Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beyond 'Bias' , 'Opinion' and 'Perspective': Developing Students' Understandings of Historical Interpretations and Accounts

There is widespread agreement amongst history educators that history education should aim to help students understand and explore multiple perspectives on the past. However, as an important body of international research and theorizing indicates, understanding historical interpretations and accounts can present significant challenges for history students and, indeed, for adults. This paper draws on empirical, theoretical and pedagogic work and, in particular, on two data sets developed through two online discussion exercises involving two academic historians, one history education academic and 15 and 73 English 16-19 year old students in discussion and argument about historical interpretations. The paper explores empirical questions about how these students appeared to conceptualize historical interpretations over the course of these discussion exercises and about the extent to which student thinking appeared to change, if at all, during the discussions. The paper will also explore what the data can tell us about effective pedagogic strategies for moving students’ thinking on.
Comparison of Commercial Extraction Systems and PCR Assays for Quantification of Epstein-Barr Virus DNA Load in Whole Blood

ABSTRACT The automation of DNA extraction and the use of commercial quantitative real-time PCR assays could help obtain more reliable results for the quantification of Epstein-Barr virus DNA loads (EBV VL). This study compared two automated extraction platforms and two commercial PCRs for measurement of EBV VL in 10 EBV specimens from Quality Control for Molecular Diagnostics (QCMD) and in 200 whole-blood (WB) specimens from transplant (n = 137) and nontransplant (n = 63) patients. The WB specimens were extracted using the QIAcube or MagNA Pure instrument; VL were quantified with the EBV R-gene quantification kit (Argene) or the artus EBV RG PCR kit (Qiagen) on the Rotor-Gene 6000 real-time analyzer; and the results were compared with those of a laboratory-developed PCR. DNA was extracted from the QCMD specimens by use of the QIAamp DNA minikit and was quantified by the three PCR assays. The extraction platforms and the PCR assays showed good correlation (R, >0.9; P, <0.0001), but as many as 10% discordant results were observed, mostly for low viral loads (<3 log10 copies/ml), and standard deviations reached as high as 0.49 log10 copy/ml. In WB but not in QCMD samples, Argene PCR tended to give higher VL values than artus PCR or the laboratory-developed PCR (mean difference for the 200 WB VL, −0.42 or −0.36, respectively). In conclusion, the two automated extraction platforms and the two PCRs provided reliable and comparable VL results, but differences greater than 0.5 log10 copy/ml remained between the two commercial PCRs after common DNA extraction.
Protection of Ischaemic Synaptosomes from Calcium Overload by Addition of Exogenous Lactate

Abstract: In depolarised anoxic synaptosomes, in which lactate production was significantly raised compared with normoxic conditions, calcium uptake, net acetylcholine release, and the intrasynaptosomal calcium concentration were all significantly lowered. In contrast, lactate production in synaptosomes incubated under aglycaemic‐and ischaemic‐type conditions was significantly lower and basal calcium uptake, acetylcholine release, and intrasynaptosomal calcium concentration were elevated compared with normoxia. In addition, the increase in intrasynaptosomal calcium concentration under the ischaemic‐type condition appeared to be greater than could be accounted for by the rise in calcium uptake alone. Intrasynaptosomal pH reflected the lactate production under each condition investigated. Addition of exogenous lactate to normoxic synaptosomes mimicked the effects observed in anoxia, suggesting that lactate itself may have blocked the calcium uptake, inhibiting the rise in intrasynaptosomal calcium and acetylcholine release occurring in depolarised anoxic synaptosomes. When lactate was added to ischaemic synaptosomes, the large rise in intrasynaptosomal calcium concentration, calcium uptake, and acetylcholine release were decreased, suggesting that lactate may have a protective role in preventing cell death by calcium overload under ischaemic‐type conditions. Evidence is presented to suggest that the effect of l‐lactate was due to the lactate moiety itself rather than the associated acidosis.
Malnutrition in Healthy Individuals Results in Increased Mixed Cytokine Profiles, Altered Neutrophil Subsets and Function

