cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
title: Exploring unknown per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in the German environment - The total oxidizable precursor assay as helpful tool in research and regulation
title: Exploring unknown per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in the German environment - The total oxidizable precursor assay as helpful tool in research and regulation
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Fettig, Ina
name: Göckener, Bernd
name: Fliedner, Annette
name: Rüdel, Heinz
name: Koschorreck, Jan
Publisher: name: My University
Year: 2021
Subjects: Boden
Bundesrepublik Deutschland

description: Limnetic, marine and soil samples of the German environmental specimen bank (ESB) were analyzed for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) using target analysis and a modified total oxidizable precursor (TOP) assay (direct TOP assay (dTOP)) that works without prior extraction. Target analysis determined (Sigma)PFAS concentrations in bream livers of 8.7-282 (my)g kg-1 wet weight (ww) in 2019, with highest contaminations in the Rhine and lower Elbe. In bream fillet, concentrations were lower (<0.5-10.6 (my)g kg-1 (Sigma)PFAS). Contamination of suspended particulate matter (SPM) was highest in the upper Elbe downstream the Czech border (5.5 (my)g kg-1 dry weight (dw) in 2018). Herring gull eggs from the North and Baltic Seas showed (Sigma)PFAS levels around 53.0-69.6 (my)g kg-1 ww in 2019. In soil, concentrations ranged between <0.5 and 4.6 (my)g kg-1 dw with highest levels in the Dueben Heath near Leipzig and the low mountain range Solling. PFOS dominated in most samples. Of the targeted precursors, only FOSA, EtFOSAA, MeFOSAA, 6:2-FtS and 6:2 diPAP were found. Replacement chemicals (ADONA, HFPO-DA, F-53B) were not detected. The dTOP assay revealed that considerable amounts of precursors were present at most riverine sampling sites. Particularly high precursor concentrations were observed in samples from the Upper Elbe at the Czech border and the Upper and Middle Rhine. In herring gull eggs and most soil samples, though, concentrations of precursors were low. Time trend analysis showed decreasing trends for most detected PFAS since 2005. In SPM, however, C4-C6 perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids seem to increase indicating growing use of precursors based on shorter fluorinated chains. The results demonstrate that target analysis detects only a minor fraction of the PFAS burdens in environmental samples. The dTOP assay can support risk assessment and chemical monitoring with more comprehensive exposure data of the actual contamination. © 2021 The Author(s).
Reproductive Health Experiences of Females Diagnosed with Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer: A Multi-Method Cross-Sectional Survey
Creators: name: Araujo, Louise
name: Rebić, Nevena
name: Dau, Hallie
name: Brotto, Lori A.
name: George, Manju
name: De Vera, Mary
Publisher: name: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Year: 2022

description: Objective: Given the increasing risk of young-onset colorectal cancer (yCRC) among adults under 50 years, it is important to understand impacts on reproductive health. Our objective was to assess experiences with reproductive health after yCRC diagnosis among females. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among females, 18 years or older, who have been diagnosed yCRC and are able to communicate in English. Data were gathered using an online survey involving both quantitative (e.g., multiple choice) and qualitative (e.g., open-ended text) questions on pregnancy history, influence of yCRC on reproductive decisions, and experiences with reproductive healthcare. Results: Altogether, 101 females with yCRC participated, including 23 who had never been pregnant and 78 who had been pregnant. yCRC influenced family planning goals for one-third of participants. Furthermore, compared to participants who completed treatment, those currently undergoing treatment had higher odds of indicating their yCRC diagnosis influenced family planning goals (adjusted odds ratio 4.93; 95% confidence interval 1.29 to 18.78). Although 53 (52.5%) participants indicated having discussions regarding reproductive health with healthcare provider(s), 44 (43.6%) did not. Content analysis of open-ended survey questions identified themes on the emotional impacts, experiences with reproductive healthcare, reproductive and family planning considerations, and the related issue of sexual health impacts of yCRC. Conclusions: Gaps in care, related to limited reproductive health discussions, influence of yCRC on family planning, and experiencing lasting reproductive health impacts highlight the need for improving reproductive healthcare, particularly for females diagnosed with yCRC.
Eight Notes on Power and Algorithms
Creators: name: Kettner, Matthias
Publisher: name: Melusina Press
Year: 2025

