Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of eosinophils in the pathogenesis of atopic dermatitis ‐ eosinophil granule proteins as markers of disease activity

Currently, there is a large body of evidence that atopic dermatitis (AD) has an Immunologic basis. Atopy‐specific helper T cells (Th2‐like T cells) may play a pathogenetic role by producing and releasing cytokines relevant for the allergic inflammation, such as IL‐4, IL‐5, and other growth factors. Eosinophils are believed to be of major importance as effector cells mediating the pathogenetically relevant late‐phase reaction which is associated with a significant destruction of the surrounding tissue. Accordingly, a significant preactivation of peripheral blood eosinophils was detected in AD patients, leading to an enhanced susceptibility of these cells to distinct stimuli such as IL‐5. Toxic proteins, such as eosinophil cationic protein (ECP), contained in the matrix and the core of secondary granules of eosinophils, may play an important role by propagating the allergic inflammatory process and by modulating the immune response. The pathogenetic role of eosinophils in AD is further supported by the detection of these proteins in the eczematous skin of patients. Furthermore, recent data point to a significant correlation between disease activity and deposition of eosinophil granule content: ECP serum levels were significantly increased in AD patients. In addition, ECP levels correlated with the disease activity. Moreover, clinical improvement was associated with a decrease of both the clinical score and serum ECP levels. These data clearly indicate that activated eosinophils may play a major role in the allergic inflammatory process of AD. Therefore, modulation of eosinophil activation could prove to be an important pharmacologic modality for the treatment of AD.
Partisan Identification as a Predictor of Cortisol Response to Election News

Partisan effects on media consumption have been widely documented, with considerable attention given to partisan influences on selective exposure. Although researchers have debated the degree to which selective exposure drives media consumption in general and partisan consumption of the news in particular, one of the hypothesized mechanisms linked to this phenomenon seems inherently plausible: Exposure to disliked news coverage can generate psychological discomfort. The physiological effects of this hypothesized discomfort were examined by determining how political partisanship influences release of the stress hormone, cortisol, following exposure to news coverage of a presidential election. The study was conducted in the week following the 2008 election. Participants were students at a large, mostly conservative state university who read news coverage about the election victory of Barack Obama or a set of control news stories. Results indicated that conservative political identification was associated with more negative and less positive emotional responses and with a spike in salivary cortisol levels. Contrary to predictions, however, the cortisol spikes appeared to operate independent of self-reported emotional distress. The implications of these results are considered as they relate to selective exposure and the physical health of partisans who follow political news.
Location, location, location: contextualizing workplace commitment

The purpose of the present commentary is to discuss the nature and correlates of workplace commitment across cultures. We asked six organizational behavior scholars, who are intimately familiar with Brazil, China, Denmark, Germany, or Israel as their country of origin or extended residence, to “contextualize” workplace commitment. They did so by explicating institutional and cultural characteristics of their context on the emergence, meaning, and evolution of commitment by reference to their own research and extant local research. Their responses not only supported the utility of three-component model of commitment but also revealed the differential salience of various commitment constructs (e.g., components and foci of commitment) as well as possible contextual moderators on the development and outcomes of commitment. The commentators also described changes including the growing prevalence of multicultural workforces within national borders and changes in employment relationships and cultural values in their national contexts and considered future research directions in culture and commitment research.
Tarsal tetramery and extreme size reduction in Anillini (Coleoptera, Carabidae, Trechinae): the case of Typhlocharis Dieck, 1869; description of three new species and definition of a new intra-generic species group.

