Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On Understanding Grammar

In his foreword to the original edition of this classic of functionalism, typology and diachrony, Dwight Bolinger wrote: "I foresee it as one of the truly prizes statements of our current knowledge.a book about understanding done with deep understanding - of language and its place in Nature and in the nature of humankind. The book is rich in insights, even for those who have been with linguistics for a long time. And beginners could be thankful for having it as a starting point, from which so many past mistakes have been shed". Thoroughly revised, corrected and updated, On Understanding Grammar remains, as its author intended it in 1979, a book about trying to make sense of human language and of doing linguistics. Language is considered here from multiple perspectives, intersecting with cognition and communication, typology and universals, grammaticalization, development and evolution. Within such a broad cross-disciplinary context, grammar is viewed as an automated, structured language-processing device, assembled through evolution, diachrony and use. Cross-language diversity is not arbitrary, but rather is tightly constrained and adaptively motivated, with the balance between universality and diversity mediated through development, be it evolutionary or diachronic. The book's take on language harkens back to the works of illustrious antecedents such as F. Bopp, W. von Humbold, H. Paul, A. Meillet, O. Jespersen and G. Zipf, offering a coherent alternative to the methodological and theoretical strictures of Saussure, Bloomfield and Chomsky.
Smoking and early infliximab response in Crohn’s disease: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Infliximab is used to treat moderate to severe Crohn’s disease (CD), but its efficacy varies. Although cigarette smoking worsens CD, its impact on the infliximab response is unknown. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials to determine the effect of smoking on the induction response to infliximab. METHODS A systematic search was performed of MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, the Cochrane central register of controlled trials, the Cochrane IBD Group Specialized Trials Register for publications, and abstracts from major conferences from January 1996 to December 2010. Random effects meta-analysis using the Mantel–Haenszel method was conducted. Heterogeneity across studies was assessed using the Q statistic, the I2 statistic, and τ2. RESULTS We identified 12 articles; four were excluded due to use of non-validated scoring systems.The remaining eight included a total of 1658 patients, with 649 active smokers. Luminal response was assessed by the Crohn’s Disease Activity Index in four studies (three of which included fistula response) and the Harvey–Bradshaw index in two (both including fistula response), and two studies examined only the fistula response. The relative risk for response to infliximab among smokers was 0.99 (95% CI 0.88–1.11) (τ2 = 0.0143). Analyses of the five studies examining both inflammatory and fistulizing CD were similar to the analysis of all eight studies. The pooled relative risk was 0.92 (95% CI 0.80–1.06) (τ2 = 0.0154). CONCLUSION Though smoking worsens CD, this meta-analysis does not show a negative effect of smoking on initial response to infliximab. This must be viewed in the proper context, as long-term maintenance of response may yet be influenced by smoking status.
Legalization of Drugs: Perspectives from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia

Jim Barber, PhD, BSW, BA, is Professor of Social Work at the School of Social Administration & Social Work, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia and Director of the Australian Centre for Community Services Research. Bill Coleman, CSW, CP, PAT, currently works as a Psychodramatist at Four Winds Hospital in Katonah, New York and is on the Faculty at Hudson Valley Psychodrama Institute in New Paltz, New York. Philip Guy, BA, MASW, is Lecturer in Social Work and Addictions, Department of Social Work at the University of Hull, UK. Elizabeth Zelvin, CSW, ACSW, CASAC, C-CATODSW, is Special Topics Editor of Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions, and a psychotherapist who practices online at <www.LZcybershrink. com>.
MicroRNAs as modulators of smoking-induced gene expression changes in human airway epithelium

