Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Past Conflicts and Social Disruption in Cambodia on the Current Generation of Older Adults

Cambodia experienced civil strife, political violence and widespread killings during the rule of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Many who died were children or spouses of today’s older-aged population. The post Khmer Rouge period was characterized by severe social dislocation and continuing conflict resulting in further losses of children and spouses. There is the possibility that these events eroded the base of core family support for older adults in a country where formal channels of assistance are virtually absent. This paper links two areas within demographic study that having been gaining increased attention in recent years, the consequences of conflict and violence and aging in developing countries, by examining the extent to which current Cambodian elderly experienced deaths to children, spouses, forced migration, and family separation, during the Khmer Rouge period, and the extent to which deaths to children and spouses during the war impact on indicators that are commonly used to measure the welfare of older-adults, specifically, those related to the living arrangements, support and material well-being. Data come from a 2004 representative survey of persons aged 60+ in an area covering over half of Cambodia's population and including Phnom Penh. Results indicate that the influence of the war was widespread. More than one in four surviving older adults in Cambodia report that a child of theirs died due to violent causes during the Khmer Rouge period, and more than one in five report death to multiple children. An interesting, and potentially striking, and on the surface counterintuitive, conclusion is that the impact of deaths to children and spouses are somewhat modest. The reasons for this, elucidated in the conclusion of this paper, include high fertility among the current generation of older adults in Cambodia, the probability that losses during the war depended on family size at the time, and the pervasiveness of poverty in the country today.
Interactions between Genetic Variants in AMH and AMHR2 May Modify Age at Natural Menopause

The onset of menopause has important implications on women’s fertility and health. We previously identified genetic variants in genes involved in initial follicle recruitment as potential modifiers of age at natural menopause. The objective of this study was to extend our previous study, by searching for pairwise interactions between tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (tSNPs) in the 5 genes previously selected (AMH, AMHR2, BMP15, FOXL2, GDF9). We performed a cross-sectional study among 3445 women with a natural menopause participating in the Prospect-EPIC study, a population-based prospective cohort study, initiated between 1993 and 1997. Based on the model-based multifactor dimensionality reduction (MB-MDR) test with a permutation-based maxT correction for multiple testing, we found a statistically significant interaction between rs10407022 in AMH and rs11170547 in AMHR2 (p = 0.019) associated with age at natural menopause. Rs10407022 did not have a statistically significant main effect. However, rs10407022 is an eQTL SNP that has been shown to influence mRNA expression levels in lymphoblastoid cell lines. This study provides additional insights into the genetic background of age at natural menopause and suggests a role of the AMH signaling pathway in the onset of natural menopause. However, these results remain suggestive and replication by independent studies is necessary.
GLOBAL SMOOTH SOLUTIONS TO EULER EQUATIONS FOR A PERFECT GAS

We consider Euler equations for a perfect gas in R, where d ≥ 1. We state that global smooth solutions exist under the hypotheses (H1)-(H3) on the initial data. We choose a small smooth initial density, and a smooth enough initial velocity which forces particles to spread out. We also show a result of global in time uniqueness for these global solutions. Introduction. We consider Euler equations for a perfect gas:  ∂tρ+ div(ρu) = 0, ρ(∂tu+ (u · ∇)u) +∇p = 0, ∂tS + u · ∇S = 0, (1) where t ∈ R+, x ∈ R and u : R × R+ → R stands for the velocity, ρ : R×R+ → R+ for the density, p = (γ−1)ρe for the pressure, with e the internal energy of the gas and S : R×R+ → R+ for the entropy. The adiabatic constant of the gas is denoted by γ > 1 and d ≥ 1 is the dimension of the space. We are interested in the existence of global smooth solutions to the Cauchy problem for (1) with (ρ0, u0, S0) as initial data. There exist few results concerning this problem, especially when d is strictly larger than one. The choice of initial data is decisive for this problem and it depends on whether one wants to prove or to disprove global existence. We aim at finding conditions on (ρ0, u0, S0) as weak as possible which ensure the existence of a global smooth solution. In [4], T. Sideris has shown a result of non global existence: the initial density is close to a constant at infinity—the constant should be different from 0—and some global quantities have to be large. For d = 1, in the isentropic case, we have a 2 × 2 system. In this case, some results can be proved using P. D. Lax’s works [3]. In the same case with less restrictive conditions, J. Y. Chemin [2] has also proved a result of non global existence: the initial velocity has to be smaller than the initial sound speed in each point—this quantity depends mostly on ρ0—. In [1], 1397
Sun-as-a-star observations : evidence for degree dependence of changes in damping of low-ł p modes along the solar cycle

