Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Danger and usefulness effects as a function of concept ancientness

Danger and Usefulness affect word recognition (e.g., Wurm & Vakoch, 2000), and a related construct affects memory (e.g., Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada, 2007). We tested hypotheses about differential effects of these dimensions, based on the relevance of concepts relative to the time perceptual systems underwent selection pressures. In two experiments participants made auditory and visual lexical decisions for nouns rated on Danger, Usefulness, and “Ancientness. ” Danger interacted with Ancientness in both auditory and visual processing. Increasing Danger led to faster RTs and better accuracy only for words judged to have ancient relevance. Interactions with participant gender were seen in both auditory and visual analyses. Consistent with Wurm, Whitman, Seaman, Hill, and Ulstad (2007), men’s but not women’s auditory performance improved with increasing Danger. The beneficial effect of Usefulness on accuracy was greater for women than for men in both experiments. Danger and Usefulness effects seem to reflect a general principle underlying human cognition.
Irritancy and Repellency Behavioral Responses of Three Strains of Aedes aegypti Exposed to DDT and &agr;-Cypermethrin

ABSTRACT This study quantified both contact irritancy and noncontact repellency behavioral responses of three strains of Aedes aegypti (L.) (one long-term colony and two F1–F2 generation field-caught strains) to field application rates of DDT (2g/m2) and &agr;-Cypermethrin (ACyp) (0.025 g/m2) by using an excito-repellency test chamber. The colony The colony strain (USDA) was completely susceptible to DDT and ACyp. One field strain was collected from Chiang Mai (CM) Province, northern Thailand, and was characterized as tolerant (reduced susceptibility) to DDT and completely susceptible to ACyp. The second field strain, collected from Kanchanaburi (KAN) Province, western Thailand, was highly resistant to DDT but fully susceptible to ACyp. All three strains exhibited marked irritancy to contact with ACyp, with more pronounced escape responses occurring in the two field strains. With DDT, the KAN strain demonstrated the lowest escape response during both contact and noncontact trials, whereas a greater response was seen in trials conducted with CM and USDA strains. With exposure to ACyp, repellency was less profound than irritancy but still resulted in a significant escape response compared with paired controls without insecticide (P < 0.05). DDT elicited both irritancy and repellency responses but comparably greater spatial repellency than ACyp. Findings indicate ACyp functions primarily as a strong contact irritant, whereas DDT functions as a relatively strong noncontact repellent in the strains tested. The higher the degree of physiological resistance to DDT, the greater the apparent suppression of both behavioral avoidance responses. Most importantly, observations using susceptible, tolerant, and resistant Ae. aegypti strains show that behavioral responses that can interrupt human-vector contact still occur regardless of degree of physiological susceptibility to compounds tested.
Spectral imaging: Principles and applications

Spectral imaging extends the capabilities of biological and clinical studies to simultaneously study multiple features such as organelles and proteins qualitatively and quantitatively. Spectral imaging combines two well‐known scientific methodologies, namely spectroscopy and imaging, to provide a new advantageous tool. The need to measure the spectrum at each point of the image requires combining dispersive optics with the more common imaging equipment, and introduces constrains as well.
Quantitative Estimates on the Binding Energy for Hydrogen in Non-Relativistic QED

In this paper, we determine the exact expression for the hydrogen binding energy in the Pauli–Fierz model up to the order α5 log α−1, where α denotes the fine structure constant, and prove rigorous bounds on the remainder term of the order o(α5 log α−1). As a consequence, we prove that the binding energy is not a real analytic function of α, and verify the existence of logarithmic corrections to the expansion of the ground state energy in powers of α, as conjectured in the recent literature.
WZS: WYNER-ZIV SCALABLE PREDICTIVE VIDEO CODING

