Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Claudin Loss-of-Function Disrupts Tight Junctions and Impairs Amelogenesis

Claudins are a family of proteins that forms paracellular barriers and pores determining tight junctions (TJ) permeability. Claudin-16 and -19 are pore forming TJ proteins allowing calcium and magnesium reabsorption in the thick ascending limb of Henle's loop (TAL). Loss-of-function mutations in the encoding genes, initially identified to cause Familial Hypomagnesemia with Hypercalciuria and Nephrocalcinosis (FHHNC), were recently shown to be also involved in Amelogenesis Imperfecta (AI). In addition, both claudins were expressed in the murine tooth germ and Claudin-16 knockout (KO) mice displayed abnormal enamel formation. Claudin-3, an ubiquitous claudin expressed in epithelia including kidney, acts as a barrier-forming tight junction protein. We determined that, similarly to claudin-16 and claudin-19, claudin-3 was expressed in the tooth germ, more precisely in the TJ located at the apical end of secretory ameloblasts. The observation of Claudin-3 KO teeth revealed enamel defects associated to impaired TJ structure at the secretory ends of ameloblasts and accumulation of matrix proteins in the forming enamel. Thus, claudin-3 protein loss-of-function disturbs amelogenesis similarly to claudin-16 loss-of-function, highlighting the importance of claudin proteins for the TJ structure. These findings unravel that loss-of-function of either pore or barrier-forming TJ proteins leads to enamel defects. Hence, the major structural function of claudin proteins appears essential for amelogenesis.
The Effects Of Using Collaborative Learning To Enhance Students English Speaking Achievement

This experimental study aims to investigate the effects of using collaborative learning to enhance students speaking achievement. The study using a pre-test and post-test design was conducted with 35 undergraduate students enrolled in a fundamental English course at Bangkok University to examine their speaking achievement on an English oral test before and after they had participated in provided instructional tasks based on collaborative learning. To explore the students views on the use of the collaborative learning, all of the students were asked to complete a student diary after finishing each task, fill in a four scale-rating questionnaire and join a semi-structured interview at the end of the course. The data was analyzed by frequency, means, standard deviation, t-test, effect size (Hedges g) and content analysis. The findings reveal the improvement of the students speaking performance and positive feedback from the students on the use of collaborative learning activities. The study provides some pedagogical implications and suggestions for further investigations.
Sexual dimorphism in primate aerobic capacity: a phylogenetic test

Male intrasexual competition should favour increased male physical prowess. This should in turn result in greater aerobic capacity in males than in females (i.e. sexual dimorphism) and a correlation between sexual dimorphism in aerobic capacity and the strength of sexual selection among species. However, physiological scaling laws predict that aerobic capacity should be lower per unit body mass in larger than in smaller animals, potentially reducing or reversing the sex difference and its association with measures of sexual selection. We used measures of haematocrit and red blood cell (RBC) counts from 45 species of primates to test four predictions related to sexual selection and body mass: (i) on average, males should have higher aerobic capacity than females, (ii) aerobic capacity should be higher in adult than juvenile males, (iii) aerobic capacity should increase with increasing sexual selection, but also that (iv) measures of aerobic capacity should co‐vary negatively with body mass. For the first two predictions, we used a phylogenetic paired t‐test developed for this study. We found support for predictions (i) and (ii). For prediction (iii), however, we found a negative correlation between the degree of sexual selection and aerobic capacity, which was opposite to our prediction. Prediction (iv) was generally supported. We also investigated whether substrate use, basal metabolic rate and agility influenced physiological measures of oxygen transport, but we found only weak evidence for a correlation between RBC count and agility.
Genetic & Environmental risk factors for Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms: Do they affect the same brain?

OCD. the interaction of OC symptoms by sex on gray matter volume was assessed using voxel-based morphometry 9) . For this analysis all high and low-scoring males and high and low-scoring females from the MZ twin sample and the opposite-sex twin and sibling pairs were included. The results indicated an OC symptom by sex interaction for the left middle temporal gyrus (larger in males with OC symptoms, but no effect in females), the right middle temporal gyrus (larger in males with OC symptoms, but reduced in females with OC symptoms) and right precuneus (larger in females with OC symptoms, but reduced in males
Social networking come supporto alla didattica universitaria: quali i benefici di Ning?

