Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inflammatory signals from photoreceptor modulate pathological retinal angiogenesis via c-Fos

Pathological neovessels growing into the normally avascular photoreceptors cause vision loss in many eye diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration and macular telangiectasia. Ocular neovascularization is strongly associated with inflammation, but the source of inflammatory signals and the mechanisms by which these signals regulate the disruption of avascular privilege in photoreceptors are unknown. In this study, we found that c-Fos, a master inflammatory regulator, was increased in photoreceptors in a model of pathological blood vessels invading photoreceptors: the very low-density lipoprotein receptor–deficient (Vldlr−/−) mouse. Increased c-Fos induced inflammatory cytokines interleukin 6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF), leading to activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and increased TNF&agr;–induced protein 3 (TNFAIP3) in Vldlr−/− photoreceptors. IL-6 activated the STAT3/vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) pathway directly, and elevated TNFAIP3 suppressed SOCS3 (suppressor of cytokine signaling 3)–activated STAT3/VEGFA indirectly. Inhibition of c-Fos using photoreceptor-specific AAV (adeno-associated virus)-hRK (human rhodopsin kinase)–sh_c-fos or a chemical inhibitor substantially reduced the pathological neovascularization and rescued visual function in Vldlr−/− mice. These findings suggested that the photoreceptor c-Fos controls blood vessel growth into the normally avascular photoreceptor layer through the inflammatory signal–induced STAT3/VEGFA pathway.
Complexities and Compromises

GIVEN THE COMPLEXITY AND RANGE of choice of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services, as well as the diversity of family situations, research eliciting parent conceptions of their choices of early childhood services is both necessary and timely. This paper brings to light some important issues in relation to knowledge and understanding of parent choice regarding early childhood services. It synthesises findings from an initial study that aimed to investigate the ways parents make their choices of early childhood services, and examines and interprets the meanings they ascribe to those choices (see Noble, 2005).
WHAM Observations of Hα, [S II], and [N II] toward the Orion and Perseus Arms: Probing the Physical Conditions of the Warm Ionized Medium

A large portion of the Galaxy (l = 123°-164°, b = -6° to -35°), which samples regions of the Local (Orion) spiral arm and the more distant Perseus arm, has been mapped with the Wisconsin Hα Mapper (WHAM) in the [S II] λ6716 and [N II] λ6583 lines. By comparing these data with the maps from the WHAM Hα Sky Survey, we begin an investigation of the global physical properties of the warm ionized medium (WIM) in the Galaxy. Several trends noticed in emission-line investigations of diffuse gas in other galaxies are confirmed in the Milky Way and extended to much fainter emission. We find that the [S II]/Hα and [N II]/Hα ratios increase as absolute Hα intensities decrease. For the more distant Perseus arm emission, the increase in these ratios is a strong function of Galactic latitude, b, and thus of height, z, above the Galactic plane, while the [S II]/[N II] ratio is relatively independent of Hα intensity. Scatter in this ratio appears to be physically significant, and maps of [S II]/[N II] suggest that regions with similar ratios are spatially correlated. The Perseus arm [S II]/[N II] ratio is systematically lower than local emission by 10%-20%. With [S II]/[N II] fairly constant over a large range of Hα intensities, the increase of [S II]/Hα and [N II]/Hα with |z| seems to reflect an increase in temperature. Such an interpretation allows us to estimate the temperature and ionization conditions in our large sample of observations. We find that WIM temperatures range from 6000 to 10,000 K, with temperature increasing from bright to faint Hα emission (low to high [S II]/Hα and [N II]/Hα), respectively. Changes in [S II]/[N II] appear to reflect changes in the local ionization conditions (i.e., the S+/S++ ratio). We also measure the electron scale height in the Perseus arm to be 1.0 ± 0.1 kpc, confirming earlier, less accurate determinations.
Design and analysis of delay-sensitive decentralized cross-layer OFDMA systems with efficient feedback algorithm

