Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High disease activity disability burden and smoking predict severe extra-articular manifestations in early rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVES To identify patients with severe extra-articular RA (ExRA) in an early RA cohort and to investigate potential risk factors. METHODS From a cohort (n = 2900) in a structured programme for newly diagnosed RA, 40 patients with severe ExRA after RA diagnosis were identified. Disease activity score (DAS28), functional disability (HAQ) and treatment with glucocorticosteroids (GCs) and DMARDs were assessed regularly. Cases with ExRA were compared with RA controls from the same cohort matched for age, sex and duration of symptoms at inclusion. RESULTS Patients who developed severe ExRA were more often current smokers and had higher mean DAS28, HAQ and CRP at baseline. Among the ExRA cases, 93% had a positive RF vs 59% of the controls. The area under the curve (AUC) of DAS28 odds ratio (OR) 7.79/S.D. ; 95% CI 3.04, 19.95, HAQ (OR 2.30/S.D.; 95% CI 1.37, 3.88) and CRP (OR 3.05/S.D.; 95% CI 1.77, 5.26) during the first 2 years of follow-up were strong predictors of subsequent development of ExRA. The most frequently used DMARDs were MTX and SSZ, with similar frequency and duration of treatment among cases and controls. The cases were treated with GC before onset of ExRA more frequently (73 vs 47%; P = 0.005) and with higher mean cumulative dose (3667 vs 2037 mg, P = 0.015). CONCLUSIONS High levels of disease activity and disability during the first 2 years after RA diagnosis, smoking and RF predict the development of severe extra-articular RA.
Smelling out Code Clones: Clone Detection Tool Evaluation and Corresponding Challenges

Software clones have been an active area of research for the past two decades. However, although numerous clone detection tools are now available, only a small fraction of the literature has focused on tool evaluation, and this is in fact still an open problem. This is mostly due to the fact that standard information retrieval metrics such as recall and precision require a priori knowledge of clones already in the system. Detection tools also typically have a large number of parameters which are difficult to fine-tune for optimal performance on a particular software system, and different outputs produced by different tools add to the complexity of comparing one tool to another. In this review, we further explore the reasons why tool evaluation is still an open challenge, and present the current tools and frameworks targeted at mitigating these problems, focusing on the current standard benchmarks used to evaluate modern clone detection tools, and also presenting a recent method aimed at finding optimal tool configurations.
GMM Overidentification Test with First Order Underidentification

This paper revisits the asymptotic theory of GMM when the moment conditions identify a unique parameter true value $\theta^0$ but the rank condition of the Jacobian matrix at $\theta^0$ fails. The possibility in case of nonlinear moment restrictions of such simultaneous global identification but first order under-identification has already been pointed out by Sargan (1983). The contribution of this paper is to provide a general asymptotic theory when one can maintain an assumption of second order identification. While this issue has been addressed in a maximum likelihood context by Lee and Chesher (1986) and Rotnitzky, Cox, Bottai and Robbins (2000), we set the focus on the asymptotic behaviour of the GMM overidentification test statistic $J_T$. We show that with $H$ moment conditions, when the Jacobian matrix of the moment conditions evaluated at $\theta^0$ is of rank $p-1$, where $p$ is the number of parameters, the asymptotic distribution of $J_T$ is a half-half mixture of $\chi^2_{H-p}$ and $\chi^2_{H-(p-1)}$ instead of the standard $\chi^2_{H-p}$. In other words, the distribution of $J_T$ for large sample sizes $T$ has fatter tails, leading to over-rejection of the null of valid moments when using standard critical values. The practical significance of this oversize problem is illustrated by Monte Carlo experiments in the context of a test for common GARCH features proposed by Engle and Kozicki (1993).
Optimal Selective Forwarding for Energy Saving in Wireless Sensor Networks

