Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social niche specialization under constraints: personality, social interactions and environmental heterogeneity

Several personality traits are mainly expressed in a social context, and others, which are not restricted to a social context, can be affected by the social interactions with conspecifics. In this paper, we focus on the recently proposed hypothesis that social niche specialization (i.e. individuals in a population occupy different social roles) can explain the maintenance of individual differences in personality. We first present ecological and social niche specialization hypotheses. In particular, we show how niche specialization can be quantified and highlight the link between personality differences and social niche specialization. We then review some ecological factors (e.g. competition and environmental heterogeneity) and the social mechanisms (e.g. frequency-dependent, state-dependent and social awareness) that may be associated with the evolution of social niche specialization and personality differences. Finally, we present a conceptual model and methods to quantify the contribution of ecological factors and social mechanisms to the dynamics between personality and social roles. In doing so, we suggest a series of research objectives to help empirical advances in this research area. Throughout this paper, we highlight empirical studies of social niche specialization in mammals, where available.
Downregulation of Signaling-active IGF-1 by Dipeptidyl Peptidase IV (DPP-IV)

Functioning as an extracellular protease, dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV) preferentially cleaves the peptide bond after the penultimate proline residue. We report here that DPP-IV cleaves the first two amino acids from insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), revealed by mass spectrometry. The kinetic parameters of the proteolytic cleavage indicate that this reaction is physiologically relevant. Interestingly, truncated IGF-1 is less potent than the full-length protein in activating the IGF-1R, but binds more readily to IGF-binding protein 3 (IGFBP3). Quantitative RT–PCR showed that the level of DPP-IV mRNA is dramatically lower in lung squamous cell carcinoma tissues than in adjacent nonneoplastic lung tissues. However, this reduction was not observed in lung adenocarcinoma tissues. Our study suggests a possible link between IGF-1 and DPP-IV in cancer development in a specific tumor niche. A DPP-IV-related pathway may be important in mitigating IGF-1 signaling. Consequently, a robust IGF signaling pathway may accelerate early carcinogenesis in environments lacking DPP-IV.
A polyalanine tract expansion in Arx forms intranuclear inclusions and results in increased cell death

A growing number of human disorders have been associated with expansions of a tract of a single amino acid. Recently, polyalanine (polyA) tract expansions in the Aristaless-related homeobox (ARX) protein have been identified in a subset of patients with infantile spasms and mental retardation. How alanine expansions in ARX, or any other transcription factor, cause disease have not been determined. We generated a series of polyA expansions in Arx and expressed these in cell culture and brain slices. Transfection of these constructs results in nuclear protein aggregation, filamentous nuclear inclusions, and an increase in cell death. These inclusions are ubiquitinated and recruit Hsp70. Coexpressing Hsp70 decreases the percentage of cells with nuclear inclusions. Finally, we show that expressing mutant Arx in mouse brains results in neuronal nuclear inclusion formation. Our data suggest expansions in one of the ARX polyA tracts results in nuclear protein aggregation and an increase in cell death; likely underlying the pathogenesis of the associated infantile spasms and mental retardation.
Constitutive and stimulated MCP-1, GRO alpha, beta, and gamma expression in human airway epithelium and bronchoalveolar macrophages.

Constitutive expression of mRNAs for GRO alpha, GRO beta, GRO gamma, and MCP-1, belonging to the chemokine family of 8- to 10-kDa cytokines with chemotactic properties for granulocytes and monocytes, has been identified in freshly isolated human nasal and bronchial epithelium, and in bronchoalveolar macrophages (AM). Expression of GRO alpha, GRO gamma, and MCP-1, but not GRO beta, was found in airway epithelial cells. AM expressed all three GRO genes in addition to MCP-1. On reverse transcription, chemokine mRNAs yielded 0.5-30 cDNA molecules/cell, depending on the chemokine and cell type, as determined by a semiquantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction technique. When chemokine mRNA expression in AM and bronchial epithelium from healthy nonatopic individuals was compared, AM expressed more GRO alpha, but similar levels of GRO gamma, MCP-1, and interleukin-8 (IL-8), as in the bronchial epithelial cells. Modulation of chemokine expression by tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha; 10 ng/ml) or endotoxin [lipopolysaccharide (LPS), 100 ng/ml] exposure was studied in primary nasal epithelial cell and alveolar macrophage cultures. In epithelial cells, LPS did not induce chemokine expression but GRO alpha, IL-8, and MCP-1 were upregulated approximately 100-fold by TNF alpha; GRO gamma expression was elevated only 1.5- to 4-fold. In AM cultures, all three GROs were strongly induced by LPS with peak mRNA expression 24 h after stimulation (approximately 50- to 100-fold increase compared with control cultures). MCP-1 mRNA expression, on the other hand, was not increased by LPS in AM. GRO protein was present in supernatants of stimulated epithelial cells and AM. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Fertility Response to Financial Incentives: Evidence from the Working Families Tax Credit in the UK

