Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Acquisition of Active Avoidance Behavior as a Precursor to Changes in General Arousal in an Animal Model of PTSD

1.1 Increased defensive reactions as a sign of PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a multi-symptom condition that includes three primary psychological features: reexperiencing, avoidance and emotional numbing, and hyperarousal (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Historically, reexperiencing and hyperarousal have been the most studied features, from a neurobiological perspective, using various animal models. In these animal models, changes in defensive reflexive behaviors serve as the assessment measures for these symptoms; thus, both startle reactivity and freezing are now commonly used measures. Freezing behavior is advantageous because of its easy implementation; either the naked eye or an automated motor-tracking system can determine the duration and/or frequency of freezing behavior. In addition, freezing can occur in response to a specific fear-eliciting stimulus or to a fear-experienced context (Doyle & Yule, 1959; Bouton & Bolles, 1980; Fanselow, 1980). Because of these stimulus-response properties, freezing is the response commonly used to assess the experiencing of memories of conditioned stimuli that previously caused a heightened state of fear. At times, the acoustic startle response is used as an assessment of stimulus-elicited fear reactions (Davis, 1986; Hitchcock & Davis, 1987). Under this guise, similar stimuli used in conditioned freezing are experienced by the animal prior to a quick onset, relatively loud, acoustic stimulus. The result is a startle response that is enhanced over baseline levels, which is termed fear-potentiated startle. However, in the case of PTSD, arousal is not necessarily tied to a memory or triggered by an explicit learned association. There are several examples of patients with PTSD exhibiting exaggerated startle responses in the absence of a known trigger (Butler et al., 1990; Orr et al., 1995; Yehuda et al., 1998; Orr et al., 2002). In fact, human longitudinal studies have found changes in startle reactivity occur over a period of time following the associated trauma (Shalev et al., 1998). Although there are possible confounding variables with any repeated test, such as developing an aversion to the startle testing context, there is a difference with PTSD patients as they fail to habituate to the startle test over months (Shalev et al., 1998). Increases in startle magnitudes can be elicited in rats in order to model this feature of PTSD by exposing them to inescapable shock. Interestingly, like some of the symptoms of PTSD,
Effect of Post-Training Meal Timing on Insulin Resistance, Fat Mass and Muscle Oxidative Stress in Relation to Serum Leptin in Male Albino Rat

This study was designed to investigate whether the post exercise immediate or delayed feeding would result in greater skeletal muscle mass, glycogen and antioxidant status. In addition, the effect on insulin resistance, plasma leptin and its relation to some gastrocnemius muscle parameters. Thirty adult male albino rats were divided into three equal groups; none exercised group, the immediate group receives their meals immediately after exercise and the delayed one receive their meals three hours later. Rats were exercised by swimming 1 h/day, 4 times/week for 12 weeks. Blood samples were taken for plasma leptin, glucose and plasma insulin. Insulin resistance was estimated by HOMA-IR formula. Gastrocnemius muscle was taken for determination of glycogen concentration, malondialdehyde (MDA) content and total antioxidant capacity (TAC). Data of the present study showed that muscle bulk, its glycogen content and TAC were greater with lower fat tissue weight and plasma leptin in the immediate feeding group versus the delayed. There was a significant decrease in blood glucose and insulin resistance levels of the exercised groups with their pre exercised values with insignificant changes in immediate and delayed group.
Patterning instability on the Mars polar ice caps

[1] We present a mathematical theory to study the origin of large-scale spiral troughs on the Mars residual polar caps, starting with the hypothesis that atmospheric circulation governs the planform of the troughs via an instability that operates in the flow direction of surface winds. This concept can explain why the troughs spiral at each pole in an opposite sense to that expected for Coriolis-deflected winds. The instability arises from interactions on water ice, assumed to contain dust, and depends on how the exchange of atmospheric dust and moisture (H2O) with the polar cap surface controls its albedo and mass and energy balance. Our model predicts spatial patterns to form when moisture is carried by wind over the surface, owing to unstable coupling between the albedo and the H2O-vapor pressure. The resulting albedo pattern causes an alternating “accumulation-ablation” mass balance, so that an undulating topography develops which resembles the (dark) troughs and their adjacent (bright) smooth terrains on the polar caps. Because the albedo patterning process is fast, whereas topographic evolution is slow, we suggest that an ancient imprint in the surface albedo preconditions today's trough morphology.
PCR Technique for the Microbial Analysis of Inanimate Hospital Environment

