nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Amplification and suppression of human T cell proliferative responses by alloactivated T cells.

Human regulator T (TR) lymphocytes presensitized to allogeneic non-T cells in unidirectional mixed leucocyte cultures (MLC) were shown to be capable of either amplifying or suppressing the MLC proliferative responses of autologous T cells when tested in limiting dilution co-culture assays. Although the concentration of alloantigen present during presensitization influenced the TR suppressive activity, considerable suppression was observed over a 10-20-fold range of stimulators. Thus, the concentration of stimulators was not an extremely critical factor in the generation of TR suppression. Much more important, however, was the duration of MLC presensitization because both TR amplification and suppression of T cell-mediated responses were critically time-dependent. In addition, the deletion of rapidly proliferating T cells from MLC at times of marked amplifier activity resulted in the impaired development of TR suppressor populations. These data directly demonstrate that distinct subpopulations of alloactivated TR cells can be distinguished by varying the presensitization interval and that maximal TR suppression requires earlier proliferation of alloreactive T cells.

Field of study: Biology, Medicine
First observation of excited states in the neutron-rich nucleus 138Te


The very neutron-rich nucleus 138Te produced in the spontaneous fission of 248Cm has been investigated using the EUROGAM II γ-ray multidetector array. The excited states of 138Te observed for the first time indicate that the region of ground state deformation beyond the doubly magic nucleus 132Sn has yet not been reached.

Field of study: Physics
Antithrombotic, procoagulant, and fibrinolytic mechanisms in cerebral circulation: implications for brain injury and protection.

Maintaining a delicate balance among anticoagulant, procoagulant, and fibrinolytic pathways in the cerebral microcirculation is of major importance for normal cerebral blood flow. Under physiological conditions and in the absence of provocative stimuli, the anticoagulant and fibrinolytic pathways prevail over procoagulant mechanisms. Blood clotting is essential to minimize bleeding and to achieve hemostasis; however, excessive clotting contributes to thrombosis and may predispose the brain to infarction and ischemic stroke. Conversely, excessive bleeding due to enhanced anticoagulatory and fibrinolytic mechanisms could predispose the brain to hemorrhagic stroke. Recent studies in the author's laboratory indicate that brain capillary endothelium in vivo produces thrombomodulin (TM), a key cofactor in the TM-protein C system that is of major biological significance to the antithrombotic properties of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). The BBB endothelium also expresses tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), a key protein in fibrinolysis, and its rapid inhibitor, plasminogen activator inhibitor (PAI-1). The procoagulant tissue factor is normally dormant at the BBB. There is a vast body of clinical evidence to document the importance of hemostasis in the pathophysiology of brain injury. In particular, functional changes caused by major stroke risk factors in the TM--protein C, tPA/PAI-1, and tissue factor systems at the BBB may result in large and debilitating infarctions following an ischemic insult. Thus, correcting this hemostatic imbalance could ameliorate drastic CBF reductions at the time of ischemic insult, ultimately resulting in brain protection. Delineation of the molecular mechanisms of BBB-mediated hemostasis will likely contribute to future stroke prevention efforts and brain protection strategies.

Field of study: Medicine
Children Education in ICT Age in Nigeria: A Tripartite Socio-Cultural Phenomena

Studies have established that the use of technology in early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings positively contributes to children’s development. However, this position has generated conflicting views as individual circumstances largely depend on where a child is born and raised. In this study, adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in ECCE in the Nigerian context is examined, with a view to deciphering practical implications of ICT as social innovation in learning and its influence on socio-cultural values in childhood education. To achieve this aim, the following research question was generated: What and how can we describe the impact and practical implications of ICT on Nigerian children’s ways of life, and what values does ICT contribute towards socio-cultural aspect of ECCE education in Nigeria? The paper utilised data collected through an interpretive qualitative study, underpinned by social practice and innovation diffusion theories. Data were generated through interviews and classroom observations. The findings suggest tensions between social innovations and socio-cultural implications of ICT usage. It was observed that ICT usage in Nigerian childhood education is situated within tripartite classification; One, as a veritable tool for achieving innovative and creative thinking in children. Two, as an effective instrument of disseminating globalised ideas and three, as distortions to socio-cultural values that are embedded in culturally-sensitive children learning and development. In conclusion, it was suggested that while the use of ICT should remain a veritable instrument for learning in children’s formative periods, its usage should be monitored for values’ security in Nigeria.

