Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using CBI activities to foster students oral production.

Este estudio investigo los efectos del uso de las actividades de CBI (Instruccion basada en contenido) para fomentar la produccion oral de los estudiantes en un grupo de diecisiete alumnos. Los participantes fueron estudiantes de quinto grado de la escuela primaria que pertenecian al "Centro Educativo Colombo Suizo", que es una escuela ubicada en San Juan de Pasto. Hubo cuatro temas que se ensenaron a los estudiantes, los temas estaban relacionados con los aspectos historicos de nuestra ciudad, para analizar el efecto de las actividades de CBI. Los resultados demostraron que el uso de CBI (Instruccion basada en contenido) actividades para fomentar la produccion oral a los estudiantes es un tema complejo cuando los alumnos son principiantes. Por lo tanto, algunas recomendaciones se expresan para el publico para aplicar el enfoque de una manera mas eficaz.
Participation of lipid peroxidation in rat pertussis vaccine pleurisy. III. Thiobarbituric acid (TBA) reactant and lysosomal enzyme.

Activity of lysosomal enzymes, such as N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase (NAG), was assayed in exudate on a rat model of Bordetella pertussis vaccine pleurisy. Thiobarbituric acid (TBA)-reactive substances (TBA.R) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity were then monitored in the exudate on the acute phase response in this inflammatory model. Retention of the exudate in the pleural space increased rapidly after the challenge, and the exudate volume at 24 h reached about three times the volume at 6 h. The activity of SOD at 6 h was shown to be higher than that at 24 h after the challenge, thus showing negative correlations with TBA-R levels and exudate volume. The levels of TBA.R rapidly increased and reached maximum values at 24 h. It was concluded that the above three parameters correlated to the acute phase response in this inflammatory model.
Tools for the Design of Reliable and Efficient Functions Evaluation Libraries. (Outils pour la conception de bibliothèques de calcul de fonctions efficaces et fiables)

La conception des bibliotheques d’evaluation de fonctions est un activite complexe qui requiert beaucoup de soin et d’application, particulierement lorsque l’on vise des niveaux eleves de fiabilite et de performances. En pratique et de maniere habituelle, on ne peut se livrer a ce travail sans disposer d’outils qui guident le concepteur dans le dedale d’un espace de solutions etendu et complexe mais qui lui garantissent egalement la correction et la quasi-optimalite de sa production. Dans l’etat actuel de l’art, il nous faut encore plutot raisonner en termes de « boite a outils » d’ou le concepteur doit tirer et combiner des mecanismes de base, au mieux de ses objectifs, plutot qu’imaginer que l’on dispose d’un dispositif a meme de resoudre automatiquement tous les problemes.Le present travail s’attache a la conception et la realisation de tels outils dans deux domaines:∙ la consolidation du test d’arrondi de Ziv utilise, jusqu’a present de maniere plus ou moins empirique, dans l’implantation des approximations de fonction ;∙ le developpement d’une implantation de l’algorithme SLZ dans le but de resoudre le « Dilemme du fabricant de table » dans le cas de fonctions ayant pour operandes et pour resultat approche des nombres flottants en quadruple precision (format Binary64 selon la norme IEEE-754).
Interactive and individual effects of dietary non-digestible carbohydrates and oils on DNA damage, SCFA and bacteria in the large bowel of rats

