Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular heterogeneity of developing retinal ganglion and amacrine cells revealed through single cell gene expression profiling

During development of the central nervous system (CNS), cycling uncommitted progenitor cells give rise to a variety of distinct neuronal and glial cell types. As these different cell types are born they progress from newly specified cells to fully differentiated neurons and glia. In order to define the developmental processes of individual cell types, single cell expression profiling was carried out on developing ganglion and amacrine cells of the murine retina. Individual cells from multiple developmental stages were isolated and profiled on Affymetrix oligonucleotide arrays. Two‐color fluorescent in situ hybridization on dissociated retinas was used to verify and extend the microarray results by allowing quantitative measurements of a large number of cells coexpressing two genes. Together, these experiments have yielded an expanded view of the processes underway in developing retinal ganglion and amacrine cells, as well as several hundred new marker genes for these cell types. In addition, this study has allowed for the definition of some of the molecular heterogeneity both between developing ganglion and amacrine cells and among subclasses of each cell type. J. Comp. Neurol. 502:1047–1065, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Analogous and distinctive patterns of prelinguistic communication in toddlers with and without hearing loss.

PURPOSE This study was conducted to compare the prelinguistic communicative abilities of toddlers with hearing loss and without hearing loss during the 2nd year of life and shortly before the emergence of productive single-word lexicons. METHOD The participants were 28 toddlers with hearing loss who participated in an early intervention program and 92 toddlers with normal hearing at similar language levels and close chronological ages. The assessment consisted of the Hebrew Parent Questionnaire-Communication and Early Language (HPQ-CEL; E. Dromi, H. Ben-Shahar-Treitel, E. Guralnik, & D. Ringwald-Frimerman, 1992) that guided parents' observations of their toddlers in 6 contexts at home. Parents reported on a range of prelinguistic communicative abilities. RESULTS Profile analysis indicated that the 2 groups used a remarkably similar overall profile of prelinguistic behaviors. Interrelationships among behaviors were noticeably similar, too. Two communication properties unique to toddlers with hearing loss were relatively lower spontaneous use of words and reduced involvement in triadic book reading interactions. In addition, the associations between use of words and gestures in toddlers with hearing loss were slightly different from the toddlers with normal hearing, and the range of innovative gestures that they produced was greater. CONCLUSION The remarkable similarity between the 2 groups support the feasibility of adopting goals and principles known to hold true in typical development for fostering communication in toddlers with hearing loss.
Collusion and Entry

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the problems faced by a collusion which prices above the limit price. Three problems are analyzed: (1) When should the collusive firms lower industry price to the limit price to prevent further entry? (2) Under what conditions should the collusive firms sacrifice immediate profits for a lower rate of entry which raises future profits? (3) How should the collusive firms respond to an actual lump of entry? It is shown that present value maximization by the collusive firms may require that immediate profits be sacrificed for a lower rate of entry. However, whether present value maximization requires either that immediate profits be sacrificed or maximized, the collusive firms should reduce output when faced with a lump of entry.
Performance on MMSE sub-items and education level in presenilin-1 mutation carriers without dementia

Background: Spanish-language screening tests that are sensitive to the early cognitive changes of Alzheimer's disease (AD) are needed. Persons known to be at 50% risk for young-onset AD due to presenilin-1 (PSEN1) mutations provide the opportunity to assess which measures on the Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE) are most sensitive to these early changes. Methods: We performed genetic and Spanish-language cognitive testing on 50 Mexican persons without dementia at risk for inheriting PSEN1 mutations. We then compared the performance on sub-items of the MMSE between PSEN1 mutation carriers (MCs) and non-carriers (NCs) using t-tests and Fisher's exact tests. Exploratory multiple logistic regression analyses were also performed. Results: Twenty-nine persons were MCs and 21 NCs. NCs tended to achieve higher levels of education (p = 0.039) than did MCs. MCs tended to perform more poorly when spelling “MUNDO” backwards and on Orientation, particularly regarding the date. In multiple regression analyses the ability of backwards spelling to predict PSEN1 mutation status was reduced when education was included as an independent variable. Conclusion: Subjects in the earliest stage of PSEN1-related AD showed deficits on orientation to date and in divided attention when spelling backwards. It is unclear if educational level should be considered an associated feature or a con-founding variable in this population although it should be taken into account when considering performance on the MMSE task of divided attention. The relative lack of deficits on delayed recall of three words probably represents the insensitivity of this measure in early AD. This study supports the utility of autosomal dominant AD as a model of the more common sporadic form of the disorder.
Synergy Between CD40 Ligation and IL-4 on Fibroblast Proliferation Involves IL-4 Receptor Signaling1

