Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Extrinsic cues orient the cell division axis in Drosophila embryonic neuroblasts

Cell polarity must be integrated with tissue polarity for proper development. The Drosophila embryonic central nervous system (CNS) is a highly polarized tissue; neuroblasts occupy the most apical layer of cells within the CNS, and lie just basal to the neural epithelium. Neuroblasts are the CNS progenitor cells and undergo multiple rounds of asymmetric cell division, `budding off' smaller daughter cells (GMCs) from the side opposite the epithelium, thereby positioning neuronal/glial progeny towards the embryo interior. It is unknown whether this highly stereotypical orientation of neuroblast divisions is controlled by an intrinsic cue (e.g. cortical mark) or an extrinsic cue (e.g. cell-cell signal). Using live imaging and in vitro culture, we find that neuroblasts in contact with epithelial cells always `bud off' GMCs in the same direction, opposite from the epithelia-neuroblast contact site, identical to what is observed in vivo. By contrast, isolated neuroblasts `bud off' GMCs at random positions. Imaging of centrosome/spindle dynamics and cortical polarity shows that in neuroblasts contacting epithelial cells, centrosomes remained anchored and cortical polarity proteins localize at the same epithelia-neuroblast contact site over subsequent cell cycles. In isolated neuroblasts, centrosomes drifted between cell cycles and cortical polarity proteins showed a delay in polarization and random positioning. We conclude that embryonic neuroblasts require an extrinsic signal from the overlying epithelium to anchor the centrosome/centrosome pair at the site of epithelial-neuroblast contact and for proper temporal and spatial localization of cortical Par proteins. This ensures the proper coordination between neuroblast cell polarity and CNS tissue polarity.
Major infectious complications after orthotopic liver transplantation and comparison of outcomes in patients receiving cyclosporine or FK506 as primary immunosuppression.

A retrospective cohort study was conducted to determine the incidence of major infectious complications after orthotopic liver transplantation and to compare outcomes in patients receiving either cyclosporine (CsA) or FK506 (tacrolimus) as primary immunosuppression. Of 133 transplants performed in 118 patients, 124 transplant episodes were evaluated. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection (INF) and disease (DIS), deep fungal infection (DFI), and intraabdominal bacterial infections (IAI) were catalogued. The overall incidences of major infectious outcomes were: CMV INF = 33%; CMV DIS = 19%; DFI = 15%; and IAI = 25%. Cox proportional hazard analysis identified donor seropositivity, OKT3 as secondary immunosuppression and initial intensive care unit (ICU) duration as risk factors for CMV INF and DIS in the overall population. Fungal colonization was the dominant risk factor associated with deep fungal infection. A choledochojejunostomy anastomosis, the number of cellular blood products transfused at the time of transplantation surgery, and prior CMV INF were independent risk factors for both fungal colonization and deep infection. The single risk factor identified for intraabdominal bacterial infections was the number of cellular blood products transfused at the time of surgery. In the Cox proportional hazards model the relative risk (RR) for each category of infection was lower in the FK506 group (CMV: RR = .87, 95% confidence interval [C.I.] = [.32-2.4]; DFI: .58 [.13-2.6]; IAI: .51 [.15-1.7]), but the effect was not statistically significant. Survival was similar in patients receiving FK506 or CsA. CMV INF and DFI were independent predictors of death for all patients. Risk factors identified for CMV INF and DIS support the findings of others. Higher intraoperative blood product requirements and complicated intraoperative or postoperative courses increase the risk for IAI or DFI. The development of effective strategies to prevent CMV and fungal infections in liver transplant recipients remains a priority for future endeavors.
British Youth Transitions in Comparative Perspective

Cohen and Ainley's recent critique of mainstream British youth research programmes with the emphasis on 'transition' prompts a reappraisal. Viewed comparatively, and within the holistic framework offered by life-course theory, youth transitions research offers the means of addressing key theoretical and policy questions about the changing situation of young people. Some methodological cautions needed in the interpretation of comparative youth transition data are given, and the distinctive features of British transitions in the areas of economic and domestic life are discussed, taking account of the historical and cultural base on which they are founded. Finally, recent initiatives to tackle 'youth problems' are considered, especially in relation to engaging young people 'not in education, employment or training', in the mainstream transition process; the first steps towards continental models of comprehensive youth policy and services to support young people are also examined. It is concluded that the changing situation of youth demands more rather than less research on youth transitions within a comparative, holistic and longitudinal research framework.
Effect of a Comprehensive Service-Learning Program on College Students' Civic Responsibility.