The introduction of the 1999 Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC) in the UK encouraged low income families with children to enter the labor market. The tax credit, however, may have had the unintended side effect of increasing the childbearing of these households. While many studies have looked at the importance of WFTC on the female labor supply, only few have estimated the impact it had on fertility decisions of British families. This paper employs the 1995 to 2003 British Household Panel Survey and identifies the policy impact of WFTC by observing the change in the probability of birth as well as the timing of birth using the difference in differences estimator. The main findings of this paper suggest that single women responded to the policy introduction by reducing the probability of birth and prolonging the birth intervals across all birth parity. For women with partners, on the other hand, the estimates indicate that financial incentives did not encourage them to enter motherhood but it rather induced women to have their second birth quicker.
Haemorrhage associated with meningioma : a case report and review of the literature

both intracerebral and subdural in location. ' The apoplectiform presentation of meningiomas has been noted in cases with and without haemorrhage.3 Ischaemia, haemorrhage, and oedema have been some of the immediate underlying causes. In this case, the history of headache and difficulty with word finding was consistent with the presence of a meningioma. The rapid clinical course, however, suggests that the intracranial haemorrhage was mainly responsible for the presenting symptoms. The mechanisms responsible for bleeding into a benign tumour are unknown. Highly vascular meningiomas may possess abnormal tangles of vessels; as the tumour grows, stretching ofthe vessels leads to weakening of the vascular walls. ' Alternatively, the cerebral oedema and venous obstruction commonly found with meningiomas may cause tumour infarction followed by haemorrhage. ' The anticoagulation of our patient would have increased the chance of bleeding into a tumour. It is notable, however, that there is only one other reported case of a subdural haematoma with a meningioma in the presence of anticoagulation therapy.4 It is a routine policy of the neurological surgery service at this university to submit representative tissue from all evacuated haematomas for pathological analysis. Although the likelihood of finding anything other than blood clot in such a specimen is low, cases such as the subject of this report justify the routine because the results can affect the patient's follow up and management. JEFFW CHEN HOI SANG U Departments of Surgery and Neurosurgery MARJORIE R GRAFE Department of Pathology, University of California, San Diego Medical Center, 225 Dickinson Street, San Diego, California 92103, United States
Rethinking Lock-in and Locking: Adopters Facing Network Effects

When are we locked in a path? This is one of the main questions concerning path dependency. Coming from Arthur's model of increasing returns and technology adoption (Arthur 1989), this paper addresses the question of when and how a lock-in occurs. To gain a better understanding of the path process, different modifications are made. First, the random selection of two types of adopters is substituted with a random selection of adopters having a Gaussian distributed natural inclination. Second, Arthur's model shows only indirect network effects, so direct network effects are added to the model. Furthermore, it is shown that there is an asymptotic lock-in function referring to the technology A and B adopter ratio; this ratio is calculated within the process on the basis of a returning probability to an open state. In the following, the developed model is used to simulate path process without increasing returns, with increasing returns stopping when a lock-in occurs, as well as random drop-outs of increasing returns. One answer that could be drawn out of this new extended model is that there is no lock-in without further stabilizing returns. This and other aspects are used to provide a simplified path-model for empirical research. Finally, its limits are discussed in regard to uncertainty, innovation, and changes in network effect parameters.
Optimizing Classifier Performance via an Approximation to the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney Statistic

When the goal is to achieve the best correct classification rate, cross entropy and mean squared error are typical cost functions used to optimize classifier performance. However, for many real-world classification problems, the ROC curve is a more meaningful performance measure. We demonstrate that minimizing cross entropy or mean squared error does not necessarily maximize the area under the ROC curve (AUC). We then consider alternative objective functions for training a classifier to maximize the AUC directly. We propose an objective function that is an approximation to the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney statistic, which is equivalent to the AUC. The proposed objective function is differentiable, so gradient-based methods can be used to train the classifier. We apply the new objective function to real-world customer behavior prediction problems for a wireless service provider and a cable service provider, and achieve reliable improvements in the ROC curve.
The effect of postmortem time, donor age and sex on the generation of neurospheres from adult human retina

