Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Re-evolution of the larval stage in the plethodontid salamander genus Desmognathus

113 previously. Our new phylogenetic hypotheses are based largely on new molecular datasets; because they are hypotheses, we are actively engaged in gathering additional data to test them. We need to develop other datasets and integrate our studies in such a manner as to effectively test and reject alternative hypotheses of plethodontid relationships until such hypotheses can generally be viewed as robust, even if they conflict with more classical hypotheses for the evolution of morphology and life-history evolution in this group. The newly discovered Asian plethodontid salamander, Karsenia koreana, also appears to be a direct developer. Given its placement in the phylogeny (Min et al. 2005), the case for a reversal in Desmognathus is even stronger; argument against reversal now requires the independent evolution of direct development in at least six clades (Plethodon, Hydromantes + Ensatina, Karsenia, Aneides, Phaeognathus, and Desmognathus wrighti). What has become clear in this developing debate is the absence of relevant comparative ontogenetic and developmental morphological data for salamanders. Relatively few species have been studied, and even such common species as members of Amphiuma are imperfectly known. Direct development is best known from studies of a species that is only a marginal direct developer, Desmognathus aeneus (Marks 2000), and very little is known about the early ontogeny of the 328+ species of direct developing plethodontids, many of which may prove to be relevant to this controversy.
A Theory of Evolution, Fairness, and Altruistic Punishment

This paper identifies and explains the mechanisms that account for the emergence of fairness preferences and altruistic punishment in voluntary contribution mechanisms by combining an evolutionary perspective together with an expected utility model. The approach is motivated by previous findings on other-regarding behavior, the co-evolution of culture, genes and social norms, as well as bounded rationality. Our first result reveals the emergence of two distinct evolutionary regimes that force agents converge either to into a defection state or to a state of coordination, depending on the predominant set of self- or other-regarding preferences. Our second result indicates that subjects in lab experiments of public goods games with punishment coordinate and punish defectors as a result of an aversion against disadvantageous inequitable outcomes. Our third finding identifies disadvantageous inequity aversion as evolutionary dominant and stable in a heterogeneous population of agents that initially only consists of purely self-regarding preferences. We validate our model using previously obtained results from three independently conducted experiments of public goods games with punishment.
A New Parasiticidal Compound in T. solium Cysticercosis

The effect of 16α-bromoepiandrosterone (EpiBr), a dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) analogue, was tested on the cysticerci of Taenia solium, both in vitro and in vivo. In vitro treatment of T. solium cultures with EpiBr reduced scolex evagination, growth, motility, and viability in dose- and time-dependent fashions. Administration of EpiBr prior to infection with T. solium cysticerci in hamsters reduced the number and size of developed taenias in the intestine, compared with controls. These effects were associated to an increase in splenocyte proliferation in infected hamsters. These results leave open the possibility of assessing the potential of this hormonal analogue as a possible antiparasite drug, particularly in cysticercosis and taeniosis.
Unbounding the mental number line—new evidence on children's spatial representation of numbers

Number line estimation (i.e., indicating the position of a given number on a physical line) is a standard assessment of children's spatial representation of number magnitude. Importantly, there is an ongoing debate on the question in how far the bounded task version with start and endpoint given (e.g., 0 and 100) might induce specific estimation strategies and thus may not allow for unbiased inferences on the underlying representation. Recently, a new unbounded version of the task was suggested with only the start point and a unit fixed (e.g., the distance from 0 to 1). In adults this task provided a less biased index of the spatial representation of number magnitude. Yet, so far there are no children data available for the unbounded number line estimation task. Therefore, we conducted a cross-sectional study on primary school children performing both, the bounded and the unbounded version of the task. We observed clear evidence for systematic strategic influences (i.e., the consideration of reference points) in the bounded number line estimation task for children older than grade two whereas there were no such indications for the unbounded version for any one of the age groups. In summary, the current data corroborate the unbounded number line estimation task to be a valuable tool for assessing children's spatial representation of number magnitude in a systematic and unbiased manner. Yet, similar results for the bounded and the unbounded version of the task for first- and second-graders may indicate that both versions of the task might assess the same underlying representation for relatively younger children—at least in number ranges familiar to the children assessed. This is of particular importance for inferences about the nature and development of children's magnitude representation.
Altered receptive fields and sensory modalities of rat VPL thalamic neurons during spinal strychnine-induced allodynia.

