Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High School to University in Ontario: How Effective is the New Grade 12 Curriculum?

The dual Ontario graduating class of 2003, commonly referred to as the Double Cohort, was the product of that provincial government’s initiative to eliminate the long entrenched practice of requiring a fifth year of secondary school for university-bound students. The new, more “rigorous” four-year curriculum, the Ministry of Education asserted, would be as effective as the previous Ontario Academic Credit (OAC) system in preparing graduating students for further education at the postsecondary level. This study, conducted in a small Ontario university, examines the efficacy of the new curriculum by comparing how effectively the two subgroups, the former grade 12s and the former OAC graduates, had made the transition to postsecondary education both socially and academically. The results suggest that the recently adopted four-year secondary school program has been successful in that there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of academic achievement or social adjustment.
Musical Hallucinations After Left Temporal Lobectomy

BackgroundMusical hallucinations (MHs) are rare and most often described in patients with hearing loss, female sex, older age, and various brain pathologies, including epilepsy. Case HistoryWe describe a unique case in which, after successful left temporal lobectomy for refractory epilepsy and subsequent ototoxic therapies, a 49-year-old man experienced the onset of songs replaying constantly in his mind for days to weeks. He had intractable partial epilepsy since age 26. Presurgical neurodiagnostic evaluations revealed a left temporal focus, left hippocampal magnetic resonance imaging abnormalities, bilateral language representation, and cognitive deficits lateralized to the left hemisphere. He underwent a partial left temporal lobectomy but required repeated antibiotic courses for postoperation bone flap infections, resulting in tinnitus. Surgery led to near seizure-freedom, plus improved cognitive and emotional function. Pathology revealed focal cortical dysplasia. Six months postsurgery, during antibiotic treatment, he began to hear songs replaying in his head, which increased in frequency over ensuing years. ConclusionsWe report, to our knowledge, the first case of MHs associated with temporal lobectomy for epilepsy. This patient had multiple risk factors for these unwanted musical experiences, including epilepsy, mild neuropsychiatric dysfunction, and tinnitus plus hearing loss. Possible mechanisms for MHs are discussed.
Activation of Notch in lgd mutant cells requires the fusion of late endosomes with the lysosome

Summary The tumour suppressor Lethal (2) giant discs (Lgd) is a regulator of endosomal trafficking of the Notch signalling receptor as well as other transmembrane proteins in Drosophila. The loss of its function results in an uncontrolled ligand-independent activation of the Notch signalling receptor. Here, we investigated the consequences of loss of lgd function and the requirements for the activation of Notch. We show that the activation of Notch in lgd cells is independent of Kuz and dependent on &ggr;-secretase. We found that the lgd cells have a defect that delays degradation of transmembrane proteins, which are residents of the plasma membrane. Furthermore, our results show that the activation of Notch in lgd cells occurs in the lysosome. By contrast, the pathway is activated at an earlier phase in mutants of the gene that encodes the ESCRT-III component Shrub, which is an interaction partner of Lgd. We further show that activation of Notch appears to be a general consequence of loss of lgd function. In addition, electron microscopy of lgd cells revealed that they contain enlarged multi-vesicular bodies. The presented results further elucidate the mechanism of uncontrolled Notch activation upon derailed endocytosis.
Sphingosine Kinase 1 Regulates the Akt/FOXO3a/Bim Pathway and Contributes to Apoptosis Resistance in Glioma Cells

The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanism through which Sphingosine kinase-1 (SPHK1) exerts its anti-apoptosis activity in glioma cancer cells. We here report that dysregulation of SPHK1 alters the sensitivity of glioma to apoptosis both in vitro and in vivo. Further mechanistic study examined the expression of Bcl-2 family members, including Bcl-2, Mcl-1, Bax and Bim, in SPHK1-overexpressing glioma cells and revealed that only pro-apoptotic Bim was downregulated by SPHK1. Moreover, the transcriptional level of Bim was also altered by SPHK1 in glioma cells. We next confirmed the correlation between SPHK1 and Bim expression in primary glioma specimens. Importantly, increasing SPHK1 expression in glioma cells markedly elevated Akt activity and phosphorylated inactivation of FOXO3a, which led to downregulation of Bim. A pharmacological approach showed that these effects of SPHK1 were dependent on phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K). Furthermore, effects of SPHK1 on Akt/FOXO3a/Bim pathway could be reversed by SPHK1 specific RNA interference or SPHK1 inhibitor. Collectively, our results indicate that regulation of the Akt/FOXO3a/Bim pathway may be a novel mechanism by which SPHK1 protects glioma cells from apoptosis, thereby involved in glioma tumorigenesis.
Effect of Iron on Growth and Ultrastructure of Acaryochloris marina