Scenarios where nodes have limited energy and forward messages of different importances (priorities) are frequent in the context of wireless sensor networks. Tailored to those scenarios, this paper relies on stochastic tools to develop selective message forwarding schemes. The schemes will depend on parameters such as the available battery at the node, the energy cost of retransmitting a message, or the importance of messages. The forwarding schemes are designed for three different cases: 1) when sensors maximize the importance of their own transmitted messages; 2) when sensors maximize the importance of messages that have been successfully retransmitted by at least one of its neighbors; and 3) when sensors maximize the importance of messages that successfully arrive to the sink. More sophisticated schemes will achieve better importance performance, but will also require information from other sensors. The results contribute to identify the variables that, when made available to other nodes, have a greater impact on the overall network performance. Suboptimal schemes that rely on local estimation algorithms and entail reduced computational cost are also designed.
The Effect of Appearance-Related Media on Cognitive Responses to Food

The goal of this study was to determine whether exposure to commercials featuring thin versus plus-size women affected women’s implicit cognitive responses to food. One hundred sixteen college-age women watched a neutral film interrupted by two commercials. The second commercial contained a thin woman (n = 39), a plus-size woman (n = 38), or was a neutral commercial with no human actors (n = 39). After the video, participants completed visual analog scales for state body dissatisfaction and explicit ratings of liking and wanting of healthy and unhealthy foods. In addition, to measure responses to healthy and unhealthy foods, participants completed two implicit cognitive tasks: the Affective Misattribution Procedure (AMP) and the flanker task, which measured evaluation of and implicit attention to foods, respectively. Results revealed that the experimental manipulation did not affect women’s body dissatisfaction, nor their evaluation of food. Regardless of their group, women evaluated the unhealthy foods more positively than the neutral items. However, those who viewed the plus-size model commercial experienced response conflict in the flanker task only when healthy targets were flanked by unhealthy distractors. These results suggest that although watching plus-size models may not shift women’s body dissatisfaction or their evaluation of foods, they become distracted by unhealthy foods. This may reduce their subsequent ability to resist consuming unhealthy food.
Cytosine methylation at CpCpG sites triggers accumulation of non-CpG methylation in gene bodies

Abstract Methylation of cytosine is an epigenetic mark involved in the regulation of transcription, usually associated with transcriptional repression. In mammals, methylated cytosines are found predominantly in CpGs but in plants non-CpG methylation (in the CpHpG or CpHpH contexts, where H is A, C or T) is also present and is associated with the transcriptional silencing of transposable elements. In addition, CpG methylation is found in coding regions of active genes. In the absence of the demethylase of lysine 9 of histone 3 (IBM1), a subset of body-methylated genes acquires non-CpG methylation. This was shown to alter their expression and affect plant development. It is not clear why only certain body-methylated genes gain non-CpG methylation in the absence of IBM1 and others do not. Here we describe a link between CpG methylation and the establishment of methylation in the CpHpG context that explains the two classes of body-methylated genes. We provide evidence that external cytosines of CpCpG sites can only be methylated when internal cytosines are methylated. CpCpG sites methylated in both cytosines promote spreading of methylation in the CpHpG context in genes protected by IBM1. In contrast, CpCpG sites remain unmethylated in IBM1-independent genes and do not promote spread of CpHpG methylation.
Neuronal asymmetries in primary visual cortex of dyslexic and nondyslexic brains

Dyslexic brains exhibit histologic changes in the magnocellular (magno) cells of the lateral geniculate nucleus, and consistent with these changes, dyslexics demonstrate abnormal visually evoked potentials and brain activation to magno‐specific stimuli. The current study was aimed at determining whether these findings were associated with changes in the primary visual cortex with the prediction that magno components of this cortex would be affected. We measured cross‐sectional neuronal areas in primary visual cortex (area 17) in dyslexic and nondyslexic autopsy specimens. There was a significant interaction between hemispheres and diagnostic category; ie, nondyslexic brains had larger neurons in the left hemisphere, whereas dyslexic brains had no asymmetry. On the other hand, cell layers associated with magno input from the lateral geniculate nucleus did not show consistent changes in dyslexic brains. Thus, there is a neuronal size asymmetry in favor of the left primary visual cortex in nondyslexics that is absent in dyslexic brains. This is yet another example of anomalous expression of cerebral asymmetry in dyslexia similar to that of the planum temporale, which in our view reflects abnormality in circuits involved in reading. Ann Neurol 1999;46:189–196
BTB-Zinc Finger Oncogenes Are Required for Ras and Notch-Driven Tumorigenesis in Drosophila

