Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhanced podocalyxin expression alters the structure of podocyte basal surface

Glomerular basement membrane (GBM) and podocalyxin are essential for podocyte morphology. We provide evidence of functional interconnections between basement membrane components (collagen IV and laminin), the expression of podocalyxin and the morphology of human glomerular epithelial cells (podocytes). We demonstrated that GBM and laminin, but not collagen IV, up-regulated the expression of podocalyxin. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that laminin induced a modified morphology of podocytes with process formation, which was more extensive in the presence of GBM. Under high magnification, podocytes appeared ruffled. Using transmission electron microscopy we observed that raised areas occurred in the basal cell surface. Furthermore, the presence of anti-podocalyxin antibody increased the extent of adhesion and spreading of podocytes to both collagen IV and laminin, thus podocalyxin apparently inhibits cell-matrix interactions. We also performed adhesion and spreading assays on podocytes grown under increased glucose concentration (25 mM). Under these conditions, the expression of podocalyxin was almost totally suppressed. The cells adhered and spread to basement membrane components but there was no increase in the extent of adhesion and spreading in the presence of anti-podocalyxin antibody, or ruffling of the cell edges. Additionally, in podocytes expressing podocalyxin, the presence of anti-podocalyxin antibody partially reversed the inhibition of adhesion to collagen IV provoked by anti-β1 integrin antibody, thus podocalyxin should compete with β1-related cell adhesion. We suggest that the observed podocalyxin-mediated inhibition of binding to the matrix could be in part responsible for the specialized conformation of the basal surface of podocytes.
Nitric Oxide and the Cerebral Circulation

Background Nitric oxide (NO) is a potent vasodilator that was initially described as the mediator of endothelium-depen- dent relaxation (endothelium-derived relaxing factor, EDRF). It is now known that NO is produced by a variety of other cell types. Summary of Review Endothelium produces NO (EDRF) under basal conditions and in response to a variety of vasoactive stimuli in large cerebral arteries and the cerebral micro- circulation. Endothelium-dependent relaxation is impaired in the presence of several pathophysiological conditions. This impairment may contribute to cerebral ischemia or stroke. Activation of glutamate receptors appears to be a major stimulus for production of NO by neurons. Neuronally derived NO may mediate local increases in cerebral blood flow during increases in cerebral metabolism. NO synthase-containing neurons also innervate large cerebral arteries and cerebral arterioles on the brain surface. Activation of parasympathetic fibers that innervate cerebral vessels produces NO-dependent increases in cerebral blood flow. Increases in cerebral blood flow during hypercapnia also appear to be dependent on production of NO. Astrocytes may release some NO constitutively, but astrocytes and microglia can release relatively large quantities of NO after induction of NO synthase in response to endotoxin or some cytokines. Expression of inducible NO synthase, perhaps in response to local production of cytokines, may exert cytotoxic effects in brain during or after ischemia. Conclusions Because endothelium, neurons, and glia can all produce NO in response to some stimuli, the influence of NO on the cerebral circulation appears to be very important. Under normal conditions, constitutively produced NO influences basal cerebral vascular tone and mediates vascular responses to a diverse group of stimuli. The inducible form of NO synthase produces much greater amounts of NO that may be an important mediator of cytotoxicity in brain.
Compact Optical Add-Drop Multiplexers With Parent-Sub Ring Resonators on SOI Substrates

A four-channel integrated optical add/drop multiplexer is experimentally demonstrated on a silicon-on-insulator substrate. With the help of a parent-sub microring resonator structure, compact footprint, large free spectral range, and uniform channel spacing are achieved simultaneously. Through controlling the resonance matching between the parent and sub-rings through thermo-optic effect, each channel can be switched independently between the states of dropping and passing through. The thermal tuning efficiency is as high as 0.27 nm/mW. Typically, for dropping state, all four channels can be de-multiplexed to the drop ports with 2 dB drop loss, 18 dB through port extinction, and less than -20 dB channel crosstalk.
Developing Operator Capacity Estimates for Supervisory Control of Autonomous Vehicles