Dietary non-digestible carbohydrates (NDC) play an important role in large-bowel health and one form of NDC, resistant starch (RS), can promote low levels of DNA damage and other markers of colonic health. The objective of the present study was to determine whether the ability of dietary RS or other NDC to influence colonic health, particularly DNA damage, is dependent on the type of dietary oil. We compared the effects of diets containing 10 % of NDC from cellulose, wheat bran, high-amylose maize starch (HAS, a rich source of RS type 2) or a retrograded HAS (RHAS, a rich source of RS type 3) on DNA damage, SCFA production and bacterial changes in the large bowel of rats. Each carbohydrate source was combined with 10 % fish oil (FO) or Sunola™ oil (SO; rich in oleic acid). There was a significant interaction between NDC and oil treatments on single-strand DNA breaks in colonocytes isolated from the colon. The damage in rats consuming RHAS was greater for FO consumption than for SO consumption. There was a significant interaction between NDC and oils on caecum weights and treatment effects of NDC and oils were observed for the weights and lengths of other gut tissues. Significant differences were found in colonic SCFA pools and caecal numbers of lactobacilli, bifidobacteria, Escherichia coli and Bacteroides fragilis with the various NDC and oil treatments. The present results demonstrate that the effects of NDC and oils, particularly on colonic DNA damage, can depend on how they are combined within the diet.
COX‐2 inhibitors selectively block prostacyclin synthesis in endotoxin exposed vascular smooth muscle cells

High levels of prostacyclin (PGI2; measured as 6‐keto‐PGF1α) have been reported in patients under septic shock. Because this was at variance with our previous findings of nitration and inhibition of PGI2 synthase by endotoxin (LPS) in the endothelium, we examined the role of vascular smooth muscle as an alternative source of PGI2. Bovine aortic smooth muscle cells (SMC) in passage 1 contained high levels of PGI2 synthase but no activity and no detectable levels of COX‐1 or COX‐2. LPS exposure for 3 h caused COX‐2 mRNA and protein levels to rise during 8 h together with a large increase in PGI2 synthase activity. In contrast, cytokines lead to only a moderate increase of both PGI2 and PGE2. Specific COX‐2 inhibitors completely blocked PGI2 formation but PGE2 synthesis only partially. Unexpectedly, •NO formation remained low over 6–8 h, which may be a reason for the lack of nitration and inhibition of prostacyclin synthase in LPS exposed SMC. Our results can explain the clinical observation of severe hypotension in progressive stages of septic shock as a mechanism to compensate endothelial dysfunction. According to our data, the use of COX‐2‐specific inhibitors may not be advisable in septic patients. In contrast, administration of COX‐1‐specific blockers could prevent platelet aggregation during progressed stages of endotoxic shock.
The interplay between phonology and syntax in French-speaking children with specific language impairment

Background. This study investigated the relationship between phonological and syntactic disorders of French-speaking children with SLI in production. Aims. This article compares three theories (pure phonological theory, surface theory and mapping theory) of language developmental disorders, all of which view phonological difficulties as the main reason for the children’s problems. Methods and procedures. The linguistic parameters (salience, phonological complexity, syntactic complexity, lexical/functional word, semantic/syntactic weight) that are fundamental to these theories were identified. The validity of these parameters was then tested against the phonological and syntactic results obtained by children with SLI and control children. Nine syntactic categories were tested.
Articulated pose estimation using tangent space approximations

We describe an algorithm to estimate the pose of a generic articulated object. Our algorithm takes as input a description of the object and a potentially incomplete series of observations; it outputs an on-line estimate of the object’s configuration. This task is challenging because: (1) the distribution of object states is often multi-modal; (2) the object is not assumed to be under our control, limiting our ability to predict its motion; and (3) rotational joints make the state space highly non-linear. The proposed method represents three principal contributions to address these challenges. First, we use a particle filter implementation which is unique in that it does not require a reliable state transition model. Instead, the method relies primarily on observations during particle proposal, using the state transition model only at singularities. Second, our particle filter formulation explicitly handles missing observations via a novel proposal mechanism. Although existing particle filters can handle missing observations, they do so only by relying on good state transition models. Finally, our method evaluates noise in the observation space, rather than state space. This reduces the variability in performance due to choice of parametrization and effectively handles non-linearities caused by rotational joints. We compare our method to a baseline implementation without these techniques and demonstrate, for a fixed error, more than an order-of-magnitude reduction in the number of required particles, an increase in the number of effective particles, and an increase in frame rate. We examine the effects of errors in the kinematic model and demonstrate a reduced dependence on state parametrization. The novel use of a precision matrix allows observations which do not provide complete 6-DOF pose information to be processed. Source code for the method is available at http://rvsn.csail. mit.edu/articulated.
Muscularisation of the chordae tendineae: an unusual etiology for aortic insufficiency.

