Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional Properties of Motoneurons Derived from Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells

The capacity of embryonic stem (ES) cells to form functional motoneurons (MNs) and appropriate connections with muscle was investigated in vitro. ES cells were obtained from a transgenic mouse line in which the gene for enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) is expressed under the control of the promotor of the MN specific homeobox gene Hb9. ES cells were exposed to retinoic acid (RA) and sonic hedgehog agonist (Hh-Ag1.3) to stimulate differentiation into MNs marked by expression of eGFP and the cholinergic transmitter synthetic enzyme choline acetyltransferase. Whole-cell patch-clamp recordings were made from eGFP-labeled cells to investigate the development of functional characteristics of MNs. In voltage-clamp mode, currents, including EPSCs, were recorded in response to exogenous applications of GABA, glycine, and glutamate. EGFP-labeled neurons also express voltage-activated ion channels including fast-inactivating Na+ channels, delayed rectifier and IA-type K+ channels, and Ca2+ channels. Current-clamp recordings demonstrated that eGFP-positive neurons generate repetitive trains of action potentials and that l-type Ca2+ channels mediate sustained depolarizations. When cocultured with a muscle cell line, clustering of acetylcholine receptors on muscle fibers adjacent to developing axons was seen. Intracellular recordings of muscle fibers adjacent to eGFP-positive axons revealed endplate potentials that increased in amplitude and frequency after glutamate application and were sensitive to TTX and curare. In summary, our findings demonstrate that MNs derived from ES cells develop appropriate transmitter receptors, intrinsic properties necessary for appropriate patterns of action potential firing and functional synapses with muscle fibers.
Mapping pronoun processing difficulties in Italian adults and children

Pronouns are referring expressions that can be used to refer back to entities previously mentioned in the discourse. In contrast to speakers of English, speakers of the pro-drop language Italian can use either an overt pronoun (e.g., lui ‘he’) or a null pronoun (O) as a subject anaphor. In Italian, null pronouns generally refer to the discourse topic, whereas overt pronouns refer to a non-topic referent (Carminati, 2002). However, this is merely a preference and interpretations of null as well as overt pronouns can vary, for example on the basis of pragmatic plausibility (Carminati, 2002) or recency of the non-topic referent (Sorace & Filiaci, 2006).
Changes in electrical activation modify the orientation of left ventricular flow momentum: novel observations using echocardiographic particle image velocimetry.

AIMS Changes in electrical activation sequence are known to affect the timing of cardiac mechanical events. We aim to demonstrate that these also modify global properties of the intraventricular blood flow pattern. We also explore whether such global changes present a relationship with clinical outcome. METHODS AND RESULTS We investigated 30 heart failure patients followed up after cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). All subjects underwent echocardiography before implant and at follow-up after 6+ months. Left ventricular mechanics was investigated at follow-up during active CRT and was repeated after a temporary interruption <5 min later. Strain analysis, performed by speckle tracking, was used to assess the entity of contraction (global longitudinal strain) and its synchronicity (standard deviation of time to peak of radial strain). Intraventricular fluid dynamics, by echographic particle image velocimetry, was used to evaluate the directional distribution of global momentum associated with blood motion. The discontinuation of CRT pacing reflects into a reduction of deformation synchrony and into the deviation of blood flow momentum from the base-apex orientation with the development of transversal flow-mediated haemodynamic forces. The deviation of flow momentum presents a significant correlation with the degree of volumetric reduction after CRT. CONCLUSION Changes in electrical activation alter the orientation of blood flow momentum. The long-term CRT outcome correlates with the degree of re-alignment of haemodynamic forces. These preliminary results suggest that flow orientation could be used for optimizing the biventricular pacing setting. However, larger prospective studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis.
Local Production, Local Consumption Peer-to-Peer Architecture for a Dependable and Sustainable Social Infrastructure

Peer-to-peer (P2P) is a system of overlay networks such that participants can potentially take symmetrical roles. This translates itself into a design based on the philosophy of local production, local consumption (LPLC), originally an agricultural concept to promote sustainable local economy. This philosophy helps enhancing survivability of a society by providing a dependable economic infrastructure and promoting the power of individuals. This paper attempts to put existing works of P2P designs into the perspective of the five-layer architecture model to realize LPLC, and proposes future research directions toward integration of P2P studies for actualization of a dependable and sustainable social infrastructure
Preadmission Use of Calcium Channel Blocking Agents Is Associated With Improved Outcomes in Patients With Sepsis: A Population-Based Propensity Score–Matched Cohort Study

