Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fat4-Dchs1 signalling controls cell proliferation in developing vertebrae

The protocadherins Fat4 and Dchs1 act as a receptor-ligand pair to regulate many developmental processes in mice and humans, including development of the vertebrae. Based on conservation of function between Drosophila and mammals, Fat4-Dchs1 signalling has been proposed to regulate planar cell polarity (PCP) and activity of the Hippo effectors Yap and Taz, which regulate cell proliferation, survival and differentiation. There is strong evidence for Fat regulation of PCP in mammals but the link with the Hippo pathway is unclear. In Fat4−/− and Dchs1−/− mice, many vertebrae are split along the midline and fused across the anterior-posterior axis, suggesting that these defects might arise due to altered cell polarity and/or changes in cell proliferation/differentiation. We show that the somite and sclerotome are specified appropriately, the transcriptional network that drives early chondrogenesis is intact, and that cell polarity within the sclerotome is unperturbed. We find that the key defect in Fat4 and Dchs1 mutant mice is decreased proliferation in the early sclerotome. This results in fewer chondrogenic cells within the developing vertebral body, which fail to condense appropriately along the midline. Analysis of Fat4;Yap and Fat4;Taz double mutants, and expression of their transcriptional target Ctgf, indicates that Fat4-Dchs1 regulates vertebral development independently of Yap and Taz. Thus, we have identified a new pathway crucial for the development of the vertebrae and our data indicate that novel mechanisms of Fat4-Dchs1 signalling have evolved to control cell proliferation within the developing vertebrae. Summary: The protocadherins Fat4 and Dchs1 promote proliferation in the developing mouse somites, independently of both the planar cell polarity pathway and the Yap/Taz Hippo effectors.
A Mobile-Based Fuzzy System for Diagnosing Syphilis (Sexually Transmitted Disease)

The high rate at which Africans die of syphilis yearly has been majorly attributed to the uneven ratio of the patients to competent medical practitioners who provide Medicare. This mortality rate has always drawn the attention of researchers and different approaches had been used to bring the rate down. This paper provides a software solution that personifies the expert- like way of providing diagnostic service to patients who suffer this disease. It is capable of making approximate diagnosis based on uncertainties. The system has been structured into five components: user interface, fuzzification, knowledge base, inference engine and defuzzification. The user interface uses a graphic user interface based method of human-computer interaction while the fuzzification component has transformed crisp quantities into fuzzy quantities using both interval-valued and S-curve membership functions. The reasoning has been achieved using root sum square (RSS) method and transformation of fuzzy values to scalar ones was through weighted average method. This system was tested and found effective.
Emancipatory research with children in Pupil Referral Units : a Foucauldian perspective on policy and practice

This critical psychology research is set within current education reform and focuses on children attending Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) in one local authority. A systematic literature review indicated that, whilst there is research into interventions in PRUs, there is limited research into the abilities of children in PRUs or their constructions. To address this, three subsidiary research questions were developed, within the central research question of ‘What are the characteristics, beliefs and Foucauldian themes of children in Pupil Referral Units? ’. Mixed methods emancipatory and exploratory research was conducted with 14 children (11-15 years old). Data collection involved cognitive assessment, assessment of their attitudes towards school and themselves, and conversational-style interviews. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics and a semantic deductive Foucauldian informed thematic analysis. Findings indicated children generally had positive attitudes towards their PRU teachers, with some negative attitudes towards their competency in learning. Participants were heterogeneous in terms of their cognitive ability, but with a trend of below average verbal abilities. Spatial abilities were a relative strength. Governmentality was concluded to influence institutional practices within education and children’s lives. This served to create and maintain a ‘norm’, thus enabling the ‘abnormal’ to exist. As a result the children self-disciplined, subjectified and problematised themselves against the ‘norm’. This was made possible through relationships. Therefore, the importance of relationships in education is central to the research findings and conclusions. The thesis concludes with reflections on the researcher’s learning journey and plans for sharing the findings to inform practice and policy within education and Educational Psychology.
Light availability affects stream biofilm bacterial community composition and function, but not diversity

