Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of selective brainstem or spinal cord lesions on treadmill locomotion evoked by stimulation of the mesencephalic or pontomedullary locomotor regions

The descending pathways from the brainstem locomotor areas were investigated by utilizing reversible cooling (to block synaptic or fiber transmission) and irreversible subtotal lesions of the brainstem or spinal cord (C2-C3 level). Experiments were conducted on decerebrate cats induced to walk on a treadmill by electrical stimulation of the brainstem. Locomotion produced by stimulation of the mesencephalic locomotor region (MLR) was not abolished by caudal brainstem lesions that isolated the lateral tegmentum or by extended rostral/caudal dorsal hemisections of the spinal cord. These results demonstrate that the MLR does not require a pathway projecting through the lateral tegmentum of the brainstem or the dorsal half of the spinal cord, as previously suggested (Mori et al., 1977, 1978b; Shik and Yagodnitsyn, 1978; Shik, 1983). Rather, the results indicate that the descending pathway originating from the MLR projects through the medial reticular formation (MedRF) and the ventral half of the spinal cord. Locomotion produced by stimulation of the pontomedullary locomotor region (PLR) was blocked by reversible cooling of either the MedRF or the ventrolateral funiculus of the spinal cord. In some cases, locomotion could be produced by stimulation of the PLR following extended dorsal hemisections of the spinal cord. These results demonstrate that the PLR can also produce locomotion by activation of cells in the MedRF that project caudally through the ventral half of the spinal cord. Stimulation of the PLR could also elicit locomotion following its surgical isolation from the MedRF of the brainstem. Furthermore, lesions of the dorsal spinal cord resulted in the loss of PLR-evoked locomotion in some, but not all, cases. Thus, an alternative projection of the PLR through the dorsal half of the spinal cord (Kazennikov et al., 1980, 1983a,b; Shik, 1983) cannot be ruled out. Overall, these results demonstrate that the PLR is not an essential component of the motor pathway originating from the MLR. The organizational scheme of “brainstem locomotor regions” is discussed in the context of recent information demonstrating a link between the sensory component of the trigeminal system and locomotor pathways (Noga et al., 1988).
Adenovirus Gene Transfer of Recombinant Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase Enhances Contractile Function in Ventricular Myocytes

eNOS is expressed in cardiac myocytes and plays an important role in cardiac contractile function. This study was designed to determine whether ex vivo eNOS gene transfer in ventricular myocytes affects cardiac contractile function. Replication-incompetent adenoviral vectors encoding eNOS or marker gene &bgr;-galactosidase (LacZ) were transduced into adult rat ventricular myocytes at an MOI of 10, 50, or 100 for 36 hours. Mechanical and intracellular Ca2+ properties of myocytes were evaluated by video-based edge detection and fura-2 fluorescence. NOS protein expression and activity were assessed by Western blot and 3H-arginine to 3H-citrulline assay. Myocytes transduced with eNOS but not LacZ displayed enhanced eNOS but not iNOS expression associated with elevated NOS activity. Myocytes transduced with eNOS exhibited significantly elevated peak shortening and velocity of shortening/relengthening associated with enhanced basal as well as electrically stimulated rise of intracellular Ca2+ compared with control or LacZ groups. The durations of shortening and relengthening were comparable in all groups. The eNOS-induced mechanical effects were paralleled with elevated phosphorylation of Akt. Furthermore, the phosphatidylinositol-3 (PI-3) kinase inhibitors wortmannin and LY294002 prevented eNOS-induced mechanical effects. These results revealed that gene transfer of eNOS directly promotes cardiomyocyte contractile function and intracellular Ca2+ handling, suggesting therapeutic potential of eNOS gene transfer.
Automatically Generating a Concept Hierarchy with Graphs

We propose a novel graph-based approach for constructing concept hierarchy from a large text corpus. Our algorithm incorporates both statistical co-occurrences and lexical similarity in optimizing the structure of the taxonomy. To automatically generate topic-dependent taxonomies from a large text corpus, we first extracts topical terms and their relationships from the corpus. The algorithm then constructs a weighted graph representing topics and their associations. A graph partitioning algorithm is then used to recursively partition the topic graph into a taxonomy. For evaluation, we apply our approach to articles, primarily computer science, in the CiteSeerX digital library and search engine.
El problema de las concepciones alternativas en la actualidad (Parte II).El cambio de concepciones alternativas

En un trabajo anterior (Carrascosa, 2005) analizabamos el problema de las ideas alternativas que afectan a diversos campos de la ciencia y apuntabamos algunas causas que pueden explicar el origen y/o la persistencia de las mismas. Cabe plantearse ahora la elaboracion de unas estrategias de ensenanza adecuadas para cambiar las ideas alternativas de los estudiantes por aquellas ideas cientificas que tratamos de ensenarles.
Statin-Associated Muscular and Renal Adverse Events: Data Mining of the Public Version of the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System