description: The Ends of the Humanities - 3
description: Algorithmically controlled applications are becoming normal elements of our
 technoculture in more and more areas of practice. In a sober technical understanding,
 algorithms are automatable solution programs for machine-calculable goals. In the
 popular understanding, however, algorithms have become an object of fantasy. The
 popular topos of the ›power of algorithms‹ functions today in the digital revolution
 in much the same way as the topos of the ›power of genes‹ did thirty years ago in the
 euphoria of the molecular genetic revolution. Based on a re-analysis of Max Weber's
 classical definition of power, the present essay (1) develops a new dynamic
 understanding of power that allows for the analysis of power relations with respect
 to persons and quasi-personal corporate actors as well as with respect to a-personal
 software agents and other machine actors. The power that actors have in a situation
 is conceptualized modally and relationally as the capacity of actors, through forces
 that they can control in a counterfactually robust way, to steer other forces in
 order to come closer to achieving their goals. Furthermore, the present essay (2)
 outlines a heuristically useful concept of digital transformations by distinguishing
 three dimensions of analysis: technology, media, and culture.
Oxidative Stress Suppresses The Heteromeric Kir4.1-Kir5.1 Channel Via S-Glutathionylation
Creators: name: Wu, Yang
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2013

description: Potassium transport channels regulate cellular excitability and membrane potentials. Dysfunction of potassium channels may happen under certain pathophysiological conditions via post-translational modification (PTM), inducing the S-glutathionylation, in oxidative stress. Here, we try to demonstrate the effect of ROS on Kir4.1 and Kir5.1 channel. It is found that the target subunit of ROS is Kir5.1 instead of Kir4.1 subunit. Kir4.1-Kir5.1 heteromeric channel is inhibited by different kinds of oxidants. The patch clamp study confirmed that these oxidants work on the intracellular side of the Kir5.1 subunit. Further experiments demonstrate that the inhibition of Kir4.1-Kir5.1 channels is through S-glutathionylation of the Kir5.1 subunit on Cys158. The information we find may help to better understand the Kir4.1 and Kir5.1 channel modulation mechanism in various pathophysiological conditions, such as oxidative stress.
Melanocortin Administration to the Ventral Tegmental Area Alters Homeostatic and Hedonic Feeding
Creators: name: Yen, Haw-Han
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2013

description: Dopamine neurons of ventral tegmental area (VTA) are critical for control of homeostatic feeding, which relates to food intake necessary for maintaining normal physiological function. It also plays an important role in hedonic or ?reward? feeding. Alteration of mesolimbic dopamine pathways can change both baseline homeostatic and reward feeding. The melanocortin system of the hypothalamus also is important for control of feeding, and recently it has been shown that melanocortins can modulate the food intake by acting at dopamine pathways. Here, we tested whether injection of melanocortin receptor agonists into the VTA also affected reward feeding. Injection of melanocortin receptor agonists into the VTA decreased consumption of rewarding sucrose solutions (hedonic feeding), in addition to the expected reductions in normal chow intake (homeostatic feeding). These studies will give a better understanding of the mechanisms regulate acutely food intake and may have implication for treating obesity.
title: SemEval-2013 Task 5: Evaluating Phrasal Semantics
Creators: name: Korkontzelos, Ioannis
name: Zesch, Torsten
name: Zanzotto, Fabio
name: Biemann, Chris
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2013
Subjects: subject: 004

description: This paper describes the SemEval-2013 Task 5: “Evaluating Phrasal Semantics”. Its first subtask is about computing the semantic similarity of words and compositional phrases of minimal length. The second one addresses deciding the compositionality of phrases in a given context. The paper discusses the importance and background of these subtasks and their structure. In succession, it introduces the systems that participated and discusses evaluation results.
title: Cognate Production using Character-based Machine Translation
Creators: name: Beinborn, Lisa
name: Zesch, Torsten
name: Gurevych, Iryna
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2013
Subjects: subject: 004

description: Cognates are words in different languages that are associated with each other by language learners. Thus, cognates are important indicators for the prediction of the perceived difficulty of a text. We introduce a method for automatic cognate production using character-based machine translation. We show that our approach is able to learn production patterns from noisy training data and that it works for a wide range of language pairs. It even works across different alphabets, e.g. we obtain good results on the tested language pairs English-Russian, English-Greek, and English-Farsi. Our method performs significantly better than similarity measures used in previous work on cognates.
title: DKPro Similarity: An Open Source Framework for Text Similarity
Creators: name: Bär, Daniel
name: Zesch, Torsten
name: Gurevych, Iryna
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2013
Subjects: subject: 004

description: We present DKPro Similarity, an open source framework for text similarity. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive repository of text similarity measures which are implemented using standardized interfaces. DKPro Similarity comprises a wide variety of measures ranging from ones based on simple n-grams and common subsequences to high-dimensional vector comparisons and structural, stylistic, and phonetic measures. In order to promote the reproducibility of experimental results and to provide reliable, permanent experimental conditions for future studies, DKPro Similarity additionally comes with a set of full-featured experimental setups which can be run out-of-the-box and be used for future systems to built upon.
Centrosomal Profile Status of Bladder Carcinoma in African-Americans and Caucasians: A comparative analysis
Creators: name: Paranjpe, Rutugandha Deepak
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2013