We can classify left ventricular (LV) chordae tendineae into three groups. The first group inserted on the free edge of the mitral leaflet, the second group 6-8 mm from the edge on the LV surface of the leaflet and the third group (on the posterior leaflet only) inserted to the basal portion of the leaflet (1,2). On average 25 -chordae insert on the mitral valve. Chordal branching has so many variations that some remain unbranched or branching into three cords before insertion into the leaflet (3-6). The LV usually has two papillary muscles (PM) (posteromedial and anterolateral), both arise from the LV free wall, unlike the right ventricle (RV), without any papillary muscles arising from the septum. Both PM are attached to the middle third of the LV with broad bases, although occasionally accessory PMs may arise in the apical third (3,5). The interactions between the mitral valve and left ventricle are complex and not yet completely understood. However, continuity between the papillary muscles and the mitral annulus is probably the most important factor in this relationship because severance of the chordae tendineae in experimental animals causes a significant drop in left ventricular systolic function as assessed by load independent parameters (7,8). Chordae muscularis constitutes an uncommon variant of chordal configuration that a chord may be muscular and fleshy instead of being a tendinous structure either in its whole length or sausage-shaped with a muscular central segment and tendinous origin and insertion. This anomaly is known as muscularisation of the chordae which is an autopsy, surgical or echocardiography finding, reveals that the papillary muscle inserts directly on a leaflet without any intervening to chorda tendinea (3).
Effects of muscle conditioning on position sense at the human forearm during loading or fatigue of elbow flexors and the role of the sense of effort

In a forearm position‐matching task in the horizontal plane, when one (reference) arm is conditioned by contraction and length changes, subjects make systematic errors in the placement of their other, indicator arm. Here we describe experiments that demonstrate the importance not just of conditioning the reference arm, but of the indicator arm as well. Total errors from muscle conditioning represented up to a quarter of the angular range available to subjects. The sizes of the observed effects have led us to repeat other, previously reported experiments. In a matching task in the vertical plane, when muscles of both arms were conditioned identically, if the subject supported their arms themselves, or when the arms were loaded by the addition of weights, the loading did not introduce new position errors. To test the effect of exercise, subjects' elbow flexors were exercised eccentrically or concentrically by asking them to lower or raise a set of weights using forearm muscles. The exercise produced 25–30% decreases in maximum voluntary contraction strength of elbow flexors and this led to significant position‐matching errors. The directions and magnitudes of the errors were similar after the two forms of exercise and indicated that subjects perceived their exercised muscles to be longer than they actually were. To conclude, the new data from loading the arm are not consistent with the idea that the sense of effort accompanying support of a load, provides positional information in any simple way. Our current working hypothesis is that when muscles are active, position‐sense involves operation of a forward internal model. Loading the arm produces predictable changes in motor output and afferent feedback whereas changes after exercise are unpredictable. This difference leads to exercise‐dependent errors.
Nitrogen Dynamics in a Piedmont Onsite Wastewater Treatment System

Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) analyses of lakes and reservoirs with nutrient impairments commonly identify onsite wastewater treatment systems (i.e. septic systems) as an important potential source of nitrogen (N). In most cases, however, the contribution from on-site wastewater systems (OWSs) is difficult to estimate because of uncertainty about how much of the N is lost due to denitrification. The objective of this study was to quantify wastewater N concentrations in the soil and the extent of denitrification in an OWS commonly used in the Piedmont region. An OWS was installed in Griffin, GA and vadose zone N concentrations were monitored at different depths in the drainfield. Nitrate (NO3-N) concentrations remained low for the first four months after wastewater dosing began and then increased monthly for the next 11 months for all depths beneath the drainfield. The average NO3-N concentration at 90 cm on the last sampling date was 20 mg L. Denitrification was characterized in the drainfield by using Cl as a conservative tracer and calculating N/Cl ratios. We estimated that denitrification may account for up to 70% of N removal in OWSs. Currently, we are calibrating a model of the N dynamics using data from our experimental site. Once the model is calibrated, it will be used to estimate denitrification losses by OWSs in other regions by varying the soils and climate data.
CHAPTER 64 Antileishmanial Resistance – Reasons and Remedies

