Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Galactoxylomannan Does Not Exhibit Cross-Reactivity in the Platelia Aspergillus Enzyme Immunoassay

ABSTRACT Given the recent report of a false-positive result in the Platelia Aspergillus enzyme immunoassay in a patient with cryptococcosis and in yeast extracts and purified galactoxylomannan of Cryptococcus neoformans, we evaluated culture extracts, purified polysaccharides, clinical specimens, and specimens from animals following experimental infection. Our results revealed no cross-reactions.
TDP‐43 is recruited to stress granules in conditions of oxidative insult

Transactive response DNA‐binding protein 43 (TDP‐43) forms abnormal ubiquitinated and phosphorylated inclusions in brain tissues from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration. TDP‐43 is a DNA/RNA‐binding protein involved in RNA processing, such as transcription, pre‐mRNA splicing, mRNA stabilization and transport to dendrites. We found that in response to oxidative stress and to environmental insults of different types TDP‐43 is capable to assemble into stress granules (SGs), ribonucleoprotein complexes where protein synthesis is temporarily arrested. We demonstrated that a specific aminoacidic interval (216–315) in the C‐terminal region and the RNA‐recognition motif 1 domain are both implicated in TDP‐43 participation in SGs as their deletion prevented the recruitment of TDP‐43 into SGs. Our data show that TDP‐43 is a specific component of SGs and not of processing bodies, although we proved that TDP‐43 is not necessary for SG formation, and its gene silencing does not impair cell survival during stress. The analysis of spinal cord tissue from ALS patients showed that SG markers are not entrapped in TDP‐43 pathological inclusions. Although SGs were not evident in ALS brains, we speculate that an altered control of mRNA translation in stressful conditions may trigger motor neuron degeneration at early stages of the disease.
PENGEMBANGAN MODEL KINERJA PEMASARAN MELALUI ORIENTASI PEMBELAJARAN DAN KETRAMPILAN PADA USAHA MEBEL DI KLATEN

Usaha kecil dan Menengah / UKM merupakan tumpuan utama pemerintah dalam menciptakan lapangan kerja baru terutama setelah krisis ekonomi yang terjadi beberapa tahun terakhir. Usaha kecil dan usaha rumah tangga di Indonesia memainkan peranan penting menyerap tenaga kerja. Perusahaan mebel di klaten semakin berkembang dan tumbuh pesat seiring dengan permintaan yang meningkat. Tujuan penelitian dalam jangka panjang dapat menciptakan tenaga kerja yang lebih baik/berkualitas, dengan meningkatkan ketrampilan dari proses belajar, sehingga melahirkan ide-ide kreatif membuat produk yang inovatif, akhirnya meningkatkan kinerja pemasaran. Hasil penelitian dapat disimpulkan : Orientasi pembelajaran generatif antara lain pembelajaran berdasar pengalaman, cukup mampu memiliki pengalaman dari orang lain, dari karyawan, dari pelanggan, melihat pameran ; sedang mampu mengatasi resiko, antara lain cukup mampu mengatasi resiko dalam membuat produk, mencari bahan yang berkualitas, dengan meningkatkan ketrampilan , dengan mengatur keuangan yang benar ; kemudian meningkatkan ketrampilan antara lain cukup mampu : meningkatkan ketrampilan berasal dari sesama karyawan, berasal dari pelathan , dengan memberi tanggung jawab penuh pada karyawan , dengan cara mendatangkan tenaga ahli, dengan melatih karyawan oleh karyawan yang lebih senior, Kinerja Pemasaran terdiri dari indikator peningkatan volume penjualan disebabkan karena : permintaan mebel bertambah, pelayanan yang lebih baik, banyaknya variasi harga, sedsang pertumbuhan pelanggan meningkat karena : masyarakat semakin menyenangi mebel, mebel menarik dipandang, mebel awet penggunaanya, kemudian jumlah pelanggan meningkat karena : mengadakan pameran, melakukan promosi, memberi discount, dan memberi hadiah
Rechallenge with clozapine following leucopenia or neutropenia during previous therapy

