Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distinct mechanisms for aerenchyma formation in leaf sheaths of rice genotypes displaying a quiescence or escape strategy for flooding tolerance.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Rice is one of the few crops able to withstand periods of partial or even complete submergence. One of the adaptive traits of rice is the constitutive presence and further development of aerenchyma which enables oxygen to be transported to submerged organs. The development of lysigenous aerenchyma is promoted by ethylene accumulating within the submerged plant tissues, although other signalling mechanisms may also co-exist. In this study, aerenchyma development was analysed in two rice (Oryza sativa) varieties, 'FR13A' and 'Arborio Precoce', which show opposite traits in flooding response in terms of internode elongation and survival. METHODS The growth and survival of rice varieties under submergence was investigated in the leaf sheath of 'FR13A' and 'Arborio Precoce'. The possible involvement of ethylene and reactive oxygen species (ROS) was evaluated in relation to aerenchyma formation. Cell viability and DNA fragmentation were determined by FDA/FM4-64 staining and TUNEL assay, respectively. Ethylene production was monitored by gas chromatography and by analysing ACO gene expression. ROS production was measured by using Amplex Red assay kit and the fluorescent dye DCFH(2)-DA. The expression of APX1 was also evaluated. AVG and DPI solutions were used to test the effect of inhibiting ethylene biosynthesis and ROS production, respectively. KEY RESULTS Both the varieties displayed constitutive lysigenous aerenchyma formation, which was further enhanced when submerged. 'Arborio Precoce', which is characterized by fast elongation when submerged, showed active ethylene biosynthetic machinery associated with increased aerenchymatous areas. 'FR13A', which harbours the Sub1A gene that limits growth during oxygen deprivation, did not show any increase in ethylene production after submersion but still displayed increased aerenchyma. Hydrogen peroxide levels increased in 'FR13A' but not in 'Arborio Precoce'. CONCLUSIONS While ethylene controls aerenchyma formation in the fast-elongating 'Arborio Precoce' variety, in 'FR13A' ROS accumulation plays an important role.
WOMEN AND COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY: HAVE THE PROMISES OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES BEEN FULFILLED?

Considers the position of women in the computing industry and the impact of new technology on women employed in information handling occupations. Examines the role of traditional attitudes to women, education and training, this is of particular importance as the computer industry faces a skill crisis in the 1990s. Trends would seem to suggest that although women have the potential to take up new opportunities in computing, they fail to see computing as an attractive option and are technically ill‐equipped to do so.
Postoperative nomogram for 12-year sarcoma-specific death.

PURPOSE Few published studies have analyzed risk factors for sarcoma-specific death. We developed and internally validated a nomogram that combines the factors to predict the probability of 12-year sarcoma-specific death using a database of 2,136 prospectively followed adult patients treated at a single institution. PATIENTS AND METHODS Nomogram predictor variables included age at diagnosis, tumor size (< or = 5, 5 to 10, or > 10 cm), histologic grade (high or low), histologic subtype (fibrosarcoma, leiomyosarcoma, liposarcoma, malignant fibrous histiocytoma, malignant peripheral nerve tumor, synovial, or other), depth (superficial or deep), and site (upper extremity, lower extremity, visceral, thoracic or trunk, retrointraabdominal, or head or neck). Death from sarcoma or treatment complication was the predicted end point. Three prediction methods were compared, Kaplan-Meier analysis of all possible subsets, recursive partitioning, and Cox proportional hazards regression analysis. The concordance index was used as an accuracy measure with bootstrapping to correct for optimistic bias. RESULTS Sarcoma-specific death at 12 years was 36% (95% confidence interval, 33% to 39%). The bootstrap-corrected concordance indices were as follows: Kaplan-Meier, 0.69; recursive partitioning, 0.74; and Cox regression, 0.77. A nomogram was drawn on the basis of the Cox regression model. This nomogram was internally validated using bootstrapping and shown to have excellent calibration. CONCLUSION A nomogram has been developed to predict 12-year sarcoma-specific death. This tool may be useful for patient counseling, follow-up scheduling, and clinical trial eligibility determination.
Automated Extraction and Normalization of Findings from Cancer-Related Free-Text Radiology Reports

UNLABELLED We describe the performance of a particular natural language processing system that uses knowledge vectors to extract findings from radiology reports. LifeCode (A-Life Medical, Inc.) has been successfully coding reports for billing purposes for several years. In this study, we describe the use of LifeCode to code all findings within a set of 500 cancer-related radiology reports against a test set in which all findings were manually tagged. The system was trained with 1400 reports prior to running the test set. RESULTS LifeCode had a recall of 84.5% and precision of 95.7% in the coding of cancer-related radiology report findings. CONCLUSION Despite the use of a modest sized training set and minimal training iterations, when applied to cancer-related reports the system achieved recall and precision measures comparable to other reputable natural language processors in this domain.
Moving object tracking by optimizing active models

