Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Serum vitellogenin levels and reproductive impairment of male Japanese Medaka (Oryzias latipes) exposed to 4-tert-octylphenol.

The induction of synthesis of the "female" yolk precursor protein vitellogenin (VTG) in male fish by estrogenic chemicals in the environment has been demonstrated in many recent reports. However, little is known about the organismal and biological significance of this phenomenon. To examine the relationship between VTG production in male fish and reproductive impairment, adult male medaka were exposed to 4-tert-octylphenol (OP), a known environmental estrogen, in concentrations ranging from 20 to 230 ppb for 21 days, under flow-through conditions. Following exposure, male fish were mated, in the absence of OP, with unexposed females. Breeding groups composed of exposed males and control females produced about 50% fewer eggs than control groups. VTG levels in serum of male fish increased with increasing OP exposure concentration and decreased after OP exposure was discontinued. Nevertheless, significant correlations (p<0.01) were observed between VTG levels in exposed male fish and 1) OP exposure concentrations, 2) percent of fertilized eggs, and 3) survival of embryos. OP-induced VTG synthesis and reproductive impairment appear to be closely linked phenomena. Histological examination indicated spermatogenesis in OP-exposed fish was inhibited, and some exposed fish had oocytes in their testes. Finally, OP caused a significant increase in the number of abnormally developing embryos, suggesting that OP may be genotoxic as well as estrogenic. ImagesFigure 1Figure 2Figure 3Figure 4Figure 5
The versatile naso-labial flaps in facial reconstruction.

BACKGROUND Surgical excision of tumors from the face may create a defect that is difficult to restore. Skin grafts can only cover superficial defects and has a natural tendency to contract and may not take properly. Also, because of the colour mismatch, it is not cosmetically identical to the face. The use of regional flaps such as the median forehead flaps are usually bulky, can not cover a wide range of facial reconstruction and usually require the donor area to be grafted. The naso-labial flaps are very useful and versatile local flaps, with robust vascularity that can be readily elevated without a delay. The flap can be superiorly based to reconstruct defects on the cheek, side wall or the dorsum of the nose, alae, collumula and the lower eye lid. Inferiorly based flaps can be used to reconstruct defects in the upper lip, anterior floor of the mouth and the lower lip. The flap can be turned over and used as a lining of the nose and the lip. AIM OF THE STUDY In the current study we present our experience with utilization of the nasolabial flaps in facial reconstruction. We evaluated the indications, flap designs, technique, and complications. We will also assess the final functional and aesthetic results. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study included 20 patients (12 males and 8 females) presented at the surgical department, National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cairo University with skin cancer at different areas of the face. Preoperative assessment includes. Assessment of the stage of the disease, the flap design and patient general condition. RESULTS The mean age of the patients was 56.3 +/-6 years (range 16-62 years). Fifteen patients presented with basal cell carcinoma, 2 squamous cell carcinoma, one malignant melanoma, one keratoacanthoma, and one xeroderma pigmentosa. Nasal defects constituted 75% of cases, the rest were lower eye lid (2), one upper lip and one oral commisure beside a case of cheek reconstruction. There was no major complication; only one patient suffered a reactionary hemorrhage that required re-exploration to secure the bleeder. A single procedure was adequate in most of the patients (80%), only 4 patients required revision of the scar at the donor site. The overall aesthetic results were very satisfactory in the majority of patients (16), and satisfactory in 2 cases. Only 2 patients were not satisfied by the final aesthetic results, one suffered from ectropion and the other had a donor site wound healing problem. CONCLUSION The nasolabial flap is a versatile, simple, easy to harvest local flap that can cover a variety of defects in the face. It is ideally suitable for covering small and moderate sized defects in the eye lid, cheek, nose, the anterior floor of the mouth and the lip.
Optimal Aggregation of Uncertain Preferences

A paradigmatic problem in social choice theory deals with the aggregation of subjective preferences of individuals --- represented as rankings of alternatives --- into a social ranking. We are interested in settings where individuals are uncertain about their own preferences, and represent their uncertainty as distributions over rankings. Under the classic objective of minimizing the (expected) sum of Kendall tau distances between the input rankings and the output ranking, we establish that preference elicitation is surprisingly straightforward and near-optimal solutions can be obtained in polynomial time. We show, both in theory and using real data, that ignoring uncertainty altogether can lead to suboptimal outcomes.
DETERMINANTS OF CAREER CHOICE AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

The future determination of an individual depends largely on decision made on career choice. The main objective of this study was to investigate factors influencing University students in selecting their career. The cross-sectional survey design was adopted whereby questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 580 students. The participants were selected from one of the public University in Tanzania using simple random sampling technique. Through the use of linear regression model, findings revealed that peer, family, opportunity and personality significantly contributed much on career selection. It was further observed that peer pressure was more influential factor followed by personality, family and opportunity. The results are considered inputs to university’s management towards the development of career guide and counselling service to students as a means of helping students to make the right choice for their future career. It will then result into sustainable production of competent professionals that meets the needs of the labour market
How much can part-of-speech tagging help parsing?

