LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Asthma Is Associated with Multiple Alterations in Anti-Viral Innate Signalling Pathways

BACKGROUND
Human rhinovirus (HRV) infection is a major trigger for asthma exacerbations. Anti-viral immunity appears to be abnormal in asthma, with immune dysfunction reported in both airway structural cells and migratory, bone marrow derived cells. Though decreased capacity to produce anti-viral interferons (IFNs) has been reported in asthma, a detailed analysis of the molecular events involved has not been undertaken.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the molecular pathway controlling type I IFN synthesis in HRV-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from asthmatic and healthy subjects.


METHODS
PBMC from 22 allergic asthmatics and 20 healthy donors were cultured with HRV for 24 hours. Multiple components of the Toll-like receptor (TLR), IFN regulatory and NFκβ pathways were compared at the mRNA and protein level.


RESULTS
Multiple deficiencies in the innate immune response to HRV were identified in asthma, with significantly lower expression of IFNα, IFNβ and interferon stimulated genes than in healthy subjects. This was accompanied by reduced expression of intra-cellular signalling molecules including interferon regulatory factors (IRF1, IRF7), NF-κB family members (p50, p52, p65 and IκKα) and STAT1, and by reduced responsiveness to TLR7/TLR8 activation. These observations could not be attributed to alterations in the numbers of dendritic cell (DC) subsets in asthma or baseline expression of the viral RNA sensing receptors TLR7/TLR8. In healthy subjects, blocking the activity of type-I IFN or depleting plasmacytoid DC recapitulated many of the abnormalities observed in asthma.


CONCLUSIONS
Multiple abnormalities in innate anti-viral signalling pathways were identified in asthma, with deficiencies in both IFN-dependent and IFN-independent molecules identified.
Generating test data from state-based specifications

*** DRAFT *** Submitted to JSTVR *** ABSTRACT Although the majority of software testing in industry is conducted at the system level, most formal research has focused on the unit level. As a result, most system level testing techniques are only described informally. This paper presents formal testing criteria for system level testing that are based on formal speci cations of the software. Software testing can only be formalized and quanti ed when a solid basis for test generation can be de ned. Formal speci cations represent a signi cant opportunity for testing because they precisely describe what functions the software is supposed to provide in a form that can be easily manipulated. This paper presents general criteria for generating test inputs from state-based speci cations. The criteria include techniques for generating tests at several levels of abstraction for speci cations. These techniques provide coverage criteria that are based on the speci cations, and are made up of several parts, including test pre xes that contain inputs necessary to put the software into the appropriate state for the test values. The test generation process includes several steps for transforming specications to tests. Empirical results from a comparative case study application of these criteria are presented.
Large breast size as a risk factor for late adverse effects of breast radiotherapy: is residual dose inhomogeneity, despite 3D treatment planning and delivery, the main explanation?

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Large breast size is associated with an increased risk of late adverse effects after breast conservation surgery and radiotherapy, even when 3D dosimetry is used. The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that residual dose inhomogeneity is sufficient to explain the association.


METHODS
Patients previously treated after breast conservation surgery with whole breast radiotherapy using 3D dosimetry and followed up in the UK FAST hypofractionation trial were selected for this analysis. The residual level of dose inhomogeneity across the whole breast treatment volume was used to test for association between residual dosimetry and post-treatment change in breast appearance at 2 years post-radiotherapy.


RESULTS
At 2 years, 201/279 (72%) of women had no change in photographic breast appearance, 61 (22%) had mild change and 17 (6%) had marked change. Breast size and dosimetry were both significantly associated with late effects in univariate analyses, but only breast size remained an independent significant risk factor for change in breast appearance when included in a multiple regression model together with other prognostic factors (p=0.006 for trend).


CONCLUSION
Large-breasted women are more likely to suffer change in breast size and shape after whole breast radiotherapy delivered using 3D dosimetry, but residual dose inhomogeneity is insufficient to explain the association.
The Unholy Trinity: Transnational Crime, Corruption, and Terrorism