We propose a model based tracking algorithm which can extract trajectory information of a target object by detecting and tracking a moving object from a sequence of images. We use an active model which characterizes regional and structural features of a target object such as shape, texture, color, and edgeness. Our active model can adapt itself dynamically to an image sequence so that it can track a non-rigid moving object. We applied a Kalman filter to predict motion information. The predicted motion information from the Kalman filter was used very efficiently to reduce the search space in the matching process.
Gain control of firing rate by shunting inhibition: Roles of synaptic noise and dendritic saturation

Adjusting input–output gain is crucial for information processing by the brain. Gain control of subthreshold depolarization is commonly ascribed to increased membrane conductance caused by shunting inhibition. But contrary to its divisive effect on depolarization, shunting inhibition on its own fails to divisively modulate firing rate, apparently upsetting a critical tenet of neural models that use shunting inhibition to achieve gain control. Using a biophysically realistic neuron model, we show that divisive modulation of firing rate by shunting inhibition requires synaptic noise to smooth the relation between firing rate and somatic depolarization; although necessary, noise alone endows shunting inhibition with only a modest divisive effect on firing rate. In addition to introducing noise, synaptic input is associated with a nonlinear relation between somatic depolarization and excitation because of dendritic saturation; this nonlinearity dramatically enhances divisive modulation of firing rate by shunting inhibition under noisy conditions. Thus, shunting inhibition can act as a mechanism for firing rate gain control, but its modulatory effects (which include both divisive and subtractive components) are fully explained only when both synaptic noise and dendritic saturation are taken into account.
Survival in local voluntary associations

This article uses longitudinal data to explore the antecedents of survival among local voluntary associations. The literature distinguishes between deterministic and voluntaristic accounts of organizational survival. In a deterministic perspective, external selection processes determine whether organizations persevere. In a voluntaristic approach, strategic choices and organizational design are paramount. The analyses show that both perspectives have explanatory power. When it comes to avoiding organizational death, organizations can influence their destiny substantially by being extroverted, selecting a diverse and qualified board, and establishing ties to higher organizational levels.
Flying Insect Agents in Complex Chemical Plumes

This note reports a demonstration of an agent-based model for tracking in realistic environmental plumes of luring pheromone attractor. A useful output for more general applications is an algorithm to generate concentration time series randomised by turbulent mixing. Three illustrative cases are given and three system studies are also identified for applications of the model in pest management.
Interaction of superoxide dismutase with the glycine zipper regions of β-amyloid peptides: Is there an implication towards Alzheimer’s disease and oxidative stress?

Not only are β-amyloid peptides and senile plaque deposits characteristics in Alzheimer’s disease but there is growing evidence to suggest that oxidative stress also plays a role with a decrease in levels of brain superoxide dismutase (SOD), an enzyme that catalyses the dismutation of superoxide radicals into molecular oxygen and hydrogen peroxide. We show through kinetic and fluorescence analysis that β-amyloid peptides, in the glycine zipper region [Aβ29–33 and Aβ25–37] of Aβ1–40 interact with, and inhibit, SOD directly. The enzyme was purified 15.7-fold from bovine brain by DEAE-Sepharose ion exchange chromatography in a yield of 68.8% and specific activity of 3.66 U.mg−1. The subunit structure of the enzyme was monomeric with a molecular mass of 13 kDa, as estimated by SDS-PAGE. Inhibitor constants (Ki) and dissociation constants (Kd) were calculated as 14.44, 13.16 and 11.72 µM and 9.38, 15.7 and 12.13 for Aβ25–37, Aβ29–33 and Aβ1–40, respectively; the number of binding sites on the enzyme for the peptides was 1.
Psychosocial Interventions for Anxiety and Depression in Adult Cancer Patients: Achievements and Challenges

Psychosocial care is increasingly recognized as an essential component of the comprehensive care of the individual with cancer. Improving patients' access to psychosocial care is important; however, ensuring that the care made available has been shown to be effective is just as important. Accordingly, the goal of this review is to describe an evidence‐based approach to the psychosocial care of adults with cancer. The focus is on anxiety and depression because a considerable body of research has examined the impact of psychosocial interventions on these outcomes. After describing the sources, assessment, and prevalence of anxiety and depression in adults with cancer and presenting existing clinical practice guidelines for their management, previous publications that systematically reviewed evidence of the efficacy of psychosocial interventions are summarized. The use of these publications to derive specific recommendations for the use of psychosocial interventions in the management of anxiety and depression is then illustrated. In addition, examples are provided of interventions that are effective against anxiety and depression and have good potential for dissemination in routine clinical practice. The review concludes with a discussion of future directions for the continued development of an evidence‐based approach to the psychosocial care of people with cancer.
Understanding and Integrating Multiple Science Texts: Summary Tasks are Sometimes Better Than Argument Tasks