Tarsal tetramery is a rare condition within Carabidae, only found in some members of the endogean tribe Anillini and some cases of Gehringiini. Reduction of tarsomere numbers is also reported in endogean members of other families (e.g. Curculionidae or Staphylinidae). Recent fieldwork in southwestern Spain provided specimens of three new species of the endogean Anillini Typhlocharis Dieck, 1869: T. baeturica n.sp. , T. scrofa n.sp. and T. tetramera n.sp. The new species share extreme body size reduction (less than 1.1 mm), a gula partially fused to the cephalic capsule, with diffuse lateral sutures, and four tarsomeres in all the legs. Tarsal tetramery is recorded for the first time within the genus Typhlocharis and it is contrasted with the described cases in Anillini. Typhlocharis scrofa n.sp. and T. tetramera n.sp. have club-shaped gonocoxites, reminiscent of the unguiform-like morphology observed in T. quadridentata (Coiffait, 1969), supporting the hypothesis of a transitional evolution of the shape of gonocoxites. The structure of the gula is studied within the genus and includes wide, narrow and diffuse morphologies. The implications of these features and data from the new species enable us to propose a reorganization of the systematics of the genus, creating and defining a new group of species, quadridentata group. An identification key for this species group is included. The new species provides more data on syntopic species and abundance rates, brief insights on the ecology of the genus.
Spatiotemporal Correlation Based Fault-Tolerant Event Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks

Reliable event detection is one of the most important objectives in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), especially in the presence of faulty nodes. Existing fault-tolerant event detection approaches usually take the probability of faulty nodes into account and fusion techniques to weaken the influence of faulty readings are usually developed. Through extensive experiments, we discover a phenomenon that event detection accuracy degrades quickly when the faulty sensors ratio reaches a critical value. This problem has not drawn enough attention and a solution to the problem is our concern. In this paper, a spatiotemporal correlation based fault-tolerant event detection scheme (STFTED) is proposed, which leverages a two-stage decision fusion and spatiotemporal correlation to improve the event detection quality. In the low-level local stage, a location-based weighted voting scheme (LWVS) is developed to make decision fusion locally on each sensor node, which is based on neighboring nodes and the geographical distributions of two decision quorums. In the high-level global stage, a Bayesian fusion algorithm is adopted to reach a consensus among individual detection decisions made by sensor nodes. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach is highly effective and a better quality of event detection can be obtained compared with the optimal threshold decision schemes (OTDS).
Psychosocial correlates of cardiorespiratory fitness and muscle strength in overweight and obese post-menopausal women: A MONET study

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the psychosocial correlates of cardiorespiratory fitness ([Vdot]O2peak) and muscle strength in overweight and obese sedentary post-menopausal women. The study population consisted of 137 non-diabetic, sedentary overweight and obese post-menopausal women (mean age 57.7 years, s = 4.8; body mass index 32.4 kg · m−2, s = 4.6). At baseline we measured: (1) body composition using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry; (2) visceral fat using computed tomography; (3) insulin sensitivity using the hyperinsulinaemic-euglycaemic clamp; (4) cardiorespiratory fitness; (5) muscle strength using the leg press exercise; and (6) psychosocial profile (quality of life, perceived stress, self-esteem, body-esteem, and perceived risk for developing chronic diseases) using validated questionnaires. Both [Vdot]O2peak and muscle strength were significantly correlated with quality of life (r = 0.29, P < 0.01 and r = 0.30, P < 0.01, respectively), and quality of life subscales for: physical functioning (r = 0.28, P < 0.01 and r = 0.22, P < 0.05, respectively), pain (r = 0.18, P < 0.05 and r = 0.23, P < 0.05, respectively), role functioning (r = 0.20, P < 0.05 and r = 0.24, P < 0.05, respectively), and perceived risks (r = −0.24, P < 0.01 and r = −0.30, P < 0.01, respectively). In addition, [Vdot]O2peak was significantly associated with positive health perceptions, greater body esteem, and less time watching television/video. Stepwise regression analysis showed that quality of life for health perceptions and for role functioning were independent predictors of [Vdot]O2peak and muscle strength, respectively. In conclusion, higher [Vdot]O2peak and muscle strength are associated with a favourable psychosocial profile, and the psychosocial correlates of [Vdot]O2peak were different from those of muscle strength. Furthermore, psychosocial factors could be predictors of [Vdot]O2peak and muscle strength in our cohort of overweight and obese sedentary post-menopausal women.
MDB Drums: An annotated subset of MedleyDB for automatic drum transcription