Aims. We use 9.5-yr of BiSON Sun-as-a-star data to search for dependence of solar-cycle parameter changes on the angular degree, l, of the data. The nature of the Sun-as-a-star observations is such that for changes measured at fixed frequency, or for changes averaged across the same range in frequency, any l dependence present carries information on the latitudinal distribution of the agent (i.e., the activity) responsible for those changes. Methods. We split the 9.5-yr timeseries into contiguous 108-d pieces, and determine mean changes in the damping of, power in, and energy supplied to the modes through the solar cycle. We also apply a careful correction to account for the deleterious effects of the ground-based BiSON window function on the results. Results. From our full analysis we obtain a marginally significant result for the damping parameter, where the mean change is found to be weakest at l = 0. The other parameters show hints of some dependence in l. Conclusions. Our main conclusion is that the mean fractional solar-cycle change in the l = 0 damping rates is approximately 50% smaller than was previously assumed. It had been common practice to use an average over all low-l modes; our downward revision of the radial-mode value has implications for comparisons with models of the global solar cycle changes, which are usually based on a spherically symmetric geometry.
Acceleration of AES Encryption with OpenCL

The occurrence of multi-core processors has made parallel techniques popular. OpenCL, enabling access to the computing power of multi-platforms, taking advantage of the parallel feature of computing devices, gradually obtains researchers' favor. However, when using parallel techniques, which computation granularity and memory allocation strategies to choose bother developers the most. To solve this problem, many researchers had implemented experiments on Nvidia GPUs and found out the best solution for using CUDA. When it comes to use OpenCL on AMD GPU, to the best of our knowledge, less solutions have been proposed in the literature. Therefore, we conduct several experiments to demonstrate the relation between computation granularity and memory allocation methods of the input data when using OpenCL on AES encoding. In granularity of 16 bytes/thread, the encryption throughput of our experiment can achieve 5 Gbps. Compared with previous works, the ratio between the price of GPU and performance from our experiment is promising.
DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF UV-SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC METHODS FOR SIMULTANEOUS ESTIMATION OF CETIRIZINE HYDROCHLORIDE AND PHENYLEPHRINE HYDROCHLORIDE IN TABLETS

Without resolving mixtures of Cetirizine hydrochloride and Phenylephrine hydrochloride, simultaneous estimation has been successfully achieved by spectrophotometry. First method, simultaneous equation method employs formation and solving of mathematical simultaneous equation using 237.5 nm and 232.0 nm as the λmax of Phenylephrine hydrochloride and Cetirizine hydrochloride respectively in distilled water. Second method is first order derivative spectroscopy, wavelengths selected for quantitation were 232.0 nm for Phenylephrine hydrochloride (zero cross for Cetirizine hydrochloride) and 242.5 nm for Cetirizine hydrochloride (zero cross for Phenylephrine hydrochloride). These methods were validated as per ICH norms. Calibration curves were linear over the concentration ranges of 12-60 μg/ml for both drugs and for both methods. The validation study is statistically significant as all the statistical parameters are within the acceptance range (% RSD < 2.0 and S.D. < 2.0) for both accuracy and precision. The methods are successfully applied to pharmaceutical formulation, with no interference from excipients as indicated by the recovery study. The proposed methods are simple, rapid, economic and accurate for routine simultaneous estimation of Phenylephrine hydrochloride and Cetirizine hydrochloride. Simultaneous equation method was successfully applied to carry out dissolution study of commercial tablet formulation by using USP II dissolution test apparatus.
On the impact of gap‐filling algorithms on variability patterns of reconstructed oceanic surface fields

The variability and consistency of oceanic surface fields (SST, pressure, air‐sea fluxes) from different sources are studied. The sources are reconstructions using available observations and the NCEP‐NCAR and ECMWF reanalysis. It is shown that the variabilities of different reconstructions differ widely from each other and from those of the reanalyses. Some reconstructed fields are shown to lack internal consistency. It is concluded that variability patterns inferred from gappy data have to be used with great caution. EOF‐based methods are found to yield more reliable results than those based on the method of successive correction.
Urinary Concentration of Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein-1 in Idiopathic Glomerulonephritis: A Long-Term Follow-Up Study

