Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cortisol modulates vasotocinergic and isotocinergic pathways in the gilthead sea bream

In the present study, we assessed the responses of the vasotocinergic and isotocinergic systems to chronic stress induced by cortisol administration in the gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata). Pituitary and plasma arginine vasotocin (AVT) and isotocin (IT) levels, as well as hypothalamic pro-vasotocin (pro-VT) and pro-isotocin (pro-IT) mRNA expression levels, were analysed. In addition, the mRNA levels of three receptors, AVTR type V1a2, AVTR type V2 and ITR, were analysed in several target organs associated with the following physiological processes: (i) integration and control (hypothalamus), (ii) metabolism and its control (liver and hypothalamus), (iii) osmoregulation (gills) and (iv) stress response (head kidney). Specimens were injected intraperitoneally with slow-release implants (5 μL g−1 body mass) containing coconut oil alone (control group) or with cortisol (50 μg g−1 body mass; cortisol group). Both AVT and IT synthesis and release were correlated with plasma cortisol values, suggesting a potential interaction between both hormonal systems and cortisol administration. Our results suggest that the activation of hepatic metabolism as well as the hypothalamic control of metabolic processes provide the energy necessary to overcome stress, which could be partly mediated by AVTRs and ITR. Upregulation of branchial AVT and IT receptor expression following cortisol treatment suggests an involvement of the vasotocinergic and isotocinergic systems in the regulation of ion channels/transporters during stressful situations. Finally, changes in AVT and IT receptor mRNA expression in the head kidney suggest these nonapeptides participate in feedback mechanisms that regulate the synthesis/release of cortisol. Our results indicate a relationship between cortisol and both the vasotocinergic and isotocinergic systems during simulated chronic stress in S. aurata.
CMPS 290 c S 07 : Final Project : MCMC Algorithms for solving Multitask Co-Leraning Problem

This project presents the di¢ culties in bounding the mixing time of the Markov chain presented in [1] for solving the multitask co-learning problem. In particular I show why the technics of canonical paths and coupling can not be directly applied. Then I propose an alternative markov chain that approximate the notion of co-learning for which a bounding in the mixing time is possible. The upper bound, unfortunately, is not polynomial in m -the number of good learners. To try to cope with that I give possible alternatives that might allow a bounding that depend only polynomialy in m.
Critical Race Narratives: A Study of Race, Rhetoric and Injury

The beating of Rodney King, the killing of Amadou Diallo, and the LAPD Rampart Scandal: these events have been interpreted by the courts, the media and the public in dramatically conflicting ways. Critical Race Narratives examines what is at stake in these conflicts and, in so doing, rethinks racial strife in the United States as a highly-charged struggle over different methods of reading and writing. Focusing in particular on the practice and theorization of narrative strategies, Gutierrez-Jones engages many of the most influential texts in the recent race debates including The Bell Curve, America in Black and White, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, and The Mismeasure of Man. In the process, Critical Race Narratives pursues key questions posed by the texts as they work within, or against, disciplinary expectations: can critical engagements with narrative enable a more democratic dialogue regarding race? what promise does such experimentation hold for working through the traumatic legacy of racism in the United States? Throughout, Critical Race Narratives initiates a timely dialogue between race-focused narrative experiment in scholarly writing and similar work in literary texts and popular culture.
PINK1 Deficiency Decreases Expression Levels of mir-326, mir-330, and mir-3099 during Brain Development and Neural Stem Cell Differentiation

PTEN-induced putative kinase 1 (PINK1) is a Parkinson's disease (PD) gene. We examined miRNAs regulated by PINK1 during brain development and neural stem cell (NSC) differentiation, and found that lvels of miRNAs related to tumors and inflammation were different between 1-day-old-wild type (WT) and PINK1-knockout (KO) mouse brains. Notably, levels of miR-326, miR-330 and miR-3099, which are related to astroglioma, increased during brain development and NSC differentiation, and were significantly reduced in the absence of PINK1. Interestingly, in the presence of ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), which pushes differentiation of NSCs into astrocytes, miR-326, miR-330, and miR-3099 levels in KO NSCs were also lower than those in WT NSCs. Furthermore, mimics of all three miRNAs increased expression of the astrocytic marker glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) during differentiation of KO NSCs, but inhibitors of these miRNAs decreased GFAP expression in WT NSCs. Moreover, these miRNAs increased the translational efficacy of GFAP through the 3'-UTR of GFAP mRNA. Taken together, these results suggest that PINK1 deficiency reduce expression levels of miR-326, miR-330 and miR-3099, which may regulate GFAP expression during NSC differentiation and brain development.
EndorSeer: An Add-on for Browsing Digital Libraries with "Endorsed" Citations

