Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical and Prognostic Significances of Cytokeratin 19 and KIT Expression in Surgically Resectable Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors

Background: Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PanNETs) are malignant endocrine neoplasms that present diverse clinical behaviors. Therefore, identification of biomarkers of PanNETs is important for stratification of the prognosis of PanNET patients. Recently, cytokeratin 19 (CK19) and KIT expression were reported to have prognostic significance in PanNET patients. Methods: To identify their prognostic significance, CK19 and KIT protein expression were assessed in 182 surgically resected PanNETs and compared with clinicopathologic factors. Results: Of 182 PanNETs cases, CK19 and KIT expression was noted in 97 (53.3%) and 16 (8.8%) cases, respectively. PanNET patients with CK19 expression had larger tumors (p=.006), higher World Health Organization (WHO) grade (p=.002) and pT classification (p<.001), increased distant metastasis (p=.004), and lymphovascular (p=.012) and perineural (p=.019) invasion. Similarly, those with KIT expression had larger tumors (p=.030), higher WHO grade (p=.001), advanced pT classification (p<.001), distant metastasis (p=.001), and lymphovascular invasion (p=.014). The 5-year survival rate for PanNET patients with KIT expression was significantly lower (62%) than that of patients without KIT expression (77%, p=.011), as determined by univariate but not by multivariate analyses. Conclusions: CK19 and KIT expression correlate with higher metastatic potential and advanced disease stage, and KIT expression is associated with worse survival in PanNET patients.
Cooperatives and Contracting in Agriculture: The Case of West Liberty Foods

The West Liberty Foods turkey cooperative was formed in 1996 to purchase the assets and assume operations of Louis Rich Foods (an investor-owned processing firm), which, at the time, announced the imminent shutdown of its West Liberty, Iowa, processing facility. We study the creation and performance of this "new generation" cooperative using field interviews with grower members and company management. We describe changes, before and after the buyout, in the contractual apparatus used for procuring live turkeys, and in the communication requirements, work expectations, and financial positions of growers. During the private ownership period, most of the inputs (except labor and facilities) were provided by the firm; there was substantial supervision of the growers' actions; growers faced little price and production risk; and growers' equity was due largely to ownership of land and other farm assets. Our interviews reveal that, after cooperative formation, growers were exposed to considerable additional risk; monitoring of growers by the firm was less intensive; grower time and effort commitments to turkey production increased substantially; and a significant fraction of firm (cooperative) equity came from growers' willingness to leverage their farm and personal assets (and hence indirectly their existing relationships with local lenders). We argue that some of these changes are consistent with a financial contract where asset pledging and its corollary risk generate higher work effort by growers and a reduction in agency rents. These economies likely compensate for an organizational deadweight loss traditionally associated with cooperative governance.
Infant leukemia and parental infertility or its treatment: a Children's Oncology Group report.

BACKGROUND Little is known about the potential risk factors for infant leukemia. With its very young age at diagnosis, exposures occurring in the perinatal period are suspected. Parental infertility and infertility treatment have been studied with regard to childhood cancer in general, but rarely in individual cancer subtypes. METHODS A case-control study of infant leukemia was conducted through the Children's Oncology Group, including cases diagnosed from January 1996 to December 2006 and controls selected through random digit dialing and birth certificate tracing. Maternal phone interviews were conducted to obtain information about infertility, infertility treatment and demographic factors. All cases as well as subgroups defined by mixed lineage leukemia (MLL) translocation status and leukemia subtype were examined. Statistical analysis was performed using multivariate logistic regression models. RESULTS No significant associations between infertility or its treatment and combined infant leukemia were found. In subgroup analyses, there was a significant increase in the risk of MLL--leukemia for children born to women not trying to conceive compared with those trying for <1 year for all types combined [odds ratio (OR) = 1.62, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.01-2.59] and for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (OR = 2.50, 95% CI = 1.36-4.61). CONCLUSIONS There were no positive associations between parental infertility or infertility treatment and infant leukemia. While this is the largest study to date, both selection and recall bias may have impacted the results. However, for infant leukemia, we can potentially rule out large increases in risk associated with parental infertility or its treatment.
Complex Velocity Fields in the Shell of T Pyxidis

We present spatially resolved, moderate-resolution spectrophotometry of the recurrent nova T Pyxidis and a portion of the surrounding shell. The spectrum extracted from a strip of width 10″ centered on the star shows well-known, strong emission lines typical of old novae plus a prominent, unfamiliar emission line at 6590 Å. This line, and a weaker companion at 6540 Å, which we also detect, has been previously reported by Shahbaz et al. and attributed to Doppler-shifted Hα emission from a collimated jet emerging from T Pyx. We demonstrate that these lines are instead due to [N II] λλ6548, 6584 from a complex velocity field in the surrounding nebula. The comments of past workers concerning the great strength of He II λ4686 in T Pyx itself are also reiterated.
Why Do Firms Use Incentives that Have No Incentive Effects?

