Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding the Persistence of Plague Foci in Madagascar

Plague, a zoonosis caused by Yersinia pestis, is still found in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Madagascar reports almost one third of the cases worldwide. Y. pestis can be encountered in three very different types of foci: urban, rural, and sylvatic. Flea vector and wild rodent host population dynamics are tightly correlated with modulation of climatic conditions, an association that could be crucial for both the maintenance of foci and human plague epidemics. The black rat Rattus rattus, the main host of Y. pestis in Madagascar, is found to exhibit high resistance to plague in endemic areas, opposing the concept of high mortality rates among rats exposed to the infection. Also, endemic fleas could play an essential role in maintenance of the foci. This review discusses recent advances in the understanding of the role of these factors as well as human behavior in the persistence of plague in Madagascar.
An Investigation of the Mineral in Ductile and Brittle Cortical Mouse Bone

Bone is a strong and tough material composed of apatite mineral, organic matter, and water. Changes in composition and organization of these building blocks affect bone's mechanical integrity. Skeletal disorders often affect bone's mineral phase, either by variations in the collagen or directly altering mineralization. The aim of the current study was to explore the differences in the mineral of brittle and ductile cortical bone at the mineral (nm) and tissue (µm) levels using two mouse phenotypes. Osteogenesis imperfecta model, oim‐/‐, mice have a defect in the collagen, which leads to brittle bone; PHOSPHO1 mutants, Phospho1‐/‐, have ductile bone resulting from altered mineralization. Oim‐/‐ and Phospho1‐/‐ were compared with their respective wild‐type controls. Femora were defatted and ground to powder to measure average mineral crystal size using X‐ray diffraction (XRD) and to monitor the bulk mineral to matrix ratio via thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). XRD scans were run after TGA for phase identification to assess the fractions of hydroxyapatite and β‐tricalcium phosphate. Tibiae were embedded to measure elastic properties with nanoindentation and the extent of mineralization with backscattered electron microscopy (BSE SEM). Results revealed that although both pathology models had extremely different whole‐bone mechanics, they both had smaller apatite crystals, lower bulk mineral to matrix ratio, and showed more thermal conversion to β‐tricalcium phosphate than their wild types, indicating deviations from stoichiometric hydroxyapatite in the original mineral. In contrast, the degree of mineralization of bone matrix was different for each strain: brittle oim‐/‐ were hypermineralized, whereas ductile Phospho1‐/‐ were hypomineralized. Despite differences in the mineralization, nanoscale alterations in the mineral were associated with reduced tissue elastic moduli in both pathologies. Results indicated that alterations from normal crystal size, composition, and structure are correlated with reduced mechanical integrity of bone. © 2014 The Authors. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
HLA-DR4-IE chimeric class II transgenic, murine class II-deficient mice are susceptible to experimental allergic encephalomyelitis

To investigate the development of HLA-DR-associated autoimmune diseases, we generated transgenic (Tg) mice with HLA-DRA-IE alpha and HLA-DRB1*0401-IE beta chimeric genes. The transgene-encoded proteins consisted of antigen-binding domains from HLA-DRA and HLA-DRB1*0401 molecules and the remaining domains from the IE(d)-alpha and IE(d)-beta chains. The chimeric molecules showed the same antigen-binding specificity as HLA-DRB1*0401 molecules, and were functional in presenting antigens to T cells. The Tg mice were backcrossed to MHC class II-deficient (IA beta-, IE alpha-) mice to eliminate any effect of endogenous MHC class II genes on the development of autoimmune diseases. As expected, IA alpha beta or IE alpha beta molecules were not expressed in Tg mice. Moreover, cell-surface expression of endogenous IE beta associated with HLA-DRA-IE alpha was not detectable in several Tg mouse lines by flow cytometric analysis. The HLA-DRA-IE alpha/HLA-DRB1*0401-IE beta molecules rescued the development of CD4+ T cells in MHC class II-deficient mice, but T cells expressing V beta 5, V beta 11, and V beta 12 were specifically deleted. Tg mice were immunized with peptides, myelin basic protein (MBP) 87-106 and proteolipid protein (PLP) 175-192, that are considered to be immunodominant epitopes in HLA-DR4 individuals. PLP175-192 provoked a strong proliferative response of lymph node T cells from Tg mice, and caused inflammatory lesions in white matter of the CNS and symptoms of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE). Immunization with MBP87- 106 elicited a very weak proliferative T cell response and caused mild EAE. Non-Tg mice immunized with either PLP175-192 or MBP87-106 did not develop EAE. These results demonstrated that a human MHC class II binding site alone can confer susceptibility to an experimentally induced murine autoimmune disease.
The Past Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Rhymes: The Second Coming of the Liberal Anti‐Court Movement