Co-citations have long been used as a measure of topical relatedness between documents. However, we have observed some characteristic patterns in the way cocitations are formed in dierent data corpora. Based on these observations, we propose various interpretations of what a co-citation means. For the purposes of this demo, we concern ourselves only with one of our interpretations: co-citations as citation endorsements. This interpretation can be used by focused surfers to browse citations that are relevant to their topic of interest in digital libraries. In this demo, we present EndorSeer, a Firefox add-on for CiteSeer, which emphasizes the topical relevance of outgoing citations of a given document by ranking them based on their endorsements by third-party co-citations.
Who decides what is fair in fair trade? The agri-environmental governance of standards, access, and price

The agri-environmental governance of value chains can favour a Polanyian double movement seeking social protection and control over price setting markets or it can advance a neoliberal logic that strives to overcome the few remaining civic and ecologic obstacles to full market dominance. Coupled with a typology that contrasts corporate social responsibility and social economy Fair Trade models, this theoretical framework elucidates positions in the current policy debates about the minimum coffee price standard. Many Southern smallholders consider Fair Trade's standards, which for coffee include direct market accesses for smallholder cooperatives, minimum prices, and environmental criteria, among the best deals available. The smallholder empowerment benefits are often better than competing eco-labels. However, this study finds that Fair Trade minimum prices lost 41 percent of their real value from 1988 to 2008. Despite objections from several ‘market driven’ firms and national labelling initiatives, smallholders' collective advocacy and this research contributed to the Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International's (FLO) decision to mandate a 7–11 percent minimum price increase. The price debates demonstrate that Fair Trade governance is neither purely neoliberal nor social movement led – it is a highly contested socially embedded practice. Voices without votes, North–South inequalities, and dwindling prices paid to its stated protagonists indicate the need for governance reform, cost of living price adjustments, and additional investment in the innovative alternative trade and hybrid models.
Ieee Computer Graphics and Applications Applications Interactive Exploration of 3d Scanned Baggage

V olumetric data are available in a variety of scienti c elds, from engineering and astrophysics , to medical imaging and security screening. The exploration of volumetric datasets is not trivial, however, and it is heavily impacted by the users' context-speci c needs. In most airports , for example, security agents deal with such data during baggage inspections. This domain speci cally uses two types of uoroscopic systems: x-ray and tomography scanning. An x-ray system provides a attened 2D baggage scan, whereas a tomography scanning system produces transver-sal scans called slices. Thanks to data processing (such as the Radon transform 1), using these slices, we can produce a full 3D scan (a set of voxels with their corresponding density). The input data is a uniformly sampled multivariate eld F: V → D, V ⊂ » n , D ⊂ » m , where n = 3 (volume), m = 1 (a scalar), V is a subset of space (x, y, z coordinates), and D is the data attributes (density). Because the resulting x-ray scanned image only contains densities, it cannot display the material's original colors. The standard color visual mapping uses three colors (orange, green, and blue) to display the data density. Orange corresponds to low densities (mainly organic items), and blue indicates high-density items (such as metals). In x-ray systems, green corresponds to the superposition of different kinds of materials or average density materials (see Figure 1). These 2D scanned images suffer from four issues. ■ Superposition: A threat (such as a prohibited object like a knife) may be sheltered behind dense materials. It's sometimes possible to see through these blind shields using functionalities such as high penetration (enhanced x-ray power) or image processing (contrast improvement). ■ Location: Depending on its location inside the luggage, a threat can be dif cult to detect. For example, objects located in the corners, at the edges, or inside the luggage's frame are dif cult to identify. ■ Dissociation: One way to disguise a threat is to disassemble it and spread the parts throughout the luggage. For example, a weapon or explosive may consist of many separate items, such as a trigger, cannon, and so forth. ■ Lure: An ill-intentioned individual may use a lure to hide a real threat. For instance, a minor threat (such as a small scissors) may be clearly visible to distract a security agent from a more important, …
Incidence of and Risk Factors for Infection or Colonization of Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci in Patients in the Intensive Care Unit

The prevalence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) colonization or infection in the hospital setting has increased globally. Many previous studies had analysed the risk factors for acquiring VRE, based on cross-sectional studies or prevalent cases. However, the actual incidence of and risk factors for VRE remain unclear. The present study was conducted in order to clarify the incidence of and risk factors for VRE in the intensive care unit (ICU). From 1st April 2008 to 31st March 2009, all patients admitted to a surgical ICU (SICU) were put on active surveillance for VRE. The surveillance cultures, obtained by rectal swab, were taken on admission, weekly while staying in the SICU, and on discharge from the SICU. A total of 871 patients were screened. Among them, 34 were found to carry VRE before their admission to the SICU, and 47 acquired VRE during their stay in the SICU, five of whom developed VRE infections. The incidence of newly acquired VRE during ICU stay was 21.9 per 1000 patient-days (95% confidence interval [CI], 16.4–29.1). Using multivariate analysis by logistic regression, we found that the length of ICU stay was an independent risk factor for new acquisition of VRE. In contrast, patients with prior exposure to first-generation cephalosporin were significantly less likely to acquire VRE. Strategies to reduce the duration of ICU stay and prudent usage of broad-spectrum antibiotics are the keys to controlling VRE transmission.
A fast algorithm for runtime reconfiguration to maximize the lifetime of nanoscale NoCs