We have shown that smoking impacts bronchial airway gene expression and that heterogeneity in this response associates with smoking-related disease risk. In this study, we sought to determine whether microRNAs (miRNAs) play a role in regulating the airway gene expression response to smoking. We examined whole-genome miRNA and mRNA expression in bronchial airway epithelium from current and never smokers (n = 20) and found 28 miRNAs to be differentially expressed (P < 0.05) with the majority being down-regulated in smokers. We further identified a number of mRNAs whose expression level is highly inversely correlated with miRNA expression in vivo. Many of these mRNAs contain potential binding sites for the differentially expressed miRNAs in their 3′-untranslated region (UTR) and are themselves affected by smoking. We found that either increasing or decreasing the levels of mir-218 (a miRNA that is strongly affected by smoking) in both primary bronchial epithelial cells and H1299 cells was sufficient to cause a corresponding decrease or increase in the expression of predicted mir-218 mRNA targets, respectively. Further, mir-218 expression is reduced in primary bronchial epithelium exposed to cigarette smoke condensate (CSC), and alteration of mir-218 levels in these cells diminishes the induction of the predicted mir-218 target MAFG in response to CSC. These data indicate that mir-218 levels modulate the airway epithelial gene expression response to cigarette smoke and support a role for miRNAs in regulating host response to environmental toxins.
Phase Noise Issues With FPGA-Embedded DLLs and PLLs in HEP Applications

Delay Locked Loops (DLLs) and Phase Locked Loops (PLLs) are available as embedded hard-macros in the latest Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Their main features are clock phase de-skewing, frequency multiplication and division. Moreover, the availability of PLLs allows the user to perform jitter filtering too. The clock signal at the output of a DLL or a PLL has a phase noise, which has to be taken into account in timing sensitive applications, such as analog-to-digital conversion, time measurements or high-speed serial links.
Dietary supplementation with eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acid inhibits growth of Morris hepatocarcinoma 3924A in rats: Effects on proliferation and apoptosis

The effect of individual administration of low doses of highly purified eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) (1 g/kg body weight) on the growth of Morris hepatocarcinoma 3924A transplanted in ACI/T rats was investigated. Both EPA and DHA inhibited growth of the hepatocarcinoma (50% reduction of tumor weight or volume at the 19th day after transplantation for both of the n‐3 PUFA groups). EPA treatment reduced the percentage of proliferating tumor cells labeled with BUdR (10‐fold), whereas DHA did not. Conversely, DHA supplementation induced a doubling of the number of cells undergoing apoptosis (labeled by TUNEL), whereas EPA treatment was much less effective. Analysis of changes in phospholipid fatty acids in tumor‐cell membranes after both treatments with EPA and DHA showed a significant reduction in arachidonic‐acid levels. EPA and docosapentaenoic acid (DPA), its elongation product, were increased in the phospholipids from EPA‐treated animals. DHA and EPA, but not DPA, were increased in the DHA‐treated group. It is concluded from the results of the present study that the anti‐tumoral effect of EPA is related mainly to its inhibition of cell proliferation, whereas that of DHA corresponds with its induction of apoptosis. The alterations in fatty‐acid composition induced by EPA or DHA appear to be factors underlying their differential actions on cell proliferation and apoptosis. Int. J. Cancer 75:699–705, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Modulation of AUUUA Response Element Binding by Heterogeneous Nuclear Ribonucleoprotein A1 in Human T Lymphocytes

The heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A1 (hnRNP A1) shuttles between the cytoplasm and nucleus and plays important roles in RNA metabolism. Whereas nuclear hnRNP A1 has been shown to bind intronic sequences and modulate splicing, cytoplasmic hnRNP A1 is associated with poly(A)+ RNA, indicating different RNA ligand specificity. Previous studies indicated that cytoplasmic hnRNP A1 is capable of high-affinity binding of reiterated AUUUA sequences (ARE) that have been shown to modulate mRNA turnover and translation. Through a combination of two-dimensional gel and proteolysis studies, we establish hnRNP A1 (or structurally related proteins that are post-translationally regulated in an identical manner) as the dominant cytoplasmic protein in human T lymphocytes capable of interacting with the ARE contained within the context of full-length granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor mRNA. We additionally demonstrate that cytoplasmic hnRNP A1 preferentially binds ARE relative to pre-mRNAs in both cross-linking and mobility shift experiments. RNA polymerase II inhibition increased the binding of ARE (AUBP activity) and poly(U)-Sepharose by cytoplasmic hnRNP A1, while nuclear hnRNP A1 binding was unaffected. Nuclear and cytoplasmic hnRNP A1 could be distinguished by the differential sensitivity of their RNA binding to diamide and N-ethylmaleimide. The increase in AUBP activity of cytoplasmic hnRNP A1 following RNA polymerase II inhibition correlated with serine-threonine dephosphorylation, as determined by inhibitor and metabolic labeling studies. Thus, cytoplasmic and nuclear hnRNP A1 exhibit different RNA binding profiles, perhaps transduced through serine-threonine phosphorylation. These findings are relevant to the specific ability of hnRNP A1 to serve distinct roles in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in both the nucleus and cytoplasm.
Synthesis and Transfection Activity of New Cationic Phosphoramidate Lipids: High Efficiency of an Imidazolium Derivative

