Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Successful Xenografts of Second Trimester Human Fetal Brain and Retinal Tissue in the Anterior Chamber of the Eye of Adult Immunosuppressed Rats

Successful xenografting of first trimester human fetal CNS tissue and retina has been reported in the literature. We wished to test the feasibility ofusing the anterior chamber ofthe rat eye to support the development of more mature human fetal xenografts. Here we report on the successful outcome of human brain and retinal transplants. Adult host rats immunosuppressed with cyclosporin A accepted these xenografts and supported their further development. Periodic examination of the host eyes using a direct ophthalmoscope or an ophthalmic slit lamp permitted direct visual monitoring of the health and growth of the transplants. Histologically it was possible to identify neuronal, macroglial, and microglial (macrophage) cell types within the grafts. Mitotic activity and histogenetic differentiation took place. Blood vessels filled with hematic cells were commonly present within the grafts. The walls of these vessels prevented the leakageofhorseradish peroxidase, suggesting the presence of a functional brain-blood barrier in the graft. These results indicate that it is possible to use a small animal model to study normal and pathological phenomena oniate fetal human neural tissues. Our group has already taken advantage of the model to achieve HIV infectivity offetal human brain outside the human body.
A General and Parallel Platform for Mining Co-Movement Patterns over Large-scale Trajectories

Discovering co-movement patterns from large-scale trajectory databases is an important mining task and has a wide spectrum of applications. Previous studies have identified several types of interesting co-movement patterns and show-cased their usefulness. In this paper, we make two key contributions to this research field. First, we propose a more general co-movement pattern to unify those defined in the past literature. Second, we propose two types of parallel and scalable frameworks and deploy them on Apache Spark. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to mine co-movement patterns in real life trajectory databases with hundreds of millions of points. Experiments on three real life large-scale trajectory datasets have verified the efficiency and scalability of our proposed solutions.
Comparing cortical auditory processing in children with typical and atypical benign epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes: Electrophysiologic evidence of the role of non–rapid eye movement sleep abnormalities

The mismatch negativity (MMN) is an objective measure of central auditory discrimination. MMN alterations have been shown in children with language and/or developmental disorders. In benign focal epilepsies, neuropsychological disorders are often reported and linked to interictal epileptic discharges (IEDs) during non–rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. There are few studies reporting MMN in children with benign epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS) and sleep IEDs. Moreover, no MMN recording has yet been reported in atypical BECTS children with continuous spike‐and‐wave during sleep (CSWS). We retrospectively compared MMN in typical and atypical BECTS children, particularly addressing the impact of NREM sleep IEDs on auditory discrimination. Moreover, we attempted a neuropsychological characterization of patients.
Enrichment of surface‐active compounds in coalescing cloud drops

Surfactants often found in tropospheric aerosols, can affect the onset and development of clouds. Due to high dilution during droplet growth, the effects of surfactants on cloud microphysical processes have been mostly neglected. However, while cloud growth by coalescence conserves the combined volume of all cloud droplets, it reduces the combined surface area. This could lead to enrichment of water‐insoluble surfactants (WIS) and to reduced surface tension of droplets forming in warm processes. Measurements of individual raindrops reveal the presence of water insoluble surfactants. Our field and laboratory studies as well as simple theoretical arguments suggest that by causing varying and size‐dependent surface tension, WIS can affect cloud microphysics.
Creating partnerships for generative learning and systemic change: Redefining academic roles and relationships in support of learning

The adoption of information and communications technologies (ICT) is a catalyst for innovation and evaluation of teaching, and are driving many tertiary institutions towards a reconsideration of the nature of quality learning. While the technology of online delivery receives most attention, it is arguably the management of teaching and learning that requires new approaches. Universities which have been engaged in traditional forms of distance education are considering how best to integrate communications technologies that offer alternative forms of course delivery, communication, flexible pedagogies and new roles for teachers and learners. Institutional change issues are also linked to ICT adoption: developing students' generic skills, fostering lifelong learning and catering for greater flexibility in delivery of educational services is now core business in tertiary institutions across Australia. This paper argues that such changes require tertiary teaching staff to adopt a different mindset, that of facilitating and supporting learning while assuming new roles as managers, motivators, mentors and mediators of learning. The rationale for each of these roles within Web-based learning environments is presented within a constructivist framework, which affirms and extends good teaching practice. In addition to highlighting aspects of teaching and learning that are supported and transformed by constructivist, Web-based delivery, this paper proposes that professional development is essentially about establishing partnerships for renewal of teaching values, and that staff developers need to learn the craft of supporting change at various levels: at the individual level, at the course and unit level and at the institutional level through systemic contextualized affirmation of constructivist values. Professional development for adoption of Web-based teaching requires multi-dimensional thinking. Rather than acting as a driver of top-down change, effective staff development is participatory and supportive, seeking action research partnerships where more profound changes in teacher conceptions of learning must take place before online pedagogies become part of tertiary teaching culture.
Recommendations to Improve Primary School Physical Education: Classroom Teachers' Perspective

