Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hyaluronan is an abundant constituent of the extracellular matrix of Xenopus embryos

The spatiotemporal distribution of hyaluronan (HA), a major constituent of the vertebrate extracellular matrix, was analyzed during early embryonic development of Xenopus laevis. This polysaccharide is abundantly present in ventricular structures such as the blastocoel, the archenteron as well as later on in the hepatic cavity, the brain ventricles and the developing heart. At the blastula stage, HA was detected in the extracellular matrix of the ecto‐ and mesodermal primordia. Shortly before gastrulation, it becomes enriched at the basal site of the superficial cell layer of the ectoderm. During gastrulation, enhanced synthesis of HA takes place in the involuting marginal zone, shortly before invagination starts, hence, resulting in a torus‐like deposition in the deep layer of the equatorial mesodermal primordium. After gastrulation, HA appears to accumulate within the extracellular matrix demarcating the primary germ layers. During tailbud stages, it is found highly enriched in many mesodermal derivatives, e.g., in mesenchyme, the heart, precordal cartilage and the lung primordia. Furthermore, extracellular matrix of the ventral mesodermal cell layer in the trunk region and the immediate proximity of blood vessels contain high amounts of HA. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 61: 312–316, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Occurrence and densities of bacteriophages proposed as indicators and bacterial indicators in river waters from Europe and South America.

AIMS To evaluate the feasibility of bacteriophages as a complementary tool for water quality assessment in surface waters from different parts of the globe. METHODS AND RESULTS Faecal coliform bacteria, enterococci, spores of sulphite-reducing clostridia, somatic coliphages, F-specific RNA bacteriophages and bacteriophages infecting Bacteroides fragilis were determined by standardized methods in raw sewage and in 392 samples of river water from 22 sampling sites in 10 rivers in Argentina, Colombia, France and Spain, which represent very different climatic and socio-economic conditions. The results showed that the indicators studied maintained the same relative densities in the raw sewage from the different areas. Classifying the river water samples according to the content of faecal coliform bacteria, it can be observed that the relative densities of the different bacterial indicators and bacteriophages changed according to the concentration of faecal coliform bacteria. There was a relative increase in the densities of all groups of bacteriophages and sulphite-reducing clostridia with respect to faecal coliforms and enterococci in the samples with low counts of faecal coliform bacteria. CONCLUSIONS The numbers of bacterial indicators and bacteriophages were similar in the different geographical areas studied. Once released in rivers, the persistence of the different micro-organisms differed significantly. Bacteriophages and spores of sulphite-reducing clostridia persisted longer than faecal coliforms and enterococci. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY Bacteriophages in river water samples provide additional information to that provided by bacteria about the fate of faecal micro-organisms in river water. The easy, fast and cheap methods for phage determination are feasible both in industrialized and developing countries.
Meaning and Motor Action

Two experiments investigated relations between manual motor actions and the meanings of abstract words. In Experiment 1, participants told stories with literal or metaphorical spatial content while moving marbles from one box to another continually, in a specified direction (i.e., up, down, right, or left). Although marble movements were irrelevant to storytelling they influenced verbal fluency dramatically, increasing fluency relative to baseline when the direction of movement was congruent with the spatial schema implied by the accompanying speech (e.g., upward movement during ‘the temperature went up’ or ‘my grades got better’), and decreasing verbal fluency when movement was incongruent with speech (e.g., upward movement during ‘my teams rank fell’ or ‘the price got cheaper’). Experiment 2 showed complementary ‘motor-meaning congruity’ effects in a non-communicative setting. Participants performed a marble moving task while incidentally reading irrelevant abstract words. Marble movements were fastest when the direction of movement was congruent with the spatial schema implied by the word (e.g., upward for genius; downward for gloomy). Furthermore, motor-meaning congruity during word presentation strongly predicted subsequent memory for incidentally encoded words. Together, these motor-meaning congruity effects suggest that motor representations play a role in instantiating abstract concepts that transcends any role they may play in communicating these concepts.
The physiology of long-distance migration: extending the limits of endurance metabolism