Objective: This study examined operators' capacity to successfully reallocate highly autonomous in-flight missiles to time-sensitive targets while performing secondary tasks of varying complexity. Background: Regardless of the level of autonomy for unmanned systems, humans will be necessarily involved in the mission planning, higher level operation, and contingency interventions, otherwise known as human supervisory control. As a result, more research is needed that addresses the impact of dynamic decision support systems that support rapid planning and replanning in time-pressured scenarios, particularly on operator workload. Method: A dual screen simulation that allows a single operator the ability to monitor and control 8, 12, or 16 missiles through high level replanning was tested on 42 U.S. Navy personnel. Results: The most significant finding was that when attempting to control 16 missiles, participants' performance on three separate objective performance metrics and their situation awareness were significantly degraded. Conclusion: These results mirror studies of air traffic control that demonstrate a similar decline in performance for controllers managing 17 aircraft as compared with those managing only 10 to 11 aircraft. Moreover, the results suggest that a 70% utilization (percentage busy time) score is a valid threshold for predicting significant performance decay and could be a generalizable metric that can aid in manning predictions. Application: This research is relevant to human supervisory control of networked military and commercial unmanned vehicles in the air, on the ground, and on and under the water.
An Investigation of Software Development Activities among Undergraduate Students: A Case Study

Computer programming offered in universities is intended to prepare and provide undergraduate students not only with technical knowledge, but with essential skills to work in real-life software projects. Unfortunately, in most developing countries, programming is hard, faced with insufficient infrastructures and teaching staffs. In spite of these challenges, most undergraduate students never back down. They are increasingly developing software applications and improving their skills even without formal classes. But software intended for use other than by the developer requires teamwork and the application of software engineering methodology. Therefore, our concern is on how they learn their programming and what development methodology they apply to ensure product quality. This paper then investigates how and why they learn their programming and their knowledge of software quality. We conducted a survey on undergraduate students of Computer Science (CS) in University of Venda (UNIVEN) who are developers. The data collected were analyzed and qualitatively presented. Our results show that students consider online reuse codes as the new and best method to learn programming. Furthermore, they have used development methodology and are mindful of the software quality.
The tyrosine‐based lysosomal targeting signal in lamp‐1 mediates sorting into Golgi‐derived clathrin‐coated vesicles.

Diversion of membrane proteins from the trans‐Golgi network (TGN) or the plasma membrane into the endosomal system occurs via clathrin‐coated vesicles (CCVs). These sorting events may require the interaction of cytosolic domain signals with clathrin adaptor proteins (APs) at the TGN (AP‐1) or the plasma membrane (AP‐2). While tyrosine‐ and di‐leucine‐based signals in several proteins mediate endocytosis via cell surface CCVs, segregation into Golgi‐derived CCVs has so far only been documented for the mannose 6‐phosphate receptors, where it is thought to require a casein kinase II phosphorylation site adjacent to a di‐leucine motif. Although recently tyrosine‐based signals have also been shown to interact with the mu chain of AP‐1 in vitro, it is not clear if these signals also bind intact AP‐1 adaptors, nor if they can mediate sorting of proteins into AP‐1 CCVs. Here we show that the cytosolic domain of the lysosomal membrane glycoprotein lamp‐1 binds AP‐1 and AP‐2. Furthermore, lamp‐1 is present in AP‐1‐positive vesicles and tubules in the trans‐region on the Golgi complex. AP‐1 binding as well as localization to AP‐1 CCVs require the presence of the functional tyrosine‐based lysosomal targeting signal of lamp‐1. These results indicate that lamp‐1 can exit the TGN in CCVs and that tyrosine signals can mediate these sorting events.
The trackball controller: improving the analog stick

Two groups of participants (novice and advanced) completed a study comparing a prototype game controller to a standard game controller for point-select tasks. The prototype game controller replaces the right analog stick of a standard game controller (used for pointing and camera control) with a trackball. We used Fitts' law as per ISO 9241--9 to evaluate the pointing performance of both controllers. In the novice group, the trackball controller's throughput was 2.69 bps -- 60.1% higher than the 1.68 bps observed for the standard controller. In the advanced group the trackball controller's throughput was 3.19 bps -- 58.7% higher than the 2.01 bps observed for the standard controller. Although the trackball controller performed better in terms of throughput, pointer path was more direct with the standard controller.
A constant affinity threshold for T cell tolerance

T cell tolerance depends on the T cell receptor's affinity for peptide/major histocompatibility complex (MHC) ligand; this critical parameter determines whether a thymocyte will be included (positive selection) or excluded (negative selection) from the T cell repertoire. A quantitative analysis of ligand binding was performed using an experimental system permitting receptor–coreceptor interactions on live cells under physiological conditions. Using three transgenic mouse strains expressing distinct class I MHC–restricted T cell receptors, we determined the affinity that defines the threshold for negative selection. The affinity threshold for self-tolerance appears to be a constant for cytotoxic T lymphocytes.
The role of hopelessness depression in women's decision to leave a violent relationship

ii List of Tables . vii List of Figures. ix Chapter One: Introduction. 1 Domestic Violence Statistics and Background . 3 Etiology of Depression. 4 Psychosocial Factors . 4 Biological theories. 5 Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.5 Interpersonal Model. 6 Cognitive Theories . 7 Hopelessness Model. 8 Hopelessness Depression and Battered Women. 14 Comorbidity of Depression and PTSD. 19 Depression, Chronic Stress, and Coping.22 Social Support, Domestic Violence, and Depression.24 Transtheoretical Model of Change.29 Self-Efficacy. 34 Stay-Leave Decision. 36
Plane wave prediction in 3-D

