Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hydrogen-bonds structure in poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) studied by temperature-dependent infrared spectroscopy

Hydrogen-bonds structure in poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) were investigated by means of temperature-dependent infrared (IR) spectroscopy. Spectral variations involved with the OH…OH and C=O…HO types of hydrogen-bonds were found around the glass transition temperature of 80°C. Hydrogen-bonds among the hydroxyl groups gradually dissociate with increasing temperature. In contrast, discontinuous variation in the carbonyl bands was observed around the glass transition temperature. An association of the C=O…HO type of hydrogen-bond with increasing temperature above the glass transition temperature was revealed. These were concluded from the present study that hydrogen-bonds among the hydroxyl groups in each side chain terminal suppress the main chain mobility in the polymer matrix below the glass transition temperature, while the dissociation of the OH…OH type of hydrogen-bonds induces the association of the C=O…HO type of hydrogen-bond. As a result, the mobility of the main chain is induced by the change in hydrogen-bonds structure at the glass transition temperature.
“Our Modern Skulls House a Stone Age Brain”: An Overview and Annotated Bibliography of Evolutionary Psychology, Part I

In the first of this two-part series, some of the major tenets and current applications of evolutionary psychology are briefly outlined for behavioral and social science librarians. Special note is taken of its controversial beliefs in the evolutionarily hard-wired nature of human sexual attraction and mate choice, its description of the relative role of gender over the course of evolution, and, in particular, its notion that rape may have had a basis in an evolutionary adaptation. Three annotated lists of recommended works are included. The first lists works in favor of the theory; the second, works that take a more critical view but are generally supportive; and the third of works that take serious exception to the field in whole or in part. Reviews of recommended books are summarized and citation counts of some articles regarded as classic in the field are provided. The second part of this series will focus on specific physical traits and courtship behaviors that have been closely studied by evolutionary psychologists as key to understanding human sexual attraction and mate choice.
Optimization of Wind Farm Turbine Layout Including Decision Making Under Risk

This paper presents a new contribution to optimal wind farm design, including the main risk management aspects. The objective of the algorithm is to optimize the expected profits of the wind farm by taking into account that the wind data used to design the wind farm involves some degree of uncertainty that affects the final return of the project. Net present value (NPV) will be used as a figure of the profitability in the proposed method. The maximization of the NPV means the maximization of the cumulative net cash flows (by maximizing the generation of net energy) and minimization of the investment. Both terms mainly depend on the number and type of wind turbines, tower height, and geographical position, among other factors. Therefore, the tool developed in this paper is intended to determine the wind farm configuration most suitable in the presence of risk due to uncertainty in the wind data.
Chronic Intermittent Hypoxia Differentially Impacts Different States of Inspiratory Activity at the Level of the preBötzinger Complex

The preBötzinger complex (preBötC) is a medullary brainstem network crucially involved in the generation of different inspiratory rhythms. In the isolated brainstem slice, the preBötC reconfigures to produce different rhythms that we refer to as “fictive eupnea” under baseline conditions (i.e., carbogen), and “fictive gasping” in hypoxia. We recently demonstrated that fictive eupnea is irregular following exposure to chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH). However, it is unknown how CIH impacts fictive gasping. To address this, brain slices containing the preBötC were prepared from control and CIH exposed mice. Electrophysiological recordings of rhythmogenesis were obtained during the perihypoxic interval. We examined how CIH affects various dynamic aspects of the rhythm characterized by: (1) the irregularity score (IrS), to assess burst-to-variability; (2) the fluctuation value (χ), to quantify the gain of oscillations throughout the time series; and (3) Sample Entropy (sENT), to characterize the pattern/structure of oscillations in the time series. In baseline conditions, CIH increased IrS of amplitude (0.21 ± 0.2) and χ of amplitude (0.34 ± 0.02) but did not affect sENT of amplitude. This indicated that CIH increased burst-to-burst irregularity and the gain of amplitude fluctuations but did not affect the overall pattern/structure of amplitude oscillations. During the transition to hypoxia, 33% of control rhythms whereas 64% of CIH-exposed rhythms showed no doubling of period, suggesting that the probability for stable rhythmogenesis during the transition to hypoxia was greater following CIH. While 29% of control rhythms maintained rhythmicity throughout hypoxia, all slices from CIH exposed mice exhibited rhythms throughout the hypoxic interval. During hypoxia, differences in χ for amplitude were no longer observed between groups. To test the contribution of the persistent sodium current, we examined how riluzole influenced rhythmogenesis following CIH. In networks exposed to CIH, riluzole reduced the IrS of amplitude (-24 ± 14%) yet increased IrS of period (+49 ± 17%). Our data indicate that CIH affects the preBötC, in a manner dependent on the state of the oxygenation. Along with known changes that CIH has on peripheral sensory organs, the effects of CIH on the preBötC may have important implications for sleep apnea, a condition characterized by rapid transitions between normoxia and hypoxia.
Pneumolysin, a Protein Toxin of Streptococcus pneumoniae, Induces Nitric Oxide Production from Macrophages