Field of study: Education, Sociology
Photographic recording of YAG:Er3+ laser radiation (λ=2.94 μm) by thermal sensitization of the emulsion

A study was made of the possibility of using thermal sensitization of a silver halide photographic emulsion for recording YAG:Er3+ laser radiation (λ = 2.94 μm). Using an FT-101 photographic film it was possible to record the radiation down to energy densities of ~ 1 mJ/cm2 in a dynamic range of ~ 100 with a resolution of at least 50 lines/mm when the laser pulse duration was ~ 150 μsec. This method was employed to determine for the first time the spectral width of a line emitted by a YAG:Er3+ laser operating in the free-running regime.

Field of study: Engineering, Physics
The Impact of Socio-Economic Inequality on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding

Neoliberalism assumes that inequality creates productive competition and no risk of conflict where a viable state and social contract exists. From a critical position, inequality in a range of different forms (local to global in scale) weakens the links between civil society, solidarity, social justice, human rights and democracy. These positions have different implications for peace and order. State institutions are designed to make processes of consensual regulation permanent for the good of society. While continuing material inequality is inevitable, if the state and international community cannot mitigate its impact on security, rights and representation, in order to distribute a range of peace dividends, citizens rapidly begin to question the point of the state and undermine its legitimacy. Struggles over power, material resources and identity are thus untreated. This is especially problematic where the state also has been shaped through a peace agreement. Ironically, material inequality often lacking a Rawlsian justification of producing wider benefits of a peace dividend for society has been naturalised through peacebuilding and statebuilding, even though strong evidence suggests inequality is also at the root of many conflicts.

Field of study: History, Sociology
Studies of the congenitally goitrous sheep. The iodinated compounds of serum, and circulating thyroid-stimulating hormone.

1. A group of normal and congenitally goitrous Merino sheep were investigated to identify the metabolic defect present in the abnormal animals. 2. Protein-bound iodine concentrations of serum from goitrous animals (average 5.7mug./100ml.) were higher than normal (average 4.2mug./100ml.; P 0.001), but the hormonal iodine measured as butanol-extractable (131)I was low in the serum of goitrous (average 40.3% of protein-bound (131)I) compared with that of normal (84.2%; P 0.02) sheep. The non-hormonal iodine of the serum of goitrous sheep appeared to include iodotyrosines and iodinated protein. 3. Starch-gel-electrophoretic separations of sera from normal and goitrous sheep after (131)I injection (100-500muc) showed no qualitative differences in the radioactivity of protein components. No significant differences in thyroxine-binding in vitro by serum proteins of normal and goitrous sheep were observed. 4. The clearance rates of (131)I-labelled iodotyrosines (t((1/2)) 1.2-2.9hr.) and iodothyronines (t((1/2)) 33.5-47.4hr.) were similar in normal and goitrous sheep. 5. The concentration of circulating thyroid-stimulating hormone was significantly higher (P<0.01 in three sheep, P<0.05 in one sheep) in goitrous sheep. 6. The congenital goitre appears to be due to compensatory hypertrophy of the gland resulting from an inability to synthesize an adequate supply of thyroid hormone.

Field of study: Biology, Computer science
Tuberculous peritonitis--report of 30 cases and review of the literature.