A novel Wyner-Ziv scalable (WZS) video coding approach is proposed to enhance MPEG-4 fine granularity scalability (FGS). Starting from the same base layer as MPEG-4 FGS, the proposed coder can achieve higher coding efficiency using Wyner-Ziv coding, by selectively exploiting the high quality reconstruction of the previous frame in the enhancement layer bitplane coding of the current frame. This creates a multi-layer Wyner-Ziv prediction “link”, connecting the same bitplane level between successive frames, to provide more improved prediction as compared to MPEG-4 FGS, while keeping complexity reasonable at the encoder. Since the temporal correlation varies in time and space, a block-based adaptive mode selection algorithm is designed for each bitplane to switch between different coding modes. Experimental results show improved coding efficiency up to 2dB over FGS for video sequences with high temporal correlation.
Mutations in the rpoB Gene of Multidrug-Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis Clinical Isolates from India

ABSTRACT Mutations in the 81-bp rifampin resistance-determining region (RRDR) of the rpoB gene were analyzed by DNA sequencing of 50 Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates (44 resistant and 6 sensitive) from various parts of India. Fifty-three mutations of 18 different kinds, 17 point mutations and one deletion, were observed in 43 of 44 resistant isolates. Three novel mutations and three new alleles within the RRDR, along with two novel mutations outside the RRDR, are reported in this study.
Confidence-based pedestrian tracking in unstructured environments using 3D laser distance measurements

Detection and tracking of pedestrians is an essential task for autonomous outdoor robots. Modern 3D laser range finders provide a rich and detailed 360 degree picture of the environment. Unstructured environments pose a difficult scenario where a variety of objects with similar shape to a human like shrubs or small trees occur. Especially in combination with partial occlusions, sensor noise, and conclusions from traversing rough terrain.
Immunolocalization of the Mip protein of intracellularly and extracellularly grown Legionella pneumophila

J.H. HELBIG, P.C. LÜCK, M. STEINERT, E. JACOBS AND M. WITT. 2001. The macrophage infectivity potentiator (Mip) protein is an important factor in the optimal intracellular survival of Legionella pneumophila in protozoa and human cell lines. In this study we have localized the Mip protein in Legionella grown on buffered charcoal yeast extract (BCYE) agar as well as in Legionella which were ingested by Acanthamoeba castellanii. Immunogold techniques have shown that Mip is exposed on the cell surface of extracellularly grown bacteria. In A. castellanii infected with Legionella the Mip protein was also detected on host membranes which exhibited a multilamellar structure. The morphology of these structures is similar to that of respirable vesicles of amoebas by which live legionellas may be transmitted to humans. It can be assumed that the accumulation of Mip protein in the multilamellar host membranes increases the infection potential.
Neural processes involved with perception of non-native durational contrasts

Neural processes underlying identification of durational contrasts were studied by comparing English and Japanese speakers for Japanese short/long vowel identification relative to consonant identification. Enhanced activities for non-native contrast (Japanese short/long vowel identification by English speakers) were observed in brain regions involved with articulatory–auditory mapping (Broca's area, superior temporal gyrus, planum temporale, and cerebellum), but not in the supramarginal gyrus. Greater activity in the supramarginal gyrus found for the consonant identification over short/long vowel identification by Japanese speakers implies that it is more important for phonetic contrasts differing in place of articulation than for vowel duration. These results support the hypothesis that neural processes used to facilitate perception depend on the relative contribution of information important for articulatory planning control.
Streptococcus pneumoniae biofilm formation and dispersion during colonization and disease

Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) is a common colonizer of the human nasopharynx. Despite a low rate of invasive disease, the high prevalence of colonization results in millions of infections and over one million deaths per year, mostly in individuals under the age of 5 and the elderly. Colonizing pneumococci form well-organized biofilm communities in the nasopharyngeal environment, but the specific role of biofilms and their interaction with the host during colonization and disease is not yet clear. Pneumococci in biofilms are highly resistant to antimicrobial agents and this phenotype can be recapitulated when pneumococci are grown on respiratory epithelial cells under conditions found in the nasopharyngeal environment. Pneumococcal biofilms display lower levels of virulence in vivo and provide an optimal environment for increased genetic exchange both in vitro and in vivo, with increased natural transformation seen during co-colonization with multiple strains. Biofilms have also been detected on mucosal surfaces during pneumonia and middle ear infection, although the role of these biofilms in the disease process is debated. Recent studies have shown that changes in the nasopharyngeal environment caused by concomitant virus infection, changes in the microflora, inflammation, or other host assaults trigger active release of pneumococci from biofilms. These dispersed bacteria have distinct phenotypic properties and transcriptional profiles different from both biofilm and broth-grown, planktonic bacteria, resulting in a significantly increased virulence in vivo. In this review we discuss the properties of pneumococcal biofilms, the role of biofilm formation during pneumococcal colonization, including their propensity for increased ability to exchange genetic material, as well as mechanisms involved in transition from asymptomatic biofilm colonization to dissemination and disease of otherwise sterile sites. Greater understanding of pneumococcal biofilm formation and dispersion will elucidate novel avenues to interfere with the spread of antibiotic resistance and vaccine escape, as well as novel strategies to target the mechanisms involved in induction of pneumococcal disease.
In Defence of the Inappropriate

Any argument against appropriate theory is disadvantaged by its title, an illustration of the technique of influential naming in which opponents must espouse ’inappropriate’ theory and begin by defending the apparently indefensible. A further difficulty is that ’appropriate’ is used in two ways. Appropriate theory is theory which, despite scientific inadequacy, is useful for the development of insights in practitioners who are not themselves scientists (Lee, 1987), and it is theory which, although accurate, is complex so that it has to be
An Analysis of Factors Related to Choral Teachers' Ability to Detect Pitch Errors While Reading the Score

mine whether differences exist between undergraduate music majors preparing for teaching careers in music and experienced secondary level choral teachers in regard to their ability to detect pitch errors. The aim of this investigation was to obtain certain kinds of data that might serve as the basis for recommending changes in teacher education programs in terms of what could be emphasized, improved, or changed in order to develop pitch error detection more fully.
Legislative Organization Under Separate Powers

Existing theories of legislative organization attribute the strong committee system in the U.S. Congress to members' distributive, informational, or partisan needs. But legislators elsewhere share these same motivations, yet not all have chosen to organize themselves in a similar fashion. Therefore the strong committee system must derive to some extent from the larger constitutional context, including plurality winner elections, bicameralism, and our focus, the system of separate powers. In particular we argue that committees established in part to oversee executive agencies will have preferences biased against those of the executive. Thus committees serve as contrary outliers, acting as a counterweight to executive branch policy making. We find support for this prediction with data drawn from all standing committees from the 80th to 102nd Congresses. We also find that each of the seemingly incompatible theories of legislative organization predicts well patterns of committee composition in different issue areas. Copyright 2001 by Oxford University Press.
Tropomyosin inhibits ADF/cofilin-dependent actin filament dynamics

Tropomyosin binds to actin filaments and is implicated in stabilization of actin cytoskeleton. We examined biochemical and cell biological properties of Caenorhabditis elegans tropomyosin (CeTM) and obtained evidence that CeTM is antagonistic to ADF/cofilin-dependent actin filament dynamics. We purified CeTM, actin, and UNC-60B (a muscle-specific ADF/cofilin isoform), all of which are derived from C. elegans, and showed that CeTM and UNC-60B bound to F-actin in a mutually exclusive manner. CeTM inhibited UNC-60B–induced actin depolymerization and enhancement of actin polymerization. Within isolated native thin filaments, actin and CeTM were detected as major components, whereas UNC-60B was present at a trace amount. Purified UNC-60B was unable to interact with the native thin filaments unless CeTM and other associated proteins were removed by high-salt extraction. Purified CeTM was sufficient to restore the resistance of the salt-extracted filaments from UNC-60B. In muscle cells, CeTM and UNC-60B were localized in different patterns. Suppression of CeTM by RNA interference resulted in disorganized actin filaments and paralyzed worms in wild-type background. However, in an ADF/cofilin mutant background, suppression of CeTM did not worsen actin organization and worm motility. These results suggest that tropomyosin is a physiological inhibitor of ADF/cofilin-dependent actin dynamics.
Analytical modeling and investigation of transient response of PM machines with 3-phase short-circuit fault

