairments, feedback gathered from real users of our framework, and positive results obtained from two experimentations, we present some new interaction facilities we designed to enhance the interaction experience during a training. The positive obtained results helped us to derive some interaction design recommendations we believe will be a valid support for designers of future mobile systems conceived to be used in circumstances where there are limited possibilities of interaction. Keywords—Human Computer Interaction, Interaction Design Guidelines, Persuasive Mobile Technologies for Sport and Health.
Prostate volume in testosterone‐treated and untreated hypogonadal men in comparison to age‐matched normal controls

OBJECTIVE The potential use of testosterone preparations for substitution therapy for ageing men and for male contraception, In addition to the well established substitution therapy of male hypogonadism, make increased testosterone use likely. However, little clinical information is available on the effect of testosterone therapy on the prostate in hypogonadal men.
Can an external device create and trigger intention in a patient with a severe brain injury?

ABSTRACT Goal-directed behaviour (GDB), the capacity that allows us to control our environment according to our desires and needs, requires different stages from initial intention to goal achievement. Although GDB is frequently disrupted after acquired brain injury, few studies have addressed the remediation of reduced GDB in patients with severe brain injury. The present study aimed to raise this question in RZ, a patient with severe brain injury who presented a serious reduction in GDB related to difficulties in creating an intention from internal determinants and in selecting an action plan, as well as to memory and attentional impairments. Our objective was to investigate the efficacy of an intervention programme to create and trigger a specific intention in RZ. More specifically, this programme consisted in written prompts, first accompanied by an alarm provided by his mobile phone, but gradually reduced until only the alarm remained, which was implemented in order to improve RZ’s attendance at workshop sessions. Results showed that RZ’s attendance rate at the workshop sessions increased, indicating that the use of an external device allowed us to create and trigger intention in a patient with severe cognitive impairments.
Changes in microstructure and stiffness of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L) sapwood degraded by Gloeophyllum trabeum and Trametes versicolor – Part II: Anisotropic stiffness properties

Abstract Fungal decay considerably affects the macroscopic mechanical properties of wood as a result of modifications and degradations in its microscopic structure. While effects on mechanical properties related to the stem direction are fairly well understood, effects on radial and tangential directions (transverse properties) are less well investigated. In the present study, changes of longitudinal elastic moduli and stiffness data in all anatomical directions of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) sapwood which was degraded by Gloeophyllum trabeum (brown rot) and Trametes versicolor (white rot) for up to 28 weeks have been investigated. Transverse properties were found to be much more deteriorated than the longitudinal ones. This is because of the degradation of the polymer matrix between the cellulose microfibrils, which has a strong effect on transverse stiffness. Longitudinal stiffness, on the other hand, is mainly governed by cellulose microfibrils, which are more stable agains fungal decay. G. trabeum (more active in earlywood) strongly weakens radial stiffness, whereas T. versicolor (more active in latewood) strongly reduces tangential stiffness. The data in terms of radial and tangential stiffnesses, as well as the corresponding anisotropy ratios, seem to be suitable as durability indicators of wood and even allow conclusions to be made on the degradation mechanisms of fungi.
Running unstructured grid‐based CFD solvers on modern graphics hardware

Techniques used to implement an unstructured grid solver on modern graphics hardware are described. The three‐dimensional Euler equations for inviscid, compressible flow are considered. Effective memory bandwidth is improved by reducing total global memory access and overlapping redundant computation, as well as using an appropriate numbering scheme and data layout. The applicability of per‐block shared memory is also considered. The performance of the solver is demonstrated on two benchmark cases: a NACA0012 wing and a missile. For a variety of mesh sizes, an average speed‐up factor of roughly 9.5 × is observed over the equivalent parallelized OpenMP code running on a quad‐core CPU, and roughly 33 × over the equivalent code running in serial. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
SPOTTING CRYPTIC ANIMALS IN THE DARK: WHAT LIGHT PROPERTIES SHOULD A GOOD HEADLAMP HAVE?

Relying on headlamp illumination for visual detection of cryptic nocturnal animals may present a challenge. To test how search light properties affect brown treesnake (Boiga irregularis) detection rate, we assigned eight biologists to search for dead snakes placed in roadside vegetation. Each person conducted 4 searches using lamps with varying properties: weak versus strong light, crossed by narrow versus wide beam. On each occasion, 100 snakes were placed randomly along the roadside transect. The mean number spotted per transect search was 13.5. Using an information theoretic approach, sequential order of transect runs was the only confounding variable included in the model with the highest support: 1.5 fewer snakes (95% CI = 0.4 to -2.5) were found for every sequential transect search a person conducted. A narrow beam spotlight rendered almost seven fewer snakes per search than a broad beam floodlight (95% CI = -4.5 to -9.2). A weak light rendered 4.5 fewer snakes than a strong light (95% CI = -2.1 to -6.9). We suspect that the benefit of using a lamp with a floodlight beam is particularly pronounced when a complex, 3-dimensional forested habitat is surveyed and when the traveling speed is relatively high.
Nocturnal Enuresis in Turkey: Prevalence and Accompanying Factors in Different Socioeconomic Environments

