Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diapause Induction in Daphnia Requires Two Stimuli

Short-day photoperiods in conjunction with a second stimulus were required to induce sexual reproduction (and diapause) in an autumnally diapausing strain of Daphnia pulex. The second stimulus was associated with the unalkalized portion of a small lake and with density of the population in laboratory cultures. Diapause was induced at 12� and 19�C.
Role of gut microbiota in graft-versus-host disease

Our understanding of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) has mostly focused on the role of adaptive immunity in mediating host–recipient genetic disparity in the proinflammatory milieu. These experimental models rarely address the unique biology of GVHD whereby it targets mainly epithelial compartments of the intestine, skin, and liver. Recent discoveries of the role of the microbiota in health and disease have reinvigorated questions about how the innate immunity contributes to the pathogenesis of GVHD and perhaps explains its tissue tropism. In this review, we discuss findings indicating the potential role of pattern-recognition receptors of the innate immune system in mediating GVHD and present evidence that shows how the microbiota interact with the host to shape health and disease. These findings support a reevaluation of our current clinical practice and encourage further studies of the potential critical role of the gut microbiota in hematopoietic stem cell transplant which may lead to novel preventive and therapeutic targets against GVHD.
Executive function deficits in team sport athletes with a history of concussion revealed by a visual-auditory dual task paradigm

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine executive functions in team sport athletes with and without a history of concussion. Executive functions comprise many cognitive processes including, working memory, attention and multi-tasking. Past research has shown that concussions cause difficulties in vestibular-visual and vestibular-auditory dual-tasking, however, visual-auditory tasks have been examined rarely. Twenty-nine intercollegiate varsity ice hockey athletes (age = 19.13, SD = 1.56; 15 females) performed an experimental dual-task paradigm that required simultaneously processing visual and auditory information. A brief interview, event description and self-report questionnaires were used to assign participants to each group (concussion, no-concussion). Eighteen athletes had a history of concussion and 11 had no concussion history. The two tests involved visuospatial working memory (i.e., Corsi block test) and auditory tone discrimination. Participants completed both tasks individually, then simultaneously. Two outcome variables were measured, Corsi block memory span and auditory tone discrimination accuracy. No differences were shown when each task was performed alone; however, athletes with a history of concussion had a significantly worse performance on the tone discrimination task in the dual-task condition. In conclusion, long-term deficits in executive functions were associated with a prior history of concussion when cognitive resources were stressed. Evaluations of executive functions and divided attention appear to be helpful in discriminating participants with and without a history concussion.
Strategic analysis in political markets

Applies an established strategic framework of competitive market positioning to political parties, suggesting that political scientists who are currently analysing political marketing without reference to the marketing discipline, could benefit thereby. If the marketing paradigm is to influence another discipline, it must first be tendered in broad, generic terms, and address matters at the strategic level. Presents examples from many electoral contexts (or markets). The analysis requires that political parties in a democratic system be regarded as analogous to commercial organizations in industrial markets. In doing so, it eschews traditional political ascriptions such as left‐ and right‐wing. The labels used to describe the parties are leader, challenger, follower and nicher. This framework offers a competitive positioning map of the market that will inform marketing and campaign decisions, and guide strategic direction. Shows how fundamental issues such as competitive analysis, party/candidate positioning, and relevant strategies are brought to the political marketing context.
Prioritization and static error compensation for multi-camera collaborative tracking in augmented reality

An effective and simple method is proposed for multi-camera collaborative tracking, based on the prioritization of all tracking units, and then modeling the discrepancy between different tracking units as a locally static transformation error. Static error compensation is applied to the lower-priority tracking systems when high-priority trackers are not available. The method does not require high-end or carefully calibrated tracking units, and is able to effectively provide a comfortable augmented reality experience for users. A pilot study demonstrates the validity of the proposed method.
Overuse Syndromes in Instrumental Musicians

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THE THEORY OF MIXED ESTIMATION IN ECONOMETRIC MODELING

In the last two decades there has been considerable progress made in the development of alternative estimation techniques to ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The search for alternative estimators has no doubt been motivated by the observance of erratic OLS estimator behavior in cases where there are too few observations, multicollinearity problems, or simply “information‐poor” data sets. Imprecise and unreliable OLS coefficient estimates have been the result.
Articulation Rate in Adverse Listening Conditions in Younger and Older Adults