Malnutrition is commonly associated with increased infectious disease susceptibility and severity. Whereas malnutrition might enhance the incidence of disease as well as its severity, active infection can in turn exacerbate malnutrition. Therefore, in a malnourished individual suffering from a severe infection, it is not possible to determine the contribution of the pre-existing malnutrition and/or the infection itself to increased disease severity. In the current study we focussed on two groups of malnourished, but otherwise healthy individuals: moderately malnourished (BMI: 18.4–16.5) and severely malnourished (BMI <16.5) and compared several immune parameters with those of individuals with a normal BMI (≥18.5). Our results show a similar haematological profile in all three groups, as well as a similar ratio of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. We found significant correlations between low BMI and increased levels of T helper (Th) 1 (Interferon (IFN)-γ, (interleukin (IL)-2, IL-12), Th2 (IL-4, IL-5, IL-13), as well as IL-10, IL-33 and tumor necrosis factor-α, but not IL-8 or C reactive protein. The activities of arginase, an enzyme associated with immunosuppression, were similar in plasma, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and neutrophils from all groups and no differences in the expression levels of CD3ζ, a marker of T cell activation, were observed in CD4+ and CD8+T cells. Furthermore, whereas the capacity of neutrophils from the malnourished groups to phagocytose particles was not impaired, their capacity to produce reactive oxygen species was impaired. Finally we evaluated the frequency of a subpopulation of low-density neutrophils and show that they are significantly increased in the malnourished individuals. These differences were more pronounced in the severely malnourished group. In summary, our results show that even in the absence of apparent infections, healthy malnourished individuals display dysfunctional immune responses that might contribute to increased susceptibility and severity to infectious diseases.
Effects of physical fitness on attention, memory and decision making in children

The aim of this study was to determine whether there was a relationship between level of fitness and the information processing components of attention, memory and decision making in children. Based on existing evidence from studies on adults, it was predicted that higher-fit children would perform better on attention, memory and decision making tasks than their low-fit counterparts. It was predicted that higher-fit subjects would perform better than their lower-fit counterparts on: i) attention (dual task-tracking and discrete simple reaction time tasks), ii) memory (numeric vigilance and probed memory tasks), iii) decision making (discrete-6 choice reaction time tasks, and iv) executive function (Tower of Hanoi). Forty-seven male children from a local middle school were selected for the study. Based upon a cycle ergometer test, the top twenty receiving the highest fitness scores and the twenty with the lowest scores were selected to complete the cognitive tests. Subjects were required to perform six cognitive tests on a computer. Fitness level (higher-fit and lower-fit) was the main independent variable while the dependent variables were VO² max, fat percentage, resting heart rate and the measures from the cognitive tests. First, a fitness level ANOVA with predicted VO² max indicated that the groups did differ on the level of fitness. A group x memory capacity (8, 10) with repeated measures on memory length and a group x duration (80,100) with repeated measures on time were computed. The remaining dependent variables were analyzed by a fitness group ANOVA. The fitness level did not differentiate the subjects on attention, memory or decision making. There was a trend for the higher-fit to perform better than the lower-fit on simple and choice movement times, memory capacity and duration tests. Thus, the effects of aerobic fitness level on attention and memory capacity displayed a trend for higher-fit children to be slightly better than lower-fit children; however, these differences were not significant. Further studies need to continue to explore whether aerobic fitness levels have an impact on the components of children's information processing.
COLLECTIONS OF CLASSIFIERS TUNED FOR CELL FINDING WITH AN APPLICATION TO BUILDING DIGITAL CELL ATLASES OF DROSOPHILA EMBRYOS