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) or Kala-azar is the most severe form of leishmaniasis and is uniformly fatal, if untreated. An estimated 500,000 new cases occur per year, 90% of which occur in the endemic areas of India, Bangladesh, Sudan Nepal and Brazil. More than 100,000 cases of VL occur in India alone every year and the state of Bihar accounts for more than 90% of these. Over the years new therapies have developed for VL e.g. liposomal amphotericin B, oral miltefosine, and paramomycin. Although a number of drugs have now become available for the treatment of leishmaniasis; each have limitation of either toxicity, long course of treatment, need for hospitalization and close monitoring or parenteral administration (except miltefosine). At the same time as these new therapies are becoming available the standard pentavalent antimonials (Sb) are being threatened by development of resistance. It is therefore imperative to look into the reasons behind the development of resistance and prevent future resistance.
FABRICATION OF COMPOSITE BALL SOCKET PIPELINE JACKET FOR SUBSEA FLOWLINES PROTECTION SYSTEMS

Ball Socket Pipeline Jacket (BSPJ) is a protective system for onshore or offshore pipelines to shield cables from abrasion, corrosion, and impact while providing a system with custom additional submerged weight that suit the bottom stabilization of offshore flow-lines taking into account that BSPJ could be a sophisticated bending-restrictor system.
Physiological protection of probiotic microcapsules by coatings

ABSTRACT Nowadays, food and nutrition have a greater impact in people's concerns, with the awareness that nutrition have a direct impact in health and wellbeing. Probiotics have an important role in this topic and consumers are starting to really understand their potential in health, leading to an increasing interest of the companies to their commercial use in foods. However, there are several limitations to the use of probiotics in foods and beverages, being one of them their efficiency (directly associated to their survival rate) upon ingestion. This work is focused in microencapsulation techniques that have been used to increase probiotics efficiency. More specifically, this work reviews the most recent and relevant research about the production and coating techniques of probiotic-loaded microcapsules, providing an insight in the effect of these coatings in probiotics survival during the gastrointestinal phase. This review shows that coatings with the better performances in probiotics protection, against the harsh conditions of digestion, are chitosan, alginate, poly-L-lysine, and whey protein. Chitosan presented an interesting performance in probiotics protection being able to maintain the initial concentration of viable probiotics during a digestive test. The analyses of different works also showed that the utilization of several coatings does not guarantee a better protection in comparison with monocoated microcapsules.
Mutual Fund Attributes and Investor Behavior

Abstract I study the dynamics of investor cash flows in socially responsible mutual funds. Consistent with anecdotal evidence of loyalty, the monthly volatility of investor cash flows is lower in socially responsible funds than in conventional funds. I find strong evidence that cash flows into socially responsible funds are more sensitive to lagged positive returns than cash flows into conventional funds, and weaker evidence that cash outflows from socially responsible funds are less sensitive to lagged negative returns. These results indicate that investors derive utility from the socially responsible attribute, especially when returns are positive.
PERICLES - Promoting and Enhancing Reuse of Information throughout the Content Lifecycle taking account of Evolving Semantics

This poster paper describes the objectives, approach and use cases of the EC FP7 Integrated Project PERICLES. The project began on 1st February 2013 and runs for four years. The aim is to research and prototype solutions for digital preservation in continually evolving environments including changes in context, semantics and practices. The project addresses use cases focusing on digital art, media and science.
Impact of Learners on Emergency Medicine Attending Physician Productivity