Altered receptive fields and sensory modalities of rat VPL thalamic neurons during spinal strychnine-induced allodynia. J. Neurophysiol. 78: 2296-2308, 1997. Allodynia is an unpleasant sequela of neural injury or neuropathy that is characterized by the inappropriate perception of light tactile stimuli as pain. This condition may be modeled experimentally in animals by the intrathecal (i.t.) administration of strychnine, a glycine receptor antagonist. Thus after i.t. strychnine, otherwise innocuous tactile stimuli evoke behavioral and autonomic responses that normally are elicited only by noxious stimuli. The current study was undertaken to determine how i.t. strychnine alters the spinal processing of somatosensory input by examining the responses of neurons in the ventroposterolateral thalamic nucleus. Extracellular, single-unit recordings were conducted in the lateral thalamus of 19 urethan-anaesthetized, male, Wistar rats (342 +/- 44 g; mean +/- SD). Receptive fields and responses to noxious and innocuous cutaneous stimuli were determined for 19 units (1 per animal) before and immediately after i.t. strychnine (40 microgram). Eighteen of the animals developed allodynia as evidenced by the ability of otherwise innocuous brush or air jet stimuli to evoke cardiovascular and/or motor reflexes. All (3) of the nociceptive-specific units became responsive to brush stimulation after i.t. strychnine, and one became sensitive to brushing over an expanded receptive field. Expansion of the receptive field, as determined by brush stimulation, also was exhibited by all of the low-threshold mechanoreceptive units (14) and wide dynamic range units (2) after i.t. strychnine. The use of air jet stimuli at fixed cutaneous sites also provided evidence of receptive field expansion, because significant unit responses to air jet developed at 13 cutaneous sites (on 7 animals) where an identical stimulus was ineffective in evoking a unit response before i.t. strychnine. However, the magnitude of the unit response to cutaneous air jet stimulation was not changed at sites that already had been sensitive to this stimulus before i.t. strychnine. The onset of allodynia corresponded with the onset of the altered unit responses (i.e., lowered threshold/receptive field expansion) for the majority of animals (9), but the altered unit response either terminated concurrently with symptoms of allodynia (6) or, more frequently, outlasted the symptoms of allodynia (10) as the effects of strychnine declined. The present results demonstrate that the direct, receptor-mediated actions of strychnine on the spinal processing of sensory information are reflected by changes in the receptive fields and response properties of nociceptive and nonnociceptive thalamic neurons. These changes are consistent with the involvement of thalamocortical mechanisms in the expression of strychnine-induced allodynia and, moreover, suggest that i.t. strychnine also produces changes in innocuous tactile sensation.
StretchEBand: Enabling Fabric-based Interactions through Rapid Fabrication of Textile Stretch Sensors

The increased interest in interactive soft materials, such as smart clothing and responsive furniture, means that there is a need for flexible and deformable electronics. In this paper, we focus on stitch-based elastic sensors, which have the benefit of being manufacturable with textile craft tools that have been used in homes for centuries. We contribute to the understanding of stitch-based stretch sensors through four experiments and one user study that investigate conductive yarns from textile and technical perspectives, and analyze the impact of different stitch types and parameters. The insights informed our design of new stretch-based interaction techniques that emphasize eyes-free or causal interactions. We demonstrate with StretchEBand how soft, continuous sensors can be rapidly fabricated with different parameters and capabilities to support interaction with a wide range of performance requirements across wearables, mobile devices, clothing, furniture, and toys.
Interférences intralinguales lors de l’identification lexicale