ABSTRACT Nitric oxide (NO) production by inducible NO synthase (iNOS) during inflammation is an essential element of antimicrobial immunity but can also contribute to host-induced tissue damage. Under conditions of bacterial sepsis, large amounts of NO are produced, causing hypotension, a critical pathological feature of septic shock. In sepsis caused by gram-positive organisms, the bacterial factors contributing to host NO production are poorly characterized. We show that a soluble toxin of Streptococcus pneumoniae, pneumolysin (Pln), is a key component initiating NO production from macrophages. In contrast to wild-type bacteria, a mutant of S. pneumoniae lacking Pln failed to elicit NO production from murine macrophages. Purified recombinant Pln induced NO production at low concentrations and independently of exogenous gamma interferon (IFN-γ) priming of RAW 264.7 macrophages. However, IFN-γ was essential for Pln-induced NO production, since primary macrophages from mice lacking the IFN-γ receptor or interferon regulatory factor 1, a transcription factor essential for iNOS expression, failed to produce NO when stimulated with Pln. In addition, Pln acts as an agonist of tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin 6 production in macrophages. The properties of Pln, previously identified as a pore-forming hemolysin, also include a role as a general inflammatory agonist.
Guidelines for intervention trials in subjects with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes.

Type 1, or insulin-dependent diabetes, is an autoimmune disease that culminates in the destruction of insulin-producing β-cells in the islets of the pancreas. Studies in the nonobese diabetic (NOD) mouse model of spontaneous type 1 diabetes provide “proof-of-concept” that the disease is preventable (1). People with type 1 diabetes and their relatives, researchers, government, and industry are eager to move forward and test candidate intervention/prevention therapies in humans. Such therapies may entail risks, including accelerated loss of β-cell function, malignancy, and infection. Scientifically and ethically, investigators are obliged to maximize the information gained from intervention trials and minimize risks. One way of achieving this is by standardizing trial protocols. Standardization of islet autoantibody assays (2–13) and of the intravenous glucose tolerance test for measuring first-phase insulin response (14–18) has been a major advance, allowing stratification for disease risk among relatives. The literature on intervention trials in newly diagnosed type 1 diabetic patients (19–44) reveals that entry criteria, trial design and duration, and outcome measures differ considerably. Adoption of standardized protocols would permit comparative and pooled data analysis and facilitate evaluation of potential therapies. Our purpose here is to highlight issues pertaining to trial variables and suggest ways of standardizing protocols for phase I and II intervention trials in newly diagnosed patients. These issues will be discussed under three major headings: trial subjects, trial design, and trial outcome measures. ### Diagnosis of diabetes #### Background. Type 1 diabetes can have different clinical presentations that presumably reflect the nature of the underlying disease pathology, to which we have no direct access. Some patients present acutely with dehydration and ketoacidosis, whereas others have minimal or no symptoms (45,46). Natural history studies have indicated that these differences may correlate with the rate of loss of β-cell function and residual β-cell function, determined …
Review on Trypanosoma cruzi: Host Cell Interaction

Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas' disease, which affects a large number of individuals in Central and South America, is transmitted to vertebrate hosts by blood-sucking insects. This protozoan is an obligate intracellular parasite. The infective forms of the parasite are metacyclic and bloodstream trypomastigote and amastigote. Metacyclic trypomastigotes are released with the feces of the insect while amastigotes and bloodstream trypomastigotes are released from the infected host cells of the vertebrate host after a complex intracellular life cycle. The recognition between parasite and mammalian host cell involves numerous molecules present in both cell types. Here, we present a brief review of the interaction between Trypanosoma cruzi and its host cells, mainly emphasizing the mechanisms and molecules that participate in the T. cruzi invasion process of the mammalian cells.
Citizenship Projects for Marriage Migrants in South Korea: Intersecting Motherhood with Ethnicity and Class

The growing scale of international marriage migration, especially intra-regional marriage migration in Asia, has transformed the ethnoscape in destination countries. Some states, such as South Korea, have taken relatively inclusive actions regarding women marriage migrants. By closely examining the legal structure and public policies and programs, this article examines the formation of both legal and substantive citizenship for Filipina marriage migrants in South Korea. The article demonstrates that the state projects emphasize marriage migrants’ role as biological and cultural reproducers of "Koreans,” thus constructing "ethnicized maternal citizenship. ” This state project, the article argues, paradoxically promotes cultural assimilation while relegating marriage migrants as gendered dependents and ethnic others. The article examines the women’s diverse responses to the citizenship projects, including appropriation, ambivalence, and resistance, finding that an important factor driving the responses is the women’s socioeconomic status after migrating. The emphasis on family roles in the state-based migration programs also means that marriage migrants must negotiate the boundaries of citizenship practices not only institutionally but also within the families.
B. F. Skinner's operationism