A vehicle hydraulic fluid system includes an engine driven pump which excites the fluid in the system downstream of the pump by imparting pressure pulses thereto at frequencies which vary as the speed of the engine, and hence, the pump varies. For the purpose of inhibiting the transmission of these pulses through the system and thereby lessening noise caused by the radiation of the pulses by components in the system, a cross loop attenuator is coupled in the system adjacent the pump outlet. The attenuator comprises a simple hose or tube having its opposite ends coupled to opposite sides of a cross fitting having its other two sides coupled in a line leading from the pump outlet.
Probabilistic-Mismatch Anomaly Detection: Do One’s Medications Match with the Diagnoses

Anomaly detection in healthcare data like patient records is no trivial task. The anomalies in these datasets are often caused by mismatches between different types of feature, e.g., medications that do not match with the diagnoses. Existing anomaly detection methods do not perform well when detecting "mismatches" between multiple types of feature, especially when the feature space is high-dimensional and sparse. This paper introduces a novel anomaly detection paradigm: Probabilistic-Mismatch Anomaly Detection (PMAD), which detects mismatches between features by modeling a normal instance with a common latent probability distribution that governs the generation of all types of feature. Under this paradigm, the target of anomaly detection is to find instances with dissimilar latent distributions. We further propose Topical PMAD based on an extended Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model, which is able to capture the latent relationship between features in a high-dimensional space. Experiments on both synthetic data and real-world patient records show that Topical PMAD can effectively detect anomalies with mismatched features, and is highly robust against high-dimensional data as well as inaccurate model selection. The real-world anomalies detected on a patient record dataset show a promising application prospect.
Tobacco Dependence Treatment in England

Abstract: In England (as in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a whole) smoking prevalence in adults (aged 16 and over) has been falling in both men and women since the 1970s (1). During the 1990s, however, this decline levelled off, as the diagram below illustrates. Currently, in England 27% of adults smoke – 28% of men and 26% of women. Over the last 20 years there has been a similar trend in 11–15-year-olds, in whom preva-lence has fallen only very slightly. In 1982, 11% of 11–15-year-olds were regular smokers (defined as at least one cigarette a week on average), 11% of boys and 11% of girls. In 1999, the figures were 9%–8% of boys and 10% of girls (1).
Investigation of Electromagnetic, Thermal and Mechanical Characteristics of a Five-Phase Dual-Rotor Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Motor

This paper investigates of a kind of five-phase dual-rotor permanent-magnet synchronous motor (DRPMSM), which contains dual rotors and a single stator. This kind of motor has the potential advantages of high power density, high reliability and high efficiency, which make it more appropriate for using in electric vehicles (EVs). In order to evaluate the most suitable power level for this kind of structure, the electromagnetic, the thermal and the mechanical characteristics are investigated in this paper. The length to diameter ratio of motors is researched to obtain the highest power density and then the optimum ratio is obtained. Based on the optimum ratio, the thermal characteristics are researched under natural condition and forced-air cooling condition with different wind speeds. In addition, the mechanical characteristics are analyzed under no-load and different loads conditions, respectively. All of the results are analyzed by two-dimension (2-D) and three-dimension (3-D) finite element method (FEM) simulation, which provide a good reference to select suitable power level for this kind of motor structure. Finally, a DRPMSM prototype is manufactured and tested. The experimental results effectively verify the FEM results.
Differences in 200-m Sprint Running Performance Between Outdoor and Indoor Venues

Abstract Ferro, A and Floria, P. Differences in 200-m sprint running performance between outdoor and indoor venues. J Strength Cond Res 27(1): 83–88, 2013—Athletes' times in 200-m indoor races are greater than in outdoor races. The purpose of this study was to determine which 50-m sections were slower indoors than outdoors in 200-m sprint events and by how much. Using 2-dimensional photogrammetric techniques, a 50-m split-time analysis was made of the performance of 17 men and 16 women, all well-trained athletes, at 4 national competitions held over 5 years. The time taken to run the 0- to 50-m section was longer indoors than outdoors in women (6.89 ± 0.12 vs. 6.75 ± 0.04 seconds; p < 0.05) and in men (6.18 ± 0.10 vs. 6.08 ± 0.09 seconds; p < 0.05). Similarly, both women and men took more time to run the 100- to 150-m section indoors (6.03 ± 0.15 vs. 5.84 ± 0.06 seconds; p < 0.01, respectively) than outdoors (5.26 ± 0.15 vs. 5.06 ± 0.07 seconds; p < 0.01, respectively). Both sections indoors were run mostly on the curve. However, significant differences were not found in the split times for 50–100 and 150–200 m in either sex. In both categories, the relative average velocity (RAV), percentage of average velocity relative to the maximum velocity reached in the fastest section (50–100 m), was about 3% lower indoors than outdoors in 100- to 150-m section. The athletes' lower capacity to develop speed indoors could be caused specifically, by the curved 0- to 50-m and 100- to 150-m sections of the indoor track. Coaches could use these data as reference values there being few published data from high-level competitions. The RAV could be used by coaches to compare results among athletes of different levels and sexes.
Robust Data Modelling Using Thin Plate Splines

