Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pyridoxamine protects against mechanical defects in cardiac ageing in rats: studies on load dependence of myocardial relaxation

What is the central question of this study? This study aimed to investigate the hypothesis that pyridoxamine, one of the three natural forms of vitamin B6, can protect against myocardial relaxation of senescent animals by targeting arterial stiffening and contractile dysfunction of the left ventricle. What is the main finding and its importance? We found that treating the senescent rats with pyridoxamine for 5 months might improve myocardial relaxation rate, at least partly through its ability to enhance myocardial contractile performance, increase wave transit time and decrease wave reflection factor.
Attitudes of Egyptian nursing home residents towards staying in a nursing home: a qualitative study.

Aim. The aim of this study was to identify the attitudes of Egyptian nursing home residents towards staying in a nursing home and to differentiate between various types of these attitudes. Background. The number of older persons in Egypt who require nursing care is increasing. In response, nursing homes in bigger cities like Cairo were founded, although family care seems to be the prevalent norm. Methods. Semi-structured guideline interviews were performed with 21 residents from four different nursing homes in Cairo. Interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Findings. One category of resident was those who were sent to the nursing home by persons closely related to them. Another category made their own decision to move to a nursing home. Relationships with social networks and self-help abilities are factors of importance in influencing decision-making. Conclusion. Nursing homes in Egypt fulfil different functions for different types of older persons. Charitable institutions are a last resort for those with no income and a disrupted social network. For better-off older persons, nursing homes may provide the benefits of socialising with peers and receiving medical treatment.
Explorator: A tool for exploring RDF data through direct manipulation

In this paper we introduce Explorator, a tool for exploring the Semantic Web data by direct manipulation. Explorator implements a model of operations that is supported by a visual interface that enables the user, with minimal knowledge of RDF model, to explore an RDF database without a-priori knowledge of data domain. Consequently, it is well suited for tasks that involve information search, exploration and visualization.
Immunization with a Recombinant Vaccinia Virus That Encodes Nonstructural Proteins of the Hepatitis C Virus Suppresses Viral Protein Levels in Mouse Liver

Chronic hepatitis C, which is caused by infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), is a global health problem. Using a mouse model of hepatitis C, we examined the therapeutic effects of a recombinant vaccinia virus (rVV) that encodes an HCV protein. We generated immunocompetent mice that each expressed multiple HCV proteins via a Cre/loxP switching system and established several distinct attenuated rVV strains. The HCV core protein was expressed consistently in the liver after polyinosinic acid–polycytidylic acid injection, and these mice showed chronic hepatitis C-related pathological findings (hepatocyte abnormalities, accumulation of glycogen, steatosis), liver fibrosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Immunization with one rVV strain (rVV-N25), which encoded nonstructural HCV proteins, suppressed serum inflammatory cytokine levels and alleviated the symptoms of pathological chronic hepatitis C within 7 days after injection. Furthermore, HCV protein levels in liver tissue also decreased in a CD4 and CD8 T-cell-dependent manner. Consistent with these results, we showed that rVV-N25 immunization induced a robust CD8 T-cell immune response that was specific to the HCV nonstructural protein 2. We also demonstrated that the onset of chronic hepatitis in CN2-29(+/−)/MxCre(+/−) mice was mainly attributable to inflammatory cytokines, (tumor necrosis factor) TNF-α and (interleukin) IL-6. Thus, our generated mice model should be useful for further investigation of the immunological processes associated with persistent expression of HCV proteins because these mice had not developed immune tolerance to the HCV antigen. In addition, we propose that rVV-N25 could be developed as an effective therapeutic vaccine.
Deletion of Microsomal Prostaglandin E Synthase-1 Does Not Alter Ozone-Induced Airway Hyper-Responsiveness

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs ameliorate pain and fever by inhibiting cyclooxygenase (COX) and suppressing prostanoid formation. Microsomal prostaglandin E synthase-1 (mPGES-1) catalyzes formation of PGE2 from the COX product PGH2 and has emerged as a therapeutic target. Inhibition of mPGES-1, however, renders the PGH2 substrate available for diversion to other PG synthases. To address the possibility that substrate diversion augments formation of PGs that might modulate bronchial tone, we assessed the impact of mPGES-1 deletion in a mouse model of ozone-induced airway hyper-responsiveness. Ozone exposure increased total lung resistance to inhaled methacholine in wild-type mice. Deletion of mPGES-1 had little effect on total lung resistance in either naive or ozone-exposed animals. The carbachol-induced narrowing of luminal diameter in intrapulmonary airways of lung slices from acute ozone-exposed mice was also unaltered by mPGES-1 deletion. Likewise, although concentrations of PGE2 were reduced in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, whereas 6-keto-PGF1α, PGD2, and PGF2α, all were increased, deletion of mPGES-1 failed to influence cell trafficking into the airways of either naive or ozone-exposed animals. Despite biochemical evidence of PGH2 substrate diversion to potential bronchomodulator PGs, deletion of mPGES-1 had little effect on ozone-induced airway inflammation or airway hyper-responsiveness. Pharmacologically targeting mPGES-1 may not predispose patients at risk to airway dysfunction.
Prevention Techniques for a Temporal Planner