Background Monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), which is up regulated in kidney diseases, is considered a marker of kidney inflammation. We examined the value of urine MCP-1 in predicting the outcome in idiopathic glomerulonephritis. Methods Between 1993 and 2004, 165 patients (68 females) diagnosed with idiopathic proteinuric glomerulopathy and with serum creatinine <150 µmol/L at diagnosis were selected for the study. Urine concentrations of MCP-1 were analyzed by ELISA in early morning spot urine samples collected on the day of the diagnostic kidney biopsy. The patients were followed until 2009. The progression rate to end-stage kidney disease was calculated using Kaplan–Meier survival analysis. End-stage kidney disease (ESKD) was defined as the start of kidney replacement therapy during the study follow-up time. Results Patients with proliferative glomerulonephritis had significantly higher urinary MCP-1 excretion levels than those with non-proliferative glomerulonephritis (p<0.001). The percentage of patients whose kidney function deteriorated significantly was 39.0% in the high MCP-1 excretion group and 29.9% in the low MCP-1 excretion group. However, after adjustment for confounding variables such as glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and proteinuria, there was no significant association between urine MCP-1 concentration and progression to ESKD, (HR = 1.75, 95% CI = 0.64–4.75, p = 0.27). Conclusion Our findings indicate that progression to end-stage kidney disease in patients with idiopathic glomerulopathies is not associated with urine MCP-1 concentrations at the time of diagnosis.
Noise during Rest Enables the Exploration of the Brain's Dynamic Repertoire

Traditionally brain function is studied through measuring physiological responses in controlled sensory, motor, and cognitive paradigms. However, even at rest, in the absence of overt goal-directed behavior, collections of cortical regions consistently show temporally coherent activity. In humans, these resting state networks have been shown to greatly overlap with functional architectures present during consciously directed activity, which motivates the interpretation of rest activity as day dreaming, free association, stream of consciousness, and inner rehearsal. In monkeys, it has been shown though that similar coherent fluctuations are present during deep anesthesia when there is no consciousness. Here, we show that comparable resting state networks emerge from a stability analysis of the network dynamics using biologically realistic primate brain connectivity, although anatomical information alone does not identify the network. We specifically demonstrate that noise and time delays via propagation along connecting fibres are essential for the emergence of the coherent fluctuations of the default network. The spatiotemporal network dynamics evolves on multiple temporal scales and displays the intermittent neuroelectric oscillations in the fast frequency regimes, 1–100 Hz, commonly observed in electroencephalographic and magnetoencephalographic recordings, as well as the hemodynamic oscillations in the ultraslow regimes, <0.1 Hz, observed in functional magnetic resonance imaging. The combination of anatomical structure and time delays creates a space–time structure in which the neural noise enables the brain to explore various functional configurations representing its dynamic repertoire.
Mode of Action of the Bordetella BvgA Protein: Transcriptional Activation and Repression of the Bordetella bronchiseptica bipA Promoter

ABSTRACT The Bordetella BvgAS signal transduction system controls the transition among at least three known phenotypic phases (Bvg+, Bvgi, and Bvg−) and the expression of a number of genes which have distinct phase-specific expression profiles. This complex regulation of gene expression along the Bvg signaling continuum is best exemplified by the gene bipA, which is expressed at a low level in the Bvg+ phase, at a maximal level in the Bvgi phase, and at undetectable levels in the Bvg− phase. The bipA promoter has multiple BvgA binding sites which play distinct regulatory roles. We had previously speculated that the expression profile of bipA is a consequence of the differential occupancy of the various BvgA binding sites as a result of variation in the levels of phosphorylated BvgA (BvgA-P) inside the cell. In this report, we provide in vitro evidence for this model and show that bipA expression is activated at low concentrations of BvgA-P and is repressed at high concentrations. By using independent DNA binding assays, we demonstrate that under activating conditions there is a synergistic effect on the binding of BvgA and RNA polymerase (RNAP), leading to the formation of open complexes at the promoter. We further show that, under in vitro conditions, when bipA transcription is minimal, there is competition between the binding of RNAP and BvgA-P to the bipA promoter. Our results show that the BvgA binding site IR2 plays a central role in mediating this repression.
HE4 Transcription- and Splice Variants-Specific Expression in Endometrial Cancer and Correlation with Patient Survival

We investigated the HE4 variant-specific expression patterns in various normal tissues as well as in normal and malignant endometrial tissues. The relationships between mRNA variants and age, body weight, or survival are analyzed. ICAT-labeled normal and endometrial cancer (EC) tissues were analyzed with multidimensional liquid chromatography followed by tandem mass spectrometry. Levels of HE4 mRNA variants were measured by real-time PCR. Mean mRNA levels were compared among 16 normal endometrial samples, 14 grade 1 and 14 grade 3 endometrioid EC, 15 papillary serous EC, and 14 normal human tissue samples. The relationship between levels of HE4 variants and EC patient characteristics was analyzed with the use of Pearson correlation test. We found that, although all five HE4 mRNA variants are detectable in normal tissue samples, their expression is highly tissue-specific, with epididymis, trachea, breast and endometrium containing the highest levels. HE4-V0, -V1, and -V3 are the most abundant variants in both normal and malignant tissues. All variants are significantly increased in both endometrioid and papillary serous EC, with higher levels observed in grade 3 endometrioid EC. In the EC group, HE4-V1, -V3, and -V4 levels inversely correlate with EC patient survival, whereas HE4-V0 levels positively correlate with age. HE4 variants exhibit tissue-specific expression, suggesting that each variant may exert distinct functions in normal and malignant cells. HE4 levels appear to correlate with EC patient survival in a variant-specific manner. When using HE4 as a biomarker for EC management, the effects of age should be considered.
Essays in Information Economics