Summary Changes in riparian vegetation or water turbidity and browning in streams alter the local light regime with potential implications for stream biofilms and ecosystem functioning. We experimented with biofilms in microcosms grown under a gradient of light intensities (range: 5–152 μmole photons s−1 m−2) and combined 454‐pyrosequencing and enzymatic activity assays to evaluate the effects of light on biofilm structure and function. We observed a shift in bacterial community composition along the light gradient, whereas there was no apparent change in alpha diversity. Multifunctionality, based on extracellular enzymes, was highest under high light conditions and decoupled from bacterial diversity. Phenol oxidase activity, involved in the degradation of polyphenolic compounds, was twice as high on average under the lowest compared with the highest light condition. This suggests a shift in reliance of microbial heterotrophs on biofilm phototroph‐derived organic matter under high light availability to more complex organic matter under low light. Furthermore, extracellular enzyme activities correlated with nutrient cycling and community respiration, supporting the link between biofilm structure–function and biogeochemical fluxes in streams. Our findings demonstrate that changes in light availability are likely to have significant impacts on biofilm structure and function, potentially affecting stream ecosystem processes.
Development of Norms for the Post-deployment Reintegration Scale

Abstract : For military personnel, the time period that immediately follows return from military operations (i.e., the post-deployment reintegration period) is an extremely important window of opportunity for readjusting to in-garrison work roles, for re-connecting with family, and for putting the events of the tour in perspective. Recognizing the importance of successful post-deployment reintegration to optimal operational readiness, Canadian military researchers developed the Army Post-Deployment Reintegration Scale (PDRS) (Blais, Thompson, & McCreary, 2009). The PDRS measures positive and negative post-deployment experiences of returning military members in three domains of interest: work, family, and personal. The goal of the current study was to develop norms for the PDRS, using commonly accepted procedures established in psychological testing. The norms we developed suggest that so far, CF members who have participated in recent operations report more positive than negative reintegration experiences. Additional findings show that where post-deployment reintegration differences between specific subgroups within the CF exist, they are rather small in magnitude. The implications of these findings, as well as future uses of the PDRS norms in CF screening and research programs are discussed.
On the equivalence of Gaussian HMM and Gaussian HMM-like hidden conditional random fields

In this work we show that Gaussian HMMs (GHMMs) are equivalent to GHMM-like Hidden Conditional Random Fields (HCRFs). Hence, improvements of HCRFs over GHMMs found in literature are not due to a reﬁned acoustic modeling but rather come from the more robust formulation of the underlying optimization problem or spurious local optima. Conventional GHMMs are usually estimated with a criterion on segment level whereas hybrid approaches are based on a formulation of the criterion on frame level. In contrast to CRFs, these approaches do not provide scores or do not support more than two classes in a natural way. In this work we analyze these two classes of criteria and propose a reﬁned frame based criterion, which is shown to be an approximation of the associated criterion on segment level. Experimental results concerning these issues are reported for the German digit string recognition task Sietill and the large vocabulary English European Parliament Plenary Sessions (EPPS) task.
On optimal message assignments for interference channels with CoMP transmission

The degrees of freedom (DoF) number of the fully connected K-user Gaussian interference channel is known to be 2 (see [3]). In [4], the DoF for the same channel model was studied while allowing each message to be available at its own transmitter as well as M - 1 successive transmitters. In particular, it was shown that the DoF gain through cooperation does not scale with the number of users K for a fixed value of M, i.e., the per user DoF number is 1/2. In this work, we relax the cooperation constraint such that each message can be assigned to M transmitters without imposing further constraints on their location. Under the new constraint, we study properties for different message assignments in terms of the gain in the per user DoF number over that achieved without cooperation. In particular, we show that a local cooperation constraint that confines the transmit set of each message within a o(K) radius cannot achieve a per user DoF number that is greater than 1/2. Moreover, we show that the same conclusion about the per user DoF number holds for any assignment of messages such that each message cannot be available at more than two transmitters. Finally, for the case where M >; 2, we do not know whether a per user DoF number that is greater than 1/ 2 is achievable. However, we identify a candidate class of message assignments that could potentially lead to a positive answer.
Microcolony Cultivation on a Soil Substrate Membrane System Selects for Previously Uncultured Soil Bacteria

ABSTRACT Traditional microbiological methods of cultivation recover less than 1% of the total bacterial species, and the culturable portion of bacteria is not representative of the total phylogenetic diversity. Classical cultivation strategies are now known to supply excessive nutrients to a system and therefore select for fast-growing bacteria that are capable of colony or biofilm formation. New approaches to the cultivation of bacteria which rely on growth in dilute nutrient media or simulated environments are beginning to address this problem of selection. Here we describe a novel microcultivation method for soil bacteria that mimics natural conditions. Our soil slurry membrane system combines a polycarbonate membrane as a growth support and soil extract as the substrate. The result is abundant growth of uncharacterized bacteria as microcolonies. By combining microcultivation with fluorescent in situ hybridization, previously “unculturable” organisms belonging to cultivated and noncultivated divisions, including candidate division TM7, can be identified by fluorescence microscopy. Successful growth of soil bacteria as microcolonies confirmed that the missing culturable majority may have a growth strategy that is not observed when traditional cultivation indicators are used.
Modulation of adipocyte differentiation by tumor necrosis factor and transforming growth factor beta

