Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Termination of afferent axons in macaque striate cortex

We used horseradish peroxidase (HRP) to orthogradely label afferent axons in macaque striate cortex. Of the 38 axons that we recovered, nine were recorded intracellularly before being filled with HRP. Light microscope and computer reconstructions of filled processes reveal highly stereotyped patterns of arborization and suggest that there are at least five discrete populations of lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) afferent axon: (1) those to layer 4C beta, which have extremely circumscribed, dense terminal fields (small branches of which occasionally intrude into 4C alpha) but which have not been shown to project to other laminae; (2) afferents to layer 4A, which in some cases send fine ascending collaterals into layer 2–3 and which do not, apparently, send collaterals to other laminae; (3) afferents to layer 1, which are fine, extend over large distances horizontally, and send collaterals to layer 6A; (4) afferents to the lower two-thirds of layer 4C alpha, which have few or no collaterals in layer 6; and (5) afferents to the upper half of layer 4C alpha, which have arborizing collaterals in layer 6B. Of the nine axons that were recorded intracellularly, those with projections to layer 4C beta (two axons) and to layer 1 (one axon) had color-selective properties, whereas those (six axons) which arborized in 4C alpha all had transient, broad band and highly contrast-sensitive receptive fields. These properties are consistent with derivations from somata in the parvocellular and magnocellular divisions of the LGN, respectively. Afferents to 4C alpha were found to cover approximately 6 times as much surface area as afferents to 4C beta. The preterminal trunks of all axons were found to follow tortuous paths through the neuropil--paths that may derive from axon segregation during development. The wide ranging, patchy distributions of single afferents in 4C alpha suggest that individual 4C alpha axons supply more than one ocular dominance stripe. In one case where the terminal arborization of a 4C alpha axon was mapped against the transneuronally determined pattern of ocular dominance, three separate patches of terminal boutons were indeed found to coincide with the bands of one eye.
Age at first sexual intercourse and the timing of marriage and childbirth.

Although several studies have examined determinants of age at 1st intercourse less attention has been given to consequences. In this analysis age at 1st intercourse is viewed as a life course transition which can influence rates of marriage and childbearing. Analysis is based on the National Survey of Family Growth Cycle III. Early initiation of sexual activity is associated with a relatively slow pace of family formation but early initiators do catch up with late initiators. Teens who begin sexual activity early are more likely to form a family through giving birth rather than through marriage. These patterns are not greatly altered by the introduction of several quite different trajectories of marriage and childbirth following 1st intercourse. (authors)
Autonomous Defenses for Security Attacks in Pervasive CPS Infrastructure

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) integrate computation with sensing, control, and physical systems and will enable development of next-generation services and smart infrastructure across many application domains. However, a significant impediment to the use of CPS in trusted and trustworthy systems is their vulnerability to security attacks. Some properties of CPS that exacerbate security concerns are intrinsic to the systems, and so cannot be deferred for later reconciliation with an already functional system. First, risk of security threats grows with the value and criticality of the assets under control of the CPS. Second, an open, distributed, pervasive system has a large attack surface because it is easily accessible by attackers. These concerns are exacerbated by the long lifetimes of CPS that guarantee the evolution of unforeseen attacks after the systems are fielded. Finally, as a platform for CPS, wireless sensor networks (WSN) also have resource constraints that increase asymmetries between the system and its attackers. In this article, we first describe examples of active and passive attacks on CPS security and then propose design requirements and solution approaches based on results from our previous work. We argue that trustworthy CPS must be designed for robustness using autonomous defenses, clusters of solutions, and the right mix of randomization and regularization to allow continued operation despite unforeseen attacks.
Handling bereavement in Danish schools – A system at a crossroad?

Abstract The bereavement response system used in Danish schools has developed differently from those in other European nations. At its heart lies the bereavement response plan, which 96% of all schools today use on a voluntary basis. Through a timeline interview with one participant and a focus group interview with three participants, this study explores how the Danish system has been influenced by the teachers using it in a particular school context. Interviews identify that in-school revisions of the bereavement response plan seem to occur isolated from advances made within academia. The article concludes that the current system has begun to transform into something different than was originally intended. While it is difficult to conclude whether such a change is for the better or worse, it remains problematic that no organisation seems to be in control of the current direction the system is taking.
An Exploratory Study of Game-based M-learning for Software Project Management

