Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cytokine expression of macrophages in HIV‐1‐associated vacuolar myelopathy

Macrophages are frequently present within the periaxonal and intramyelinic vacuoles that are located primarily in the posterior and lateral funiculi of the thoracic spinal cord in HIV-associated vacuolar myelopathy. But the role of these macrophages in the formation of the vacuoles is unclear. One hypothesis is that cytokines, such as interleukin-1 (IL-1) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, are produced locally by macrophages and have toxic effects on myelin or oligodendrocytes. The resulting myelin damage eventually culminates in the removal of myelin by macrophages and vacuole formation. We studied thoracic spinal cord specimens taken at autopsy from HIV-positive (+) and HIV-negative individuals. The predominant mononuclear cells present in HIV+ spinal cords are macrophages. They are located primarily in the posterior and lateral funiculi regardless of the presence or absence of vacuolar myelopathy. Macrophages and microglia are more frequent in HIV+ than HIV-negative individuals and these cells frequently stain for class I and class II antigens, IL-1, and TNF-α. Activated macrophages positive for IL-1 and TNF-α are greatly increased in the posterior and lateral funiculi of HIV+ individuals with and without vacuolar myelopathy, suggesting they are present prior to the development of vacuoles. Cytokines, such as TNF-α, may be toxic for myelin or oligodendrocytes, leading to myelin damage and removal by macrophages and vacuole formation.
Biologically active sequence (KDI) mediates the neurite outgrowth function of the gamma‐1 chain of laminin‐1

A neurite outgrowth domain of the γ1‐chain of laminin‐1 (RDIAEIIKDI) promotes axon guidance of rat hippocampal neurons, regulates the nuclear movement phase of neuronal migration, and binds to the cellular prion protein (Liesi et al. [ 1995 ] J. Neurosci. Res. 134:447–486; Matsuzawa et al. [ 1998 ] J. Neurosci. Res. 53:114–124; Graner et al. [ 2000 ] Brain Res. Mol. Brain Res. 76:85–92). Using electrophysiology and neuronal culture experiments, we show that this 10 amino acid peptide or its smaller domains induces potassium currents in primary central neurons. Both these currents and the neurotoxicity of high concentrations of the 10 amino acid peptide antigen are prevented by pertussis toxin. The smallest peptide domain capable of inducing both potassium currents and promoting neurite outgrowth of human spinal cord neurons is a tri‐peptide KDI. Our results indicate that KDI may be the biologically active domain of the γ1 laminin, capable of modulating electrical activity and survival of central neurons via a G‐protein coupled mechanism. These results expand the wide variety of functions already reported for the members of the laminin‐gene family. They suggest that biologically active peptide domains of the γ1 laminin may provide tools to promote neuronal regeneration after injuries and to enhance neuronal survival during aging and neuronal degeneration. J Neurosci. Res. 66:1047–1053, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Gender differences in homework and test scores in Mathematics, Reading and Science at tenth and twelfth grade

Gender differences in maths, reading, science and the amount of homework done out of school were obtained for tenth and twelfth graders from the American National Educational Longitudinal Study. Males obtained significantly higher mean scores in maths and science, and females obtained significantly higher mean scores in reading and amount of homework. There were significant correlations between test scores and amount of homework, suggesting that amount of homework contributes to test scores.
Classification and phytogeographical differentiation of oriental beech forests in Turkey and Bulgaria

