Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cervical Dorsal Rhizotomy Enhances Serotonergic Innervation of Phrenic Motoneurons and Serotonin-Dependent Long-Term Facilitation of Respiratory Motor Output in Rats

We tested the hypothesis that spinal plasticity elicited by chronic bilateral cervical dorsal rhizotomy (C3–C5; CDR) has functional implications for respiratory motor control. Surgery was performed on rats (CDR or sham-operated) 26 d before phrenic motoneurons were retrogradely labeled with cholera toxin. Rats were killed 2 d later, and their spinal cords were harvested and processed to reveal the cholera toxin-labeled phrenic motoneurons and serotonin-immunoreactive terminals. The number of serotonin-immunoreactive terminals within 5 μm of labeled phrenic motoneuron soma and primary dendrites increased 2.1-fold after CDR versus sham-operation. Time-dependent phrenic motor responses to hypoxia were compared among CDR, sham-operated, and control rats. Anesthetized, paralyzed, vagotomized, and artificially ventilated rats were exposed to three, 5 min episodes of isocapnic hypoxia (FiO2 = 0.11), separated by 5 min hyperoxic intervals (FiO2 = 0.5). One hour after hypoxia, a long-lasting, serotonin-dependent enhancement of phrenic motor output (long-term facilitation) was observed in both sham and control rats. After CDR, long-term facilitation was 108 and 163% greater than control and sham responses, respectively. Pretreatment of CDR rats with a 5-HT2 receptor antagonist (ketanserin tartrate, 2 mg/kg, i.v.) before episodic hypoxia prevented long-term facilitation and revealed a modest (−28 ± 13%; p < 0.05) long-lasting depression of phrenic motor output. The results indicate that CDR: (1) increases serotonergic innervation of the phrenic motor nucleus; and (2) augments serotonin-dependent long-term facilitation of phrenic motor output. These results further suggest a form of plasticity based on changes in the capacity for neuromodulation.
Mandarin digit recognition assisted by selective tone distinction

Continuous Mandarin digit recognition is an important function to provide a useful user interface for in-car applications. In this paper, as opposed to the conventional N-best rescoring, we propose a direct modification approach on the 1-best hypothesis of recognition results using selective tone distinction. Experiments were performed on noisy speech at SNRs of 20dB and 9dB. Over the baseline without using tone information, our proposal achieved error reductions of 24%~27% for both SNRs, which is significantly better than the error reduction of 10-best rescoring. Moreover, the relatively constant error reduction seen in wide-ranging SNR demonstrates the robustness of our proposal.
Bronchodilator responsiveness as a phenotypic characteristic of established chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Background Bronchodilator responsiveness is a potential phenotypic characteristic of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We studied whether change in lung function after a bronchodilator is abnormal in COPD, whether stable responder subgroups can be identified, and whether these subgroups experience different clinical outcomes. Methods 1831 patients with COPD, 285 smoking (SC) and 228 non-smoking (NSC) controls from the Evaluation of COPD Longitudinally to Identify Predictive Surrogate Endpoints (ECLIPSE) cohort. Spirometric reversibility to 400 μg inhaled salbutamol was assessed on four occasions over 1 year. Results Forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) increase after salbutamol was similar in SC (mean 0.14 litres (SD 0.15)) and COPD (0.12 litres (0.15)) and was significantly greater than NSC (0.08 litres (0.14)). Reversibility status varied with repeated testing in parallel with the day-to-day variation in pre-bronchodilator FEV1, which was similar in control subjects and patients with COPD. Absolute FEV1 change decreased by Global initiative for chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stage in patients with COPD (GOLD II, mean 0.16 litres (SD 0.17); III, 0.10 litres (0.13); IV, 0.05 litres (0.08) as did chances of being classified as reversible. CT-defined emphysema was weakly related to the absolute change in FEV1 post salbutamol. Consistently reversible patients (n=227) did not differ in mortality, hospitalisation or exacerbation experience from irreversible patients when allowing for differences in baseline FEV1. Limitations Reversibility only assessed with salbutamol and defined by FEV1 criteria. The COPD population was older than the control populations. Conclusions Post-salbutamol FEV1 change is similar in patients with COPD and smoking controls but is influenced by baseline lung function and the presence of emphysema. Bronchodilator reversibility status varies temporally and does not distinguish clinically relevant outcomes, making it an unreliable phenotype. Clinical trial registration number NCT00292552 (http://ClinicalTrials.gov).
Human Semilunar Cardiac Valve Remodeling by Activated Cells From Fetus to Adult: Implications for Postnatal Adaptation, Pathology, and Tissue Engineering