ABSTRACT The cyanobacterial genus Acaryochloris is the only known group of oxygenic phototrophs that contain chlorophyll d rather than chlorophyll a as the major photosynthetic pigment. Studies on this organism are still in their earliest stages, and biochemical analysis has rapidly outpaced growth optimization. We have investigated culture growth of the major strains of Acaryochloris marina (MBIC11017 and MBIC10697) by using several published and some newly developed growth media. It was determined that heavy addition of iron significantly enhanced culture longevity. These high-iron cultures showed an ultrastructure with thylakoid stacks that resemble traditional cyanobacteria (unlike previous studies). These cultures also show a novel reversal in the pigment ratios of the photosystem II signature components chlorophyll a and pheophytin a, as opposed to those in previous studies.
p-Chloro-, p-bromo- and two polymorphs of p-iodoacetophenone.

The title p-haloaceto­phenones, C8H7XO (X = Cl, Br and I), have different packing modes. The chloro compound contains H⋯O and H⋯Cl contacts, but no Cl⋯O contacts. The bromo compound and one polymorph (A) of the iodo compound are isomorphous, with significant X⋯O contacts [Br⋯O = 3.320 (4) A and I⋯O = 3.374 (5) A]. In the other polymorph (B) of the iodo compound, the I⋯O distance is 3.082 (4) A. Both polymorphs contain C—H⋯π contacts; these contacts are shorter in A than in B.
Differential Tropism and Chemokine Receptor Expression of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 in Neonatal Monocytes, Monocyte-Derived Macrophages, and Placental Macrophages

ABSTRACT Laboratory-adapted (LA) macrophage-tropic (M-tropic) human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) isolates (e.g., HIV-1Ba-L) and low-passage primary (PR) isolates differed markedly in tropism for syngeneic neonatal monocytes, monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs), and placental macrophages (PMs). Newly adherent neonatal monocytes and cultured PMs were highly refractory to infection with PR HIV-1 isolates yet were permissive for LA M-tropic isolates. Day 4 MDMs were also permissive for LA M-tropic isolates and additionally, were permissive for over half the PR isolates tested. Qualitative differences in PR HIV-1 infection of monocytes/MDMs could not be correlated with CD4 levels alone, and in all three cell types the block to PR HIV-1 strain replication preceded reverse transcription. Neonatal monocyte susceptibility to PR HIV-1 strains correlated with increasing CCR-5 expression during maturation. CCR-5 could not be detected on newly adherent (day 1) neonatal monocytes, in contrast to adult monocytes (H. Naif et al., J. Virol. 72:830–836, 1998), but was readily detectable after 4 to 7 days of culture. However, moderate CCR-5 mRNA levels were present in day 1 neonatal monocytes and remained constant during monocyte maturation. CCR-5 was not detectable on the surface of PMs, yet the receptor was present within permeabilized cells. Notably, two brain-derived PR HIV-1 isolates from a single patient, differing in their V3 loops, were discordant in their abilities to infect neonatal monocytes/MDMs and PMs, yet both isolates could infect newly adherent adult monocytes. Together these data strongly suggest that LA HIV-1 isolates are able to infect neonatal monocytes at earlier stages of maturation and lower-level expression of CCR-5 than PR isolates. The differences between neonatal and adult monocytes in susceptibility to PR isolates may also be related to the level of CCR-5 expression.
Oscillations in molecular motor assemblies