Using splines to model spatio-temporal data is one of the most common methods of data fitting used in a variety of computer vision applications. Despite its ubiquitous applications, particularly for volumetric image registration and interpolation, the existing estimation methods are still sensitive to the existence of noise and outliers. A method of robust data modelling using thin plate splines, based upon the well-known least K-th order statistical model fitting, is proposed and compared with the best available robust spline fitting techniques. Our experiments show that existing methods are not suitable for typical computer vision applications where outliers are structured (pseudo-outliers) while the proposed method performs well even when there are numerous pseudo-outliers.
A Visual Tracking Algorithm Based on Histogram of Gradient Feature

Particle Filter is a Monte Carlo method that designed to approximate nonlinear problem. It usually used to track the target of the dynamic system only based on the color feature. The single characteristic is vulnerable to the impact on background noise, light, and some other factors. These would lead to misplace or lose the target. In order to improve the efficiency and robustness of the object tracking in complex scenes, an approach by using Histogram of Oriented Gradient (HOG) is presented under the Particle Filter framework. This method characterizes the tracked objects using HOG features. While the gradient descriptor is not sensitive to light, its robustness and applicability of the object tracking method can be increased. The global approach has been tested on different test videos and real-world sequences. Experimental results show the robustness and efficiency of the proposed method in several difficult scenarios, especially compared with the traditional particle filter algorithm.
Role of Ceramide in Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced Signaling

Ceramide and ceramide-activated enzymes have been implicated in responses to bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and the proinflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF) and interleukin-1β (IL-1). Although TNF and IL-1 cause elevation of cellular ceramide, which is thought to act as a second messenger, LPS has been proposed to signal by virtue of structural similarity to ceramide. We have investigated the relationship between ceramide and LPS by comparing the effects of a cell-permeable ceramide analog (C2-ceramide) and LPS on murine macrophage cell lines and by measuring ceramide levels in macrophages exposed to LPS. We found that while both C2-ceramide and LPS activated c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), only LPS also activated extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERKs). C2-ceramide was also unable to activate NF-κB, a transcription factor important for LPS-induced gene expression. Upon measurement of cellular ceramide in macrophage lines, we observed a small but rapid rise in ceramide, similar to that seen upon IL-1 or TNF treatment, suggesting LPS induces an increase in ceramide rather than interacting directly with ceramide-responsive enzymes. We found that C2-ceramide activated JNK and induced growth arrest in macrophages cell lines from both normal mice (Lps n) and mice genetically unresponsive to LPS (Lps d), whereas onlyLps n macrophages made these responses to LPS. Surprisingly, LPS treatment of Lps d macrophages induced a rise in ceramide similar to that observed in LPS-responsive cells. These results indicate that the wild type Lps allele is not required for LPS-induced ceramide generation and suggest that ceramide elevation alone is insufficent stimulus for most responses to LPS.
An analysis of South African Grade 9 natural sciences textbooks for their representation of nature of science

ABSTRACT This article reports on an analysis and comparison of three South African Grade 9 (13–14 years) Natural Sciences textbooks for the representation of nature of science (NOS). The analysis was framed by an analytical tool developed and validated by Abd-El-Khalick and a team of researchers in a large-scale study on the high school textbooks in the USA. The three textbooks were scored on targeted NOS aspects on a scale of −3 to +3 that reflected the explicitness with which these aspects were addressed. The analysis revealed that the textbooks poorly depict NOS, and in particular, there was scant attention given to the social dimension of science, science versus pseudoscience and the ‘myth of the scientific method’. The findings of this study are incommensurate with the strong emphasis in a reformed school science curriculum that underlies the need for learners to understand the scientific enterprise, and how scientific knowledge develops. In view of this, the findings of this research reinforce the need for a review on the mandate given to textbook publishers and writers so that a stronger focus be placed on the development of materials that better represent the tenets of NOS.