In this retrospective study, clinical presentation of peritoneal tuberculosis in an area with a high prevalence of tuberculosis is discussed. Thirty cases diagnosed in an eight-year period are presented. The disease was 2.3 times more common in females. Eighty per cent of the patients were less than 40 years old. Excluding two cases of long duration (one year and three years), mean duration of the symptoms before admission was 2.3 months. Fever, abdominal pain, swelling and weight loss were the main symptoms. Ascites was clinically detected in 80 per cent of cases. Intermediate strength PPD tuberculin skin test was positive in 61 per cent of cases. In 57.7 per cent there was radiologic evidence of pleuropulmonary disease suggestive of tuberculosis. Fourteen of 15 ascitic fluids examined were exudative in nature with predominance of lymphocytes. In the majority of patients diagnosis was proven with laparotomy and laparoscopy (12 cases in each group). In the remainder, tissue for diagnosis was obtained through blind peritoneal needle biopsy, percutaneous biopsy of liver and peripheral lymph node biopsy (two cases with each method).

Field of study: Medicine
Proliferation of γδT cells induced by IL-2 and bisphosphonates-treatment in patients with cancer

To investigate the proliferation function of gamma delta T cells by IL-2 and nitro- gen eontaining-bisphosphonates(N-BP)-stimulated on patients with cancer. We analyzed 103 patients with eaneer and 43 healthy individuals.Gamma delta T cells proliferation assay in vivo determine the absolute count of gamma delta T cells before and after treatment by flow cytometry.Gamma delta T cells proliferation assay in vitro determines the relative count of gamma delta T cells after IL-2 and N-BP-stimulated by flow cytometry.  In patients with cancer and healthy individuals,the median of the absolute count of all T cells,gamma delta T cells and the percent of gamma delta T cells were 1306 cells/μl vs 1522 cells/μl(P=0.003),64 cells/μl vs 162 cells/μl(P0.001),5% vs 11%(P0.001).In 24 patients treated circulating the median of the ab- solute count of all T cells,gamma delta T cells and the percent of gamma delta T cells were 1283 cells/μl vs 1552 cells/μl(P=0.001),54 cells/hal vs 107 cells/μl(P0.001),6% vs 8%(P=0.008).The clinical response rate to IL-2 and N-BP-stimulated were 68.9% in all patients with cancer. The function of gamma delta T cells proliferation is defective in the patients with cancer.The clinical response was different to IL-2 and N- BP-stimulated in differentiating patients with cancer individuals.The function of gamma delta T cells proliferation may be stimulated by IL-2 and N-BP.The gamma delta T cells proliferation assay in vitro may be applied to a tar- get of treatment by IL-2 and N-BP-stimulated.

Field of study: Biology
Standard Young tableaux for finite root systems

The study of representations of affine Hecke algebras has led to a new notion of shapes and standard Young tableaux which works for the root system of any finite Coxeter group. This paper is completely independent of affine Hecke algebra theory and is purely combinatorial. We define generalized shapes and standard Young tableaux and show that these new objects coincide with the classical ones for root systems of Type A. The classical notions of conjugation of shapes, ribbon shapes, axial distances, and the row reading and column reading standard tableaux, have natural generalizations to the root system case. In the final section we give an interpretation of the shapes and standard tableaux for root systems of Type C which is in a form similar to classical theory of shapes and standard tableaux.

Field of study: Mathematics
Autoantibodies to 200 kD polypeptide(s) of the nuclear envelope: a new serologic marker of primary biliary cirrhosis.

Fifty sera which gave ring-like nuclear staining in immunofluorescence on rat liver tissue sections were characterized. Using immunoprecipitation and Western blotting we showed that 10 of the sera contained antibodies to 200 kD polypeptide(s) of nuclear envelope. Clinical and biological data were available for nine of the patients. Strikingly, all of these patients suffered from primary biliary cirrhosis with eight of them having anti-mitochondrial antibodies. As no control serum displayed such a reactivity, anti-200 kD polypeptide(s) antibodies can be considered as a new marker specific of a subset of primary biliary cirrhosis, being present even when anti-mitochondrial antibodies are absent. The exact identity of the target remains to be established, since several polypeptides of similar molecular weight have been reported to belong to the nuclear envelope.

