Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Subcellular site of expression and route of vaccination influence pulmonary eosinophilia following respiratory syncytial virus challenge in BALB/c mice sensitized to the attachment G protein.

The attachment glycoprotein (G) of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is synthesized as two mature forms: a membrane-anchored form and a smaller secreted form. Mutant cDNAs were constructed that encoded one or the other form of the protein and were expressed in recombinant vaccinia viruses (rVV). Mice were immunized with rVV by dermal scarification or i.p. injection to determine the contribution of the membrane-anchored and secreted forms of the G protein on the augmentation of pulmonary pathology seen following RSV challenge. Mice scarified with rVV expressing the membrane-anchored G protein had a markedly reduced pulmonary eosinophilic response following RSV challenge compared with mice scarified with rVV expressing either wild-type or secreted G protein. The induction of pulmonary eosinophilia in rVV-primed mice was also dependent upon the route of vaccination. An eosinophilic response was not observed in any groups of mice immunized i.p. with rVV expressing any of the different forms of the G protein. The difference in pulmonary pathology observed between dermal scarification or i.p. vaccinated mice was not reflected in a difference in cytokine production by splenocytes from vaccinated and challenged mice restimulated with RSV in vitro. Both groups produced significant levels of IL-4 and IL-5. These data suggest that the local APCs and lymphoid environment, together with the form of the G protein, influence pulmonary pathology following RSV challenge.
The directional sensitivity of the retina.

THE PROCESSES OF vision have attracted the attention of many outstanding men of science trained in a wide range of disciplines. Among these, the distinguished Fellow of your College, the late Frederick William Edridge-Green, was specially notable for the striking theoretical ideas, supported by much keen observation, that he brought to the problems of vision and colour vision. Our appreciation of his original, even daring, thinking in this difficult field is but little reduced by the fact that subsequent developments in the subject have not substantiated in a number of respects his most novel conceptions, in particular, the view that the retinal rod cells were primarily secreters and distributors of visual purple and not directly concerned with the conveyance of impulses to the brain.
Deletion mapping of chromosome 1 in early onset and late onset breast tumors--a comparative study in eastern India.

Younger women exhibit more aggressive pathologic features of breast cancer (BC) compared to their older counterparts. Young age has been shown to be an independent predictor of adverse prognosis. These findings have raised the question of whether these differences are also present at the genetic level. Twenty-five early onset (age < or = 40 years) tumors including 4 bilateral tumors, and 26 late onset (>40 years) breast tumors, including 2 bilateral tumors, were examined for loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at chromosome 1 using 11 polymorphic microsatellite markers. A comparative study revealed high frequencies of LOH in chr. 1p36 (61%), 1p31.3 (40%), 1p21.3 (50%) and 1q22-23.2 (56%) in a younger group, and chr. 1p36 (46%), 1p34.2 (48%), and 1q22-23.2 (52%) in an older group. These differences in LOH frequency in these two age groups were significant for chr. 1p21.3 (p = 0.025) only. These data suggest that the deletion pattern in early onset breast tumors is not fully identical to late onset breast tumors. Similar differential deletion patterns of LOH in the 5 highly deleted regions were seen in premenopausal and postmenopausal groups. An association was seen between LOH at chr. 1p34.2 and chr. 1q22-23.2 and higher grade of the tumors in older women. Among the highly deleted regions, the deletion at chr. 1p36 was found to occur early in both groups because of common allelic loss in the bilateral tumors.
Narrative literature review: Health, activity and participation issues for women following traumatic brain injury

Abstract Objective: This narrative review will draw attention to the current limitations within the literature related to women following traumatic brain injury in order to stimulate discussion and inform future directions for research. Background: There is a wide-ranging body of research about traumatic brain injury with the higher incidence of brain injury among males reflected in this body of work. As a result, the specific gendered issues facing women with traumatic brain injury are not as well understood. Method: A search of electronic databases was conducted using the terms “traumatic brain injury”, “brain injury”, “women”, “participation”, “concussion” and “outcomes”. Results: The 36 papers revealed the following five themes (1) Relationships and life satisfaction; (2) Perception of self and body image; (3) Meaningful occupation; (4) Sexuality and sexual health; and (5) Physical function. Conclusions: Without research, which focuses specifically on the experience of women and girls with traumatic brain injury there is a risk that clinical care, policy development and advocacy services will not effectively accommodate them. Implications for rehabilitation Exploring the gendered issues women may experience following traumatic brain injury will enhance clinicians understanding of the unique challenges they face. Such information has the potential to guide future directions for research, policy, and practice. Screening women for hormonal imbalances such as hypopituitarism following traumatic brain injury is recommended as this may assist clinicians in addressing the far reaching implications in regard to disability, quality of life and mood. The growing literature regarding the cumulative effect of repeat concussions following domestic violence and women’s increased risk of sport-related concussion may assist clinicians in advocating for appropriate rehabilitation and community support services.
Design fictions an introduction and provisional taxonomy

