Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heterocellular Contact at the Myoendothelial Junction Influences Gap Junction Organization

Heterocellular communication between vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) and endothelial cells (EC) at the myoendothelial junction (MEJ) is a critical part of control of the arteriolar wall. We have developed an in vitro model of the MEJ composed of primary cultures of murine EC and VSMC. Immunoctytochemistry and immunoblots demonstrated Cx37 and Cx43 in both cell types, whereas Cx40 was found only in EC. Cx37 was excluded from the MEJ in both EC and VSMC. Connexin composition as well as functionality of the gap junctions at the MEJ was assessed by measuring diffusional transfer of biocytin and Cy3. Using connexin-specific blockers and manipulations of expression of individual connexin proteins, we confirmed that Cx37 is not a part of EC–VSMC coupling, and we demonstrated that heterotypic gap junctions are functional at the MEJ. We speculate that specific gap junction organization may be a vital component of EC–VSMC contact at the MEJ.
Urban agriculture and the sustainability fix in Vancouver and Detroit

Both Vancouver, British Columbia, and Detroit, Michigan, have significant and growing urban agriculture movements. In this article, I follow recent work investigating the connection between urban agriculture and neoliberalization to determine how these local governments have used urban agriculture in narratives of economic development to selectively pursue a sustainability fix. I analyze how different regimes of local governance have influenced the urban agriculture movements, leading to local, hybridized fixes that adapt to different material and discursive contexts in each place. I argue that in both cities, urban agriculture has radical potential as a grassroots response to economic and environmental injustice, but has also been enrolled as a device by the local state in which the primary goal of sustainability planning becomes enhanced economic competitiveness. Pursuing an agenda of food justice requires examining the larger context and effects of municipal involvement with food movements.
Vpu Antagonizes BST-2–Mediated Restriction of HIV-1 Release via β-TrCP and Endo-Lysosomal Trafficking

The interferon-induced transmembrane protein BST-2/CD317 (tetherin) restricts the release of diverse enveloped viruses from infected cells. The HIV-1 accessory protein Vpu antagonizes this restriction by an unknown mechanism that likely involves the down-regulation of BST-2 from the cell surface. Here, we show that the optimal removal of BST-2 from the plasma membrane by Vpu requires the cellular protein β-TrCP, a substrate adaptor for a multi-subunit SCF E3 ubiquitin ligase complex and a known Vpu-interacting protein. β-TrCP is also required for the optimal enhancement of virion-release by Vpu. Mutations in the DSGxxS β-TrCP binding-motif of Vpu impair both the down-regulation of BST-2 and the enhancement of virion-release. Such mutations also confer dominant-negative activity, consistent with a model in which Vpu links BST-2 to β-TrCP. Optimal down-regulation of BST-2 from the cell surface by Vpu also requires the endocytic clathrin adaptor AP-2, although the rate of endocytosis is not increased; these data suggest that Vpu induces post-endocytic membrane trafficking events whose net effect is the removal of BST-2 from the cell surface. In addition to its marked effect on cell-surface levels, Vpu modestly decreases the total cellular levels of BST-2. The decreases in cell-surface and intracellular BST-2 are inhibited by bafilomycin A1, an inhibitor of endosomal acidification; these data suggest that Vpu induces late endosomal targeting and partial degradation of BST-2 in lysosomes. The Vpu-mediated decrease in surface expression is associated with reduced co-localization of BST-2 and the virion protein Gag along the plasma membrane. Together, the data support a model in which Vpu co-opts the β-TrCP/SCF E3 ubiquitin ligase complex to induce endosomal trafficking events that remove BST-2 from its site of action as a virion-tethering factor.
Brain shaving: adaptive detection for brain PET data