In an effort to enhance the gene‐transfer efficiencies of cationic lipids and to decrease their toxicities, a series of new phosphoramidate lipids with chemical similarity to cell membrane phospholipids was synthesised. These lipids contained various cationic headgroups, such as arginine methyl ester, lysine methyl ester, homoarginine methyl ester, ethylenediamine, diaminopropane, guanidinium and imidazolium. Their transfection abilities, either alone or with the co‐lipid DOPE, were evaluated in HEK293–T7 cells. We found that imidazolium lipophosphoramidate 7 a/DOPE lipoplexes gave the most efficient transfection with low toxicity (15 %). The luciferase activity was 100 times higher than that obtained with DOTAP/DOPE lipoplexes. The size, ζ potential, pDNA–liposome interactions and cellular uptakes of the lipoplexes were determined. No definitive correlation between the ζ potential values and the transfection efficiencies could be established, but the uptake of lipoplexes by the cells was correlated with their final transfection efficiencies. Our results show that imidazolium phosphoramidate lipids constitute a potential new class of cationic lipids for gene transfer.
Health Benefits and Application of Prebiotics in Foods

Prebiotics are supplements or foods that contain nondigestible food ingredients that selectively stimulate the favourable growth and/or enhance the activities of indigenous probiotic bacteria. Prebiotic therapies have been found to cure gut related diseases such as constipation relief, suppression of diarrhoea, reduction of the risks of osteoporosis, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease associated with dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, obesity, and possibly type 2 diabetes. Fast life style of humans has changed the regular diets which were sufficiently enriched with fibers needed for proper gut work. Prebiotics are special fibers having selective fermenting ingredients that are needed by microbiota of human gut. Human colon is one of the body’s most metabolically active organs because of the presence of microbiota. Lot of work has been done to overcome the problems related to the market foods having low fibre. Thus, this review will focus on the health benefits of prebiotics and their application in foods.
On assessment of shoulder exercise and load-elicited pain in the cervical spine. Biomechanical analysis of load--EMG--methodological studies of pain provoked by extreme position.

Biomechanical analyses of load on locomotor structures are essential parts of physical therapy. Load moments of force, compressive and shear joint forces are associated with the risk of eliciting pain or causing excessive load during work and leisure activities as well as during rehabilitative training exercises. Two common therapeutic exercise movements were analysed with special emphasis on the effects of patient positioning on the load relations. Resistance was provided by an ordinary pulley apparatus. A computerized static model was developed, where positioning angle, pulley cord force and pulley distance could be varied. The best adaptation between the curves for induced load moment about the shoulder joint and maximum isometric muscle moment through joint angles was obtained when the subject during internal rotation exercises sat with the pulley located 40 degrees anterior to, and during external rotation exercises 20 degrees posterior to, a frontal plane through the shoulders at a distance of 1.3 m from the joint. EMG was recorded from the pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi and anterior deltoid muscles during internal rotation exercises, and from infraspinatus, deltoid and trapezius during external rotation. Pectoralis major and infraspinatus were the most active muscles during internal and external rotation respectively. Two methodological studies were made concerning pain provoked by loading joints in maintained extreme positions (i.e. positions at the limit of the motion sector). Sensations of discomfort/pain from healthy elbow and knee joints maintained in an extreme position increased with duration of provocation and decreased slowly after removal of loading weight. Using such joint loadings, a comparison of the Visual Analogue Scale with Borg's category-ratio scale showed that both be can be used for reliable assessments of load-elicited pain intensity. In one study cervical spine extreme position was found to be associated with sitting work postures where the thoraco-lumbar spine was slightly inclined backwards or where the whole spine was flexed. Healthy subjects participated in an experimental study in which a position involving extreme flexion of the lower-cervical-upper-thoracic spine (similar to a common work posture) was maintained. Pain was experienced by all ten subjects within 15 minutes, disappeared 15 minutes after the end of provocation, but was again experienced by nine subjects the same evening or the next morning and lasted up to four days. Neck extensor muscle activity was low. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Anxiety and Extreme Response Preferences