One of the major challenges of a knowledge society is that students as well as other citizens must learn to understand and integrate information from multiple textual sources. Still, task and reader characteristics that may facilitate or constrain such intertextual processes are not well understood by researchers. In this study, we compare the effects of summary and argument essay tasks when undergraduates read seven different texts on a particular scientific topic, finding that an instruction to write summaries may lead to better understanding and integration than an instruction to write argument essays. We discuss several possible explanations for this result. We also found that beliefs about the certainty of knowledge in some instances can moderate the effect of task on comprehension performance.
Kinect-Derived Augmentation of the Real World for Cultural Heritage

This paper explores the use of data from the Kinect sensor for performing augmented reality, with emphasis on cultural heritage applications. It is shown that the combination of depth and image correspondences from the Kinect can yield a reliable estimate of the location and pose of the camera using a recent solution to the Perspective-n-Point problem, though noise from the sensor introduces an unpleasant jittering of the rendered view. Kalman filtering of the camera position was found to yield a much more stable view. Results show that the system is accurate enough for in situ augmented reality applications for cultural heritage.
Tests of Conditional Predictive Ability

We argue that the current framework for predictive ability testing (e.g., West, 1996) is not necessarily useful for real-time forecast selection, i.e., for assessing which of two competing forecasting methods will perform better in the future. We propose an alternative framework for out-of-sample comparison of predictive ability which delivers more practically relevant conclusions. Our approach is based on inference about conditional expectations of forecasts and forecast errors rather than the unconditional expectations that are the focus of the existing literature. We capture important determinants of forecast performance that are neglected in the existing literature by evaluating what we call the forecasting method (the model and the parameter estimation procedure), rather than just the forecasting model. Compared to previous approaches, our tests are valid under more general data assumptions (heterogeneity rather than stationarity) and estimation methods, and they can handle comparison of both nested and non-nested models, which is not currently possible. To illustrate the usefulness of the proposed tests, we compare the forecast performance of three leading parameter-reduction methods for macroeconomic forecasting using a large number of predictors: a sequential model selection approach, the diffusion indexes approach of Stock and Watson (2002), and the use of Bayesian shrinkage estimators.
Patientenziele und Rumination

Hintergrund: Im Rahmen der «Goal-Progress-Theorie» postulieren Martin und Tesser 1996, dass das Nichterreichen bedeutsamer Ziele eine Ursache für vermehrtes Grübeln darstellt. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es zu untersuchen, inwieweit sich die Ruminationsneigung von Psychotherapiepatienten durch den grundsätzlichen Optimismus, bedeutsame persönliche Ziele zu erreichen (telische Zielattribute), sowie durch den Grad der Selbstdeterminiertheit der Ziele vorhersagen lässt. Methode: An einer Stichprobe von 81 Psychotherapie patienten wurden selbstdeterminierte und telische Eigenschaften persönlicher Ziele mithilfe eines idiografisch-nomothetischen Vorgehens erhoben. Mittels blockweiser Regressionsanalysen wurde analysiert, inwieweit diese Zieleigenschaften prädiktiv für das Ausmaß der depressiven bzw. allgemeinen Ruminationsneigung sind. Ergebnisse: Unter Kontrolle depressiver Symptombelastung besaßen beide Zieldimensionen signifikanten Vorhersagewert für das Ausmaß der depressiven, nicht aber der allgemeinen Grübelneigung. Schlussfolgerungen: Für Psychotherapeuten dürfte es wichtig sein, sowohl den Grad der Selbstdeterminiertheit der Ziele ihrer Patienten als auch den Optimismus der Patienten hinsichtlich der Zielerreichung kontinuierlich zu erfassen und gegebenenfalls zu bearbeiten, falls eine Reduktion depressiver Rumination therapeutisch indiziert erscheint.
Sensitivity loss in early glaucoma can be mapped to an enlargement of the area of complete spatial summation.

