Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changes in the demersal fish assemblages of British coastal waters during the 20th century

Catches of demersal fish from research vessel surveys in three areas around the British Isles from 1901 to 1907 were compared with survey catches in the same areas from 1989 to 1997. Mesh size and other characteristics of the trawls used suggested that some of these data were comparable, and could be used to describe changes in demersal fish assemblages over the last 80 years. In Start Bay (NW English Channel) and the Irish Sea, species diversity was the same in both periods, although the most abundant species in each period were not the same. In English coastal regions of the southern North Sea, fish populations became more diverse, as plaice Pleuronectes platessa and whiting Merlangius merlangus became less abundant, and the relative abundance of several non-target species such as dragonet Callionymus spp. , bib Trisopterus luscus, and bull-rout Myoxocephalus scorpius increased. The proportion in the catch of small fish species (maximum body length 30 cm) in catches decreased in all regions during the time period, except in the Irish Sea where plaice replaced grey gurnard Eutrigla gurnardus as a dominant species. There was a decline in abundance of large sharks, skates and rays, including the common skate, Raja batis, white skate R. alba and the angel shark Squatina squatina. During historic surveys, 60% of the elasmobranch fauna consisted of thornback ray Raja clavata, whereas in contemporary surveys the lesser spotted dogfish Scyliorhinus canicula was the most abundant elasmobranch. Changes in length-frequency distribution of fish in both target and non-target categories, and other observed changes, were thought to be a response to commercial exploitation, and corresponded to similar observations recorded elsewhere. (C) 2000 British Crown Copyright.
Traditional Economic Analysis Assumptions of Rationality and Equilibrium in Strategy Research : The Limits of

We argue that two core assumptions of economic analysis – managers and employees make optimal decisions and markets operate in equilibrium – have undesirable implications in strategic management research.To show how these assumptions lead to dubious implications, we analyze two exemplars of the rigorous application of these assumptions in strategic management research: Barney’s (1986a) ‘Types of competition and the theory of strategy: toward an integrative framework’ and Mosakowski’s (1998) ‘Managerial prescriptions under the resource-based view of strategy: the example of motivational techniques’. We also introduce the basics of a behavioral theory of the firm, which we claim is preferable to traditional economic analysis and its severely limiting assumptions. Finally, we argue that most research in strategic management takes an implicitly behavioral view and would benefit from making that view explicit.
Circulating stem cell vary with NYHA stage in heart failure patients

We have investigated the blood levels of sub‐classes of stem cells (SCs) [mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), endothelial progenitor cells/circulating endothelial cells (EPCs/CECs) and tissue‐committed stem cells (TCSCs)] in heart failure (HF) patients at different stage of pathology and correlated it with plasmatic levels of proangiogenic cytokines. Peripheral blood level of SCs were analysed in 97 HF patients (24 in NYHA class I, 41 in class II, 17 in class III and 15 in class IV) and in 23 healthy controls. Plasmatic levels of PDGF‐BB, bFGF, HGF, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), SDF‐1α, TNF‐α and NTproBNP were also measured. Compared with healthy individuals, MSC, and in particular the sub‐classes CD45−CD34−CD90+, CD45−CD34−CD105+ and CD45−CD34−CXCR4+ were significantly enhanced in NYHA class IV patients (16.8‐, 6.4‐ and 2.7‐fold, respectively). Level of CD45−CD34−CD90+CXCR4+cells progressively increased from class II to class IV (fold increases compared with controls: 8.5, 12 and 21.5, respectively). A significant involvement of CXCR4+ subpopulation of HSC (CD45+CD34+CD90+CXCR4+, 1.4 versus 13.3 cells/μl in controls and NYHA class III patients, respectively) and TCSC (CD45−CD34+CXCR4+, 1.5 cells/ μl in controls versus 12.4 and 28.6 cells/μl in NYHA classes II and IV, respectively) were also observed. All tested cytokines were enhanced in HF patients. In particular, for PDGF‐BB and SDF‐1α we studied specific ligand/receptors pairs. Interestingly, the first one positively correlated with TCSCs expressing PDGFR (r = 0.52, P = 0.001), whereas the second one correlated with TCSCs (r = 0.34, P = 0.005) and with MSCs CD90+ expressing CXCR4 (r = 0.39, P = 0.001). HF is characterized by the increase in the circulating levels of different MSC, HSC, EPC and TCSC subsets. Both the entity and kinetic of this process varied in distinct cell subsets. Specifically, differently from HSCs and EPCs/CECs, MSCs and TCSCs significantly increased with the progression of the disease, suggesting a possible distinct role of these cells in the pathophysiology of HF.
Internal structure of intense collisional bedload transport