Studi recenti dimostrano che le competenze dei cosiddetti ‘nativi digitali’ sono state spesso sopravvalutate, cosi come l’uso delle tecnologie, spesso limitato a scopi ludici e comunicativi. Solo attraverso un opportuno scaffolding e possibile incoraggiare usi piu ‘evoluti’, volti cioe ad apprendere e conoscere in rete. Il presente contributo illustra gli effetti dell’adozione di una piattaforma di social networking (Ning) come parte integrante di un corso universitario di Management presso l’Universita di Pisa. Un’indagine condotta parallelamente sul gruppo di studenti target della sperimentazione e su un gruppo di controllo – equivalente per eta e anno di corso – ha dimostrato uno spostamento nel tipo di uso che gli studenti fanno di diversi strumenti di social networking, compreso Facebook. I problemi e le opportunita offerti da Ning sono stati discussi in focus group periodici con gli studenti e il loro feedback e stato utile per migliore gradualmente la piattaforma. L’esperienza ha dimostrato che gli studenti devono acquisire specifiche competenze sia per affrontare le ‘reiterate’ sfide della societa della conoscenza sia per continuare ad apprendere in maniera formale ed informale lungo tutto l’arco della vita ( lifelong & lifewide learning ).
What’s in a Name? In Pursuit of Israel Education

Naming a discipline is a key component in both the shaping and unpacking of its development. Still, little attention has been devoted to studying the ways in which this process has influenced Israel Education. Based on a long-term ethnographic study, this article presents Israel Education name choices and discusses the manner in which this naming unfolds and affects the development of this field. I claim that this process symbolizes a development beyond the classroom environment; reflects sociocultural and political changes in Israel-Diaspora relations; and exposes conceptual shifts in Israel pedagogy and transforms the place of Israel in Diaspora Jewish education.
Methyl (2Z)-2-{(2Z)-3-[(cyclopentylidene)amino]-4-oxo-2-phenylimino-1,3-thiazolidin-5-ylidene}acetate

In the title compound, C17H17N3O3S, the thiazole ring is nearly planar [maximum deviation = 0.015 (1) Å for the ring N atom] and the cyclopentane ring has a twist conformation. The molecular conformation is stabilized by a hypervalent interaction between the S atom and the ester group carbonyl O atom, with an S⋯O distance of 2.7931 (10) Å. In the crystal, C—H⋯O interactions generate chains of molecules propagating along [110] and π–π stacking interactions [centroid–centroid distance = 3.4677 (7) Å] between the thiazole rings organize these chains into (001) layers.
A Distributed File System with Storage-Media Awareness

Improvements in memory, storage devices, and network technologies are constantly exploited by distributed systems in order to meet the increasing data storage and I/O demands of modern large-scale data analytics. Some systems use memory and SSDs as a cache for local storage while others combine local with network-attached storage to increase performance. However, no work has ever looked at all layers together in a distributed setting. We present a novel design for a distributed file system that is aware of storage media (e.g., memory, SSDs, HDDs, NAS) with different capacities and performance characteristics. The storage media are explicitly exposed to users, allowing them to choose the distribution and placement of replicas in the cluster based on their own performance and fault tolerance requirements. Meanwhile, the system offers a variety of pluggable policies for automating data management with the dual goal of increased performance and better cluster utilization. These two features combined inspire new research opportunities for data-intensive processing systems.
Learning with Pseudo-Ensembles

We formalize the notion of a pseudo-ensemble, a (possibly infinite) collection of child models spawned from a parent model by perturbing it according to some noise process. E.g., dropout [9] in a deep neural network trains a pseudo-ensemble of child subnetworks generated by randomly masking nodes in the parent network. We examine the relationship of pseudo-ensembles, which involve perturbation in model-space, to standard ensemble methods and existing notions of robustness, which focus on perturbation in observation-space. We present a novel regularizer based on making the behavior of a pseudo-ensemble robust with respect to the noise process generating it. In the fully-supervised setting, our regularizer matches the performance of dropout. But, unlike dropout, our regularizer naturally extends to the semi-supervised setting, where it produces state-of-the-art results. We provide a case study in which we transform the Recursive Neural Tensor Network of [19] into a pseudo-ensemble, which significantly improves its performance on a real-world sentiment analysis benchmark.
Trends in Cervical Cancer Among Delivery-Related Discharges and its Impact on Maternal-Infant Birth Outcomes (United States, 1998-2009)