Speech communication becomes increasingly difficult with age, especially in adverse listening conditions. We compared speech adaptations made by 'older adult' (65-84 years) and 'younger adult' (19-26 years) talkers when speech is produced with communicative intent. The aim was to investigate how articulation rate is affected by the type of adverse listening condition and by the change in task demands. Articulation rate was recorded in 35 older and 18 younger adult talkers when they were reading and repeating BKB-sentences and when they were doing an interactive 'spot-the-difference' game in a good and three adverse listening conditions (Hearing Loss Simulation, one speaker in noise, both speakers in noise). Similar to younger adults, older adults reduced their articulation rate in the cognitively simpler sentence repetition task in response to adverse conditions. However, in spontaneous speech, only older adult women decreased their articulation rate to counter the effect of the adverse conditions to the same degree as the younger adult talkers. Older men did not reduce their articulation rate in any of the three adverse conditions. These sex differences were not due to differences in the task difficulty experienced by men and women nor were they associated with sensory or cognitive factors.
Expectations and industrial output in Uruguay: Sectoral interdependence and common trends

This paper examines the interdependence between expectations and growth by analysing Uruguayan manufacturing industry, divided for the purpose into four industry groupings differentiated by trade participation and production specialization. The study shows that there is a long-run relationship between industrialists’ expectations and output growth in each grouping. In the most trade-oriented groupings the relationship is one of predetermination, showing how useful expectations are as a guide to sectoral growth. Expectations in the four industrial groupings are shown to follow a common long-run trend, identified with the one guiding the export grouping. Impulse-response simulations derived from a multisectoral vector autoregression (var) model confirm the important role of the industries most exposed to international competition in spreading shorter-term shocks.
Effects of establishing cell cultures and cell culture conditions on the proliferative life span of human fibroblasts isolated from different tissues and donors of different ages.

It is well known that normal human cells placed in a culture environment exhibit a limited proliferative capacity. The extent to which the culture environment influences proliferative life span is not understood. This study evaluated the effects of the standard procedures used to establish and maintain cultures on the proliferative life spans of different types of human fibroblast cells established from fetal and adult skin and lung. The results of this study demonstrate that procedures to establish cell cultures use only one of several subpopulations of cells present in biopsy pieces and that the culture conditions routinely employed by most laboratories can exert significant effects on proliferative life-span determinations. The maximum proliferative life span differed significantly when obtained by growing the cells in two commonly used commercial media. Proliferative life span was inversely related to ambient oxygen tension and directly related to seeding density in all of the lines examined although lines established from adult skin were much more resistant to toxicity. Enzymatic antioxidant defense levels of fetal skin fibroblasts were much lower than those observed in adult skin fibroblasts, but the effects of oxygen on their life spans were similar. Hyperoxia induced larger increases in glutathione concentration in cell lines with low antioxidant enzyme levels.
Confirmation of Earth-Mass Planets Orbiting the Millisecond Pulsar PSR B1257 + 12

The discovery of two Earth-mass planets orbiting an old (∼109 years), rapidly spinning neutron star, the 6.2-millisecond radio pulsar PSR B1257+12, was announced in early 1992. It was soon pointed out that the approximately 3:2 ratio of the planets' orbital periods should lead to accurately predictable and possibly measurable gravitational perturbations of their orbits. The unambiguous detection of this effect, after 3 years of systematic timing observations of PSR B1257+12 with the 305-meter Arecibo radiotelescope, as well as the discovery of another, moon-mass object in orbit around the pulsar, constitutes irrefutable evidence that the first planetary system around a star other than the sun has been identified.
Integrating Market and Credit Risk Using a Simplified Frailty Default Correlation Structure

This article adopts a simplified approach to assess the correlation structure of credit risk. The approach could significantly reduce the numbers of estimated parameters in credit risk measurement. Thus it provides a simple way to integrate market risk smoothly that leads to a unified framework for computing fixed-income portfolio Value at Risk (VaR). Furthermore, based on recent research findings that frailty factors could induce a large estimated increase in default clustering, we also consider frailty variables in our integrated model. Using a portfolio as illustration, it is shown that the traditional approach where the correlation of market and credit risk is not considered, or frailty is not accounted for, may under-estimate VaR.
Saving Rate Dynamics in the Neoclassical Growth Model - Hyperbolic Discounting and Observational Equivalence