RECENT investigations have demonstrated differences in performance on a number of tasks between Ss receiving extremely high and extremely low scores on the Taylor anxiety Scale (4, 5, 7, 9). One such difference between high and low anxiety groups emerged in a study involving the Perceptual Reaction Test (PRT) developed by W. A. Hunt and I. A. Berg.1 An investigation by Berg and Collier (2) indicated that high and low anxiety groups, defined in terms of extreme scores
Temporal expression pattern of peripheral myelin protein 22 during in vivo and in vitro myelination

Peripheral myelin protein 22 (PMP22) was initially described as a minor component of peripheral myelin. Mutations affecting the PMP22 gene cause demyelinating neuropathies, supporting a role for the protein in PNS myelination. Furthermore, PMP22 carries the L2/HNK‐1 carbohydrate epitope suggesting an adhesion/recognition function. Despite advances in characterizing the PMP22 gene, the specific role(s) of the protein in myelin remains unknown. In this study we determined the temporal expression pattern of PMP22 in comparison to galactocerebroside (GalC) and myelin associated glycoprotein (MAG), early constituents of PNS myelin, and to protein zero (P0) and myelin basic protein (MBP), late components of myelin. In sciatic nerve lysates, PMP22 was detected at postnatal day 3, after MAG, but before MBP expression. The same results were obtained in cocultures of dorsal root ganglion neurons and Schwann cells (SCs). Low levels of PMP22 were found in early, anti‐MAG and anti‐GalC immunoreactive, myelinating cocultures. However, PMP22 could only be detected in the SC plasma membrane after basal lamina formation. In long‐term myelinating cocultures PMP22 levels continued to increase and the protein was found in anti‐P0 and anti‐MBP immunoreactive myelin segments. Furthermore, PMP22, MBP, and P0 protein levels were greatly enhanced by progesterone treatment of the cocultures. The highest levels of PMP22 expression were associated with late stages of myelination; however the presence of the protein in nonmyelinating SCs and in SCs commencing myelination supports multiple roles for PMP22 in peripheral nerve biology. GLIA 25:358–369, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Shape Control of a Hyper-Redundant Arm for Planar Object Manipulation

This paper discusses a method for controlling a hyper-redundant arm to manipulate an object on a plane. The hyper-redundant arm can perform simple whole-arm manipulation by coiling or wrapping around the object and then pulling the object toward the goal position. The process of object manipulation can be separated into two steps: encircling the object and transporting the object. In the process of encircling the object, the arm is controlled by a set of virtual constraints that guide the arm to reach around the object and encircle it, keeping the arm within a specified bound to ensure the circular shape around the object. In the process of transporting the object, a simplified desired shape is generated from a Bézier curve according to a given goal position and the arm geometry. Then, the gradient descent method is used to update the joint angles of the arm at each step to move the arm toward the desired shape until the object reaches its target position. The proposed method has been tested in both simulation and real experiments.
Impact of human resources changes on performance and productivity of Scrum teams