The last ten years have witnessed the reemergence of fears of judicial power among scholars on the left. This renewed “Anti‐Court” movement includes the minimalism of Cass Sunstein, the popular constitutionalism of Mark Tushnet and Larry Kramer, and the bipartisan judicial restraint of Jeffrey Rosen. This essay traces the origin, development, and implications of this movement, noting its particular ties to historic trends in the academy: the Legal Process School, critical theory, and the positivist work of Gerald Rosenberg and Michael Klarman. The essay also considers the movement's preference for majoritarian politics—a partiality borne of dissatisfaction with the Rehnquist Court, but also, conversely, recognition of the failures of conservative attempts at policy making. The essay concludes by considering the ambitions of these scholars to develop a truly apolitical theory of judicial power. In light of the furious debate over the purported “minimalism” of John Roberts, severing theory from politics may prove impossible.
Overnight care patterns following parental separation: Associations with emotion regulation in infants and young children

Abstract Children living in a shared-time parenting arrangement following separation (also known as joint physical custody or dual residence) spend equal or near-equal amounts of day and night time with each parent. Little data exist regarding developmental sequelae of such arrangements for infants. The current study examined a theoretically driven question: Are there associations between quantum of overnight stays away from a primary resident parent and the infant’s settledness, or emotion regulation with that parent? Nationally representative parent report data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) were used Three age bands were studied and three level of overnight care contrasted. When parenting style, parental conflict and socio-economic factors were controlled for, greater number of shared overnight stays for the 0–1 year old and the 2–3 year old groups predicted some less settled and poorly regulated behaviours, but none for the 4–5 year old group. Limits of these data are discussed, including application to the individual case. Findings suggest emotional regulation within the primary infant-parent relationship is one useful index of infant adjustment to parenting time arrangements.
AN IN VIVO ESTIMATION OF THE POTENCIES AND HALF-LIVES OF SYNTHETIC BRADYKININ AND KALLIDIN.

The relative vasodilating capacity of the synthetic kinins, bradykinin and kallidin, was compared in the dog autoperfused hindquarters preparation. Kallidin was found to be more potent than bradykinin in this preparation. A method utilizing this preparation was found suitable for measuring the half-life in blood of highly potent vasoactive substances which are rapidly destroyed by blood. This procedure has been applied to determine the half-life ( t½) of the synthetic nonapeptide, bradykinin, and to compare it with its synthetic 1-lysyl homolog, kallidin. The t½, of bradykinin (0.27 ± 0.013) remained substantially constant within the range of doses and duration of incubation in extracorporeal blood studied, while the t½ of kallidin increased from 0.32 to 0.48 minute as higher initial concentrations were incubated for more prolonged periods. This suggests that the inactivation of kallidin may not follow the kinetics of unimolecular reactions. A possible explanation for this observation was that some intermediate(s) in the inactivation of kallidin had sufficient vasodilating action to contribute measurably to the vasodilatation upon which the determination of the t½, depended.
Youths' Caretaking of Their Adolescent Sisters' Children: Its Costs and Benefits for Youths' Development

This study examined how time spent caring for a teenage sister's child and experiences in providing care related to youths' young adult outcomes. Latino and African American youths (N = 108) were studied during middle and late adolescence. Results indicated that youths who provided many hours of child care were more stressed and had lower school grades but also reported a greater life satisfaction, a stronger school orientation, and were less likely to drop out of school. Negative experiences in providing care were associated with a lower likelihood of school dropout and teenage pregnancy. Findings suggest that the extent of sibling caregiving in teenage childbearing families incurs both developmental costs and benefits.
Attachment Quality and Bullying Behavior in School-Aged Youth

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between students’ quality of attachment to their primary caregivers and the frequency with which they bully others and are the victims of bullying. One hundred and five students in Grades 4, 6, and 8 (46 girls, 59 boys; M = 10.5 years) completed paper and pencil surveys. Results indicated that students with lower quality attachment relationships are more likely to bully others and be the victims of bullying than their peers with higher quality attachment relationships. No significant grade or sex differences were found for the attachment, bullying, or victimization variables. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. Nous avons étudié le rapport entre la qualité de l’attachement avec leurs parents et la fréquence de l’intimidation. Cent cinq enfants de quatrième, sixième, et huitième années (46 filles, 59 garçons; âge moyen = 10.5 ans) ont rempli des questionnaires. Les résultats suggèrent que les enfants avec moins de qualité d’attachement dans leurs relations avaient la tendance à l’intimidation envers les autres, et d’être les victimes de l’intimidation. Les différences entre les années et sexe n’étaient pas significatives pour la qualité d’attachement ou d’intimidation. Les conséquences et directions pour la recherche font l’objet de discussion.
A DWT-Based Covert Timing Channel of High Concealment