Objectives: Use of calcium channel blockers has been found to improve sepsis outcomes in animal studies and one clinical study. This study determines whether the use of calcium channel blockers is associated with a decreased risk of mortality in patients with sepsis. Design: Population-based matched cohort study. Setting: National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan. Patients: Hospitalized severe sepsis patients identified from National Health Insurance Research Database by International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: The association between calcium channel blocker use and sepsis outcome was determined by multivariate-adjusted Cox proportional hazard models and propensity score analysis. To examine the influence of healthy user bias, beta-blocker was used as an active comparator. Our study identified 51,078 patients with sepsis, of which, 19,742 received calcium channel blocker treatments prior to the admission. Use of calcium channel blocker was associated with a reduced 30-day mortality after propensity score adjustment (hazard ratio, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.89–0.99), and the beneficial effect could extend to 90-day mortality (hazard ratio, 0.95; 95% CI, 0.89–1.00). In contrast, use of beta-blocker was not associated with an improved 30-day (hazard ratio, 1.06; 95% CI, 0.97–1.15) or 90-day mortality (hazard ratio, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.90–1.11). On subgroup analysis, calcium channel blockers tend to be more beneficial to patients with male gender, between 40 and 79 years old, with a low comorbidity burden, and to patients with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, or renal diseases. Conclusions: In this national cohort study, preadmission calcium channel blocker therapy before sepsis development was associated with a 6% reduction in mortality when compared with patients who have never received calcium channel blockers.
How healthy are we?: A national study of well-being at midlife.

How physically and psychologically healthy are Americans at midlife? And why do some experience greater well-being than others? The MacArthur Foundation addressed these questions head-on by funding a landmark study known as "Midlife in the U.S." (MIDUS). "How Healthy Are We? " presents the key findings from the survey in three sections: physical health, quality of life and psychological well-being, and the contexts of midlife. This wide-ranging study measures not only health - the absence of illness - but also reports on the presence of wellness in middle-aged Americans. Researchers, policymakers, and others concerned with the quality of midlife will welcome its insights.
RESPONSES

of belowground multitrophic interactions under warming climate conditions. Belowground interactions among plants and soil organisms are complex. Plant roots form associations with mutualists, including arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), while also interacting with soil fauna that may feed on plant roots and fungal hyphae. Each of these interactions is likely to be affected by a warming climate, and community-level responses may not always be evident. We investigated the growth responses of the perennial C4 grass Panicum virgatum and a generalist AMF mutualist Rhizophagus intraradices to increased air temperature and addition of herbivorous nematodes ( Pratylenchus penetrans ). We conducted a 2x2 factorial experiment, where we manipulated air temperature (ambient vs. warm) and nematode addition (presence vs. absence). While neither air temperature nor nematode addition had any effect on aboveground plant biomass, warmer temperatures reduced plant belowground biomass by 48.5%, and nematode addition reduced belowground plant biomass by 40.9%. Nematode addition reduced the length of extraradical hyphae (ERH) in the soil by 65.8%, while warmer temperature had no effect on ERH length. Levels of AMF colonization in the roots differed significantly based on the interaction of nematode addition and temperature. Under ambient temperature conditions, nematode addition reduced root colonization levels by 38.1%. However, under warming conditions, nematode addition resulted in increased root colonization levels by 25.9%, indicating potential greater reliance by the plant on its AMF mutualist. Overall, these results suggest complex responses of multitrophic interactions to warming temperatures. Given Panicum virgatum is a cellulosic bioenergy crop, our results highlight the potential effects on plant growth and belowground carbon storage.
Continuously tunable long-wavelength MEMS-VCSEL with over 40-nm tuning range

This letter presents for the first time an electrically pumped tunable vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with a record-breaking tuning range of 40 nm at long wavelengths. The VCSEL is based on a two-chip concept. The laser peak can be tuned continuously and without mode-hopping in a wavelength range above 1.55 /spl mu/m due to a microelectromechanical movable mirror membrane. The VCSEL is single mode all over the tuning range with a 32-dB sidemode suppression ratio. The laser emits a maximum output power of 100 /spl mu/W in continuous-wave operation at room temperature. Dynamic measurements of the tuning characteristics show that the 3-dB cutoff frequency for an electrothermal wavelength modulation is about 500 Hz and the 1/e-time constant of the step response is about 1 ms.
Clinical evaluation of dextran as a plasma volume expander.