Given that the virtues of m-learning have not yet been fully exploited in teaching Software Project Management (SPM), this paper embarks on a timely endeavour to explore the use of game-based m-learning for SPM by introducing a game called Mobile Application for Project management LEarning (MAPLE). A total of 55 graduate students were invited to participate in the evaluation study carried out for the MAPLE application. The evaluation was based on three design principles derived from the literature, namely, motivation, gaming and learning. Based on the preliminary evaluation, three major observations could be culled. One, game-based m-learning is a useful and an entertaining augmentation to traditional learning. Two, design principles namely motivation, gaming and learning and their appropriate blending is necessary to develop an effective m-learning game. Finally, appealing features in MAPLE are risk alerts, avatar creation and feedback.
miR-26 a Promoted by Interferon-Alpha Inhibits Hepatocellular Carcinoma Proliferation and Migration by Blocking EZH 2

Backgrounds: Interferon (IFN)-a has been used to treat hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Here, we report that the IFN-a-induced microRNA-26a (miR-26a) can inhibit HCC proliferation and invasion by suppressing enhancer of zeste homologue 2 (EZH2) expression in tumor cells. Materials and Methods: First, the miR-26a transcription level was quantified by real-time quantitative PCR in the HCC specimens from IFN-a-treated HCC patients. Next, we transfected HepG2 cells with miR-26a mimics and miR control, and then we investigated the influence of miR-26a mimic transfection on HepG2 cell proliferation and invasion. Results: It was shown that there was increased miR-26a accompanied with downregulated EZH2 expression in the HCC specimens, and EZH2 mRNA levels were inversely correlated with miR-26a expression. There was a dose– response correlation between the IFN-a dosage and EZH2 expression. In addition, the miR-26a mimic transfection decreased the EZH2 expression level significantly in the transfected HepG2 cells and inhibited HepG2 cell proliferation and invasion effectively. Conclusion: Our results indicate that miR-26a exerts growth inhibition in HCC and that its inhibitory effect is mediated briefly by blocking EZH2 expression.
On Defining Truth

Communication of all sorts is passed off as "truth," when in fact it is a collection of varying degrees of truth, half-truth, and untruth. This article seeks to put the semantic spaciousness of the word truth into a more comprehensive context. It does so through construction of a continuum of terms, divided into four practical categories—(a) intent to be open and fully honest, (b) intent to be honest but with selective use of information, (c) use of untruths but with no intent to deceive, and (d) conscious intent to deceive. Analysis of the categories relates each to degrees of ethical behavior of the communicator.
Predicting dropout in the first 3 months of 12-step residential drug and alcohol treatment in an Australian sample.

OBJECTIVE Premature termination from treatment is a major factor associated with poorer drug and alcohol treatment outcomes. The present study investigated client-related baseline predictors of dropout at 3 months from a faith-based 12-step residential drug treatment program. METHOD Data were collected over a period of 14 months from eight residential drug and alcohol treatment programs run by The Australian Salvation Army. The final sample consisted of 618 participants, including 524 men (84.8%) and 94 women (15.2%). Predictor variables of interest were age, gender, primary drug of concern, criminal involvement, psychological distress, drug cravings, self-efficacy to abstain, spirituality, forgiveness of self and others, and life purpose. At 3 months, 264 participants (42.7%) remained in the treatment program, and 354 participants (57.3%) had dropped out. RESULTS Binary logistic regression revealed that individuals were more likely to drop out by the 3-month time frame if at intake their primary drug of concern was a drug other than alcohol or they reported greater forgiveness of self. CONCLUSIONS To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine forgiveness as a predictor of dropout from a drug treatment program. Assessing patient's primary drug of concern and levels of forgiveness may be useful for residential drug treatment providers in constructing programs that provide differential treatment based on the results of these assessments.
Development of duplex dual-gene and DIVA real-time RT-PCR assays and use of feathers as a non-invasive sampling method for diagnosis of Turkey Meningoencephalitis Virus

ABSTRACT The avian flavivirus Turkey Meningoencephalitis Virus (TMEV) causes a neuroparalytic disease of commercial turkeys, expressed in paresis, incoordination, drooping wings and mortality that is controlled by vaccination. The molecular diagnosis using brain tissue RNA has now been upgraded by the development of a diagnostic dual-gene multiplex real-time PCR targeting the envelope and the non-structural NS5 gene, increasing the sensitivity by 10–100-fold compared to the previously existing assays. Based on the recent complete sequences of five TMEV isolates we have now developed a Differentiating Infected from Vaccinated Animals (DIVA) assay, to distinguish between wild-type TMEV strains and the vaccine virus. The DIVA assay was evaluated on commercial vaccines produced by two manufacturers, on RNA purified from brains of experimentally infected turkeys with TMEV strains, and on clinical samples collected between the years 2009 and 2015. We also investigated turkey feather pulps for their suitability to serve for TMEV detection, to avoid invasive sampling and bird killing. The parallel TMEV diagnosis in brain and feather-pulp RNA were similarly useful for diagnosis, at least in experimentally infected turkeys and in three cases of disease encountered in commercial flocks.
High‐resolution BOLD venographic imaging: a window into brain function