In this paper we present MDB Drums, a new dataset for automatic drum transcription (ADT) tasks. This dataset is built on top of the MusicDelta subset of the MedleyDB dataset, taking advantage of real-world recordings in multitrack format. The dataset is comprised of a variety of genres, providing a balanced pool for developing and evaluating ADT models with respect to various musical styles. To reduce the cost of the labor-intensive process of manual annotation, a semi-automatic process was utilised in both the annotation and quality control processes. The presented dataset consists of 23 tracks with a total of 7994 onsets. These onsets are divided into 6 classes based on drum instruments or 21 subclasses based on playing techniques. Every track consists of a drum-only track as well as multiple accompanied tracks, enabling audio files containing different combinations of instruments to be used in the ADT evaluation process.
MULTIPLE ROLES FOR SOURCE CREDIBILITY UNDER HIGH ELABORATION: IT'S ALL IN THE TIMING

Past research suggests that under high elaboration conditions, source credibility can play more than one role in persuasion. In particular, source credibility can affect the valence of people's thoughts generated in response to persuasive messages or it can affect the confidence with which people hold those thoughts. In the present research, two experiments explore the conditions under which these conceptually distinct effects occur. It is demonstrated that the effect of source credibility on thought confidence is dominant when source information follows, rather than precedes, a persuasive message. When source information precedes a message, it affects the valence of issue–relevant thinking.
Chemotherapy and attentional dysfunction in survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia: Effect of treatment intensity

Central nervous system (CNS) directed chemotherapy is replacing prophylactic cranial irradiation in treatment protocols for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), mainly to reduce long‐term neuropsychological sequelae. We evaluated the effects of chemotherapy on attentional function in survivors of ALL and examined whether possible deficits are related to treatment intensity.
Planned Missingness with Multiple Imputation: Enabling the Use of Exit Polls to Reduce Measurement Error in Surveys

Exit polls are seldom used for voting behavior research despite the advantages they have compared to pre and post-election surveys. Exit polls reduce potential biases and measurement errors on reported vote choice and other political attitudes related to the time in which measurements are taken. This is the result of collecting information from actual voters only minutes after the vote has been cast. Among the main reasons why exit polls are not frequently used by scholars it is the time constraints that must be placed on the interviews, i.e., short questionnaires, severely limiting the amount of information obtained from each respondent. This paper advances a combination of an appropriate data collection design along with adequate statistical techniques to allow exit polls to overcome such a restriction without jeopardizing data quality. This mechanism implies the use of Planned Missingness designs and Multiple Imputation techniques. The potential advantages of this design applied to voting behavior research are illustrated empirically with data from the 2006 Mexican election. Prepared for presentation at the Annual Conference of the Midwest Political Science Association, April 3-6, 2008, Chicago, IL. We owe a great debt of gratitude to Francisco Abundis at Parametŕia who allowed us to test PM-MI empirically in one the most complicated and close elections in Mexican history. This paper extends a method introduced in Bautista, Morales, Abundis & Callegaro (in press).
Indexing the signature quadratic form distance for efficient content-based multimedia retrieval

The Signature Quadratic Form Distance has been introduced as an adaptive similarity measure coping with flexible content representations of various multimedia data. Although the Signature Quadratic Form Distance has shown good retrieval performance with respect to their qualities of effectiveness and efficiency, its applicability to index structures remains a challenging issue due to its dynamic nature. In this paper, we investigate the indexability of the Signature Quadratic Form Distance regarding metric access methods. We show how the distance's inherent parameters determine the indexability and analyze the relationship between effectiveness and efficiency on numerous image databases.
Xanthoceraside Ameliorates Mitochondrial Dysfunction Contributing to the Improvement of Learning and Memory Impairment in Mice with Intracerebroventricular Injection of Aβ1-42