Fibrosis can be an undesired consequence of activated cellular immune responses. The purpose of this work was to determine whether CD40 ligation and the pro-fibrotic cytokine IL-4 interact in regulating fibroblast proliferation and collagen production, and, if so, the mechanisms used. This study found that the combination of IL-4 and ligation of CD40 on the fibroblast cell surface had synergistic effects in stimulating fibroblast proliferation. In contrast, CD40 ligation negated the inhibitory effects of IFN-γ on fibroblast proliferation. Western blotting analyses of fibroblast crude lysates revealed that a potential mechanism of the synergy between CD40 ligation and IL-4 was the phosphorylation of proteins at 130 kDa and, to a lesser degree, at 95, 85, and 75 kDa. Immunoprecipitation-Western blotting experiments showed that phosphorylation levels of IL-4Rα, Janus kinase 1, insulin receptor substrate 1, and insulin receptor substrate 2, factors with molecular mass close to the observed 130 kDa major phosphorylation band, increased in response to the combined CD40 ligation and IL-4 action. In contrast, there was no evidence that synergy was mediated by an increased expression of IL-4Rα chain, CD40, or the autocrine profibrotic cytokines IL-6 and TGF-β. These findings suggest that CD40-CD40 ligand contacts between fibroblasts and cells secreting IL-4 may promote the profibrotic effects of IL-4 by affecting signal transduction and reducing the anti-fibrotic effects of IFN-γ.
Spray cooling at low system pressure

Spray cooling has been shown to be the best cooling technique for applications that require efficient high heat flux removal. This research presents a study of spray cooling at low system pressure that allows control of the surface temperature by controlling the boiling point of the fluid. Such cooling provides an attractive, low-temperature thermal control to industries such as electronics, avionics, lasers, and electro-optics. Experiments were conducted with a 1 cm/sup 2/-heated surface cooled by a spray nozzle at reduced system pressures. System pressures range from 0.015 to 1 bar. The heat transfer coefficient was determined by measuring the surface temperatures at increasing heat fluxes. The present study has shown that spray cooling with water at reduced system pressure can significantly decrease the surface temperature as compared to ambient pressure spray cooling. This study shows that at a pressure of 0.015 bar, the surface temperature can be cooled to 54/spl deg/C with 11/spl deg/C liquid at a heat flux of 380 W/cm/sup 2/, while the surface temperature at 380 W/cm/sup 2/ is about 120/spl deg/C with same liquid temperature at ambient pressure. The heat transfer coefficients measured here were on the order of 100,000 W/m/sup 2//spl middot/K. This study is limited by the heating source, which cannot exceed 400 W/cm/sup 2/. The maximum heat flux that can be removed by spray cooling at low pressure has yet to be determined.
The concentration of catecholamines in the brain of the domestic fowl (Gallus domesticus)

1 . The concentrations of adrenaline and noradrenaline in the brains of chickens (Gallus domesticus) have been determined using two different methods of fluorimetric analysis. 2 . The concentrations of adrenaline, noradrenaline and also dopamine were found to increase with age, as did the relative amount of adrenaline present in the chicken brain. 3 . It was observed that the differential assay of adrenaline by the trihydroxyindole method often underestimated the amount of adrenaline present.
A framework to support the planning and implementation of work-practice research: an example of using boundary practice lens on the work of business analysts

While practice theories have been adopted in many disciplines and concerns have been raised about the challenges associated with their adoption, exemplars that reveal how work-practice researchers have used practice theories and dealt with challenges associated with the use of practice theories are rare. The lack of such exemplars discourages adoptions of practice theo- ries in work-practice studies. Work-practice studies, therefore, are unable to acknowledge, use, challenge, and modify useful knowledge contributed by practice theorists. In this paper, we aim to address these concerns by proposing a practice research framework to support the planning and implementation of practice-based work-practice studies. In working towards this aim, we provide an example of how the work-practice research on the boundary practice of business analysts was planned and implemented using the practice research framework. We reflect on the efficacy of the framework and conclude with implications of using a practice perspective in work-practice research.
Chronic Nicotine Exposure Upregulates Nicotinic Receptors by a Novel Mechanism