Research in domain independent planning has concentrated on making desired facts (goals) become true, with less attention on preventing undesired facts (negative goals) from becoming true. This document presents preliminary work towards a temporal-based model of prevention, based on Allen and Koomen's temporal planner. The temporal model permits more expressive prevention problems and a more powerful prevention-oriented planner. Negative goals are temporally constrained—for instance, we can direct the planner to prevent a fact F from occurring before, after, or during a specific goal, between two temporally separated goals, etc. The planner can find solutions which allow F to become true at any time outside of the specified interval or which never allow F to become true. The temporal model permits the idea of delaying F after the interval, as well as terminating it before the interval. This paper describes a set of prevention techniques which have been implemented in a temporal planner and discusses necessary requirements for a more complete preventive planner.
Nanoscale infrared (IR) spectroscopy and imaging of structural lipids in human stratum corneum using an atomic force microscope to directly detect absorbed light from a tunable IR laser source

An atomic force microscope (AFM) and a tunable infrared (IR) laser source have been combined in a single instrument (AFM‐IR) capable of producing ~200‐nm spatial resolution IR spectra and absorption images. This new capability enables IR spectroscopic characterization of human stratum corneum at unprecendented levels. Samples of normal and delipidized stratum corneum were embedded, cross‐sectioned and mounted on ZnSe prisms. A pulsed tunable IR laser source produces thermomechanical expansion upon absorption, which is detected through excitation of contact resonance modes in the AFM cantilever. In addition to reducing the total lipid content, the delipidization process damages the stratum corneum morphological structure. The delipidized stratum corneum shows substantially less long‐chain CH2‐stretching IR absorption band intensity than normal skin. AFM‐IR images that compare absorbances at 2930/cm (lipid) and 3290/cm (keratin) suggest that regions of higher lipid concentration are located at the perimeter of corneocytes in the normal stratum corneum.
Towards an Information-Neutral Voting Scheme That Does Not Leave Too Much To Chance

We examine a new voting procedure that allows voters to express their preferences in the form of a voting strategy — a first-order function which specifies a vote. We examine the calculations necessary to formulate such voting strategies, and present examples which illustrate the effects of risk. The voting framework we discuss allows rational voters to vote strategically using decision-theoretic techniques to select their optimal strategies, even if they have no prior information about the preferences of others and are unfamiliar with decision theory; moreover, randomness can be introduced into the framework to increase resistance to manipulability while maintaining outcomes that do not leave too much to chance.
PENGARUH ETHNIC FOODS DIET EDUCATION PROGRAM TERHADAP SELF EFFICACY DAN KEPATUHAN DIET PASIEN DMT2 SUKU SASAK BERDASARKAN TEORI TRANSCULTURAL NURSING

Salah satu dari empat pilar penatalaksanaan DM yang sangat penting adalah kepatuhan terhadap pengaturan pola makan DM. Teori transcultural nursing digunakan sebagai pendekatan untuk meningkatkan self efficacy dan kepatuhan melalui penyesuaian program diet dengan makanan etnis pasien. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh ethnic foods diet education program terhadap self efficacy dan kepatuhan diet pasien DMT2 Suku Sasak berdasarkan teori transcultural nursing. Metode: Penelitian berdesain quasiexperimetal pre-post-test control design. Populasi sebanyak 112 pasien DMT2 Suku Sasak. Sampel sebanyak 36 pasien yang terbagi menjadi kelompok perlakuan (18 orang) dan kelompok kontrol (18 orang), diambil menggunakan teknik purposive sample. Variabel independent pada penelitian ini adalah ethnic foods diet education program. Variabel dependent pada penelitian ini adalah self efficacy dan kepatuhan diet. Instrumen dalam penelitian ini adalah kuesioner self efficacy dan form food recall. Data dianalisis dengan menggunakan Wilcoxon signed rank test dan Mann-Withney U test (α=0,05). Hasil: Analisis data dengan uji statistik Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test pada kelompok perlakuan didapatkan p value=0,001 (untuk self efficacy) dan p value = 0,025 (untuk kepatuhan diet) yang artinya terdapat perubahan self efficacy dan kepatuhan diet sebelum dan sesudah diberikan ethnic foods diet education program. Uji statistik Mann-Whitney U Test didapatkan hasil p value = 0,000 yaitu terdapat perbedaan signifikan antara kelompok perlakuan dan kontrol. Diskusi: program diet bagi pasien DMT2 yang diatur sesuai dengan kebutuhan budaya dapat memberikan kenyamanan dan kemudahan sehingga dapat meningkatkan self efficacy dan kepatuhan diet pasien. Perawat dapat menerapkan ethnic foods diet education program sebagai salah satu program edukasi pilihan.
Using the Repertory Grid Technique to Examine Trainee Clinical Psychologists' Construal of Their Personal and Professional Development.

