Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Immunisation with Recombinant PfEMP1 Domains Elicits Functional Rosette-Inhibiting and Phagocytosis-Inducing Antibodies to Plasmodium falciparum

Background Rosetting is a Plasmodium falciparum virulence factor implicated in the pathogenesis of life-threatening malaria. Rosetting occurs when parasite–derived P. falciparum Erythrocyte Membrane Protein One (PfEMP1) on the surface of infected erythrocytes binds to human receptors on uninfected erythrocytes. PfEMP1 is a possible target for a vaccine to induce antibodies to inhibit rosetting and prevent severe malaria. Methodology/Findings We examined the vaccine potential of the six extracellular domains of a rosette-mediating PfEMP1 variant (ITvar9/R29var1 from the R29 parasite strain) by immunizing rabbits with recombinant proteins expressed in E. coli. Antibodies raised to each domain were tested for surface fluorescence with live infected erythrocytes, rosette inhibition and phagocytosis-induction. Antibodies to all PfEMP1 domains recognized the surface of live infected erythrocytes down to low concentrations (0.02–1.56 µg/ml of total IgG). Antibodies to all PfEMP1 domains except for the second Duffy-Binding-Like region inhibited rosetting (50% inhibitory concentration 0.04–4 µg/ml) and were able to opsonize and induce phagocytosis of infected erythrocytes at low concentrations (1.56–6.25 µg/ml). Antibodies to the N-terminal region (NTS-DBL1α) were the most effective in all assays. All antibodies were specific for the R29 parasite strain, and showed no functional activity against five other rosetting strains. Conclusions/Significance These results are encouraging for vaccine development as they show that potent antibodies can be generated to recombinant PfEMP1 domains that will inhibit rosetting and induce phagocytosis of infected erythrocytes. However, further work is needed on rosetting mechanisms and cross-reactivity in field isolates to define a set of PfEMP1 variants that could induce functional antibodies against a broad range of P. falciparum rosetting parasites.
An Assessment of the Contingency Theory of Management Information Systems

Abstract:This paper explores the use of contingency theory in the field of Management Information Systems (MIS). The development of contingency theory in MIS is compared to the development of organization theory. The assumptions of fit, performance as a dependent variable, rational actors, and a deterministic model in both organizational research and MIS research are critiqued. The dominant influence of contingency theory is demonstrated through a review of empirical studies published in JMIS and MIS Quarterly. Of the 177 articles during the period studied, 59 percent were empirical and over 70 percent of these were judged to follow a contingency model. Based on our assessment of this research, we conclude that research in MIS has been hampered by the use of a naive meta-theory, conflicting empirical results with low explained variance, ill-defined concepts of performance and fit, and a narrow perspective of researchers. We give some recommendations for improving the theoretical basis of MIS, including ad.
Explosion of atomic clusters irradiated by high-intensity laser pulses: Scaling of ion energies with cluster and laser parameters

Experimental measurements of scaling with cluster and laser parameters of the energies of ions produced in the explosion of atomic clusters have been obtained, with a view to experimental optimization of the cluster explosion temperature. The noble-gas clusters were irradiated with high-intensity, 200-fs laser pulses. Ion energy scalings with cluster size ~ranging from 10 – 10 atoms per cluster! , laser intensity (10– 10 W cm), and laser wavelength ~780 and 390 nm! are presented for both Xe and Kr clusters. Numerical calculations of the interaction, treating the cluster as a spherical nanoplasma, are also presented.
Hierarchical Spectral Consensus Clustering for Group Analysis of Functional Brain Networks