Floristic differentiation of the oriental beech (Fagus orientalis Lipsky) forests in Turkey and Bulgaria was investigated and the role of geographical and topographical factors in this differentiation was assessed. After geographical and ecological stratification of the available 922 relevés, 288 remained. Classification, by applying cluster analysis, resulted in seven vegetation units defined by species composition which represent the geographical and ecological variation of Fagus orientalis forests. DCA ordination was applied to these units by passively projecting their chorological structure, as supplementary variables. For more detailed interpretation of vegetation types with similar geographic distribution patterns, PCA was applied by passively projecting the chorological elements, life-forms and topographical factors as supplementary variables. Seven vegetation units representing the geographical and ecological variety of Fagus orientalis forests were described. Four vegetation units represent the core area of Fagus orientalis distribution on the western and middle coast of the Black Sea region (Euxine region); the remaining three types represent the distribution in the eastern Black Sea region (Colchic region), the distribution in western and southern Anatolia under the influence of the Mediterranean climate and the distribution in the transitional zone from the Euxine region to the continental parts of Inner Anatolia, respectively. The four vegetation types in Euxine region reflect the decreasing effect of Black Sea towards Inner Anatolia, as well as altitudinal differences, except the forest type representing forests on calcareous sites. The other three vegetation units represent ravine, lowland to montane and altimontane forests in Euxine region. Fagus orientalis forests could be distinguished by their floristic composition, their chorological elements and life-forms spectra, which reflect a geographical and ecological gradients.
Investigation of Hybrid EMI Filters for Common-Mode EMI Suppression in a Motor Drive System

This paper begins with an analysis of the common-mode (CM) noise in a motor drive system. Based on the developed CM noise model, two cancellation techniques, CM noise voltage cancellation and CM noise current cancellation, are discussed. The constraints and impedance requirements for these two cancellation methods are investigated. An active filter with a feedforward current cancellation technique is proposed, implemented, and tested, and techniques to improve the performance of active filters are explored. It is found that due to the limitations of speed, power loss, and gain bandwidth of active filters, active electromagnetic interference (EMI) filters are not good at suppressing high di/dt or high amplitude noise current. Hybrid filters that include a passive filter and an active filter are proposed to overcome the shortcomings of active filters. Hybrid EMI filters are investigated based on the impedance requirements and frequency responses between the passive and active filters. The experiments show that the proposed active filter can greatly reduce noise by up to 50 dB at low frequencies (LFs), and therefore, the corner frequency of the passive filter can be increased considerably; as a result, the CM inductance of the passive filter is greatly reduced. The power loss of the proposed active EMI filter can be well-controlled in the experiments.
Experiences integrating sophisticated user experience design practices into agile processes

Most significant software processes involve a wide range of disciplines, from programming to testing, and from documentation to database development. Unfortunately, agile processes are typically presented from the point of view of programmers, with the other disciplines often left feeling excluded and disenfranchised. One such discipline is that of user experience design (often abbreviated UED), a discipline encompassing several key specialties including user research, interface design, visual design and usability testing. UED activities span the full lifecycle of product development from early requirements analysis to construction and testing, spanning both large scale system issues and detailed components, with its work products forming key inputs and deliverables of many development activities. In this experience report, we discuss the author's coaching experiences integrating sophisticated UED practices into the agile process initiatives of several organizations. His background is initially that of a programmer and later that of an agile process coach, and we'll explore his journey understanding UED practices and how they map to popular agile processes, mainly Scrum in "agile software development with Scrum" by K. Schwaber and M. Beedle (2002) and extreme programming in "extreme programming explained: embrace change" by K. Beck (2000). We'll chronicle the teams' struggles to come to grips with the often programming centric orientation of agile processes, and their ongoing efforts to integrate their UED best practices into the incremental, collaborative world of agile processes.
The effect of kinship on helping in the cooperative breeding Seychelles warbler ( Acrocephalus sechellensis )

It has previously been argued that the feeding of nestlings by non-parental birds may simply be an unselected consequence of delayed dispersal in cooperative breeding birds in which individuals follow simple rules such as 'feed any begging mouth in my natal territory'. However, in the cooperative breeding Seychelles warblers (Acrocehalus sechellensis), helpers haare more likely to help feed full siblings (both parents still alive) than half-siblings (one parent died), and do not help at all when the young are unrelated (both parents replaced). Helpers, helping both full siblings and half-siblings reduced their helping effort (food provisioning and period of helping) significantly when rearing young of lesser relatedness. These behaviours suggest that helping has been selected for in the context of promoting an individual's indirect fitness, and that it is not simply a by-product of 'provisioning behaviour'. The mechanism by which kin discrimination in helping is achieved appears to be associative learning; birds more often became helpers at nests belonging to related individuals who fed them (as a parent or a helper) when they were nestlings than at nests of related breeders who had not fed them in the nest.
A Probabilistic Model of Melody Perception