description: Urothelial carcinoma of bladder (UCB) in African-Americans (AA) presents as more advanced disease at diagnosis and has lower 5-year survival rate, compared to Caucasians. The clinical diagnosis of higher grade and stage can be attributed to a more aggressive disease course in AA. Given the clear association between CA and aggressiveness, we hypothesized that AA have a higher incidence and severity of CA in bladder tumors as compared to Caucasians. To test this hypothesis, we developed an innovative method to quantitate the degree of CA (both numeric and structural) within tumor samples and defined a measurable index called the Centrosome Amplification Score (CAS). Our results demonstrate that bladder tumors from AA had significantly higher CA, particularly structural centrosome amplification (CASm) compared to grade-matched Caucasian patients suggesting racial disparity at the organellar level (p<0.05)
Characterization of one of the the REF-1 Family Members, HLH-25, in C. elegans
Creators: name: Gomez-Vazquez, Raymarie
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2014

description: The REF-1 family proteins are distinguished by the presence of two basic helix-loop helix domains. The REF-1 family members are considered functional homologs of the Hairy/Enhancer of Split in humans. HLH-25 is one of the six members of the REF-1 family. HLH-25 has not been studied extensively. In preliminary studies from our laboratory, genes identified by microarray analysis of hlh-25 mutants were essential for embryogenesis, larval development, and growth. Thus, the present study was designed to further characterize HLH-25 and to more precisely define its role during embryonic and larval development. The gene encoding HLH-25 is actively expressed in embryos, larvae and adults. In the absence of hlh-25, animals show a 54% embryonic lethality, a reduced brood size, an increased number of unfertilized eggs, a slower movement rate, a longer life span, and a longer dauer recovery. The human tumor suppressor PTEN homolog, daf-18 is one of the HLH-25 target genes. The regulation of daf-18 through HLH-25 is the responsible for changes to the life span and dauer recovery in hlh-25 mutant animals.
HORMONES OF SUBCUTANEOUS ADIPOSE TISSUE: FUNCTIONAL ROLES AND CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Creators: name: Babadjanova, F.A.
name: Ibragimova, K.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025

description: Subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) plays a fundamental role not only in energy storage but also as an active endocrine organ, producing a diverse array of hormones known as adipokines. This study explores the spectrum of adipokines secreted by SAT, including leptin, adiponectin, resistin, and visfatin, and their roles in regulating appetite, insulin sensitivity, inflammation, and systemic metabolism. We analyzed data from 205 patients across varying metabolic health statuses, categorizing them based on their adipokine profiles. Biochemical assays, imaging diagnostics, and lifestyle assessments were employed to explore associations between adipokine dysfunction and chronic conditions such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, and cardiovascular disease. Our results underscore the diagnostic and therapeutic potential of adipokine profiling, suggesting that targeted modulation of adipose-derived hormones could improve outcomes in metabolic disorders.
Biochemical mapping of the measles virus H and F envelope glycoprotein protein-protein interface
Creators: name: Panchbhai, Neha
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2014

description: The Paramyxoviridae family includes several viruses that are important to human health, including measles virus. The envelope glycoproteins are essential for attachment and entry of the virus into the host cell 12. To develop novel therapeutics against the virus, detailed knowledge of envelope glycoprotein protein-protein interaction is important. The goal of this study is to characterize the MeV entry machinery on a molecular level. Interaction of haemaglutinin (H) and fusion (F) protein in pre-fusion form can be biochemically detected with DTSSP. To map the interaction site of H and F protein in pre-fusion form, we have mutated lysine (K) to arginine (R) in the F protein, and examined surface expression. The mutated F was still expressed on the surface and amount of surface expression correlated with fusion activity. The altered F proteins produced in this study will be used to further characterize the H-F interaction.
Histone acetylation modulates uncoupling protein1 expression in brown adipocytes
Creators: name: Rajan, Anubama
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2014

description: Uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) is a classical feature of brown adipocytes and understanding its regulatory mechanism will help in the development of a pharmacological approach for obesity and associated metabolic diseases. The epigenetic regulation of UCP1 in brown adipocytes is not completely understood. Our study is focused on histone deacetylases (HDACs), which are set of enzymes that bring about changes in gene expression pattern by changing the histone acetylation status. Our data suggest that inhibition of Class-I HDACs can increase the expression of UCP1 in brown and white adipocytes; whereas inhibition of Class-II HDACs can decrease the UCP1 expression in brown adipocytes. Thus, by pharmacologically targeting specific HDAC enzymes, it might be possible to modulate UCP1 expression and thermogenic function in brown and white adipocytes. This will help burning excessive energy in the form of heat and in turn promote reduction of body weight, alleviate obesity and associated metabolic diseases.
title: Measuring Contextual Fitness Using Error Contexts Extracted from the Wikipedia Revision History
Creators: name: Zesch, Torsten
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: 004