A central question in cognitive neuroscience is how cognitive functions depend on the integration of specialized widely distributed brain regions. In recent years, graph theoretical methods have been used to characterize the structure of the brain functional connectivity. In order to understand the organization of functional connectivity networks, it is important to determine the community structure underlying these complex networks. Moreover, the study of brain functional networks is confounded by the fact that most neurophysiological studies consists of data collected from multiple subjects; thus, it is important to identify communities representative of all subjects. Typically, this problem is addressed by averaging the data across subjects which omits the variability across subjects or using voting methods, which requires a priori knowledge of cluster labels. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical consensus spectral clustering approach to address these problems. Furthermore, new information-theoretic criteria are introduced for selecting the optimal community structure. The proposed framework is applied to electroencephalogram data collected during a study of error-related negativity to better understand the community structure of functional networks involved in the cognitive control.
Sampling-based selectivity estimation for joins using augmented frequent value statistics

We compare empirically the cost of estimating the selectivity of a star join using the sampling-based t-cross procedure to the cost of computing the join and obtaining the exact answer. The relative cost of sampling can be excessive when a join attribute value exhibits "heterogeneous skew. " To alleviate this problem, we propose Algorithm TCM, a modified version of t-cross that incorporates "augmented frequent value" (AFV) statistics. We provide a sampling-based method for estimating AFV statistics that does not require indexes on attribute values, requires only one pass though each relation, and uses an amount of memory much smaller than the size of a relation. Our experiments show that the use of estimated AFV statistics can reduce the relative cost of sampling by orders of magnitude. We also show that use of estimated AFV statistics can reduce the relative error of the classical System R selectivity formula. <<ETX>>
Quantile Treatment Effects in Difference in Differences Models with Panel Data

This paper considers identification and estimation of the Quantile Treatment Effect on the Treated (QTT) under a straightforward distributional extension of the most commonly invoked Mean Difference in Differences Assumption used for identifying the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT). Identification of the QTT is more complicated than the ATT though because it depends on the unknown dependence (or copula) between the change in untreated potential outcomes and the initial level of untreated potential outcomes for the treated group. To address this issue, we introduce a new Copula Stability Assumption that says that the missing dependence is constant over time. Under this assumption and when panel data is available, the missing dependence can be recovered, and the QTT is identified. We use our method to estimate the effect of increasing the minimum wage on quantiles of local labor markets' unemployment rates and find significant heterogeneity.
Memory consolidation in humans: new evidence and opportunities

What is the topic of this review? This lecture is concerned with autobiographical memory representations, how they evolve and change over time, and the brain regions that support them. What advances does it highlight? The use of high resolution structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging combined with methods such as multi‐voxel pattern analysis are opening up new opportunities to study memory consolidation in vivo in humans.
Ventricular Preexcitation in Children and Young Adults: Atrial Myocarditis as a Possible Trigger of Sudden Death

BackgroundSudden death (SD) in ventricular preexcitation (VP) syndrome is believed to be the result of atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response over the accessory pathway. Previous reports are anecdotal and often lack autopsy validation. Methods and ResultsPrevalence and clinicopathological features of VP were investigated in a series of 273 SDs in children and young adults (aged ≤35 years). Site of accessory atrioventricular (AV) connection was predicted by 12-lead ECG. Right and left AV ring together with the sinoatrial and AV septal junction were studied in serial histological sections. Ten patients (3.6%; male, mean age 24±7 years) had VP: 8 had Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) and 2 had Lown-Ganong-Levine (LGL) syndrome. Six patients had previous symptoms, and SD occurred at rest in all but 1. Pathological substrates of LGL consisted of AV-node hypoplasia and right-sided atrio-Hisian tract, respectively. In the 8 WPW patients, 10 total accessory AV pathways consisting of ordinary myocardium were found (7 left lateral, 2 right posterolateral, and 1 septal). These pathways were close to the endocardium (mean distance, 750±530 &mgr;m) and 310±190 &mgr;m thick. In 4 WPW patients (50%), isolated acute atrial myocarditis was found, which was polymorphous in 1 and lymphocytic in 3. ConclusionsVP accounted for 3.6% of SD in young people and was not preceded by warning symptoms in 40%. A left accessory pathway was the most frequent substrate, and its subendocardial location supports the feasibility of catheter ablation. Isolated atrial myocarditis may act as a trigger of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation that leads to SD.
1H NMR study of cortex neurons and cerebellar granule cells on microcarriers and their PCA extracts: Lactate production under hypoxia