The major contributions of operationism have been negative, largely because operationists failed to distinguish logical theories of reference from empirical accounts of language. Behaviorism never finished an adequate formulation of verbal reports and therefore could not convincingly embrace subjective terms. But verbal responses to private stimuli can arise as social products through the contingencies of reinforcement arranged by verbal communities. In analyzing traditional psychological terms, we need to know their stimulus conditions ("finding the referent"), and why each response is controlled by that condition. Consistent reinforcement of verbal responses in the presence of stimuli presupposes stimuli acting upon both the speaker and the reinforcing community, but subjective terms, which apparently are responses to private stimuli, lack this characteristic. Private stimuli are physical, but we cannot account for these verbal responses by pointing to controlling stimuli, and we have not shown how verbal communities can establish and maintain the necessary consistency of reinforcement contingencies. Verbal responses to private stimuli may be maintained through appropriate reinforcement based on public accompaniments, or through reinforcements accorded responses made to public stimuli, with private cases then occurring by generalization. These contingencies help us understand why private terms have never formed a stable and uniform vocabulary: It is impossible to establish rigorous vocabularies of private stimuli for public use, because differential reinforcement cannot be made contingent upon the property of privacy. The language of private events is anchored in the public practices of the verbal community, which make individuals aware only by differentially reinforcing their verbal responses with respect to their own bodies. The treatment of verbal behavior in terms of such functional relations between verbal responses and stimuli provides a radical behaviorist alternative to the operationism of methodological behaviorists.
Information about human sexuality: sources, satisfaction, and perceived knowledge among college students

This study explored how 333 undergraduate and graduate students attending a large university in the southeastern USA learned about sex, their satisfaction with how they learned about sex, and their self-perceived knowledge before and after taking a human sexuality course. An anonymous, voluntary survey was administered to students in the first and last sessions of human sexuality classes each semester from fall 2004 until spring 2006. Standardized measures included how students learned about sex, satisfaction with ways they learned about sex, barriers to parent–child discussions, and self-perceived knowledge about sex. Although 67% of students indicated parents should be instrumental in sex education, only 15% indicated parents as a primary source. Thirty-seven percent reported some level of dissatisfaction with how they learned about sex. Self-perceived knowledge increased significantly following the course. College courses addressing sexuality as integral to human development should complement college programming that focuses on risk reduction for sexually transmitted diseases/infections, sexual assault, and unintended pregnancy.
Quantifying Preferences for Redistribution

This paper constructs quantified measures of preferences for redistribution using survey data from seven OECD countries in which respondents were asked how much in taxes individuals earning given levels of income “should” pay. The resulting preferred tax rates generate reasonable budget sets, are consistent with observed tax rates, and correlate closely with conventional categorical preference measures and voting behavior. While the overall variation in preferred progressivity is substantial, differences in preferences across political and economic subgroups are modest. Individuals do not appear to prefer disproportionately lower tax rates at income levels close to their own. Actual tax schedules imply a larger size of government than preferred tax schedules but often do tend to reflect preferred progressivity. * Monica Singhal. John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and NBER. monica_singhal@harvard.edu. I thank Octavia Foarta and Jill Gentry Leandro for providing excellent research assistance and the Harvard University Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Taubman Center for State and Local Government for generous research support.
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 1042 Pressure Ulcer Prevention Performance and Implementation in Hospital Settings

Sving, E. 2014. Pressure Ulcer Prevention. Performance and Implementation in Hospital Settings. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 1042. 73 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-554-9073-7. Background: Pressure ulcers are related to reduced quality of life for patients and high costs for health care. Guidelines for pressure ulcer prevention have been available for many years but the problem remains. Aim: The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate hospital setting factors that are important to the performance of pressure ulcer prevention and to evaluate an intervention focused on implementing evidence-based pressure ulcer prevention. Methods: Four studies with a qualitative and quantitative approach were conducted. Registered nurses’ performance of pressure ulcer prevention for patients at risk was investigated. Factors related to pressure ulcer prevention at different levels in hospital organizations were examined (hospital and ward type, workload, and nurse staffing) in two hospitals. A quasi-experimental study evaluated the effects of an intervention focusing on pressure ulcer prevention and a descriptive study with interviews examined nurses and first-line managers’ experiences of this intervention. Results: All of the studies show that quality improvement was needed for patients at risk of pressure ulcer. Registered nurses attention to pressure ulcer prevention was low and the caring culture of the wards ranged from organized work to unorganized work. Factors related to pressure ulcer prevention were patients’ age (risk and skin assessment) and patients’ risk (skin assessment, pressure reducing mattresses and planned repositioning), type of hospital (university and general), and ward (geriatric, medical, and surgical). Nurse staffing and workload played a minor role. Significantly more patients received pressure ulcer prevention after the intervention. Important factors for improvement were the support nurses and managers received by external and internal facilitators. Another important factor was interpersonal communication on the care provided by the nurses and first-line managers. Conclusion:Quality improvement regarding evidence-based pressure ulcer prevention was needed. Factors associated with pressure ulcer prevention were related to all levels in the hospital settings. A comprehensive intervention showed statistically significant improvement in the care. Interpersonal communication among the staff based on quality measurements was the key factor. Managers from the microto the macro-level have to know the conditions for pressure ulcer prevention and, given their position, ensure that the necessary prerequisites are in place.
Can we have spiritual experiences on-line?