description: We evaluate measures of contextual fitness on the task of detecting real-word spelling errors. For that purpose, we extract naturally occurring errors and their context from the Wikipedia revision history. We show that such natural errors are better suited for evaluation than the previously used artificially created errors. In particular, the precision of statistical methods has been largely over-estimated, while the precision of knowledge-based approaches has been under-estimated. Additionally, we show that knowledge-based approaches can be improved by using semantic relatedness measures that make use of knowledge beyond classical taxonomic relations. Finally, we show that statistical and knowledge-based methods can be combined for increased performance.
Metabolomic Fingerprinting for the Detection of Early-Stage Lung Cancer: From the Genome to the Metabolome
Creators: name: Haince, Jean-François
name: Joubert, Philippe
name: Bach, Horacio
name: Ahmed Bux, Rashid
name: Tappia, Paramjit S.
name: Ramjiawan, Bram
Publisher: name: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Year: 2022

description: The five-year survival rate of lung cancer patients is very low, mainly because most newly diagnosed patients present with locally advanced or metastatic disease. Therefore, early diagnosis is key to the successful treatment and management of lung cancer. Unfortunately, early detection methods of lung cancer are not ideal. In this brief review, we described early detection methods such as chest X-rays followed by bronchoscopy, sputum analysis followed by cytological analysis, and low-dose computed tomography (LDCT). In addition, we discussed the potential of metabolomic fingerprinting, compared to that of other biomarkers, including molecular targets, as a low-cost, high-throughput blood-based test that is both feasible and affordable for early-stage lung cancer screening of at-risk populations. Accordingly, we proposed a paradigm shift to metabolomics as an alternative to molecular and proteomic-based markers in lung cancer screening, which will enable blood-based routine testing and be accessible to those patients at the highest risk for lung cancer.
Role of DNA Methylation in Adipogenesis
Creators: name: Chen, Yii-Shyuan
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2014

description: The increase in the prevalence of obesity and obesity-related diseases has caused greater attention to be placed on the molecular mechanisms controlling adipogenesis. In this study, we studied the role of 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine (5-Aza-dC), an inhibitor of DNA methylation, on adipocyte differentiation. We found that inhibiting DNA methylation by 5-Aza-dC significantly inhibited adipocyte differentiation whereas promoting osteoblastogenesis. Wnt10a was up-regulated by 5-Aza-dC treatment and it was suggested that Wnt10a might play a vital role in suppressing adipogenesis and promoting osteoblastogenesis by inhibiting DNA methylation. In 3T3-L1 cells, Wnt signaling inhibitor IWP-2 was found to reverse the inhibitory effect of 5-Aza-dC on Adipocyte differentiation, whereas in mesenchymal stem cell line, ST2 cells, IWP-2 treatment reversed the effect of 5-Aza-dC on promoting osteoblastogenesis. These studies will provide a better understanding to the cause and treatment of obesity and bone-related diseases.
Specific patterns of motor neuron loss in cnd-1 mutants affect backward locomotion in Caenorhabditis elegans
Creators: name: Biscevic, Anela
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2014

description: In complex organisms, genes determine cellular fates and functions. By studying gene networks during development, we can learn how cellular networks emerge. With only 302 neurons, the C. elegans nervous system is ideal to study these two types of networks. A mutation in the gene cnd-1 was previously found to cause a variable loss of embryonic ventral nerve cord (VNC) motor neurons. cnd-1 is homologous to the mammalian neuroD1 gene that is necessary in establishing neuronal cell fates. Our goal was to understand the role of cnd-1 by focusing on the cell lineages of the embryonic VNC motor neurons. By using transcriptional reporter genes, we found that motor neuron loss occurred in specific cell lineages in cnd-1 mutants. Furthermore, we observed ectopic expression in additional embryonic VNC motor neurons in the posterior, suggesting that cnd-1 may be necessary in establishing the distinct cell fates of the embryonic VNC motor neurons.
Supplementary document for Microwave frequency measurement with high-accuracy and wide-bandwidth based on whispering-gallery mode barcode - 5439280.pdf
Creators: name: Wan, Yangyang
name: Fan, Xinyu
name: Xu, Bingxin
name: He, Zuyuan
Publisher: name: Optica Publishing Group
Year: 2025
Subjects: Uncategorized

description: Detailed experiment description and more measurement results
title: Text Reuse Detection Using a Composition of Text Similarity Measures
Creators: name: Bär, Daniel
name: Zesch, Torsten
name: Gurevych, Iryna
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: 004