The different combinations of genes active in different cells control the development and diversity of multicel-lular organisms. Yet the codes that control this process, written in both cis–regulatory and protein–coding DNA sequence, are poorly understood. This is despite the availability of imaging techniques that allow detection of gene activity at the resolution of single transcription units on chromosomes in individual interphase diploid nuclei[1]. While it has been shown that digital cell atlases are indeed possible[2], producing query-able models from imaging for Systems Biology[3] is far from commonplace for even the simplest of organisms. While much algorithmic work has been done on transforming pixels to meaningful objects (i.e. segmenting cell nuclei)[4], this necessary first step is far from a solved problem. Algorithm tuning remains a critical component and requires expertise in computer vision and image processing. This expertise is called upon repeatedly with new experimental data: when changes in the model organism, hybridization method, or the microscope result in changes to the generated images. We have successfully developed adaptive segmentation methods[5] that, while tuned for particular types of images, are tuned using machine learning methods. The advantage machine learning provides is rather than have the experimentalist tune the computer vision parameter(s) directly—this, again, requires an understanding of computer vision—the experimentalist instead tunes the system by providing direct feedback. The feedback mechanism is designed to be a of a natural form: given a collection of segmented pixels, the experimen-talist labels each collection as " a partial nucleus " , " a combination of two nuclei " , " a complete nucleus " , etc. From these these labeled collections we build classifiers that mimic the experimentalist's recognition of various segments. Using the human labeled examples as input, classifiers are built using JBoost[6], an open source, Java implementation of the Adaboost machine learning algorithm[7]. Adaboost generates a mapping from segments to scores, where high scores correspond to high confidence that the segment is correct (Figure 1a–g). Adaboost is a general-purpose learning algorithm which is particularly powerful when combining many weakly predictive features. The predictive features in this case are the values of the morphological features of the segments (Figure 1f). JBoost generates classifiers in a form of decision tree called Alternating Decision Trees (ADT)[8]. The ADT classifier (Figure 1g) acts a as proxy for the experimentalist, and we use these classifiers to guide the search for proper segmentations. As the experimental conditions change …
Clinical Latency and Reactivation of AIDS-Related Mycobacterial Infections

ABSTRACT The immune mechanisms associated with the evolution from latent to clinically active mycobacterial coinfection in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-infected humans remain poorly understood. Previous work has demonstrated that macaques infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIVmac) can develop persistent Mycobacterium bovis BCG coinfection and a fatal SIV-related tuberculosis-like disease by 4 months after BCG inoculation. In the present study, SIVmac-infected monkeys that developed clinically quiescent mycobacterial infection after BCG inoculation were followed prospectively for the reactivation of the BCG and the development of SIV-related tuberculosis-like disease. The development of clinically latent BCG coinfection in these SIVmac-infected monkeys was characterized by a change from high to undetectable levels of bacterial organisms, with or without measurable BCG mRNA expression in lymph node cells. The reactivation of clinically latent BCG coinfection and development of SIV-related tuberculosis-like disease were then observed in these SIVmac-BCG-coinfected monkeys during a 21-month period of follow-up. The reactivation of SIV-related tuberculosis-like disease in these animals coincided with a severe depletion of CD4 T cells and a loss of BCG-specific T-cell responses. Interestingly, bacterial superantigen challenge of the SIVmac-BCG-coinfected monkeys resulted in an up-regulation of clinically latent BCG coinfection, suggesting that infection with superantigen-producing microbes may increase the susceptibility of individuals to the reactivation of AIDS-related mycobacterial coinfection. Thus, reactivation of latent mycobacterial infections in HIV-1-infected individuals may result from a loss of T-cell immunity or from a superimposed further compromise of the immune system.
Crystal structure of the antimicrobial peptidase lysostaphin from Staphylococcus simulans

Staphylococcus simulans biovar staphylolyticus lysostaphin efficiently cleaves Staphylococcus aureus cell walls. The protein is in late clinical trials as a topical anti‐staphylococcal agent, and can be used to prevent staphylococcal growth on artificial surfaces. Moreover, the gene has been both stably engineered into and virally delivered to mice or livestock to obtain resistance against staphylococci. Here, we report the first crystal structure of mature lysostaphin and two structures of its isolated catalytic domain at 3.5, 1.78 and 1.26 Å resolution, respectively. The structure of the mature active enzyme confirms its expected organization into catalytic and cell‐wall‐targeting domains. It also indicates that the domains are mobile with respect to each other because of the presence of a highly flexible peptide linker. The high‐resolution structures of the catalytic domain provide details of Zn2+ coordination and may serve as a starting point for the engineering of lysostaphin variants with improved biotechnological characteristics.
LPC-based inversion of the DRM articulatory model