Delay-sensitive cross-layer design has recently attracted increasing interests in providing delay performance guarantee and exploiting multi-user diversity throughput advantage for real-time traffic. Most of the existing solutions are centralized which are undesirable from the complexity scalability, signaling overhead scalability as well as the flexibility w.r. t. dynamic active sessions. In this work, we focus on delay-sensitive decentralized cross-layer design of OFDMA systems. Due to the stochastic system state, combinatorial nature of subcarrier allocation as well as the consideration for efficient feedback, conventional brute force decomposition technique failed to work. By using a novel two-level dual decomposition technique with comparison argument, we shall derive a feedback-efficient decentralized OFDMA cross-layer solution, with consideration of the stochastic system state, heterogeneous delay requirements, outdated CSIT as well as the combinatorial nature of subcarrier allocation. The proposed distributive design achieves optimal performance as the centralized solution scheduling with scalable complexity, signaling overhead as well as flexibility w.r. t. dynamic active sessions in the systems. In addition, using asymptotic analysis, we have derived the minimum feedback cost for ¿-optimal system performance, wherein the average feedback cost per user is also shown to quickly approaches zero as systems scales.
Finite elements study of high mechanical stress in nanostructures for innovative NEMS sensors

Mechanical stress is increasingly applied in micro-electronics. For instance, strained silicon technology is widely used to improve carrier mobility and therefore driver current for advanced MOS transistors. For micro-electromechanical systems, piezoresistive effects are universally employed in pressure sensors. In this paper we present an original method for studying mechanical stress in nano-devices placed on ultra-thin membranes, which has several advantages compared with the conventional four-point-bending method. Using this new architecture, we investigate the innovative NEMS pressure sensor properties in static and dynamic modes. We study the optimal orientation and position of a nanowire on the membrane. We show that a large improvement in pressure measurement sensitivity can be obtained by adopting tunnel junction technology. We also investigate the dynamic multi-bends of the nanostructure in its dynamic deformation modes and calculate the tunnel current which passes through the multi tunnel junctions by the transport matrix method. Finally, our work helps to understand the electrical and mechanical properties of the nanostructure under the influence of large mechanical stress and to design innovative NEMS pressure sensors.
Ideology, Equality, and the New Right

Michael W. AppleUniversity ofWisconsinIntroductionWe live in a period in which our educational system has becomeincreasingly politicized. The curriculum and the values thatunderpin it and that are included and excluded from it are nowbeing placed under intense ideological scrutiny. The Spencerianquestion, “What knowledge is of most worth? ” has now beenreplaced with an even more pointed question, “Whose knowledge is ofmost worth? ” That this latter question has become sopowerful highlights the profoundly political nature of educational policy and practice. This is not simply an abstract issue. Itis made strikingly clear in the fact that the curriculum of manyschool districts throughout the country has been turned intowhat can best be described as a political football. Conservativegroups in particular have attacked the school and, in the process, have had a major impact on educational debate, not only inthe United States, but in other nations as well.As is evident all around us, there has been a significant shift inpublic discourse around education. The rapid growth of evangelical schooling (Rose, 1988), the court cases involving “secularhumanist” tendencies in textbooks, the increasing attempts toraise the standards ofteaching and teachers, and the calls in theliterature to return to a core curriculum ofa common culture allsignify a deep suspicion among many social groups of what isgoing on in our classrooms. There are very real fears—usuallyamong right-winggroups, but also to be found in official statements coming out of the federal and state governments—thatfor the past decade things have gotten out of control. In thisvision, we are losing control both ofour children and of the paceof
Prediction of intrauterine pressure waveform from transabdominal electrohysterography