This study presents a probabilistic model of melody perception, which infers the key of a melody and also judges the probability of the melody itself. The model uses Bayesian reasoning: For any "surface" pattern and underlying "structure," we can infer the structure maximizing P(structure|surface) based on knowledge of P(surface, structure). The probability of the surface can then be calculated as ∑ P(surface, structure), summed over all structures. In this case, the surface is a pattern of notes; the structure is a key. A generative model is proposed, based on three principles: (a) melodies tend to remain within a narrow pitch range; (b) note-to-note intervals within a melody tend to be small; and (c) notes tend to conform to a distribution (or key profile) that depends on the key. The model is tested in three ways. First, it is tested on its ability to identify the keys of a set of folksong melodies. Second, it is tested on a melodic expectation task in which it must judge the probability of different notes occurring given a prior context; these judgments are compared with perception data from a melodic expectation experiment. Finally, the model is tested on its ability to detect incorrect notes in melodies by assigning them lower probabilities than the original versions.
TARC in allergic disease

THYMUS activation-regulated chemokine (TARC/CCL17) is a member of CC chemokine that is transiently expressed in phytohemagglutininstimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and constitutively and selectively in the thymus (1). Recently it has been reported that the TARC receptor CCR4 is selectively expressed in T helper (Th2) cells and that serum TARC level is associated with disease activity in atopic dermatitis (2,3). This is the first report describing plasma TARC levels in patients with bronchial asthma and allergic rhinitis. Plasma TARC concentration was measured by ELISA (R&D systems, MN, USA) in 50 healthy volunteers who previously showed no allergic symptoms, 30 patients with atopic dermatitis, 64 patients with bronchial asthma, and 22 patients with allergic rhinitis. In this study patients treated with drugs were excluded. The mean concentration of TARC in healthy volunteers was 31.9 pg/ml (SD14.8); significantly higher than in non-allergic volunteers, and than Thymus and activating-
Calibration of Topological Development in the Procedure of Parametric Identification: Application of the Stochastic GreenLab Model for Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica

Climate, biophysical conditions and human activities all contribute to the occurrences of ecosystem and environment problems, i.e. water scarcity, desertification, salinization, in arid and semiarid zone of North China. Mongolian Scots pine tree (Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica) is one of the principal species of the windbreak and sand-fixing forest in this area. In this paper, we presented the calibration process of stochastic GreenLab model based on experiment data. Specific plant topology and sink–source parameters were estimated for Mongolian Scots pine trees through optimizing procedure. The fitting results showed that the calibration process were reasonable and acceptable. The model produced a variety of three-dimensional visual representations of Mongolian Scots pine trees with different topological structures simulated by Monte Carlo methods. This model can be used to describe the plant development and growth in a stand level, taking into accounts the variations in plant topology and biomass.
Oligodendrocytes and Radial Glia Derived From Adult Rat Spinal Cord Progenitors: Morphological and Immunocytochemical Characterization