Autonomous oscillations in biological systems may have a biochemical origin or result from an interplay between force-generating and visco-elastic elements. In molecular motor assemblies the force-generating elements are molecular engines and the visco-elastic elements are stiff cytoskeletal polymers. The physical mechanism leading to oscillations depends on the particular architecture of the assembly. Existing models can be grouped into two distinct categories: systems with a delayed force activation and anomalous force–velocity relations. We discuss these systems within phase plane analysis known from the theory of dynamic systems and by adopting methods from control theory, the Nyquist stability criterion.
Applicability analysis of generalized inverse kinematics algorithms with respect to manipulator geometric uncertainties

Accurate kinematic models and measurements are needed in many robotic applications. However uncertainties related to joint angle measurements and manipulator geometry are unavoidable, especially when grasping and using different tools or when we do not have access to an accurate robot model, e.g. when we construct a robotic system by hand. The generalized inverse kinematics methods are not applicable when a manipulator stay inside its singular region. We derive the upper bounds on the joint measurement errors and geometric uncertainties, in order to guarantee that the open-chain serial manipulators stay outside the singular region. These bounds in other words enable en effective execution of generalized inverse kinematics methods for a robotic system which is prone to geometric uncertainties. In addition to the analytic derivation, We validate the proposed bounds through a trajectory tracing task performed by a PR2 robot simulator.
Relevance of Peptide Uptake Systems to the Physiology and Virulence of Streptococcus agalactiae

ABSTRACT Streptococcus agalactiae is a major cause of invasive infections in human newborns. To satisfy its growth requirements, S. agalactiae takes up 9 of the 20 proteinogenic amino acids from the environment. Defined S. agalactiae mutants in one or several of four putative peptide permease systems were constructed and tested for peptide uptake, growth in various media, and expression of virulence traits. Oligopeptide uptake by S. agalactiae was shown to be mediated by the ABC transporter OppA1-F, which possesses two substrate-binding proteins (OppA1 and OppA2) with overlapping substrate specificities. Dipeptides were found to be taken up in parallel by the oligopeptide permease OppA1-F, by the dipeptide ABC transporter DppA-E, and by the dipeptide symporter DpsA. Reverse transcription-PCR analysis revealed a polycistronic organization of the genes oppA1-F and dppA-E and a monocistronic organization of dpsA in S. agalactiae. The results of quantitative real-time PCR revealed a medium-dependent expression of the operons dppA-E and oppA1-F in S. agalactiae. Growth of S. agalactiae in human amniotic fluid was shown to require an intact dpsA gene, indicating an important role of DpsA during the infection of the amniotic cavity by S. agalactiae. Deletion of the oppB gene reduced the adherence of S. agalactiae to epithelial cells by 26%, impaired its adherence to fibrinogen and fibronectin by 42 and 33%, respectively, and caused a 35% reduction in expression of the fbsA gene, which encodes a fibrinogen-binding protein in S. agalactiae. These data indicate that the oligopeptide permease is involved in modulating virulence traits and virulence gene expression in S. agalactiae.
Interdisciplinary arts and health practice with an institutional logics perspective

Abstract Background: Investigating the interdisciplinary relationships between stakeholders engaged in arts and health practice in the UK and Denmark, specifically with regard to institutional logics theory. The identified stakeholders: health professionals, museum educators and mental health service users. Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 participants: health professionals, museum educators and service users. Data were collected in Denmark and the UK. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data and theoretical lenses of sociological theories, and institutional logics explored the findings. Results: The interdisciplinary work in arts and health is complex, given the different disciplines and institutions involved. Findings illustrate that institutional logics play a vital and ambiguous part in arts and health practice and that this presents a challenge for interdisciplinary working in the field. Conclusions: Awareness of the complexity of multiple logics in the arts and health field; recognising the differences between disciplines and institutions could benefit from research and practice.
Effects of extradural block: comparison of the properties, circulatory effects and pharmacokinetics of etidocaine and bupivacaine.