My dissertation explores topics in information economics. In the first essay, we study a job market signaling model characterized by imperfect competition among employers. In our model, workers are differentiated in the vertical and the horizontal dimensions which represent respectively productivity and location (or preference over employers). We conclude that if competition is sufficiently strong, there exists a separating equilibrium. In separating equilibrium, we show that the employers’ equilibrium wage offer may be non-monotonic in the degree of competition. In particular, if a market is not sufficiently competitive, then the level of equilibrium wage offer may decrease in the degree of competition. We also show that, when there are enough high productivity workers in a market, a perfectly competitive market is worse than the least competitive market in terms of social welfare. The second essay develops a model of strategic information transmission from an expert with informational superiority to a group of people who make a collective decision by voting on a proposal. An expert who observes the qualities of a proposal in a two-dimensional state space sends a public cheap talk message to the group of decision makers with limited information. We find that a simple cheap talk strategy of the expert can be surprisingly effective in persuading the decision makers by polarizing or unifying their beliefs and decisions. We consider two different models based on the type of the expert, one with a biased expert who always wants a rejection and the
Liveness through the lens of agency and causality

Liveness is a well-known problem with Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs). When used in performances, DMIs provide less visual information than acoustic instruments, preventing the audience from understanding how the musicians influence the music. In this paper, we look at this issue through the lens of causality. More specifically, we investigate the attribution of causality by an external observer to a performer, relying on the theory of apparent mental causation. We suggest that the perceived causality between a performer's gestures and the musical result is central to liveness. We present a framework for assessing attributed causality and agency to a performer, based on a psychological theory which suggests three criteria for inferred causality. These criteria then provide the basis of an experimental study investigating the effect of visual augmentations on audience's inferred causality. The results provide insights on how the visual component of performances with DMIs impacts the audience's causal inferences about the performer. In particular we show that visual augmentations help highlight the influence of the musician when parts of the music are automated, and help clarify complex mappings between gestures and sounds. Finally we discuss the potential wider implications for assessing liveness in the design of new musical interfaces.
Voting in the EU Council – A Scientific Approach

The voting system we propose gives each member state a voting weight proportional to the square root of its population and fixes the quota – the threshold for approving a proposed act – at 62% of the total votes. One might add the requirement, that a majority of the states support the decision. Such an additional voting criterion would give more power to the smaller states (“One state, one vote”), but would cause only a moderate deviation from the principle of equal power of all citizens. It is a political issue whether or not one wants to do so.
Neuraminidase Activity Receptor Recognition Is Dependent on Hemagglutinin-Neuraminidase Protein : Disease Virus Neuraminidase Activities of the Newcastle between the Receptor Recognition and Structural and Functional Relationship

10.1128/JVI.75. 4.1918-1927.2001. 2001, 75(4):1918. DOI: J. Virol. Langedijk M. Mirza, Ruitang Deng, Paul J. Mahon and Johannes P. Ronald M. Iorio, Gisela M. Field, Jennifer M. Sauvron, Anne Neuraminidase Activity Receptor Recognition Is Dependent on Hemagglutinin-Neuraminidase Protein: Disease Virus Neuraminidase Activities of the Newcastle between the Receptor Recognition and Structural and Functional Relationship
Effectiveness of Percutaneous Balloon Mitral Valvuloplasty for Rheumatic Mitral Stenosis with Mild to Severe Mitral Regurgitation

This study is designed to test whether percutaneous balloon mitral valvuloplasty (PBMV) is effective for rheumatic mitral stenosis in Chinese patients with moderate to severe mitral regurgitation. Fifty-six patients with rheumatic mitral valve stenosis were divided into the mild, moderate, and severe regurgitation groups. Cardiac ultrasonography was measured before and 1 to 2 days after PBMV. Following PBMV, the mitral orifice was enlarged, and the left atrial diameter was reduced in the 3 patient groups. The enlargement of the mitral orifice in the mild regurgitation group was greater than that observed in the moderate and severe regurgitation groups. The size of the regurgitation area increased in the mild regurgitation group and decreased in the moderate and severe regurgitation groups, with the decrease in the severe regurgitation group being greater than that in the moderate regurgitation group. Therefore, PBMV is effective for treating rheumatic mitral stenosis in Chinese patients with mild to severe mitral regurgitation.