Field of study: Biology, Medicine
Exome-Wide Association Study Reveals Several Susceptibility Genes and Pathways Associated With Acute Coronary Syndromes in Han Chinese

Genome-wide association studies have identified more than 150 susceptibility loci for coronary artery disease (CAD); however, there is still a large proportion of missing heritability remaining to be investigated. This study sought to identify population-based genetic variation associated with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) in individuals of Chinese Han descent. We proposed a novel strategy integrating a well-developed risk prediction model into control selection in order to lower the potential misclassification bias and increase the statistical power. An exome-wide association analysis was performed for 1,669 ACS patients and 1,935 healthy controls. Promising variants were further replicated using the existing in silico dataset. Additionally, we performed gene- and pathway-based analyses to investigate the aggregate effect of multiple variants within the same genes or pathways. Although none of the association signals were consistent across studies after Bonferroni correction, one promising variant, rs10409124 at STRN4, showed potential impact on ACS in both European and East Asian populations. Gene-based analysis explored four genes (ANXA7, ZNF655, ZNF347, and ZNF750) that showed evidence for association with ACS after multiple test correction, and identification of ZNF655 was successfully replicated by another dataset. Pathway-based analysis revealed that 32 potential pathways might be involved in the pathogenesis of ACS. Our study identified several candidate genes and pathways associated with ACS. Future studies are needed to further validate these findings and explore these genes and pathways as potential therapeutic targets in ACS.

Field of study: Biology
Cortical spreading depression transiently activates MAP kinases.

Cortical spreading depression (CSD) has been shown to have neuroprotective effects when administered in advance of cerebral ischemia. The mechanism by which CSD induces its neuroprotective effect however remains to be elucidated. Since MAP kinases have been shown to impart neuroprotection in ischemic preconditioning paradigms, we attempted to determine the role CSD may have in the activation of MAPK. We show that CSD is capable of increasing the phosphorylation of ERK in a MEK-dependent manner. This phosphorylation is, however, transient, as phosphorylated ERK levels return to control levels 45 min after 2 h of CSD elicitation. Immunohistochemical analysis reveals that the phosphorylated form of ERK is located ubiquitously in cells of the CSD-treated cortex while CSD-elicited MEK phosphorylation resides solely in the nuclei. These data suggest that CSD may act via the MAP kinase pathways to mediate preconditioning.

Field of study: Biology
Enzymic characterization of epidermis-derived 12-lipoxygenase isoenzymes.

Substrate selectivity and other enzymic characteristics of two epidermis-derived lipoxygenases (LOXs), the epidermis-type (e) (12S)-LOX and (12R)-LOX, were compared with those of the platelet-type (p) (12S)-LOX. In contrast with p(12S)-LOX, e(12S)-LOX and (12R)-LOX exhibited no or very low reactivity towards the customary substrates linoleic acid and arachidonic acid but metabolized the corresponding fatty acid methyl esters, which, in contrast, were not accepted as substrates by p(12S)-LOX. Other esters of arachidonic acid and linoleic acid, including propan-2-yl and cholesterol esters, 1-palmitoyl-2-arachidonyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, 1-palmitoyl-2-linoleyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine, and ceramide 1 carrying an omega-linoleic acid ester, were not metabolized by these three LOX isoenzymes. Among various polyunsaturated fatty acids the isomeric eicosatrienoic acids were found to be oxygenated by e(12S)-LOX but not by (12R)-LOX. 4,7,10,13,16,19-Docosahexaenoic acid as a substrate was restricted to p(12S)-LOX. Variations in the pH and the Ca(2+) content of the incubation medium affected the catalytic potential only slightly. Whereas (12R)-LOX activity increased in the presence of Ca(2+) and with an acidic pH, Ca(2+) had no effect on p(12S)-LOX and e(12S)-LOX; an acidic pH decreased the catalytic activity of the latter two. However, the catalytic activity of the epidermis-type isoenzymes, but not of p(12S)-LOX, was found to be markedly increased in the presence of DMSO. Under these conditions, e(12S)-LOX and (12R)-LOX oxygenated 4,7,10,13,16,19-docosahexaenoic acid to 14-hydroxy-4,7,10,12,16,19-docosahexaenoic acid and 13-hydroxy-4,7,10,14,16,19-docosahexaenoic acid respectively. In addition, (9R)-hydroxyoctadeca-10,12-dienoic acid methyl ester was generated from linoleic acid methyl ester by (12R)-LOX. Independently of the substrate, the catalytic activity of e(12S)-LOX and (12R)-LOX was always at most 2% of that of p(12S)-LOX with arachidonic acid as substrate.