Self-renewing, multipotent neural progenitor cells (NPCs) reside in the adult mammalian spinal cord ependymal region. The current study characterized, in vitro, the native differentiation potential of spinal cord NPCs isolated from adult enhanced green fluorescence protein rats. Neurospheres were differentiated, immunocytochemistry (ICC) was performed, and the positive cells were counted as a percentage of Hoescht+ nuclei in 10 random fields. Oligodendrocytes constituted most of the NPC progeny (58.0% of differentiated cells; 23.4% in undifferentiated spheres). ICC and electron microscopy (EM) showed intense myelin production by neurospheres and progeny. The number of differentiated astrocytes was 18.0%, but only 2.8% in undifferentiated spheres. The number of differentiated neurons was 7.4%, but only 0.85% in undifferentiated spheres. The number of differentiated radial glia (RG) was 73.0% and in undifferentiated spheres 80.9%. EM showed an in vitro phagocytic capability of NPCs. The number of undifferentiated NPCs was 32.8% under differentiation conditions and 78.9% in undifferentiated spheres. Compared with ependymal region spheres, the spheres derived from the peripheral white matter of the spinal cord produced glial-restricted precursors. These findings indicate that adult rat spinal cord ependymal NPCs differentiate preferentially into oligodendrocytes and RG, which may support axonal regeneration in future trials of transplant therapy for spinal cord injury.
Possible pseudoresistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae to penicillin G in a patient with a mixed pneumococcus-Staphylococcus aureus pneumonia.

We report the case of a 53-year-old woman with a mixed pneumococcus-staphylococcus pneumonia, in which both organisms were recovered from both sputum and blood. Streptococcus pneumoniae persisted in sputum 48 hours after initiation of high-dose intravenous penicillin G. When nafcillin was substituted for penicillin G, both pneumococci and staphylococci were eradicated from blood and sputum. This strain of Streptococcus pneumoniae was highly susceptible to penicillin G, but the associated strain of Staphylococcus aureus was not. The staphylococcus produced large amounts of a penicillin -degrading betalactamase . We reviewed the records of ten cases of pneumococcus pneumonia from the Wayne State University-Detroit Medical Center admitted from March 1978 to April 1981, in which sputum cultures were repeated within one to ten days after penicillin G had been initiated. At second cultures of sputum, Streptococcus pneumoniae was recovered in none of these latter cases. We further showed that on a blood agar culture plate in the presence of penicillin G, a beta-lactamase positive strain of Staphylococcus aureus allowed growth of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Therefore, despite penicillin therapy, Staphylococcus aureus in sputum may facilitate the persistence of Streptococcus pneumoniae.
Women, mathematics and epistemology: an integrated framework

This paper is work in progress on the integration of two epistemological theories to explore the transformational process of further education for women returning to study mathematics in Melbourne, Australia. In this context, the literature reports that women commonly have a perceived need for procedural over relational understanding consistent with their belief that mathematics is absolute and infallible. The teaching philosophy adopted to shift this orientation usually draws on and values the women's own experiences and promotes a collaborative classroom environment. While success stories in these teaching contexts highlight the increased confidence of women, the nature of their epistemological assumptions and whether these shift to promote more complex ways of mathematical knowing have received little attention. The two epistemological models of Baxter Magolda (1992) and Belenky et al. (1997) have been tentatively integrated for the purpose of providing an epistemological framework to analyse the experiences of women in the further education sector returning to study mathematics.
Increased risk for atherosclerosis of various macrophage scavenger receptor 1 alleles.

AIMS Macrophage scavenger receptor 1 (MSR1) mediates the uptake of modified low density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol. The significance of MSR1 in atherosclerosis development in animal models is uncertain. In this study we sought to determine the significance of MSR1 polymorphisms in its encoding gene in susceptibility to atherosclerosis. METHODS We genotyped three polymorphic sites in the MSR1 gene including a 3-bp "TTA" insertion-deletion in intron 7 (rs3036811, Indel 7), an intron 5 SNP (rs33959637, IVS5-59), and a missense coding single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in exon 6 (rs3747531, P275A) in 136 nondiabetic Ashkenazi men under age 55 years (mean = 47.3 +/- 4.8 years) undergoing coronary angiography. Assessment of coronary disease was done by the number of segments with stenosis greater than 20% (coronary artery narrowing greater than 20% [CAGE > 20%]), greater than 50% (CAGE > 50%), and total number of diseased vessels. Linear regression modeling was used to define associations between atherosclerotic burden and MSR1 SNPs and haplotypes. RESULTS Significant associations were noted between IVS5-59 and number of diseased vessels (p = 0.009) and CAGE > 20% (p = 0.017), which remained significant upon controlling for age, cholesterol level, hypertension, and smoking. CONCLUSION This study demonstrates an association between MSR1 polymorphisms and atherosclerosis, suggesting that atherosclerotic risk associated with classic risk factors may be modified by MSR1 polymorphisms. These findings point to a significant role of MSR1 in atherosclerosis.
Throwaway Moms: Maternal Incarceration and the Criminalization of Female Poverty