The intricacy of brain biology is such that the variation of imaging end-points in health and disease exhibits an unpredictable range of spatial distributions from the extremely localized to the very diffuse. This represents a challenge for the two standard approaches to analysis, the mass univariate and the multivariate that exhibit either strong specificity but not as good sensitivity (the former) or poor specificity and comparatively better sensitivity (the latter). In this work, we develop an analytical methodology for positron emission tomography that operates an extraction (‘shaving’) of coherent patterns of signal variation while maintaining control of the type I error. The methodology operates two rotations on the image data, one local using the wavelet transform and one global using the singular value decomposition. The control of specificity is obtained by using the gap statistic that selects, within each eigenvector, a subset of significantly coherent elements. Face-validity of the algorithm is demonstrated using a paradigmatic data-set with two radiotracers, [11C]-raclopride and [11C]-(R)-PK11195, measured on the same Huntington's disease patients, a disorder with a genetic based diagnosis. The algorithm is able to detect the two well-known separate but connected processes of dopamine neuronal loss (localized in the basal ganglia) and neuroinflammation (diffusive around the whole brain). These processes are at the two extremes of the distributional envelope, one being very sparse and the latter being perfectly Gaussian and they are not adequately detected by the univariate and the multivariate approaches.
Quinolone-resistant mutants of escherichia coli DNA topoisomerase IV parC gene

Escherichia coli quinolone-resistant strains with mutations of the parC gene, which codes for a subunit of topoisomerase IV, were isolated from a quinolone-resistant gyrA mutant of DNA gyrase. Quinolone-resistant parC mutants were also identified among the quinolone-resistant clinical strains. The parC mutants became susceptible to quinolones by introduction of a parC+ plasmid. Introduction of the multicopy plasmids carrying the quinolone-resistant parC mutant gene resulted in an increase in MICs of quinolones for the parC+ and quinolone-resistant gyrA strain. Nucleotide sequences of the quinolone-resistant parC mutant genes were determined, and missense mutations at position Gly-78, Ser-80, or Glu-84, corresponding to those in the quinolone-resistance-determining region of DNA gyrase, were identified. These results indicate that topoisomerase IV is a target of quinolones in E. coli and suggest that the susceptibility of E. coli cells to quinolones is determined by sensitivity of the targets, DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV.
Word Sense Disambiguation based on Semantic Density

This paper presents a Word Sense Disambiguation method based on the idea of semantic density between words. The disambiguation is done in the context of WordNet. The Internet is used as a raw corpora to provide statistical information for word associations. A metric is introduced and used to measure the semantic density and to rank all possible combinations of the senses of two words. This method provides a precision of 58% in indicating the correct sense for both words at the same time. The precision increases as we consider more choices: 70% for top two ranked and 73% for top three ranked.
Measuring Depression in a Non-Western War-Affected Displaced Population: Measurement Equivalence of the Beck Depression Inventory

Depression is commonly seen in survivors of conflict and disaster across the world. There is a dearth of research on the validity of commonly used measures of depression in these populations. Measurements of depression that are used in multiple contexts need to meet measurement equivalence, i.e., the instrument measures the same construct in the same manner across different groups. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was administered to female trauma survivors in the United States (n = 268) and female survivors of war in Sri Lanka (n = 149). Three metrics of measurement equivalence—structural, metric, and scalar—were examined. Two- and three-factor structures of the BDI that have been identified in other populations did not provide a good fit for our data. However, a bifactor model revealed a similar general distress dimension across populations, but dissimilar secondary dimensions or subfactors. The Sri Lankan subfactor comprised of predominantly somatic symptoms and the United States subfactor comprised of cognitive and somatic symptoms. While intercepts of individual BDI items differed, their differences seem to be offsetting. Total BDI scores across these two populations are roughly comparable, although caution is recommended when interpreting them. Making comparisons on subscales is not recommended.
FC-PACO-RM: A Parallel Method for Service Composition Optimal-Selection in Cloud Manufacturing System

