Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detection of natural complex sounds by cells in the primary auditory cortex of the cat.

The neural mechanisms involved in the detection of natural complex sounds were studied by recording single-neuron responses from 132 cells in the primary auditory cortex of the cat. The cats were paralyzed and under neuroleptanalgesia (NLA). The cells were first stimulated with pure tones; the responses were then compared with those evoked by many different types of complex sounds, most of which were animal vocalizations. Per-stimulus-time (PST) histograms constructed from the responses to repetitive stimuli were compared with the corresponding sound spectrograms formed from the sounds used as stimuli. Of 100 cells 68 per cent gave predictable responses to complex sounds on the basis of their responses to different pure tone frequencies. In 32 per cent of the cells the responses were unpredictable. Half of these cells did not react to pure tones at all but responded to one or more animal vocalizations or generator sounds with different patterns. Some cells reacted to pure tones in quite a different way than to certain complex sounds, e.g. with inhibition instead of excitation. These results indicate that cells in the primary auditory cortex of the cat reacting in an unpredictable way to sounds with a complex structure have a more or less specialized function, in detecting and analyzing natural and other complex sound patterns. Cells reacting phasically to pure tones seem to be involved in the detection of transient sound elements.
Laboratory evaluation of one-component enamel/dentin bonding agents.

PURPOSE To evaluate the bonding efficacy of five commercial and one experimental one-component enamel/dentin adhesives. MATERIALS AND METHODS The adhesives One-Step (BOS), Primabond (PAB), Prime & Bond 2.0 (PB2), Solist (SOL), Tenure Quik (TEQ), and an experimental compound (EXP) were investigated. The adhesives were used to bond a hybrid-type resin composite to enamel and dentin. Shear bond strength (SBS) to human teeth was determined after 24-hour storage in water. The marginal performance was evaluated on restorations in 3.5 mm wide cylindrical dentin cavities as the maximum gap width found 15 minutes after light activation. The hybrid layer thicknesses at the cavity margin were measured by light microscopy. RESULTS Mean SBSs to enamel were between 23 and 35 MPa, those to dentin between 3.5 and 25 MPa. BOS and EXP showed the highest bond strengths to dentin and consistently gap-free restorations. PB2 mediated significantly lower SBS to dentin; only three of the six restorations were gap-free. SOL exhibited poor marginal quality (mean MGW 7.5 microns) despite 15 MPa dentin bond strength. PAB and TEQ demonstrated very low SBS to dentin. None of the restorations with these products was gap-free. All adhesives produced hybrid layers between 2 and 10 microns thick, as a coupling zone between dentin and restoration. Adhesives with the essential components of wetting monomer, well-polymerizing dimethacrylate, and acetone as the water-chasing solvent, performed very well when used with a moist bonding technique.
Different Antifolate-resistant L1210 Cell Variants with either Increased or Decreased Folylpolyglutamate Synthetase Gene Expression at the Level of mRNA Transcription (*)

L1210 cell variants selected in the presence of the lipophilic dihydrofolate reductase inhibitor, metoprine, expressed increased levels of one-carbon, reduced folate transport inward (Sirotnak, F. M., Moccio, D. M., and Yang, C.-H.(1984) J. Biol. Chem. 259, 13139-13144). Growth of one of these variants (L1210/R69), with metoprine in the presence of decreasing concentrations of l,L5-CHO-folateH (natural diastereoisomer of 5-formyltetrahydrofolate), resulted in the selection of other variants (L1210/R82, R83, and R84) with further reduction in one-carbon, reduced folate transport and in two cases (L1210/R83 and R84) with 3-8-fold increased folylpolyglutamate synthetase (FPGS) activity and folate compound polyglutamate formation in situ. Metoprine resistance was further increased, and the requirement for exogenous folate during growth was decreased as well in these variants. The increase in FPGS activity observed in L1210/R83 and R84 was characterized by 3- and 8-fold increases in value for Vmax with no change in K and the same increase in a 60-61-kDa protein as shown by immunoblotting. Northern blotting revealed the same increases in these two variants in the level of a 2.3-kilobase FPGS mRNA when compared with control, while Southern blotting of genomic DNA did not reveal any increase in FPGS gene-copy number or restriction polymorphisms. Also, no difference in stability of FPGS mRNA was found between parental and variant cells. In contrast, nuclear run-on assays revealed differences among these cell types in the rate of FPGS mRNA transcription that correlated with increased FPGS activity, protein, and mRNA level in the variants. Similar studies with a transport-defective, methotrexate-resistant L1210 cell variant (L1210/R25) documented a 2-3-fold decrease in FPGS activity, protein, and mRNA levels that was accounted for by a decrease in FPGS mRNA transcription. These results provide the first examples of constituitively altered transcriptional regulation of FPGS activity associated with acquired resistance to antifolates.
Honeybee venom allergy: immunoblot studies in allergic patients after immunotherapy and before sting challenge