Objectives: To estimate the national prevalence of cervical cancer (CCA) in women discharged from hospital after delivery, and to examine its associations with birth outcomes. Methods: We did a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of maternal hospital discharges in the United States (1998-2009). We used the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database to identify hospital stays for women who gave birth. We determined length of hospital stay, in-hospital mortality, and used ICD-9-CM codes to identify CCA and all outcomes of interest. Multivariable logistic regression modeling was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (AOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the associations between CCA and feto-maternal outcome. Results: In the 12-year period from 1998 to 2009, there were 8,387 delivery hospitalizations with a CCA diagnosis, a prevalence rate of 1.8 per 100,000 (95% CI=1.6, 1.9). After adjusting for potential confounders, CCA was associated with increased odds of maternal morbidities including: anemia (AOR, 1.78, 95% CI, 1.54-2.06), anxiety (AOR, 1.95, 95% CI, 1.11-3.42), cesarean delivery (AOR, 1.67, 95% CI, 1.46-1.90), and prolonged hospital stay (AOR, 1.51, 95% CI, 1.30-1.76), and preterm birth (AOR, 1.69, 95% CI, 1.46-1.97). Conclusion: There is a recent increase in the prevalence of CCA during pregnancy. CCA is associated with severe feto-maternal morbidities. Interventions that promote safer sexual practice and regular screening for CCA should be promoted widely among women of reproductive age to effectively reduce the prevalence of CCA during pregnancy and its impact on the health of mother and baby.
Barreras y Facilitadores en el Reclutamiento y la Retención de Parejas Heterosexuales en Intervenciones Preventivas en VIH/SIDA

The recruitment and retention (R&R) of participants is crucial for the success of research studies and for the development of preventive interventions. The R&R of participants influence the validity and efficacy of those programs. We examined some of the factors that facilitate or impede the R&R in preventive interventions and offer some alternatives to improve this process. We conducted two studies, in the first study we administered the Instrumento de Informacion, Motivacion y Conductas-Espanol (IIMC-E) to a group of 26 heterosexual couples (52 participants). In the second study we interviewed 5 HIV discordant heterosexual couples (10 participants). We found that 75% of participants identified their job as one of the main barriers that make it difficult to attend preventive activities. Other barriers include the work and family responsibilities. We found that the main barrier was the fear toward the disclosure of the HIV status. The main facilitators of R&R were the adequate coordination for their assistance and the phone follow-up offered by the research team. We conclude that for the development and implementation of preventive programs the researcher must take into consideration logistics aspects such as the availability of the participants and their particular needs.
Quantum and randomized communication complexity of XOR functions in the SMP model

Communication complexity of XOR functions f(x ⊕ y) has attracted increasing attention in recent years, because of its connections to Fourier analysis, and its exhibition of exponential separations between classical and quantum communication complexities of total functions. However, the complexity of certain basic functions still seems elusive especially in the privatecoin SMP model. In particular, an exponential gap exists between quantum upper and lower bounds for deciding whether x and y have Hamming distance at least d, despite the sequence of related efforts [GKdW04, HSZZ06, ZS09] since Yao asked it as an open question [Yao03]. In this paper we resolve this question by providing optimal randomized and quantum protocols. We then apply the result and show efficient protocols for all symmetric XOR functions and linear threshold functions, answering an open question in [LLZ11] and another in [MO10]. Finally, we consider matrix functions and show upper bounds for the matrix rank decision problem; the public-coin classical SMP result matches the quantum two-way lower bound in [SW12]. Motivated from data sketching applications, we aim at efficiency of computation as well as communication. Our protocols for matrix rank decision are computationally efficient in the classical setting, and other protocols are computationally efficient if Alice and Bob have quantum computers. The main techniques used in our protocols are compressed sensing, and the BoseChowla theorem from combinatorial number theory. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that these two techniques are applied to communication complexity, in which we believe that more applications could be found.
Curcumin: An Anti-Inflammatory Molecule from a Curry Spice on the Path to Cancer Treatment

Oxidative damage and inflammation have been pointed out in preclinical studies as the root cause of cancer and other chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, Alzheimer’s disease, etc. Epidemiological and clinical studies have suggested that cancer could be prevented or significantly reduced by treatment with anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory drugs, therefore, curcumin, a principal component of turmeric (a curry spice) showing strong anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, might be a potential candidate for the prevention and/or treatment of cancer and other chronic diseases. However, curcumin, a highly pleiotropic molecule with an excellent safety profile targeting multiple diseases with strong evidence on the molecular level, could not achieve its optimum therapeutic outcome in past clinical trials, largely due to its low solubility and poor bioavailability. Curcumin can be developed as a therapeutic drug through improvement in formulation properties or delivery systems, enabling its enhanced absorption and cellular uptake. This review mainly focuses on the anti-inflammatory potential of curcumin and recent developments in dosage form and nanoparticulate delivery systems with the possibilities of therapeutic application of curcumin for the prevention and/or treatment of cancer.
Reinforcement-Test Sequences in Paired-Associate Learning

To obtain evidence as to whether either learning or forgetting occurs on unreinforced trials and to adduce principles of optimal programming of reinforced (R) and test (T) trials, two experiments were planned each having four conditions with different repetitive R-T sequences: RTRT …, RRTRRT …, RTTRTT …, and RRTTRRTT. … 50 college students in each experiment learned 5 paired associates under each condition. Performance on successive Ts without intervening reinforcement suggested that neither learning nor forgetting occurred on Ts per se. However, the occurrence of Ts increased the effectiveness of subsequent Rs. A stimulus fluctuation model accounted for the major acquisition and retention phenomena, including the differential rates of learning under the different R-T sequences.
Perception of first‐ and second‐order motion: Separable neurological mechanisms?