In order to realize the full-scale sharing, free circulation and transaction, and on-demand-use of manufacturing resource and capabilities in modern enterprise systems (ES), Cloud manufacturing (CMfg) as a new service-oriented manufacturing paradigm has been proposed recently. Compared with cloud computing, the services that are managed in CMfg include not only computational and software resource and capability service, but also various manufacturing resources and capability service. These various dynamic services make ES more powerful and to be a higher-level extension of traditional services. Thus, as a key issue for the implementation of CMfg-based ES, service composition optimal-selection (SCOS) is becoming very important. SCOS is a typical NP-hard problem with the characteristics of dynamic and uncertainty. Solving large scale SCOS problem with numerous constraints in CMfg by using the traditional methods might be inefficient. To overcome this shortcoming, the formulation of SCOS in CMfg with multiple objectives and constraints is investigated first, and then a novel parallel intelligent algorithm, namely full connection based parallel adaptive chaos optimization with reflex migration (FC-PACO-RM) is developed. In the algorithm, roulette wheel selection and adaptive chaos optimization are introduced for search purpose, while full-connection parallelization in island model and new reflex migration way are also developed for efficient decision. To validate the performance of FC-PACO-RM, comparisons with 3 serial algorithms and 7 typical parallel methods are conducted in three typical cases. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for addressing complex SCOS in CMfg.
Computational Approaches to Figurative Language Conference Program Lexical Influences on the Perception of Sarcasm

in abundance in natural discourse. It is an effective apparatus to heighten effect and convey various meanings, such as humor, irony, sarcasm, affection, etc. Figurative language can be found not only in fiction, but also in everyday speech, newspaper articles, research papers, and even technical reports. The recognition of figurative language use and the computation of figurative language meaning constitute one of the hardest problems for a variety of natural language processing tasks, such as machine translation, text summarization, information retrieval, and question answering. Resolution of this problem involves both a solid understanding of the distinction between literal and non-literal language and the development of effective computational models that can make the appropriate semantic interpretation automatically. The emphasis of this workshop is on computational approaches to figurative language, be it modeling or natural language processing. The goal of the workshop is to provide a venue for researchers to reach a better understanding of the new issues and challenges that need to be tackled in dealing with non-literal phenomena. We are very happy that the workshop has attracted people from different disciplines and hope that the workshop will continue to live in the future. It is our pleasure to thank our invited speaker, Rada Mihalcea (of University of North Texas), for her presentation " The Language of Humor ". We would also like to thank all the members of the program committee for their advice and for reviewing the papers carefully on a tight schedule. Enjoy the workshop! Abstract Speakers and listeners make use of a variety of pragmatic factors to produce and identify sarcastic statements. It is also possible that lexical factors play a role, although this possibility has not been investigated previously. College students were asked to read excerpts from published works that originally contained the phrase said sarcastically, although the word sarcastically was deleted. The participants rated the characters' statements in these excerpts as more likely to be sarcastic than those from similar excerpts that did not originally contain the word sarcastically. The use of interjections, such as gee or gosh, predicted a significant amount of the variance in the participants' ratings of sarcastic intent. This outcome suggests that sarcastic statements may be more formulaic than previously realized. It also suggests that computer software could be written to recognize such lexical factors, greatly increasing the likelihood that non-literal intent could be correctly interpreted by such programs, even if …
General Self-Motivation and Strategy Identification: Case Studies Based on Sokoban and Pac-Man