Cultured TA1 adipocytes treated with tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF) lose intracytoplasmic lipid and, over a period of days, come to resemble their predifferentiated progenitors (preadipocytes). To examine the extent to which this phenotypic reversion represents a return to a less differentiated cell, we examined three major characteristics that distinguish preadipocytes from adipocytes: (a) pattern of gene expression; (b) hormonal requirement for accelerated adipogenesis; and (c) pattern of protein synthesis. We found that within hours of TNF addition to adipocytes, mRNAs for genes whose expression is augmented during adipogenesis decreased to predifferentiated levels; in addition, like preadipocytes, TNF-treated adipocytes required exposure to hormones to accelerate adipogenesis. Further, the pattern of protein synthesis seen on polyacrylamide gels reverted to that seen before differentiation. Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) also caused a rapid decrease in expression of adipose genes when added to fully differentiated cells, an effect that was achieved by treatment with either TGF-beta 1 or TGF-beta 2. These effects were seen in the absence of a demonstrable proliferative response to either TNF or TGF-beta. Thus characteristics that define the "terminally" differentiated state in adipocytes are subject to modulation by environmental influences.
Accurate and compact large vocabulary speech recognition on mobile devices

In this paper we describe the development of an accurate, smallfootprint, large vocabulary speech recognizer for mobile devices. To achieve the best recognition accuracy, state-of-the-art deep neural networks (DNNs) are adopted as acoustic models. A variety of speedup techniques for DNN score computation are used to enable real-time operation on mobile devices. To reduce the memory and disk usage, on-the-fly language model (LM) rescoring is performed with a compressed n-gram LM. We were able to build an accurate and compact system that runs well below real-time on a Nexus 4 Android phone. Index Terms: Deep neural networks, embedded speech recognition, SIMD, LM compression.
Orchestrating 5G virtual network functions as a modular Programmable Data Plane

The upcoming 5G architecture is expected to heavily rely on network functions implemented by software deployed on commodity hardware architectures. Multiple standardization efforts are underway to specify interfaces between virtualized and real infrastructure, and procedures for interoperability among functions. However, the practical feasibility of function implementation in such abstract and disembodied conditions is scarcely covered in the latest literature. In this paper, we argue for a Network Function Virtualization (NFV) framework that provides 5G network functions built around a modular software router model, rather than following the traditional VM-container approaches. We illustrate its advantages in enabling support for efficient processing on heterogeneous hardware and in ensuring consistency of flow/session semantics across distributed 5G data planes. Finally, we report on the state of Programmable Data Plane, our architecture to implement 5G network functions as modular pipelines orchestrated across multiple devices.
Spontaneous abortion and recurrent miscarriage: A comparison of cytogenetic diagnosis in 250 cases

Objective The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency and distribution of cytogenetically abnormal miscarriages in couples with spontaneous abortions (SA) or recurrent miscarriages (RM). Methods Karyotyping of specimens from 164 abortuses with SA and 86 abortuses with RM was successfully performed according to the standard cytogenetic methods using G-banding technique. Results Among the total 164 cases of SA group, 81 (49.4%) were euploid and the rest (83, 50.6%) showed chromosomal abnormalities. In RM(≥2) and RM(≥3) group, 31 (36.0%)/27 (34.6%) cases were euploid and 55 (64.0%)/51(65.4%) cases were abnormal, respectively. A statistically significant difference was found in the rate of cytogenetic abnormality between SA and RM groups (P<0.05). In all groups, women with advanced maternal age (≥35 years) had a higher rate of chromosome anomalies compared with women younger than age 35 (normal:abnormal = 32.4%:67.6% for ≥35 years and 53.8%:46.2% for <35 years in SA; 19.2%:80.8%/21.7%:78.3% for ≥35 years and 43.3%:56.7%/40.0%:60.0% for <35 years in RM(≥2) and RM(≥3), respectively; P<0.05). In SA group, an increase of normal karyotypes was noted with increased gestational age (<10 week, 38.0%; 10-15 week, 53.5%; 16-20 week, 65.7%). In RM group, most of cases were in <10 week and the frequency of trisomies with chromosomes 1 to 10 were increased compared with that of SA. Conclusion There was a statistically significant difference in the frequency and distribution of chromosomal abnormalities between SA and RM groups. Our results will provide useful information for diagnosis and genetic counseling of patients with SA or RM.
Impaired endothelium-dependent regulation of ventricular relaxation in pressure-overload cardiac hypertrophy.