Intense bed load refers to a regime which is responsible of most of sediment transport in torrents and rivers during floods. Even if restricted to uniform steady conditions and well sorted particles, the liquid and solid phases interact in a rather complex way over the plane mobile bed. We focus on flow conditions where the sediment grains in the flow are supported by mutual contacts, primarily collisions, and not by the fluid turbulence. Nonetheless, the turbulent liquid stresses are important everywhere, but the top of the bed, and may not be neglected. Being particles and fluid reciprocally affecting at various scale, mechanical interpretations are challenging and not consolidated, yet. In this picture, it is clear that experimental evidences provide a fundamental, still lacking, piece of information.
Hyperspectral BSS Using GMCA With Spatio-Spectral Sparsity Constraints

Generalized morphological component analysis (GMCA) is a recent algorithm for multichannel data analysis which was used successfully in a variety of applications including multichannel sparse decomposition, blind source separation (BSS), color image restoration and inpainting. Building on GMCA, the purpose of this contribution is to describe a new algorithm for BSS applications in hyperspectral data processing. It assumes the collected data is a mixture of components exhibiting sparse spectral signatures as well as sparse spatial morphologies, each in specified dictionaries of spectral and spatial waveforms. We report on numerical experiments with synthetic data and application to real observations which demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.
Synaptic Transfer from Outer Hair Cells to Type II Afferent Fibers in the Rat Cochlea

Type II cochlear afferents receive glutamatergic synaptic excitation from outer hair cells (OHCs) in the rat cochlea. However, it remains uncertain whether this connection is capable of providing auditory information to the brain. The functional efficacy of this connection depends in part on the number of presynaptic OHCs, their probability of transmitter release, and the effective electrical distance for spatial summation in the type II fiber. The present work addresses these questions using whole-cell recordings from the spiral process of type II afferents that run below OHCs in the apical turn of young (5–9 d postnatal) rat cochlea. A “high potassium puffer” was used to elicit calcium action potentials from individual OHCs and thereby show that the average probability of transmitter release was 0.26 (range 0.02–0.73). Electron microscopy showed relatively few vesicles tethered to ribbons in equivalent OHCs. A “receptive field” map for individual type II fibers was constructed by successively puffing onto OHCs along the cochlear spiral, up to 180 μm from the recording pipette. These revealed a conservative estimate of 7 presynaptic OHCs per type II fiber (range 1–11). EPSCs evoked from presynaptic OHCs separated by >100 μm did not differ in amplitude or waveform, implying that the type II fiber's length constant exceeded the length of the synaptic input zone. Together these data suggest that type II fibers could communicate centrally by maximal activation of their entire pool of presynaptic OHCs.
Full field investigation of salt deformation at room temperature: cooperation of crystal plasticity and grain sliding

We observed with optical and scanning electron microscopy halite samples during uniaxial compression. Surface displacement fields were retrieved from digital images taken at different loading stages thanks to digital image correlation (DIC) techniques, on the basis of which we could 1) compute global and local strain fields, 2) identify two co-operational deformation mechanisms. The latter were 1) crystal slip plasticity (CSP), as evidenced by the occurrence of slip lines and computed discrete intracrystalline slip bands at the grain surfaces, 2) interfacial micro-cracking and grain boundary sliding (GBS), as evidenced by the computed relative interfacial displacements. The heterogeneities of the strain fields at the aggregate and at the grain scale, and the local contributions of each mechanism were clearly related to the microstructure, i.e. the relative crystallographic orientations of neighboring grains and the interfacial orientations with respect to the principal stress.
Positivity effects in older adults' perception of facial emotion: the role of future time perspective.