In this paper, we use empowerment, a recently introduced biologically inspired measure, to allow an AI player to assign utility values to potential future states within a previously unencountered game without requiring explicit specification of goal states. We further introduce strategic affinity, a method of grouping action sequences together to form “strategies,” by examining the overlap in the sets of potential future states following each such action sequence. We also demonstrate an information-theoretic method of predicting future utility. Combining these methods, we extend empowerment to soft-horizon empowerment which enables the player to select a repertoire of action sequences that aim to maintain anticipated utility. We show how this method provides a proto-heuristic for nonterminal states prior to specifying concrete game goals, and propose it as a principled candidate model for “intuitive” strategy selection, in line with other recent work on “self-motivated agent behavior. ” We demonstrate that the technique, despite being generically defined independently of scenario, performs quite well in relatively disparate scenarios, such as a Sokoban-inspired box-pushing scenario and in a Pac-Man-inspired predator game, suggesting novel and principle-based candidate routes toward more general game-playing algorithms.
A Spirituális Transzcendencia Skála hazai alkalmazása: elmélet, pszichometriai jellemzők, kutatási eredmények és rövidített változat

Absztrakt Tanulmanyunkban bemutatjuk a Spiritualis Transzcendencia Skala (STS, Piedmont, 1999, 2004a) magyar valtozatanak elmeleti hatteret es pszichometriai jellemzőit. Ket, osszesen 803 fős, segitő foglalkozasuakbol (hiteleti vegzettsegűek, pszichoterapeutak es egyeb segitő foglalkozasuak) es nem segitő foglalkozasu felnőttekből allo mintaban a 23 teteles STS harom alskalaja, az ima/meditacio altal erzett beteljesules, az univerzalitas es az osszekotottseg elfogadhato pszichometriai jellemzőket mutatott. Az adatoknak az elmeletileg varhato, illetve az amerikai mintan mert empirikus komponensstrukturahoz valo illeszkedese a kozepestől a kivaloig terjedt. A tanulmany javaslatot tesz a teszt roviditett, kilencteteles valtozatara is, mely alskalankent harom tetelből all. A validitast tekintve a spiritualitas valtozoi viszonylag fuggetlenek voltak a szemelyiseg NEO-PI-R kerdőivvel mert ot alapdimenziojatol, es az elvart modon alltak osszefuggesben a Kritika Utani Vallasossag Skala altal mert alapvető vallasi.
FACTORS AFFECTING DIET DIGESTIBILITY IN DAIRY CATTLE

Feces typically comprises the greatest loss of ingested energy in ruminants, and the variation in converting digestible energy to metabolizable energy is usually small. Diet digestibility is determined by intrinsic properties of interand intramolecular structure of plant cell walls, which establish the upper potential for the rate and extent of cell wall digestion in ruminants (Mertens, 1993). Typically digestibility for feed evaluation in ruminants is estimated with sheep fed at maintenance level of feeding. It can be considered as an intrinsic digestibility of the feedstuff, although only 80-90% of potentially digestible NDF (pdNDF) is digested at maintenance level of intake (Huhtanen et al., 2006). The intrinsic rate and extent of digestion of cell walls set the upper limit of digestion in ruminants, but both the animal and diet factors can have a dramatic effect on the extent to which the potential digestibility is attained. It is wellknown that digestibility of dairy cow diets is reduced with increasing intake (Tyrrel and Moe, 1975), but the discounts for the feeding level effects on digestibility are variable in feed evaluation systems. The rate of decline has been shown to be related to diet digestibility at maintenance intake (NRC, 2001). The changes in digestibility observed with increased intake have been associated with reduced digesta retention time in the rumen. Further, both negative and positive associative effects between dietary components on digestion can occur, especially at high levels of feeding. The objective of this paper is to analyze the effects of some intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing digestibility of mixed dairy cow diets, and to compare different models in predicting discounts in digestibility with increasing intake. The analysis is based on a dataset from North European feeding trials, in which diet digestibility was determined in dairy cows.
Band configurable multi-band BPF using step impedance resonator structure

Now a days multi-band and multi-service applications are increased so need of reconfigurable components is increased. Proposed single design can play role of single-band, dual-band, tri-band or quad-band BPF as the configurations of switching devices are changed. This work is based on switching between different filters (having different numbers of passbands). Designed filters have passband frequencies of mobile communication and aeronautical radio navigation applications and can be changed by changing designing parameters. Designing and simulation of proposed microstrip filter structure is performed on commercial software CST microwave studio. Alumina (Epsilon εr = 9.9) sheet of height 0.5mm is used as substrate material.
Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Male Offenders: Initiation, Motivations, Emotions, and Precipitating Events