This paper describes the results of an empirical study about a specific type of error in vocabulary acquisition in French as a second language, that is, intralingual lexical confusion due to formal and/or semantic similarity between target words and other French words known by the learners. Four hundred and eighty English- and Greek-speaking learners (at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels of proficiency in French) were given an L2 to L1 translation task of words with various frequencies. A comparison of the two linguistic groups revealed that the Greeks were more prone to commit errors due to intralinguistic lexical confusion regardless of their level of proficiency in French. Interlinguistic distance seems to have had an impact on these a priori intralingual errors and more specifically on the learners’ ability to distinguish between similar lexical forms in French. Lexical confusion will be discussed from the point of view of the mental lexicon and the strategies that the learners use during lexical identification of written words. The paper will conclude with pedagogical suggestions.
Transient Transgenic Expression of Gamma Interferon PromotesLegionella pneumophila Clearance in Immunocompetent Hosts

ABSTRACT Gamma interferon (IFN-γ) and T1-phenotype immune responses are important components of host defense against a variety of intracellular pathogens, including Legionella pneumophila. The benefit of intrapulmonary adenovirus-mediated IFN-γ gene therapy was investigated in a nonlethal murine model of experimental L. pneumophilapneumonia. Intratracheal (i.t.) administration of 106 CFU of L. pneumophila induced the expression of T1 phenotype cytokines, such as IFN-γ and interleukin-12 (IL-12). Natural killer cells were identified as the major cellular source of IFN-γ. To determine if enhanced expression of IFN-γ in the lung could promote pulmonary clearance of L. pneumophila, we i.t. administered 5 × 108 PFU of a recombinant adenovirus vector containing the murine IFN-γ cDNA (AdmIFN-γ) concomitant with L. pneumophila. We observed a 10-fold decrease in lung bacterial CFU at day 2 in the AdmIFN-γ-treated group compared to controls (P < 0.01). Alveolar macrophages isolated from AdmIFN-γ-treated animals displayed enhanced killing of intracellular L. pneumophila organisms ex vivo. Similar improvements in bacterial clearance were observed with i.t. recombinant IFN-γ treatment. The transient transgenic expression of IL-12, a known inducer of IFN-γ and promoter of T1-type immune responses, resulted in more modest improvement in bacterial clearance (sixfold reduction;P < 0.05). These results demonstrate that, even in immunocompetent hosts, exogenous administration or transient transgenic expression of IFN-γ, and to a lesser extent IL-12, may be of potential therapeutic benefit in the treatment of patients withLegionella pneumonia.
Biological Activity and Isolation of Compounds from Stem Bark of Plumeria acutifolia

Background: Plumeria acutifolia (Apocynaceae) is an ornamental plant, used in the traditional medicine and known to have a variety of constituents as alkaloids, flavonoids, and iridoids. Extracts of this plant were proved to have antimicrobial and anticancer activities. Objectives: This research was conducted for the evaluation of the biological activities of P. acutifolia stem bark and isolation and structural elucidation of various chemical compounds from the biologically active fractions. Materials and Methods: Methanol extract of stem bark of P. acutifolia was successively fractionated with petroleum ether, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, and n-butanol. The fractions were evaluated for their antimicrobial, cytotoxic, and antioxidant activities. Fractions with promising biological activities were subjected to chromatographic techniques for the isolation of compounds, followed by structural elucidation using several spectroscopic techniques. Results: P. acutifolia stem bark showed a significant antimicrobial activity, where the ethyl acetate fraction was active against Syncephalastrum racemosum (7.81 μ g/ml) and Escherichia coli (3.9 μ g/ml). The cytotoxic activity against HEPG-2, HCT-116, and MCF-7 cell lines was highest in the petroleum ether fraction, using concentrations of 1, 2.5, 5, and 10 μ l/ml. The antioxidant activity was concentration dependent; ethyl acetate fraction showed the most predominant effect, with an IC50of 197.1 μ g/ml. Five compounds were identified as narcissin (1), quercitrin (2), sweroside (3), gaertneroside (4), and plumieride (5). Conclusion: P. acutifolia was proved to have significant antimicrobial, cytotoxic, and antioxidant activities; the isolated compounds were flavonoids, iridoids, and secoiridoid, some of which were reported for the first time in genus Plumeria and/or family Apocynaceae. Abbreviations used: mp: Melting point, NMR: Nuclear magnetic resonance, s: Singlet, d: Double, t: Triplet, q: Quartet, dd: Double-double, m: Multiplet, br: Broad.
Brazilian Immigrant Mothers’ Beliefs and Practices Related to Infant Feeding: A Qualitative Study