description: Detecting text reuse is a fundamental requirement for a variety of tasks and applications, ranging from journalistic text reuse to plagiarism detection. Text reuse is traditionally detected by computing similarity between a source text and a possibly reused text. However, existing text similarity measures exhibit a major limitation: They compute similarity only on features which can be derived from the content of the given texts, thereby inherently implying that any other text characteristics are negligible. In this paper, we overcome this traditional limitation and compute similarity along three characteristic dimensions inherent to texts: content, structure, and style. We explore and discuss possible combinations of measures along these dimensions, and our results demonstrate that the composition consistently outperforms previous approaches on three standard evaluation datasets, and that text reuse detection greatly benefits from incorporating a diverse feature set that reflects a wide variety of text characteristics.
Phenotypic Effects of Predicted SigI on Virulence in Bacillus anthracis
Creators: name: Kim, Jenny
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2014

description: Alternative sigma factors play a key role in the physiology of Bacillus anthracis by regulating the transcription of the appropriate genes required for adaptation and survival. Under specific conditions, alternative sigma factors activate transcription by binding to the promoter of the genes relevant to the condition and initiate synthesis of RNA. Here we report that the transcription of predicted sigI gene in B. anthracis, BAS3231, is induced by elevated temperatures and involved in the regulation of virulence gene expression. We show that BAS3231 is required for cell viability at elevated temperatures. We have also demonstrated that mutation in the BAS3231 gene results in a decrease in virulence gene expression. Our study provides new insight into the role of alternative sigma factors in B. anthracis.
title: HOO 2012 Shared Task: UKP Lab System Description
Creators: name: Zesch, Torsten
name: Haase, Jens
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: 004

description: In this paper, we describe the UKP Lab system participating in the HOO 2012 Shared Task on preposition and determiner error correction. Our focus was to implement a highly flexible and modular system which can be easily augmented by other researchers. The system might be used to provide a level playground for subsequent shared tasks and enable further progress in this important research field on top of the state of the art identified by the shared task.
Gabaergic and Glutamatergic Connections in the Social Neural Network
Creators: name: Burns, Ashleigh
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2014

description: A conserved network of brain regions is responsible for mediating social behavior; however, the chemical nature (GABAergic or glutamatergic) of the connectivity in this network is unknown. One node in this network, the medial amygdala (MA), is known to process social stimuli and facilitates appropriate social responses. We hypothesized that a GABAergic population in the posterior MA is responsible for processing both male and female stimuli. In contrast, we hypothesized that both excitatory and inhibitory neurons in the anterior MeA would discriminate between different stimulus types. We estimated the percentage of GABAergic and glutamatergic MA neurons activated by either salient (female) or less-salient (male) social cues in male Syrian hamsters. A significantly greater percentage of GABAergic neurons responded toall stimulus types in both the anterior MA and the posterodorsal MA, but not in the posteroventral MA, where equivalent percentages of GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons responded to all stimuli.
Conserved androgenic differentiation pathways are repurposed during the evolution of adult sexual plasticity
Creators: name: Schuppe, Eric
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2014

description: Early exposure to androgens is necessary to organize male phenotype, and inhibition of androgen signaling adversely affects external genitalia development. Nonetheless, vertebrates that remain sexually plastic as adults require mechanisms that induce changes and prevent fixation of genital morphology. In Lythrypnus dalli, a highly social hermaphroditic fish, sex differences in genitalia morphology are maintained in the absence of dimorphic levels of potent fish androgen 11-ketotestosterone. Since a functional androgen receptor (AR) is critical to the masculinization of phenotype across all vertebrates, local differences in the AR may be one mechanism to maintain dimorphic genitalia in this species. We demonstrate that AR expression is high throughout the male genitalia, but low or absent in female genitalia. Animals with ambiguous genitalia exhibited higher AR expression than females within the body of the papilla. In addition, both male and female developing L. dalli exhibited high mesenchymal AR expression suggesting that elevated that levels of AR in this region of ambiguous animals may be characteristic of multipotentiality, allowing for genitalia morphogenesis in either direction. To examine the necessity of AR in maintaining male-typical genitalia, nesting males were intraperitoneally injected with 50æg/g/day of flutamide (AR antagonist) or a vehicle for five days. Compared to control animals, flutamide treated males had a significant percent decrease in papilla length to width ratio. In a species that must remain neutral to sexual canalization, regional differences in AR expression appear to mediate this phenotypic difference.
Statistical modelling for the resident shorebirds in Australia using citizen science data
Creators: name: Wijewardhana, Udani Abhisheka
Publisher: name: Swinburne
Year: 2024