OBJECTIVES We examined age differences in the perception of emotion from facial expressions, testing the impact of future time perspective on positivity effects and emotion complexity. METHODS Perception of emotion was assessed in older (n = 111) and younger (n = 127) adults using facial expressions depicting clearly expressed and ambiguous emotions. A more open-ended judgment paradigm was used, and time perspective was experimentally manipulated. RESULTS Older adults perceived more positive affect in the expressions compared with younger adults. Ambiguity of the expression modulated these age differences, as older adults perceived more positive emotion in ambiguous expressions compared with younger adults. Emotion complexity emerged only in perception of negative expressions, with older adults seeing more mixed affect in the clear expressions than younger adults. Manipulation of future time perspective eliminated age differences in perception of positive affect. DISCUSSION Age differences in the perception of emotional expressions showed positivity effects, especially for ambiguous facial expressions. These effects were related to time perspective rather than to age per se. The understanding of the positivity effect in older adults needs to consider the proposed causal role of limited time perspective rather than assuming positivity effects in all older adults.
Syntactic awareness skills in English among children who speak Slavic or Chinese languages as a first language and English as a second language

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The purpose of this study was to examine syntactic awareness skills in English, among two groups of children: native Chinese speakers and native Slavic (L1) speakers. Both groups were second language English (L2) speakers. Their syntactic awareness skills were compared to a matched sample of L1 English speakers. Design/methodology/approach: Eighty-six third grade students participated in the study, matched between language groups on the basis of age and gender, as well as academic achievements and word reading levels. Data and analysis: L1 English and L1 Slavic groups performed significantly better on the syntactic awareness task than did the L1 Chinese group. A close examination of specific syntactic constructions revealed that the L1 Chinese group did not perform as well as the other groups on past tense constructions, which do not exist in Chinese but do exist in Slavic languages. However, there were no between-group differences on superlative and comparative constructions, which exist in all three languages. Findings/conclusions: The results contribute to our knowledge about cross-linguistic influences between English, Slavic, and Chinese, showing that L1 Slavic facilitates the learnability of L2 English, while L1 Chinese impedes the learnability of L2 English. Originality: The originality of the study lies in the comparison of children from three different L1 groups, matched with respect to reading level. The examination of languages that are typologically different in their syntax is unique. Significance/implications: The results highlight the importance of taking the specific language backgrounds of L2 learners into consideration. Limitations: The current study did not include an assessment of L1 language proficiency among participants.
Bayesian nonparametric spectrogram modeling based on infinite factorial infinite hidden Markov model

This paper presents a Bayesian nonparametric latent source discovery method for music signal analysis. In audio signal analysis, an important goal is to decompose music signals into individual notes, with applications such as music transcription, source separation or note-level manipulation. Recently, the use of latent variable decompositions, especially nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF), has been a very active area of research. These methods are facing two, mutually dependent, problems: first, instrument sounds often exhibit time-varying spectra, and grasping this time-varying nature is an important factor to characterize the diversity of each instrument; moreover, in many cases we do not know in advance the number of sources and which instruments are played. Conventional decompositions generally fail to cope with these issues as they suffer from the difficulties of automatically determining the number of sources and automatically grouping spectra into single events. We address both these problems by developing a Bayesian nonparametric fusion of NMF and hidden Markov model (HMM). Our model decomposes music spectrograms in an automatically estimated number of components, each of which consisting in an HMM whose number of states is also automatically estimated from the data.
Differential Effects of Single-Dose Escitalopram on Cognitive and Affective Interference during Stroop Task

