Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Receptor-Mediated Clearance of Cryptococcus neoformans Capsular Polysaccharide In Vivo

ABSTRACT Cryptococcus neoformans capsular glucuronoxylomannan (GXM) is shed during cryptococcosis and taken up by macrophages. The roles of the putative GXM receptors CD14, CD18, Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2), and TLR4 in GXM clearance from serum and deposition in the liver and spleen in receptor-deficient mice were studied. While alterations in the kinetics of GXM redistribution were seen in the mutant mice, none of the receptors was absolutely required for serum clearance or hepatosplenic accumulation.
A Brief Intervention Facilitates Discussions About Discipline in Pediatric Primary Care

Background. Participants were consecutive English or Spanish speaking parents of 1- to 5-year-old children presenting for a well-child visit. Parents viewed a 5- to 10-minute intervention that teaches appropriate discipline strategies. The participation rate was 99% (129/130). Thirty-six percent (46/129) reported they had a discussion about discipline with their pediatrician. Of the parents who had a discussion, 93% (43/46) agreed or strongly agreed that the intervention program helped with a discussion about discipline. One hundred percent (19/19) of Hispanic parents reported that the program was helpful compared with 86% (12/14) of Black parents and 91% (10/11) of White parents. Parents’ qualitative responses revealed that the intervention helped by facilitating communication with their physician and/or by providing information. Brief interventions, integrated into the primary care visit can help parents have discussions about discipline with their physician. The results have implications for improving pediatric primary care services, violence prevention, and child abuse prevention.
Genetic transformation with the gfp gene of Colletotrichum gloeosporioides isolates from coffee with blister spot

Blister spot (Colletotrichum gloeosporioides) is now widespread in most coffee producing states of Brazil, becoming a limiting factor for production. The lack of data relating to the reproduction of typical symptoms (light green, oily patches) leaves a gap within the pathosystem, forcing the search for new methodologies for monitoring the disease. Monitoring of genetically modified organisms has proven to be an effective tool in understanding the host × pathogen interactions. Thus, the present study was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of two systems of genetic transformation in obtaining mutants using the gfp reporter gene. Using the two transformation systems (PEG and electroporation) revealed the efficiency of both, confirmed by fluorescence microscopy and resistance to the antibiotic hygromycin-B, when incorporated into the culture medium. The fungus maintained its cultural and morphological characteristics when compared to wild strains. When inoculated on coffee seedlings, it was found that the pathogenicity of the processed isolates had not changed.
Seeing Learning Analytics Tools as Orchestration Technologies: Towards Supporting Learning Activities across Physical and Digital Spaces

: This panel paper proposes to consider the process that learners or educators commonly follow while interacting with learning analytics tools as part of an orchestration loop. This may be particularly valuable to facilitate understanding of the key role that learning analytics may have to provide sustained support to learners and educators. The complexity of learning situations where learning occurs across varied physical spaces and multiple educational tools are involved requires a holistic and practical approach. The proposal is to build on principles of orchestration that can help link technical and theoretical aspects of learning analytics with the practitioner. The panel paper provides: 1) a brief description of the relevance of the notions of orchestration and orchestrable technologies for learning analytics; and 2) the illustration of the orchestration loop as a process followed by learners or educators when they use learning analytics tools.
Simple model for describing and estimating wind turbine dynamic inflow

Wind turbines operate with sudden change in pitch angle, rotor or wind speed. In such cases the wake behind the turbine, achieve steady state conditions only after a certain delay. This phenomenon is commonly called dynamic inflow. There are many models for dynamic inflow. The most accurate use a method that can be characterised as the blade element momentum method plus a dynamic equation for the induction factor. This method then needs calculations along the blade for a number of sections including numerical solution of equations. This is numerical demanding. The simplest models amounts to placing a lead-lag filter after rotor torque and thrust calculated from static tables of the power and thrust coefficients. The filter constants will then vary with average wind speed. The filtered versions of torque and thrust are then an approximate modelling of the dynamic inflow. The dynamic inflow model suggested here places itself in between the most complex and the most simple both in accuracy, numerical demands and physical appeal. The suggested models behavior is demonstrated by simulation and the usefulness for extended Kalman filtering is assessed both via simulated data and real full scale turbine data.
Virtual Histology of Transgenic Mouse Embryos for High-Throughput Phenotyping