This paper assesses the effect of a comprehensive service-learning program on students' level of civic responsibility. A nonequivalent control group experiment was conducted with students from a large, Western university. The results of the multivariate analysis generally supported the hypothesis that students who are involved in a comprehensive service-learning program will show larger increases in civic responsibility when compared to: (1) students involved in community service but who are not formally integrating it with their academic course work, and (2) students who are not involved in any community service.
Learning to advertise

Content-targeted advertising, the task of automatically associating ads to a Web page, constitutes a key Web monetization strategy nowadays. Further, it introduces new challenging technical problems and raises interesting questions. For instance, how to design ranking functions able to satisfy conflicting goals such as selecting advertisements (ads) that are relevant to the users and suitable and profitable to the publishers and advertisers? In this paper we propose a new framework for associating ads with web pages based on Genetic Programming (GP). Our GP method aims at learning functions that select the most appropriate ads, given the contents of a Web page. These ranking functions are designed to optimize overall precision and minimize the number of misplacements. By using a real ad collection and web pages from a newspaper, we obtained a gain over a state-of-the-art baseline method of 61.7% in average precision. Further, by evolving individuals to provide good ranking estimations, GP was able to discover ranking functions that are very effective in placing ads in web pages while avoiding irrelevant ones.
The Framing Project: A Bridging Model for Media Research Revisited

Framing, unlike many more esoteric research concepts, has gained remarkable popularity in both the scholarly literature and the public imagination. As with its often-associated idea of media agenda setting, people intuitively grasp what it conveys, although framing suggests more intentionality on the part of the framer and relates more explicitly to political strategy. As a result, academics such as George Lakoff and Geoffrey Nunberg have found recent visibility as political groups, particularly liberal, try to figure out how they lost the ‘‘framing wars. ’’ Lakoff says that conservatives bend ideas to fit a coherent narrative; Nunberg says that narrative is only rhetorical, providing only the illusion of coherence (Drum, 2006). Thus, even between linguists differences arise as to what to make of framing as a theoretical idea—differences that become wider when played out across other disciplines. The interdisciplinary quality of the communication field has meant a natural diversity of approaches, leading some to urge more effort toward cleaning up the framing paradigm, making it more theoretically respectable and coherent (e.g., Scheufele, 2004). Framing’s value, however, does not hinge on its potential as a unified research domain but, as I have suggested before, as a provocative model that bridges parts of the field that need to be in touch with each other: quantitative and qualitative, empirical and interpretive, psychological and sociological, and academic and professional. If the most interesting happens at the edges of disciplines—and in the center of policy debates—then framing certainly has the potential to bring disciplinary perspectives together in interesting ways. At least, framing alerts researchers to the possibilities available from other perspectives. In that respect, I am in agreement with D’Angelo (2002) that framing is more of a research program than a unified paradigm and that theoretical diversity has been beneficial in developing a comprehensive understanding of the process (if not a consistent terminology). I am not sure, however, how well we have taken advantage of these new possibilities.
Authentication of subjects and devices using biometrics and identity management systems for persuasive mobile computing: A survey paper

With the advances in Information Technology (IT) there has been an increase in threats to the communication systems and its assets. One of the most important issues of all IP networks that integrate wireless and wired technologies is the applicability and performance of the electronic identification and authentication methods. These schemes employ a variety of technologies of different degrees of security. Biometrics technology nowadays is typically considered a security necessity, tightly coupled with the foundation of highly secure identification and authentication solutions. This article provides a short survey on different types of authentication and identity management systems. It attempts to describe a summary of related works including some of the latest schemes in face and fingerprint recognition. With a better understanding of electronic authentication techniques any organization can properly select and utilize the technologies which meet its needs.
Hepatotoxicity Induced by Herbal and Dietary Supplements