description: The main objective of this research was to develop novel and reliable statistical models for monitoring bird populations and detecting risk factors for their survival using citizen science data. This thesis focuses on the ecology and conservation of resident shorebirds, a group comprising many threatened and declining species dependent on coasts and wetlands. The effects of climate, conservation areas, pest control and ecoregion migration are considered. Effective biodiversity protection requires timely and accurate information of population trends, so the findings of this research will help to create more effective and efficient future responses for saving threatened bird species worldwide.
title: UKP: Computing Semantic Textual Similarity by Combining Multiple Content Similarity Measures
Creators: name: Bär, Daniel
name: Biemann, Chris
name: Gurevych, Iryna
name: Zesch, Torsten
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: 004

description: We present the UKP system which performed best in the Semantic Textual Similarity (STS) task at SemEval-2012 in two out of three metrics. It uses a simple log-linear regressionmodel, trained on the training data, to combine multiple text similarity measures of varying complexity. These range from simple character and word n-grams and common subsequences to complex features such as Explicit Semantic Analysis vector comparisons and aggregation of word similarity based on lexical-semantic resources. Further, we employ a lexical substitution system and statistical machine translation to add additional lexemes, which alleviates lexical gaps. Our final models, one per dataset, consist of a log-linear combination of about 20 features, out of the possible 300+ features implemented.
“The medications are the decision-makers…” Making reproductive and medication use decisions among female patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a constructivist grounded theory
Creators: name: Rebić, Nevena
name: Munro, Sarah
name: Garg, Ria
name: Hazlewood, Glen
name: Amiri, Neda
name: Baldwin, Corisande
name: Ensworth, Stephanie
name: Proulx, Laurie
name: De Vera, Mary
Publisher: name: BioMed Central
Year: 2022

description: Objective To examine how female patients with RA form decisions about having children, pregnancy, and medication use. Methods We employed a constructivist grounded theory design and recruited female participants who are 18 years or older, have a rheumatologist-confirmed RA diagnosis, live in Canada, and are able to communicate in English or French. We collected data through semi-structured individual and focus group interviews using telephone or video conferencing technology. Data collection and analysis were iterative, employed theoretical sampling, reflexive journaling, and peer debriefing, and culminated in a theoretical model. Results We recruited 21 participants with a mean age of 34 years and median 10 years since RA diagnosis. Overall, 33% had never been pregnant, 57% had previously been pregnant, and 10% were pregnant at the time of interview. Of those who had experienced pregnancy, 64% had at least one pregnancy while diagnosed with RA and of those, 56% used DMARD(s) during a pregnancy. We constructed a patient-centred framework depicting the dynamic relationships between 4 decision-making processes—(1) using medications, (2) having children, (3) planning pregnancy, and (4) parenting—and the substantial impact of healthcare providers on patients’ experiences making these decisions. These processes were further influenced by participants’ intersecting identities and contextual factors, particularly attitudes towards health and medications, disease onset and severity, familial support system, and experiences interacting with the healthcare system. Conclusion Our framework provides insight into how patients make reproductive decisions in the context of managing RA and the opportunities for providers to support them at each decision-making process. A patient-centred care approach is suggested to support female patients with RA in making reproductive and medication choices aligning with their individual desires, needs, and values.
title: Helping Our Own 2011: UKP Lab System Description
Creators: name: Zesch, Torsten
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: 004

description: This paper describes the UKP Lab system participating in the Helping Our Own Challenge 2011. We focus on the correction of real-word spelling errors (RWSEs) that are especially hard to detect. Our highly flexible system architecture is based on UIMA (Ferrucciand Lally, 2004) and integrates state-of-the-art approaches for detecting RWSEs.
Control of Spiking Activity by Persistent Sodium and Hyperpolarization-activated Currents
Creators: name: Ghabel, Hasti
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2015

description: The properties of spiking activity such as the spike shape are crucial for normal and homeostatic functioning of a neuron. For example, the spike width determines the calcium influx and correspondingly the intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i), which plays key roles in variety of cellular processes from basic neurotransmitter release to gene transcription. Dantrolene, a specific inhibitor of ryanodine channel-mediated calcium release from intracellular calcium stores, inhibits two main ionic currents in B5 neurons of mollusk Helisoma trivolvis, persistent sodium current and hyperpolarization-activated current (h-current). We developed a model of the neuronal activity of B5 neuron and investigated how the parameters of persistent sodium current (INaP) and h-current (IH) affect the spike shape. In the model of B5 neuron, either removal of IHby shifting its voltage of half-activation to more hyperpolarized values or removal of INaP by reducing its maximal conductance decreases the spike width and shifts the minimum after-hyperpolarization potential (mAHP) towards more negative values. We showed in the model that the spike width linearly correlated with calcium influx into the cell. In this model, the spike width is controlled by the inactivation variables of fast sodium, persistent sodium, and calcium currents at the spike threshold. The activation of the h-current governs membrane potential during the inter-spike interval (ISI) and determines the values of these inactivation variables. At mAHP of spike, the activation of the h-current was the only variable that substantially affected the spike width and mAHP. In conclusion, removal of the h-current or the persistent sodium current reproduced the dantrolene effects on spike shape and reduced the calcium influx through membrane calcium channels. The inactivation variables of inward currents, modulated by activation of the h-current, describe the mechanism governing the spike width.
MS35 Set-up of the 10 LL – ready  for action
Creators: name: UNIVERSIDAD DE ALMERIA
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Living Lab