The effects of xanthoceraside on learning and memory impairment were investigated and the possible mechanism associated with the protection of mitochondria was also preliminarily explored in Alzheimer's disease (AD) mice model induced by intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) injection of Aβ1-42. The results indicated that xanthoceraside (0.08–0.32 mg/kg) significantly improved learning and memory impairment in Morris water maze test and Y-maze test. Xanthoceraside significantly reversed the aberrant decrease of ATP levels and attenuated the abnormal increase of ROS levels both in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus in mice injected with Aβ1-42. Moreover, xanthoceraside dose dependently reversed the decrease of COX, PDHC, and KGDHC activity in isolated cerebral cortex mitochondria of the mice compared with Aβ1-42 injected model mice. In conclusion, xanthoceraside could improve learning and memory impairment, promote the function of mitochondria, decrease the production of ROS, and inhibit oxidative stress. The improvement effects on mitochondria may be through withstanding the damage of Aβ to mitochondrial respiratory chain and the key enzymes in Kreb's cycle. Therefore, the results from present study and previous study indicate that xanthoceraside could be a competitive candidate for the treatment of AD.
The Lexical Foundation of the Big Five Factor Model

A dictionary is the tangible repository of the common stock of words, although dictionaries comprise at best 10% of the full lexicon. Part of the lexicon is made up of the words used to describe what people do and what people are like. The psycholexical approach to personality focuses on this subset of words and on its exploitation, or what can be said to be the glossary of personality. This chapter is concerned with the history of the psycholexical approach to personality description, from ancient history to the more recent efforts, albeit focusing in particular on its modern history. Psycholexical taxonomies from around the world will be considered, as well as taxonomies based on nouns, verbs, adverbs, and their combinations. Ongoing controversies, difficulties, and disputes regarding alternative psycholexical personality structures will be considered, as well as recommendations for future research.
Identifying areas prone to coastal hypoxia – the role of topography

Abstract. Hypoxia is an increasing problem in marine ecosystems around the world. While major advances have been made in our understanding of the drivers of hypoxia, challenges remain in describing oxygen dynamics in coastal regions. The complexity of many coastal areas and lack of detailed in situ data have hindered the development of models describing oxygen dynamics at a sufficient spatial resolution for efficient management actions to take place. It is well known that the enclosed nature of seafloors and reduced water mixing facilitates hypoxia formation, but the degree to which topography contributes to hypoxia formation and small-scale variability of coastal hypoxia has not been previously quantified. We developed simple proxies of seafloor heterogeneity and modeled oxygen deficiency in complex coastal areas in the northern Baltic Sea. According to our models, topographical parameters alone explained ∼80 % of hypoxia occurrences. The models also revealed that less than 25 % of the studied seascapes were prone to hypoxia during late summer (August–September). However, large variation existed in the spatial and temporal patterns of hypoxia, as certain areas were prone to occasional severe hypoxia (O2 < 2 mg L−1), while others were more susceptible to recurrent moderate hypoxia (O2 < 4.6 mg L−1). Areas identified as problematic in our study were characterized by low exposure to wave forcing, high topographic shelter from surrounding areas and isolation from the open sea, all contributing to longer water residence times in seabed depressions. Deviations from this topographical background are probably caused by strong currents or high nutrient loading, thus improving or worsening oxygen status, respectively. In some areas, connectivity with adjacent deeper basins may also influence coastal oxygen dynamics. Developed models could boost the performance of biogeochemical models, aid developing nutrient abatement measures and pinpoint areas where management actions are most urgently needed.
Spectral Representation and Estimation for Locally Stationary Wavelet Processes