Introduction Several prior studies have examined the impact of learners (medical students or residents) on overall emergency department (ED) flow as well as the impact of resident training level on the number of patients seen by residents per hour. No study to date has specifically examined the impact of learners on emergency medicine (EM) attending physician productivity, with regards to patients per hour (PPH). We sought to evaluate whether learners increase, decrease, or have no effect on the productivity of EM attending physicians in a teaching program with one student or resident per attending. Methods This was a retrospective database review of an urban, academic tertiary care center with 3 separate teams on the acute care side of the ED. Each team was staffed with one attending physician paired with either one resident, one medical student or with no learners. All shifts from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2010 were reviewed using an electronic database. We predefined a shift as “Resident” if > 5 patients were seen by a resident, “Medical Student” if any patients were seen by a medical student, and “No Learners” if no patients were seen by a medical student or resident. Shifts were removed from analysis if more than one learner saw patients during the shift. We further stratified resident shifts by EM training level or off-service rotator. For each type of shift, the total number of patients seen by the attending physician was then divided by 8 hours (shift duration) to arrive at number of patients per hour. Results We analyzed a total of 7,360 shifts with 2,778 removed due to multiple learners on a team. For the 2,199 shifts with attending physicians with no learners, the average number of PPH was 1.87(95% confidence interval [CI] 1.86,1.89). For the 514 medical student shifts, the average PPH was 1.87(95% CI 1.84,1.90), p = 0.99 compared with attending with no learner. For the 1,935 resident shifts, the average PPH was 1.99(95% CI 1.97,2.00). Compared with attending physician with no learner, attending physicians with a resident saw more PPH (1.99 vs 1.87, p<0.005). There was no statistically significant difference found between EM1: 1.98PPH, EM2: 1.99PPH, EM3: 1.99PPH, and off-service rotators: 1.99PPH. Conclusion EM attending physicians paired with a resident in a one-on-one teaching model saw statistically significantly more patients per hour (0.12 more patients per hour) than EM attending physicians alone. EM attending physicians paired with a medical student saw the same number of patients per hour compared with working alone.
Privacy preserving data publishing: a coalitional game theory perspective

k-anonymity is one of the most popular conventional techniques for protecting the privacy of an individual. In this process, the following limitations are observed: 1 The anonymisation is done based on an assumed value of k; 2 the information loss can be found only after the anonymisation is done; 3 if the information loss is found to be more than the affordable loss then another k is to be considered and the whole process has to be repeated. This paper discusses a novel approach using coalitional game theory CGT to overcome the limitations of k-anonymity. The approach helps fix up the privacy levels based on the information loss. To achieve anonymity, we establish coalitions between the tuples based on their payoffs which are assigned using concept hierarchy tree CHT of quasi identifiers QID. In the process, an attempt has been made to obtain a relation between k and number of distinct tuples with respect to QID set. This helps to find the boundaries of k. The experimental results showing the practicality and scalability are presented.
The Roles of AMP-Activated Protein Kinase-Related Kinase 5 as a Novel Therapeutic Target of Human T-Cell Leukaemia Virus Type 1-Infected T-Cells

HTLV-1 (human T-cell leukemia virus type 1) is a human retrovirus and the causative agent of ATL (adult T-cell leukemia), which is an aggressive and fatal T cell malignancy character‐ ized by dysregulated proliferation of CD4-positive T cells [1-3]. HTLV-1 causes ATL in 3-5% of infected individuals after a long latent period of 40-60 years [4]. The prognosis of patients with aggressive ATL remains poor with a median survival time of less than 1 year despite advances in both chemotherapy and supportive care [5, 6]. Infiltration of leukemic cells into various organs, such as lymph nodes, liver, spleen, lung, skin and intestinal tract, is a fre‐ quent manifestation of ATL. This type of cell infiltration often poses serious clinical prob‐ lems for ATL patients, affecting the disease profile and prognosis. Because tumor cell survival and growth are maintained by nutrients, especially glucose and oxygen supplied by blood vessels, angiogenesis is considered to be essential for tumor malignancy [7].
Four Order Adaptive PDE Method for MRI Denoising

This paper presents a novel four order adaptive (FOA) PDE method for denoising of magnetic resonance (MR) images. FOA method can adjust the diffusion speed according to the local structure of the image and preserve more details in MRI data. Denoising results on T-1 and T-2 weight MR images are given. We have also compared our method with related PDE models.