Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modeling and Analysis of SAGE Libraries

A Serial Analysis of Gene Expression (SAGE) library is a collection of thousands of small DNA “tags”, each of which represents a distinct mRNA transcript. Existing methods have been proposed for analyzing single library data (i.e., one library per group) or one tag at a time. The practice of lumping all libraries together (in a multi-library setting) to form a “mega” library for each group is obviously unsatisfactory, but nonetheless performed frequently due to the lack of alternative methods. Since the tag counts within each library are inter-related as they are drawn from a multinomial distribution, analyzing thousands of tags one at a time is undoubtedly inadequate. Not only does such a practice ignore the dependency, but it also faces with the multiple testing adjustment issue. This article is an attempt to address both of these issues so that all tags from multi-library groups can be analyzed together. Focusing on the problem of identifying genes that are differentially expressed, a Bayesian formulation is established. Under this formulation, the problem of separating the differentially expressed genes from the majority of similarly expressed ones is treated as a model selection problem, and the reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo method is adapted for this purpose. The method is applied to a set of mouse libraries to uncover genes that are associated with the process of aging in the cerebellum. Our Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of the genes selected classifies them into several GO categories, which appear to be functionally relevant to aging.
Towards an account of intuitiveness

Intuitive systems are usable systems. Design guidelines advocate intuitiveness and vendors claim it – but what does it mean for a user interface, interactive system, or device to be intuitive? A review of the use of the term ‘intuitive’ indicates that it has two distinct but overlapping meanings, namely intuitiveness based on familiarity and intuitiveness reflecting our embodiment (and frequently both). While everyday usage indicates that familiarity means either a passing acquaintance or an intimacy with something or someone, it will be concluded that familiarity might best be equated with ‘know-how’, which in turn is based on a deep, often tacit, understanding. The intuitive nature of tangible user interfaces will in turn be attributed to embodiment rather than tangibility per se. Merleau-Ponty writes that it is through our bodies that we ‘prehend’ the world. A number of disciplines now regard action–perception as so closely coupled that they are better considered as a dyad rather than separately. A modified treatment of action–perception coupling is proposed, with familiarity providing an epistemic core, as the basis of intuitiveness.
Redshift-Distance Survey of Early-Type Galaxies. II. The Dn-σ Relation

R-band photometric and velocity dispersion measurements for a sample of 452 elliptical and S0 galaxies in 28 clusters are used to construct a template Dn-σ relation. This template relation is constructed by combining the data from the 28 clusters, under the assumption that galaxies in different clusters have similar properties. The photometric and spectroscopic data used consist of new as well as published measurements, converted to a common system, as presented in an accompanying paper. The resulting direct relation, corrected for incompleteness bias, is log Dn = 1.203 log σ + 1.406; the zero point has been defined by requiring distant clusters to be at rest relative to the cosmic microwave background. This zero point is consistent with the value obtained by using the distance to Virgo as determined by the Cepheid period-luminosity relation. This new Dn-σ relation leads to a peculiar velocity of -72 ± 189 km s-1 for the Coma Cluster. The scatter in the distance relation corresponds to a distance error of about 20%, comparable to the values obtained for the fundamental plane relation. Correlations between the scatter and residuals of the Dn-σ relation with other parameters that characterize the cluster and/or the galaxy stellar population are also analyzed. The direct and inverse relations presented here have been used in recent studies of the peculiar velocity field mapped by the ENEAR all-sky sample.
Speech selection and environmental adaptation for asynchronous speech recognition

In this paper, we propose a robust distant-talking speech recognition system with asynchronous speech recording. This is implemented by combining automatic asynchronous speech (microphone or mobile terminal) selection and environmental adaptation with deep neural network based framework. Although applications using mobile terminals have attracted increasing attention, there are few studies that focus on distant-talking speech recognition with asynchronous mobile terminals. For the system proposed in this paper, by using bottleneck Features (BFs) from a Deep Neural Network (DNN) rather than the conventional Mel-Frequency Cesptral Coefficients (MFCCs), we adopted the state-of-the-art deep neural network acoustic model, environmental adaptation and automatic asynchronous speech selection. The proposed method was evaluated by using a reverberant WSJCAM0 corpus, which was emitted by a loudspeaker and recorded in a meeting room with multiple speakers by far-field multiple mobile terminals. By using the bottleneck features based DNN acoustic model with automatic asynchronous speech selection and environmental adaptation, the average Word Error Rate (WER) was reduced from 55.32% of the baseline system to 19.38%, i.e. the relative error reduction rate was 64.97%.
The Internal Organization of the Firm and the Shape of Average Costs