Objective. We investigated the ability to non-invasively obtain uterine electromyograms (EMG; electrohysterogram (EHG)) to predict the intrauterine pressure (IUP) waveform. Study design. Patients enrolled in a term labor study of trans-abdominal electrical activity, who underwent IUP monitoring for obstetric indication, were included in this study (n = 14). EHG signals were processed and prediction filters trained against the IUP from the same patient. Sixty-eight 10-minute traces each of EHG and IUP waveforms were reviewed (Montevideo unit (MVU) calculation) by two experienced labor nurses and one obstetrician, blinded to patient and EHG vs. IUP output. In addition, area under the contraction curve (AUC), contraction detection and duration were compared. Results. EHG-derived MVUs statistically correlated with IUP (r = 0.795; p < 0.0001), but mathematically differed by 17±20% with 83% of EHG MVUs underestimating the IUP. The coefficients of variation between the two methods were relatively high (∼20%), and these could not be substantially corrected via calibration. AUC differed by 8±19% with 69% of EHG-derived AUC underestimating the IUP. EHG detected 98% of 362 IUP contractions, with 8% over-detection. Contraction duration was similar: 56.4±11.9 s vs. 55.7±13.0 s, for IUP and EHG, respectively. Conclusion. EHG-based contraction monitoring approximates IUP monitoring for contraction detection and duration. The correlation with contraction height (MVU) and AUC is much weaker with the investigated signal-processing algorithm.
Computing Lexical Cohesion as a Tool for Text Analysis

Recognizing coherent structure of a text is an essential task in natural language understanding. It is necessary, for example, to resolve anaphora, ellipsis, and ambiguity. One of the dominant factors of coherence of the text structure is lexical cohesion, namely the dependency relationship between words based on associative relations in common knowledge. This thesis proposes an objective and computationally feasible method for measuring lexical cohesion, especially semantic relations, between words. Lexical cohesion between words is computed on a semantic network constructed systematically from a subset of an ordinary English dictionary. Spreading activation on the semantic network analyses the meaning of a word into a 2,851-dimensional semantic space and computes the strength of lexical cohesion between any two words in the dictionary. As an evaluation of the measurement of lexical cohesion, this thesis then presents a quantitative indicator, Lexical Cohesion Pro le (LCP), for segmenting narratives into scenes, the smallest domain in which text coherence can be de ned. LCP is a record of the density of lexical cohesion of words in a window (of 51 words long, in an example) that moves forwards word by word on the text. Hills and valleys in a graph of LCP plotted against word position indicate alternation of scenes in the text. A psychological experiment shows that LCP correlates closely with the human judgements. The evaluation through the text-level application reveals that the proposed measurement of lexical cohesion works well as an indicator of coherent structure of a text. The measurement of lexical cohesion provides semantic information for text analysis. The segmentation scheme provides the frame work for recognizing coherent text structure. Both can be applied to various studies in a broad range of elds in natural language processing.
Exploring an Ontology via Text Similarity: An Experimental Study

In this paper we consider the problem of retrieving the concepts of an ontology that are most relevant to a given textual query. In our setting the concepts are associated with textual fragments, such as labels, descriptions, and links to other relevant concepts. The main task to be solved is the definition of a similarity measure between the single text of the query and the set of texts associated with an ontology concept. We experimentally study this problem on a particular scenario with a socio-pedagogic domain ontology and Italian language texts. We investigate how the basic cosine similarity measure on the bag-of-words text representations can be improved in three distinct ways by (i) taking into account the context of the ontology nodes, (ii) using the linear combination of various measures, and (iii) exploiting semantic resources. The experimental evaluation confirms the improvement of the presented methods upon the baseline. Beside discussing some issues to consider in applying these methods, we point out some directions for further improvement.
Precise control of the size and noise of solid-state nanopores using high electric fields

We present a methodology for preparing silicon nitride nanopores that provides in situ control of size with sub-nanometer precision while simultaneously reducing electrical noise by up to three orders of magnitude through the cyclic application of high electric fields in an aqueous environment. Over 90% of nanopores treated with this technique display desirable noise characteristics and readily exhibit translocation of double-stranded DNA molecules. Furthermore, previously used nanopores with degraded electrical properties can be rejuvenated and used for further single-molecule experiments.
DR_bind: a web server for predicting DNA-binding residues from the protein structure based on electrostatics, evolution and geometry