During tumorigenesis, pathways that promote the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) can both facilitate metastasis and endow tumor cells with cancer stem cell properties. To gain a greater understanding of how these properties are interlinked in cancers we used Drosophila epithelial tumor models, which are driven by orthologues of human oncogenes (activated alleles of Ras and Notch) in cooperation with the loss of the cell polarity regulator, scribbled (scrib). Within these tumors, both invasive, mesenchymal-like cell morphology and continual tumor overgrowth, are dependent upon Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) activity. To identify JNK-dependent changes within the tumors we used a comparative microarray analysis to define a JNK gene signature common to both Ras and Notch-driven tumors. Amongst the JNK-dependent changes was a significant enrichment for BTB-Zinc Finger (ZF) domain genes, including chronologically inappropriate morphogenesis (chinmo). chinmo was upregulated by JNK within the tumors, and overexpression of chinmo with either RasV12 or Nintra was sufficient to promote JNK-independent epithelial tumor formation in the eye/antennal disc, and, in cooperation with RasV12, promote tumor formation in the adult midgut epithelium. Chinmo primes cells for oncogene-mediated transformation through blocking differentiation in the eye disc, and promoting an escargot-expressing stem or enteroblast cell state in the adult midgut. BTB-ZF genes are also required for Ras and Notch-driven overgrowth of scrib mutant tissue, since, although loss of chinmo alone did not significantly impede tumor development, when loss of chinmo was combined with loss of a functionally related BTB-ZF gene, abrupt, tumor overgrowth was significantly reduced. abrupt is not a JNK-induced gene, however, Abrupt is present in JNK-positive tumor cells, consistent with a JNK-associated oncogenic role. As some mammalian BTB-ZF proteins are also highly oncogenic, our work suggests that EMT-promoting signals in human cancers could similarly utilize networks of these proteins to promote cancer stem cell states.
A gender lens perspective of the use of social network in higher education in Malaysia and Australia

The use of social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Google Plus+, Tumblr, and Instagram, among others, has increased at a very fast pace in the last few years. In tandem with its rising popularity, especially among teenagers, many academics in higher education have been experimenting with its use in formal and less formal ways, in classroom teaching. Studies on the use of SNS in higher education indicate mixed results. While some academics found that SNS only distracts students from actual study and do not improve academic performance, others discovered that it improves communication and teacher-student relationships. Most however, agree that SNS's popularity with students makes it a very useful tool to exploit for classroom teaching and management. There are very few studies which look into the effect of gender on the use of SNS in education. While studies have concluded that men and women approach and use SNS in slightly different ways, there is little in existing literature which tells us about how the use of SNS in higher education differs between men and women. This paper discusses research on the use of SNS in higher education by both genders. It details the results of a survey conducted in Malaysia and Australia and highlights how men and women perceive SNS use in higher education based on a framework built on Push Pull and Mooring theory.
The role of banks in Japan : Information-sharing or information-monopolizing ?