Objective Adverse event reports (AERs) submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were reviewed to assess the muscular and renal adverse events induced by the administration of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors (statins) and to attempt to determine the rank-order of the association. Methods After a revision of arbitrary drug names and the deletion of duplicated submissions, AERs involving pravastatin, simvastatin, atorvastatin, or rosuvastatin were analyzed. Authorized pharmacovigilance tools were used for quantitative detection of signals, i.e., drug-associated adverse events, including the proportional reporting ratio, the reporting odds ratio, the information component given by a Bayesian confidence propagation neural network, and the empirical Bayes geometric mean. Myalgia, rhabdomyolysis and an increase in creatine phosphokinase level were focused on as the muscular adverse events, and acute renal failure, non-acute renal failure, and an increase in blood creatinine level as the renal adverse events. Results Based on 1,644,220 AERs from 2004 to 2009, signals were detected for 4 statins with respect to myalgia, rhabdomyolysis, and an increase in creatine phosphokinase level, but these signals were stronger for rosuvastatin than pravastatin and atorvastatin. Signals were also detected for acute renal failure, though in the case of atorvastatin, the association was marginal, and furthermore, a signal was not detected for non-acute renal failure or for an increase in blood creatinine level. Conclusions Data mining of the FDA's adverse event reporting system, AERS, is useful for examining statin-associated muscular and renal adverse events. The data strongly suggest the necessity of well-organized clinical studies with respect to statin-associated adverse events.
Prospective Study of Leptospirosis Transmission in an Urban Slum Community: Role of Poor Environment in Repeated Exposures to the Leptospira Agent

Background Leptospirosis has emerged as an urban health problem as slum settlements have rapidly spread worldwide and created conditions for rat-borne transmission. Prospective studies have not been performed to determine the disease burden, identify risk factors for infection and provide information needed to guide interventions in these marginalized communities. Methodology/Principal Findings We enrolled and followed a cohort of 2,003 residents from a slum community in the city of Salvador, Brazil. Baseline and one-year serosurveys were performed to identify primary and secondary Leptospira infections, defined as respectively, seroconversion and four-fold rise in microscopic agglutination titers. We used multinomial logistic regression models to evaluate risk exposures for acquiring primary and secondary infection. A total of 51 Leptospira infections were identified among 1,585 (79%) participants who completed the one-year follow-up protocol. The crude infection rate was 37.8 per 1,000 person-years. The secondary infection rate was 2.3 times higher than that of primary infection rate (71.7 and 31.1 infections per 1,000 person-years, respectively). Male gender (OR 2.88; 95% CI 1.40–5.91) and lower per capita household income (OR 0.54; 95% CI, 0.30–0.98 for an increase of $1 per person per day) were independent risk factors for primary infection. In contrast, the 15–34 year age group (OR 10.82, 95% CI 1.38–85.08), and proximity of residence to an open sewer (OR 0.95; 0.91–0.99 for an increase of 1 m distance) were significant risk factors for secondary infection. Conclusions/Significance This study found that slum residents had high risk (>3% per year) for acquiring a Leptospira infection. Re-infection is a frequent event and occurs in regions of slum settlements that are in proximity to open sewers. Effective prevention of leptospirosis will therefore require interventions that address the infrastructure deficiencies that contribute to repeated exposures among slum inhabitants.
A Person and Context Specific Approach for Skin Color Classification

Skin color is an important feature of faces. Various applications benefit from robust skin color detection. Depending on camera settings, illumination, shadows, people's tans, and ethnic groups skin color looks differently, which is a challenging aspect for detecting it automatically. In this paper, we present an approach that uses a high level vision module to detect an image specific skin color model. This model is then used to adapt parametric skin color classifiers to the processed image. This approach is capable to distinguish skin color from extremely similar colors, such as lip color or eyebrow color. Its high speed and high accuracy make it appropriate for real time applications such as face tracking and recognition of facial expressions
Are You A Leader? How We Learned to Stop Asking

Smith College initiated an ePortfolio pilot project to guide students in documenting key learning experiences and in linking those experiences to Smith's institutional mission of “developing leaders for society's challenges” (Smith College, 2011). Twenty-one college students volunteered to participate in the pilot, based on the integrative knowledge portfolio process and informed by research in the fields of narrative psychology, integrative learning theory and ePortfolio theory. This article discusses the process of guiding students in integrative learning through the development of ePortfolios and through a curriculum, which engaged them in understanding and articulating their own learning, as well as in connecting it to the college mission.
Calcium exchange in vascular smooth muscle, action of noradrenaline and lanthanum.