DR_bind is a web server that automatically predicts DNA-binding residues, given the respective protein structure based on (i) electrostatics, (ii) evolution and (iii) geometry. In contrast to machine-learning methods, DR_bind does not require a training data set or any parameters. It predicts DNA-binding residues by detecting a cluster of conserved, solvent-accessible residues that are electrostatically stabilized upon mutation to Asp−/Glu−. The server requires as input the DNA-binding protein structure in PDB format and outputs a downloadable text file of the predicted DNA-binding residues, a 3D visualization of the predicted residues highlighted in the given protein structure, and a downloadable PyMol script for visualization of the results. Calibration on 83 and 55 non-redundant DNA-bound and DNA-free protein structures yielded a DNA-binding residue prediction accuracy/precision of 90/47% and 88/42%, respectively. Since DR_bind does not require any training using protein–DNA complex structures, it may predict DNA-binding residues in novel structures of DNA-binding proteins resulting from structural genomics projects with no conservation data. The DR_bind server is freely available with no login requirement at http://dnasite.limlab. ibms.sinica. edu.tw.
Oxidative stress in lung epithelial cells from patients with idiopathic interstitial pneumonias

Lung epithelial cells are a primary target for reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS can cause oxidative deoxyribonucleic acid modification, such as 8-hydroxy-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG). A human homologue of the MutT protein (hMTH1) prevents this modification. Mitochondria are the most important cellular source of ROS and may be susceptible to oxidative damage. The purpose of this study is to investigate oxidative stress and mitochondrial damage in lung epithelial cells from idiopathic interstitial pneumonias (IIPs). The authors analysed 8-OHdG, hMTH1, and mitochondrial proteins on lung specimens from 13 patients with IIPs consisted of eight patients with usual interstitial pneumonia and five patients with nonspecific interstitial pneumonia using Western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry. Immunoreactivity for 8-OHdG and hMTH1 was significantly increased in the lung epithelial cells from patients with IIPs compared with controls. The expression of hMTH1 was localised in the nuclear and cytoplasmic, but not the mitochondrial, fraction of lung homogenates. Immunoreactivity for mitochondrial protein and cytochrome c oxidase complex subunit IV was increased in the lung epithelial cells from patients with IIPs compared with controls. The current study concludes that oxidative stress may participate in epithelial cell damage in idiopathic interstitial pneumonia, and that increased mitochondrial mass may associate with increased reactive oxygen species production in idiopathic interstitial pneumonia.
A systematic approach to modeling organic Rankine cycle systems for global optimization

The demand for organic Rankine cycle (ORC) systems to be efficient and economically competitive drives the need for a reliable and robust modeling approach that is suitable for optimization. However existing commercial simulation software is not typically tailored for optimization and they generally cannot guarantee a global optimum. This paper proposes a modeling approach to approximate a rigorous simulation model that is suitable for global optimization. This involves a combination of regression and thermodynamic analysis, in addition to integer programming techniques. Three different solvers, namely COBYLA, SCIP, and BARON, are used to optimize the ORC model and are compared against each other to demonstrate the prospect of achieving the global optimum using this approach. In addition, this paper also presents a technique to improve the model accuracy by using a piecewise fit to approximate the output characteristic of the ORC unit operations.
Making sense through participation: social differences in learning and identity development

In this chapter we discuss the issue of social differences in relation to learning. In theories on co-operative learning or collaborative learning social differences are treated as characteristics of individual learners. The focus on learning as a social process is primarily elaborated in terms of interaction between pupils and the combined construction of knowledge. Sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, Lave & Wenger), however, understands ‘social’ not only in terms of knowledge/meaning being constructed in interaction with others, but also in terms of the cultural practices/activities informing these interaction processes. Learning can be understood as increasing participating in communities of practice. As social differences are an intrinsic part of the culture in which students are learning to participate, these are also an inherent aspect of learning processes in schools. Students learn to participate in practices in different ways, depending on their social position, and thus develop distinguished cultural identities. In this chapter we elaborate on this tenet, using examples from various empirical research projects on learning in secondary education. We not only show how social differences in the cultural practices that underpin learning influence what is learned by whom, but also explore the consequences of this perspective for the pedagogical space of the school.
Faith No More: Why People Reject Religion