By immunoblot techniques, detailed antibody studies were performed with sera of 20 honeybee‐venom‐allergic patients during or at the end of specific immunotherapy (median duration: 3 years) and before honeybee sting challenge. Before immunotherapy, all patients had experienced systemic allergic reactions to a honeybee sting, with a mean severity of 3.5 ± 0.5 according to the Muller classification. After the sting challenge, 10 patients (reactors) reacted again with a systemic allergic reaction, whereas 10 patients (nonreactors) did not. No differences were observed between reactors and nonreactors in total serum IgE and specific IgE to honeybee venom at the time of challenge. For immunoblot, honeybee venom (RELESS) was separated on 7.5–20% SDS‐PAGE. For detection of specific IgE, IgG, IgG1, IgG4, and IgM, an alkaline phosphatase‐linked second antibody was used. Both groups showed 11 antibody‐binding bands: at 52, 46, 40, 31, 18.7. 16.9, 13, 11, 10, 9, and 8 kDa; however, the antibody‐binding pattern was individual. The reactors differed from nonreactors in showing intense IgE and less IgG4 binding to at least one single component of the venom extract. For nonreactors, the inverse relationship was observed. The hypothesis, “intensity of IgE ≥ IgG4 leads to allergic symptoms”, was highly significant (P = 0.00026; chi‐square). These immunoblot findings could offer predictive value in distinguishing reactors from nonreactors.
Yolk‐sac carcinoma develops spontaneously as a late occurrence in slow‐growing teratoid tumors produced from transplanted 7‐day mouse embryos

Seven‐day embryos of BALB/c mice transplanted underneath the kidney capsule of adult syngeneic recipients form either benign teratomas or teratocarcinomas, which can be distinguished from one another histologically at 8 weeks postembryonic transplantation. Embryo‐derived (ED) teratomas were allowed to remain in the host for an additional period up to 1 year after embryo transplantation, to test their malignant potential. It was found that a considerable number of slow‐growing small tumors derived from embryonic transplant give rise to parietal yolk‐sac carcinomas. A proportion of these tumors contained foci of visceral yolk‐sac and trophoblastic differentiation, which gradually disappeared in successive transplantations. We conclude that parietal yolk‐sac carcinoma develops as a late event in some ED teratomas. These malignant tumors originate either from small foci of yolk sac originally included in the grafted embryo or, more likely, from the yolk sac formed from the differentiating embryonic stem cells.
Quick Assessment of Literacy in Primary Care: The Newest Vital Sign

PURPOSE Current health literacy screening instruments for health care settings are either too long for routine use or available only in English. Our objective was to develop a quick and accurate screening test for limited literacy available in English and Spanish. METHODS We administered candidate items for the new instrument and also the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA) to English-speaking and Spanish-speaking primary care patients. We measured internal consistency with Cronbach’s α and assessed criterion validity by measuring correlations with TOFHLA scores. Using TOFLHA scores <75 to define limited literacy, we plotted receiver-operating characteristics (ROC) curves and calculated likelihood ratios for cutoff scores on the new instrument. RESULTS The final instrument, the Newest Vital Sign (NVS), is a nutrition label that is accompanied by 6 questions and requires 3 minutes for administration. It is reliable (Cronbach α >0.76 in English and 0.69 in Spanish) and correlates with the TOFHLA. Area under the ROC curve is 0.88 for English and 0.72 for Spanish versions. Patients with more than 4 correct responses are unlikely to have low literacy, whereas fewer than 4 correct answers indicate the possibility of limited literacy. CONCLUSION NVS is suitable for use as a quick screening test for limited literacy in primary health care settings.
The effects of a positive health priming intervention on somatic complaints