Do costs of coordination limit the size of firms? Do they lead to rising average costs at high output levels? A simple model of a firm which employs production and administrative labor, and where output is declining in coordination time by the latter, answers this question in two steps. First we derive a cost minimizing hierarchical structure for any given size of production labor. This structure shows similarity to that reported in the literature for both business and military organizations. Then we use the administrative technology that is developed to derive conditions under which average costs do eventually rise even in the presence of increasing returns to production labor. The presumption of a limit to the size of firms is shown to hold under reasonable, though not all, conditions
Women Empowerment and Credit Control: An Empirical Analysis on Credit Recipients of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh

This paper analyzes the relationship between women’s decision-making regarding loan use, and their empowerment. Using a new analytical framework, it reassesses the effect of decision-making on empowerment index. It also presents the hypotheses and tests contrasting situations; decision-making by men, by women and by both together, with regard to the empowerment index. Using primary data from Grameen Bank, the pioneer of microfinance institutions, the authors conclude that women are more empowered when they are involved in decision-making, either solely or jointly with their husbands. On the contrary, when the women are not involved in the decision-making of the loan use, they are less empowered.
Fibroin and Sericin from Bombyx mori Silk Stimulate Cell Migration through Upregulation and Phosphorylation of c-Jun

Wound healing is a biological process directed to the restoration of tissue that has suffered an injury. An important phase of wound healing is the generation of a basal epithelium able to wholly replace the epidermis of the wound. A broad range of products derived from fibroin and sericin from Bombyx mori silk are used to stimulate wound healing. However, so far the molecular mechanism underlying this phenomenon has not been elucidated. The aim of this work was to determine the molecular basis underlying wound healing properties of silk proteins using a cell model. For this purpose, we assayed fibroin and sericin in a wound healing scratch assay using MDA-MB-231 and Mv1Lu cells. Both proteins stimulated cell migration. Furthermore, treatment with sericin and fibroin involved key factors of the wound healing process such as upregulation of c-Jun and c-Jun protein phosphorylation. Moreover, fibroin and sericin stimulated the phosphorylation of ERK 1/2 and JNK 1/2 kinases. All these experiments were done in the presence of specific inhibitors for some of the cell signalling pathways referred above. The obtained results revealed that MEK, JNK and PI3K pathways are involved in fibroin and sericin stimulated cells migration. Inhibition of these three kinases prevented c-Jun upregulation and phosphorylation by fibroin or sericin. Fibroin and sericin were tested in the human keratinocyte cell line, HaCaT, with similar results. Altogether, our results showed that fibroin and sericin initiate cell migration by activating the MEK, JNK and PI3K signalling pathways ending in c-Jun activation.
Does Familiarity Foster Innovation? The Impact of Alliance Partner Repeatedness on Breakthrough Innovations

Does familiarity with alliance partners promote breakthrough innovations? This study draws on the literature of interorganizational routines to examine the impact of repeated R&D collaborations within a firm's alliance portfolio on its breakthrough innovations. Specifically, we contend that the benefits and liabilities of interorganizational routines, arising from alliance partner repeatedness at a firm's alliance portfolio level, lead to an inverted U-shaped relationship between alliance partner repeatedness and breakthrough innovations. Further, we build on the recent theoretical development of interorganizational routines to propose that technological dynamism will make the inverted U-shaped relationship steeper. Analyses of approximately 230 firms in the US biopharmaceutical industry from 1983 to 2002 support our hypotheses. Our findings provide important implications for research on alliance portfolio and management of firm innovation.
Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference

As events highlight deep divisions in attitudes between America and Europe, this is a very timely study of different approaches to the problems of domestic inequality and poverty. Based on careful and systematic analysis of national data, the authors describe just how much the two continents differ in their level of State engagement in the redistribution of income. Discussing various possible economic explanations for the difference, they cover different levels of pre-tax income, openness, and social mobility; they survey politico-historical differences such as the varying physical size of nations, their electoral and legal systems, and the character of their political parties, as well as their experiences of war; and they examine sociological explanations, which include different attitudes to the poor and notions of social responsibility. Most importantly, they address attitudes to race, calculating that attitudes to race explain half the observed difference in levels of public redistribution of income. This important and provocative analysis will captivate academic and serious lay readers in economics and welfare systems.
Efficient multivariate kernels for sequence classification