Lactate production of 6‐day‐old cerebral cortex neurons and 7‐day‐old cerebellar granule cells from mouse brain attached to cytodex 3 microcarriers was studied as a function of time, under hypoxic conditions using 1H NMR. Perchloric acid extracts of both cell types were prepared and 1H NMR spectra showed compounds characteristic for these neurons. In particular the granule cell extracts showed a large amount of glutamate as expected from biochemical experiments, whereas the cortex neurons showed a large amount of 4‐ aminobutyric acid. © 1992 Academic Press, Inc.
Using Contextual Information to Decrease the Cost of Incorrect Predictions in On-line Customer Behavior Modeling

The performance of user profiling models depends on both the predictive accuracy and the cost of incorrect predictions. In this paper we study whether including contextual information leads to a decrease in the misclassification cost. Several experimental analyses were done by varying the cost ratio, the market granularity and the granularity of context. The experimental results show that context leads to a decrease in the misclassification cost under particular conditions. These findings have significant implications for companies that have to decide whether to gather contextual information and make it actionable: how deep it should be and which unit of analysis to consider in market research.
Collaboration Engineering: Foundations and Opportunities: Editorial to the Special Issue on the Journal of the Association of Information Systems

Special Issue Collaboration is a critical phenomenon in organizational life. Collaboration is necessary yet many organizations struggle to make it work. The field of IS has devoted much effort to understanding how technologies can improve the productivity of collaborative work. Over the past decade, the field of Collaboration Engineering has emerged as a focal point for research on designing and deploying collaboration processes that are recurring in nature and that are executed by practitioners in organizations rather than collaboration professionals. In Collaboration Engineering, researchers do not study a collaboration technology in isolation. Rather, they study collaborative work practices that can be supported on different technological platforms. In this editorial, we discuss the field of Collaboration Engineering in terms of its foundations, its approach to designing and deploying collaboration processes, and its modeling techniques. We conclude with a Collaboration Engineering research agenda for the coming decade.
Social learning with bounded confidence and probabilistic neighbors

This paper investigates a social learning model, in which each individuals' neighbors are composed by two parts: one consists of those who have similar beliefs; the other consists of those picked up according to certain probabilities. Each individual updates her beliefs by combining the Bayesian posterior beliefs based on her private signals and weighted averages of the beliefs of her neighbors. It is shown that the whole group may be divided into clusters by only communicating with those having similar beliefs, especially when bound of confidence is relatively small. Adding probabilistic neighbors guarantees the whole group achieving consensus effectively, which means communicating beyond the difference of beliefs may improve social learning.
High-Fidelity Aerostructural Design Optimization of a Supersonic Business Jet

This paper focuses on the demonstration of an integrated aerostructural method for the design of aerospace vehicles. Both aerodynamics and structures are represented using high-fidelity models such as the Euler equations for the aerodynamics and a detailed finite element model for the primary structure. The aerodynamic outer-mold line and a structure of fixed topology are parameterized using a large number of design variables. The aerostructural sensitivities of aerodynamic and structural cost functions with respect to both outer-mold line shape and structural variables are computed using an accurate and efficient coupled-adjoint procedure. Kreisselmeier‐ Steinhauser functions are used to reduce the number of structural constraints in the problem. Results of the aerodynamic shape and structural optimization of a natural laminar-flow supersonic business jet are presented together with an assessment of the accuracy of the sensitivity information obtained using the coupled-adjoint procedure.
Development and preliminary evaluation of a pediatric Spanish-English speech perception task.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to develop a task to evaluate children's English and Spanish speech perception abilities in either noise or competing speech maskers. METHOD Eight bilingual Spanish-English and 8 age-matched monolingual English children (ages 4.9-16.4 years) were tested. A forced-choice, picture-pointing paradigm was selected for adaptively estimating masked speech reception thresholds. Speech stimuli were spoken by simultaneous bilingual Spanish-English talkers. The target stimuli were 30 disyllabic English and Spanish words, familiar to 5-year-olds and easily illustrated. Competing stimuli included either 2-talker English or 2-talker Spanish speech (corresponding to target language) and spectrally matched noise. RESULTS For both groups of children, regardless of test language, performance was significantly worse for the 2-talker than for the noise masker condition. No difference in performance was found between bilingual and monolingual children. Bilingual children performed significantly better in English than in Spanish in competing speech. For all listening conditions, performance improved with increasing age. CONCLUSIONS Results indicated that the stimuli and task were appropriate for speech recognition testing in both languages, providing a more conventional measure of speech-in-noise perception as well as a measure of complex listening. Further research is needed to determine performance for Spanish-dominant listeners and to evaluate the feasibility of implementation into routine clinical use.
Determinants of Change in Children’s Sedentary Time