This paper reviews the recent development of a new high‐resolution magnetic resonance imaging approach to visualizing small veins in the human brain with diameters in the sub‐millimeter range, which is smaller than a voxel. It briefly introduces the physical background of the underlying bulk magnetic susceptibility effects, on which this approach is based, and it demonstrates the successful application of the method for imaging different intracranial lesions, like venous anomalies, arteriovenous malformations and brain tumors. The susceptibility difference between venous blood and the surrounding tissue is used to generate contrast. Using this method it is possible to visualize draining veins in lesions better than conventional magnetic resonance imaging methods, which often require application of a contrast medium or even conventional catheter angiography. Limitations of the method are discussed. The ability to highlight deoxygenated blood with high spatial resolution yields important vascular parameters which may be helpful for improved modeling of MR signal changes during functional brain activation, it may lead to a better understanding of brain function in diseased states, or it may even offer the possibility of differentiating benign from malignant tumors non‐invasively. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effect of radiation-induced endothelial cell injury on platelet regeneration by megakaryocytes

Abstract Thrombocytopenia is an important cause of hemorrhage and death after radiation injury, but the pathogenesis of radiation-induced thrombocytopenia has not been fully characterized. Here, we investigated the influence of radiation-induced endothelial cell injury on platelet regeneration. We found that human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) underwent a high rate of apoptosis, accompanied by a significant reduction in the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) at 96 h after radiation. Subsequent investigations revealed that radiation injury lowered the ability of HUVECs to attract migrating megakaryocytes (MKs). Moreover, the adhesion of MKs to HUVECs was markedly reduced when HUVECs were exposed to radiation, accompanied by a decreased production of platelets by MKs. In vivo study showed that VEGF treatment significantly promoted the migration of MKs into the vascular niche and accelerated platelet recovery in irradiated mice. Our studies demonstrate that endothelial cell injury contributes to the slow recovery of platelets after radiation, which provides a deeper insight into the pathogenesis of thrombocytopenia induced by radiation.
Modeling and Eliciting Effects upon Conceptual Strategies.

DENNEY, DOUGLAS R. Modeling and Eliciting Effects upon Conceptual Strategies. CmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1972, 43, 810-823. The present study attempts to extend the principles of observational learning to the acquisition and performance of hypothesis-seeking and constraint-seeking conceptual strategies in children. Boys aged 6, 8, and 10 years were shown videotaped models who depicted hypothesis seeking, constraint seeking with constraints based on perceptual attributes, and constraint seeking with constraints based on functional attributes. The results lend support to the notion that children at different ages are differentially responsive to various conceptual-strategy models. In general, while the present study discovered eliciting effects, it failed to show that true observational learning effects can result from observation of a conceptual-strategy model.
STOP4–7, an early intervention for children with behavioural disorders: Client characteristics and preliminary findings

STOP4–7 is a multimodal early intervention programme for children (4–7 years) with behavioural problems. The programme is based on the research of the Oregon Social Learning Center. The present pilot study evaluates its feasibility in a European sample. Method: 201 children were involved and 90% of the participants completed the treatment. Results: On all outcome measures children and parents show a significant progress. The effect sizes range from small to moderate.
Body Weight Concerns among Urban Adolescent Girls: A Microlevel Study

Growing consciousness about ideal body image leads to dietary modifications and consequent eating disorders among girls in developing countries like India. The present study aims to (i) assess the prevalence of body weight consciousness and related behaviours among a group of adolescent girls; (ii) assess the sociodemographic correlates of weight related behaviours; and (iii) compare weight related behaviours of the girls of two religious groups residing in Howrah. The study is the outcome of a cross-sectional school based survey involving 280 (159 Hindu and 121 Muslim) girls from standards 8 to 11. Significant differences exist between two religious groups with respect to their family size, socioeconomic profile, and media exposures (in terms of watching television). Consciousness about body weight among girls shows significant difference with respect to religion, family size (), father’s occupation (), level of education of both the parents, and media exposure (). Consciousness about body weight drives them to adopt several behavioural measures like calorie restriction, food avoidance, and dieting. Sociodemographic correlates of all these behaviours have been analyzed. The study documents that concern over body image and weight loss is quite important among these urban girls.
Using Ontology to Map Categories in Blog