The quality of physical education (PE) programs in primary schools has been questioned in the literature because of the difficulties that classroom teachers experience when teaching PE. The authors used a mixed-mode method to investigate teachers' insights into ways in which the quality of primary school PE can be improved. Questionnaire data were collected from 189 teachers in 38 randomly selected schools in New South Wales, Australia. Thirty-one of those teachers also volunteered to be involved in semistructured interviews. Results indicated that teachers were not adequately planning, implementing, assessing, reporting, or evaluating PE programs. Key recommendations that teachers described for improving PE related to school-level leadership, simple innovations, and specific professional learning needs.
Principles of targeting endothelial cell metabolism to treat angiogenesis and endothelial cell dysfunction in disease

The endothelium is the orchestral conductor of blood vessel function. Pathological blood vessel formation (a process termed pathological angiogenesis) or the inability of endothelial cells (ECs) to perform their physiological function (a condition known as EC dysfunction) are defining features of various diseases. Therapeutic intervention to inhibit aberrant angiogenesis or ameliorate EC dysfunction could be beneficial in diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, respectively, but current strategies have limited efficacy. Based on recent findings that pathological angiogenesis and EC dysfunction are accompanied by EC‐specific metabolic alterations, targeting EC metabolism is emerging as a novel therapeutic strategy. Here, we review recent progress in our understanding of how EC metabolism is altered in disease and discuss potential metabolic targets and strategies to reverse EC dysfunction and inhibit pathological angiogenesis.
Structural Basis of Ets1 Cooperative Binding to Widely Separated Sites on Promoter DNA

Ets1 is a member of the Ets family of transcription factors. Ets1 is expressed in autoinhibited form and its DNA binding depends on partner proteins bound to adjacent sequences or the relative positioning of a second Ets-binding site (EBS). The autoinhibition of Ets1 is mediated by structural coupling of regions flanking the DNA-binding domain. The NMR structure of Ets1 revealed that the inhibitory regions comprised of helices HI1 and HI2 and H4 are packed together on the Ets domain to form an inhibitory module. The crystal structure of Ets1 unexpectedly revealed a homodimer in which homodimerisation occurs via swapping of HI1 helices. Modeling of DNA binding indicates that the Ets1 dimer can bind to two antiparallel pieces of DNA. To verify this, we crystallized and solved the structure of the complex comprised of Ets1 dimer and two pieces of DNA. DNA binding by Ets1 dimer resulted in formation of additional intermolecular protein•DNA interactions, implying that the complex formation is cooperative.
Non-negative matrix factorization for highly noise-robust ASR: To enhance or to recognize?

This paper proposes a multi-stream speech recognition system that combines information from three complementary analysis methods in order to improve automatic speech recognition in highly noisy and reverberant environments, as featured in the 2011 PASCAL CHiME Challenge. We integrate word predictions by a bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory recurrent neural network and non-negative sparse classification (NSC) into a multi-stream Hidden Markov Model using convolutive non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) for speech enhancement. Our results suggest that NMF-based enhancement and NSC are complementary despite their overlap in methodology, reaching up to 91.9% average keyword accuracy on the Challenge test set at signal-to-noise ratios from -6 to 9 dB-the best result reported so far on these data.
Depolarising and Hyperpolarising Actions of GABAA Receptor Activation on Gonadotrophin‐Releasing Hormone Neurones: Towards an Emerging Consensus

The gonadotrophin‐releasing hormone (GnRH) neurones represent the final output neurones of a complex neuronal network that controls fertility. It is now appreciated that GABAergic neurones within this network provide an important regulatory influence on GnRH neurones. However, the consequences of direct GABAA receptor activation on adult GnRH neurones have been controversial for nearly a decade now, with both hyperpolarising and depolarising effects being reported. This review provides: (i) an overview of GABAA receptor function and its investigation using electrophysiological approaches and (ii) re‐examines the past and present results relating to GABAergic regulation of the GnRH neurone, with a focus on mouse brain slice data. Although it remains difficult to reconcile the results of the early studies, there is a growing consensus that GABA can act through the GABAA receptor to exert both depolarising and hyperpolarising effects on GnRH neurones. The most recent studies examining the effects of endogenous GABA release on GnRH neurones indicate that the predominant action is that of excitation. However, we are still far from a complete understanding of the effects of GABAA receptor activation upon GnRH neurones. We argue that this will require not only a better understanding of chloride ion homeostasis in individual GnRH neurones, and within subcellular compartments of the GnRH neurone, but also a more integrative view of how multiple neurotransmitters, neuromodulators and intrinsic conductances act together to regulate the activity of these important cells.
The validity of a caregiver‐rated brief behavior symptom rating scale (BSRS) for use in the cognitively impaired