Nicotine addiction is initiated by its binding to high-affinity nicotinic receptors in brain composed primarily of α4 and β2 subunits. For nicotinic receptors expressed in vivo or heterologously, nicotine exposure over hours to days increases or “upregulates” high-affinity nicotine binding to receptors through a posttranslational mechanism thought to increase receptor numbers. Using heterologous expression, we find nicotine exposure causes a fourfold to sixfold higher binding to α4β2 receptors that does not correspond with any significant change in the number of surface receptors or a change in the assembly, trafficking, or cell-surface turnover of the receptors. However, upregulation does alter the functional state of the receptor, slowing desensitization and enhancing sensitivity to acetylcholine. Based on these findings, we propose an alternative mechanism to explain nicotine-induced upregulation in which nicotine exposure slowly stabilizes α4β2 receptors in a high-affinity state that is more easily activated, thereby providing a memory for nicotine exposure.
Efficient and robust integration of face detection and head pose estimation

Most previous studies on head pose estimation assume that the face is already detected and aligned. However, this is not the case in many real-world applications. Automatic head pose estimation typically starts with face detection followed by pose estimation on the detected faces. For computational efficiency, it is desirable if the face detector and the head pose estimator are based on the same image features. In this work, we show that normalized Gabor features, previously proposed for face detection, are also a robust representation for pose estimation. In particular, in the normalized Gabor feature space faces with similar poses are closer than in other feature spaces. Pose estimation with these features using nonlinear regression based on the weighted K nearest neighbors performs better than previously reported approaches on the same database under more complex illumination conditions. Because the features have already been computed for the face detector, the combined autonomous system running on a Quad-core i5 2.66 GHz PC requires only 2.56ms of additional computation to estimate pose for each detected face.
Mycotoxins in laboratory rodent feed

Twenty-one batches of fixed-formula rodent diets from three feed manufacturers were tested for the presence of five mycotoxins: deoxynivalenol (DON), nivalenol (NIV), HT-2 toxin, T-2 toxin and ochratoxin A (OTA). Five batches were also tested for the presence of zearalenone (ZEN) and six batches for aflatoxins. Detectable levels of DON (up to 298 μg/kg), NIV (up to 118 μg/kg), OTA (up to 3.1 μg/kg) or ZEN (up to 26.7 μg/kg) were found in samples from all manufacturers. Three batches contained two (DON or NIV and OTA or ZEN) and one batch contained three (DON, OTA and ZEN) different mycotoxins. Aflatoxins, T-2 and HT-2 were not detected in any of the batches. The concentrations of mycotoxins detected in the feed were low, but indicated that feed ingredients, probably the cereal ingredients, were contaminated by mycotoxins. Since mycotoxins are known to have toxic and/or immunosuppressive effects, non-contaminated ingredients should be used for production of laboratory animal feed. The results imply that an improved quality control of ingredients used for laboratory rodent feed should be implemented.
Tourism and Economic Growth: An Empirical Study

Extensive literature exists emphasizing the importance of export expansion to the process of growth. Little, however, has been done to measure the contribution of export growth to the growth of income. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the contribution of one of Hawaii's major exports -tourism-to the rate of economic growth and the stability of this growth. Hawaii's exports are dominated by two components: federal government expenditures and tourists' expenditures. These two components accounted for 50 percent and 25 percent of total exports in 1971, respectively, while all commodity exports accounted for only 16 percent of the total. The importance of tourism is also evident from the comparison of the rates of growth of the major exports. During the period 1960-71 commodity exports increased by 56 percent, federal government expenditures by 151 percent, and tourists' expenditures by 392 percent. Thus, in addition to being the second largest export, tourism has been the fastest growing. In view of the recent trend to emphasize the role of service sectors in development planning, and in particular the recent emphasis on the development of tourism as a desirable strategy,i the findings reported in this paper should be of great interest to both policymakers and academicians.
Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) in Sri Lanka - Current Research Evidence Justification: A Review

In this article, the current scientific evidence of Chronic Kidney disease with unknown aetiology (CKDu), were critically reviewed and harnessed with other relevant literature with a view to justify the possible causative reason(s) for this chronic health problem. To this end, authors first reviewed the literature on socio-economic, environmental, meteorological, health and geo-environmental/chemical aspects in relation to the CKD of unknown aetiology in Sri Lanka and then studied the known aetiology of CKD (key medical facts) in detail highlighting a comprehensive list of causes. Based on the nature of economic development in the CKDu prevailing area, previous studies have suggested that the causative factor for CKDu is probably environmental and is related to the nature of anthropogenic activities. Therefore, authors investigated subject more into the chronic exposure to heavy metals associated with agricultural activities. Potential sources of heavy metals in the area are mentioned. The geochemical mobility and health effects of three selected elements namely arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd) and Lead (Pb) are studied in detail. The current scientific observations reported on CKD were evaluated with established chemical, geochemical, and health risk of As, Cd and Pb. According to the review, it can be justified that CKDu of the North Central Province (NCP) in Sri Lanka is a decease caused by the chronic exposure and cumulative effects of elevated levels of heavy metals associated with agricultural activities. Sabaragamuwa University Journal Vol.13(2) December 2014; 31-58
DgrA is a member of a new family of cyclic diguanosine monophosphate receptors and controls flagellar motor function in Caulobacter crescentus