Articulatory representations are expected to bring better speech recognition results. This requires to estimate the parameters of a speech production model from the speech sound, problem known as acoustico-articulatory inversion. Known methods to solve this problem usually introduce a heavy computational cost. Alternately, it is known that Linear Prediction analysis offers an analogy with acoustic filtering. This analogy had been exploited to develop a less expensive analytic method applicable to the estimation of tube shapes discretized in equal-length sections. We have extended the method to the DRM case, where the tube is made of unequal-length sections. The proposed DRM inversion scheme is thus simpler and faster. Furthermore, it shows good performance in terms of low residual modeling error. It also enhances speech recognition results when used to compute Log Area Ratios.
A validity and reliability study of the Turkish Checklist Individual Strength (CIS) questionnaire in musculoskeletal physical therapy patients

Background and purpose The aims of this study were the following: (1) to develop a Turkish version of the Checklist Individual Strength Questionnaire (CIS-T); (2) to evaluate the reliability and validity of the CIS-T; and (3) to compare the fatigue levels between musculoskeletal physical therapy patients and healthy subjects. Methods: The questionnaire was adapted to Turkish using a ‘back translation’ method. Fifty healthy subjects and 165 musculoskeletal physical therapy patients (128 outpatients and 37 inpatients) were evaluated. To validate the CIS-T, all participants answered both the CIS-T and the Short Form-36 (SF-36). The CIS was re-administered one week later for test–retest reliability. Results: The internal consistency reliability of the CIS-T was Cronbach's α = 0.87 and the interclass correlation coefficient reliability was r = 0.92. The item-discriminant validity ranged from r = 0.10 to 0.63. The correlations between the total scores of the scale and the subscale scores of the SF-36 were significant and negative (p < 0.01). The total CIS scores were significantly higher in musculoskeletal physical therapy patients (inpatients) than in healthy subjects, but there was no significant difference between musculoskeletal physical therapy patients (outpatients) and healthy subjects (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The CIS-T was a valid and reliable scale for assessing fatigue in physical therapy patients and the fatigue levels of musculoskeletal physical therapy patients were higher than those of healthy subjects.
The Treponema pallidum tro Operon Encodes a Multiple Metal Transporter, a Zinc-dependent Transcriptional Repressor, and a Semi-autonomously Expressed Phosphoglycerate Mutase*

The Treponema pallidum tro operon encodes an ABC transporter (TroABCD), a transcriptional repressor (TroR), and the essential glycolytic enzyme phosphoglycerate mutase (Gpm). The apparently discordant observations that the solute binding protein (TroA) binds Zn2+, whereas DNA binding by TroR in vitro is Mn2+-dependent, have generated uncertainty regarding the identities of the ligand(s) and co-repressor(s) of the permease. Moreover, this operonic structure suggests that Gpm expression, and hence glycolysis, the sole source of ATP for the bacterium, would be suspended during TroR-mediated repression. To resolve these discrepancies, we devised an experimental strategy permitting a more direct assessment of Tro operon function and regulation. We report that (i) apo-TroA has identical affinities for Zn2+ and Mn2+; (ii) the Tro transporter expressed in Escherichia coli imports Zn2+, Mn2+, and possibly iron; (iii) TroR represses transporter expression in E. coli at significantly lower concentrations of Zn2+ than of Mn2+; and (iv) TroR-mediated repression causes a disproportionately greater down-regulation of the transporter genes than of gpm. The much higher concentrations of Zn2+ than of Mn2+ in human body fluids suggests that Zn2+ is both the primary substrate and co-repressor of the permease in vivo. Our data also indicate that Gpm expression and, therefore, glycolysis would not be abrogated when T. pallidum encounters high Zn2+ levels.
An intelligent power monitoring and analysis system for distributed smart plugs sensor networks