In this paper, we propose a fast algorithm to reprogram the routing function of an on-chip network (NoC) at runtime. This reconfiguration algorithm comes with the following key novelties. First, it deals with the lack of routing tables, which are poorly scalable and lengthy to reconfigure. Second, it can deal with any number of faults that might be progressively detected over time (i.e., full coverage of fault patterns). Third, it preserves ultra-fast reconfiguration times even for the most challenging scenarios.
Incidencia de trastornos del espectro autista, Síndrome Down, dificultades específicas de aprendizaje, y el TDAH en la relación alumno-profesor

Introduction. Despite the clear relevance of the Student-teacher relationship, studies have rarely encompassed subjects with special education needs. Our study focused on the differences perceived by teachers in their relationships with these students. Method. We described the results obtained with different groups of children with special education needs: ASDs (N = 14), Down Syndrome (N = 18), Learning Disorders (N = 38) and children with hyperactive behaviors and attention deficits (N = 56). Results from each group were then compared with those obtained by children with typical development (N = 254). The teachers were asked to fill out the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS). Results. Our study found that the social bonds formed by children with special needs differ for at least one relational aspect from those formed by children taken from the Control Group, the sole exception being children with Down’s Syndrome. Discussion and Conclusion. The Closeness dimension was hampered in the case of children who suffered from ASDs, attention deficits or hyperactive behaviors. Furthermore, the relationships with the latter group of children were characterized by a higher level of conflict and dependency. Children with Learning Disorders also suffered an increase in the dependency dimension.
Produktivitätswirkung von Mitarbeiterbeteiligung: der Einfluss von unbeobachteter Heterogenität (The effect of employee participation in asset formation on productivity: the influence of unobserved heterogeneity)

"Employee participation in the capital or profit of the firm is regarded as a suitable way to increase labour productivity if the employees' performance can not be monitored directly. Nonetheless employee participation in asset formation is currently used by few German firms. In this paper we show that the direct effect on productivity of employee participation in asset formation is only small and is furthermore statistically insignificant. The study was conducted using the representative data of the 1999 and 2000 waves of the IAB establishment panel. This result contradicts previous studies, some of which have derived impressive positive productivity effects. The methodological innovation in this study is the consideration of unobserved heterogeneity between firms that use employee participation in asset formation and firms that do not. It emerges here that firms which offer employee participation are more productive on average as a result of unobserved factors. Thus the cause for their higher productivity can not be attributed to the existence of employee participation. In addition it is shown that the production functions of firms with and without employee participation differ greatly from each other. " (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))
The Upper and Lower Bound of Distributed Cooperative Communication

In order to study the impact of node mobility upon distributed cooperative communication, a three-node model was established. It used Alamouti coding. Using bit error rate as a metric, the cooperative communication parameter was defined. Compared with Alamouti2×1 and direct communication separately, cooperative communication achieved its upper and lower bound. The simulation results show that under the circumstance of S-R channel’s good performance, as long as S-D and R-D channel satisfy certain conditions, the cooperative communication will be superior to Alamouti2×1 and direct communication.
Learning Visual N-Grams from Web Data

Real-world image recognition systems need to recognize tens of thousands of classes that constitute a plethora of visual concepts. The traditional approach of annotating thousands of images per class for training is infeasible in such a scenario, prompting the use of webly supervised data. This paper explores the training of image-recognition systems on large numbers of images and associated user comments, without using manually labeled images. In particular, we develop visual n-gram models that can predict arbitrary phrases that are relevant to the content of an image. Our visual n-gram models are feed-forward convolutional networks trained using new loss functions that are inspired by n-gram models commonly used in language modeling. We demonstrate the merits of our models in phrase prediction, phrase-based image retrieval, relating images and captions, and zero-shot transfer.
Transcriptome Analysis of the Response of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to Hydrogen Peroxide

ABSTRACT Pseudomonas aeruginosa must often overcome a high concentration of oxidants to successfully infect the human host. We report here the results of a transcriptome profiling comparing cells treated with H2O2 and untreated controls. The data indicate that the early response of P. aeruginosa to H2O2 consists of an upregulation of protective mechanisms and a downregulation of primary metabolism.
Cytoarchitectonic organization and morphology of cells of the field L complex in male zebra finches (taenopygia guttata)