Somatic complaints are common and form a major burden. Previous studies suggested that such complaints might be increased by ‘illness-related memory’, for example due to worries about health. In this ambulatory study we tested whether we could decrease somatic complaints through enhancing the activation of health-related memory by a ‘positive health’-priming intervention. Forty-three students were randomly assigned to the ‘positive health’-group or a control group. Using online measures, participants reported negative affect (NA) and somatic complaints for a period of six days, while each morning performing the priming task. The intervention caused a decrease in somatic complaints but only for participants with low trait NA or low somatosensory amplification. These findings seem to suggest that priming or other interventions directed at activating positive health memory might reduce health complaints, but only in certain subgroups.
Modern printing technologies in micro- and nanoelectronics

The trends in microminiaturization in printing are considered and some features of dispersed systems in nano sized scale as well as their applications discussed. Nanoparticles, nanostructures, nanocomposites are regarded as dispersed formations with unique properties due to quantum-sized and surface effects. The summary of photolithography in macro- and microelectronics is given, underlining the disadvantages of it in fabrication of electronic devices due to the light wavelength limits. The detailed analysis of nanotechnology in photography and printing is made, including micro- and nanocontact printing, or imprinting lithography, for what the short history of Graphic Arts development is overviewed as for applications of dispersed materials. Some perspectives of digital micro- and nanoprinting in nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, security printing, active and “intelligent” packaging are outlined, pointing out the importance of nanocomposites of metal oxides and halides for printed luminescent tags for smart food packaging. Nanosized ZnO was considered as a promising substance for printed application to active and “intelligent” packaging as well as nanophotonic devices. The experiments were carried out in order to determine the influence of the state of a packaged product on the properties of ZnO nanofilms. The results open the possibility to combine the properties of the films in development of devices for nanophotonics and smart packaging.
A data-synthesis-driven method for detecting and extracting vague cognitive regions

ABSTRACT Cognitive regions and places are notoriously difficult to represent in geographic information science and systems. The exact delineation of cognitive regions is challenging insofar as borders are vague, membership within the regions varies non-monotonically, and raters cannot be assumed to assess membership consistently and homogeneously. In a study published in this journal in 2014, researchers devised a novel grid-based task in which participants rated the membership of individual cells in a given region and contrasted this approach to a standard boundary-drawing task. Specifically, the authors assessed the vague cognitive regions of Northern California and Southern California. The boundary between these cognitive regions was found to have variable width, and region membership peaked not at the most northern or southern cells but at substantially less extreme latitudes. The authors thus concluded that region membership is about attitude, not just latitude. In the present work, we reproduce this study by approaching it from a computational fourth-paradigm perspective, i.e., by the synthesis of high volumes of heterogeneous data from various sources. We compare the regions which we identify to those from the human-participants study of 2014, identifying differences and commonalities. Our results show a significant positive correlation to those in the original study. Beyond the extracted regions themselves, we compare and contrast the empirical and analytical approaches of these two methods, one a conventional human-participants study and the other an application of increasingly popular data-synthesis-driven research methods in GIScience.
Ras-Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factor Sos2 Is Dispensable for Mouse Growth and Development