The repertory grid technique was used to explore how 26 third-year trainee clinical psychologists construed their personal and professional selves over the course of training and into the future. Each trainee completed a demographic questionnaire and a repertory grid with 10 elements: four 'personal self' elements, four 'professional self' elements and two 'qualified clinical psychologist' elements. They then rated the 10 elements on 10 bipolar constructs of their choosing. Trainees' personal and professional selves were construed to be similar to each other. Trainees had low self-esteem and reported currently feeling anxious, stressed, unsettled and lacking an appropriate work-life balance. These difficulties were attributed to the demands of training and were expected to resolve once training was completed with future selves being construed as similar to ideal selves. Suggestions for future research with improved methodology are made, and the implications of the findings for trainees, training providers and employers of newly qualified clinical psychologists are given. The overall implication being that stress in training is normative and the profession has a duty to normalize this and ensure that self-care and personal development are recognized as core competencies of the clinical psychologist for the benefit of its members and their clients. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEY PRACTITIONER MESSAGE Clinical psychology trainees experience training as demanding and stressful, which negatively impacts on their personal and professional self-image and self-esteem. However, they are optimistic that they will become more like their ideal self in the future. Stress in clinical training (and beyond) is normative, and thus, personal development and self-care should be recognized as clinical psychologist's core competencies.
Setting Realistic Health Goals: Antecedents and Consequences.

BACKGROUND People often fail to translate their intentions into health behaviors. PURPOSE The present research examined a new potential moderator of intention-behavior relations, namely, how realistic or unrealistic are respective goal intentions. Goal realism was defined as the degree to which intentions are aligned with expectations (i.e., predicted performance). METHODS A validation study (N = 81) examined our novel goal realism measure. Study 1 (N = 246) tested goal importance, fantasy proneness, and pathways thinking as predictors of realistic goal setting using a cross-sectional questionnaire design. Moderation of the intention-behavior relation was tested in prospective surveys of cervical cancer screening (Study 2, N = 854), physical activity (Study 3, N = 237), and performance of a suite of 15 health behaviors (Study 4, N = 378). RESULTS The validation study offered preliminary evidence concerning the convergent and predictive validity of the goal realism measure. Study 1 showed that goal importance, fantasy proneness, and pathways thinking interacted to predict how realistic were intentions to perform 11 health behaviors. In Study 2, realistic intentions better predicted women's attendance for cervical cancer screening compared with unrealistic intentions. Study 3 confirmed this finding for a frequently performed behavior (physical activity). In Study 4, multilevel modeling of longitudinal data for 15 health behaviors again revealed a significant goal realism × intention interaction. Greater realism was associated with improved prediction of behavior by intention. The interaction term remained significant even when past behavior, perceived behavioral control, and other predictors were taken into account. CONCLUSIONS The present findings offer new insights into the factors that lead to more realistic intentions and demonstrate that goal realism influences how effectively intentions are translated into action.
Human Cytomegalovirus UL36 Protein Is Dispensable for Viral Replication in Cultured Cells

ABSTRACT Consistent with earlier analyses of human cytomegalovirus UL36 mRNA, we find that the UL36 protein is present throughout infection. In fact, it is delivered to the infected cell as a constituent of the virion. Curiously, much less UL36 protein accumulated in cells infected with the AD169 strain of human cytomegalovirus than in cells infected with the Towne or Toledo strain, and localization of the protein in cells infected with AD169 is strikingly different from that in cell infected with the Towne or Toledo strain. The variation in steady-state level of the proteins results from different stabilities of the proteins. The UL36 proteins from the three viral strains differ by several amino acid substitutions. However, this variability is not responsible for the different half-lives because the AD169 and Towne proteins, which exhibit very different half-lives within infected cells, exhibit the same half-life when introduced into uninfected cells by transfection with expression plasmids. We demonstrate that the UL36 protein is nonessential for growth in cultured cells, and we propose that the ability of the virus to replicate in the absence of UL36 function likely explains the striking strain-specific variation in the half-life and intracellular localization of the protein.
A review on individual differences and cultural intelligence