Aim: To study the prevalence of nocturnal enuresis and the impact of associated familial factors in Turkish children with a different socioeconomic status. Methods: A specific questionnaire was distributed to 3,000 parents of primary school children (6–12 years old). Of these children, 1,500 attended primary schools in Umraniye, a suburban region of Istanbul (group 1), and the other 1,500 children visited schools in Suadiye, a well-developed part of Istanbul (group 2). The first part of the survey investigated the familial conditions of the children (financial status, family history of enuresis, and family size). The second part of the questionnaire surveyed the demographic and physical characteristics of the children. The last part was designed to investigate the opinions and beliefs of the parents about nocturnal enuresis and treatment modalities. The prevalence rates of nocturnal enuresis and associated familial factors of these children from two different regions of Istanbul were compared. Results: Of the 3,000 questionnaires distributed, 2,589 (86.3%) were returned and included in the final analysis. The mean age of group 1 and 2 children was 8.88 ± 1.4 and 8.9 ± 1.5 years, respectively (p > 0.05). The gender of the subjects was equally distributed (48.6% males and 51.4% females). Enuresis was present in 334 children (25.5%) of group 1 and in 205 children (16%) of group 2. Enuresis was significantly more common in group 1 (p < 0.01). The families consisted of 4.69 ± 1.4 and 4.1 ± 1.1 persons, respectively (p < 0.01). A yearly income of USD 7,000 was achieved in group 2 by 54%, in group 1 by only 0.7% (p < 0.01). Only 26 children of group 1 (7.8%) and 22 children of group 2 (10.8%) were noted to receive medical enuresis treatments, with no statistically significant difference between the groups (p > 0.01). The parents of the enuretic children from the suburban region of Istanbul were found to consider the condition a normal developmental entity. They believed that enuresis will resolve spontaneously and that no treatment is necessary. On the contrary, the parents of the enuretic children in the well-developed region of the city believed that enuresis is a psychological problem and that intensive psychological assistance is essential for the management. Conclusions: Our study indicates that the prevalence of nocturnal enuresis in Turkey is comparable to that reported in the literature. The parents consider that enuresis nocturna is not a fatal disorder, that the drugs used in the treatment may be harmful, and that no medical assistance is required. Trained health personnel and physicians should inform the parents about enuresis in order to prevent possible behavioral and self-esteem problems.
Danish University Colleges Distribution of cytochrome P 450 2 C , 2 E 1 , 3 A 4 , and 3 A 5 in human colon mucosa

Background: Despite the fact that the alimentary tract is part of the body's first line of defense against orally ingested xenobiotica, little is known about the distribution and expression of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes in human colon. Therefore, expression and protein levels of four representative CYPs (CYP2C(8), CYP2E1, CYP3A4, and CYP3A5) were determined in human colon mucosa biopsies obtained from ascending, descending and sigmoid colon. Methods: Expression of CYP2C, CYP2E1, CYP3A4, and CYP3A5 mRNA in colon mucosa was determined by RT-PCR. Protein concentration of CYPs was determined using Western blot methods. Results: Extensive interindividual variability was found for the expression of most of the genes. However, expression of CYP2C mRNA levels were significantly higher in the ascending colon than in the sigmoid colon. In contrast, mRNA levels of CYP2E1 and CYP3A5 were significantly lower in the ascending colon in comparison to the descending and sigmoid colon. In sigmoid colon protein levels of CYP2C8 were significantly higher by ~73% than in the descending colon. In contrast, protein concentration of CYP2E1 was significantly lower by ~81% in the sigmoid colon in comparison to the descending colon. Conclusion: The current data suggest that the expression of CYP2C, CYP2E1, and CYP3A5 varies in different parts of the colon. Background Throughout the last decades drug metabolism in the alimentary tract has received growing attention as part of the body's first line of defense against orally ingested harmful xenobiotica. Most xenobiotic compounds require an enzymatic activation to form a carcinogen or toxicant. The reactive intermediates resulting form enzymatic drug metabolism are often unstable and therefore are unlikely to be transported from the liver to other tissues to exert toxicity. Therefore, the chemical toxicity found in extrahepatic tissue often results from cellular metabolic activities in the organ. However, knowledge on the variability and regulation of expression of drug metabolizing enzymes in the human gastrointestinal tract and particularly the large intestine is poor in comparison with the "classical" drug metabolizing organs (e.g. liver). Published: 27 October 2005 BMC Clinical Pharmacology 2005, 5:4 doi:10.1186/1472-6904-5-4 Received: 03 May 2005 Accepted: 27 October 2005 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral. com/1472-6904/5/4 © 2005 Bergheim et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Sensitivity to Ethical Issues Confronted by Korean Hospital Staff Nurses