In this paper, we examine the issue of whether the Japanese bank system is the information-sharing mechanism with the capital market or the information-monopolizing mechanism. We argue that main banks emphasize the information-sharing role from large shareholders’ viewpoint while other banks stress the information-monopolizing role. Consistent with these conjectures, this study presents evidence that analyst forecast error is low when large shareholder ownership, main bank ownership, and main bank loan are high while analyst forecast error is high when other bank loan is high. In addition, analyst following is negatively associated with other bank loan and large shareholder ownership but positively related to main bank loan and foreign equity ownership. We interpret these results to mean that Japanese main banks are information-sharing mechanism while other banks are information monopolizing. Consequently, security analysts follow firms with high main bank loan and high foreign equity ownership while they shun away from firms with high other bank loan and high ownership of other institutions. Keywords; main bank; information production; analyst following; forecast error The role of banks in Japan: Information-sharing or information-monopolizing?
Fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation and degree centrality in autistic children: a resting-state fMRI study

Autism negatively affects healthy cognitive development in children. As reliable neuroimaging markers, fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) can reflect the intensity of spontaneous brain activity, and degree centrality (DC) can reflect connectivity of whole brain at voxel-level. By combining these two markers we can study the pathological mechanism of autism from more aspects. We investigated fALFF and weighted DC differences using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data in 24 autistic children and 24 neurotypical children. Compared with neurotypical children, autistic children showed increased fALFF in right medial frontal gyrus, right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and bilateral ventral posterior cingulate cortex as well as decreased fALFF in bilateral visual cortex. Compared with neurotypical children, autistic children also showed increased weighted DC in left middle temporal gyrus, left middle frontal gyrus, and bilateral ventral posterior cingulate cortex as well as decreased weighted DC in left posterior cerbellar lobe and left visual cortex. Results in our study suggest that the pathological mechanism of autism is associated with spontaneous activity and connectivity changes in many brain regions, these changes will affect the ability of theory of mind.
Identification and Characterization of Novel Genotoxic Stress-Inducible Nuclear Long Noncoding RNAs in Mammalian Cells

Whole transcriptome analyses have revealed a large number of novel transcripts including long and short noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs). Currently, there is great interest in characterizing the functions of the different classes of ncRNAs and their relevance to cellular processes. In particular, nuclear long ncRNAs may be involved in controlling various aspects of biological regulation, such as stress responses. By a combination of bioinformatic and experimental approaches, we identified 25 novel nuclear long ncRNAs from 6,088,565 full-length human cDNA sequences. Some nuclear long ncRNAs were conserved among vertebrates, whereas others were found only among primates. Expression profiling of the nuclear long ncRNAs in human tissues revealed that most were expressed ubiquitously. A subset of the identified nuclear long ncRNAs was induced by the genotoxic agents mitomycin C or doxorubicin, in HeLa Tet-off cells. There were no commonly altered nuclear long ncRNAs between mitomycin C- and doxorubicin-treated cells. These results suggest that distinct sets of nuclear long ncRNAs play roles in cellular defense mechanisms against specific genotoxic agents, and that particular long ncRNAs have the potential to be surrogate indicators of a specific cell stress.
ASSESSING REGIONAL TRADING ARRANGEMENTS IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC

Using both a gravity model to consider the natural trading bloc hypothesis, and simulation using a CGE model to make welfare estimates, we examine the potential effect of a subset of the new RTA proposal in the APEC region. In broad terms the two approaches appear consistent in their ability to identify RTAs that are beneficial in terms of the welfare of the proposed members. However, comparison of the two alternative approaches does not lead to support for the hypothesis that natural blocs are less likely to be damaging to those economies that remain on the outside of the new proposals.
Stash directory: A scalable directory for many-core coherence