The standard neoclassical growth model with Cobb-Douglas production predicts a monotonically declining saving rate, when reasonably calibrated. Ample empirical evidence, however, shows that the transition path of a country’s saving rate exhibits a rising or non-monotonic pattern. In important cases, hyperbolic discounting, which is empirically strongly supported, implies transitional dynamics of the saving rate that accords well with empirical evidence. This holds true even in a growth model with Cobb-Douglas production technology. We also identify the cases where hyperbolic discounting is observationally equivalent to exponential discounting. In those cases, hyperbolic discounting does not affect the saving rate dynamics. Numerical simulations employing a generalized class of hyperbolic discounting functions that we term regular discounting functions support the results.
Internal Performance Measurement Systems: Problems and Solutions

This article pursues two aims: to identify problems and dangers related to the operational use of internal performance measurement systems of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) type and to provide some guidance on how performance measurement systems may be designed to overcome these problems. The analysis uses and extends Nørreklit's (2000) critique of the BSC by applying the concepts developed therein to contemporary research on the BSC and to the development of practice in performance measurement. The analysis is of relevance for many companies in the Asia-Pacific area as an increasing numbers of them are implementing the BSC.
Depression accounts for executive function deficits in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

OBJECTIVE To examine the relative impact of depression on executive function deficits in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). BACKGROUND Existing data suggest that OCD is associated with basal ganglia and orbital frontal dysfunction, and neurobehavioral abnormalities that are putatively associated with these regions have been demonstrated in OCD. Nonetheless, few studies have accounted for the effects of depression, which is a common concurrent symptom among those with OCD. METHOD A broad battery of neuropsychological tests, including measures of executive function and sensory-motor function, was administered to 20 adults with OCD and 31 control subjects. To assess depressive severity, participants were administered the depression scale from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. RESULTS Data were analyzed using a regression model in two steps. In step one, patient group was entered, and patients with OCD demonstrated a pattern of executive function and sensory-motor deficits, similar to those shown in previous research. In step two, self-reported depressive symptom severity was entered as a predictor. As a consequence, depression accounted for some executive function deficits, whereas presence of OCD only predicted performance on measures of sensory-motor function. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that abnormalities involving executive function in OCD are related to co-morbid depressive severity. However, sensory-motor deficits seem to be more consistent with basal ganglia/orbital frontal dysfunction in OCD.
Risk of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure from ingested food: The Azerbaijan case study

Risks due to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) exposure from food consumption for the population of Azerbaijan were determined using deterministic and probabilistic methods. The guidelines and methods described and presented in the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Risk Assessment Guidance for Superfund (RAGS) Part A was used in performing the risk assessments. The current study utilized concentration data from different sources representing international studies performed over the past decade to determine those food products that contribute the most exposure to PAHs through ingestion for the Azeri population. Due to lack of concentration data from middle-Eastern countries, only European countries were considered and used for this analysis. Using the benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) toxicity equivalency factors (TEFs) to adjust the concentrations of the individual PAH compounds to BaP equivalent concentrations, risk analyses were performed. Deterministic risk estimates fell within probabilistic risk estimates. Child risks were consistently four to seven times higher in magnitude than adult risks. Risk potentials determined for the food exposure pathway were also determined to be up to ten times higher in magnitude than risks determined from exposures due to other pathways such as soil contamination. It was observed that three major factors contributed to the variability in the assessment results, which were child and adult body weights, consumption rates of the different food groups, and the variances of the input data. The most prevalent pathways of PAH exposure from the dietary patterns of the Azerbaijani population were determined to be from bread and bakery products, milk and dairy products, and egg products. *
Education Experiences, Career Preferences and Marginalised Groups: a Case Study from Kerala, India

The caste system and gender are two factors that have been affecting what education a person is able to get and what possibilities a person has in regards to the labour market in India. Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) are three groups that have been marginalised in the Indian society. The aim of this case study is to attain an understanding of how SC/ST/OBC women from Kerala have been experiencing the educational system and what has been affecting them in their education and career decisions. In addition to this, interviews with teachers and scholars have been conducted in order to get a deeper understanding of the issue. The analysis will be based on the theoretical concepts of social exclusion, social capital, social inclusion and intergenerational contract. The conclusion of the study is that patterns of both social inclusion and social exclusion can be scrutinised among the interviewee’s experiences in educational institutions. The study also shows that social capital plays an important role when being enrolled in educational institutions and that the intergenerational contract and the social policy landscape in a country can be influential when determining what to study and what career to choose
Stimulus detection and decision making via spike-based reinforcement learning