Introduction Chapter One: Mother was an Exorcist Chapter Two: Stopped Making Sense Chapter Three: Misfortune Chapter Four: To be Mormon, or Not to Be Chapter Five: Sex and Secularity Chapter Six: Others Chapter Seven: Jail, Food Stamps, and Atheism Chapter Eight: The Apostate Worldview Chapter Nine: All in the Family? Chapter Ten: How and Why People Reject Religion Conclusion Appendix: Research Methods and Sample Characteristics Notes References Index
Methods for Visual Understanding of Hierarchical System Structures

Two kinds of new methods are developed to obtain effective representations of hierarchies automatically: theoretical and heuristic methods. The methods determine the positions of vertices in two steps. First the order of the vertices in each level is determined to reduce the number of crossings of edges. Then horizontal positions of the vertices are determined to improve further the readability of drawings. The theoretical methods are useful in recognizing the nature of the problem, and the heuristic methods make it possible to enlarge the size of hierarchies with which we can deal. Performance tests of the heuristic methods and several applications are presented.
A complete Rab screening reveals novel insights in Weibel–Palade body exocytosis

Summary Weibel–Palade bodies (WPBs) are endothelial-cell-specific organelles that, upon fusion with the plasma membrane, release cargo molecules that are essential in blood vessel abnormalities, such as thrombosis and inflammation, as well as in angiogenesis. Despite the importance of WPBs, the basic mechanisms that mediate their secretion are only poorly understood. Rab GTPases play fundamental role in the trafficking of intracellular organelles. Yet, the only known WPB-associated Rabs are Rab27a and Rab3d. To determine the full spectrum of WPB-associated Rabs we performed a complete Rab screening by analysing the localisation of all Rabs in WPBs and their involvement in the secretory process in endothelial cells. Apart from Rab3 and Rab27, we identified three additional Rabs, Rab15 (a previously reported endocytic Rab), Rab33 and Rab37, on the WPB limiting membrane. A knockdown approach using siRNAs showed that among these five WPB Rabs only Rab3, Rab27 and Rab15 are required for exocytosis. Intriguingly, we found that Rab15 cooperates with Rab27a in WPB secretion. Furthermore, a specific effector of Rab27, Munc13-4, appears to be also an effector of Rab15 and is required for WPB exocytosis. These data indicate that WPB secretion requires the coordinated function of a specific group of Rabs and that, among them, Rab27a and Rab15, as well as their effector Munc13-4, cooperate to drive exocytosis.
Predicting young women's career plans: Do future considerations for children predict outcomes over and above instrumentality?

Title of Document: PREDICTING YOUNG WOMEN’S CAREER PLANS: DO FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS FOR CHILDREN PREDICT OUTCOMES OVER AND ABOVE INSTRUMENTALITY? Alexandra Elizabeth Savela, Masters of Science, 2013 Directed By: Dr. Karen O’Brien, Psychology Department The present study assessed factors related to career development in a sample of undergraduate women. The roles of instrumentality, anticipated work-family conflict, and willingness to compromise career for children in the prediction of career choice traditionality, career aspirations, and occupational engagement were examined. Additionally, the moderating role of willingness to compromise career for children on the relationship between instrumentality and each career outcome was tested. Results indicated that instrumentality predicted leadership aspirations, recognition aspirations, and occupational engagement. Anticipated work-family conflict predicted career choice traditionality, leadership aspirations, and occupational engagement over and above instrumentality. Willingness to compromise career for children added to the prediction of occupational engagement after controlling for instrumentality and anticipated workfamily conflict. No moderation findings were detected. Findings are discussed in terms of future research directions and in the context of career counseling with undergraduate