Folk wisdom holds that incorporating a part-of-speech tagger into a system that performs deep linguistic analysis will improve the speed and accuracy of the system. Previous studies of tagging have tested this belief by incorporating an existing tagger into a parsing system and observing the effect on the speed of the parser and accuracy of the results. However, not much work has been done to determine in a fine-grained manner exactly how much tagging can help to disambiguate or reduce ambiguity in parser output. We take a new approach to this issue by examining the full parse-forest output of a large-scale LFG-based English grammar (Riezler et al. (2002)) running on the XLE grammar development platform (Maxwell and Kaplan (1993); Maxwell and Kaplan (1996)); and partitioning the parse outputs into equivalence classes based on the tag sequences for each parse. If we find a large number of tag-sequence equivalence classes for each sentence, we can conclude that different parses tend to be distinguished by their tags; a small number means that tagging would not help much in reducing ambiguity. In this way, we can determine how much tagging would help us in the best case, if we had the “perfect tagger” to give us the correct tag sequence for each sentence. We show that if a perfect tagger were available, a reduction in ambiguity of about 50% would be available. Somewhat surprisingly, about 30% of the sentences in the corpus that was examined would not be disambiguated, even by the perfect tagger, since all of the parses for these sentences shared the same tag sequence. Our study also helps to inform research on tagging by providing a targeted determination of exactly which tags can help the most in disambiguation.
Quantifying selection and diversity in viruses by entropy methods, with application to the haemagglutinin of H3N2 influenza

Many viruses evolve rapidly. For example, haemagglutinin (HA) of the H3N2 influenza A virus evolves to escape antibody binding. This evolution of the H3N2 virus means that people who have previously been exposed to an influenza strain may be infected by a newly emerged virus. In this paper, we use Shannon entropy and relative entropy to measure the diversity and selection pressure by an antibody in each amino acid site of H3 HA between the 1992–1993 season and the 2009–2010 season. Shannon entropy and relative entropy are two independent state variables that we use to characterize H3N2 evolution. The entropy method estimates future H3N2 evolution and migration using currently available H3 HA sequences. First, we show that the rate of evolution increases with the virus diversity in the current season. The Shannon entropy of the sequence in the current season predicts relative entropy between sequences in the current season and those in the next season. Second, a global migration pattern of H3N2 is assembled by comparing the relative entropy flows of sequences sampled in China, Japan, the USA and Europe. We verify this entropy method by describing two aspects of historical H3N2 evolution. First, we identify 54 amino acid sites in HA that have evolved in the past to evade the immune system. Second, the entropy method shows that epitopes A and B on the top of HA evolve most vigorously to escape antibody binding. Our work provides a novel entropy-based method to predict and quantify future H3N2 evolution and to describe the evolutionary history of H3N2.
Examining the Relationship between Student Teachers' Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Their Intended Uses of Technology for Teaching: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach.

This study examines the relationship between computer self-efficacy and intended uses of technology of student teachers (N=1094) at a teacher training institute in Singapore. Self-efficacy was assessed by three factors: Basic Teaching Skills (BTS), Advanced Teaching Skills (ATS), and Technology for Pedagogy (TP), and intended use of technology was measured by two factors: Traditional Use of Technology (TUT) and Constructivist Use of Technology (CUT). Participants responded to a 7-point Likert-type scale for each factor. Analysis was conducted using the structural equation modelling approach and a good model fit was found for both the measurement and structural models. Results showed that significant relationships exist among BTS, TP, TUT, and CUT. However, ATS did not influence TUT and CUT in a significant way. Overall, the results of this study offer some evidence that student teachers’ self-efficacy is a significant influence on whether they use technology in a traditionalist or constructivist way.
Yoga as Steadiness Training: Effects on Motor Variability in Young Adults