LONGSTANDING TRANSNATIONAL CRIME GROUPS AND their more recently formed counterparts have a very different relationship to the state and to terrorism.' The older crime groups, often in long-established states, have developed along with their states and are dependent on existing institutional and financial structures to move their products and invest their profits. With the exception of Colombia, rarely do the large established crime organizations link with terrorist groups, because their long-term financial interests require the preservation of state structures.^ Through corruption and movement into the lawful economy, these groups minimize the risk of prosecution and therefore do not fear the power of state institutions. In contrast, the newer transnational crime groups, often originating in post-conflict situations, thrive in a state of chaos and ongoing conflict. In these regions where the shadow economy is dominant, the crime groups are dominant actors in the shadow economy. The newer crime groups in ungovernable regions are now forging alliances with terrorist organizations; because the crime groups and terrorist organizations do not possess long-term financial strategies or long-term political horizons, neither the criminals nor the terrorists need fear ineffective and corrupt law enforcement regimes in confiict regions. Established crime groups have developed in Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the United States; no region of the world, nor any political system, has prevented their emergence, or succeeded in suppressing them.' Therefore, international crime groups based in China, Japan, Columbia, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Italy, and the United
Antitrust risk in EU manufacturing: A sector-level ranking. Bruegel Working Paper 2014/07, July 2014

The object of this paper is twofold: to provide a broad descriptive analysis of the risk of collusive 
behaviour throughout Europe in the manufacturing sector; and to identify those manufacturing sectors 
in which the European Commission has been more active in the past in its capacity of antitrust 
authority.
A functional-cognitive framework for attitude research

In attitude research, behaviors are often used as proxies for attitudes and attitudinal processes. This practice is problematic because it conflates the behaviors that need to be explained (explanandum) with the mental constructs that are used to explain these behaviors (explanans). In the current article, we propose a meta-theoretical framework that resolves this problem by distinguishing between two levels of analysis. According to the proposed framework, attitude research can be conceptualized as the scientific study of evaluation. Evaluation is defined not in terms of mental constructs but in terms of elements in the environment, more specifically, as the effect of stimuli on evaluative responses. From this perspective, attitude research provides answers to two questions: (1) Which elements in the environment moderate evaluation? (2) What mental processes and representations mediate evaluation? Research on the first question provides explanations of evaluative responses in terms of elements in the environment (functional level of analysis); research on the second question offers explanations of evaluation in terms of mental processes and representations (cognitive level of analysis). These two levels of analysis are mutually supportive, in that better explanations at one level lead to better explanations at the other level. However, their mutually supportive relation requires a clear distinction between the concepts of their explanans and explanandum, which are conflated if behaviors are treated as proxies for mental constructs. The value of this functional-cognitive framework is illustrated by applying it to four central questions of attitude research.
Chemotherapy enhances metastasis formation via VEGFR-1-expressing endothelial cells.

Recent studies suggest that chemotherapy, in addition to its cytotoxic effects on tumor cells, can induce a cascade of host events to support tumor growth and spread. Here, we used an experimental pulmonary metastasis model to investigate the role of this host response in metastasis formation. Mice were pretreated with chemotherapy and after clearance of the drugs from circulation, tumor cells were administered intravenously to study potential "protumorigenic" host effects of chemotherapy. Pretreatment with the commonly used chemotherapeutic agents cisplatin and paclitaxel significantly enhanced lung metastasis in this model. This corresponded to enhanced adhesion of tumor cells to an endothelial cell monolayer that had been pretreated with chemotherapy in vitro. Interestingly, chemotherapy exposure enhanced the expression of VEGF receptor 1 (VEGFR-1) on endothelial cells both in vitro and in vivo. Administration of antibodies targeting VEGFR-1 reversed the early retention of tumor cells in the lungs, thereby preventing the formation of chemotherapy-induced pulmonary metastases. The data indicate that chemotherapy-induced expression of VEGFR-1 on endothelial cells can create an environment favorable to tumor cell homing. Inhibition of VEGFR-1 function may therefore be used to counteract chemotherapy-induced retention of tumor cells within the metastatic niche, providing a novel level of tumor control in chemotherapy.
Art of the Italian Renaissance courts : virtue and magnificence

This series looks at artists and their work against the background of the social, political and historical world in which they worked, examining issues of race, class, gender and psychology. It covers the Western canon, and also extends to popular imagery and non-Western traditions. This title looks at the art of the Italian Renaissance sourts.
A local strain of Paprika mild mottle virus breaks L 3 resistance in peppers and is accelerated in Tomato brown rugose fruit virus-infected Tm-2 2-resistant tomatoes