This paper aims to find effective methods to avoid irreversible demagnetisation in permanent magnet machines by suppressing the short-circuit current. An analytical model is developed to predict the transient currents, overcoming the problems of previous steady state models which may significantly underestimate the short-circuit current. Although the developed analytical model is simple, it can accurately reveal the relationship between the short-circuit response and design parameters, as its high accuracy is validated by transient finite element analysis and experiment. The characteristics of short-circuit behavior are investigated and several guidelines for improving the short-circuit performance are obtained to aid the machine design.
Desorption rates and sticking coefficients for CO and N2 interstellar ices

We present Temperature Programmed Desorption (TPD) experiments of CO and N2 ices in pure, layered and mixed morphologies at various ice "thicknesses" and abundance ratios as well as simultaneously taken Reflection Absorption Infrared Spectra (RAIRS) of CO. A kinetic model has been developed to constrain the binding energies of CO and N2 in both pure and mixed environments and to derive the kinetics for desorption, mixing and segregation. For mixed ices N2 desorption occurs in a single step whereas for layered ices it proceeds in two steps, one corresponding to N2 desorption from a pure N2 ice environment and one corresponding to desorption from a mixed ice environment. The latter is dominant for astrophysically relevant ice "thicknesses". The ratio of the binding energies, R_BE, for pure N2 and CO is found to be 0.936 ± 0.03, and to be close to 1 for mixed ice fractions. The model is applied to astrophysically relevant conditions for cold pre-stellar cores and for protostars which start to heat their surroundings. The importance of treating CO desorption with zeroth rather than first order kinetics is shown. The experiments also provide lower limits of 0.87 ± 0.05 for the sticking probabilities of CO-CO, N2-CO and N2-N2 ices at 14 K. The combined results from the desorption experiments, the kinetic model, and the sticking probability data lead to the conclusion that these solid-state processes of CO and N2 are very similar under astrophysically relevant conditions. This conclusion affects the explanations for the observed anti-correlations of gaseous CO and N2H+ in pre-stellar and protostellar cores.
Vocal discrimination of kin and non-kin agemates among lambs

Playback experiments were conducted with 4 week old Ile-de-France lambs (Ovis aries) to assess the role of auditory cues in social discrimination. After being habituated to the test enclosure, lambs were individually exposed to bleats from two stimulus individuals. Twin lambs were tested with recorded bleats of their sibling versus an unfamiliar agemate and single lambs with bleats of a familiar agemate versus an unfamiliar lamb. Lambs responded more frequently to the bleats of their sibling (for twin lambs) or of a familiar agemate (for single lambs) than to those of an unfamiliar lamb. Such discriminative responses to the bleats of familiar twins and non-kin lambs suggest that vocalizations may be a sufficient basis for social recognition. Acoustic analyses of the playback bleats revealed significant differences between the signals from the different stimulus lambs and suggest that fundamental frequency may be an important parameter of lambs' individual vocal signatures.
Consistency Rationing in the Cloud: Pay only when it matters

Cloud storage solutions promise high scalability and low cost. Existing solutions, however, differ in the degree of consistency they provide. Our experience using such systems indicates that there is a non-trivial trade-off between cost, consistency and availability. High consistency implies high cost per transaction and, in some situations, reduced availability. Low consistency is cheaper but it might result in higher operational cost because of, e.g., overselling of products in a Web shop.In this paper, we present a new transaction paradigm, that not only allows designers to define the consistency guarantees on the data instead at the transaction level, but also allows to automatically switch consistency guarantees at runtime. We present a number of techniques that let the system dynamically adapt the consistency level by monitoring the data and/or gathering temporal statistics of the data. We demonstrate the feasibility and potential of the ideas through extensive experiments on a first prototype implemented on Amazon's S3 and running the TPC-W benchmark. Our experiments indicate that the adaptive strategies presented in the paper result in a significant reduction in response time and costs including the cost penalties of inconsistencies.
Discoid Lupus Erythematosus of the Eyelids