Background Further treatment with clozapine is contraindicated in any patient who has previously experienced leucopenia or neutropenia during clozapine therapy. Aims To investigate the results of such a rechallenge in 53 patients. Method An analysis was made of the demographic, haematological and outcome data of patients in the UK and Ireland who were rechallenged with clozapine following leucopenia or neutropenia during previous clozapine therapy. Results Of 53 patients who were rechallenged, 20 (38%) experienced a further blood dyscrasia. In 17 of these 20 patients (85%) the second blood dyscrasia was more severe(P<0.001), in 12(60%) it lasted longer (P=0.0368) and in 17 (85%) it occurred more quickly on rechallenge (P<0.001). Of the original 53 patients, 55% (29 patients) are still receiving clozapine. Conclusions No clear risk factor for repeat blood dyscrasias was identified. Despite this, after risks and benefits have been considered, rechallenge may well be justified in some patients.
Neurocognitive Functioning in Overweight and Obese Patients with Bipolar Disorder: Data from the Systematic Treatment Optimization Program for Early Mania (STOP-EM)

Objective: Obesity is frequent in people with bipolar I disorder (BD I) and has a major impact on the course of the illness. Although obesity negatively influences cognitive function in patients with BD, its impact in the early phase of the disorder is unknown. We investigated the impact of overweight and obesity on cognitive functioning in clinically stable patients with BD recently recovered from their first manic episode. Method: Sixty-five patients with BD (25 overweight or obese and 40 normal weight) recently remitted from a first episode of mania and 37 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects (9 overweight or obese and 28 normal weight) were included in this analysis from the Systematic Treatment Optimization Program for Early Mania (commonly referred to as STOP-EM). All subjects had their cognitive function assessed using a standard neurocognitive battery. We compared cognitive function between normal weight patients, overweight-obese patients, and normal weight healthy control subjects. Results: There was a negative affect of BD diagnosis on the domains of attention, verbal memory, nonverbal memory, working memory, and executive function, but we were unable to find an additional effect of weight on cognitive functioning in patients. There was a trend for a negative correlation between body mass index and nonverbal memory in the patient group. Conclusions: These data suggest that overweight-obesity does not negatively influence cognitive function early in the course of BD. Given that there is evidence for a negative impact of obesity later in the course of illness, there may be an opportunity to address obesity early in the course of BD.
The European Social Forum and the Internet: a case of communications networks and collective action

Distinguished by its transnational scale, non-hierarchical organizing, and diverse composition, the 'movement for alternative globalization' is thought to partly derive this combination of characteristics from its use of the internet. My research is an attempt to explore this relationship by investigating the use of email lists for the preparation of the European Social Forum (ESF) in London in October 2004, one of the largest gatherings of the movement in Europe. Focusing on the processes of organizing, decision-making and collective identity formation, my study employed a combination of methods, including a preliminary survey, in-depth interviews, as. well as content analysis of the main ESF email lists. In terms of organizing, my thesis revealed that email lists are instrumental in constructing a flexible and polycentric organizing structure. They were also used extensively to widen up participation to the face-to-face organizing meetings, but also to legitimate the decision-making system and conceal its asymmetries of power. Furthermore, every list constituted a different 'site of identization' whose affordances for identity construction depended on its size, scale, and composition. In that respect, email lists constituted an infrastructure for the development of multiple identities within the movement. However, the lack of physical proximity and the limited capacity for conveying emotive content constrained the potential of email lists to foster relationships of trust and shared opinions which were instead facilitated by face-to-face communication. Overall, my thesis has identified a series of mechanisms and dynamics whose point of equilibrium determines the state of the movement at any point in time. In that respect, email and email lists tend to foster opening, divergence, multiplicity, and individuality, while face-to-face communication tends to generate closing, convergence, unity, and collectiveness. It is therefore the combination of these two forms of communication that helps the movement to have seemingly contrasting characteristics: to be united in difference or to be a collective that affirms individual subjectivity. However, my study has further shown that the capacity of the internet to foster such dynamics also depends on the specific cultures of organizing, political priorities, and ideological backgrounds of the people using it.
Modeling of High Performance 4H-SiC Emitter Coupled Logic Circuits