The organization of the field L complex, a thalamorecipient auditory region in the telencephalon of birds, was examined in Nissl and Golgi preparations of male zebra finches (Taenopygia guttata). The field L complex comprises five cytoarchitectonic subdivisions: L1, L2a, L2b, L3, and L, although the border between L and L2b is not distinct. L2a is a plate extending dorsocaudally from the dorsal medullary lamina in the caudal neostriatum. L1 lies on the anterodorsal border and L3 lies on the posteroventral border of L2a. L, the area designated “field L” by Rose (J. Psychol. Neurol., 1914, 2:278–352), forms the medial and posterior borders of the field L complex, L2b is a thick band that forms the dorsal and dorsolateral boundary of the field L complex and is continuous with L medially. Nucleus interface (NIf) is a nucleus that lies between L2a and L1 near the lateral edge of the complex.
Wavelet Regression via Block Thresholding: Adaptivity and the Choice of Block Size and Threshold Lev

We consider block thresholding rules for wavelet regression and derive an \opti-mal" block thresholding estimator that is fully speciied and easy to implement, at a computational cost of O(n). We begin by studying the eeect of block length on both the global and local adaptiv-ity. The results show that there are connicting requirements on block size for achieving the global and local adaptivity. We then consider block thresholding as a testing problem and discuss the choice of threshold level so that the resulting estimator enjoys a desirable denoising property, as well as achieving balance between variance and bias. These results lead us naturally to the optimal choice of block thresholding estimator. Both the asymptotic and numerical properties of the estimator are investigated. We show that this estimator is indeed optimal in the sense that it achieves simultaneously the global and local adaptivity, while preserves the smoothing and denoising properties. Furthermore, numerical results show that the estimator performs excellently in comparisons with conventional methods.
A STRATEGY FOR IMPROVING THE ROBUSTNESS OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL ADVANCING-FRONT ALGORITHMS

This work presents a back-tracking strategy for improving t he robustness of advancing-front algorithms for mesh generation in three-d imensional models. It can be observed, in many advancing-front based algorithms for thr ee dimensions, that a number of regions that can not be meshed is left after the mesh genera tion process, which stops the algorithms from converging. These regions are represented by polyhedra and are formed by elements of the current front, which are faces in three dim ensions. These regions are usually disconnected, since they are defined by adjacent ele ments that form a closed loop, and they can not be meshed, even with the insertion of additio nal new nodes. A back- tracking procedure is applied to all of these regions, in ord er to guarantee robustness in mesh generation. It is devised for three-dimensional cases , because this problem has no counterpart in two dimensions. Examples of generated meshe s using the back-tracking procedure are presented in order to validate the strategy pr oposed in this work.
The Effect of Internal Cash Flow on the Investment of Chinese Listed Companies

In order to test how financing factors influence the investment of Chinese listed companies, a theoretical and empirical analysis is conducted to prove the effects of internal cash flow on the corporate investment based on Chinese system background. The research shows that underinvestment will occur when free cash flow is low; otherwise, overinvestment will occur, under both circumstances, the corporate investment is sensitive to internal cash flow. As internal cash flow in non-state-holding enterprises is higher than that in state-holding enterprises on the average, and non-state-holding enterprises face more financing constraints, therefore, the investment is more sensitive to cash flow in non-state-holding enterprises than in state-holding enterprises. That provides evidence for perfecting investment and financing system and corporate governance mechanism to improve investment efficiency in Chinese listed companies.
Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Associated E. coli with Ciprofloxacin and E. coli Nissle in the Streptomycin-Treated Mouse Intestine

Background E. coli belonging to the phylogenetic group B2 are linked to Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Studies have shown that antimicrobials have some effect in the treatment of IBD, and it has been demonstrated that E. coli Nissle has prophylactic abilities comparable to 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) therapy in ulcerative colitis. The objective of this study was to test if ciprofloxacin and/or E. coli Nissle could eradicate IBD associated E. coli in the streptomycin-treated mouse intestine. Results After successful colonization with the IBD associated E. coli strains in mice the introduction of E. coli Nissle did not result in eradication of either IBD associated strains or an E. coli from a healthy control, instead, co-colonization at high levels were obtained. Treatment of mice, precolonized with IBD associated E. coli, with ciprofloxacin for three days alone apparently resulted in effective eradication of tested E. coli. However, treatment of precolonized mice with a combination of ciprofloxacin for 3 days followed by E. coli Nissle surprisingly allowed one IBD associated E. coli to re-colonize the mouse intestine, but at a level 3 logs under E. coli Nissle. A prolonged treatment with ciprofloxacin for 7 days did not change this outcome. Conclusions In the mouse model E. coli Nissle can not be used alone to eradicate IBD associated E. coli; rather, 3 days of ciprofloxacin are apparently efficient in eradicating these strains, but surprisingly, after ciprofloxacin treatment (3 or 7 days), the introduction of E. coli Nissle may support re-colonization with IBD associated E. coli.