A bold new effort to disrupt every gene in the mouse genome necessitates systematic, interdisciplinary approaches to analyzing patterning defects in the mouse embryo. We present a novel, rapid, and inexpensive method for obtaining high-resolution virtual histology for phenotypic assessment of mouse embryos. Using osmium tetroxide to differentially stain tissues followed by volumetric X-ray computed tomography to image whole embryos, isometric resolutions of 27 μm or 8 μm were achieved with scan times of 2 h or 12 h, respectively, using mid-gestation E9.5–E12.5 embryos. The datasets generated by this method are immediately amenable to state-of-the-art computational methods of organ patterning analysis. This technique to assess embryo anatomy represents a significant improvement in resolution, time, and expense for the quantitative, three-dimensional analysis of developmental patterning defects attributed to genetically engineered mutations and chemically induced embryotoxicity.
Immunological genomics of Brugia malayi: filarial genes implicated in immune evasion and protective immunity

Filarial nematodes are metazoan parasites with genome sizes openface> 100 million base pairs, probably encoding 15 000‐20 000 genes. Within this considerable gene complement, it seems likely that filariae have evolved a spectrum of immune evasion products which underpin their ability to live for many years within the human host. Moreover, no suitable vaccine currently exists for human filarial diseases, and few markers have yet been established for diagnostic use. In this review, we bring together biochemical and immunological data on prominent filarial proteins with the exciting new information provided by the Filarial Genome Project’s expressed sequence tag (EST) database. In this discussion, we focus on those genes with the highest immunological profile, such as inhibitors of host enzymes, cytokine homologues and stage‐specific surface proteins, as well as products associated with the mosquito‐borne infective larva which offer the best opportunity for an anti‐filarial vaccine. These gene products provide a fascinating glimpse of the molecular repertoire which helminth parasites have evolved to manipulate and evade the mammalian immune response.
Extinction of likes and dislikes: effects of feature-specific attention allocation

ABSTRACT The evaluative conditioning (EC) effect refers to the change in the liking of a neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus, CS) due to its pairing with another stimulus (unconditioned stimulus, US). We examined whether the extinction rate of the EC effect is moderated by feature-specific attention allocation. In two experiments, CSs were abstract Gabor patches varying along two orthogonal, perceptual dimensions (i.e. spatial frequency and orientation). During the acquisition phase, one of these dimensions was predictive of the valence of the USs. During the extinction phase, CSs were presented alone and participants were asked to categorise the CSs either according to their valence, the perceptual dimension that was task-relevant during the acquisition phase, or a perceptual dimension that was task-irrelevant during the acquisition phase. As predicted, explicit valence measures revealed a linear increase in the extinction rate of the EC effect as participants were encouraged to assign attention to non-evaluative stimulus information during the extinction phase. In Experiment 1, Affect Misattribution Paradigm (AMP) data mimicked this pattern of results, although the effect just missed conventional levels of significance. In Experiment 2, the AMP data revealed an increase of the EC effect if attention was focused on evaluative stimulus information. Potential mechanisms to explain these findings are discussed.
Using a Genetic Algorithm to Estimate Parameters of a Coarticulation Model

We present a real-coded genetic algorithm that efficiently estimates parameters of a formant trajectory model. The genetic algorithm uses roulette-wheel selection and elitism to minimize the root mean square error between the observed formant trajectory and the model trajectory. Parameters, including vowel and consonant target values and coarticulation parameters, are estimated for a corpus of English clear and conversational CVC words. Results show consistent consonant formant targets, even when those consonants do not themselves have formant structure. We also present findings of a relationship between a coarticulation parameter and the consonant identity.
Monitoring Astrocytic Proteome Dynamics by Cell Type-Specific Protein Labeling

The ability of the nervous system to undergo long-term plasticity is based on changes in cellular and synaptic proteomes. While many studies have explored dynamic alterations in neuronal proteomes during plasticity, there has been less attention paid to the astrocytic counterpart. Indeed, progress in identifying cell type-specific proteomes is limited owing to technical difficulties. Here, we present a cell type-specific metabolic tagging technique for a mammalian coculture model based on the bioorthogonal amino acid azidonorleucine and the mutated Mus musculus methionyl-tRNA synthetaseL274G enabling azidonorleucine introduction into de novo synthesized proteins. Azidonorleucine incorporation resulted in cell type-specific protein labeling and retained neuronal or astrocytic cell viability. Furthermore, we were able to label astrocytic de novo synthesized proteins and identified both Connexin-43 and 60S ribosomal protein L10a upregulated upon treatment with Brain-derived neurotrophic factor in astrocytes of a neuron-glia coculture. Taken together, we demonstrate the successful dissociation of astrocytic from neuronal proteomes by cell type-specific metabolic labeling offering new possibilities for the analyses of cell type-specific proteome dynamics.
Heritable Epigenetic Variation among Maize Inbreds