Background: Exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life and timely introduction of appropriate solid foods are important determinants of weight status in infancy and later life stages. Disparities in obesity rates among young children suggest that maternal feeding practices during the first 2 years of life may contribute to these disparities. Brazilians are a growing immigrant group in the United States, yet little research has focused on parental beliefs and behaviors affecting the health of Brazilian immigrant children in the United States. Research aim: This study aimed to explore beliefs and infant-feeding practices of Brazilian immigrant mothers in the United States. Methods: Focus group discussions were conducted with Brazilian immigrant mothers. Transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis and themes categorized using the socioecological model. Results: Twenty-nine immigrant Brazilian mothers participated in the study. Analyses revealed that all participants breastfed their infants. The majority initiated breastfeeding soon after childbirth. However, most mothers did not exclusively breastfeed. They used formula and human milk concomitantly. Family and culture influenced mothers’ infant-feeding beliefs and practices in early introduction of solid foods. Conclusion: As the number of children in the United States growing up in families of immigrant parents increases, understanding influences on Brazilian immigrant mothers’ infant-feeding practices will be important to the development of effective interventions to promote healthy infant feeding and weight status among Brazilian children. Interventions designed for Brazilian immigrant families should incorporate an understanding of social context, family, and cultural factors to develop health promotion messages tailored to the needs of this ethnic group.
Wide‐Range Achievement Test

The Wide-Range Achievement Test (WRAT) was developed in the 1930s by psychologist Joseph Jastak and first published for operational use in 1946. Two subsequent revisions of the WRAT were issued in 1984 (WRAT-R) and 1993 (WRAT 3; Wilkinson, 1993). The current edition—WRAT 4—retains the focus of the previous editions by providing norm-referenced measures of reading, spelling, and mathematics computation. Designed for use with individuals age 5–94 years, the WRAT 4 contains four subtests: word reading, sentence comprehension, spelling, and mathematics computation. The reading and sentence comprehension tests must be administered individually, whereas the spelling and mathematics computation tests may be administered either individually or in small groups. The administration time required is 15–45 minutes, depending on the age of the test taker. The various editions of the WRAT have enjoyed widespread use due to their ease of administration and scoring and the amount of information obtained in a relatively brief amount of testing time. Keywords: achievement tests; WRAT/WRAT 4; achievement assessment
Profiling MicroRNA Expression in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Reveals MicroRNA-224 Up-regulation and Apoptosis Inhibitor-5 as a MicroRNA-224-specific Target*

Like other cancers, aberrant gene regulation features significantly in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). MicroRNAs (miRNAs) were recently found to regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional/translational levels. The expression profiles of 157 miRNAs were examined in 19 HCC patients, and 19 up-regulated and 3 down-regulated miRNAs were found to be associated with HCC. Putative gene targets of these 22 miRNAs were predicted in silico and were significantly enriched in 34 biological pathways, most of which are frequently dysregulated during carcinogenesis. Further characterization of microRNA-224 (miR-224), the most significantly up-regulated miRNA in HCC patients, revealed that miR-224 increases apoptotic cell death as well as proliferation and targets apoptosis inhibitor-5 (API-5) to inhibit API-5 transcript expression. Significantly, miR-224 expression was found to be inversely correlated with API-5 expression in HCC patients (p < 0.05). Hence, our findings define a true in vivo target of miR-224 and reaffirm the important role of miRNAs in the dysregulation of cellular processes that may ultimately lead to tumorigenesis.
Incremental clustering of gesture patterns based on a self organizing incremental neural network