BACKGROUND Endothelium-derived nitric oxide (NO) selectively enhances myocardial relaxation and may benefit diastolic function. Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is characterized by abnormal myocardial relaxation and endothelial dysfunction. We investigated endothelium-dependent regulation of LV relaxation in moderate pressure-overload LVH induced by aortic banding in guinea pigs. METHODS AND RESULTS Isolated ejecting hearts of banded or sham-operated animals (shams) were studied. The specific agonists for endothelial release of NO, bradykinin (10 nmol/L), and substance P (100 nmol/L) both induced earlier onset of LV relaxation in shams (time to LV dP/dt(min) [tdP/dt(min)], -13.4+/-3.0 and -10.4+/-2.5 ms, respectively) without altering peak LV pressure or LV dP/dt(max). Neither agent altered tdP/dt(min) in banded animals. The ACE inhibitor captopril (1 micromol/L) also selectively reduced tdP/dt(min) in shams via a bradykinin/NO-dependent mechanism but had no effect in banded animals. An exogenous NO donor, sodium nitroprusside (0.1 micromol/L), selectively reduced tdP/dt(min) to a similar extent in both shams and banded animals. Endothelial-type NO synthase (eNOS) protein expression in whole LV homogenate was unaltered in banded animals. CONCLUSIONS Endothelium-dependent enhancement of LV relaxation is impaired in moderate pressure-overload LVH, despite a preserved response to exogenous NO. This is not accounted for by altered eNOS expression. These abnormalities may contribute to diastolic dysfunction in LVH.
International integrated database for the evaluation of severe sepsis (INDEPTH): clinical evaluation committee report on the safety of drotrecogin alfa (activated) therapy*

ABSTRACT Objective: INDEPTH is an integrated database of five trials enrolling patients with severe sepsis. It was created to better understand safety of drotrecogin alfa (activated) (DrotAA) in severe sepsis, examine factors impacting management of sepsis patients, and improve design of future clinical trials. The results of safety analyses are reported. Research design and methods: INDEPTH patients received DrotAA (24 µg/kg/h, n = 3228) or placebo (n= 1231) for 96 h. Following predefined criteria for blinded review, a clinical evaluation committee reviewed all serious adverse events (SAEs) during the 28-day study periods. As this was a retrospective analysis of five different trials with slightly different inclusion criteria and SAE reporting, propensity scores were computed and included as covariates to adjust for potential baseline imbalances and permit integration of patient data. Results: During the 28-day study period, 13.2% of DrotAA-treated patients experienced at least one SAE versus 13.8% of placebo patients. Serious bleeding events (SBEs) occurred in 5.6% of DrotAA-treated versus 2.0% of placebo patients ( p< 0.001) and non-bleeding-related SAEs in 8.6% and 12.5%, respectively ( p< 0.001). Fewer thrombotic events ( p= 0.006; primarily myocardial infarction (MI), p= 0.014, stroke, p= 0.099; and arrhythmias, p< 0.001) were observed in DrotAA-treated patients versus placebo, although reduction in MI was no longer significant with propensity adjustment. Mortality remained numerically lower in DrotAA-treated patients versus placebo, regardless of whether the SAE was bleeding (70/182, 38.5% vs. 13/25, 52.0%) or non-bleeding-related (82/279, 29.4% vs. 64/154, 41.6%). Conclusions: Although SBEs occurred more often, non-bleeding SAEs (e.g., arterial thrombotic events, arrhythmias) occurred less frequently with DrotAA. Overall, incidence of SAEs was not increased with DrotAA.
Correlation of Optimal Experience and Counselor Development.

Some studies report that almost half of American workers wish they held different jobs. This paper analyzes the relationships between both the quality and frequency of optimal experience and counselor development. A questionnaire consisting of a 12-item measure of optimal experience, the Supervisee Levels Questionnaire--Revised, and a 1-item measure of flow frequency was administered to 24 counseling practica graduate students. Results supported both research hypotheses: (1) the 12-item measure indicated a poi correlation between the experience of flow and the repor Iviel of counselor development; and (2) the frequency of report,:d now experiences while counseling was positively correlated with the level of counselor development. The findings were consistent with both the concept of flow or optimal experience as developed by Csikszentmihalyi and the Integrated Developmental Model of counselor development. The experience of flow and counselor development are complex concepts which appear to be highly correlated. Although with correlation one cannot assign causality, one may speculate that the complex nature of counseling probably provides numerous challenges which make the experience of flow possible. Included here are two scatterplots, which graph the reported optimal experiences, and a copy of the counselor questionnaire. (RJM) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***********************************************************************