description: This milestone report 35 documents the setting up of 10 LLs through a series of activities subsequent to the first Living Lab CoP meeting held on 19th and 20th April 2023, in Wageningen, Netherlands. The LL held interviews and organised workshops in which they carried out a five-step roadmap exercise which included the definition of their LL boundaries as well as their problems, theidentification of their stakeholders, the resources, capabilities, collaborations, and innovations they have access to, their gaps, and finally, the establishment of their action plan. The LLs were required to submit reports of their workshop results, documenting their interactions, findings, and observations. This milestone report summarises these extensive LL reports, focusing on i) boundaries: aims and purposes, impacts and scope of activities; ii) Living Lab problem definition and barriers; iii) Stakeholders identification and analysis; iv) GAP analysis and resources and capabilities conditions assessment; and v) List of main actions from LL Action Plans
Effect of Probiotics in the Mitigation of Clostridium difficile Associated Disease
Creators: name: Adekunle, Oluwaseyi
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2015

description: Clostridium difficile is one of the most important and widespread causes of acute gastroenteritis. Due to the limitations of current therapeutic options there is a need for the development for new treatment methods. Probiotics are an alternative treatment option that have gained prominence in the last few yearsmethod, and the ability of various probiotics to mitigate C. difficile infection was tested. The probiotics Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG and Saccharomyces boulardii demonstrated the greatest mitigative effect, showing signification protection against C. difficile induced death, bioactive toxin and shedding of pathogen within feces in the germ free mouse model. The probiotics also demonstrated protective effects by delaying the onset of C. difficile induced mortality as well in the conventional mouse model. Thus, some probiotics could potentially be used to help mitigate symptoms of C. difficile associated disease.
title: Wikipedia Revision Toolkit: Efficiently Accessing Wikipedia’s Edit History
Creators: name: Ferschke, Oliver
name: Zesch, Torsten
name: Gurevych, Iryna
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: 004

description: We present an open-source toolkit which allows (i) to reconstruct past states of Wikipedia, and (ii) to efficiently access the edit history of Wikipedia articles. Reconstructing past states of Wikipedia is a prerequisite for reproducing previous experimental work based on Wikipedia. Beyond that, the edit history of Wikipedia articles has been shown to be a valuable knowledge source for NLP, but access is severely impeded by the lack of efficient tools for managing the huge amount of provided data. By using a dedicated storage format, our toolkit massively decreases the data volume to less than 2% of the original size, and at the same time provides an easy-to-use interface to access the revision data. The language-independent design allows to process any language represented in Wikipedia. We expect this work to consolidate NLP research using Wikipedia in general, and to foster research making use of the knowledge encoded in Wikipedia’s edit history.
title: A Reflective View on Text Similarity
Creators: name: Bär, Daniel
name: Zesch, Torsten
name: Gurevych, Iryna
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: 004

description: While the concept of similarity is well grounded in psychology, text similarity is less well-defined. Thus, we analyze text similarity with respect to its definition and the datasets used for evaluation. We formalize text similarity based on the geometric model of conceptual spaces along three dimensions inherent to texts: structure, style, and content. We empirically ground these dimensions in a set of annotation studies, and categorize applications according to these dimensions. Furthermore, we analyze the characteristics of the existing evaluation datasets, and use those datasets to assess the performance of common text similarity measures.
Browning of white adipose tissue by melatonin
Creators: name: Zarebidaki, Eleen
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2015

description: There are two distinct types of adipose tissue which have different functions within the body, white (WAT) and brown (BAT). Browning of WAT occurs with increases in the WAT sympathetic nervous system (SNS) drive. In this regard we previously reported that melatonin (MEL) stimulation of MEL receptor 1A (MEL1a) within the SNS outflow to the WAT might be implicated in a naturally-occurring reversal of obesity (by ~30% of total body fat). Therefore, in this study we tested the hypothesis that MEL causes browning of WAT through the stimulation of SNS drive to WAT. This was done by comparing specific browning and lipolytic markers in WAT following 10 weeks of MEL treatment, short day housing (SD), and long day housing with saline injections (LD+VEH). Browning effects of a 5 day treatment of a ?3-adrenergeric (?3 AR), CL 316, 243, were also measured. We found that CL 316, 243, MEL treatment, and SD housing had increased expressions of browning markers within WAT and lipolytic activity in MEL treated animals was increased in specific WAT.
Early Life Cold Exposure Decreases Global Methylation Levels in Juveniles and Attenuates the Corticosterone Response after Restraint in Adult Zebra Finches (Taeniopygia guttata)
Creators: name: Bayani, Anne Kristel
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2015