This paper describes an incremental unsupervised clustering mechanism for sequence patterns arising from human gestures. Although self-organizing incremental neural network (SOINN) is known as a powerful tool for incremental unsupervised clustering, it is only applicable to static and fixed-length patterns. In this paper, we propose an extension to SOINN to handle dynamic sequence patterns of variable length. We use a Hidden Markov Model (HMM), as a pre-processor for SOINN, to map the variable-length patterns into fixed-length patterns. HMM contributes to robust feature extraction from sequence patterns, enabling similar statistical features to be extracted from sequence patterns of the same category. As a result of experiments with incremental clustering gesture data, we have found that HMM based SOINN (HB-SOINN) outperforms other methods.
Improving cache locality for thread-level speculation

With the advent of chip-multiprocessors (CMPs), thread-level speculation (TLS) remains a promising technique for exploiting this highly multithreaded hardware to improve the performance of an individual program. However, with such speculatively-parallel execution the cache locality once enjoyed by the original uniprocessor execution is significantly disrupted: for TLS execution on a four-processor CMP, we find that the data-cache miss rates are nearly four-times those of the uniprocessor case, even though TLS execution utilizes four private data caches (i.e., four-fold greater cache capacity). We break down the TLS cache locality problem into instruction and data cache, execution stages, and parallel access patterns, and propose methods to improve cache locality in each of these areas. We find that for parallel regions across 13 SPECint applications our simple and low-cost techniques reduce data-cache misses by 38%, improve performance by 12.8%, and significantly improve scalability - further enhancing the feasibility of TLS as a way to capitalize on future CMPs
Automatic phrase segmentation and clustering in spontaneous speech

The aim of this research is to segment spontaneous speech using an unsupervised learning technique. We are especially interested from a machine perception or detection point-of-view, and focus on revealing some structure of prosody in spontaneous speech. The BEA spontaneous speech database is used to develop a speech segmentation system. The spontaneous narratives are annotated manually for intonational phrases (IP) and further divided for phonological phrases (PP). Word level transcription is also provided. For the automatic detection of IPs and embedded PPs, a two-step segmentation method is applied. In the first step, the IPs are detected automatically based on speech energy, spectral centroid and a double-thresholding technique. In the second step, PPs are segmented within the IPs, based on F0, energy and Kullback-Leibler divergence combined with an adaptive thresholding method. The results show that the proposed method can provide good and efficient framework for segmenting Hungarian spontaneous speech, with a performance close to read speech.
Preliminary in situ identification of estrogen target cells in bone

Although estrogens profoundly influence skeletal growth and maturation, their mechanism of action is still unclear. To identify their target cells in bone, estrogen receptors were located by immunofluorescence using the H222 monoclonal antibody in cryosections (both undecalcified and briefly decalcified) of hyperplastic mandibular condyle (persistent asymmetric mandibular growth) from a 14‐year‐old girl and radius and ulna from an 18‐month‐old female pig (epiphyseal fusion) and from a 3‐month‐old guinea pig (epiphyses open). Bone was removed from the animals at the peak of estrus. The most striking feature in all three species was the high proportion (approximately 50%) of receptor positive osteocytes. Although all sections contained active bone‐forming surfaces, we were unable to identify clearly osteoblasts or lining cells that were estrogen receptor positive. In pig bone only, distinctive groups of receptor positive chondrocytes, with a pericellular localization of collagen type 1, were detected above the growth plate but below secondary centers of ossification. This observation suggests that osteocytes are major skeletal estrogen target cells and may be involved in coordinating the response of surface bone cells to the hormone, and further that chondrocytes may be involved in estrogen‐induced epiphyseal growth plate fusion.