Five healthy, unmedicated male volunteers, aged 19-25 yr, participated in a double-blind, crossover study. Each subject received, on separate occasions and via a catheter placed at L2, 1.5% etiodocaine HCl20 ml with adrenaline 5 mug/ml, or 0.75% bupivacaine HCl 20 ml with adrenaline 5 mug/ml for extradural analgesia. In addition, in order to calculate the absorption rate of the local anaesthetic agent, each subject received on two further occasions etidocaine HCl 75 mg and bupivacaine HCl 75 mg respectively by i.v. infusion, over a period of 10 min. Spread of sensory analgesia to four segments above and below the site of injection was faster with etidocaine (13 +/- 3 min) (mean +/- SD) than with bupivacaine (22 +/- 8 min). Two-segment regression occurred later for bupivacaine (260 +/- 57 min) than for etidocaine (180 +/- 96 min). Caudal spread of analgesia was more extensive with etidocaine than with bupivacaine. The onset of motor blockade tended to be faster with etidocaine (5.8 +/- 3.0 min), than with bupivacaine (10.0 +/- 3.5 min); regression of motor blockade by one unit was longer with etidocaine (306 +/- 103 min) than bupivacaine (238 +/- 75 min). Sudomotor block occurred earlier with etidocaine (4.0 +/- 2.1 min) than bupivacaine (13.7 +/- 4.8 min). Significant changes in cardiac stroke work and stroke volume occurred. For etidocaine these measurements remained below control values for 120-210 min after injection. The mean maximum arterial plasma concentration of etidocaine was 1.52 +/- 0.64 mug/ml, at 14 +/- 2 min and of bupivacaine was 1.35 +/- 0.63 mug/ml, achieved at 20 +/- 4 min. The systemic absorption of both drugs occurred in a biphasic pattern with a fast and slow half-life of 0.3 and approximately 8 h respectively.
Observer-based actuator fault detection for chemical batch reactors: A comparison between nonlinear adaptive and H∞- based approaches

This paper deals with actuator fault diagnosis for chemical batch reactors. Two different nonlinear model-based approaches have been developed in order to detect incipient and abrupt faults. Two residual generators were built by using an adaptive observer and a Hinfin approach. Both approaches are well used for sensor fault detection due to their capability to estimate uncertain parameters and to guarantee robustness against modeling errors and disturbances. Here, the approaches have been extended to achieve actuator fault detection and a comparison of both techniques has been done by simulating the whole system in-design and off-design operating conditions.
Optimal Estimation Over the Collision Channel

Consider a distributed sensing system that comprises two sensors, each observing a random variable, and a remote estimator. The goal of the remote estimator is to produce estimates of the random variables based on information transmitted to it by the sensors. The random variables are independent and information is transferred from the sensors to the estimator via a collision channel, which can only convey a single packet. Each sensor has the authority to decide what and when to transmit, and simultaneous transmissions result in a collision event to be detected at the estimator. In our formulation, there is no communication between the sensors, which precludes the use of coordinated strategies. Our results characterize the structure of policies at the sensors and the remote estimator that are optimal with respect to a mean squared error criterion. More specifically, we show that there exist optimal policies at the sensors that use deterministic threshold strategies to decide when to transmit. This structural result is independent of the distributions of the observed random variables. In our analysis, we prove that the computation of a person-by-person optimal threshold policy can be recast as a one-bit optimal quantization problem for which the cost is nonuniform across representation symbols. Based on that observation, we provide an iterative procedure akin to the Lloyd-Max algorithm that can be used to compute locally optimal solutions. In the Gaussian case, our iterative method converged to an optimal solution in all numerical examples we have tried. We provide several examples that show the optimality of asymmetric threshold policies even when the overall framework is symmetric, such as when both random variables are Gaussian with zero mean and the same variance.
Spanning trees with few branch vertices

A branch vertex in a tree is a vertex of degree at least three. We prove that, for all $s\geq 1$, every connected graph on $n$ vertices with minimum degree at least $(\frac{1}{s+3}+o(1))n$ contains a spanning tree having at most $s$ branch vertices. Asymptotically, this is best possible and solves, in less general form, a problem of Flandrin, Kaiser, Kuuzel, Li and Ryjaucek, which was originally motivated by an optimization problem in the design of optical networks.
Influence of Lipid A Acylation Pattern on Membrane Permeability and Innate Immune Stimulation