Background— The evolution of cell phenotypes and matrix architecture in cardiac valves during fetal maturation and postnatal adaptation through senescence remains unexplored. Methods and Results— We hypothesized that valvular interstitial (VIC) and endothelial cell (VEC) phenotypes, critical for maintaining valve function, change throughout life in response to environmental stimuli. We performed quantitative histological assessment of 91 human semilunar valves obtained from fetuses at 14 to 19 and 20 to 39 weeks’ gestation; neonates minutes to 30 days old; children aged 2 to 16 years; and adults. A trilaminar architecture appeared by 36 weeks of gestation but remained rudimentary compared with that of adult valves. VECs expressed an activated phenotype throughout fetal development. VIC density, proliferation, and apoptosis were significantly higher in fetal than adult valves. Pulmonary and aortic fetal VICs showed an activated myofibroblast-like phenotype (&agr;-actin expression), abundant embryonic myosin, and matrix metalloproteinase-collagenases, which indicates an immature/activated phenotype engaged in matrix remodeling versus a quiescent fibroblast-like phenotype in adults. At birth, the abrupt change from fetal to neonatal circulation was associated with a greater number of &agr;-actin–positive VICs in neonatal aortic versus pulmonary valves. Collagen content increased from early to late fetal stages but was subsequently unchanged, whereas elastin significantly increased postnatally. Collagen fiber color analysis revealed a progressive temporal decrease in thin fibers and a corresponding increase in thick fibers. Additionally, collagen fibers were more aligned in adult than fetal valves. Conclusions— Fetal valves possess a dynamic/adaptive structure and contain cells with an activated/immature phenotype. During postnatal life, activated cells gradually become quiescent, whereas collagen matures, which suggests a progressive, environmentally mediated adaptation.
A hybrid shape descriptor for object recognition

Object recognition via shape matching has been a fundamental topic in robot vision. More and more technologies are widely used in the field of robot and automation in recent years. The shape contour contains meaningful information for object characterization, therefore, an effective representation of shape contour is important for the capability of a shape matching method. In this work, we propose a hybrid shape descriptor which contains salient shape features in different aspects to derive a "rich" descriptor. The hybrid descriptor employs three invariants including: area invariant, arc length invariant and central distance invariant of a given zone in a shape. The three invariants make the description representative and discriminative. Shape matching is explored by calculating shape similarity with the dynamic programming algorithm which is powerful to find the best correspondence between shape contours. The proposed method is invariant to rotation, scale variation, and occlusion. Our method is robust to noise as well. The invariance and robustness of the proposed method are all validated in the extensive experiments. The comparable results on the benchmark datasets indicate that the recognition rate is essentially improved by our method.
PRELIMINARY CHARACTERIZATION OF “ SEX RATIO ” AND REDISCOVERY AND REINTERPRETATION OF “ MALE SEX RATIO ” IN DROSOPHILA AFFINISl