At the termination of World War II, the advent of atomic destruction alerted the medical profession to the great need for emergency stockpiling of plasma and plasma substitutes. At present, three plasma substitutes are widely used, dextran, polyvinylpyrrolidone, and oxypolygelatin. "Plasma volume expander" is the accepted name for these materials, since there is no true substitute for plasma or whole blood. Plasma expanders may be divided into four groups: (1) Blood derivatives: albumin, plasma, and modified globin; (2) modified proteins: gelatin and oxypolygelatin; (3) polymerized cabohydrates: dextran; (4) plastics: polyvinylpyrrolidone. 1a My clinical experience with plasma volume expanders has been limited almost entirely to the evaluation of dextran. I have had very little experience with polyvinylpyrrolidone, and I have not used oxypolygelatin in any of my studies. METHOD AND MATERIALS I have administered more than 500 infusions of dextran (Plavolex), in 6% isotonic sodium chloride solution during an 18 month
Reliable multicast using IP/ICMP protocol

This paper presents a router-initiated reliable multicast scheme purely based upon the IP layer. As network performance improves in wired networks the chance of link error is decreased and almost all packet losses come from router congestion. Because a router can identify packet contents before they actually drop one, it is possible to recover multicast packets by router interactions before the effect of packet loss is propagated to the receivers. By adding cache in the routers and defining NACK ICMP message lost packets can be recovered by routers. This scheme is much faster than by sender-initiated or receiver-initiated recovery and has smaller latency. Moreover, latency jitter is substantially smaller so that this scheme can improve the recovery performance of real time packets.
Psychotherapeutic interventions for sexual problems delivered via the Internet: Effectiveness, acceptability and reach

Background: There is a high prevalence of people with sexual difficulties and many do not seek help for them. Sexual difficulties can have a negative impact on sexual and psychological wellbeing and interpersonal relationships. Interactive Digital Interventions (IDIs) for sexual difficulties have the potential to provide a convenient, wide-reaching and costeffective alternative to face-to-face therapy, but research in this area is in its infancy. Currently little is known about their effectiveness, reach and acceptability. / Aim: To investigate the use of the internet to deliver psychotherapeutic interventions for sexual difficulties, and determine their effectiveness, reach and acceptability Methods 1. A systematic review of the effectiveness of IDIs for adults with sexual difficulties. 2. A secondary data analysis of the data from the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles to investigate the potential reach of IDIs and explore the characteristics of people who seek help for their sex lives 3. A qualitative interview study to explore users’ views of an IDI for sexual difficulties before and after using one. / Results: IDIs can be effective for sexual difficulties, but the current evidence-base is small, and contains studies that are methodologically flawed, so more research is needed to be sure of these effects. With approximately 427,000-762,000 British people reportedly distressed about their sex lives and looking for information and support online, it appears that IDIs have considerable potential to reach their intended audience. The sextherapylondon website appeared to be acceptable to users as it met many of their wants and needs with regards to features, design, usability, user experience and perceived outcomes. / Conclusion: Overall, this thesis suggests that IDIs could have a valuable place in providing an alternative help source for people with sexual difficulties, especially in the light of further cuts to sexual health services.
Reverse Proxy Framework using Sanitization Technique for Intrusion Prevention in Database

With the increasing importance of the internet in our day to day life, data security in web application has become very crucial. Ever increasing on line and real time transaction services have led to manifold rise in the problems associated with the database security. Attacker uses illegal and unauthorized approaches to hijack the confidential information like username, password and other vital details. Hence the real time transaction requires security against web based attacks. SQL injection and cross site scripting attack are the most common application layer attack. The SQL injection attacker pass SQL statement through a web applications input fields, URL or hidden parameters and get access to the database or update it. The attacker take a benefit from user provided data in such a way that the users input is handled as a SQL code. Using this vulnerability an attacker can execute SQL commands directly on the database. SQL injection attacks are most serious threats which take users input and integrate it into SQL query. Reverse Proxy is a technique which is used to sanitize the users inputs that may transform into a database attack. In this technique a data redirector program redirects the users input to the proxy server before it is sent to the application server. At the proxy server, data cleaning algorithm is triggered using a sanitizing application. In this framework we include detection and sanitization of the tainted information being sent to the database and innovate a new prototype.
Graphical Modeling of Macro Behavioral Targeting in Social Networks

We investigate a class of emerging online marketing challenges in social networks; macro behavioral targeting (MBT) is introduced as non-personalized broadcasting efforts to massive populations. We propose a new probabilistic graphical model for MBT. Further, a linear-time approximation method is proposed to circumvent an intractable parametric representation of user behaviors. We compare the proposed model with the existing state-of-the-art method on real datasets from social networks. Our model outperforms in all categories by comfortable margins.
Unrelated Question Model in Sensitive Multi-Character Surveys

The simplicity and wide application of Greenberg et al. (1971) prompts to propose a set of alternative estimators of population total for multi-character surveys that elicit simultaneous information on many. sensitive study variables. The proposed estimators take into account the already known rough value of the correlation coefficient between Y(the characteristic under study) and p(the measure of size). These estimators are biased, but it is expected that the extent of bias will be smaller, since the proposed estimators are suitable for situations in between those optimum for the usual estimators and the estimators based on multi-characters for no correlation. The relative efficiency of the proposed estimators has been studied under a super population model through empirical study. It has been found through simulation study that a choice of an unrelated variable in the Greenberg et al. (1971) model could be made based on its correlation with the auxiliary variable used at estimation stage in multi-character surveys.
Xii-1 Xii. Query Splitting in Relevance Feedback Systems