ABSTRACT The mammalian sos1 and sos2 genes encode highly homologous members of the Son-of-sevenless family of guanine nucleotide exchange factors. They are ubiquitously expressed and play key roles in transmission of signals initiated by surface protein tyrosine kinases that are transduced into the cell through the action of membrane-associated Ras proteins. Recent reports showed that targeted disruption of the sos1 locus results in embryonic lethality. To gain insight into the in vivo function ofsos2, we disrupted its catalytic CDC25-H domain by means of gene targeting techniques. Mating among heterozygous sos2+/− mice produced viablesos2−/− offspring with a normal Mendelian pattern of inheritance, indicating that the loss of sos2does not interfere with embryo viability in the uterus. Adult homozygous mutant sos2−/− mice reached sexual maturity at the same age as their wild-type littermates, and both male and female null mutants were fertile. Histopathological analysis showed no observable differences between mutant and wild-type mice. Our results show that unlike the case for sos1,sos2 gene function is dispensable for normal mouse development, growth, and fertility.
Therapeutic effects of a human antiflagella monoclonal antibody in a neutropenic murine model of Pseudomonas aeruginosa pneumonia

Human immunoglobulin G1 (IgG1) monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) reactive with type-specific Pseudomonas aeruginosa lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and flagella were compared for their protective activities against Fisher immunotype 2 P. aeruginosa pneumonia in neutropenic mice. The activity of the antiflagella MAb at a dose of 500 micrograms per mouse was comparable to that of the anti-LPS MAb at the same dose. In vivo protection was correlated with bacterial density in the lung tissue and blood of infected mice. In vitro data suggested that the protective activity of the antiflagella MAb was due more to inhibition of bacterial motility than to opsonophagocytosis of bacteria by alveolar macrophages. In contrast, the protective activity of the anti-LPS MAb was primarily related to alveolar macrophage-mediated opsonophagocytosis. Antiflagella MAb at a dose of 500 micrograms combined with oral sparfloxacin at a subtherapeutic dose of 62.5 micrograms produced a significant increase in survival (P < 0.05) compared with that produced by either agent alone or no treatment. The additive effects between the antiflagella MAb and sparfloxacin at sub-MICs on the inhibitory effects of bacterial motility supported the in vivo effect of the combination. These data suggest that human isotype-matched antiflagella and anti-LPS MAbs have similar protective activities against Pseudomonas pneumonia in neutropenic mice, despite discrete mechanisms of antibody-matched protection. In addition, in vivo synergy was demonstrated between antiflagella MAb and sparfloxacin in this model.
Shaped coverage of elongated cells at millimetrewaves using a dielectric lens antennas

A reasonably uniform coverage with significant ground reflection discrimination can be obtained at 60 GHz over an elongated cell like a section of a street a few hundred meters long, or like a long indoor corridor by using a conveniently designed dielectric lens antenna. The lens is fed directly by the waveguide open-end, and its 3D surface is shaped so that the antenna gain ideally compensates the free space attenuation at each direction wihin the cell limits, and falls-off outside this region. This lens antenna was developed in the framework of the European RACE II R2067-MBS project, to equip its Demonstrator. In this communication, the actual yielded coverage in a long indoor corridor and the fading of the received signal are compared with the performances of conventional rectangular horns when used in the same type of cells, showing a significant improvement.
Discovery of Periodic Patterns in Large Water Distribution Network

Time series like chlorine data in large water distribution network often consist of periodic patterns, for example, the behavior of the chlorine within one day is commonly correlated to that of the next day. If the water quality patterns display a periodicity, discovering these periodicities may reveal interesting information which can be used for better future demand forecasting and decision making. Thus, the subject of this paper is to discover such periodic patterns of the overall multiple time series chlorine data in an accurate picture with time. Traditional periodic analysis techniques mainly focus on discrete symbols, which may not directly be applied to the continuous numerical values of water quality data in our work. In this paper, our core contributions are to employ a new similarity measure which requires no user parameters by using the Minimum Description Length(MDL) Principle for matching patterns in the continuous numerical values application and propose a framework to discover the periodic patterns in the large water distribution network. Furthermore, we evaluate our approaches on a real water distribution network from the Battle of the Water Sensor Network (BWSN). Experiment results show that our periodic pattern discovering methods are effective and can discover interesting periodic time-evolving patterns on the chlorine data.
NF-kappa B is a central regulator of the intestinal epithelial cell innate immune response induced by infection with enteroinvasive bacteria.