Discipline of molecular ecology and molecular techniques such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) offers a possibility to study and reveal the microbial diversity in environmental settings with complicated mixed communities, non-culturable organ- isms, interfering contaminants and low levels of target DNA. Hospital environment represents a new ecological niche for clinically important nosocomial pathogens and antibiotic-resistant microorganisms, which have been commonly found on various hospital surfaces. Accurate characterization of microbial communities depends on several factors, starting with sample collection and conditional enrichment step. In the step of nucleic acid isolation and purification, the DNA, as a dominant signature molecule, is extracted followed by removing co-extracted impurities. PCR target sequences are often 16S rDNA gene, functional gene probes or species-specific probes, depending on the objective of the study. Furthermore, properly prepared PCR amplicons can serve as a basis for characterizing microbial community. The PCR technique is a powerful tool for the analysis of microbial diversity of environmental ecosystems. In a hospital environment, advantages of detecting pathogens and antibiotic-resistant bacteria need to be pointed out.
More accurate generalized gradient approximation for solids

We present a new nonempirical density functional generalized gradient approximation (GGA) that gives significant improvements for lattice constants, crystal structures, and metal surface energies over the most popular Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) GGA. The new functional is based on a diffuse radial cutoff for the exchange-hole in real space, and the analytic gradient expansion of the exchange energy for small gradients. There are no adjustable parameters, the constraining conditions of PBE are maintained, and the functional is easily implemented in existing codes.
6 Effect of Bioactive Growth Surfaces on Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells : A Pilot Biomarker Study to Assess Growth and Differentiation

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent adult stem cells with the ability to differentiate into multiple cell lineages, and possess significant potential towards application in cell therapy and tissue engineering. A significant barrier to the effective implementation of human MSC (hMSC) therapies is the limited access to large quantities of viable, homogeneous cell populations produced in reproducible, consistent cultures. hMSCs are adherent cells whose morphology, as well as proliferation and differentiation potential, depend on the characteristics of the tissue culture surface they grow on. In the present study, we screened a panel of plastic surfaces possessing various physical characteristics for their ability to expand and maintain hMSCs in an undifferentiated state. The purpose of these studies was to identify materials which outperform conventional tissue culture polystyrene (TCPS). The plastic surfaces that were investigated were created by injection molding and were used either “as is” or after plasma treatment under an oxidative or reductive atmosphere. After 5 days culture, the effect of the growth surfaces on stem cell maintenance and differentiation was quantified by the expression of stem cell markers (OCT-4; NANOG; NOTCH1; PH-4; p21).
Seasonal dynamics of carbon and nutrients from two contrasting tropical floodplain systems in the Zambezi River basin

Abstract. Floodplains are important biogeochemical reactors during fluvial transport of carbon and nutrient species towards the oceans. In the tropics and subtropics, pronounced rainfall seasonality results in highly dynamic floodplain biogeochemistry. The massive construction of dams, however, has significantly altered the hydrography and chemical characteristics of many (sub)tropical rivers. In this study, we compare organic-matter and nutrient biogeochemistry of two large, contrasting floodplains in the Zambezi River basin in southern Africa: the Barotse Plains and the Kafue Flats. Both systems are of comparable size but differ in anthropogenic influence: while the Barotse Plains are still in large parts pristine, the Kafue Flats are bordered by two hydropower dams. The two systems exhibit different flooding dynamics, with a larger contribution of floodplain-derived water in the Kafue Flats and a stronger peak flow in the Barotse Plains. Distinct seasonal differences have been observed in carbon and nutrient concentrations, loads, and export and retention behavior in both systems. The simultaneous retention of particulate carbon and nitrogen and the net export of dissolved organic and inorganic carbon and nitrogen suggested that degradation of particulate organic matter was the dominant process influencing the river biogeochemistry during the wet season in the Barotse Plains and during the dry season in the Kafue Flats. Reverse trends during the dry season indicated that primary production was important in the Barotse Plains, whereas the Kafue Flats seemed to have both primary production and respiration occurring during the wet season, potentially occurring spatially separated in the main channel and on the floodplain. Carbon-to-nitrogen ratios of particulate organic matter showed that soil-derived material was dominant year-round in the Barotse Plains, whereas the Kafue Flats transported particulate organic matter that had been produced in the upstream reservoir during the wet season. Stable carbon isotopes suggested that inputs from the inundated floodplain to the particulate organic-matter pool were important during the wet season, whereas permanent vegetation contributed to the material transported during the dry season. This study revealed effects of dam construction on organic-matter and nutrient dynamics on the downstream floodplain that only become visible after longer periods, and it highlights how floodplains act as large biogeochemical reactors that can behave distinctly differently from the entire catchment.
The Effect of Background Luminance and Ambient Illumination on Color Discrimination in a CRT Display