1. The Na, K, Ca and Mg content and the 45Ca uptake and loss were determined in rat aortae incubated in physiological solution or in solution containing LaCl3 instead of CaCl2. 2. Aortae washed in La‐solution contained less Ca and Na than controls in physiological solution, the K content was not modified and the Mg content was slightly decreased. 3. In 50 mM‐La solution the 45Ca diffusion space was intermediate between the values found for the [14C]sorbitol space and the [14C]inulin space, indicating that there was no Ca entry within the cell nor Ca binding at superficial sites. 45Ca loss from the tissue was directly related to the La concentration. 4. Noradrenaline increased the rate of uptake of 45Ca into the Ca fraction resistant to displacement by La. This increase was dose dependent, a response of 50% of the maximum being produced by 2 x 10(‐8) noradrenaline as for the contraction. In the presence of phentolamine, the dose‐effect curves for the action of noradrenaline on 45Ca uptake were displaced in a manner characteristic of competitive antagonism. The rhoA2 for phentolamine was 7‐8. 5. In physiological solution, the rate of loss of 45Ca, from the Ca fraction resistant to displacement by La, was increased by noradrenaline the ED50 was 2 x 10(‐8) M, and the effect was abolished by phentolamine. 6. In view of the similarity of phentolamine rhoA2 estimated by measuring noradrenaline sensitive 45Ca uptake or noradrenaline evoked contraction, it is likely that the activation of alpha‐adrenergic receptors is responsible for both effects.
Clinical experience in the diagnosis of 127 papillary thyroid microcarcinomas

To investigate the difficulties in the diagnosis of thyroid microcarcinoma and to present the results of delaying diagnosis for these patients, we retrospectively analyzed the clinical information of 1259 thyroid carcinoma patients in one medical center. During a period of 20 years, from January 1977 to June 1997, 1259 thyroid cancer patients, including 921 papillary thyroid carcinoma patients, who received treatment and were followed-up at Chang Gung Medical Center in Linkou, Taiwan, were evaluated for inclusion in the study. Of these patients, 127 (13.2%) were diagnosed as having thyroid microcarcinoma. Forty-five patients were diagnosed as malignancy or suspicious malignancy preoperatively with ultrasonography and fine needle aspiration cytological examinations. In the analysis, the 127 thyroid microcarcinoma patients who received surgical treatment could be divided into four groups. Group I: patients with thyroid microcarcinoma with hyperthyroidism or hyperparathyroidism, in most of whom (except four patients) the thyroid microcarcinoma was found incidentally during the operation (28 cases). Group II: thyroid microcarcinoma in benign larger thyroid nodule or multinodular goiter, or thyroid microcarcinoma in coexistence with nodule goiter in one patient. The thyroid microcarcinomas in this group were found incidentally except in five patients (58 cases). Group III: thyroid microcarcinoma which could be detected as thyroid nodule preoperatively (28 cases). Group IV: thyroid microcarcinoma presented with neck lymph node metastases or distant metastases of the thyroid carcinoma (13 cases). Median follow-up period of these 127 patients was 4.7 years. During the follow-up period, two patients died, including one patient in group IV who died of skull metastasis with brain invasion. Another patient died of stroke, which was, however, not related to thyroid carcinoma. In conclusion, most thyroid microcarcinoma patients experienced rather benign clinical courses, but for patients with thyroid microcarcinoma with distant metastases, aggressive surgical treatment followed by radioactive 131 I treatment is indicated.
THE BOUNDARIES OF PORN STUDIES

This paper centres around Porn Studies (ed. Linda Williams, 2004: Duke University Press). It examines the disciplinary terrain set out in this volume and the broader implications for the way in which we think about pornography in an academic context. Firstly, I explore the implications of the shift away from feminist debates about the nature, existence and regulation of pornography that this volume and others have called for. Secondly, I discuss the ‘porn’ of porn studies: how do we define it, what is included and excluded by our definitions, and what are the implications of this definitional practice? Finally, I turn to the ‘study’ of porn studies to consider the ethical and pedagogical consequences of canonising porn within the classroom and academic publishing.
DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!