SiC, a wide band gap semiconductor, is capable of robust operation at temperatures well above 600°C. SiC bipolar transistors are well suited for applications at high temperatures as, unlike MOSFET, it does not have a critical gate oxide, and hence oxide reliability at high temperatures is not an issue. In this paper, the design of optimized emitter coupled logic technology circuits using 4H-SiC bipolar transistors is presented. The circuits work over a wide range of temperatures and power supply voltages at high speeds, demonstrating the potential of robust high speed ECL integrated circuits in SiC for small-scale logic applications.
Extended Phylogeny of the Equine Arteritis Virus Sequences Including South American Sequences

Objective: To perform genetic analysis of the ORF5 of equine arteritis virus (EAV) may provide new insights into the genetic evolution and origin of the Argentinean EAV sequences. Methods: A total of 76 sequences were analyzed by neighbor joining (NJ), maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood algorithms. The analysis of the selective pressures was performed using the Tajima’s test. Results: The trees showed similar topologies. Two clades were identified: the first clade was formed by strains isolated mainly from a donkey, whereas the second clade presented four large groups from different geographic regions exclusively from Equus caballus. In this clade, we identified a group formed by South African and another one by South American and European sequences. In the latter, the monophyletic group was formed by seven Argentinean sequences. In the NJ tree, we identified a group formed by six Argentinean sequences. The Tajima’s test showed a D value of 1.73663, indicating that the sequences analyzed follow a neutral evolution model. Conclusion: We concluded that the Argentinean sequences have a paraphyletic origin and that the fixation of point mutation might follow the neutral model evolution; however, we identified purifying pressures that may be involved in the differentiation of the EAV sequences.
Testing a dynamic account of neural processing: Behavioral and electrophysiological studies of semantic satiation

Title of Document: TESTING A DYNAMIC ACCOUNT OF NEURAL PROCESSING: BEHAVIORAL AND ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF SEMANTIC SATIATION Xing Tian, Ph.D., 2008 Directed By: Professor Michael Dougherty, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland In everyday perception, we easily and automatically identify objects. However, there is evidence that this ability results from complicated interactions between levels of perception. An example of hierarchical perception is accessing the meaning of visually presented words through the identification of line segments, letters, lexical entries, and meaning. Studies of word reading demonstrate a dynamic course to identification, producing benefits following brief presentations (excitation) but deficits following longer presentations (habituation). This dissertation investigates hierarchical perception and the role of transient excitatory and habituation dynamics through behavioral and neural studies of word reading. More specifically, the effect of interest is ‘semantic satiation’, which refers to the gradual loss of meaning when repeating a word. The reported studies test the hypothesis that habituation occurs in the associations between levels. As applied to semantic satiation, this theory supposes that there is not a loss of meaning, but, rather, an inability to access meaning from a repeated word. This application was tested in three behavioral experiments using a speeded matching task, demonstrating that meaning is lost when accessing the meaning of a repeated category label, but is not lost when accessing the category through new exemplars, or when the matching task is changed to simple word matching. To model these results, it is assumed that speeded matching results from detection of novel meaning to the target word after presentation of the cue word. This model was tested by examining neural dynamics with MEG recordings. As predicted by semantic satiation through loss of association, repeated cue words produced smaller M170 responses. M400 responses to the cue also diminished, as expected by a hierarchy in which lower levels drive higher levels. If the M400 corresponds to the post-lexical detection of new meaning, this model predicted that the M400 to targets following repeated cues would increase. This unique prediction was confirmed. These results were tested using a new method of analyzing MEG data that can differentiate between response magnitude versus differences in activity patterns. By considering hierarchical perception and processing dynamics, this work presents a new understanding of transient habituation and a new interpretation of electrophysiological data. TESTING A DYNAMIC ACCOUNT OF NEURAL PROCESSING: BEHAVIORAL AND ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF SEMANTIC SATIATION
Urinary Phthalate Metabolites and Biomarkers of Reproductive Function in Young Men