In D. affinis “sex ratio” ( s r ) , a form of meiotic drive characterized by the production of mostly or only female progeny by certain males, is associated with two different X chromosome sequences, XS-I XL-I1 and XS-I1 XL-IV. The behavior of the two sequences differed, depending on the Y chromosome constitution, being either Y , or 0. Males with sequence XS-I1 XL-IV and Y , produced progenies with nearly normal sex ratios; males with the same X chromosome sequence but in the absence of a Y chromosome in some cases gave progenies with nearly normal sex ratios but in other cases gave progenies which tended toward phenotypic sr. Males with sequence XS-I XL-I1 and Y , gave progenies which were characteristically sr (0.97-0.98 females) ; in the absence of a Y chromosome males with this sequence produced progenies which were virtually all-male. This latter finding is presumably identical to NOVITSKI’S (1947) “male sex ratio” (msr) . The interpretation offered here attributes msr to an interaction between sr sequence XS-I XL-I1 and the 0 condition. A general consideration of the available data on sr in D. uffinis is presented. I N various species of Drosophila there exists a form of meiotic drive known as sex ratio,” which is characterized by the production of only or mostly female progeny by a male whose X chromosome carries certain genetic factors. L‘Sex ratio” (abbreviated hereafter as sr) has been observed in D. obscura (GERSHENSON 1928), D. athabasca, azteca, affinis, pseudoobscura and persimilis ( STURTEVANT and DOBZHANSKY 1936) and D. subobscura (JUNGEN 1968) in the subgenus Sophophora and in D. paramelanica (STALKER 1961) and possibly D. sulfurigaster albostrigata (WILSON et al. 1969; unpublished) in the subgenus Drosophila. Recent work with the electron microscope suggests that the basis for sr in D. pseudoobscura is some type of spermiogenic failure, with potential Y-bearing sperm apparently aborting before the mature sperm bundle stage (POLICANSKY and ELLISON 1970). Whether this modus operandi of sr exists in all the above species must await further studies, since only D. pseudoobscura has been examined. In D. af inis the phenomenon of sr exhibits several interesting features. First. the expression of sr is extremely variable. STURTEVANT (1940) commented that L ‘ This ktudl was suppurted by NSF Postdoctoral Grant 40017 to the author Present address Department of Genetics, North Carolina State Uni\ersit>, Raleigh, North Carolina 27607 Genetics 71 : 597-606 August 1972.
Food Values

Because of the potential malleability of stated and revealed preferences for new food technologies and attributes, this research sought to determine consumers' food value systems by utilizing recent advances in best&#8208;worst scaling. Based on previous literature related to human values and food preferences, a list of eleven food values was compiled. Results reveal that on average the values of safety, nutrition, taste, and price were among the most important to consumers, whereas the values of fairness, tradition, and origin were among the least important; however, there was significant heterogeneity in the relative importance placed on food values. Results indicate that food values are significantly related to consumers' stated and revealed preferences for organic food.
Shared initiative: Cross-fertilisation between system adaptivity and adaptability

In the present article we investigate a new way of how computer systems can better meet their users’ requirements. We start from the well -known notions of situation-aware adaptivity, automatically carried out by the system, and adaptations, consciously carried out by the users. We indicate the shortcomings of both of these approaches and show how they can be compensated for, at least partially, by the respective other approach. We argue that such a shared initiative of both system and user adaptations, mutually supporting each other, provides a considerable advantage in keeping a computer system in line with dynamically changing user-requirements.
'Free Markets': Public Good or Private Greed?