SUMMARY Long-distance migrants have evolved specific adaptations that make their athletic records possible. Unique mechanisms explaining their amazing capacity for endurance exercise have now been uncovered, particularly with respect to energy storage, mobilization, transport and utilization. Birds are champions of migration because flying offers a key compromise: it allows more rapid movement than swimming, but has a lower cost of transport than running. High efficiency for muscle contraction, pointed wings, low wingloading, travelling in V-formations, storing fuel as energy-dense lipids and atrophy of non-essential organs are some of their strategies to decrease the cost of transport. The ability to process lipids rapidly also emerges as a crucial component of the migrant phenotype. High lipid fluxes are made possible by lipoprotein shuttles and fatty acid binding proteins (FABPs) that accelerate lipid transport and by upgrading the metabolic machinery for lipolysis and lipid oxidation. Preparation for long flights can include natural doping on n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFAs) from unique invertebrate diets. Muscle performance is improved by restructuring membrane phospholipids and by activating key genes of lipid metabolism through peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs). The physiological secret to long migrations does not depend on a single `magic' adaptation but on the integration of multiple adjustments in morphology, biomechanics, behavior, nutrition and metabolism. Research on the physiology of migrants improves the fundamental knowledge of exercise biology, but it also has important implications for wildlife conservation, treating obesity and improving the performance of human athletes.
Sampling from databases for rule induction methods based on likelihood ratio test

One of the most important problems in data mining is how to manage a large amount of data and to extract efficient knowledge from large databases. Although many machine learning methods and statistical methods have been proposed to solve this problem, they are not powerful when we have more than 1000 samples, since the computational complexity of these algorithms is larger than or approximately equal to n2. In this paper, we introduce the idea of log-likelihood ratio to measure the similarity between generated training samples and original training samples before rule induction methods are applied to this selected samples. This method was evaluated to three medical domains. The results show that the proposed method selects training samples which reflect the statistical characteristics of the original training samples although the performance with small samples is not so good.
Kill Tree Analysis Method and CAD Tool for Aircraft Complex System Vulnerability Assessment and Safety Design

In vulnerability assessment of aircraft complex systems subjected to traditional weapons, kill tree is used as a visual illustration of the critical components and all component redundancies. This research applies fault tree analysis method in reliability field to analyze the kill tree and determine the minimal cut sets for different kill levels, such as KK, K, A, B and C attrition kill. The tree is first translated to its equivalent Boolean equations and then the top-down substitution method is used. Two Boolean laws, the distributive law and the law of absorption, are used to remove the redundancies. In addition, a CAD tool based on the simple constructs (parallel, series, k-out-of-n) is developed to facilitate the analyzers to identify the contributions of critical component kill to aircraft system kill. A hypothesis aircraft complex system composed of several non-redundant components and several sets of redundant components is used as an example to illustrate the feasibility of the method and the developed tool.
Simple Topological Features Reflect Dynamics and Modularity in Protein Interaction Networks

The availability of large-scale protein-protein interaction networks for numerous organisms provides an opportunity to comprehensively analyze whether simple properties of proteins are predictive of the roles they play in the functional organization of the cell. We begin by re-examining an influential but controversial characterization of the dynamic modularity of the S. cerevisiae interactome that incorporated gene expression data into network analysis. We analyse the protein-protein interaction networks of five organisms, S. cerevisiae, H. sapiens, D. melanogaster, A. thaliana, and E. coli, and confirm significant and consistent functional and structural differences between hub proteins that are co-expressed with their interacting partners and those that are not, and support the view that the former tend to be intramodular whereas the latter tend to be intermodular. However, we also demonstrate that in each of these organisms, simple topological measures are significantly correlated with the average co-expression of a hub with its partners, independent of any classification, and therefore also reflect protein intra- and inter- modularity. Further, cross-interactomic analysis demonstrates that these simple topological characteristics of hub proteins tend to be conserved across organisms. Overall, we give evidence that purely topological features of static interaction networks reflect aspects of the dynamics and modularity of interactomes as well as previous measures incorporating expression data, and are a powerful means for understanding the dynamic roles of hubs in interactomes.
Efficient Load-Balancing Aware Cloud Resource Scheduling for Mobile User

Department of Computer Science, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430063, P.R. China Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Big Data Analysis Technology/B-DAT, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China School of Management, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430063, P.R. China Corresponding author: chunlin74@tom.com
Whose Side are We on? Theory, Practice and Allegiances in Prisons Research