This descriptive study was undertaken to identify the degree of ethical sensitivity of staff nurses and to analyze the differences in ethical sensitivity in terms of both general and ethics-related characteristics. Participants were 236 staff nurses working in general hospitals in Korea. Ethical sensitivity was measured by means of an instrument developed by the researchers. The results showed that the mean score for the degree of ethical sensitivity was 0.71 out of a possible maximum score of 1 (range 0.30 to 0.97). For general characteristics, there was a significant difference in ethical sensitivity according to age (F (df 2233)-3.99, P-0.02). For characteristics related to ethics, there was a significant difference in ethical sensitivity according to attitude towards the nursing profession (F (df 4231)-2.94, P-0.03). It is therefore recommended that a training program reflecting these variables be developed to enhance staff nurses’ ethical sensitivity.
Induction of the second exopolysaccharide (EPSb) in Rhizobium meliloti SU47 by low phosphate concentrations

In previous work, Rhizobium meliloti SU47 produced its alternative exopolysaccharide (EPSb [also called EPS II]) only in strains that were genetically altered to activate EPSb synthesis. Here we report that EPSb synthesis is not entirely cryptic but occurred under conditions of limiting phosphate. This was shown in several different exo mutants that are blocked in the synthesis of the normal exopolysaccharide, succinoglycan. In addition, EPSb biosynthetic gene expression was markedly increased by limiting phosphate. An apparent regulatory mutant that does not express alkaline phosphatase activity was unable to produce EPSb under these conditions. A mucR mutant that was previously shown to produce EPSb instead of the normal exopolysaccharide, succinoglycan, was not sensitive to phosphate inhibition of EPSb synthesis. No evidence was found to indicate that exoX, which affects succinoglycan synthesis, had any influence on EPSb synthesis. In contrast to limiting phosphate, limiting nitrogen or sulfur did not stimulate EPSb synthesis as it does succinoglycan.
Coupling Mechanism of a GPCR and a Heterotrimeric G Protein During Chemoattractant Gradient Sensing in Dictyostelium

Imaging analyses and computer simulations suggest that a GPCR and its G protein associate only in the presence of ligand. Ligand-Induced Coupling A long-standing question regarding the activation of heterotrimeric G proteins by G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) is whether the association between the GPCR and the G protein is stimulated by the binding of ligand to the receptor, or whether the receptor and G protein are precoupled. Xu et al. addressed this question by measuring the mobilities of fluorescent fusion proteins of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) receptor 1 (cAR1), a GPCR for the chemoattractant cAMP, and the Gβ subunit in live Dictyostelium cells. The receptor and G protein moved independently in the plasma membrane and at different speeds. Whereas exposure of cells to cAMP had no effect on the mobility of cAR1, the mobility of a fraction of the faster-moving G proteins was reduced. Together with computer simulations of the effects of various proposed receptor–G protein coupling mechanisms on downstream signaling, these data suggest that the interaction between cAR1 and its G protein does not occur until the receptor is bound to ligand, and provide a means for investigating the G protein–coupling mechanisms of other GPCRs. The coupling of heterotrimeric guanine nucleotide–binding protein (G protein)–coupled receptors (GPCRs) with G proteins is fundamental for GPCR signaling; however, the mechanism of coupling is still debated. Moreover, how the proposed mechanisms affect the dynamics of downstream signaling remains unclear. Here, through experiments involving fluorescence recovery after photobleaching and single-molecule imaging, we directly measured the mobilities of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) receptor 1 (cAR1), a chemoattractant receptor, and a G protein βγ subunit in live cells. We found that cAR1 diffused more slowly in the plasma membrane than did Gβγ. Upon binding of ligand to the receptor, the mobility of cAR1 was unchanged, whereas the speed of a fraction of the faster-moving Gβγ subunits decreased. Our measurements showed that cAR1 was relatively immobile and Gβγ diffused freely, suggesting that chemoattractant-bound cAR1 transiently interacted with G proteins. Using models of possible coupling mechanisms, we computed the temporal kinetics of G protein activation. Our fluorescence resonance energy transfer imaging data showed that fully activated cAR1 induced the sustained dissociation of G protein α and βγ subunits, which indicated that ligand-bound cAR1 activated G proteins continuously. Finally, simulations indicated that a high-affinity coupling of ligand-bound receptors and G proteins was essential for cAR1 to translate extracellular gradient signals into directional cellular responses. We suggest that chemoattractant receptors use a ligand-induced coupling rather than a precoupled mechanism to control the activation of G proteins during chemotaxis.