In theoretical and experimental investigations of decision-making, the main task has typically been one of classification, wherein the relevant stimuli cueing decisions are known to the decision maker: the latter knows which stimuli are relevant, and knows when it is being presented with one. However, in many real-life situations it is not clear which segments in a continuous sensory stream are action relevant, and relevant segments may blend seamlessly into irrelevant ones. Then the decision problem is just as much about when to act as about choosing the right action. Here, we present a spiking neuron network which learns to classify hidden relevant segments of a continuous sensory stream of spatiotemporal patterns of spike trains. The network has no a-priori knowledge of the stimuli, when they are being presented, and their behavioral significance – i.e., whether or not they are action-relevant. The network is trained by the reward received for taking correct decisions in the presence of relevant stimuli. Simulation results show that by maximizing expected reward the spiking network learns to distinguish behaviourally relevant segments in the input stream from irrelevant ones, performing a task akin to temporal stimulus segmentation.
An integrated approach to land use management for conserving agroecosystem biodiversity in the context of global change

Agriculture is a major land use activity in the developing tropics. Though the productivity of the land in many parts of the region has gone up significantly due to "green revolution" agriculture, it has had many negative environmental consequences, and its economic impact is still confined to only a small section of society. These concerns and issues linked to agroecosystem resilience in the context of the much discussed "global change" have led to a renewed interest in the multi-species complex agroecosystems of traditional societies. Farmers' choices of cropping combinations represent a planned biodiversity strategy which offers possibilities for in situ conservation of crop biodiversity which is so important even for the long-term sustainability of modern high-energy input agriculture. However, if the traditional crop and management practices of these complex agroecosystems could be improved through the inputs of modern science, we would move in the direction of sustainable agriculture with improved production possibilities. This paper discusses issues relating to additional pathways for agricultural development, placed in the context of a more sustainable landscape management plan and involving community participation.
Nonmyeloablative allogeneic stem-cell transplantation for hematologic malignancies: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND Increasingly, clinicians advocate the use of nonmyeloablative allogeneic stem-cell transplants (NM-allo-SCTs, "mini-transplants") to manage hematologic malignancies. They hypothesize that NM-allo-SCT is equally efficacious to standard allo-SCT but produces less regimen-related toxicity. METHODS To analyze available evidence on the benefits and harms of "mini-transplants," we identified 23 manuscripts, 1 abstract, and 1 letter that reported the outcome of mini-transplants in hematologic malignancies. RESULTS Data were compiled on 603 treated patients, with 118 transplants using stem cells from matched unrelated donors. All studies were small prospective case series, and most lacked concurrent or historical controls. Outcomes of interest were not uniformly reported. The studies were heterogeneous and used different patient selection criteria, conditioning regimens, and timing of transplant with respect to disease status. The transplant-related mortality rate was 32%, the relapse rate was 15%, and toxicities included acute and chronic graft-vs-host disease and veno-occlusive disease. The aggregate rate of complete remission was 45%. Survival at 1 year or longer ranged from 30% to 60% at 1 to 5 years of follow-up. All studies reported successful chimerism. CONCLUSIONS Disease-specific studies with longer follow-up are needed to evaluate this potentially promising therapy.
A critical review of glove and hand research with regard to medical glove design

Research from a number of areas was surveyed, including hand function; skin friction; manual performance testing; glove comfort, fit and durability; and user perception. The relevance of the research to medical glove design was discussed. It was concluded that, while an understanding has been gained of the factors that affect glove performance in general, specific application to thin rubber gloves has not been well explored. The focus in glove performance testing has also been on simple tasks such as pegboards, which do not necessarily assess the fine dexterity required in many surgical tasks. Recommendations were made for the development of a new battery of tests specific to medical gloves that would simulate real medical tasks and could produce repeatable results and have sufficient resolution to differentiate between glove types. Practitioner Summary: In this paper, glove and hand research to-date was reviewed, for the purpose of laying out the current state of scientific knowledge with regard to medical glove design and identifying key areas for further research. Recommendations were made for the development of tests that better simulate medical tasks.