In the pace of globalization, it is crucial that individuals have the knowledge and skills to effectively face the challenges and requirements of a “global village”. It is believed that cultural intelligence (CQ) explains why some individuals are more capable at navigating culturally diverse environments than others. Prior research has indicated that CQ role is highly significant in predicting cross-cultural effectiveness among expatriates.However, as a new and quickly growing area of research factors that influence CQ is still under researched. This article proposes the influence of stable dispositions and dynamic competencies as the antecedents of CQ. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Efficiently Exploiting Symmetries in Real Time Dynamic Programming

Current approaches to solving Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are sensitive to the size of the MDP. When applied to real world problems though, MDPs exhibit considerable implicit redundancy, especially in the form of symmetries. Existing model minimization methods do not exploit this redundancy due to symmetries well. In this work, given such symmetries, we present a time-efficient algorithm to construct a functionally equivalent reduced model of the MDP. Further, we present a Real Time Dynamic Programming (RTDP) algorithm which obviates an explicit construction of the reduced model by integrating the given symmetries into it. The RTDP algorithm solves the reduced model, while working with parameters of the original model and the given symmetries. As RTDP uses its experience to determine which states to backup, it focuses on parts of the reduced state set that are most relevant. This results in significantly faster learning and a reduced overall execution time. The algorithms proposed are particularly effective in the case of structured automorphisms even when the reduced model does not have fewer features. We demonstrate the results empirically on several domains.
Knowledge Distillation for Small Foot-print Deep Speaker Embedding

Deep speaker embedding learning is an effective method for speaker identity modelling. Very deep models such as ResNet can achieve remarkable results but are usually too computationally expensive for real applications with limited resources. On the other hand, simply reducing model size is likely to result in significant performance degradation. In this paper, label-level and embedding-level knowledge distillation are proposed to narrow down the performance gap between large and small models. Label-level distillation utilizes the posteriors obtained by a well-trained teacher model to guide the opti-mization of the student model, while embedding-level distillation directly constrains the similarity between embeddings learned by two models. Experiments were carried out on the VoxCeleb1 dataset. Results show that the proposed knowledge distillation methods can significantly boost the performance of highly compact student models.
Acid-Induced Pain and Its Modulation in Humans

Despite the discovery of ion channels that are activated by protons, we still know relatively little about the signaling of acid pain. We used a novel technique, iontophoresis of protons, to investigate acid-induced pain in human volunteers. We found that transdermal iontophoresis of protons consistently caused moderate pain that was dose-dependent. A marked desensitization occurred with persistent stimulation, with a time constant of ∼3 min. Recovery from desensitization occurred slowly, over many hours. Acid-induced pain was significantly augmented in skin sensitized by acute topical application of capsaicin. However, skin desensitized by repeated capsaicin application showed no significant reduction in acid-induced pain, suggesting that both capsaicin-sensitive and insensitive sensory neurons contribute to acid pain. Furthermore, topical application of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) significantly attenuated acid-evoked pain but did not affect the heat pain threshold, suggesting a specific interaction between NSAIDs and peripheral acid sensors. Subcutaneous injection of amiloride (1 mm) also significantly inhibited the pain induced by iontophoresis of acid, suggesting an involvement of acid-sensing ion channel (ASIC) receptors. Conversely, iontophoresis of acid over a wide range of skin temperatures from 4 to 40°C produced only minor changes in the induced pain. Together these data suggest a prominent role for ASIC channels and only a minor role for transient receptor potential vanilloid receptor-1 as mediators of cutaneous acid-induced pain.
Vision-based Scene Analysis on Mobile Robots using Layered POMDPs

Mobile robots are increasingly being deployed in different applications as a result of progress in sensor technology and the development of state of the art algorithms for processing sensory inputs. A key challenge to the widespread deployment of robots is the ability to autonomously tailor sensing and information processing to the task at hand. In this paper, we describe on-going work towards such general-purpose processing of visual input. We pose visual processing management as an instance of probabilistic sequential decision making, and specifically as a three-layered hierarchical partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP). We use a two-layered POMDP hierarchy to enable a robot to plan a sequence of visual operators in order to reliably and efficiently analyze the state of the world represented by salient regions of interest in images (Sridharan, Wyatt, and Dearden 2008; 2009). We then incorporate scene analysis as the highest layer, where the goal is to maximize the known information about the environment. The POMDP models at the different layers are tailored to the task at hand by enabling the robot to learn the model parameters and trade-off computational efficiency and reliability. The proposed approach is tested on robots and simulated agents in human robot interaction scenarios.
beta-Glucosidase activity in mycobacteria

A procedure to test beta-glucosidase was developed for identification of the mycobacteria. One hundred and thirty-three strains representing 17 species were assayed in a buffered system containing whole cells and the substrate p-nitrophenyl-beta-D-glucoside. Qualitative differences between species indicated that the test was useful in discriminating among the mycobacteria.