With the growth in power demand, energy management is an important issue in the 21st century. This article proposes a smart power management framework system, which comprises three parts. Part 1: a smart plug. Controlling the switching power supply, different sensors can be mounted for different application environments. The power supply can be switched on/off automatically according to environmental changes. Added to this, it can measure voltage and current for analysis. Part 2: a smart gateway. This can act as the mediation module for communication and implement the concept of fog computing. The local inference model is built and deployed by deep learning, and the model is learned, updated, and improved continuously to increase the intelligent control efficiency. Part 3: a management platform and mobile app. This allows for data visualization and a remote control for a user interface medium for scheduling. The smart plug and smart gateway are integrated into the overall distributed sensor network, analyzing and improving the power consumption effectively. Finally, the feasibility and practicability of the overall power management framework system are described experimentally.
Fine-Tuning in Portuguese-English Statistical Machine Translation

In previous work we have shown results of a first experiment in Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) for Brazilian Portuguese and American English using state-of-the-art phrase-based models. In this paper we compare a number of training and decoding parameter choices for fine-tuning the system as an attempt to obtain optimal results for this language pair.
Cognitive behaviour therapy for long-term frequent attenders in primary care: a feasibility case series and treatment development study.

BACKGROUND Most frequent attendance in primary care is temporary. Long-term frequent attendance may be suitable for psychological intervention to address health management and service use. AIM To explore the feasibility and acceptability of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for long-term frequent attendance in primary care and obtain preliminary evidence regarding clinical and cost effectiveness. DESIGN AND SETTING A CBT case series was carried out in five GP practices in the East Midlands. METHOD Frequent attenders (FAs) were identified from case notes and invited by their practice for assessment, then offered CBT. Feasibility and acceptability were assessed by CBT session attendance and thematic analysis of semi-structured questionnaires. Clinical and cost effectiveness was assessed by primary care use and clinically important change on a range of health and quality of life instruments. RESULTS Of 462 FAs invited to interview, 87 (19%) consented to assessment. Thirty-two (7%) undertook CBT over a median of 3 months. Twenty-four (75%) attended at least six sessions. Eighteen FAs (86%, n = 21) reported overall satisfaction with treatment. Patients reported valuing listening without judgement alongside support to develop coping strategies. Thirteen (54%, n = 24), achieved clinically important improvement on the SF-36 Mental-Component Scale at 6-month follow-up and improved quality of life, but no improvement on other outcomes. Primary care use reduced from a median of eight contacts in 3 months at baseline (n = 32) to three contacts in 3 months at 1 year (n = 18). CONCLUSION CBT appears feasible and acceptable to a subset of long-term FAs in primary care who halved their primary care use. With improved recruitment strategies, this approach could contribute to decreasing GP workload and merits larger-scale evaluation.
Gas Absorption Detected from the Edge-on Debris Disk Surrounding HD 32297

Near-infrared and optical images of HD 32297 indicate that it has an edge-on debris disk, similar to β Pic. I present high-resolution optical spectra of the Na I doublet toward HD 32297 and stars in close angular proximity. A circumstellar absorption component is clearly observed toward HD 32297 at the stellar radial velocity, which is not observed toward any of its neighbors, including the nearest only 0.9' away. An interstellar component is detected in all stars >90 pc, including HD 32297, likely due to the interstellar material at the boundary of the Local Bubble. Radial velocity measurements of the nearest neighbors, BD +07 777s and BD +07 778, indicate that they are unlikely to be physically associated with HD 32297. The measured circumstellar column density around HD 32997, log N ~ 11.4, is the strongest Na I absorption measured toward any nearby main-sequence debris disk, even the prototypical edge-on debris disk β Pic. Assuming that the morphology and abundances of the gas component around HD 32297 are similar to β Pic, I estimate an upper limit to the gas mass in the circumstellar disk surrounding HD 32297 of ~0.3 M⊕.