This essay introduces the special issue of Digital Creativity on Design Fictions. It is an attempt to grapple with the notion of Design Fictions and considers this a ‘speculative turn’ within contemporary design practice. It presents Design Fictions as a cluster of problems, rather than offering a single definition of Design Fictions it outlines their ‘multidimensionality’ to suggests that Design Fictions create a discursive space within which new forms of cultural artefact (futures) might emerge.
Evaluation of Dimethylthiazol Diphenyl Tetrazolium Bromide and Propidium Iodide Inclusion Assays for the Evaluation of Cell Viability by Flow Cytometry

The natural products are widely used in many fields as pharmaceutical, flavor, industrial, and additive compounds. In many cases, there is a need to evaluate the cytotoxic effect of these products and to determine the non cytotoxic concentration at which they can be used in a safe manner. The objective of the present study was to compare two methods of evaluation the cytotoxic effect of a plant extract. The MTT assay and the PI dye-inclusion assay were used to carry out the experiments. The results were then evaluated by calorimetric and flow cytometry assays. The obtained results showed that a clear difference between the two methods and the cell death using the MTT assay seem to be overestimated. To better evaluate the cytotoxic effect of natural product, we need to carry out several in vitro and in vivo tests before the judgment that a compound is safe to use and at which concentration.
Estimating membrane potential in human motoneurons using a peri-stimulus time histogram

Although it is useful to learn how alpha motoneurons integrate motor and sensory inputs in humans to understand the motion control mechanism and to study the neuronal diseases, it was considered that the identification of after-hyperpolarization (AHP) is impossible in humans because it is unethical to record membrane potentials at the cell body in vivo. In this paper, we propose a novel method to estimate AHP based on peri-stimulus time histogram (PSTH) analysis. The response properties of PSTHs, where a stimulus is delivered at a fixed delay time after the previous discharge of a motor unit, provide the characteristics of the membrane potential at the cell body of motoneurons. We investigated the responses of 21 single motor units to electrical common peroneal nerve stimulation in the right tibialis anterior (TA) muscle of 5 healthy subjects. The stimulus was applied through a bipolar stimulating electrode placed distal to the neck of the fibula at an intensity of 83–93% of the motor threshold to only activate Ia afferents of the TA. We obtained 6 PSTHs with different delay times (5, 15, 25, 35, 45, and 55 ms) in a single recording session. To validate the estimation, we investigated the relationship between the mean interspike interval and the slope of the estimated AHP, and observed a significant inverse relationship (p < 0.02). We concluded that the relationship between the firing response and the delay of the stimulus represents the transition of the motoneuronal AHP.
Coordinated motion control of multiple robots manipulating a large object

In this paper, we discuss a problem relating to the force/moment transformation for the handling a large object by multiple robots in coordination. Three control algorithms, based on impedance control of each manipulator, are then proposed so as to lessen the effect of the transformation. The algorithms are implemented in dual manipulator system, which consists of two industrial robots. Experimental results illustrate the validity of the proposed control algorithms.
CPW fed wideband circularly polarized monopole antenna

A wideband circularly polarized monopole antenna fed by a coplanar waveguide is proposed. The monopole antenna is placed inside a G-shaped ground plane. Due to the asymmetry in the structure, two orthogonal modes out of phase by 90° are excited, which generate circular polarization. The measured results exhibit a 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth of 26.21% (2.42 GHz − 3.15 GHz), and −10 dB reflection coefficient bandwidth (|S<inf>11</inf>| < −10dB) of 35.16% (2.25 GHz – 3.21 GHz).
Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications: Cellulose, Chitosan, and Protein/Peptide Derivatives

Hydrogels based on polysaccharide and protein natural polymers are of great interest in biomedical applications and more specifically for tissue regeneration and drug delivery. Cellulose, chitosan (a chitin derivative), and collagen are probably the most important components since they are the most abundant natural polymers on earth (cellulose and chitin) and in the human body (collagen). Peptides also merit attention because their self-assembling properties mimic the proteins that are present in the extracellular matrix. The present review is mainly focused on explaining the recent advances on hydrogels derived from the indicated polymers or their combinations. Attention has also been paid to the development of hydrogels for innovative biomedical uses. Therefore, smart materials displaying stimuli responsiveness and having shape memory properties are considered. The use of micro- and nanogels for drug delivery applications is also discussed, as well as the high potential of protein-based hydrogels in the production of bioactive matrices with recognition ability (molecular imprinting). Finally, mention is also given to the development of 3D bioprinting technologies.
Circularly Polarized Ring-Patch Antenna