During October 2014, unfamiliar mild mosaic and mottling symptoms were identified on leaves of pepper (Capsicum chinense cv. Habanero) seedlings grown in the Arava valley in Israel 2–3 weeks post planting. Symptomatic plants were tested positive by ELISA using laboratory-produced antisera for tobamovirus species. Typical tobamovirus rod-shaped morphology was observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis of purified virion preparation that was used for mechanical inoculation of laboratory test plants for the completion of Koch’s postulates. The complete viral genome was sequenced from small interfering RNA purified from symptomatic pepper leaves and fruits by next-generation sequencing (NGS) using Illumina MiSeq platform. The contigs generated by the assembly covered 80% of the viral genome. RT-PCR amplification and Sanger sequencing were employed in order to validate the sequence generated by NGS technology. The nucleotide sequence of the complete viral genome was 99% identical to the complete genome of Paprika mild mottle virus isolate from Japan (PaMMV-J), and the deduced amino acid sequence was 99% identical to PaMMV-J protein. Amplicons from seed RNA showed 100% identity to the viral isolate from the collected symptomatic pepper plants. Partial host range analysis revealed a slow development of systemic infection in inoculated tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculentum). Interestingly, double inoculation of susceptible wild-type tomato plants and Tm-2 2-resistant tomato plants with the PaMMV-IL and Tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) resulted in accelerated viral expression in the plants.
A heuristic algorithm for the stochastic vehicle routing problems with soft time windows

A very complicated class of vehicle routing problem (VRP), stochastic vehicle routing problem with soft time windows (SVRPSTW), is studied. In this kind of problem the customer demand and the presence of the customer are assumed to be uncertain. And each customer is bounded by a service time window but lateness arrival at the customer is allowed by a penalty added into the total cost. The service vehicle returns to the depot whenever its capacity is attained or exceeded, and resumes its collections along the planned route. After describing the concept of SVRPSTW, a mathematical programming formulation is developed in order to study the effects of the stochastic demands and customers on transportation. A genetic based algorithm is proposed for this intractable problem in order to obtain optimal or near optimal solutions that have minimum total cost. Computational examples on a group of instances are given, showing the proposed approach is a simple but effective ways to solve such problems.
Efficacy and economics of fresh-market Bt transgenic sweet corn in Virginia.

The effectiveness and cost of managing the suite of insect pests that attack sweet corn in Virginia were evaluated using multiple foliar applications of pyrethroid insecticides and Bt transgenic sweet corn in 2000 and 2002. Several Bt cultivars and their nontransgenic isolines were tested in different locations in Virginia to examine efficacy over a range of growing conditions and pest pressure. Overall, insect damage was far less in the Bt cultivars than in the non-Bt isolines that were not sprayed or sprayed with lambda-cyhalothrin up to six times. When insect pressure was low to moderate, Bt sweet corn did not require supplementary insecticide applications for a high percentage (X88%) of ears to be considered fresh-market quality. In contrast, when insect pressure was extremely high, Bt sweet corn required two insecticide applications for a high percentage (X88%) of ears to be considered fresh-market quality. Based on an economic comparison between insecticide-treated conventional sweet corn and Bt sweet corn, growers should expect a $547/ha gain by growing Bt sweet corn. If Bt sweet corn was sprayed twice with an insecticide, this gain should be approximately $1777/ha. We conclude that Bt sweet corn is an effective and economically sound pest management strategy for growers in Virginia. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Detection of financial statement fraud and feature selection using data mining techniques

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Data mining Financial fraud detection Feature selection t-statistic Neural networks SVM GP Recently, high profile cases of financial statement fraud have been dominating the news. This paper uses data mining techniques such as Multilayer to identify companies that resort to financial statement fraud. Each of these techniques is tested on a dataset involving 202 Chinese companies and compared with and without feature selection. PNN outperformed all the techniques without feature selection, and GP and PNN outperformed others with feature selection and with marginally equal accuracies. Financial fraud is a serious problem worldwide and more so in fast growing countries like China. Traditionally, auditors are responsible for detecting financial statement fraud. With the appearance of an increasing number of companies that resort to these unfair practices, auditors have become overburdened with the task of detection of fraud. Hence, various techniques of data mining are being used to lessen the workload of the auditors. Enron and Worldcom are the two major scandals involving corporate accounting fraud, which arose from the disclosure of misdeeds conducted by trusted executives of large public corporations. Enron Corporation [17] was an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy in late 2001, Enron was one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, pulp and paper, and communications companies, with revenues amounting to nearly $101 billion in 2000. Long Distance Discount Services, Inc. (LDDS) began its operations in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1983. The company's name was changed to LDDS WorldCom [18] in 1995, and later it became WorldCom. On July 21, 2002, WorldCom filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the largest such filing in US history at that time. Financial statements are a company's basic documents to reflect its financial status [3]. A careful reading of the financial statements can indicate whether the company is running smoothly or is in crisis. If the company is in crisis, financial statements can indicate if the most critical thing faced by the company is cash or profit or something else. All the listed companies are required to publish their financial statements every year and every quarter. The stockholders can form a good idea about the companies' financial future through the financial statements, and can decide whether the companies' stocks are worth investing. The bank also needs the companies' financial statements in order to decide whether to …
Q-learning algorithms for optimal stopping based on least squares