Background Understanding the determinants of sedentary time during childhood contributes to the development of effective intervention programmes. Purpose To examine family and home-environmental determinants of 1-year change in objectively measured sedentary time after-school and at the weekend. Methods Participants wore accelerometers at baseline and 1 year later. Longitudinal data for after-school and weekend analyses were available for 854 (41.5%male, mean±SD age 10.2±0.3years) and 718 (41.8%male, age 10.2±0.3years) participants. Information on 26 candidate determinants, including socioeconomic status (SES), availability of electronic media and parental rules for sedentary behaviours was self-reported by children or their parents at baseline. Change in the proportion of registered time spent sedentary was used as the outcome variable in multi-level linear regression models, adjusted for age, sex, body mass index and baseline sedentary time. Simple and multiple models were run and interactions with sex explored. Results Children from higher socioeconomic status families exhibited greater increases in after-school (beta; 95% CI for change in % time spent sedentary 1.02; 0.37, 1.66) and weekend (1.42; 0.65, 2.18) sedentary time. Smaller increases in after-school sedentary time were observed in children with more siblings (−1.00; −1.69, −0.30), greater availability of electronic media (−0.81; −1.29, −0.33) and, for boys, more frequent family visits to the park (−1.89; −3.28, −0.51) and family participation in sport (−1.28; −2.54, −0.02). Greater maternal weekend screen-time (0.45; 0.08, 0.83) and, in girls, greater parental restriction on playing outside (0.91; 0.08, 1.74) were associated with larger increases in weekend sedentary time. The analytical sample was younger, more likely to be female, had lower BMI and was of higher SES than the original baseline sample. Conclusions Intervention strategies aimed at reducing parents’ weekend screen-time, increasing family participation in sports or recreation (boys) and promoting freedom to play outside (girls) may contribute towards preventing the age-related increase in sedentary time.
Unfolded Protein Response Is Required in nu/nu Mice Microvasculature for Treating Breast Tumor with Tunicamycin*

Up-regulation of the dolichol pathway, a “hallmark” of asparagine-linked protein glycosylation, enhances angiogenesis in vitro. The dynamic relationship between these two processes is now evaluated with tunicamycin. Capillary endothelial cells treated with tunicamycin were growth inhibited and could not be reversed with exogenous VEGF165. Inhibition of angiogenesis is supported by down-regulation of (i) phosphorylated VEGFR1 and VEGFR2 receptors; (ii) VEGF165-specific phosphotyrosine kinase activity; and (iii) MatrigelTM invasion and chemotaxis. In vivo, tunicamycin prevented the vessel development in MatrigelTM implants in athymic Balb/c (nu/nu) mice. Immunohistochemical analysis of CD34 (p < 0.001) and CD144 (p < 0.001) exhibited reduced vascularization. A 3.8-fold increased expression of TSP-1, an endogenous angiogenesis inhibitor in MatrigelTM implants correlated with that in tunicamycin (32 h)-treated capillary endothelial cells. Intravenous injection of tunicamycin (0.5 mg/kg to 1.0 mg/kg) per week slowed down a double negative (MDA-MB-435) grade III breast adenocarcinoma growth by ∼50–60% in 3 weeks. Histopathological analysis of the paraffin sections indicated significant reduction in vessel size, the microvascular density and tumor mitotic index. Ki-67 and VEGF expression in tumor tissue were also reduced. A significant reduction of N-glycan expression in tumor microvessel was also observed. High expression of GRP-78 in CD144-positive cells supported unfolded protein response-mediated ER stress in tumor microvasculature. ∼65% reduction of a triple negative (MDA-MB-231) breast tumor xenograft in 1 week with tunicamycin (0.25 mg/kg) given orally and the absence of systemic and/or organ failure strongly supported tunicamycin's potential for a powerful glycotherapeutic treatment of breast cancer in the clinic.
Simplified Shear Design Method for Concrete Beams Strengthened with Fiber Reinforced Polymer Sheets