Abstract : The ability to discriminate among colors presented on self-luminous displays, such as CRT monitors, continues to be an important area of research. It is widely agreed that when color is used for coding purposes in visual displays, the largest increase in performance will result when the colors used are easily discriminable from one another. A matching task was used to measure the effects of ambient illumination, raster luminance, and target size on color discriminability in a CRT display. A set of ten easily distinguishable colors was presented under two conditions of ambient illumination (dark and bright) and two conditions of raster luminance (low and intermediate). Below this set, a target color was presented as either a circle of 1.4 degrees diameter or a line 1.4 degrees high and 7 minutes wide. Observers were required to match this target with the appropriate color presented in the display above. Under the dark ambient illumination, the intermediate raster yielded faster response times and lower error rates than the low raster. Under the bright ambient, significantly more errors were made with the intermediate than low raster luminance. The target circle yielded faster response times and lower error rates than the target line under all conditions. Color discriminability appears best under conditions where the background luminance is intermediate. Consequently, under dark ambient conditions, raster luminance should be set at an intermediate level but decreased as the ambient illumination increases.
Effect of Peripapillary Vitreous Opacity on Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer Thickness Measurement Using Optical Coherence Tomography

multiple topical agents for control of the intraocular pressure in her left eye. Analysis of Explanted NewColorIris Implant. Analysis using both light and scanning electron microscopy of one of the explanted NewColorIris devices shows surface and edge characteristics that deviate significantly from the appearance of other currently US Food and Drug Administration–approved anterior chamber implants on scanning electron microscopy. Specifically, the posterior surface of the NewColorIris implant has an irregular surface architecture and the edge has a very rough, nearly serrated appearance on close examination (Figure 3). These morphologic features support our contention that the surface characteristics of the NewColorIris contributed to ocular inflammation, secondary glaucoma, and endothelial cell loss in both patients. The edge profile appears to have been particularly deleterious to patient 2 due to direct apposition of the device against the angle structures as demonstrated by OCT.
On the structure and dynamics of sheared and rotating turbulence: Direct numerical simulation and wavelet-based coherent vortex extraction

The influence of rotation on the structure and dynamics of sheared turbulence is investigated using a series of direct numerical simulations. Five cases are considered: turbulent shear flow without rotation, with moderate rotation, and with strong rotation, where the rotation configuration is either parallel or antiparallel. For moderate rotation rates an antiparallel configuration increases the growth of the turbulent kinetic energy, while the parallel case reduces the growth as compared to the nonrotating case. For strong rotation rates decay of the energy is observed, linear effects dominate the flow, and the vorticity probability density functions tend to become Gaussian. Visualizations of vorticity show that the inclination angle of the vortical structures depends on the rotation rate and orientation. Coherent vortex extraction, based on the orthogonal wavelet decomposition of vorticity, is applied to split the flow into coherent and incoherent parts. It was found that the coherent part preserves the.
IMMUNOGENETICS OF TUBERCULOSIS

SETTING: Two sample panels: (i) twenty pulmonary tu berculosis (TBp) patients and ten healthy subjects (HS) from a country with low incidence of TB (Italy) and (ii) forty-seven TBp patients and 26 HS from a country with high incidence of TB (Mor occo). OBJECTIVE: To identify a combination of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) peptides useful for the serodiagnosis of active TBp. METHODS: Fifty-seven B-cell epitopes peptides of Mtb were evaluated by immunoenzymatic assay and the data were analyzed using logistic reg ression analysis and Random Forest method. RESULTS: The best discriminating peptide between TB p patients and HS from the sample of the country with low incidence of TB has been the 23 am ino acid peptide of the Rv3878 protein. Thus, the sensitivity and specificity was 65 % and 100 %, respectively. In contrast, the same peptide showed 47% and 100% as sensitivity and specificity respectively in the country with high incidence of TB. In addition, the best peptides combination w as a pool of nine peptides which showed a sensitivity of 70.2% and a specificity of 100% in t he country with high incidence of TB. CONCLUSIONS: The 9-peptides pool can be useful in i dentifying patients with active TBp
Feeding strategies to design the fatty acid profile of sheep milk and cheese

The majority of sheep milk produced in the world is transformed into cheese. Feeding is a major factor affecting the quality of sheep milk and, therefore, of sheep cheese. Because fat is the main compound of cheese, this review gives an update on the effects of feeding and nutrition on milk fat content and deeply discusses feeding strategies aimed at increasing the levels of healthy fatty acids (FA), such as conjugated linoleic acid and omega-3 FA, in milk and cheese in the human diet. In addition, the use of alternative feed resources such as by-products, aromatic plants, and phenolic compounds in the sheep diet and their effects on milk and cheese FA composition are also discussed. Among feeding strategies, grazing and the use of supplements rich in oils seem to be the best and the cheapest strategies to improve the nutritional value of the fatty acid profile in sheep cheese.
"I Know It's so Good, but I Prefer Not to Use It" An Interpretive Investigation of Jordanian Preservice Elementary Teachers' Perspectives about Learning Biology through Inquiry.