This article reflects on sympathy and the problem of taking sides in research. It is impossible to be neutral, but is it possible to take more than one side? How far is our research distorted, and how far is it strengthened by forming a sympathetic understanding of those we study? What is the relationship between values and social science and how political are our choices about methods and perspectives? These age-old arguments are revisited in a contemporary context in which the superordinates as well as the subordinates feature in the author's research. The article asks whether synthesis is possible or desirable. These questions have important implications for researchers, but they also have significant consequences for the researched.
A New Approach to Image Analysis Through Multidimensional Scaling

Traditionally, images of tourist regions have been described by way of (a) content analysis of respondents' answers to open-ended questions about their per ceptions of various tourist areas and (b) through comparison of averages and per centages of responses to statements measured along some sort of Likert-type scale andlor semantic differential. This article describes a new approach to portraying images of tourist regions through use of J. B. Kruskal's multidimensional scaling program called M-D-SCAL 5-a technique hitherto unreported in the tourism and travel literature.
Towards efficient data collection in WSNs

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are nowadays used in many diverse applications such as road traffic monitoring, emergency medical care, battlefield surveillance and agriculture etc. In such applications, it is fundamental to gather the data accumulated by each sensor and forward it to the sink for processing. Transmitting this data from the sensor field to the sink is reliant on efficient data collection mechanisms. Various collection processes address the following fundamental questions: how fast can we transmit the data carrying emergency events? What data actually needs to be transmitted? How do we ensure the accuracy of the transmitted data? In my PhD, I investigate these questions by exploring and evaluating different techniques for efficient data collection in terms of time delay, energy consumption, and accuracy of the reported data. This paper presents an overview of our proposed solutions to reduce emergency messages transmission delay in WSNs based Road Traffic Monitoring, as well as our current and future works.
A Novel Enhancement Algorithm for Night Image by Adjusting the Background

In this paper, a novel approach for night image enhancement is proposed. The algorithm improves the visuality of the night image by adjusting the background data of the value component (V) in HSV space. We firstly obtain background image from V, then increase the dynamic range of the background image by optimized transfer function. Finally, we can restore the enhancement V from enhanced background image. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can improve the perceptual quality, and have a good effect for night image by comparing with other algorithms.
Fundamentals of selective ultrasonic brain stimulation

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Autonomic neural mechanisms in hypertension

Autonomic cardiovascular control is impaired in hypertension, involving both the parasympathetic and sympathetic component of the reflex modulation. The autonomic dysfunction depends on a variety of reflex and non-reflex mechanisms and participates in the complex cardiometabolic alterations, known as “end-organ damage”, detectable in the clinical course of hypertensive disease. This paper will review the main features of the vagal and adrenergic dysfunction characterizing essential hypertension, the mechanisms potentially involved in this neural abnormality as well as the effects of therapeutic intervention.
Integrated Self-Inactivating Lentiviral Vectors Produce Full-Length Genomic Transcripts Competent for Encapsidation and Integration

ABSTRACT To make human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-based vectors safer for use in the research and clinical setting, a significant modification to the HIV-1 genome has been the deletion of promoter and enhancer elements from the U3 region of the long terminal repeat (LTR). Vectors containing this deletion are thought to have no LTR-directed transcription and are called self-inactivating (SIN) lentivectors. Using four distinct approaches, we show that SIN lentivectors continue to have promoter activity near the 5′ LTR, which is responsible for the production of full-length vector transcripts. To verify that transcripts derived from the LTR in SIN lentivectors are competent for encapsidation and integration, we transduced a lentiviral packaging cell line with a SIN lentivector and then observed the production of viable vector particles containing full-length SIN lentivector genomes. We have also attempted to identify sequences in the SIN lentivector which are responsible for transcriptional activation at the 5′ LTR. Using different segments of the vector LTR and leader region in a promoter assay, we have determined that the residual promoter activity is contained entirely within the leader region and that, although this element is downstream of the transcription initiation site, it is capable of initiating transcription from the 5′ end of R in the LTR. Mutation of leader region binding sites for the transcriptional activators downstream binding factor 1 (DBF1) and SP1 reduces transcription from the SIN LTR by up to 80%. Knowledge of the potential for mobilization of HIV-1-derived SIN lentivectors will be important for the design of future gene therapy trials with such vectors.
Graduate School Choice: An Examination of Individual and Institutional Effects