Epigenetic variation describes heritable differences that are not attributable to changes in DNA sequence. There is the potential for pure epigenetic variation that occurs in the absence of any genetic change or for more complex situations that involve both genetic and epigenetic differences. Methylation of cytosine residues provides one mechanism for the inheritance of epigenetic information. A genome-wide profiling of DNA methylation in two different genotypes of Zea mays (ssp. mays), an organism with a complex genome of interspersed genes and repetitive elements, allowed the identification and characterization of examples of natural epigenetic variation. The distribution of DNA methylation was profiled using immunoprecipitation of methylated DNA followed by hybridization to a high-density tiling microarray. The comparison of the DNA methylation levels in the two genotypes, B73 and Mo17, allowed for the identification of approximately 700 differentially methylated regions (DMRs). Several of these DMRs occur in genomic regions that are apparently identical by descent in B73 and Mo17 suggesting that they may be examples of pure epigenetic variation. The methylation levels of the DMRs were further studied in a panel of near-isogenic lines to evaluate the stable inheritance of the methylation levels and to assess the contribution of cis- and trans- acting information to natural epigenetic variation. The majority of DMRs that occur in genomic regions without genetic variation are controlled by cis-acting differences and exhibit relatively stable inheritance. This study provides evidence for naturally occurring epigenetic variation in maize, including examples of pure epigenetic variation that is not conditioned by genetic differences. The epigenetic differences are variable within maize populations and exhibit relatively stable trans-generational inheritance. The detected examples of epigenetic variation, including some without tightly linked genetic variation, may contribute to complex trait variation.
Trace Register Allocation Policies: Compile-time vs. Performance Trade-offs

Register allocation is an integral part of compilation, regardless of whether a compiler aims for fast compilation or optimal code quality. State-of-the-art dynamic compilers often use global register allocation approaches such as linear scan. Recent results suggest that non-global trace-based register allocation approaches can compete with global approaches in terms of allocation quality. Instead of processing the whole compilation unit (i.e., method) at once, a trace-based register allocator divides the problem into linear code segments, called traces. In this work, we present a register allocation framework that can exploit the additional flexibility of traces to select different allocation strategies based on the characteristics of a trace. This provides us with fine-grained control over the trade-off between compile time and peak performance in a just-in-time compiler. Our framework features three allocation strategies: a linear-scan-based approach that achieves good code quality, a single-pass bottom-up strategy that aims for short allocation times, and an allocator for trivial traces. To demonstrate the flexibility of the framework, we select 8 allocation policies and show their impact on compile time and peak performance. This approach can reduce allocation time by 7%--43% at a peak performance penalty of about 1%--11% on average. For systems that do not focus on peak performance, our approach allows to adjust the time spent for register allocation, and therefore the overall compilation time, thus finding the optimal balance between compile time and peak performance according to an application's requirements.
Analyzing bloggers data on software design patterns and applications integration; methodology and implementation

Purpose – Blogs (a term that is short for weblogs) are one mean of getting public opinions about important topics. Several techniques could be used to reveal important views and directions from the analysis of blogs posted on the internet. The paper investigates issues concerning blogs.Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies a methodology to investigate blogs on domains of software design patterns and integration solutions within information technology community.Findings – The methodology developed and implemented is an end‐to‐end approach to the collection, cleansing and analysis of bloggers posts.Originality/value – While the paper addresses a specific sector of bloggers, the methodology and templates used could be implemented and further improved for use with any other bloggers segment.
STANDARDS AND SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE CALIBRATION AND STABILITY OF AMATEUR DIGITAL CAMERAS FOR CLOSE-RANGE MAPPING APPLICATIONS

Photogrammetry is concerned with the accurate derivation of spatial and descriptive information from imagery that can be used in several applications such as mapping, DEM generation, orthophoto production, construction planning, environmental monitoring, structural analysis, 3D visualization, and change detection. The type of cameras traditionally used for high accuracy projects were large format analogue cameras. In recent years, however, the use of digital cameras for photogrammetric purposes has become more prevalent. The switch by some users from analogue to digital cameras has been fuelled by the ease of use, decreasing cost, and increasing resolution of digital cameras. Digital photogrammetric cameras can be classified into several categories: line cameras (e.g., ADS40 from Leica Geosystems), large format frame cameras (e.g., DMC from Zeiss/Intergraph), and medium to smallformat digital cameras. More recently, amateur medium-format digital cameras (MFDC) and small-format digital cameras (SFDC) are being used in photogrammetric activities (e.g., in conjunction with LiDAR systems, smaller flight blocks, and for close-range photogrammetric applications). The continuing development in the capabilities of digital photogrammetry coupled with users’ needs has spawned new markets in photogrammetric mapping with amateur digital cameras. With the wide spectrum of designs for amateur digital cameras, several issues have surfaced, including the method and quality of camera calibration, as well as long-term stability. This paper addresses these concerns and outlines possible solutions. First, we will start by introducing an automated methodology for an in-door camera calibration. The main objective of such a procedure is to provide mapping companies using these cameras with a simple calibration procedure that requires an easy-to-establish test field. The paper will then discuss the concept of how to evaluate camera stability, which will be followed by the introduction of a set of tools for its evaluation. Following the discussion on calibration and stability analysis, the paper will deal with several related questions: How to develop meaningful standards for evaluating the outcome from the calibration procedure; How to develop meaningful standards for evaluating the stability of the involved camera; Is there a flexibility in choosing the stability analysis tool based on the geo-referencing procedure; Can the stability analysis be used for evaluating the equivalency of different distortion models. Finally, experimental results are then provided for two small format digital cameras. * Corresponding author.
A Conversational Interface for Online Shopping