Many researchers emphasize the significance of employing inquiry learning in shaping preservice elementary teachers’ tendencies to teach science. Using an interpretive research methodology, this study examined the influence of employing an inquiry-based teaching approach on teaching biology to preservice elementary teachers at the Hashemite University in Jordan. The purpose was to explore 3 teachers’ perspectives of the teaching approach as well as to examine the effect of taking such courses on their future intentions to use inquiry. Findings indicated that participants were generally supportive of an inquiry-based learning strategy as they saw value in the inquiry experience provided from their course. Finally, the study suggested that support should be devoted to encourage the continuation and development of inquiry-based laboratories to better prepare prospective teachers. Furthermore, collaboration between postsecondary science teachers and science educators should be established to promote understanding of inquiry learning.
Preparation and Characterization of Nonylphenol Magnetic Molecularly Imprinted Polymer

Nonylphenol (NP) is a toxic xenobiotic compound classified as an endocrine disrupter, which can interfere with the hormonal system of numerous organisms, and then cause a series of pathological changes. It is of great significance to remove nonyl phenol from the environment. In this paper, an effective method for the preparation of molecularly imprinted nanoparticles was reported. Firstly, Fe3O4@SiO2 magnetic carrier material modified by trimethoxysilane was achieved through three-step reaction. After that, the selective magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer sorbent for NP (Fe3O4@SiO2-MIP) was synthesized by surface molecular imprinting technique, using NP as template, 4-vinyl pyridine (4-Vpy) as functional monomers, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as crosslinker and azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as initiator. The morphous, composition, structure and performance of the polymer adsorbent was characterized by SEM, TEM, FT-IR, XRD, EDS, VSM and nitrogen adsorption-desorption techniques. The results indicated that the polymer adsorbent was successfully prepared. The size of the polymer particle was about 50 nm, the aperture on the surface was 3.71 nm, the BET specific surface area was 61.80 m/g and the Langmuir specific surface area was 101.24 m/g. The selective adsorption rate for NP of 0.5 mmol/L attained value of 86.5%, and for NP with low concentration (less than 2.0 mg/L), the selective adsorption rate reached more than 90%. The synthesized magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer had higher selective recognition ability towards the template molecule nonylphenol. It has good magnetism and can be rapidly separated after being employed by using adscititious magnetic field. It has potential application value in treatment and enrichment of nonylphenol.
Taking Fingerprints of Speech-And-Gesture Ensembles. Approaching Empirical Evidence of Intrapersonal Alignment in Multimodal Communication

Co-occurring speech and gestures of natural language dialogues composes into meaning units, that is, they jointly describe discourse referents. We start from the idea that interlocutors tend to re-use this cross-modal information units if the discourse referent is referred to again: co-occurring speech and gesture are assumed to “align into” bimodal ensembles (BMEs). We further hypothesize that due to principles of dialogical economy interlocutors will exploit the impact of a BME’s gesture to shorten its linguistic part of that BME. If this hypothesis is right, we expect that the words in multimodal communication exhibit a different frequency distribution from words in written texts, whose frequency distribution is known to obey Zipf’s law. This hypothesis is tested for 24 direction-giving dialogues using two different frequency fits, rank frequency distribution and complementary cumulative distribution. According to the first fit, the hypothesis can be confirmed, according to the second one, it has to be rejected. In addition, we also propose a way to measure the strength of cross-modal informational association.
Enzyme Production and Lignin Degradation by Four Basidiomycetous Fungi in Submerged Fermentation of Peat Containing Medium

Biomass decomposing abilities of four basidiomycetous fungi ( Pleurotus ostreatus sensu Cooke, Coriolus versicolor (L.) Quel. , Tyromyces albidus (Schaeff.) Donk, and Trametes gallica Fr. ) were studied using statically submerged media containing peat. The laccase, manganese-dependent peroxidase (MnP), lignin peroxidase (LiP), and total cellulase enzymatic profiles of the four fungi were assessed. The results revealed that laccase is the predominant ligninolytic enzyme secreted during the statically submerged fermentation process using peat as the substrate. T. gallica was the most active laccase producer with about 103 U/L at day 25. C. versicolor produced relatively higher levels of MnP than the other three basidiomycetous fungi (10 U/L). No significant LiP activity was detected in any of the four white rot fungi (WRF). Furthermore, the production of total cellulase by the four white rot fungi is low, which is beneficial to the selectivity of the bio-delignification. The Klason lignin content of the peat sample decreased the most (from 57.5% to 51%) after the treatment by C. versicolor for 25 days. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) experiments also proved the lignocelluloses in peat were degraded after white rot fungi (WRF) treatment for 80 days. This study provides evidence that WRF can convert peat into usable intermediates in biofuel production.