“Trolling” and other negative behaviour on magazine websites is widespread, ranging from subtly provocative behaviour to outright abuse. Publishers have sought to develop lively online communities, with high levels of user-generated content. Methods of building sites have developed quickly, but methods of managing them have lagged behind. Some publishers have then felt overwhelmed by the size and behaviour of the communities they have created. This paper considers the reasons behind trolling and the tools digital editors have developed to manage their communities, taking up the role of Zygmunt Bauman's gardeners in what they sometimes refer to as “walled gardens” within the Internet's wild domains. Interviews were conducted with online editors at the front line of site management at Bauer, Giraffe, IPC, Natmags, RBI and the Times. This article shows how publishers are designing sites that encourage constructive posting, and taking a more active part in site management. Web 2.0 and the spread of broadband, which have made management of fast-growing communities difficult, may themselves bring positive change. As uploading material becomes technically easier, “ordinary” citizens can outnumber those who, lacking social skills or with little regard for social norms, originally made the Internet their natural habitat.
Alteration of Lipid Profile in Subclinical Hypothyroidism: A Meta-Analysis

Background Previous studies yielded controversial results about the alteration of lipid profiles in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism. We performed a meta-analysis to investigate the association between subclinical hypothyroidism and lipid profiles. Material/Methods We searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure articles published January 1990 through January 2014. Dissertation databases (PQDT and CDMD) were searched for additional unpublished articles. We included articles reporting the relationship between subclinical hypothyroidism and at least 1 parameter of lipid profiles, and calculated the overall weighted mean difference (WMD) with a random effects model. Meta-regression was used to explore the source of heterogeneity among studies, and the Egger test, Begg test, and the trim and fill method were used to assess potential publication bias. Results Sixteen observational studies were included in our analysis. Meta-analysis suggested that the serum total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and total triglyceride levels were significantly increased in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism compared with euthyroidism individuals; the WMD were 12.17 mg/dl, 7.01 mg/dl, and 13.19 mg/dl, respectively (P<0.001 for all). No significant difference was observed for serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). Match strategy was the main source of heterogeneity among studies in TC and LDL-C analysis. Potential publication bias was found in TC and LDL-C analysis by the Egger test or Begg test and was not confirmed by the trim and fill method. Conclusions Subclinical hypothyroidism may correlate with altered lipid profile. Previous studies had limitations in the control of potential confounding factors and further studies should consider those factors.
STRATEGIES FOR ADOPTING FVTD ON MULTICOMPUTERS Using the Message Passing Interface , Power

omputational electromagnetics in the time domain is the most general numerical approach for describing dynamic or wide-band frequency electromagnetic phenomena. Computational simulations originate from discretized approximations of the time-dependent Maxwell equations. From numerical analysis, we know that the simulation accuracy of wave motion is governed by the Nyquist frequency as a lower bound. 1 In essence, the absolute minimum grid-point density to achieve a meaningful simulation of physics is two discretized points per wavelength. There is at least an order-of-magnitude difference between the capability of most commonly adopted second-order numerical schemes and the maximum performance achievable. This fundamental limitation restricts the frequency spectrum or the electrical size that can be accurately simulated. However, two basic approaches can alleviate this application limitation: using high-resolution numerical algorithms that can achieve a spectral-like resolution for describing wave motion, and using concurrent computations (see the " Bridging the efficiency gap " sidebar). In order to achieve high-performance parallel computing, we ported a cell-centered, upwind finite volume scheme for time-dependent, 3D Maxwell equations to the IBM SP and the SGI Origin 2000 systems. 2 Using the Message Passing Interface, 3 Power Fortran, and autotasking, we mapped the Max3D computer program to distributed-and shared-distributed-memory multicomputers. We hope to improve the computational efficiency and extend the range of the scalable performance of this numerical procedure. In this article, we describe three different parallel computing techniques to realize our goal. Using the Message Passing Interface, Power Fortran, and autotasking programming models, the authors have ported to multicomputers a sequential finite-volume numerical procedure, called the Max3D, for solving the time-dependent Maxwell equations. They have also demonstrated and verified a previously unobtainable high-frequency bistatic radar cross section for a perfectly electrical conducting sphere. The spectral method and high-resolution algorithms have made significant progress to bridge the gap between the spectral limit and conventional numerical procedures. Hesthaven recently developed a multidomain pseudospectral method for scattering simulations of axis-symmetric configurations. 2 Using Chebyshev collocation methods for axis-symmetric scatterers, they demonstrated impressive numerical efficiency. Researchers have also devised finite-volume and finite difference numerical procedures based on the
Body, World and Affordance: Towards Engaging Technological Artefacts for Older Individuals

This article addresses the problems older individuals have been observed to encounter when engaging with technological artefacts and how such difficulties may relate to the designers understanding of the normal cognitive ageing process of human beings. This article suggests that these problems may not be the result of limited cognitive abilities of certain older individuals but rather the manner in which designers understand the complex relationship between the mind and actions in the world. The article speculates that an alternative perspective on interactions as affordances that occur between the embodied individual and their ecology may benefit design methodologies deployed in creating engaging technological artefacts for older individuals.