A modification of normal relevance feedback is presented. It is suggested that instead of simply modifying a query on each iteration, two or more new queries may be formed. Evaluation of experimental results shows this method produces some improvement. A new measure is introduced which permits extrapolation of these results to large document collections. With regard to this measure, query splitting appears to be best suited for large systems.
Effects of Load-Volume on EPOC After Acute Bouts of Resistance Training in Resistance-Trained Men

Abstract Abboud, GJ, Greer, BK, Campbell, SC, and Panton, LB. Effects of load-volume on EPOC after acute bouts of resistance training in resistance-trained men. J Strength Cond Res 27(7): 1936–1941, 2013—Recent investigations have shown excess postexercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) to be elevated for up to 48 hours in both untrained and trained subjects after resistance training (RT). The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of load-volume on EPOC. Eight trained men (aged 22 ± 3 years) participated in 2 randomized RT bouts separated by at least 1 week with total load-volumes of 10,000 and 20,000 kg, respectively. Intensity of RT (85% 1 repetition maximum) did not differ between trials. Exercise energy expenditure and resting metabolic rate (RMR) were measured by indirect calorimetry at 8.5 hours before, 1.5 hours before, and during RT bouts and 12, 24, 36, and 48 hours after exercise. Creatine kinase (CK) was measured before and after RT, and 12, 24, 36, and 48 hours postexercise; ratings of perceived muscle soreness were measured on a similar time course save the immediate postexercise time point. Analysis of variance with repeated measures was used to analyze dependent variables. During the 20,000 kg trial, subjects expended significantly (p < 0.01) more energy (484 ± 29 kcal) than the 10,000 kg lift (247 ± 18 kcal). After the 20,000 kg lift, 12 hours postexercise, CK (1,159 ± 729 U·L−1) was significantly elevated (p < 0.05) as compared with baseline (272 ± 280 U·L−1) and immediately postexercise (490 ± 402 U·L−1). No significant time or trial differences were found in RMR between the 10,000 and 20,000 kg trials. In conclusion, high-intensity RT with load-volumes of up to 20,000 kg using resistance-trained men does not significantly increase EPOC above baseline RMR.
Navigational techniques to improve the display of large two-dimensional spaces

Abstract Often the components of a problem can be arrayed on a two-dimensional information space—for example, as an abstract tree or hypertext—far too large to fit onto a computer display. With current navigational techniques it is often difficult for users to keep track of their location or to move rapidly to remote locations in the space. We implemented two similar direct-manipulation techniques, both of which use a map window—a miniature of the entire information space—with a wire-frame box to aid users in remembering their location. The first technique allows the user to rapidly roam over the information space by moving the location of the wire-frame box. The second allows for zooming as well as roaming. A controlled experiment compared the above techniques to scroll bars for determining whether a target word was in a large balanced binary tree of words. The experiment also examined the merit of the map window. Map windows significantly improved user performance, and the roam and zoom techniques were .
Relevance of assessing drug concentration exposure in pharmacogenetic and imaging studies

Pharmacodynamic differences are difficult to interpret without drug concentration data. In particular, variability in drug exposure may confound the interpretation of pharmacogenetic, therapeutic outcome, and neuroimaging studies. Inter-individual variability in concentrations can be quite high due to variable adherence and pharmacokinetics. For example, clearance may be influenced by genetics, drug interactions, age and illness. We review findings that acute responses to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can have a concentration–response relationship using positron emission tomography and neuroendocrine measures. We also present preliminary evidence that the concentration–response relationship for paroxetine is influenced by genotypic differences at the serotonin transporter promoter. In large clinical studies, the accurate assessment of drug exposure can be challenging, with several techniques used to assess exposure. Population pharmacokinetics (Pop PK) is a method that is ideally suited for analysing concentration data from large trials because both patient-specific and population parameters can be determined with only a small number of plasma samples per patient. As opposed to relying on prescribed doses or a single trough level, the ability to determine more accurately exposure with Pop PK reduces the heterogeneity introduced by exposure variability. Pop PK hierarchic Bayesian approaches have been effective for characterizing anticonvulsants, antibiotics, antineoplastics and antiarrhythmics. We have recently successfully incorporated these pop PK analyses into routine assessments of elderly patients in clinical trials of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and second generation antipsychotics. For the design and interpretation of neuroimaging, pharmacogenetic, and behavioural studies, the assessment of drug concentration exposure is therefore feasible and has potentially important ramifications.