This paper presents a simplified shear design method for reinforced concrete beams strengthened externally with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) sheets. This design method combines both the strip method and the shear friction approach. The background of the strip method is presented in detail, including the interface shear strength curve, which is compared with some available bond test data found in the literature. A parametric study is performed to propose two simplified equations, which describe the FRP sheet contribution. This contribution is added to the discrete shear friction formulation and, by derivation, a continuous and simplified design equation is proposed. This method well describes the interaction between the concrete, the stirrups, and the FRP sheets. A variable concrete crack angle is used, which enhances the accuracy of the model. No iteration is required. The proposed design formulation gives conservative predictions with 35 experimental test results found in the literature.
Allozymic evidence of parapatric differentiation of brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) within an Atlantic river basin of the Iberian Peninsula

The genetic variation of brown trout from Duero, one of the main Atlantic Iberian river basins, was assessed at 34 enzymatic loci in 62 native populations. A strong intrabasin differentiation was detected (GST = 0.46; range D: 0–0.066), mainly attributable to the existence of two divergent groups of populations within Duero: southern and northern groups. This divergence was mainly a consequence of the unequal distribution of *75 and *100 alleles at sMDH‐B1,2* isoloci, which were correlated with substantial differences in genetic diversity among regions. The Lower Course region (nearly fixed for the *100 allele) and Pisuerga River (nearly fixed for the *75 allele) showed lower heterozygosities (H ≈ 0.8%) in contrast with adjacent areas, which evidenced intermediate frequencies for both alleles and higher heterozygosities (H: 2.2–3.1%). Vicariance appeared as the more probable explanation for the significant positive correlation detected between genetic and geographical distances in Duero Basin. Genetic relationships with adjacent Iberian drainages indicate a close similarity between the southern group and Cantabric trout, whereas the northern group constitutes an ancient form from this basin. This study confirmed complex genetic relationships in brown trout from northwest Iberia, reasserting the existence of clines at several loci and for genetic diversity. The interaction between Cantabric and Duero trout, as well as the location of the limit of the anadromous form around the 42° N parallel, are both required to understand the genetic characteristics of brown trout from this area.
Candidate Positioning and Voter Choice

This article examines a fundamental aspect of democracy: the relationship between the policy positions of candidates and the choices of voters. Researchers have suggested three criteria—proximity, direction, and discounting—by which voters might judge candidates' policy positions. More than 50 peer-reviewed articles, employing data from more than 20 countries, have attempted to adjudicate among these theories. We explain why existing data and methods are insufficient to estimate the prevalence of these criteria in the electorate. We then formally derive an exhaustive set of critical tests: situations in which the criteria predict different vote choices. Finally, through survey experiments concerning health care policy, we administer the tests to a nationally representative sample. We find that proximity voting is about twice as common as discounting and four times as common as directional voting. Furthermore, discounting is most prevalent among ideological centrists and nonpartisans, who make sophisticated judgments that help align policy with their preferences. These findings demonstrate the promise of combining formal theory and experiments to answer previously intractable questions about democracy.