Discoid lupus erythematosus (DLE) is a benign, autoimmune disorder of the skin. While the face, trunk and extremities are frequently affected, eyelid involvement is uncommon and often presents as a diagnostic problem. Several interesting variants of DLE have been described outside periocular tissues. We present here a patient who developed DLE in the eyelids and conjunctiva and was unsuccessfully diagnosed for a decade and a half.
Instability of Financial Markets and Preference Heterogeneity

This paper presents a simple rational expectations model of intertemporal asset pricing relating instability of stock return characteristics to heterogeneity in investor preferences. Heterogeneity is likely to generate declining aggregate relative risk aversion. This leads to variability in expected asset returns, volatility, and autocorrelation. The stronger this variability is, the more heterogeneous preferences are, implying more instability of financial markets. Stock market crashes may be observed if relative risk aversion differs strongly across investors.
A Bovine Lymphosarcoma Cell Line Infected with Theileria annulata Exhibits an Irreversible Reconfiguration of Host Cell Gene Expression

Theileria annulata, an intracellular parasite of bovine lymphoid cells, induces substantial phenotypic alterations to its host cell including continuous proliferation, cytoskeletal changes and resistance to apoptosis. While parasite induced modulation of host cell signal transduction pathways and NFκB activation are established, there remains considerable speculation on the complexities of the parasite directed control mechanisms that govern these radical changes to the host cell. Our objectives in this study were to provide a comprehensive analysis of the global changes to host cell gene expression with emphasis on those that result from direct intervention by the parasite. By using comparative microarray analysis of an uninfected bovine cell line and its Theileria infected counterpart, in conjunction with use of the specific parasitacidal agent, buparvaquone, we have identified a large number of host cell gene expression changes that result from parasite infection. Our results indicate that the viable parasite can irreversibly modify the transformed phenotype of a bovine cell line. Fifty percent of genes with altered expression failed to show a reversible response to parasite death, a possible contributing factor to initiation of host cell apoptosis. The genes that did show an early predicted response to loss of parasite viability highlighted a sub-group of genes that are likely to be under direct control by parasite infection. Network and pathway analysis demonstrated that this sub-group is significantly enriched for genes involved in regulation of chromatin modification and gene expression. The results provide evidence that the Theileria parasite has the regulatory capacity to generate widespread change to host cell gene expression in a complex and largely irreversible manner.
Electron microscopy of chromatin elimination in Cidaria (Lepidoptera).

Elimination chromatin observable in the middle of the bivalents in oogenesis of the geometrid moth species Cidaria variata (subgenus Thera) differs distinctly from the chromosomal chromatin by being less electron dense after uranyl acetate staining. Elimination chromatin is tightly packed in between the bivalent halves already at metaphase I, and is bursting out from between the bivalents leaving the centre of the bivalents as a hollow cavity. There is a distinct tendency for elimination chromatin to stick adjacent bivalents together. In the electron microscope it seems to have an unorganized, fibrillar appearance. The thickness of the fuzzy fibers is in the range of 100 a. Three possible hypotheses have been raised to account for the elimination of ribonucleoprotein material from chromosomes in lepidopteran oogenesis.
Warm Climates and Sonority Classes

Previous research has shown that speakers in warm-climate languages make use of relatively more vowels, and speakers in cold-climate languages relatively more consonants. The high sonority (audibility) of the vowel, and its adaptive value under certain conditions, have been invoked to account for its greater frequency in warmer climates. We show here, however, that the above generalization is over-broad, and that sound classes vary across climate zones in complex ways. One new finding is that speakers in warm-climate languages make more use of the so-called “sonorant” consonants, that is, consonants with some of the qualities of vowels. We offer a provisional framework that continues to find value in the concept of sonority and its relation to climate, but attempts to incorporate the new results and provide a more comprehensive explanation.