The fundamental question addressed in this paper is this: does the rise of free market orthodoxy indicate the triumph of ‘efficiency’ at the expense of ‘equity’? Or does it also, and possibly even primarily, reflect an attempt to capitalise on the distributive opportunities that have been created by the deteriorating macroeconomic environment and the conservative political climate of the late ‘80s and ‘90s? And if the goal of allocative efficiency is genuine, are the chosen strategies hostage to a tunnel vision? The demand for ‘free markets’ has well defined ideological roots, most notably in the labour market. Ideological commitment can lead its bearers astray, and so it is possible that the zealots of ‘free markets’ have been blinded to the destructive aspects of untrammelled markets. Yet, radical political changes and poor macroeconomic conditions place some socio-economic groups in a strategic position which sharply increases their prospects of winning redistribution battles. With a sufficiently short time horizon, a strategy focused on redistribution (zero sum games) may indeed be more profitable than a strategy focused on genuine augmentation of efficiency (positive sum games). Distributive motives, therefore, can play an important role in fuelling the demands for ‘de-regulation’ of the labour market and removal of all restriction on short-term mobility of capital between countries. The rhetoric may appeal to wide communal support in the name of ‘efficiency’ (often referred to as a ‘win-win’ outcome), but the driving force would in this case be the lure of achieving a favourable redistribution. This paper argues that distributive motives must be recognised as serious contenders for the role of major determinant of the zeal for ‘de-regulation’ of the labour and capital markets. In addition, this paper challenges the two-pronged propositions that (a) untrammelled (free) markets are efficient in the standard sense of maximising the
Sub-MIC of antibiotics induced biofilm formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the presence of chlorhexidine

Public health is facing a new challenge due to the alarming increase in bacterial resistance to most of the conventional antibacterial agents. It has been found that only minor cell damage is caused when exposed to sub-lethal levels of antimicrobial. Biofilms can play an important role in producing resistance, which is developed to reservoirs of pathogens in the hospital and cannot be easily removed. The aim of this study was to test whether the sub-lethal dose of antibiotics can induce biofilm formation of P. aeruginosa following incubating in the presence and absence of chlorhexidine. Standard antibiotic-micro broth 96-flat well plates were used for determination of MIC and biofilm assay. The adherence degree of biofilm was determined by estimation of OD 630 nm values using ELISA reader. The mean 22 isolates of P. aeruginosa growing in culture with presence and absence of chlorhexidine, could exhibited the significant (p < 0.001) proportion of adherence followed incubation in sub minimal inhibitory concentrations (Sub-MIC) of cefotaxim, amoxicillin, and azithromycin in comparison with control (antibiotic-free broth), while the sub-MIC of ciprofloxacin revealed significant inhibition of biofilm. Conclusion: Incubating the isolates of P. aeruginosa to sub-MIC of antibiotics exhibited induction of biofilm in the presence of chlorhexidine.
Performance analysis of an improved tensor based correspondence algorithm for automatic 3D modeling

3D modeling of a free-form object involves the acquisition of multiple views (range images) of the object to cover its entire surface. These views are then registered in a common coordinate basis by establishing correspondence between them. Our tensor based correspondence algorithm can automatically establish correspondence between overlapping view pairs and register them. In this paper we present an improved version of our tensor based automatic correspondence and registration algorithm and integrate it with a global registration and a surface reconstruction algorithm to make an efficient, automatic and complete 3D modeling framework. We also present a quantitative analysis of this automatic correspondence algorithm based on our results according to the following criteria: robustness to resolution, efficiency, robustness to the amount of overlap and noise.
Child Development in the Face of Rural-to-Urban Migration in China

In the last 30 years, China has undergone one of the largest rural-to-urban migrations in human history, with many children left behind because of parental migration. We present a meta-analytic review of empirical studies on Chinese children’s rural-to-urban migration and on rural children left behind because of parental migration. We examine how these events relate to children’s emotional, social, and academic developmental outcomes. We include publications in English and in Chinese to uncover and quantify a part of the research literature that has been inaccessible to most Western scholars in the field of child and family studies. Overall, both migrant children and children left behind by migrant parents in China show significantly less favorable functioning across domains than other Chinese children. It appears that, similar to processes found in other parts of the world, the experience of economic and acculturation stress as well as disrupted parent–child relations constitute a risk for nonoptimal child functioning in the Chinese context. Further, we found evidence for publication bias against studies showing less favorable development for migrant children and children left behind. We discuss the results in terms of challenges to Chinese society and to future empirical research on Chinese family life.
Flood Volcanism in the Northern High Latitudes of Mercury Revealed by MESSENGER