This article develops a wavelet decomposition of a stochastic process which parallels a time{localized Cram er (Fourier) spectral representation. We provide a time{scale instead of a time{frequency decomposition and, hence, instead of thinking as scale in terms of \inverse frequency" we start from genuine time{scale building blocks or \atoms". Using this class of locally stationary wavelet (LSW) processes, a doubly{indexed array of processes fX t;T g t=1;:::;T ; T 1, we develop a theory for the estimation of the \evolutionary wavelet spectrum". Our asymptotics are based on rescaling in time{ location which allows us to perform rigorous estimation theory starting from a single stretch of observations of fX t;T g. This evolutionary wavelet spectrum measures the local power in the variance{covariance decomposition of the process fX t;T g at a certain scale and a (rescaled) time location. It is possible to estimate the evolutionary wavelet spectrum by means of a wavelet periodogram or scalogram, i.e. the squared coeecients from a discrete or stationary wavelet transform (SWT). However, in order to estimate the spectrum consistently we have to smooth the periodogram. In this article we choose to smooth by non{linear wavelet shrinkage of the wavelet periodogram treated as a function of rescaled time{ location with respect to another orthogonal wavelet basis (this parallels recent work in curve estimation). Finally, we suggest an inverse transformation of the smoothed wavelet periodogram that estimates a localized autocovariance of the original stochastic process. Some numerical simulations and an application to a medical time series, which shows a particular non{stationary behaviour, indicate the usefulness of the SWT in our approach.
Rising adiposity curbing decline in the incidence of myocardial infarction: 20-year follow-up of British men and women in the Whitehall II cohort

Aims To estimate the contribution of risk factor trends to 20-year declines in myocardial infarction (MI) incidence in British men and women. Methods and results From 1985 to 2004, 6379 men and 3074 women in the Whitehall II cohort were followed for incident MI and risk factor trends. Over 20 years, the age–sex-adjusted hazard of MI fell by 74% (95% confidence interval 48–87%), corresponding to an average annual decline of 6.5% (3.2–9.7%). Thirty-four per cent (20–76%) of the decline in MI hazard could be statistically explained by declining non-HDL cholesterol levels, followed by increased HDL cholesterol (17%, 10–32%), reduced systolic blood pressure (13%, 7–24%), and reduced cigarette smoking prevalence (6%, 2–14%). Increased fruit and vegetable consumption made a non-significant contribution of 7% (−1–20%). In combination, these five risk factors explained 56% (34–112%). Rising body mass index (BMI) was counterproductive, reducing the scale of the decline by 11% (5–23%) in isolation. The MI decline and the impact of the risk factors appeared similar for men and women. Conclusion In men and women, over half of the decline in MI risk could be accounted for by favourable risk factor time trends. The adverse role of BMI emphasizes the importance of addressing the rising population BMI.
High prevalence of hookah smoking among secondary school students in a disadvantaged community in Johannesburg.

The daily dose of budesonide used in our cases varied from 200 µg to 1 200 µg. Adherence to medication was assessed by verbal report and medication demonstration by the caregiver. In case 2 the child was given medication by a trained nurse in a children’s home and medication was boarded for us to review. Dosing of inhaled budesonide in children with obstructive lung disease is based on clinical response to treatment. Recommended dosing ranges from a low dose of 100 - 200 µg/d to higher doses of >400 µg/d. With the exception of case 1 these children were on moderate doses of budesonide only and in case 3 initially a low dose of fluticasone (50 µg/d). The fact that the children may have been overdosed cannot be entirely excluded. However, it appears that adrenal axis suppression can occur at standard recommended doses of budesonide and fluticasone when used concomitantly with ritonavir. This relationship requires further
Global model aerosol uncertainties

A global off-line model of size-resolved aerosol microphysics: II. Identification of key uncertainties D. V. Spracklen, K. J. Pringle, K. S. Carslaw, M. P. Chipperfield, and G. W. Mann Institute of Atmospheric Science, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, UK Received: 21 January 2005 – Accepted: 16 April 2005 – Published: 30 May 2005 Correspondence to: D. V. Spracklen (dominick@env.leeds.ac.uk) © 2005 Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.