Maintaining coherence in large-scale chip multiprocessors (CMPs) embodies tremendous design trade-offs in meeting the area, energy and performance requirements. Sparse directory organizations represent the most energy-efficient and scalable approach towards many-core coherence. However, their limited associativity disallows the one-to-one correspondence of directory entries to cached blocks, rendering them inadequate in tracking all cached blocks. Unless the directory storage is generously over-provisioned, conflicts will force frequent invalidations of cached blocks, severely jeopardizing the system performance. As the chip area and power become increasingly precious with the growing core count, over-provisioning the directory storage becomes unsustainably costly. Stash Directory is a novel sparse directory design that allows directory entries tracking private blocks to be safely evicted without invalidating the corresponding cached blocks. By doing so, it improves system performance and increases the effective directory capacity, enabling significantly smaller directory designs. To ensure correct coherence under the new relaxed inclusion property, stash directory delegates to the last level cache the responsibility to discover hidden cached blocks when necessary, without however raising significant overhead concerns. Simulations on a 16-core CMP model show that Stash Directory can reduce space requirements to 1/8 of a conventional sparse directory, without compromising performance.
The Role of B-cells and IgM Antibodies in Parasitemia, Anemia, and VSG Switching in Trypanosoma brucei–Infected Mice

African trypanosomes are extracellular parasitic protozoa, predominantly transmitted by the bite of the haematophagic tsetse fly. The main mechanism considered to mediate parasitemia control in a mammalian host is the continuous interaction between antibodies and the parasite surface, covered by variant-specific surface glycoproteins. Early experimental studies have shown that B-cell responses can be strongly protective but are limited by their VSG-specificity. We have used B-cell (µMT) and IgM-deficient (IgM−/−) mice to investigate the role of B-cells and IgM antibodies in parasitemia control and the in vivo induction of trypanosomiasis-associated anemia. These infection studies revealed that that the initial setting of peak levels of parasitemia in Trypanosoma brucei–infected µMT and IgM−/− mice occurred independent of the presence of B-cells. However, B-cells helped to periodically reduce circulating parasites levels and were required for long term survival, while IgM antibodies played only a limited role in this process. Infection-associated anemia, hypothesized to be mediated by B-cell responses, was induced during infection in µMT mice as well as in IgM−/− mice, and as such occurred independently from the infection-induced host antibody response. Antigenic variation, the main immune evasion mechanism of African trypanosomes, occurred independently from host antibody responses against the parasite's ever-changing antigenic glycoprotein coat. Collectively, these results demonstrated that in murine experimental T. brucei trypanosomiasis, B-cells were crucial for periodic peak parasitemia clearance, whereas parasite-induced IgM antibodies played only a limited role in the outcome of the infection.
Social media technologies in the tourism industry: an analysis with special reference to their role in sustainable tourism development

ABSTRACT This paper attempts to examine the evolving dynamic of social media driven sustainable development in the tourism industry and how the modern tourism businesses could grow into what might be called sustainable corporate citizenship behaviour. The full potential of social media technologies is rarely recognized as tourism firms continue to employ social media as just yet another promotional tool. One of the greatest opportunities offered by the social media platforms is that sustainable development no longer needs to be an isolated business objective but could rather become a goal shared equitably among the various groups of stakeholders interested in the future of tourism. The paper discusses tourists’ use of social media and highlights certain common social media applications in promoting ecotourism.
Bond and Stock Returns in a Simple Exchange Model

In this paper I analyze a simple "representative agent" exchange model of general equilibrium, and derive closed form solutions for returns on stocks and real and nominal bonds. The model restricts the representative agent's utility function to be time-separable with isoelastic period utility, and the endowment to be conditionally lognormal. These assumptions allow me to examine a general stationary stochastic process for the log of the endowment. Money and nominal prices are modelled by means of a Clower constraint. Risk premia on stocks and real and nominal discount bonds are simple functions of the coefficient of relative risk aversion, the variance of the innovation to the log endowment, and the weights in the moving average representation of the log endowment. One-period holding premia on real bonds may be positive or negative, but the limit as maturity increases is positive. When the money supply is deterministic, stocks and nominal bonds are perfect substitutes. Their expected returns to maturity are higher than those on real bonds of equal maturity, but need not be higher over other holding periods. Nominal interest rates vary positively with prices (the "Gibson paradox") if the coefficient of relative risk aversion is greater than one. In the last section of the paper I consider random shocks to the agent's utility function. These shocks may generate risk premia even when the agent is risk-neutral.