Hart, CEF and Tracy, BL. Yoga as steadiness training: effects on motor variability in young adults. J Strength Cond Res 22(5): 1659-1669, 2008-Exercise training programs can increase strength and improve submaximal force control, but the effects of yoga as an alternative form of steadiness training are not well described. The purpose was to explore the effect of a popular type of yoga (Bikram) on strength, steadiness, and balance. Young adults performed yoga training (n = 10, 29 ± 6 years, 24 yoga sessions in 8 weeks) or served as controls (n = 11, 26 ± 7 years). Yoga sessions consisted of 1.5 hours of supervised, standardized postures. Measures before and after training included maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) force of the elbow flexors (EF) and knee extensors (KE), steadiness of isometric EF and KE contractions, steadiness of concentric (CON) and eccentric (ECC) KE contractions, and timed balance. The standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of variation (CV, SD/mean force) of isometric force and the SD of acceleration during CON and ECC contractions were measured. After yoga training, MVC force increased 14% for KE (479 ± 175 to 544 ± 187 N, p < 0.05) and was unchanged for the EF muscles (219 ± 85 to 230 ± 72 N, p > 0.05). The CV of force was unchanged for EF (1.68 to 1.73%, p > 0.05) but was reduced in the KE muscles similarly for yoga and control groups (2.04 to 1.55%, p < 0.05). The variability of CON and ECC contractions was unchanged. For the yoga group, improvement in KE steadiness was correlated with pretraining steadiness (r = −0.62 to −0.84, p < 0.05); subjects with the greatest KE force fluctuations before training experienced the greatest reductions with training. Percent change in balance time for individual yoga subjects averaged +228% (19.5 ± 14 to 34.3 ± 18 seconds, p < 0.05), with no change in controls. For young adults, a short-term yoga program of this type can improve balance substantially, produce modest improvements in leg strength, and improve leg muscle control for less-steady subjects.
The Schrödinger operator on graphs and topology

Symplectic vector-valued scalar product is constructed on the spaces of solutions of the real discrete Shrodinger equation with fixed value of the spectral parameter on graphs. It takes values in the first homology group of the graph. This scalar product plays fundamental role in the Scattering theory for the graphs with tails. In particular, all unitarity properties of scattering follow from elementary symplectic geometry
The Convective Evolution and Rapid Intensification of Hurricane Earl (2010)

AbstractThe relationship between an inner-core (r < 100 km) lightning outbreak and the subsequent rapid intensification (RI) of Hurricane Earl (2010) is examined using lightning strikes recorded by the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) and in situ observations from various aircraft missions. Moderate (8.4 m s−1) northeasterly deep-layer (850–200 hPa) vertical wind shear, caused by outflow from Hurricane Danielle, existed over Earl at the beginning of a prolonged period of RI. Over 70% of the lightning strikes within a 500-km radius occurred downshear, with a preference toward downshear right in the outer rainbands, in agreement with previous studies.The location of inner-core strikes in Earl differed markedly from previous studies. The inner-core lightning activity precessed from left of shear to upshear, an extremely rare event, beginning just prior to the onset of RI. Diagnosis of the vortex tilt midway through the lightning precession showed this convection was occurring downtilt in the ups.
World Trade Organization Economic Research and Statistics Division Is there Reciprocity in Preferential Trade Agreements on Services ?

Are market access commitments on services in Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) reciprocal or simply unilateral? If reciprocal, do concessions granted in services depend on concessions received from the trading partner in other services or in non-services areas as well? In this paper we investigate the presence of reciprocity in bilateral services agreements, by sub-sector, mode of supply and type of agreement (North-North, South-North, South-South). To do so, we use a database of concessions given and received by 36 WTO Members in 40 services PTAs. Results reveal the presence of reciprocity at the product (sub-sector) level and across economic sectors (i.e., preferences in services trade in exchange for preferences received in goods trade). Reciprocity is stronger in agreements between developed countries. The findings provide insights into motivations for services PTAs, but also the multilateral negotiations. Indeed, the negotiation of services PTAs provides an incentive to withhold services offers in the Doha Round in order to extract more reciprocalconcessions at a bilateral level. The existence of reciprocity on a sectoral basis may also hold lessons on optimal ways to improve the multilateral negotiating process.
IL–1β and IL–18: inflammatory markers or mediators of hypertension?

Chronic inflammation in the kidneys and vascular wall is a major contributor to hypertension. However, the stimuli and cellular mechanisms responsible for such inflammatory responses remain poorly defined. Inflammasomes are crucial initiators of sterile inflammation in other diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and gout. These pattern recognition receptors detect host‐derived danger‐associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), such as microcrystals and reactive oxygen species, and respond by inducing activation of caspase‐1. Caspase‐1 then processes the cytokines pro‐IL‐1β and pro‐IL‐18 into their active forms thus triggering inflammation. While IL‐1β and IL‐18 are known to be elevated in hypertensive patients, no studies have examined whether this occurs downstream of inflammasome activation or whether inhibition of inflammasome and/or IL‐1β/IL‐18 signalling prevents hypertension. In this review, we will discuss some known actions of IL‐1β and IL‐18 on leukocyte and vessel wall function that could potentially underlie a prohypertensive role for these cytokines. We will describe the major classes of inflammasome‐activating DAMPs and present evidence that at least some of these are elevated in the setting of hypertension. Finally, we will provide information on drugs that are currently used to inhibit inflammasome/IL‐1β/IL‐18 signalling and how these might ultimately be used as therapeutic agents for the clinical management of hypertension.
Protein secondary structure prediction based on position-specific scoring matrices.