A method is presented to enhance the flat-gain, the return-loss, and the axial-ratio bandwidths of a probe-fed circularly polarized (CP) microstrip patch antenna. The antenna occupies a volume of 124 × 117 × 33.2 mm3 (the ground plane is excluded). Bandwidths are widened by making use of an opposite shift on the inner and outer contours of a stacked ring, at an equal distance relative to the patch's boundary. The antenna is implemented in the ultrahigh frequency band for the radio frequency identification (RFID) system. The measured 10-dB return-loss bandwidth is 16.4% (835-975 MHz), and the 3-dB axial-ratio bandwidth is 7.7% (870-940 MHz). The gain is about 7 dBic within the overlapped bandwidth.
Evaluation of metaflumizone granular fly bait for management of houseflies

The housefly, Musca domestica L. (Diptera: Muscidae), is a pest of great veterinary and public health importance. In this study, the efficacy of metaflumizone granular fly bait was assessed on first generation (F1) housefly adults raised from flies collected at a cattle feedlot in Kansas. All bioassays were conducted as choice tests, with flies having ad libitum access to water, granular sugar and bait. A commercial methomyl‐based bait (Golden MalrinTM) was used as positive control; no bait (water and granular sugar only) was used as negative control. Fly mortality was recorded on days 2, 7 and 14. The metaflumizone bait was significantly more slow‐acting than the methomyl bait (mortality rates after 2 days of exposure were 49.9% and 57.9%, respectively). However, there were no significant differences in cumulative mortality later in the bioassays. Cumulative mortality rates on days 7 and 14 were 96.1% (metaflumizone), 91.4% (methomyl) and 99.0% (metaflumizone), 97.6% (methomyl), respectively. Our results demonstrate that the metaflumizone granular fly bait may be an effective modality for incorporation into management programmes for houseflies in and around livestock production facilities as well as in residential settings.
Large, Multilingual, Broadcast News Corpora for Cooperative Research in Topic Detection and Tracking: The TDT-2 and TDT-3 Corpus Efforts

This paper describes the creation and content two corpora, TDT-2 and TDT-3, created for the DARPA sponsored Topic Detection and Tracking project. The research goal in the TDT program is to create the core technology of a news understanding system that can process multilingual news content categorizing individual stories according to the topic(s) they describe. The research tasks include segmentation of the news streams into individual stories, detection of new topics, identification of the first story to discuss any topic, tracking of all stories on selected topics and detection of links among stories discussing the same topics. The corpora contain English and Chinese broadcast television and radio, newswires, and text from web sites devoted to news. For each source there are texts or text intermediaries; for the broadcast stories the audio is also available. Each broadcast is also segment to show start and end times of all news stories. LDC staff have defined news topics in the corpora and annotated each story to indicate its relevance to each topic. The end products are massive, richly annotated corpora available to support research and development in information retrieval, topic detection and tracking, information extraction message understanding directly or after additional annotation. This paper will describe the corpora created for TDT including sources, collection processes, formats, topic selection and definition, annotation, distribution and project management for large corpora.
Niche‐based modelling as a tool for predicting the risk of alien plant invasions at a global scale

Predicting the probability of successful establishment of plant species by matching climatic variables has considerable potential for incorporation in early warning systems for the management of biological invasions. We select South Africa as a model source area of invasions worldwide because it is an important exporter of plant species to other parts of the world because of the huge international demand for indigenous flora from this biodiversity hotspot. We first mapped the five ecoregions that occur both in South Africa and other parts of the world, but the very coarse definition of the ecoregions led to unreliable results in terms of predicting invasible areas. We then determined the bioclimatic features of South Africa's major terrestrial biomes and projected the potential distribution of analogous areas throughout the world. This approach is much more powerful, but depends strongly on how particular biomes are defined in donor countries. Finally, we developed bioclimatic niche models for 96 plant taxa (species and subspecies) endemic to South Africa and invasive elsewhere, and projected these globally after successfully evaluating model projections specifically for three well‐known invasive species (Carpobrotus edulis, Senecio glastifolius, Vellereophyton dealbatum) in different target areas. Cumulative probabilities of climatic suitability show that high‐risk regions are spatially limited globally but that these closely match hotspots of plant biodiversity. These probabilities are significantly correlated with the number of recorded invasive species from South Africa in natural areas, emphasizing the pivotal role of climate in defining invasion potential. Accounting for potential transfer vectors (trade and tourism) significantly adds to the explanatory power of climate suitability as an index of invasibility.
Ranging Middleware Design for Body Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose a short ranging middleware built on WUSB (Wireless USB) over WBAN (Wireless Body Area Networks) hierarchical protocol for body sensor networks. The proposed middleware platform is composed of time-synchronization and optimal short ranging solution. The optimal ranging solution is proposed through comparison of experiment results from ToA (Time of Arrival), TDoA (Time Difference of Arrival), FDoA (Frequency Difference of Arrival) and AoA (Angle of Arrival) schemes. And it is executed at each body sensor node on the basis of WUSB over WBAN protocol. After time-synchronization is executed, a WBAN host calculates the location of a receiving sensor node by using the ranging solution. And the WBAN host interprets status and motion of the body-sensor objects.
Capacity of clustered ad hoc networks: how large is "Large"?