This paper presents results of an analysis of the impact of the human resources changes in Scrum teams. Four Scrum teams were tracked (two developments and two quality assurance) along with their productivity and performance. Analysis showed that human resources changes have a significant impact on the entire team and its behavior. Their effort increased by adding overtime hours. In the same time, their performance and effective work decreased, which is reflected on the quantity of work that can be billed to the client. The analysis shows that it takes, in average, three sprints (each lasting fourteen days) for new team members to fully adjust to the team development process and acquire a business knowledge needed for maximum productivity. Teams whose members have been working together longer period and who have more senior members can adjust to team shifts more quickly. The analysis also showed a correlation between quality assurance and development team - when development team had extra utilization due to overtime, quality assurance team had an increase in overtime hours almost proportionately.
Neurobiology of Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia

In the last decade there has been an exponential increase in studies on neurobiological measures in childhood-onset schizophrenia (COS). There seems to be a consensus that structural changes in COS are more marked than in adolescence-onset (AdOS) or adult-onset schizophrenia (AOS). Atrophy of total brain volume is progressive throughout the course in COS patients unlike later-onset types where it was static. Smaller than normal amounts of regional N-acetylaspartate (NAA) is reported in the hippocampus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in COS. There is non-suppression of primitive reflexes (neurological soft signs) with cortical maturation in patients with COS. COS patients showed significantly greater deficits on scales of IQ, memory and perceptuomotor skills as compared to patients with AdOS and AOS. This review also discusses the various correlations between biological measures and clinical and psychopathological variables.
A Genomewide Functional Network for the Laboratory Mouse

Establishing a functional network is invaluable to our understanding of gene function, pathways, and systems-level properties of an organism and can be a powerful resource in directing targeted experiments. In this study, we present a functional network for the laboratory mouse based on a Bayesian integration of diverse genetic and functional genomic data. The resulting network includes probabilistic functional linkages among 20,581 protein-coding genes. We show that this network can accurately predict novel functional assignments and network components and present experimental evidence for predictions related to Nanog homeobox (Nanog), a critical gene in mouse embryonic stem cell pluripotency. An analysis of the global topology of the mouse functional network reveals multiple biologically relevant systems-level features of the mouse proteome. Specifically, we identify the clustering coefficient as a critical characteristic of central modulators that affect diverse pathways as well as genes associated with different phenotype traits and diseases. In addition, a cross-species comparison of functional interactomes on a genomic scale revealed distinct functional characteristics of conserved neighborhoods as compared to subnetworks specific to higher organisms. Thus, our global functional network for the laboratory mouse provides the community with a key resource for discovering protein functions and novel pathway components as well as a tool for exploring systems-level topological and evolutionary features of cellular interactomes. To facilitate exploration of this network by the biomedical research community, we illustrate its application in function and disease gene discovery through an interactive, Web-based, publicly available interface at http://mouseNET.princeton. edu.
RER, an Evolutionarily Conserved Sequence Upstream of the Rhodopsin Gene, Has Enhancer Activity (*)

Previous transgenic mouse experiments localized the mammalian rhodopsin gene promoter to a region just upstream of the mRNA start site, and also suggested the existence of a second more distal regulatory region. A highly conserved 100-base pair (bp) sequence which is homologous to the red and green opsin locus control region is located 1.5-2 kilobases upstream of the rhodopsin gene (depending on the species). In order to test the activity of this 100-bp region, transgenic mice were generated with bovine rhodopsin promoter/lacZ constructs which differed only by the presence or absence of the sequence. Of 11 lines generated, all demonstrated photoreceptor-specific expression of the transgene, but the lines with the putative regulatory region showed significantly higher expression. Additional transgenic lines in which the region was fused to a minimal heterologous promoter did not show transgene expression in the retina. Gel mobility shift and DNase I footprint assays demonstrated that bovine retinal nuclear extracts contain retina-specific as well as ubiquitously expressed factors that interact with the putative regulatory region in a sequence-specific manner. These results indicate that the 100-bp sequence can indeed function in vivo as a rhodopsin enhancer region.