A two-stage neural network has been used to predict protein secondary structure based on the position specific scoring matrices generated by PSI-BLAST. Despite the simplicity and convenience of the approach used, the results are found to be superior to those produced by other methods, including the popular PHD method according to our own benchmarking results and the results from the recent Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction experiment (CASP3), where the method was evaluated by stringent blind testing. Using a new testing set based on a set of 187 unique folds, and three-way cross-validation based on structural similarity criteria rather than sequence similarity criteria used previously (no similar folds were present in both the testing and training sets) the method presented here (PSIPRED) achieved an average Q3 score of between 76.5% to 78.3% depending on the precise definition of observed secondary structure used, which is the highest published score for any method to date. Given the success of the method in CASP3, it is reasonable to be confident that the evaluation presented here gives a fair indication of the performance of the method in general.
Preferring negative or positive news? A closer examination of journalistic negativity in a health crisis

ABSTRACT Negativity of news coverage is widely documented. We examined whether the news media’s preference for reporting negative events was salient in news coverage of the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in South Korea, which was characterized by intensification or mitigation of viral spread. The daily number of news stories on the outbreak was compared with several viral spread indices to determine if the media responded to negative changes more than positive changes. At the aggregate level, the amount of MERS news coverage was associated with positive changes. When the number of newly confirmed patients decreased, the MERS news increased. However, a separate investigation of breakout and abatement stages showed that the media covered more negative changes during the breakout stage and shifted to more positive occurrences during abatement. These findings are discussed in light of the dynamics of journalistic attention to health crisis.
Education obstacles and family separation for children of migrant workers in Thailand: a case from Chiang Mai

ABSTRACT The measured rate of primary school completion in the East Asia and Pacific region has exceeded 100%, but aggregate statistics inadequately reflect the experience of migrants, who are harder to count than sedentary populations. For Thailand several studies have found enrolment rates among migrant children to be very low, but the sparse evidence amid differences in geography and industrial sector means this pattern may not be universal. The present article reports a study which focuses in more depth on a particular migrant community in order to show relevant dynamics with greater specificity and clarity. It finds a higher enrolment rate than in the previous studies of migrants in Thailand, but also shows how many such children fail to complete their primary education through being placed in classes lower than the normal grade for their age. In this community the benefits accrued from school enrolment were therefore limited compared with the costs, resulting in family separations as some children were left in the home country and some entered employment early. In the 15–17 year age range, girls rather than boys were separated from the parental home.
Are Consumers in Developing Countries Willing to Pay More for Micronutrient‐Dense Biofortified Foods? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Uganda

Vitamin A deficiency is a major health problem in Africa and in many other developing countries. Biofortified staple crops that are high in pro-vitamin A have the potential to reduce the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency. Using a choice experiment with the real product in Uganda, we quantify the magnitude of the premium or discount in consumers' willingness-to-pay (WTP) that may be associated with it. Results suggest that taste plays an important role in consumer acceptance, and the provision of nutrition information does translate into substantial premiums for the biofortified variety. There is a substantial hypothetical bias in the WTP for the new varieties, and while cheap talk mitigates this bias, it does not eliminate it. Copyright 2010, Oxford University Press.
Cyclic nucleotide-gated channels: structural basis of ligand efficacy and allosteric modulation

Most working proteins, including metabolic enzymes, transcription regulators, and membrane receptors, transporters, and ion channels, share the property of allosteric coupling. The term ‘allosteric’ means that these proteins mediate indirect interactions between sites that are physically separated on the protein. In the example of ligand-gated ion channels, the binding of a suitable ligand elicits local conformational changes at the binding site, which are coupled to further conformational changes in regions distant from the binding site. The physical motions finally arrive at the site of biological activity: the ion-permeating pore. The conformational changes that lead from the ligand binding to the actual opening of the pore comprise ‘gating’. In 1956, del Castillo and Katz suggested that the competition between different ligands at nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) could be explained by formation of an intermediate, ligand-bound, yet inactive state of the receptor, which separates the active state of the receptor from the initial binding of the ligand (del Castillo & Katz, 1957). This ‘binding-then-gating’, two-step model went beyond the then-prevailing drug-receptor model that assumes a single bimolecular binding reaction, and paralleled Stephenson's conceptual dichotomy of ‘affinity’ and ‘efficacy’ (Stephenson, 1956). In 1965 Monod, Wyman and Changeux presented a simple allosteric model (the MWC model) (Monod et al. 1965) that explained the cooperative binding of oxygen to haemoglobin; it was adopted as an important paradigm for ligand-gated channels soon after its initial formulation (Changeux et al. 1967; Karlin, 1967; Colquhoun, 1973).