Human intestinal epithelial cells up-regulate the expression of an inflammatory gene program in response to infection with a spectrum of different strains of enteroinvasive bacteria. The conserved nature of this program suggested that diverse signals, which are activated by enteroinvasive bacteria, can be integrated into a common signaling pathway that activates a set of proinflammatory genes in infected host cells. Human intestinal epithelial cell lines, HT-29, Caco-2, and T84, were infected with invasive bacteria that use different strategies to induce their uptake and have different intracellular localizations (i.e., Salmonella dublin, enteroinvasive Escherichia coli, or Yersinia enterocolitica). Infection with each of these bacteria resulted in the activation of TNF receptor associated factors, two recently described serine kinases, I kappa B kinase (IKK) alpha and IKK beta, and increased NF-kappa B DNA binding activity. This was paralleled by partial degradation of I kappa B alpha and I kappa B epsilon in bacteria-infected Caco-2 cells. Mutant proteins that act as superrepressors of IKK beta and I kappa B alpha inhibited the up-regulated transcription and expression of downstream targets genes of NF-kappa B that are key components of the epithelial inflammatory gene program (i.e., IL-8, growth-related oncogene-alpha, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, TNF-alpha, cyclooxygenase-2, nitric oxide synthase-2, ICAM-1) activated by those enteroinvasive bacteria. These studies position NF-kappa B as a central regulator of the epithelial cell innate immune response to infection with enteroinvasive bacteria.
Examination Of Various Wms-Iii Logical Memory Scores In The Assessment Of Response Bias

The assessment of response validity during neuropsychological evaluation is an integral part of the testing process. Research has increasingly focused on the use of “embedded” effort measures (derived from standard neuropsychological tasks) because they do not require additional administration time and are less likely to be identified as effort indicators by test takers because of their primary focus as measures of cognitive function. The current study examined the clinical utility of various WMS-III Logical Memory scores in detecting response bias, as well as the Rarely Missed Index, an embedded effort indicator derived from the WMS-III Logical Memory Delayed Recognition subtest. The Rarely Missed Index cut-off only identified 24.1% of 63 non-credible participants (at ≥90% specificity in 125 credible patients), and cut-offs for other Logical Memory variables were in fact found to be more sensitive to non-credible performance. A new indicator, consisting of the weighted combination of the two most sensitive Logical Memory subtest scores (Logical Memory II raw score and Logical Memory Delayed Recognition raw score), was associated with 53% to 60% sensitivity, and thus may be an effective adjunct when utilized in conjunction with other validated effort indicators and collateral information in identifying non-credible performance.
Power Load Forecasting Method Base on Serial Grey Neural Network

To improve the accuracy of power load forecasting, we analyze the merits as well as defects of artifical neural network (ANN) and grey prediction method, and we combine the two methods to propose a novel forecasting method named serial grey neural network. The new method utilizes the acuumulation generation operation of grey prediction to transform the origianl data, and produces the accumulated data which possesses better regularity, making it easier to model and train the ANN, and it avoids the theoretical error of grey prediction method. Case study validates the effectiveness of the proposed method, and it is suitable for middle and long term load forecasting.
Advances in Feedforward Neural Networks: Demystifying Knowledge Acquiring Black Boxes

We survey research of recent years on the supervised training of feedforward neural networks. The goal is to expose how the networks work, how to engineer them so they can learn data with less extraneous noise, how to train them efficiently, and how to assure that the training is valid. The scope covers gradient descent and polynomial line search, from backpropagation through conjugate gradients and quasi Newton methods. There is a consensus among researchers that adaptive step gains (learning rates) can stabilize and accelerate convergence and that a good starting weight set improves both the training speed and the learning quality. The training problem includes both the design of a network function and the fitting of the function to a set of input and output data points by computing a set of coefficient weights. The form of the function can be adjusted by adjoining new neurons and pruning existing ones and setting other parameters such as biases and exponential rates. Our exposition reveals several useful results that are readily implementable.