Abstract Herbals and dietary supplements (HDS) can cause hepatotoxicity. Regulation of HDS varies across the globe. In the United States, it is defined by a law that is now two decades old. More recent regulatory approaches in Europe still do not require testing for premarket safety. The true incidence of hepatotoxicity from HDS is unknown. The presentation is most often with a hepatocellular enzyme pattern, and the outcomes can be severe, leading to transplantation in some circumstances. The diagnosis of hepatotoxicity due to HDS is made in the same way as for drugs. However, patients often must be coaxed into revealing a history of use. No causality assessment approach is perfectly suited for hepatotoxicity from HDS, but the Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method is most used. Future endeavors must focus on defining epidemiology, establishing an accepted nomenclature, and identifying culprit ingredients, predisposing host factors, and useful biomarkers for injury.
Visual Feedback Control of Hand Movements

We investigated what visual information contributes to on-line control of hand movements. It has been suggested that motion information predominates early in movements but that position information predominates for endpoint control. We used a perturbation method to determine the relative contributions of motion and position information to feedback control. Subjects reached to touch targets in a dynamic virtual environment in which subjects viewed a moving virtual fingertip in place of their own finger. On some trials, we perturbed the virtual fingertip while it moved behind an occluder. Subjects responded to perturbations that selectively altered either motion or position information, indicating that both contribute to feedback control. Responses to perturbations that changed both motion and position information were consistent with superimposed motion-based and position-based control. Results were well fit by a control model that optimally integrates noisy, delayed sensory feedback about both motion and position to estimate hand state.
A profile of functionally impaired elderly persons living in the community

The Health Care Financing Administration, in cooperation with other agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services, conducted surveys in 1982 and 1984 designed to develop a better understanding of the number and circumstances of functionally impaired elderly persons living in the community. This report is based on data from the 1982 Long-Term Care Survey. There were approximately 5 million functionally impaired elderly persons living in the community in 1982. The data show that functionally impaired persons in the community are older, are more often female, have lower incomes, and have a larger proportion of black people than the general elderly population. The data also provide baseline information on what functional impairments are prevalent among them, what means they use to cope with the limitations, and from whom they receive help. The baseline data gathered in 1982 will be supplemented by longitudinal data gathered in the 1984 Long-Term Care Survey.
La intervención académica en la construcción de una sociedad con calidad: análisis del valor agregado en el proceso formativo colombiano

Este articulo presenta una propuesta metodologica basada en la prueba de porcentaje de efectividad maxima, tendiente a estimar el valor agregado existente en la diferencia entre los desempenos relativos de los estudiantes colombianos antes y despues de un proceso formativo, tomando como referente las pruebas estatales Saber11 y SaberPRO, y haciendo un analisis comparativo por regiones. Se pone de manifiesto una serie de situaciones que evidencian la gran heterogeneidad, y en muchos casos disparidad, de las regiones y de los departamentos que las conforman, especialmente en el desarrollo de las competencias interpretativas, argumentativas y propositivas de sus estudiantes, con la intencion de analizar la posible existencia o no de un nivel academico estudiantil predestinado, asociado a dichas pruebas.
The learner's voice: exploring bilingual children's selective language use and perceptions of minority language competence

Previous studies have demonstrated how primary-school-aged children learning a minority language at school revert to the use of their dominant L1 in peer–peer situations, both within and outside the classroom. Identifying the cause of this pattern is central to language policy strategies and initiatives across many minority language regions, and requires a consideration of the pupil's own perceptions on the issue. This study examined the views of 98 primary-school-aged children attending schools in four counties of Wales. All children were from English-dominant homes and between the ages of 8 and 11. All children attended schools that taught predominantly through the medium of Welsh. Their attitudes towards speaking and using Welsh and English, their beliefs about the linguistic opportunities afforded to them at school, and their perceptions of their own linguistic abilities were collected via questionnaires and focus group interviews. Whilst their attitudes towards Welsh and English were generally positive, their perceptions of the opportunities to use Welsh in a supportive and sympathetic context, and their own perceptions of their linguistic abilities in Welsh, varied across the different counties in Wales. The implications of the findings, particularly in relation to effective language policy strategies in minority language contexts, are discussed.
Resting state functional connectivity predicts neurofeedback response