Using a feminist standpoint epistemological framework, this article reports the findings from 26 interviews with drug-offending incarcerated mothers in Kentucky regarding the effects of incarceration on their relationships with their children. The participants related personal histories characterized by poverty, victimization, chronic substance addiction, and repeated failed attempts at sobriety. Many felt betrayed by the courts and child protective services, and those who had lost custody of their children felt they had no remaining reason to rehabilitate themselves. The mothers expressed profound feelings of guilt and remorse for the impact that their behaviors had on their children and expressed hope that their children would experience better lives than they have.
On the crosslinguistic equivalence of sentir(e) in Romance languages: A contrastive study in semantics

Abstract Recent linguistic studies on perception have focused mainly on verbs referring to the dominant visual and auditory modalities, (e.g., English see/look and hear/listen) and have largely ignored the minor verbs. The present paper seeks to fill this gap by comparing the complex semantics of the cognate verbs sentir(e) in three Romance languages, namely Spanish, French and Italian. Since the objective study of semantics is a problematic issue, we pay special attention to methodological problems and opt for a “combined corpus approach” involving both a translation corpus and comparable data. Evidence from both corpora indicates that, notwithstanding the fact that the rich polysemy of the three verbs partly coincides, each individual verb has undergone semantic specializations differentiating the morphological cognates.
Cognitive–Behavioral and Psychopharmacological Treatment of Delusional Symptoms: A Preliminary Report

Several psychopathological conditions include delusional beliefs as central symptoms. A conceptual model highlighting the importance of cognitive factors in regulating the bizarre internal contingencies which characterize delusional systems is presented. Cognitive–behavioral treatment emphasizes the direct modification of expectations and beliefs as well as the disordered behavior patterns they support. The efficacy of neuroleptics in treating delusional states has also been reported. Two patients with predominate delusional beliefs were treated in a cross-over design by the sequential use of cognitive–behavior therapy and pimozide. A third patient received cognitive–behavioral training alone. The delusions as well as the anxiety associated with them diminished and behavioral functioning improved significantly following cognitive therapy. The relationship between delusional symptoms, perceptions of self, and social functioning, as well as the optimal application of cognitive–behavioral and psychopharmacological interventions are discussed.
Being Constructive: Social Constructionism and the Environment

Within environmental sociology realist critiques of the use of social constructionist approaches abound. This paper challenges features of the realist critique and emphasises the appeal and utility of social constructionist approaches for the study of environmental issues. We start by outlining the criticisms levelled at social constructionism, particularly the claim that the approach amounts to a denial of the existence of environmental problems and provides no contribution to managing them. We argue that this characterisation of `extreme' constructionism is problematic in two senses. First, in that it bears little resemblance to the mild approach actually used in the majority of empirical studies and, secondly, that it is a misleading characterisation of a more radical constructionism. We conclude that the utility of constructionism can be formulated in terms of two distinct approaches. One refrains from making overt moral and political claims, and treats such claims as topics for analysis; such an approach can, however, provide resources for social criticism. Another adopts an overtly political or environmentally motivated stance towards the issues investigated. Underlying these suggestions is our conviction that a particular model of engagement is implicit in many realist critiques and that others are possible, and perhaps, preferable.