Background/Aim: Postmortem adult human retina contains pluripotent progenitor cells capable of forming neurospheres with different retinal cell types. The authors examine whether this is the case at all ages and at different postmortem times. Methods: Adult human postmortem retina-derived cell suspensions generated neurospheres in fibroblast growth factor 2 and N2 supplement. The yield of neurospheres from limited dilution or single cell cultures is very low so the authors studied cells generated per 105 viable cells from a cell suspension derived from whole retina. Retinal tissue from donors aged 18–91 at various postmortem times (between 23–44 h) was studied in the context of generation rate and time for neurospheres. Results: The potential to generate neurospheres from adult human retina remains throughout life. Neurosphere cellular components were not affected by donor age or postmortem time (they contained nestin+, glial fibrillary acidic protein+ and neurofilament+ cells). An average of 34.36 neurospheres were generated per 105 viable cells. After a few days in culture neurospheres begin to form. The time for this to occur was independent of donor age but prolonged at longer postmortem times. No significant effect of donor sex was found. Conclusion: Neurosphere-forming retinal progenitor cells are found in adult human retina throughout life. This cell population is a potential target for therapeutic intervention to influence repair and regeneration of the retina.
Supercompactness and failures of GCH

Let κ < λ be regular cardinals. We say that an embedding j : V → M with critical point κ is λ-tall if λ < j(κ) and M is closed under κ-sequences in V . Silver showed that GCH can fail at a measurable cardinal κ, starting with κ being κsupercompact. Later, Woodin improved this result, starting from the optimal hypothesis of a κ-tall measurable cardinal κ. Now more generally, suppose that κ ≤ λ are regular and one wishes the GCH to fail at λ with κ being λ-supercompact. Silver’s methods show that this can be done starting with κ being λ-supercompact (note that Silver’s result above is the special case when κ = λ). One can ask if there is an analogue of Woodin’s result for λ-supercompactness. We answer this question in the following strong sense: starting with the GCH and κ being λ-supercompact and λ-tall, we preserve λ-supercompactness of κ and kill the GCH at λ by directly manipulating the size of 2 (i.e. we do not force the failure of GCH at λ as a consequence of having 2 large enough). The direct manipulation of 2, where λ can be a successor cardinal, is the first step toward understanding which Easton functions can be realized as the continuum function on regular cardinals while preserving instances of λ-supercompactness.
Integration of phosphor printing and encapsulant dispensing processes for wafer level LED array packaging

Phosphor converted LEDs (pc-LEDs), which employ blue LEDs with yellow phosphor deposition to generate white light illumination is a widely used solid-state lighting source. This paper presents the integration of two major processes, namely, phosphor screen printing and moldless encapsulant dispensing, for wafer level pc-LED packaging. In the present study, the processing procedures and parameters of phosphor screen printing were developed and investigated in detail. The attributes of the phosphor layer by screen printing such as packing density, thickness, uniformity and adhesive strength, which control the performance of final white light illumination, were characterized. Subsequently a moldless encapsulant dispensing process was applied at the wafer level. Optical performance of the packaged LEDs was evaluated. The prototype of 5×5 white light LED arrays demonstrated that a wafer level LED packaging can be achieved with the integration of the two novel processes.
Extraspinal Malignancies Found Incidentally on Lumbar Spine MRI: Prevalence and Etiologies

The lumbar spine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the commonly used image modality for evaluation of patients with low back pain or sciatica. Some extraspinal malignancies are found incidentally on routine lumbar spine MRI studies which are more important than the spinal findings.Between January 2010 and December 2011, we screened 5104 patients who experienced low back pain or sciatica and underwent routine non-enhanced MRI examinations, and 215 of them also received CT scans within one year. Patients with extraspinal malignancies seen in both CT and MRI were enrolled and analyzed. A total of 26 patients and 28 extraspinal malignancies were enrolled (17 male and 9 female, age range: 33-84 years old, mean age: 55.7 years old). The incidental extraspinal malignancies included 9 paraaortic lymphadenopathies, 7 renal tumors , 5 iliac bony lesions, 4 adrenal tumors, 2 liver tumors, and 1 colon tumor. The prevalence of newly diagnosed extraspinal malignancies was 0.5%. Among the 26 patients with newly diagnostic extraspinal malignancies, 12 (46%) of them did not have coexisting spinal metastases and the most common etiologies were renal cell carcinoma and iliac bony metastases. The possible reason may be due to these lesions induce back pain similar to degenerative spinal disease.Extraspinal structures should be carefully and systemic evaluated on routine lumbar spine MRI, especially if the spinal findings cannot explain the symptoms of the patients.
Nanocrystalline- Matrix Ceramic Composites for Improved Fracture Toughness