Network covert channel exploits normal traﬃc as the carrier to transmit information secretly over the network. However, most of the existing covert timing channels can be detected since they may generate abnormal traﬃc or property. In this paper, a DWT-based covert timing channel is proposed to improve concealment. In order to preserve normal behavior and property, instead of being directly embedded into the normal traﬃc in spatial domain, the secret information is modulated into the wavelet coeﬃcients of normal inter-packet delays (IPD). Experimental results show that our scheme can re-sist the existing popular detection methods.
Loss aversion, social comparison and competitive behavior at young age

We examine the relationship between competitive behavior and social comparison where in this paper competitive behavior is measured by physical ability performance. In particular, by incorporating social comparison into prospect theory, we directly estimate the degree of loss aversion with social comparison, a concept we term `ALJ' (Avoiding Loss relative to the Joneses). Our main findings are as follows: (i) the estimated value function is refracted at another's gain and the average estimated value of ALJ is significantly different from the unity; (ii) physical fitness influences the degree of ALJ; (iii) gender influences social comparison preferences as well as ALJ; (iv) participants with a greater degree of ALJ tend not to respond to voluntary questionnaire; (v) the form of participants' ALJ is affected by the voluntary behavior of their parents. In addition, we compare ALJ with loss aversion in the framework of prospect theory, and find evidences which imply that ALJ and loss aversion have different characteristics.
Nanoscale Magneto-Inductive communication

The nanonetworks constructed by interconnecting nanodevices using wireless communication allow nanodevices to perform more complex functions by means of cooperation between them. For the first time in the literature, we introduce a novel nanoscale communication technique: Nanoscale Magneto-Inductive (NMI) communication. The magnetic coupling between nanocoils establishes a communication channel between them. The electromagnetic (EM) waves at nanoscale encounter two problems: high molecular absorption rates and frequency selective channel characteristics. The novel NMI communication solves these problems by introducing low absorption losses and flat channel characteristics. In the paper, we first present the physical model of the point-to-point NMI communication. Then, we introduce the waveguide technique for the NMI communication. To assess the performance of the point-to-point and the waveguide NMI communication methods, we derive path loss expressions for both methods. The results show that using waveguide technique in the NMI communication significantly reduces the path loss and increases feasible communication range. Based on the numerical performance evaluation, the NMI communication stands as a promising solution to nanoscale communication between nanodevices.
Teachers' perceptions of classroom behaviour and working memory

Working memory, ability to remember and manipulate information, is crucial to academic attainment. The aim of the present study was to understand teachers’ perception of working memory and how it impacts classroom behaviour. A semi-structured interview was used to explore teachers’ ability to define working memory, identify these difficulties in the classroom, and effectively support struggling students. Teachers were then asked to identify students in their classroom whom they felt exhibited troublesome behaviour. The data indicated that teacher awareness of working memory was quite low, with the majority of them only able to correctly identify one or two signs of working memory failure and effective strategies to support it in the classroom. The study also found that students the teachers consider as troublesome showed signs of working memory failure. The practical implications for screening and supporting students who exhibit troublesome behaviour in the classroom are discussed.
Elinor Ochs Keenan & Tina Bennett (eds.), Discourse across time and space . (Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics.) Los Angeles: Department of Linguistics, University of Southern California, 1977. Pp. vii + 304.

This book had its origin as a dissertation (in essentially the same form) in the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. (The fact is nowhere acknowledged in the book.) The portion of the book which actually tests the general notions of meaning and discourse is quite limited. The author provides a plausible and sometimes ingenious and amusing account (components of the cognitive model are called CALVIN, MACHIAVELLI, CICERO, FREUD). The limitations of the significance of the work are summarized by the author in a sentence (217): "For although a discourse episode was stimulated, it was done in an ad hoc manner" (cf. 145-46). The distance of the work from an illustration of features of language, the implicit slippage between the conceptual and the verbal, is indicated in the report that Halliday's grammar was initially used, following Winograd, but it was found to be ill-suited, first of all because "it was not conceptually based and hence was too tightly bound to the properties and peculiarities of language to tie in easily with the conceptual structures that 1 was working with" (69). For a conceptual model of speakers that reaches to quite particular features of language, compare, by way of contrast, Brown & Levinson in E. Goody (ed.), Questions and politeness (1978). (D. H.)
There Is Water Everywhere: How News Framing Amplifies the Effect of Ecological Worldviews on Preference for Flooding Protection Policy