Field of study: Biology, Computer science
Subset selection of the T best populations

Selection of the “best” t out of k populations has been considered in the indifferece zone formulation by Bachhofer (1954) and in the subset selection formulation by Carroll, Gupta and Huang (1975). The latter approach is used here to obtain conservative solutions for the goals of selecting (i) all the “good” or (ii) only “good” populations, where “good” means having a location parameter among the largest t. For the case of normal distributions, with common unknown variance, tables are produced for implementing these procedures. Also, for this case, simulation results suggest that the procedure may not be too conservative.

Field of study: Mathematics
Carbon fiber couch effects on skin dose for volumetric modulated arcs.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the dosimetric effect of carbon fiber couches (CFCs) on delivered skin dose as well as to explore potential venues for its minimization for volumetric modulated arc (VMAT) treatments.



A carbon fiber couch (BrainLab) was incorporated in Pinnacle treatment planning system (TPS) by autocontouring. A retrospective investigation on five lung and five prostate patient plans was performed. Targets and organs at risk (OARs), together with a 0.3 cm thick skin contour interfacing the CFC, were outlined in each plan. For each patient, two VMAT plans were generated: a single arc with 6 MV photon energy and two or three arcs with 18 MV photon energy for the posterior arc(s) and 6 MV energy for the anterior arc (mixed energy plans). Both plans for each patient case were normalized such that 95% of the PTV was covered by the same prescription dose, ranging from 7600 to 7800 cGy. For each patient, the prescription doses were escalated to the maximum allowed by the OAR constraints. CFC bolus effects on skin doses were tallied by the highest dose to 1% of skin volume.



With the utilization of higher energy photons for the posterior arcs, the statistically significant differences in skin dose between the two plans were as high as 34% of the prescribed dose, where surface doses changed on average from 3800 to 2940 cGy for 6 MV and mixed energy plans, respectively. In addition, skin doses in excess of 68% and 80% of the prescription doses for mixed and 6 MV energy plans, respectively, were observed in individual cases.



The presented findings indicate that mixed energy VMAT plans would result in a substantial skin sparing of more than approximately 34% compared to VMAT plans with only 6 MV arc(s). Additionally, the high skin doses in some cases (81% of the prescription dose) suggest that in hypofractionated SRS/SRT treatments, the carbon fiber couch effects on skin doses need to be evaluated when arc delivery is considered as a treatment option.

Field of study: Medicine, Physics
Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections. James Hankins

James Hankins, ed., Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections (Ideas in Context Series, 57. This volume of the Cambridge series Ideas in Context examines the historical and intellectual context of classical republicanism from the late Middle Ages through Florentine Renaissance humanism to American republicanism (for the latter see especially William J.Connell 's discussion, 20-24, 26-27 and Cary Nederman's, 268-69). The opinions of Quentin Skinner, the General Editor of the series, feature throughout the volume, especially in Paul A.Rahe's discussion of Machiavelli; Skinner himself has not written a contribution. The whole is an assessment of the state of studies in the history of the Renaissance state and an evaluation of the concept of "civic humanism" in understanding it. The volume's editor, James Hankins' whose own works on its themes are well known, states that its aim, above all, is to challenge that complacency which historians of Renaissance political thought have exhibited in not challenging the views of civic humanism established by Hans Baron in 1955 and J.C.A. Pocock twenty years later: " . . . to stir up new debate on civic humanism among scholars of the Italian Renaissance, to take stock of where recent research has brought us, and to press further along the various paths of exploration and reappraisal that have opened up in the last two decades" (7-8).

Field of study: History