Kernel-based approaches for sequence classification have been successfully applied to a variety of domains, including the text categorization, image classification, speech analysis, biological sequence analysis, time series and music classification, where they show some of the most accurate results. Typical kernel functions for sequences in these domains (e.g., bag-of-words, mismatch, or subsequence kernels) are restricted to discrete univariate (i.e. one-dimensional) string data, such as sequences of words in the text analysis, codeword sequences in the image analysis, or nucleotide or amino acid sequences in the DNA and protein sequence analysis. However, original sequence data are often of real-valued multivariate nature, i.e. are not univariate and discrete as required by typical k-mer based sequence kernel functions. In this work, we consider the problem of the multivariate sequence classification (e.g., classification of multivariate music sequences, or multidimensional protein sequence representations). To this end, we extend univariate kernel functions typically used in sequence domains and propose efficient multivariate similarity kernel method (MVDFQ-SK) based on (1) a direct feature quantization (DFQ) of each sequence dimension in the original real-valued multivariate sequences and (2) applying novel multivariate discrete kernel measures on these multivariate discrete DFQ sequence representations to more accurately capture similarity relationships among sequences and improve classification performance. Experiments using the proposed MVDFQ-SK kernel method show excellent classification performance on three challenging music classification tasks as well as protein sequence classification with significant 25-40% improvements over univariate kernel methods and existing state-of-the-art sequence classification methods.
Reflux Incidence among Exclusively Breast Milk Fed Infants: Differences of Feeding at Breast versus Pumped Milk

The practice of feeding infants expressed breast milk is increasing in the United States, but the impacts on infant and maternal health are still understudied. This study examines the monthly incidence of regurgitation (gastro-esophageal reflux) in exclusively breast milk fed infants from ages two to six months. Among infants whose mothers participated in the Infant Feeding Practices II Study (IFPS II; 2005–2007), data on reflux and feeding mode were collected by monthly questionnaires. A longitudinal, repeated measures analysis was used, with feeding mode lagged by one month in order to compare reflux incidence among infants fed directly at the breast to infants receiving pumped breast milk. Mothers in both feeding groups had similar characteristics, although a greater proportion feeding at least some pumped milk were primiparous. The number of exclusively breastfed infants decreased steadily between months 2 and 6, although the proportion fed at the breast remained similar over time. An association between feeding mode and reflux incidence was not found; however, the analyses were limited by a small number of reported reflux cases. More studies are needed to further explain the relationship between different feeding modes and infant reflux.
G condition in the F2 region peak electron density: a statistical study

Abstract. We present a study of statistical relationships between the G condition, F1-layer and NmF2 negative disturbance occurrence probabilities and geomagnetic and solar activity indices Kp and F10.7, season, and geomagnetic latitude, busing experimental data acquired by the Ionospheric Digital Database of the National Geophysical Data Center, Boulder, Colorado from 1957 to 1990. It is shown that the dependence of the G condition occurrence probability, y G, on Kp is mainly determined by processes that control the behaviour of the F2 layer with Kp changes. We found that the relationship for log y G versus Kp is very close to the linear one. The G condition occurrence probability decreases from 0.55% to 0.17% as the value of F10.7 increases from low to middle values, reaches its minimum at the middle solar activity level of F10.7 = 144 – 170, increasing from the minimum value of 0.17% to 0.49% when the F10.7 index increases from the middle solar activity level to F10.7 = 248 – 274. Interhemispheric asymmetry is found for the G condition occurrence probability in the ionosphere, with a stronger enhancement seen in the magnetic latitude range close to the northern magnetic pole and a deep minimum of the G condition occurrence probability in the low magnetic latitude range from – 30° to 30°. The measured magnetic latitude variation of the F1-layer occurrence probability is also asymmetrical relative to the geomagnetic equator. Our results provide additional evidence the F1-layer is more likely to be formed in summer than in winter. The Northern Hemisphere peak F1-layer occurrence probability is found to exceed that in the Southern Hemisphere. The G condition occurrence probability has maximum values of 0.91 and 0.75% in summer, and minimum values of 0.01 and 0.05% in winter for the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, respectively. Key words. Ionosphere; ion chemistry and composition; ionosphere-atmosphere interactions; ionospheric disturbances
Is There a Role for Neoadjuvant Targeted Therapy to Downsize Primary Tumors for Organ Sparing Strategies in Renal Cell Carcinoma?