Contemporary user interfaces emphasize attributes such as rapid delivery of information, immediate notification of events, real-time awareness, scope of visibility, and command and control. The user is poised for knowledge, power, and action.In this SIG, we invite members of the CHI community to help us explore a different area of human comprehension and action. We are concerned about issues of spiritual experience in the use of computers. What kinds of designs and electronic environments might permit, support, or augment spiritual experiences -- by individuals, and especially by groups of people who share a spiritual tradition? Curiously, we have not been able to find any publications relevant to this topic. We suspect that there is work going on in this area, and but we may not know how to search for it.We plan to conduct the SIG in three parts. The first part will be a plenary presentation of the topic, with a relatively formal, panel-like group discussion. In the second part of the session, we will change the "voice" in which we speak to a relatively quieter, contemplative mode, splitting into groups of fewer than ten people each. The groups may begin their discussions with ideas from the plenary part of the session, or they may immediately take up questions and experiences from their own membership. We will ask the small groups if they want to reconvene into a final plenary session to report back on their new understandings. Alternatively, we may ask people from each of the small groups to record their understandings or conclusions for us. If the outcomes appear to be of interest to the larger CHI community, we will write a report for SIGCHI Bulletin.
A longitudinal study of occlusal interferences and signs of craniomandibular disorder at the ages of 12 and 15 years.

Occlusal interferences and signs of craniomandibular disorder (CMD) were studied longitudinally in 167 Finnish adolescents at the ages of 12 and 15 years in order to evaluate their importance for orthodontic diagnosis. Of the adolescents sampled 16.8 per cent had received orthodontic treatment. The results showed that occlusal interferences and signs of CMD are quite common. Of the 12-year-olds 25.7 per cent and 30.5 per cent of the 15-year-olds showed palpatory tenderness of the muscles of mastication. Clicking sounds were recorded for 6 per cent of the 15-year-olds. Opening capacity increased with age. Only tow of the adolescents at the age of 12 and none at the age of 15 fulfilled the criteria of functionally optimal occlusion. The number of occlusal interferences increased between 12 and 15 years of age. Both occlusal interferences and clinical signs of CMD were inconsistent in nature. Mediotrusion contracts and protrusion interferences were found to be the most stable occlusal interferences at adolescence. As to pain on mouth opening, the symptom group at the age of 15 consisted of entirely new individuals. No single sign or CMD symptom, nor combination of them, was consistent enough for inclusion in orthodontic screening indices. However, even though the symptomatology changed, only a few of those considered to be symptomatic at the age of 12 were asymptomatic at the age of 15. In accordance with the present state of knowledge, it would thus seem appropriate to add a general statement about the presence or absence of CMD signs and/or symptoms to orthodontic screening indices. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Cyclooxygenase-2 in Human Perinatal Lung

Cyclooxygenases-1 and -2 are the key enzymes in the conversion of arachidonic acid to prostanoids. Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) takes part both in inflammation and in control of cell growth. COX-2 immunohistochemistry was performed on lung tissues from autopsies, with four groups included: fetuses (n = 4, GA = 16.0 to 32.0 wk), preterm infants (n = 10, GA = 23.0 to 29.9 wk), term infants (n = 6, GA = 38.7 to 42.0 wk), and infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) (n = 4, GA = 28.9 to 30.7 wk). COX-2 staining occurred exclusively in the epithelial cells resembling type II pneumocytes in the alveolae, and in ciliated epithelial cells in the bronchi. In fetuses, moderate intensity alveolar staining was seen in 90–100% cells lining the alveolar epithelium. In preterm infants, high intensity alveolar staining was seen in a scattered pattern. In term infants, the alveolar staining was also scattered, but with a lower proportion of positive cells. In BPD no staining appeared in alveolar epithelial cells. The most intense bronchial staining was found in fetuses and the least intense in term infants; staining was also seen in BPD. COX-2 is present in human perinatal lung from the gestational age of 16 wk, in a changing pattern. We suggest that COX-2 may, in addition to participating in inflammation, also play a developmental role in the perinatal lung.