Lipid A, the hydrophobic anchor of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), is an essential component in the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. It can stimulate the innate immune system via Toll-like receptor 4/myeloid differentiation factor 2 (TLR4/MD2), leading to the release of inflammatory cytokines. In this study, six Escherichia coli strains which can produce lipid A with different acylation patterns were constructed; the influence of lipid A acylation pattern on the membrane permeability and innate immune stimulation has been systematically investigated. The lipid A species were isolated and identified by matrix assisted laser ionization desorption-time of flight/tandem mass spectrometry. N-Phenyl naphthylamine uptake assay and antibiotic susceptibility test showed that membrane permeability of these strains were different. The lower the number of acyl chains in lipid A, the stronger the membrane permeability. LPS purified from these strains were used to stimulate human or mouse macrophage cells, and different levels of cytokines were induced. Compared with wild type hexa-acylated LPS, penta-acylated, tetra-acylated and tri-acylated LPS induced lower levels of cytokines. These results suggest that the lipid A acylation pattern influences both the bacterial membrane permeability and innate immune stimulation. The results would be useful for redesigning the bacterial membrane structure and for developing lipid A vaccine adjuvant.
Scale-Free and Multifractal Time Dynamics of fMRI Signals during Rest and Task

Scaling temporal dynamics in functional MRI (fMRI) signals have been evidenced for a decade as intrinsic characteristics of ongoing brain activity (Zarahn et al., 1997). Recently, scaling properties were shown to fluctuate across brain networks and to be modulated between rest and task (He, 2011): notably, Hurst exponent, quantifying long memory, decreases under task in activating and deactivating brain regions. In most cases, such results were obtained: First, from univariate (voxelwise or regionwise) analysis, hence focusing on specific cognitive systems such as Resting-State Networks (RSNs) and raising the issue of the specificity of this scale-free dynamics modulation in RSNs. Second, using analysis tools designed to measure a single scaling exponent related to the second order statistics of the data, thus relying on models that either implicitly or explicitly assume Gaussianity and (asymptotic) self-similarity, while fMRI signals may significantly depart from those either of those two assumptions (Ciuciu et al., 2008; Wink et al., 2008). To address these issues, the present contribution elaborates on the analysis of the scaling properties of fMRI temporal dynamics by proposing two significant variations. First, scaling properties are technically investigated using the recently introduced Wavelet Leader-based Multifractal formalism (WLMF; Wendt et al., 2007). This measures a collection of scaling exponents, thus enables a richer and more versatile description of scale invariance (beyond correlation and Gaussianity), referred to as multifractality. Also, it benefits from improved estimation performance compared to tools previously used in the literature. Second, scaling properties are investigated in both RSN and non-RSN structures (e.g., artifacts), at a broader spatial scale than the voxel one, using a multivariate approach, namely the Multi-Subject Dictionary Learning (MSDL) algorithm (Varoquaux et al., 2011) that produces a set of spatial components that appear more sparse than their Independent Component Analysis (ICA) counterpart. These tools are combined and applied to a fMRI dataset comprising 12 subjects with resting-state and activation runs (Sadaghiani et al., 2009). Results stemming from those analysis confirm the already reported task-related decrease of long memory in functional networks, but also show that it occurs in artifacts, thus making this feature not specific to functional networks. Further, results indicate that most fMRI signals appear multifractal at rest except in non-cortical regions. Task-related modulation of multifractality appears only significant in functional networks and thus can be considered as the key property disentangling functional networks from artifacts. These finding are discussed in the light of the recent literature reporting scaling dynamics of EEG microstate sequences at rest and addressing non-stationarity issues in temporally independent fMRI modes.
Fish group tracking based on Delaunay Triangulation network

In order to accurately track fish group, a new algorithm is proposed, which is based on the improved background subtraction (IBS) algorithm and the Delaunay Triangulation (DT) network. First, the IBS algorithm is used to segment each frame of the video; second, the center of each fish is evaluated; third, the DT network is established; fourth, the DT network is optimized and the center of the fish group is calculated. Experimental results show that this algorithm can track fish groups accurately and provide effective data for monitoring water quality.