With an increasing number of small renal masses being diagnosed organ-preserving treatment strategies such as nephron-sparing surgery (NSS) or radiofrequency and cryoablation are gaining importance. There is evidence that preserving renal function reduces the risk of death of any cause, cardiovascular events, and hospitalization. Some patients have unfavourable tumor locations or large tumors unsuitable for NSS or ablation which is a clinical problem especially in those with imperative indications to preserve renal function. These patients may benefit from downsizing primary tumors by targeted therapy. This paper provides an overview of the current evidence, safety, controversies, and ongoing trials.
Virasoro Algebra, Dedekind $\eta$-function and Specialized Macdonald's Identities

We motivate and prove a series of identities which form a generalization of the Euler's pentagonal number theorem, and are closely related to specialized Macdonald's identities for powers of the Dedekind $\eta$--function. More precisely, we show that what we call ``denominator formula'' for the Virasoro algebra has ``higher analogue'' for all $c_{s,t}$-minimal models. We obtain one identity per series which is in agreement with features of conformal field theory such as {\em fusion} and {\em modular invariance} that require all the irreducible modules of the series. In particular, in the case of $c_{2,2k+1}$--minimal models we give a new proof of a family of specialized Macdonald's identities associated with twisted affine Lie algebras of type $A^{(2)}_{2k}, k \geq 2$ (i.e., $BC_k$-affine root system) which involve $(2k^2-k)$-th powers of the Dedekind $\eta$-function. Our paper is in many ways a continuation of math.QA/0309201.
Style investing: behavioral explanations of stock market anomalies

Abstract PhD-project The aim of this thesis is to explore the mechanisms of style investing. My project consists of two parts, each with an individual goal: 1. The first objective will be to analyze the implications of the dynamics of value and growth strategies for the US stock market. 2. The second objective will be to find explanations for stock returns by introducing the effects of collective preferences of investors into the dynamics of stock markets. We introduce style popularity as an important influencing factor in the investment process. By analyzing alternative methods with a more sophisticated ranking we want to show better insights in the dynamical process of value stocks. We make a distinction between switching versus fixed-style stocks. Within each style we distinguish between stocks that stay for one period and stocks that stay for two or more periods within a particular style. We analyze how stocks behave when they switch from style and what variables or factors are important to explain the style-switching behaviour. We find that only a small fraction of the value group is responsible for the value premium, namely the switching-style stocks. Theories regarding the value premium like the error-in-expectation hypothesis are tested with this new classification. This leads to new insights and conclusions for the value premium. The sub division of value and growth stocks into switching versus fixed-style stocks is critical note against style investing, because the label of value or growth stocks is limited. To profit from particular investment styles portfolio managers have to choose stocks that migrate from one style to another. The second objective is to develop an alternative perspective on the performance of style investing. Barberis and Shleifer (2003) created a model that is based on a demand-driven process. Stock returns are determined by investors who base their asset choice on a group level instead of an individual level of stocks. The investment process is in terms of investment cycles where the demand of a particular style is based on the past performance of the style. Instead of choosing a passive benchmark and trying to beat this benchmark by over- and underweighting stocks investors nowadays choose a particular style that did well in the past and hope that this will be a guarantee for future performance. We describe the popularity of investment styles as collective preferences of individuals and the changes of such preferences over time. In order to measure popularity, it will be necessary to construct a popularity index for different investment styles. Using different variables that reflect popularity we create a popularity index that reflects whether a style is popular or not. Having constructed a popularity index, it will be possible to check to what extent these portfolios are exposed to style investing or style popularity. In addition, the time series of returns form the different investment styles will be used to show that past performance is a guarantee for the attractiveness of investment styles.
Participation in Post-secondary Education in Canada: Has the Role of Parental Income and Education Changed over the 1990s?

This paper examines the extent to which the relationship between participation in post-secondary education and family background, namely parental income and parental education changed between 1993 and 2001. The results support a long-standing pattern that university participation rates are highest among youths from high-income families and of highly educated parents. There is no evidence to suggest that this relationship between university participation and family background changed over the 1993-2001 period. Although university participation rates generally rise as family incomes increase, there is little difference in participation rates among youths from modest-income (below $75,000) and low-income families. Overall, the correlation between university participation and family income changed very little between 1993 and 2001. Next, when taking account of both parental education and parental income, university participation rates are more strongly associated with parents' level of education than with their income. The paper discusses significant data gaps and concludes that these data gaps do not have important implications on conclusions about the relationship between post-secondary education and family background throughout the 1993-2001 period.
A simulation of parahippocampal and hippocampal structures guiding spatial navigation of a virtual rat in a virtual environment: A functional framework for theta theory

Hasselmo et al. 2 INTRODUCTION Behavioral data indicates a role for parahippocampal regions in memory guided behavior in both spatial navigation tasks (Hagan et al., 1992) and matching tasks (Otto and Eichenbaum, 1992; Tang et al., 1997). Physiological data shows the patterns of activity in parahippocampal regions during performance of these tasks (Young et al., 1997; Suzuki et al., 1997; Frank et al., 2000) and also illustrates the cellular physiological properties which could be important for memory function (Klink and Alonso, 1997; Fransen et al., 2001).