Background: High exposure to phthalates, which are ubiquitous contaminants, has been shown in animal studies to produce detrimental effects on male reproductive functions. A recent study in humans reported dose–response relations between low phthalate levels in urine and human semen parameters, which raises the question whether humans are more sensitive to phthalate exposure than animals. Methods: Urine, serum, and semen samples were collected from 234 young Swedish men at the time of their medical conscript examination. Semen volume, sperm concentration, and motility were measured, together with sperm chromatin integrity (sperm chromatin structure assay) and biochemical markers of epididymal and prostatic function. We analyzed reproductive hormones in serum, and mono ethyl phthalate (MEP), mono ethylhexyl phthaltale (MEHP), mono benzyl phthalate (MBzP), mono butyl phthalate (MBP), and phthalic acid in urine. Results: For MBP, MBzP, and MEHP, no clear pattern of associations were observed with any of the reproductive biomarkers. Subjects within the highest quartile for MEP had fewer motile sperm (mean difference = 8.8%; 95% confidence interval = 0.8–17), more immotile sperms (8.9%; 0.3–18), and lower luteinizing hormone values (0.7 IU/L; 0.1–1.2), but there was no suggestion of harmful effects for most other endpoints. Phthalic acid actually was associated with improved function, as measured by several markers. Conclusions: The observed weak associations between 1 phthalate biomarker and impairment of a few aspects of reproductive function biomarkers were not consistent with results from a recent U.S. study. It is not yet possible to conclude whether phthalate exposure may reflect a hazard for human male reproduction.
The Volunteer Satisfaction Index

Abstract This study proposes and tests the Volunteer Satisfaction Index (VSI), a multi-faceted measure of job satisfaction specifically applicable to organizations which rely predominantly upon volunteer workers. Working within a framework differentiating paid from unpaid work environments, relevant literature was reviewed in order to develop the VSI. Using intent to remain as the dependent variable, the validity of the VSI was tested using a population of 327 volunteers. Factor analysis yielded four dimensions of volunteer job satisfaction: organizational support, participation efficacy, empowerment, and group integration. Regression results indicated that participation efficacy and group integration were significantly correlated with volunteer satisfaction and are predictors of intent to remain. Reliability and validity of the VSI were supported.
Turning history into culture

The central premise of this essay is that literature is one of the realms of epistemology that should not, and actually cannot, be discussed in opposition with science, simply because they are two parallel ways of articulating human experience into coherent forms. Structured at the intersection of philosophy, aesthetics, semiotics and sociology, the article is an attempt to reveal the particular way in which the narrative discourse assimilates and restores experience, so that the text becomes the space within which ‘the museum’ of humanity is perpetually reassessed and invested with new significance. This ‘bringing back to life’ of the museum, with its trajectory from explanation to comprehension, from syntactic to hermeneutic relations, from iconology to archaeology, and from rigid patterns to flexible frames, reveals more subtle relations between ontology and epistemology, offering a more adequate perspective on our own ambiguity as cultural beings.
On Learning with Label Proportions

Learning from Label Proportions (LLP) is a learning setting, where the training data is provided in groups, or"bags", and only the proportion of each class in each bag is known. The task is to learn a model to predict the class labels of the individual instances. LLP has broad applications in political science, marketing, healthcare, and computer vision. This work answers the fundamental question, when and why LLP is possible, by introducing a general framework, Empirical Proportion Risk Minimization (EPRM). EPRM learns an instance label classifier to match the given label proportions on the training data. Our result is based on a two-step analysis. First, we provide a VC bound on the generalization error of the bag proportions. We show that the bag sample complexity is only mildly sensitive to the bag size. Second, we show that under some mild assumptions, good bag proportion prediction guarantees good instance label prediction. The results together provide a formal guarantee that the individual labels can indeed be learned in the LLP setting. We discuss applications of the analysis, including justification of LLP algorithms, learning with population proportions, and a paradigm for learning algorithms with privacy guarantees. We also demonstrate the feasibility of LLP based on a case study in real-world setting: predicting income based on census data.
The adaptive evolution of virulence: a review of theoretical predictions and empirical tests