This paper proposes a framework to automatically map user-defined categories in blog. The proposed framework is composed of a series of procedures including information extraction from the blog, building the personal ontology, and comparing semantic similarities between user-defined categories. Our novel semantic similarity techniques can determine how similar two sets of information concepts are, based on a given ontology. The experimental results demonstrate that our framework and our proposed semantic similarity techniques are effective
A concurrent multi-path transmission of data allocation algorithm based on heterogeneous networks

The reasons for the decline of the concurrent multipath transfer in the heterogeneous networks are analyzed in this paper and a data distribution algorithm which is applicable to the heterogeneous networks is proposed. The Kalman filter algorithm is used to assess the propagation delay, so that the uncontrolled propagation delay can be predicted in the heterogeneous network. After the path sending a data, the transmission delay of this path updated immediately, and finally the path of least total delay is chosen to transfer data. Simulation results show that, compared with the default round robin algorithm and the transmission delay prediction based data allocation scheme for CMT, the algorithm which is proposed in this paper is better in total delay, the value of free receive buffer and the overall throughput.
A case study in organisational change: implications for theory

Organisational change is typically conceptualised as moving from the status quo to a new, desired, configuration to better match the environment. Change could, therefore, be seen as a departure from the norm, or alternatively as normal and simply a natural response to environmental and internal conditions. Static models of organisations are being displaced by dynamic models, which reflect the discontinuous nature of organisational change. Developments in theory suggest limitations to contingency approaches, which carry the assumptions of static models of change. Analysis of this case at PowerCo in Australia reveals a number of issues related to changes aimed at achieving a more commercial, profit‐oriented, focus. Points out that the contextualist approach is holistic, in which these aspects interact with each other as change unfolds temporally. A contextualist framework permits models of change to be visualised as dynamic rather than static, having a temporal setting which has multiple causes acting as loops rather than simple lines. This enables change to be understood as a discontinuous phenomenon having the benefits, without the limitations, of rational contingency models.
Semantic-Based Association Rule Mining of Temporal Document Collections

In many contexts today we have documents available in a number of versions. In addition to explicit knowledge that can be queried/searched in documents, these documents also contain implicit knowledge that can be found by text mining. In this paper we will study association rule mining of temporal document collections, and extend our previous work by 1) performing mining based on semantics as well as 2) studying the impact of appropriate techniques for ranking of rules.
Human Resource Policies and Company Performance: A Quantitative Approach Using Longitudinal Data

The organization of employment is often seen as a means to attain or retain competitive advantage in current product markets. High committment organizations and flexible specialization workplaces are some of the new labels of such modem human resource policies (Osterman 1994), the shaping of which should result in high performance. From an outsider's perspective, for instance that of an investor or a banker, such an assumption raises two important sets of questions: - The first concerns the main features of these supposed high-performance work systems and their true association with economic performance indicators. These questions relate to a better understanding of new human resource management (HRM) models in order to understand the effects of HRM on the performance of the firm. - The second set of questions concerns the ability of outside actors to analyze and truly understand these HRM models, about which they often have only poor and piecemeal information. In the event of a negative answer, investors and other outside actors might well be tempted to ignore or distort HRM issues. The latter set of questions is rarely considered by recent research. It is more often the case that investors and financial markets do not fully consider human resource management issues because of speculation and the short-term pressures which are seen to dictate their decisions. Such pressures surely exist, but the main problem might relate more to analytical and informational problems. In this respect, the paper suggests that the French Company Personnel Report could be a useful document. Its published data may enable investors to understand HRM issues more fully and to evaluate their impacts on the performance of the firm. Empirical results are thus presented which reveal some interesting and significant correlations between profitability or productivity ratios and HRM indicators. The two major conclusions are that (a) training expenses may have some important effects on immediate and future economic performance; and (b) some recovery effects of dismissals can also be identified.
Knowledge Partnerships: Rapid Rural Appraisal's Role in Catalyzing Community-Based Management in Venezuela

In addition to political partnerships, less-explored components of community-based management (CBM) are knowledge partnerships that blend expert opinion and local ecological wisdom into a comprehensive wellspring for environmental decision making. The exclusion through omission of local input in knowledge construction is a consequence of widespread application of positivist methods that are ill-equipped to engage and empower local knowledge. These gaps in the theory and practice of CBM deserve attention. In response, we explored the utility of a participatory research methodology called Rapid Rural Appraisal for gathering local fishery knowledge and formulating knowledge partnerships between expert and local ways of knowing in a Venezuelan watershed. Our research supports Nelson Mandela's assertion that "we must tap the deep understanding for the environment which is inscribed in the experience of those whose lives and well-being depend on it. Active involvement of communities in managing their environment must be the order of the day" (quoted by Harsch 1995, 4).