MESSENGER observations of Mercury’s high northern latitudes reveal a contiguous area of volcanic smooth plains covering more than ~6% of the surface that were emplaced in a flood lava mode, consistent with average crustal compositions broadly similar to terrestrial komatiites. MESSENGER observations from Mercury orbit reveal that a large contiguous expanse of smooth plains covers much of Mercury’s high northern latitudes and occupies more than 6% of the planet’s surface area. These plains are smooth, embay other landforms, are distinct in color, show several flow features, and partially or completely bury impact craters, the sizes of which indicate plains thicknesses of more than 1 kilometer and multiple phases of emplacement. These characteristics, as well as associated features, interpreted to have formed by thermal erosion, indicate emplacement in a flood-basalt style, consistent with x-ray spectrometric data indicating surface compositions intermediate between those of basalts and komatiites. The plains formed after the Caloris impact basin, confirming that volcanism was a globally extensive process in Mercury’s post–heavy bombardment era.
A High-Gain Power-Efficient Wideband V-Band LNA in 0.18-  $\mu\text{m}$ SiGe BiCMOS

This paper presents a high-gain power-efficient wideband V-band low noise amplifier (LNA) realized in 0.18- μm SiGe BiCMOS process. An effective wideband gain shaping method with gain enhancement under low power consumption is employed, where the 1st and 2nd inter-stage matching (ISM) network are designed for better conjugate matching around the lower and upper 3 dB cutoff frequency ends, respectively, without giving up the gains at the opposite frequency ends for each ISM network. The developed LNA achieves the peak measured gain of 32.5 dB at 61 GHz and over 29.5 dB gain across the 3 dB bandwidth from 43 to 67 GHz while consuming only 11.7 mW at 1.8 V supply voltage. The measured average noise figure and group delay variation are 6 dB and less than 28.3 ps over the entire bandwidth, respectively.
Barriers and Spatial Representation: Evidence from Children and Adults in a Large Environment.

Second and third graders (M age = 8-8), fifth and sixth graders (M = 11-6), and adults (M = 20-6) encountered 10 objects as they walked repeatedly through a large, unfamiliar environment. Target objects were separated by an opaque bar rier, transparent barriers, or no barriers. After completion of their walks, subjects were asked to estimate direct distances between a subset of objects. Distance estimates were equivalent in the Transparent Barrier and No Barrier conditions. For 50 ft (15.24 m) distances, however, objects separated by the opaque barrier were judged to be further apart than those separated by transparent barriers and no barriers; this pattern was not evident for 30 ft (9.14 m) distances. These re sults were consistent across age level. It was concluded that (a) barrier effects occur in large, natural environments, and (b) the presence and/or absence of barrier effects is a remarkably consistent finding in studies conducted in large environments.
Glycosylation of the Escherichia coli TibA Self-Associating Autotransporter Influences the Conformation and the Functionality of the Protein

The self-associating autotransporters (SAATs) are multifunctional secreted proteins of Escherichia coli, comprising the AIDA-I, TibA and Ag43 proteins. One of their characteristics is that they can be glycosylated. Glycosylation of AIDA-I and Ag43 have been investigated, but not that of TibA. It is still not clear whether glycosylation of the SAATs affect their structure or their functionality. Therefore, we have looked at the effects of glycosylation on the TibA adhesin/invasin. TibA is glycosylated by TibC, a specific glycosyltransferase, and the two genes are encoded in an operon. In this study, we have found that the glycosylation of TibA is not limited to the extracellular functional domain, as previously observed with AIDA-I and Ag43. We have determined that unglycosylated TibA is not able to promote the adhesion of bacteria on cultured epithelial cell, even though it is still able to promote invasion, biofilm formation and autoaggregation of bacteria. We have purified the glycosylated and unglycosylated forms of TibA, and determined that TibA is less stable when not glycosylated. We finally observed that glycosylation affects the oligomerisation of TibA and that unglycosylated TibA is locked in a conformation that is not suited for adhesion. Our results suggest that the effect of glycosylation on the functionality of TibA is indirect.