An unresolved issue in visual motion perception is how distinct are the processes underlying “first‐order” and “second‐order” motion. The former is defined by spatiotemporal variations of luminance and the latter by spatiotemporal variations in other image attributes, such as contrast or depth. Here we describe two neurological patients with focal unilateral lesions whose contrasting perceptual deficits on psychophysical tasks of “first‐order” and “second‐order” motion are related to the maps of the human brain established by functional neuroimaging and gross anatomical features. We used a relatively fine‐grained neocortical parcellation method applied to high‐resolution MRI scans of the patients' brains to illustrate a subtle, yet highly specific dissociation in the visual motion system in humans. Our results suggest that the two motion systems are mediated by regionally separate mechanisms from an early stage of cortical processing. Hum. Brain Mapping. 7:67–77, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Impact of parameter estimation errors on feedforward current control of permanent magnet synchronous motors

Feedforward current control is a widely employed control technique for cost-sensitive permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive systems since it does not require current measurements. Feedforward compensation is usually static, but dynamic compensation can be also employed to improve the bandwidth of the current control loop. Typically, the feedforward current (or torque) control requires accurate knowledge of motor parameters to achieve robust steady-state and dynamic performance. However, in practice, the machine parameters vary highly nonlinearly as the operating condition of the PMSM changes. Therefore, it is important to analyze and understand the impact of machine parameter estimation errors on the steady-state as well as dynamic performance of the system. In this paper, the analytical expressions for the actual currents in a feedforward current controlled PMSM drive system under the presence of parameter estimation errors are developed. The presented analysis is verified by experimental results on a commercial PMSM.
Spectral-spatial hyperspectral image classification via superpixel merging and sparse representation

Recently, the superpixel segmentation is introduced into the hyperspectral image (HSI) classification to exploit the spatial information. However, the size of superpixels influences the classification significantly because small superpixels can not provide enough spatial information and large superpixels generally result in error segmentation. The error segmentation is irreversible and intolerable, so the size of superpixels tends to be small. This paper proposes a hyperspectral unmixing based superpixel merging criterion to merge small su-perpixels and thus make use of the spatial information. The spatial information is then incorporated into the joint sparsity model for the spectral-spatial classification. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over some widely used classification methods.
Vector-space integration of local and long-range information in visual cortex 7

Integration of inputs by cortical neurons provides the basis for the complex information processing performed in the cerebral cortex. Here, we propose a new analytic framework for understanding integration within cortical neuronal receptive fields. Based on the synaptic organization of cortex, we argue that neuronal integration is a systems--level process better studied in terms of local cortical circuitry than at the level of single neurons, and we present a method for constructing self-contained modules which capture (nonlinear) local circuit interactions. In this framework, receptive field elements naturally have dual (rather than the traditional unitary influence since they drive both excitatory and inhibitory cortical neurons. This vector-based analysis, in contrast to scalar approaches, greatly simplifies integration by permitting linear summation of inputs from both ``classical'''' and ``extraclassical'''' receptive field regions. We illustrate this by explaining two complex visual cortical phenomena, which are incompatible with scalar notions of neuronal integration.
Bacterial clade with the ribosomal RNA operon on a small plasmid rather than the chromosome

Significance In bacterial genomes, chromosomes are distinguished from plasmids by the localization of essential genes. It has been taken for granted that fundamental genes such as the rRNA (rrn) operon should be transmitted faithfully on the chromosome. Here, we found a striking exception: A plant-associated bacterium, Aureimonas sp. AU20, and its close relatives harbor the rrn operon only on a small, high-copy-number replicon but not on the chromosome. Our findings show the existence of novel genome organization in bacteria. rRNA is essential for life because of its functional importance in protein synthesis. The rRNA (rrn) operon encoding 16S, 23S, and 5S rRNAs is located on the “main” chromosome in all bacteria documented to date and is frequently used as a marker of chromosomes. Here, our genome analysis of a plant-associated alphaproteobacterium, Aureimonas sp. AU20, indicates that this strain has its sole rrn operon on a small (9.4 kb), high-copy-number replicon. We designated this unusual replicon carrying the rrn operon on the background of an rrn-lacking chromosome (RLC) as the rrn-plasmid. Four of 12 strains close to AU20 also had this RLC/rrn-plasmid organization. Phylogenetic analysis showed that those strains having the RLC/rrn-plasmid organization represented one clade within the genus Aureimonas. Our finding introduces a previously unaddressed viewpoint into studies of genetics, genomics, and evolution in microbiology and biology in general.