Background and objective: Our aim was to study the regulatory role of serotonin [(5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)] on two key nodes in the cognitive control networks – the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). We hypothesized that increasing the levels of 5-HT would preferentially modulate the activity in ACC during cognitive control during interference by negative affects compared to cognitive control during interference by a superimposed cognitive task. Methods: We performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation on 11 healthy individuals, comparing the effects of the selective 5-HT reuptake inhibitor escitalopram on brain oxygenation level dependent signals in the ACC and the DLPFC using affective and cognitive counting Stroop paradigms (aStroop and cStroop). Results: Escitalopram significantly decreased the activity in rostral ACC during aStroop compared to cStroop (p < 0.05). In the absence of escitalopram, both aStroop and cStroop significantly activated ACC and DLPFC (Z ≥ 2.3, p < 0.05). Conclusion: We conclude that escitalopram in a region and task specific manner modified the cognitive control networks and preferentially decreased activity induced by affective interference in the ACC.
Cultural avoidance and internal migration in the USA: do the source countries matter?

There has been a heated academic debate in the US migration literature regarding whether contemporaneous flows of immigrants displace domestic migrants. While the results of this question are important, it does not answer whether there are cultural avoidance effects in which domestic migrants avoid states with high stocks of past immigrants. The answer to this question would suggest non-labour market responses to immigrants. In assessing the cultural avoidance issue, we examine whether domestic migration responds to the origin countries of the immigrants. We find that after controlling for contemporaneous flows, net domestic migration is negatively associated with larger immigrant stocks from Latin America and Africa and positively associated with immigrant stocks from Canada and Europe. We find that the human capital composition of immigrants also influences net-domestic migration flows—in which native migration is positively associated to immigrant stocks at the tails of the human capital distribution. This pattern suggests that domestic migrants are attracted to immigrants who are complementary to domestic labour. However, origin country effects continue to influence immigration. The implication is that while labour market factors affect immigration, non-labour market factors appear to play a role.
Characterization and Cell Cycle Regulation of the Major Kaposi’s Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus (Human Herpesvirus 8) Latent Genes and Their Promoter

ABSTRACT Retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein (pRB) inhibition by tumor virus oncoproteins has been attributed to the need for these viruses to promote lytic viral nucleic acid synthesis by unscheduled entry into the S phase of the cell cycle. Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV or HHV8) encodes a functional cyclin (vCYC) which is expressed during latency and can direct phosphorylation of pRB. We mapped the two major latent transcripts encoding vCYC, latent transcript 1 (LT1) and LT2, by cDNA sequencing, 5′ rapid amplification of cDNA ends, and primer extension analyses. Both LT1 and LT2 transcripts are spliced, originate from the same start site, and encode ORF K13 (vFLIP) as well as ORF72 (vCYC). The latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA, ORF73) is encoded by LT1 but spliced from LT2. While differential expression of the two transcripts was not found, the promoter controlling LT1/LT2 transcription is regulated in a cell cycle-dependent manner. Activities of both KSHV LT1/LT2 and huCYC D1 luciferase promoter reporters transfected into NIH 3T3 cells increase 11- and 4-fold, respectively, after release from cell cycle arrest by serum starvation. Further, vCYC and huCYC D2 mRNA levels are low in naturally infected BCBL-1 cells arrested in late G1 with l-mimosine but increase in parallel during a 24-h period after release from cell cycle arrest. Cell cycle regulation of KSHV vCYC expression mimics cellular D cyclin regulation and may maintain infected cell cycling. This is consistent with an alternative hypothesis that tumor viruses have developed specific responses to innate cellular defenses against latent virus infection that include pRB-induced cell cycle arrest.
High Frequency of p53/MDM2/p14ARF Pathway Abnormalities in Relapsed Neuroblastoma