The validity of a 12‐item brief behavioral symptom rating scale for use in the cognitively impaired was studied using nurse clinician ratings for criterion validity and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale and Behavioral Scale of the Psychogeriatric Dependency Rating Scale for convergent validity. The scale is designed to be filled out by care providers and to meet the needs for a brief scale focused on behavioral symptoms.
Protein selection in the yolk-sac splanchnopleur of the rabbit: the distribution of isotope following injection of 131I-labelled serum globulin into the uterine cavity

Antibodies prepared in a number of species of mammals, when injected into the uterine lumen of the rabbit, penetrate the yolk-sac splanchnopleur and are found in the foetal circulation. The concentrations achieved in the foetal serum vary according to the species of origin of the immune serum. The present work was undertaken further to investigate the mechanism of this selection, and to determine what part might be played by degradation of the injected protein. Normal bovine, and immune rabbit γ-globulins were trace labelled with 131I and injected into the uterine lumen of rabbits 24 days pregnant. It was found that rabbit agglutinin, and rabbit and bovine iodoglobulin, were present in the serum of foetuses thus exposed. The concentrations of both rabbit agglutinin and rabbit iodoglobulin in the foetal circulation, relative to those injected, were lower than is the case when natural antitoxin is used. The relative concentration of rabbit to bovine iodoglobulin in the foetal circulation is not greatly different from that of rabbit to bovine antitoxin using natural serum. Injections were made into one horn of the bicornuate uterus; high concentrations of isotope were discovered in the non-protein fraction of the serum of foetuses in the control uteri. The total isotope content of foetuses in the injected uteri was always greater than that of those in the control uteri; this excess is considered to be due to direct uptake from the uterine lumen. It is in part accounted for as circulating iodoglobulin; the remainder, amounting to approximately one-twentieth of the dose injected, is of equal magnitude whether bovine or rabbit protein has been injected.
Routage sémantique des requêtes dans les systèmes pair-à-pair

RESUME. Les systemes pair-a-pair (P2P) se sont imposes ces dernieres annees comme la technologie majeure d’acces a differentes ressources sur Internet. De nombreuses recherche concernant la selection des meilleurs pairs contenant les donnees appropriees a une requete,ont emerge et constituent un axe de recherche tres actif. L’efficacite de la recherche dans ces systemes, et surtout le cas non structure, peut etre amelioree en introduisant de la semantique dans le processus de routage des requetes. Cette semantique est generalement construite a partir du contenu des pairs, mais peut egalement faire intervenir le comportement explicite des utilisateurs. Nous presentons dans cet article un nouvel algorithme de routage des requetes par apprentissage base sur le comportement implicite des utilisateurs qui est deduit a partir d’un historique de requetes. Pour tester l’algorithme propose, nous avons defini une couche de routage sur le simulateur PeerSim qui nous a permis d’evaluer l’efficacite de notre algorithme.
Using 360 Degree Feedback Instruments up, down and around the world: Implications for global implementation and use of Multi‐Rater Feedback

This report highlights some of the challenges faced when using multi-rater feedback around the world. It is based on the observations of coaches who have worked with a variety of managers from different cultures using a 360 degree feedback instrument — the PROFILOR®. Reference is made to some of the research on cultural differences in order to clarify, or otherwise, some of the issues raised.
Molecular Surface of Tarantula Toxins Interacting with Voltage Sensors in Kv Channels

The venom from spiders, scorpions, and sea anemone contain a rich diversity of protein toxins that interact with ion channel voltage sensors. Although atomic structures have been solved for many of these toxins, the surfaces that are critical for interacting with voltage sensors are poorly defined. Hanatoxin and SGTx are tarantula toxins that inhibit activation of Kv channels by interacting with each of the four voltage sensors. In this study we set out to identify the active surface of these toxins by alanine-scanning SGTx and characterizing the interaction of each mutant with the Kv2.1 channel. Examination of the concentration dependence for inhibition identified 15 mutants with little effect on the concentration dependence for toxin inhibition of the Kv2.1 channel, and 11 mutants that display moderate to dramatic perturbations. Mapping of these results onto the structure of SGTx identifies one face of the toxin where mutations with pronounced perturbations cluster together, and a backside of the toxin where mutations are well tolerated. The active surface of SGTx contains a ring-like assembly of highly polar residues, with two basic residues that are particularly critical, concentrically arranged around a hydrophobic protrusion containing critical aliphatic and aromatic residues. These results identify the active surface of the toxin and reveal the types of side chains that are important for interacting with voltage sensors.
On the Boundary of Behavioral Strategies