We present a deployed, conversational dialog system that assists users in finding computers based on their usage patterns and constraints on specifications. We discuss findings from a market survey and two user studies. We compared our system to a directed dialog system and a menu driven navigation system. We found that the conversational interface reduced the average number of clicks by 63% and the average interaction time by 33% over a menu driven search system. The focus of our continuing work includes developing a dynamic, adaptive dialog management strategy, robustly handling user input and improving the user interface.
Iron, anaemia, and inflammatory bowel diseases

Iron deficiency anaemia is one of the most common disorders in the world. Also, one third of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients suffer from recurrent anaemia. Anaemia has significant impact on the quality of life of affected patients. Chronic fatigue, a frequent IBD symptom itself, is commonly caused by anaemia and may debilitate patients as much as abdominal pain or diarrhoea. Common therapeutic targets are the mechanisms behind anaemia of chronic disease and iron deficiency. It is our experience that virtually all patients with IBD associated anaemia can be successfully treated with a combination of iron sucrose and erythropoietin, which then may positively affect the misled immune response in IBD.
Category Learning as Schema Induction

Categories are essential for practically all aspects of human cognition, and an enormous amount of research has been devoted to understanding how they are learned and represented in memory (see, e.g., Murphy, 2002; Smith & Medin, 1981). In this chapter, I describe a program of research on category learning that Gordon Bower and I began a number of years ago, when I was a graduate student in his laboratory at Stanford University, and which I have continued to extend and develop over the succeeding years. This research began by investigating how people use category knowledge (schemas) to guide attention and organize memory, and later focused on the basic mechanisms by which such categories are discovered and learned. Although category learning has been a traditional focus of research within cognitive psychology, we have taken a rather non-traditional approach in our own investigations of this area. My primary goal in this chapter (besides paying tribute to Gordon) will be to convince readers of the value of this non-traditional approach. It is important to note that most category learning research has been carried out within a standard conceptual framework or paradigm that describes what categories are, what they are for, and the kinds of situations in which they are normally acquired. Within this paradigm, category learning typically is regarded as a form of
Evaluating Reasons for Nursing Turnover

Data from a study of nursing turnover are used to compare findings based on two techniques for evaluating the reasons for resignations within the same population of hospital nurses during one year. The techniques are: (1) exit interviews, in which resigning nurses were asked to report in an open-ended format their major reasons for leaving their jobs; and (2) a prospective panel study, in which nurses who resigned are compared with nurses who remained, and actual turnover is predicted. Results show that due to the absence of a compari son group of remaining nurses and of baseline data, causal inferences based on exit interview data alone are overly simplistic and misleading for management purposes. Results of thepanel study are more inform ative, although implications for hospital management are more complex. Use of the prospective panel design is recommended for hospitals concerned with evaluating nursing job conditions during a period of high turnover and staff nurse shortages.
On the Number of r-Matchings in a Tree

An $r$-matching in a graph $G$ is a collection of edges in $G$ such that the distance between any two edges is at least $r$. A $2$-matching is also called an induced matching. In this paper, we estimate the maximum number of $r$-matchings in a tree of fixed order. We also prove that the $n$-vertex path has the maximum number of induced matchings among all $n$-vertex trees.
Fusion of first-principles and statistical analyses in complex electronics systems

This paper present a hybrid deterministic and stochastic formulation for the quantitative statistical analysis of IC and electronic systems in large complicated enclosures. The work seamlessly integrates the universal statistical properties of the systems and the site-specific features within a comprehensive statistical analysis framework. A physics-based surrogate modeling capability is established, which generates the statistical response in nearly real time while retaining the underlying first-principles analysis. The work is validated through representative experiments.