Tailoring treatments to the specific needs and biology of individual patients—personalized medicine—requires delineation of reliable predictors of response. Unfortunately, these have been slow to emerge, especially in neuropsychiatric disorders. We have recently described a real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI) neurofeedback protocol that can reduce contamination-related anxiety, a prominent symptom of many cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Individual response to this intervention is variable. Here we used patterns of brain functional connectivity, as measured by baseline resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI), to predict improvements in contamination anxiety after neurofeedback training. Activity of a region of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and anterior prefrontal cortex, Brodmann area (BA) 10, associated with contamination anxiety in each subject was measured in real time and presented as a neurofeedback signal, permitting subjects to learn to modulate this target brain region. We have previously reported both enhanced OFC/BA 10 control and improved anxiety in a group of subclinically anxious subjects after neurofeedback. Five individuals with contamination-related OCD who underwent the same protocol also showed improved clinical symptomatology. In both groups, these behavioral improvements were strongly correlated with baseline whole-brain connectivity in the OFC/BA 10, computed from rs-fMRI collected several days prior to neurofeedback training. These pilot data suggest that rs-fMRI can be used to identify individuals likely to benefit from rt-fMRI neurofeedback training to control contamination anxiety.
Rittberger, V. and Zürn, M. Regime Theory: Findings from the Study of "East-West Regimes". Cooperation and Conflict, XXVI, 1991, 165-183

This article focuses on the institutionalization of conflict management in specific issue areas through international regimes. Regime analysis is usually carried out within a model of international relations emphasizing (i) the ubiquity of conflicts, i.e. incompatible differences in positions as regards an object of contention, (ii) the plurality of motivations driving international politics, and (iii) the varying role of norms guiding international behavior. Against this common background regime analysts have achieved consensus on some important issues but some weaknesses remain. One of them concerns the lack of integration of different hypotheses about regime formation stemming from different approaches. Thus, the explanatory power of the various approaches is examined by confronting them with the evidence from the case studies carried out in a multi-year project on "East-West Regimes". A focus on deviant cases suggests that using a conflict typology allows for the development of conditional hypotheses which provides first hints about an appropriate way of integrating hypotheses on regime formation. Another weakness of regime analysis concerns the lack of evidence supporting the claim that international regimes do matter. Yet, in this article it is shown that international regimes have fostered peace in Europe. This supports the "neo-institutional" interpretation of the stable OECD peace. Democracy may be a sufficient condition for the absence of war between liberal democracies. However, a really stable peace presupposes a web of regulated conflict management across issue areas. This conclusion is reached by arguing that East—West regimes have been resilient against deterioration in the overall relationship and facilitated conflict resolution to some extent.
Speech Recognition and Communication Outcomes With Cochlear Implantation in Usher Syndrome Type 3

Background Usher syndrome Type 3 (USH3) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by variable type and degree of progressive sensorineural hearing loss and retinitis pigmentosa. Cochlear implants are widely used among these patients. Objectives To evaluate the results and benefits of cochlear implantation in patients with USH3. Study Design A nationwide multicenter retrospective review. Materials and Methods During the years 1995–2005, in 5 Finnish university hospitals, 19 patients with USH3 received a cochlear implant. Saliva samples were collected to verify the USH3 genotype. Patients answered to 3 questionnaires: Glasgow Benefit Inventory, Glasgow Health Status Inventory, and a self-made questionnaire. Audiological data were collected from patient records. Results All the patients with USH3 in the study were homozygous for the Finnish major mutation (p.Y176X). Either they had severe sensorineural hearing loss or they were profoundly deaf. The mean preoperative hearing level (pure-tone average, 0.5–4 kHz) was 110 ± 8 dB hearing loss (HL) and the mean aided hearing level was 58 ± 11 dB HL. The postoperative hearing level (34 ± 9 dB HL) and word recognition scores were significantly better than before surgery. According to the Glasgow Benefit Inventory scores and Glasgow Health Status Inventory data related to hearing, the cochlear implantation was beneficial to patients with USH3. Conclusion Cochlear implantation is beneficial to patients with USH3, and patients learn to use the implant without assistance.
Self-management for neural dynamics in brain-like information processing

Neural dynamics coupled by adaptive synaptic information transmission provide a very powerful tool for biologically inspired visual processing systems[4]. Currently, progress is limited by the computing time needed to evaluate the underlying equations and by the high number of parameters necessary to tune to achieve the desired system performance. In this contribution we apply Autonomic Computing techniques to overcome these limitations. We approach the computing time problem with an error model of the differential equations allowing for self-optimization of the evaluation step size and the parameter problem with a self-configuration heuristics to keep neural activation in working range. We show the equivalence of system behavior compared to the case without self-management, the performance gain achieved by the self-optimization and the stability achieved by the self-configuration.