SUMMARY Why is it that some parasites cause high levels of host damage (i.e. virulence) whereas others are relatively benign? There are now numerous reviews of virulence evolution in the literature but it is nevertheless still difficult to find a comprehensive treatment of the theory and data on the subject that is easily accessible to non-specialists. Here we attempt to do so by distilling the vast theoretical literature on the topic into a set of relatively few robust predictions. We then provide a comprehensive assessment of the available empirical literature that tests these predictions. Our results show that there have been some notable successes in integrating theory and data but also that theory and empiricism in this field do not ‘speak’ to each other very well. We offer a few suggestions for how the connection between the two might be improved.
Mechanisms of the HRSL3 tumor suppressor function in ovarian carcinoma cells

HRSL3 (also known as H-REV107-1) belongs to a class II tumor suppressor gene family and is downregulated in several human tumors including ovarian carcinomas. To unravel the mechanism of HRSL3 tumor suppressor action, we performed a yeast two-hybrid screen and identified the α-isoform of the regulatory subunit A of protein phosphatase 2A (PR65α) as a new interaction partner of HRSL3. Interaction between HRSL3 and PR65α was confirmed in vitro and by co-immunoprecipitation in mammalian cells. We demonstrate that HRSL3 binds to the endogenous PR65α, thereby partially sequestering the catalytic subunit PR36 from the PR65 protein complex, and inhibiting PP2A catalytic activity. Furthermore, binding of HRSL3 to PR65 induces apoptosis in ovarian carcinoma cells in a caspase-dependent manner. Using several mutant HRSL3 constructs, we identified the N-terminal proline-rich region within the HRSL3 protein as the domain that is relevant for both binding of PR65α and induction of programmed cell death. This suggests that the negative impact of HRSL3 onto PP2A activity is important for the HRSL3 pro-apoptotic function and indicates a role of PP2A in survival of human ovarian carcinomas. The analysis of distinct PP2A target molecules revealed PKCζ as being involved in HRSL3 action. These data implicate HRSL3 as a signaling regulatory molecule, which is functionally involved in the oncogenic network mediating growth and survival of ovarian cancer cells.
Investigating a Computerised Test of the Stroop Effect Extended by Inclusion of a Third, More Difficult Task

A validation study of a computerised test recently developed involving the Stroop effect, extended here by inclusion of a third, more difficult test series, is presented. Three groups of men belonging to the Swedish armed forces and adjudged to differ in their qualifications (20, 32, and 19 men of levels 1, 2, and 3, respectively) and a fourth group of 18 men convicted of serious crimes of violence were given this test, termed the Stress Strategy Test. Discriminant analysis of the test's 12 variables (four for each of the three test series) yielded a discriminant power of 65% for the total group, highest for the level 1 group (80%) and for the nonmilitary group (72%), results substantially better than obtained for the original version of the test with use of similar subject groups.
Sparse Representation-Based Approach for Unsupervised Feature Selection

Dimension reduction methods including feature selection and feature extraction have played an important role in data mining and pattern recognition. In this study, we propose a novel unsupervised feature selection approach based on sparse representation theory, namely Sparsity Score (SS). Due to the sparse representation procedure, SS not only owns the global property of Variance Score (VS) and the local property of Laplacian Score (LS), but also possesses the discriminating nature. Experimental results, based on three well-known face datasets (Yale, ORL and CMU PIE), reveal that SS performs well in the evaluation of the feature significance, and it significantly outperforms VS and LS.
Learning process for nonstationary filtering network using genetic algorithms

In the paper a concept of nonstationary network consisted of 1st order elements is presented. Research in order to approximate the assumed frequency response using the filtering network were conducted. Learning the network was achieved by minimizing the assumed error function using genetic algorithms. Introducing time function in place of time constant reduced the duration of the transition processes.