description: Cold exposure, especially early in life, can be stressful. We examined if cold exposure affects HPA axis sensitivity and global DNA methylation in the brain in Australian zebra finches (Taenopygia gutta). We hypothesized that cold exposure during the first two weeks post-hatch alters HPA sensitivity and global brain DNA methylation levels in juveniles and adults. Control birds showed the predicted elevation in plasma corticosterone (Cort) after restraint stress in adulthood, however cold exposed birds exhibited a blunted Cort response. There was no significant difference in global methylation levels between treatments. Juveniles showed no significant difference between baseline and restraint plasma Cort levels, but cold exposed birds had significantly lower methylation levels. DNA methylation studies suggest that both hypomethylation on a global scale and hypermethylation in specific gene sequences can occur after adverse early life events. The attenuated Cort response could protect against the noxious effects of prolonged glucocorticoid secretion.
Investigating the Synergistic effect of Leucine-Metformin-Sildenafil on Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis
Creators: name: Fu, Lizhi
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2015

description: Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a highly prevalent liver disease in the world. About 15% to 25% of patients with NASH may progress to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. However, there remains no U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved therapy for NASH. Our previous studies indicate that the combination of leucine and metformin or leucine and icariin, a phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor (PDE5i), improved nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in Diet-induced Obesity (DIO) mice. Here we aim to evaluate the synergistic effect of leucine, metformin and sildenafil combination (Leu-Met-Sil) on NASH in Atherosclerosis diet-induced mouse model. Our data show that the Leu-Met-Sil combination significantly suppressed hepatic steatosis and fibrosis. This was associated with reduced alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels in circulation. The Leu-Met-Sil combination also decreased inflammation and increased fatty acid oxidation in liver, which may contribute to the beneficial effects of the treatment on the NASH phenotype. We conclude that Leu-Met-Sil combination could be a novel therapy for the treatment of NASH.
title: Approximate Matching for Evaluating Keyphrase Extraction
Creators: name: Zesch, Torsten
name: Gurevych, Iryna
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2009
Subjects: subject: 004

description: We propose a new evaluation strategy for keyphrase extraction based on approximate keyphrase matching. It corresponds well with human judgments and is better suited to assess the performance of keyphrase extraction approaches. Additionally, we propose a generalized framework for comprehensive analysis of keyphrase extraction that subsumes most existing approaches, which allows for fair testing conditions. For the first time, we compare the results of state-of-the-art unsupervised and supervised keyphrase extraction approaches on three evaluation datasets and show that the relative performance of the approaches heavily depends on the evaluation metric as well as on the properties of the evaluation dataset.
title: Analysis of the Wikipedia Category Graph for NLP Applications
Creators: name: Zesch, Torsten
name: Gurevych, Iryna
Publisher: name: DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Year: 2007
Subjects: subject: 004

description: In this paper, we discuss two graphs in Wikipedia (i) the article graph, and (ii) the category graph. We perform a graph-theoretic analysis of the category graph, and show that it is a scale-free, small world graph like other well-known lexical semantic networks. We substantiate our findings by transferring semantic relatedness algorithms defined on WordNet to the Wikipedia category graph. To assess the usefulness of the category grap has an NLP resource, we analyze its coverage and the performance of the transferred semantic relatedness algorithms.
The effect of MC3/4 receptor agonist and antagonist injections into the ventral tegmental area on motivated food behavior
Creators: name: Shanmugarajah, Laranci
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2015

description: Obesity has become a serious problem in the US. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, currently ~70% of the US population can be considered overweight or obese. In order to tackle the issue of obesity, it is very important to identify the neural mechanisms that regulate feeding. This will aid us to combat the bigger issue of obesity. The Arcuate nucleus contains two sets of neurons that play an important role in the control of feeding, while the mesolimbic dopamine system plays a major role in most reward based behavior including the reward-related responses to drugs and food. There have been increasing evidence of the melanocortin system interacting with the mesolimbic dopamine system in mediating hedonic feeding. In these studies we tested whether injecting the melanocortin receptor antagonist and agonist, SHU 9119 and MTII, in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) has an effect on reward-based food intake. MTII decreased reward based food intake while SHU9119 affected motivated food intake behavior at a high concentration. Overall, these studies increase our understanding the role of àMSH in the VTA on motivated food reward behavior.