This article focuses on nanocrystalline-matrix ceramic composites specifically designed for applications requiring improved fracture toughness. While the models and theory of toughening mechanisms for microcrystalline composites are well developed, the same cannot be said for their nanocrystalline counterparts. The difficulty in producing fully consolidated ceramic composites that retain a nanocrystalline structure is the main hurdle to thorough investigations in this area. Thus, much of the research on so-called nanocomposites has been on materials with microcrystalline matrices and nanometric second phases. In this article, we present the general principles of toughness mechanisms in microcrystalline ceramic composites, and then extend these ideas to consider how they should apply to ceramics with nanocrystalline matrices. While work in this area is still quite limited, we review current research focused on the production and testing of composites with nanocrystalline matrices and second phases, and we recap the results of some promising fracture toughness reports.
Time‐course imaging of rat embryos in utero with magnetic resonance microscopy

Magnetic resonance (MR) microscopy was used to noninvasively investigate the development of live rat embryos in utero. The difficulty in making sequential observations of a developing mammalian embryo has frustrated developmental biologists for many years. Most current technologies analyze normal and abnormal development by observing end point phenotypes (in fixed specimens) rather than investigating the live embryo. MR microscopy was adapted to allow rat litters to be scanned three times each (at 1‐ to 3‐day intervals) and has produced images of live developing embryos. It was demonstrated that repeated anesthesia and imaging protocols produced no gross malformations in the rat pups that were subsequently delivered and observed. Three‐dimensional projection encoding with phase re‐winders produced isotropic (2563) image data sets in about 30 minutes with excellent tissue contrast arising from steady‐state effects in the amniotic fluid.
A general decline in cerebrospinal fluid flow and optic nerve compartmentation: are these sequential steps leading to toxicity in normal‐tension glaucoma?

Department of Psychiatry, PC Sint-Amandus, Beernem, Belgium; Department of Ophthalmology, Antwerp University Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium; Laboratory of Neurochemistry and Behavior, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Institute Born-Bunge, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium; Department of Psychiatry, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium Department of Neurology and Memory Clinic, Middelheim General Hospital (ZNA), Antwerp, Belgium; Department of Neurology and Alzheimer Research Center, University of Groningen and University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
Chain Straightening During Constant-Strain Relaxation in Melt-Crystallized Polyethylene Films

Abstract The low-frequency Raman study of the chain-straightening process during stress relaxation in melt-crystallized polyethylene with molecular weight 105 is presented. The application of tensile stress to low- and mid-drawn films causes the formation of “short” (as compared with crystal cores) straight-chain-segments (SCS). During the subsequent stress relaxation, while keeping the strain constant, the amount of SCS in the λ = 7 sample (λ is the draw ratio) gradually increases, while in the λ = 22 sample, a fraction of “short” SCS diminishes to zero within 3 days. This difference in the behavior of the low- and mid-drawn samples was ascribed to the difference in the contribution of the chain-breaking process. In the ultimately drawn sample (λ = 31), the length of the newly formed SCS is close to the crystal size, and they are situated, mainly, in the axially ordered interfibrillar phase. The formation of taut-tie molecules was not observed.
A Novel Analytical Framework for Dissecting the Genetic Architecture of Behavioral Symptoms in Neuropsychiatric Disorders

Background For diagnosis of neuropsychiatric disorders, a categorical classification system is often utilized as a simple way for conceptualizing an often complex clinical picture. This approach provides an unsatisfactory model of mental illness, since in practice patients do not conform to these prototypical diagnostic categories. Family studies show notable familial co-aggregation between schizophrenia and bipolar illness and between schizoaffective disorders and both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, revealing that mental illness does not conform to such categorical models and is likely to follow a continuum encompassing a spectrum of behavioral symptoms. Results and Methodology We introduce an analytic framework to dissect the phenotypic heterogeneity present in complex psychiatric disorders based on the conceptual paradigm of a continuum of psychosis. The approach identifies subgroups of behavioral symptoms that are likely to be phenotypically and genetically homogenous. We have evaluated this approach through analysis of simulated data with simulated behavioral traits and predisposing genetic factors. We also apply this approach to a psychiatric dataset of a genome scan for schizophrenia for which extensive behavioral information was collected for each individual patient and their families. With this approach, we identified significant evidence for linkage among depressed individuals with two distinct symptom profiles, that is individuals with sleep disturbance symptoms with linkage on chromosome 2q13 and also a mutually exclusive group of individuals with symptoms of concentration problems with linkage on chromosome 2q35. In addition we identified a subset of individuals with schizophrenia defined by language disturbances with linkage to chromosome 2p25.1 and a group of patients with a phenotype intermediate between those of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder with linkage to chromosome 2p21. Conclusions The findings presented are novel and demonstrate the efficacy of this approach in detection of genes underlying such complex human disorders as schizophrenia and depression.