Purpose: Most neuroblastomas initially respond to therapy but many relapse with chemoresistant disease. p53 mutations are rare in diagnostic neuroblastomas, but we have previously reported inactivation of the p53/MDM2/p14ARF pathway in 9 of 17 (53%) neuroblastoma cell lines established at relapse. Hypothesis: Inactivation of the p53/MDM2/p14ARF pathway develops during treatment and contributes to neuroblastoma relapse. Methods: Eighty-four neuroblastomas were studied from 41 patients with relapsed neuroblastoma including 38 paired neuroblastomas at different stages of therapy. p53 mutations were detected by automated sequencing, p14ARF methylation and deletion by methylation-specific PCR and duplex PCR, respectively, and MDM2 amplification by fluorescent in situ hybridization. Results: Abnormalities in the p53 pathway were identified in 20 of 41 (49%) cases. Downstream defects due to inactivating missense p53 mutations were identified in 6 of 41 (15%) cases, 5 following chemotherapy and/or at relapse and 1 at diagnosis, postchemotherapy, and relapse. The presence of a p53 mutation was independently prognostic for overall survival (hazard ratio, 3.4; 95% confidence interval, 1.2–9.9; P = 0.02). Upstream defects were present in 35% of cases: MDM2 amplification in 3 cases, all at diagnosis and relapse and p14ARF inactivation in 12 of 41 (29%) cases: 3 had p14ARF methylation, 2 after chemotherapy, and 9 had homozygous deletions, 8 at diagnosis and relapse. Conclusions: These results show that a high proportion of neuroblastomas which relapse have an abnormality in the p53 pathway. The majority have upstream defects suggesting that agents which reactivate wild-type p53 would be beneficial, in contrast to those with downstream defects in which p53-independent therapies are indicated. Clin Cancer Res; 16(4); 1108–18
Human Capital and Institutional Determinants of Information Technology Compensation: Modeling Multilevel and Cross-Level Interactions

Compensation is critical in attracting and retaining information technology (IT) professionals. However, there has been very little research on IT compensation. Juxtaposing theories of compensation that focus on human capital endowments and labor market segmentation, we hypothesize multilevel and cross-level determinants of compensation. We use hierarchical linear modeling to analyze archival salary data for 1,576 IT professionals across 39 institutions. Results indicate that compensation is directly determined by human capital endowments of education and experience. Institutional differentials do not directly drive compensation, but instead moderate the relationship of human capital endowments to compensation. Large institutions pay more than small institutions to IT professionals with more education, while small institutions pay more than large institutions to IT professionals with less education. Not-for-profit institutions pay more than for-profits to IT professionals with more or IT-specific education. Further, information-intensive institutions pay more than non information-intensive institutions to IT professionals with more or IT-specific education. We interpret these results in the context of institutional rigidity, core competencies, and labor shortages in the IT labor market.
The development and description of the comparison group in the Look AHEAD trial

Background Despite more lifestyle intervention trials, there is little published information on the development of the comparison group intervention. This article describes the comparison group intervention, termed Diabetes Support and Education Intervention and its development for the Action for HEAlth in Diabetes (Look AHEAD) trial. Look AHEAD, a randomized, controlled, multicenter trial, was designed to determine whether an Intensive Lifestyle Intervention to reduce weight and increase physical activity reduces cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in overweight volunteers with type 2 diabetes compared to the Diabetes Support and Education Intervention. The Diabetes Support and Education Committee was charged with developing the Diabetes Support and Education Intervention with the primary aim of participant retention. Purpose The objectives were to design the Diabetes Support and Education Intervention sessions, standardize delivery across the 16 clinics, review quality and protocol adherence and advise on staffing and funding. Methods Following a mandatory session on basic diabetes education, three optional sessions were offered on nutrition, physical activity, and support yearly for 4 years. For each session, guidelines, objectives, activities, and a resource list were created. Conclusions Participant evaluations were very positive with hands on experiences being the most valuable. Retention so far at years 1 and 4 has been excellent and only slightly lower in the Diabetes Support and Education Intervention arm. The comparison group plays an important role in the success of a clinical trial. Understanding the effort needed to develop and implement the comparison group intervention will facilitate its implementation in future lifestyle intervention trials, particularly multicenter trials. Retention rates may improve by developing the comparison intervention simultaneously with the lifestyle intervention.