Using the 2000/01 Baccalaureate & Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:00/01), this paper employs multilevel modeling to test a conceptual model of graduate school choice that draws significantly from human capital theory while incorporating the salient concepts of cultural and social capital. The model posits that the graduate school choice process is comprised of three nested phases. First, an individual develops an aspiration for graduate-level education; next, the student submits applications to graduate schools, and thirdly, the student enrolls in a graduate program. Dependent students who obtained high undergraduate grade point averages majored in the humanities, social or behavioral sciences, mathematics, or life and physical sciences, and attended a master’s or doctoral institution were most likely to aspire to, apply for, and enroll in graduate school. This study also found that, when controlling for all other variables in the models, Hispanic students are more likely to aspire to and apply for graduate school, and African-American students are more likely to aspire to, apply for, and enroll in graduate school than white students. A key variable of interest, undergraduate indebtedness, does not affect graduate school choice when accounting for all other variables in the model.
Comparative vocabulary development in kindergarten classes with a mixed population of monolinguals, simultaneous and successive bilinguals

Abstract This article reports on a language‐evaluation study which was made in Brussels kindergartens. More particularly the vocabulary evolution of originally monolingual Dutch‐speaking children, originally simultaneously bilingual children (Dutch/French) and young successive second‐language learners (French at home, Dutch in kindergarten) was charted. A cross‐sectional, as well as a longitudinal investigation was conducted with three‐, four‐, and five‐year‐olds. A special instrument, which evaluates active and passive vocabulary, sentence comprehension, morphology proficiency and spontaneous speech production, was designed for this study. Especially the vocabulary items are discussed in this article as they are representative for all other test parts. The conclusion highlights the possibilities and problems with regard to looking after these children continuously in Dutch‐speaking primary education. The study also seeks an answer as to the relative possibility or impossibility to instruct these groups o.
Analysis of interferences in data transmission for wireless communications implemented in vehicular environments

This paper aims to provide an image on the usability of low power, short distance standard communications technologies for specific applications, like messaging, in cooperative collision avoidance or emergency vehicles guidance. Specific measurements regarding communications interferences and density have been performed in representative road junctions in Bucharest and the results were used to determine modalities for employing this type of communications for such applications.
On When and How to use SAT to Mine Frequent Itemsets

A new stream of research was born in the last decade with the goal of mining itemsets of interest using Constraint Programming (CP). This has promoted a natural way to combine complex constraints in a highly flexible manner. Although CP state-of-the-art solutions formulate the task using Boolean variables, the few attempts to adopt propositional Satisfiability (SAT) provided an unsatisfactory performance. This work deepens the study on when and how to use SAT for the frequent itemset mining (FIM) problem by defining different encodings with multiple task-driven enumeration options and search strategies. Although for the majority of the scenarios SAT-based solutions appear to be non-competitive with CP peers, results show a variety of interesting cases where SAT encodings are the best option.
Single-Session Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Temporarily Improves Symptoms, Mood, and Self-Regulatory Control in Bulimia Nervosa: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Background Evidence suggests that pathological eating behaviours in bulimia nervosa (BN) are underpinned by alterations in reward processing and self-regulatory control, and by functional changes in neurocircuitry encompassing the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Manipulation of this region with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) may therefore alleviate symptoms of the disorder. Objective This double-blind sham-controlled proof-of-principle trial investigated the effects of bilateral tDCS over the DLPFC in adults with BN. Methods Thirty-nine participants (two males) received three sessions of tDCS in a randomised and counterbalanced order: anode right/cathode left (AR/CL), anode left/cathode right (AL/CR), and sham. A battery of psychological/neurocognitive measures was completed before and after each session and the frequency of bulimic behaviours during the following 24-hours was recorded. Results AR/CL tDCS reduced eating disorder cognitions (indexed by the Mizes Eating Disorder Cognitions Questionnaire-Revised) when compared to AL/CR and sham tDCS. Both active conditions suppressed the self-reported urge to binge-eat and increased self-regulatory control during a temporal discounting task. Compared to sham stimulation, mood (assessed with the Profile of Mood States) improved after AR/CL but not AL/CR tDCS. Lastly, the three tDCS sessions had comparable effects on the wanting/liking of food and on bulimic behaviours during the 24 hours post-stimulation. Conclusions These data suggest that single-session tDCS transiently improves symptoms of BN. They also help to elucidate possible mechanisms of action and highlight the importance of selecting the optimal electrode montage. Multi-session trials are needed to determine whether tDCS has potential for development as a treatment for adult BN.