Bacteria are able to switch between two mutually exclusive lifestyles, motile single cells and sedentary multicellular communities that colonize surfaces. These behavioral changes contribute to an increased fitness in structured environments and are controlled by the ubiquitous bacterial second messenger cyclic diguanosine monophosphate (c-di-GMP). In response to changing environments, fluctuating levels of c-di-GMP inversely regulate cell motility and cell surface adhesins. Although the synthesis and breakdown of c-di-GMP has been studied in detail, little is known about the downstream effector mechanisms. Using affinity chromatography, we have isolated several c-di-GMP-binding proteins from Caulobacter crescentus. One of these proteins, DgrA, is a PilZ homolog involved in mediating c-di-GMP-dependent control of C. crescentus cell motility. Biochemical and structural analysis of DgrA and homologs from C. crescentus, Salmonella typhimurium, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa demonstrated that this protein family represents a class of specific diguanylate receptors and suggested a general mechanism for c-di-GMP binding and signal transduction. Increased concentrations of c-di-GMP or DgrA blocked motility in C. crescentus by interfering with motor function rather than flagellar assembly. We present preliminary evidence implicating the flagellar motor protein FliL in DgrA-dependent cell motility control.
Environmental strategies in spanish hotels: contextual factors and performance

This article is a study of the environmental strategies adopted in the service industry and their impact on a firm's performance. More specifically, we define the environmental strategies of 268 Spanish hotels, based on their environmental protection activities and the use of these as an argument for competition. They have been categorised into four groups. We observed the difference between each of these environmental strategies as regards certain contextual variables and performance. Our findings suggest that firms in the groups with more developed environmental strategies are associated with a higher level of environmental performance but not necessarily with economic performance.
Misery Loves Company: Social Influence and the Supply/Pricing Decision of Popular Night Clubs

This paper offers an explanation for why popular night clubs (restaurants) with excess demand (i.e., queues) do not raise prices or increase supply. Becker (1991) uses the social influence of a consumption externality or “bandwagon effect” to explain this puzzle. However, he admits that his explanation may be weak. In this essay, I present a formal analysis of Becker’s argument based on a different kind of social influence (i.e., misery loves company). I also offer an alternative explanation of why some night clubs (restaurants) are popular and others are not. While Becker (1991) includes market demand and the gap between market demand and supply as separate arguments in the customers’ demand function to explain why supply and price are not increased, I only include the gap between demand and supply in the customers’ utility function to explain both puzzles. Although the essay focuses on night clubs (restaurants), it should be seen as a contribution to the broader literature of why some markets apparently do not clear or why some goods are rationed.
Demonstration of Toxoplasma antigen containing complexes in active toxoplasmosis

With an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay antigen, specific circulating immune complexes (CIC) were demonstrated in experimental and human toxoplasmosis. In experimentally infected mice, CIC became demonstrable as soon as antibodies appeared after fatal infection. When a nonvirulent strain of Toxoplasma was used CIC remained detectable for several weeks. This period was characterized by clinically healthy animals with increasing antibody titers and by cysts growing in the brains of the animals, indicating a subacute stage of the toxoplasma infection. In the human sera, a surprisingly high percentage of CIC was demonstrated. Both immunoglobulin G (IgG) and IgM were found in the CIC; however, IgG was seen in the majority. If the humans were grouped according to other serological results, such as a combination with IgM antibodies, circulating antigens, or both, or a positive complement fixation test, increasingly more CIC were observed. When sera were selected from patients with clinical symptoms generally associated with toxoplasmosis, more CIC were also again demonstrated. On the contrary, in healthy individuals (blood donors), CIC were also regularly observed, suggesting that exacerbations of latent infections or reinfections may regularly occur without leading to clinical signs. In conclusion, we propose that the interpretation of a positive CIC test requires great care but may provide useful information about the activity of a toxoplasma infection.