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a complex issue that poses a risk to offenders and staff in all correctional jurisdictions and understanding of this behaviour in adult male offenders is limited. One hundred and four federally sentenced men in Canada participated in semi-structured interviews that were designed to assess their history of NSSI. Interview questions centered on mental health and history of abuse, suicide attempts, and non-suicidal self-injury, including whether the behaviour occurred before or after admission to a correctional facility. Coping was the most common reason provided for engaging in self-injury. The second most frequently reported reason was instrumental reasons, which involved using NSSI to exert control or obtain external rewards. Among a subset of men who first initiated NSSI in a Canadian federal institution, institutional-specific interpersonal influence was the most frequent motivation. The emotions most commonly reported by the men prior to engaging in NSSI were anger and frustration, and the emotions most commonly reported following NSSI were relief, followed by regret. Given that the motivations for NSSI and the emotions experienced by the individual can vary considerably, interventions should consider these motivations and emotions.
Panic disorder: from respiration to the homeostatic brain

There is some experimental evidence to support the existence of a connection between panic and respiration. However, only recent studies investigating the complexity of respiratory physiology have revealed consistent irregularities in respiratory pattern, suggesting that these abnormalities might be a vulnerability factor to panic attacks. The source of the high irregularity observed, together with unpleasant respiratory sensations in patients with panic disorder (PD), is still unclear and different underlying mechanisms might be hypothesized. It could be the result of compensatory responses to abnormal respiratory inputs or an intrinsic deranged activity in the brainstem network shaping the respiratory rhythm. Moreover, since basic physiological functions in the organism are strictly interrelated, with reciprocal modulations and abnormalities in cardiac and balance system function having been described in PD, the respiratory findings might arise from perturbations of these other basic systems or a more general dysfunction of the homeostatic brain. Phylogenetically ancient brain circuits process physiological perceptions/sensations linked to homeostatic functions, such as respiration, and the parabrachial nucleus might filter and integrate interoceptive information from the basic homeostatic functions. These physiological processes take place continuously and subconsciously and only occasionally do they pervade the conscious awareness as ‘primal emotions’. Panic attacks could be the expression of primal emotion arising from an abnormal modulation of the respiratory/homeostatic functions.
A társas összehasonlítás egyéni különbségei

Absztrakt A jelen tanulmany celja a Gibbons es Buunk (1999) altal kifejlesztett Iowa-Hollandia osszehasonlitasi orientacio skala (Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure) magyar nyelvre adaptalasa, megbizhatosagi vizsgalata es tesztstruktura elemzese. A vizsgalatban 522 fő (394 nő, 128 ferfi, atlageletkor: 27,71, SD = 10,28) vett reszt. Az eredeti skalahoz hasonloan a magyar Tarsas Osszehasonlitasi Orientacio Skalat (TOS) is negy faktor alkotja, amelyek a kepesseg (K), a velemeny (V), a lefele hasonlitasi (LH) es a felfele hasonlitasi (FH) dimenziokat merik. Mindemellett a skala megfelel a modszertani kovetelmenyeknek mind a feltaro faktorelemzes, mind a megerősitő faktorelemzes tekinteteben (RMSEA = 0,05; CFI = 0,96; TLI = 0,95; GFI = 0,96; Cronbach-alfa = 0,82). A belső konzisztencia a kepesseg es velemeny eseteben viszonylag alacsony, azonban ez magyarazhato a tetelek alacsony szamaval, a tobbi alskala ertekei megfelelnek a kovetelmenyeknek (αK = 0,66, αV = 0,69, αLH = 0,74, αFH = 0,79, αTOS = .