The purpose of this study is to examine the interactive effect of worldviews and media frames on policy preference. Using flooding as a case study, we examine the interplay of ecological worldviews and news framed as either emphasizing harmony with nature or mastery over nature on individuals' preference for flood protection policy. A total of 255 undergraduate students participated in a 2 (ecological worldviews: balance-with-nature vs. human-domination-over-nature) × 2 (media frames: harmony frame vs. mastery frame) between-subjects experiment. The findings indicate that both the balance-with-nature worldview and the human-domination-over-nature worldview have significant impacts on preference for flood protection policy. Furthermore, the harmony frame amplified the effect of the balance-with-nature worldview in supporting a natural approach to flood protection. In contrast, the mastery frame amplified the effect of the human-domination-over-nature worldview on the preference for a structural approach to flood protection. Implications are discussed.
A Self-Regulatory Mechanism for Personality Trait Stability

Despite the considerable influence of situational factors and the resulting variability in behavior, individuals maintain stable average ways of acting. The purpose of the current research was to investigate one possible explanation for this stability. It was hypothesized that behaviors that are at levels different from the actor’s average trait levels (contra-trait behaviors) demand more effort, or self-control, than do trait-typical behaviors. In Study 1, extraverted participants who acted at contra-trait levels reported their behaviors as more effortful, and this effect grew stronger over time. In addition, in a subsequent activity, observers rated extraverts who had acted contra-trait as behaving more extraverted, suggesting that fatigue from sustaining contra-trait behaviors may result in subsequent behaviors returning to trait-typical levels. In Study 2, participants reported on contextualized behaviors for 7 days and rated contra-trait behaviors as more effortful than trait-typical behaviors. This effect only held among nonhabitual behaviors, implicating self-control processes.
A new LMI condition for delay-dependent asymptotic stability of delayed Hopfield neural networks

In this paper, a new delay-dependent asymptotic stability condition for delayed Hopfield neural networks is given in terms of a linear matrix inequality, which is less conservative than existing ones in the literature. This condition guarantees the existence of a unique equilibrium point and its global asymptotic stability of a given delayed Hopfield neural network. Examples are provided to show the reduced conservatism of the proposed condition.
Curriculum Control and Teachers' Perceptions of Autonomy and Satisfaction

High school mathematics and social studies teachers were studied to determine the influence of curriculum control policies on their sense of autonomy and job satisfaction. Control policies were found to have their largest effects on content decisions in mathematics. Nevertheless, teachers in all conditions studied reported relatively high degrees of personal control over both content and pedagogy. Further, there was little evidence that teachers felt less efficacious or satisfied about their jobs because of curriculum policy constraints.
Some Elements Relating to Children’s Play and Adult Simulaton/Gaming

Children’s play and adult gaming, each of which are present in the world of education and training, too often refer to different explanatory paradigms. Is this distinction a legitimate one? In what way? This special issue of S&G and this introduction endeavor to provide some answers to these questions, based both on theoretical reflections and on examples given by the authors. The author attempts to demonstrate that these two fields of reflection have everything to gain through mutual enrichment.
Estimating the Intertemporal Risk-Return Tradeoff Using the Implied Cost of Capital

We reexamine the time-series relation between the conditional mean and variance of stock market returns. To proxy for the conditional mean return, we use the implied cost of capital, computed using analyst forecasts. The usefulness of this proxy is shown in simulations. In empirical analysis, we construct the time series of the implied cost of capital for the G-7 countries. We find strong support for a positive intertemporal mean-variance relation at both the country level and the world market level. Some of our evidence is consistent with international integration of the G-7 financial markets.
The Evolving Watchdog: The Media's Role in Government Ethics

The mass media's influence on the ethics of public life, as characterized by the press's watchdog role in monitoring the conduct of government officials, is assumed to be vital to democracy. The effectiveness of this watchdog role is less clearly understood. Partial answers are found in the evolving institutional history of the press, including its control, ethics, laws, technology, organization, and the content of news stories. Just as reporters rarely discuss their ethics in terms of teleology and deontology, the press does not conceptualize in sophisticated terms its impact on the ethics of public employees. It traditionally finds motivation from the popular belief in watchdog success models from muckraking to Watergate. As partisanship, news values, and reporting techniques evolve, effectiveness varies. Research sheds light on media trends but focuses more on presidents than county clerks, more on political campaigns than government process. Optimism, as new doors and new technology open to reporters, is tempered by competition from the marketplace and the new digital feast promised consumers.