PURPOSE The area of complete spatial summation (Ricco's area) is the largest stimulus size for which area × intensity is constant at threshold. The authors sought to investigate whether Ricco's area changes in early glaucoma to account for the decreased visual signal/noise ratio that may accompany retinal ganglion cell loss. METHODS Spatial summation functions were measured, and Ricco's area was determined at four 10° retinal locations in 24 patients with early glaucoma (total deviation at test locations, mean, -1.3 dB; range, +2 dB to -8 dB) and 26 age-similar healthy subjects under achromatic and S-cone isolation conditions. Achromatic grating resolution acuity was measured at the same locations to estimate functional ganglion cell density. RESULTS Ricco's area was enlarged in patients compared with controls for both achromatic (enlarged by: superior field, 0.57 log units, P < 0.01; inferior field, 0.72 log units, P < 0.01) and chromatic (enlarged by: superior field, 0.26 log units, P < 0.01; inferior field, 0.25 log units, P = 0.065) stimuli, with negligible vertical summation curve shifts along the intensity axis. Resolution acuity was significantly reduced in glaucoma patients in both hemifields (P < 0.001). There was a weak, but significant, relationship between Ricco's area and resolution acuity. CONCLUSIONS Enlargement of Ricco's area completely compensates for reduced perimetric sensitivity in early glaucoma to maintain constant threshold at Ricco's area, suggesting an increase in signal pooling in response to ganglion cell loss. The rightward displacement of the spatial summation curve indicates that perimetric stimuli should be capable of modulating in size as well as/instead of contrast, which may boost the glaucoma signal within measurement noise.
Educators of educators: their goals, perceptions and practices

Teacher educators prepare future teachers, and their own professional development is essential for successful teaching and learning in schools. Our study aims at understanding teacher educators’ professional development (TEPD) from the unique perspective of a group of educators who are regularly involved in planning, managing and implementing varied professional development programs for teacher educators. Data analysis was performed along the lines of the ‘grounded theory’ traditions in qualitative research. Working theories were derived from the participants’ statements as to the preferable course of TEPD. These evolved around three mental images of the professionally well‐developed teacher educator: the model pedagogue; the reflective, self‐studying practitioner; and the developer of professional identities. These three working theories were followed by a fourth one relating to TEPD from the teacher educators’ own point of view. The implications of this study for teacher educators and teacher education are discussed in the paper.
Gender Differences in Receptivity to Sexual Offers

According to cultural stereotypes, men are more eager for sex than are women; women are more likely to set limits on such activity. In this paper, we review the work of theorists who have argued in favor of this proposition and review the interview and correlational data which support this contention. Finally, we report two experimental tests of ihis hypothesis. In these experiments, conducted in 1978 and 1982, male and female confederates of average attractiveness approached potential partners with one of three requests: "Would you go out tonight? " "Will you come over to my apartment? " or "Would you go to bed with me? " The great majority of men were willing to have a sexual liaison with the women who approached them. Women were not. Not one woman agreed to a sexual liaison. Many possible reasons for this marked gender difference were discussed. These studies were run in 1978 and 1982. It has since become important to track how the threat of AIDS is affecting men and women's willingness to date, come to a.
Was There No Place Like Home?: A New Perspective on Early Hominid Archaeological Sites From the Mapping of Chimpanzee Nests [and Comments and Reply]

Early archaeological sites in East Africa have traditionally been interpreted as home bases, suggesting that by two million years ago hominids had developed ranging behavior more similar to the subsistence patterns of modern human hunter-gatherers than to the individualistic foraging characteristic of other primates. This interpretation rests on assumptions about contrasts in the debris-producing behavior of primates and humans that have never been tested ethnoarchaeologically. To explore alternative behavioral processes that could have contributed to the formation of early archaeological sites, field research was undertaken on the ranging patterns of a small population of wild chimpanzees living along the Ishasha River in Zaire's Virunga National Park. This riparian habitat is comparable to the paleoenvironmental contexts of many early archaeological sites in East Africa. Maps of the distribution of the nesting and feeding debris produced by these chimpanzees formed patterns spatially analogous to concentrations of artifacts found at the early sites. These data raise questions about how the ecological structure and resource configuration of this habitat conditioned the spatial redundancy of the chimpanzees' debris patterns and the extent to which analogous processes may have helped to pattern the Plio/Pleistocene archaeological record.
Effects of a Yoga Program on Cortisol Rhythm and Mood States in Early Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Adjuvant Radiotherapy: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Objectives. This study compares the effects of an integrated yoga program with brief supportive therapy in breast cancer outpatients undergoing adjuvant radiotherapy at a cancer center. Methods. Eighty-eight stage II and III breast cancer outpatients are randomly assigned to receive yoga (n = 44) or brief supportive therapy (n = 44) prior to radiotherapy treatment. Assessments include diurnal salivary cortisol levels 3 days before and after radiotherapy and self-ratings of anxiety, depression, and stress collected before and after 6 weeks of radiotherapy. Results. Analysis of covariance reveals significant decreases in anxiety (P < .001), depression (P = .002), perceived stress (P < .001), 6 a.m. salivary cortisol (P = .009), and pooled mean cortisol (P = .03) in the yoga group compared with controls. There is a significant positive correlation between morning salivary cortisol level and anxiety and depression. Conclusion. Yoga might have a role in managing self-reported psychological distress and modulating circadian patterns of stress hormones in early breast cancer patients undergoing adjuvant radiotherapy.