We consider the solution of discounted optimal stopping problems using linear function approximation methods. A Q-learning algorithm for such problems, proposed by Tsitsiklis and Van Roy, is based on the method of temporal differences and stochastic approximation. We propose alternative algorithms, which are based on projected value iteration ideas and least squares. We prove the convergence of some of these algorithms and discuss their properties.
Key Account Management in information-intensive services

Abstract Key Account Management (KAM) is surprisingly little known marketing approach in retailing and consumer services context, however it has much to offer to companies in these industries. It provides an effective, practical and rather simple method for companies interested in increasing their profits by right customer and relationship management. Indeed, KAM is a business-to-business marketing approach, however most retailers and service companies can greatly benefit from it. A large number of retailers and service companies operate both in the consumer and business-to-business market. Few retailers or service providers have never invoiced another company. Moreover, most consumer goods and services are influenced by business-to-business services. The availability and quality of consumer goods and services often essentially depends on various business-to-business services in the earlier phases of marketing channels. Furthermore, by understanding the logic of KAM, retailers and consumer service providers can develop their own key supplier management. Information is one of the most important resources of goods and services in post-industrial economy. Information-intensive services are based on knowledge and refining of information. Increasing number of information-intensive services emerge both in the consumer and business-to-business market. This paper describes the nature of KAM and information-intensive services, and suggests a framework for KAM practices in information-intensive services.
Lumbar disc herniation mimicking meralgia paresthetica: case report.

BACKGROUND
Meralgia paresthetica, a syndrome of pain and/or dysesthesia in the anterolateral thigh, is normally caused by an entrapment of the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve (LFCN) at the anterior superior iliac spine. In a few cases compression of the nerve in the retroperitoneum has been reported to mimic meralgia paresthetica.


CASE DESCRIPTION
A 67-year-old woman presented with a 5-year history of permanent paresthesia in the anterolateral thigh. Motor weakness was not detected. Electromyography showed a neurogenic lesion at the level of L3. Lumbar spine MRI detected a foraminal-extraforaminal disc herniation at L2/L3, which was extirpated via a lateral transmuscular approach. The patient was free of symptoms on the first postoperative day.


CONCLUSION
In patients with meralgia paresthetica we emphasize a complete radiological investigation of the lumbar spine, including MRI, to exclude radicular compression by a disc herniation or a tumour at the level of L2 or L3.
Data Governance Cloud Security Checklist at Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Security checklist is an important element in measuring the level of computing security, especially in cloud computing. Vulnerability in cloud computing become major concern because it will lead to security issue. While security awareness and training can educate users on the severe impact of malware, implementation on data governance and security checklist also can help to reduce the risk of being attacked. Since security checklist is important element to measure security level in cloud computing, data governance can help to manage data right with correct procedure. Due to increasing threats and attacks, service providers and service consumers need to adhere to guidelines and/or checklists when measuring the security level of services and to be prepared for unforeseen circumstances, especially in the IaaS platform. As the IaaS platform lies at the lower level in cloud computing where data are stored, it is vital that IaaS security be given serious consideration to prevent not only data breaches but also data losses. The objective of this paper is to discuss the implementation of security checklist in IaaS layer. In this paper also, several studies related with security assessment and checklist that had been discussed and developed by previous researchers and professional bodies will be discussed. This paper will also discuss the result from interview session that had been conducted by the author with several data centers (DCs) and experts regarding the implementation of security measures in small cloud DCs. Keywords—IaaS; security checklist; guidelines; threats; cloud computing
Two Wheels Balancing Robot with Line Following Capability

This project focuses on the development of a line follower algorithm for a Two Wheels Balancing Robot. In this project, ATMEGA32 is chosen as the brain board controller to react towards the data received from Balance Processor Chip on the balance board to monitor the changes of the environment through two infra-red distance sensor to solve the inclination angle problem. Hence, the system will immediately restore to the set point (balance position) through the implementation of internal PID algorithms at the balance board. Application of infra-red light sensors with the PID control is vital, in order to develop a smooth line follower robot. As a result of combination between line follower program and internal self balancing algorithms, we are able to develop a dynamically stabilized balancing robot with line follower function. Keywords—infra-red sensor, PID algorithms, line follower Balancing robot