We study the capacity of a large clustered wireless ad hoc network in which clusters of nodes are scattered in a sea of relatively low-density nodes. We fix the density of nodes and clusters and study behavior as we increase the total network area (or, equivalently, the total number of nodes), which we call the network size. The main result is that the capacity switches behavior at a critical network size, which depends on the cluster size and the density of clusters within the network. Thus, the clustering parameters of the network allow us to quantify the meaning of a "large" network, i.e., such that further size increase entails degradation of throughput capacity
Neuroprotective effect of interleukin-6 regulation of voltage-gated Na+ channels of cortical neurons is time- and dose-dependent

Interleukin-6 has been shown to be involved in nerve injury and nerve regeneration, but the effects of long-term administration of high concentrations of interleukin-6 on neurons in the central nervous system is poorly understood. This study investigated the effects of 24 hour exposure of interleukin-6 on cortical neurons at various concentrations (0.1, 1, 5 and 10 ng/mL) and the effects of 10 ng/mL interleukin-6 exposure to cortical neurons for various durations (2, 4, 8, 24 and 48 hours) by studying voltage-gated Na + channels using a patch-clamp technique. Voltage-clamp recording results demonstrated that interleukin-6 suppressed Na + currents through its receptor in a time- and dose-dependent manner, but did not alter voltage-dependent activation and inactivation. Current-clamp recording results were consistent with voltage-clamp recording results. Interleukin-6 reduced the action potential amplitude of cortical neurons, but did not change the action potential threshold. The regulation of voltage-gated Na + channels in rat cortical neurons by interleukin-6 is time- and dose-dependent.
Clinical, cytogenetic and CYP1A1 exon-1 gene mutation analysis of Beedi workers in Vellore region, Tamil Nadu.

BACKGROUND Beedi rollers are exposed to unburnt tobacco dust through cutaneous and pharyngeal route and it is extremely harmful to the body since it is carcinogenic in nature and can cause cancer during long exposure. This indicates that occupational exposure to tobacco imposes considerable genotoxicity among beedi workers. MATERIALS AND METHODS In the present study, 27 beedi workers and age and sex matched controls were enrolled for clinical, cytogenetics and molecular analysis. Clinical features were recorded. The workers were in the age group of 28-67 years and were workers exposure from 8-60 years. Blood samples were collected from workers and control subjects and lymphocyte cultures were carried out by using standard technique, slides were prepared and 50 metaphases were scored for each sample to find the chromosomal abnormalities. For molecular analysis the genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood, to screen the variations in gene, the exon 1 of CYP1A1 gene was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and then screened with Single Strand Conformation Polymorphism (SSCP) analysis. RESULTS A statistically significant increase was observed in the frequencies of chromosomal aberrations in exposed groups when compared to the respective controls and variations observed in Exon 1 of CYP1A1(Cytochrome P450, family 1, subfamily A, polypeptide 1) gene. CONCLUSIONS This study shows that, the toxicants present in the beedi that enter into human body causes disturbance to normal state and behavior of the chromosomes which results in reshuffling of hereditary material causing chromosomal aberrations and genomic variations.
Prosodic Cues to Noun and Verb Categories in Infant-Directed Speech

This study tested the hypothesis that grammatical categories are distinguished by prosodic cues in input. Sentences in French were created containing dissyllabic pseudo-words serving as both nouns and verbs. Factors influencing prosody (utterance positions, sentence length, content-function-word alternations, and prosodic phrasal grouping) were balanced. This design enabled us to not only consider how syntactically ambiguous words are categorized, but also examine in a reliable way whether distinct prosodic cues exist generally in the language for nouns and verbs. Parent-infant dyads participated in the study. Each mother read the sentences to her infant. Infants of two age groups were included, four months and 11 months, i.e., before versus at the onset of vocabulary learning. Acoustic analyses of the mothers' speech revealed that nouns and verbs were different in vowel duration patterns in speech to both ages. F0 patterns also differed for the two categories, but only in speech to older infants. These results indicate that nouns and verbs are prosodically marked in input, with cues stronger when infants begin to learn words and their categories. These prosodic cues may play a role in the initial categorization of nouns and verbs. The findings are discussed in the context of theoretical models of grammatical categorization.