In the setting of multi-agent games, considerable effort has been devoted to the definition of modal logics for strategic reasoning. In this area, a recent contribution is given by the introduction of Strategy Logic (SL, for short) by Mogavero, Murano, and Vardi. This logic allows to reason explicitly about strategies as first order objects and express in a very natural and elegant way several solution concepts like Nash, resilient, and secure equilibria, dominant strategies, etc. The price that one has to pay for the high expressiveness of SL semantics is that agents strategies it admits may be not behavioral, i.e., a choice of an agent, at a given moment of a play, may depend on the choices another agent can make in another counterfactual play. As the latter moves are unpredictable, this kind of strategies cannot be synthesized in practice. In this paper, we investigate two syntactical fragments of SL, namely the conjunctive-goal and disjunctive-goal, called SL[CG] and SL[DG] for short, and prove that their semantics admit behavioral strategies only. These logics are obtained by forcing SL formulas to be only of the form of conjunctions or disjunctions of goals, which are temporal assertions associated with a binding of agents with strategies. As SL formulas with any Boolean combination of goals turn out to be non behavioral, we have that SL[CG] and SL[DG] represent the maximal fragments of SL describing agent behaviors that are synthesizable. As a consequence of the above results, the model-checking problem for both SL[CG] and SL[DG] is shown to be solvable in 2EXPTIME, as it is for the subsumed logic ATL*.
The Cerebral Basis of Mapping Nonsymbolic Numerical Quantities onto Abstract Symbols: An fMRI Training Study

Abstract Although significant insights into the neural basis of numerical and mathematical processing have been made, the neural processes that enable abstract symbols to become numerical remain largely unexplored in humans. In the present study, adult participants were trained to associate novel symbols with nonsymbolic numerical magnitudes (arrays of dots). Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine the neural correlates of numerical comparison versus recognition of the novel symbols after each of two training stages. A left-lateralized fronto-parietal network, including the intraparietal sulcus, the precuneus, and the dorsal prefrontal cortex, was more active during numerical comparison than during perceptual recognition. In contrast, a network including bilateral temporal–occipital regions was more active during recognition than comparison. A whole-brain three-way interaction revealed that those individuals who had higher scores on a postscan numerical task (measuring their understanding of the global numerical organization of the novel symbols) exhibited increasing segregation between the two tasks in the bilateral intraparietal sulci as a function of increased training. Furthermore, whole-brain regression analysis showed that activity in the left intraparietal sulcus was systematically related to the effect of numerical distance on accuracy. These data provide converging evidence that parietal and left prefrontal cortices are involved in learning to map numerical quantities onto visual symbols. Only the parietal cortex, however, appeared systematically related to the degree to which individuals learned to associate novel symbols with their numerical referents. We conclude that the left parietal cortex, in particular, may play a central role in imbuing visual symbols with numerical meaning.
Hybrid neuro-fuzzy network-priori knowledge model in temperature control of a gas water heater system

This paper presents a hybrid neuro-fuzzy network-priori knowledge model in temperature control of a gas water heater system. The hybrid model consists in a cascade connection of two blocks: an approximate first principles model (FPM) and an unknown block. The first principles model is constructed based in the balance equations of the system and in a priori knowledge. The unknown part of the global model is modeled with a neuro-fuzzy structure which is based in a priori knowledge and identified with input/output data of the system. The neuro-fuzzy hybrid model (NFHM) of the gas water gas heater consists in a cascade connection of a neuro-fuzzy model with a first principles model. The proposed hybrid model is tuned using gradient descent combined with least square algorithm off-line. A Smith predictive controller is constructed based in the water heater hybrid model. Due to the characteristics of the model, the Smith predictive control structure is simplified, linearizing the system relatively to the input gas flow and it presents a special configuration for multiple input with different time delays. Finally, the control of the output water temperature results are shown and discussed.
DEFENSIVE PROCESSES ENACTED THROUGH MOUNTAINEERING AND THEIR IMPACT ON CLIMBERS

This paper looks at the split-off nature of climbing for those who practise extreme mountaineering, and for whom climbing is a way of life. The regressive processes and idealization involved in this are explored. In particular, the breakdown of idealization at the point where the possibility of death has to be faced is discussed. The impact on close relationship is outlined and conclusions drawn about the main underlying object-relation processes operating in climbers.
A Software Pipeline for Protein Structure Prediction

Abstract : We have developed a software suite to predict protein structures from sequence through the integration of multiple noncommercial programs. The Army and DoD medical and scientific communities will be able to use this software to annotate structures of sequenced pathogenic and host genomes. Such structural predictions can be used in therapeutic and vaccine design as well as many areas of basic biological research. In this work, initial assessments of the software are made. Most importantly, these tests include evaluation of the quality of predicted structural models as a function of sequence similarity to known protein structures. The presentation includes 16 briefing charts.