This paper illustrates why firms might choose to implement stock option plans or other pay instruments that reward "luck. " I consider a model where adjusting compensation contracts is costly and where employees' outside opportunities are correlated with their firms' performance. The model may help to explain the use and recent rise of broad-based stock option plans, as well as other financial instruments, even when these pay plans have no effect on employees' on-the-job behavior. The model suggests that agency theory's often-overlooked participation constraint may be an important determinant of some common compensation schemes, particularly for employees below the highest executive ranks. Copyright 2004 by The American Finance Association.
Interactive character animation using dynamic elastic simulation

This dissertation describes a framework for interactively animating characters such as humans and animals based on dynamic elastic simulation. Using dynamic simulation, the secondary motion of the character's soft tissue is computed automatically, and the shape of the character reflects environmental influences not anticipated by the animator. To endow an elastic body with animation-friendly control mechanisms we unify dynamic elastic simulation, skeleton-driven deformation, and shape interpolation. We model a character as an elastic body simulated using the finite element method. For computational efficiency, we embed the object in a coarse subdivision volume. Subdivision provides topological flexibility, smooth deformations, and hierarchical structure for adaptive simulation. Skeletal control is made efficient by aligning the subdivision control lattice with the skeleton. In order to make the computation of elastic dynamics efficient enough for interactive applications, we introduce a new method of linearizing the nonlinear equations of elasticity dependent on the pose of the character. Our framework also provides a mechanism to control the shape of the character physical dynamics, it cannot simply be dictated as in traditional computer animation. Instead, we introduce forces to control the shape. Force-based shape control guides the shape of the character but is combined with other forces acting on the system and integrated into the dynamics. The result is a system that produces interactive animations with automatic secondary flesh dynamics, and at the same time gives the animator a large degree of control over the pose and shape of the character.
Campus Police Cooperation and Legitimacy: Extending the Procedural Justice Model

ABSTRACT This paper extends the procedural justice model to campus policing, examining both the antecedents of legitimacy as well as the relative influence of student legitimacy evaluations on their likelihood of reporting campus crimes to the public safety department. A simple random sample of 31 undergraduate sections (n = 554) responded to a paper survey instrument. Undergraduate respondents indicate general procedural justice ratings are significantly related to their evaluations of campus police (CP) legitimacy. In turn, legitimacy ratings are significantly related to reporting likelihood. However, evaluations of the effectiveness of the CP have a stronger relationship with legitimacy than procedural justice.
Analyzing the Issues in the Implementation of Authentic Assessment in the 2013 Curriculum

The implemention of authentic assessment in the 2013 Ccurriculum has been encountered by various challenges. Teacher have to use numerious instruments, which made them quite which are regarded more complicated. this study focused on the analysis of issues experienced by teachers in implementingng theauthentic assessment within the 2013 curriculum. This study used quantitatif method in which questionnaire was distributed to the teachers. Population included all teachers in Padang whose schools are applying the 2013 curriculum. 120 teacher were randomly taken as the sample. The results show that in terms of the affective aspect, the teachers had not yet been optimal in conducting self- and peer assessment for the students, thus the further improvement is seriously recomended. In light of the the cognitive aspect, the teachers had done a very good assessment. They had made a variety of assessment types, especially in the essay and oral tests. However, the assessment of psychomotor aspect was not also optimally done need some improvement. From these results, it is hoped that the teachers can further enhance the assessment procedures of the three criteria for better learning outcomes. The school principals should be able to create opportunities for the teachers to take training in the Applying authentic assessment.
Maternal Vitamin D Deficiency Delays Glomerular Maturity in F1 and F2 Offspring

Background There is a high prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency in women of reproductive age. Methods This work studied the first two generations of offspring (F1 and F2) of Swiss mice from mothers fed one of two diets: SC (standard chow) or VitD- (vitamin D-deficient). Functional and developmental kidney measurements were taken. Results The first two generations of the VitD- group had higher blood pressure at 6 months of age than the offspring of the SC group as well as an increase in renin and AT1r expression. However, at all ages, both F1 and F2 VitD- mice had shorter glomerular diameters, and diet played a significant role in the total variation. Both the F1 and F2 generations of the VitD- group had more immature glomeruli than offspring from the SC group. Immature glomeruli begin to disappear at 10 days, but at this age, F1-VitD- mice had more immature and mature glomeruli than F1-SC mice. At 6 months of age, F1-VitD- mice exhibited more glomeruli, while F2-VitD- mice exhibited the same number of glomeruli as F2-SC mice, but fewer glomeruli compared to the F1-VitD group. Both diet and generation account for the total variation in the number of glomeruli. Decreases in urine output and podocin expression and increases in urea and creatinine in the urine were observed in F1 offspring. Conclusion These findings demonstrate that maternal vitamin D deficiency accompanies changes in the renal expression of important factors that may retard the maturation of glomeruli by extending the period of nephrogenesis.
Assessing the effectiveness of a large database of emotion-eliciting films: A new tool for emotion researchers

Using emotional film clips is one of the most popular and effective methods of emotion elicitation. The main goal of the present study was to develop and test the effectiveness of a new and comprehensive set of emotional film excerpts. Fifty film experts were asked to remember specific film scenes that elicited fear, anger, sadness, disgust, amusement, tenderness, as well as emotionally neutral scenes. For each emotion, the 10 most frequently mentioned scenes were selected and cut into film clips. Next, 364 participants viewed the film clips in individual laboratory sessions and rated each film on multiple dimensions. Results showed that the film clips were effective with regard to several criteria such as emotional discreteness, arousal, positive and negative affect. Finally, ranking scores were computed for 24 classification criteria: Subjective arousal, positive and negative affect (derived from the PANAS; Watson & Tellegen, 1988), a positive and a negative affect scores derived from the Differential Emotions Scale (DES; Izard et al., 1974), six emotional discreteness scores (for anger, disgust, sadness, fear, amusement and tenderness), and 15 “mixed feelings” scores assessing the effectiveness of each film excerpt to produce blends of specific emotions. In addition, a number of emotionally neutral film clips were also validated. The database and editing instructions to construct the film clips have been made freely available in a website.
Predicting Usage of the Internet for Travel Bookings: An Exploratory Study

The marketing of travel on the Internet is growing rapidly and with this so is travel e-commerce. Unfortunately, the research information to date on people searching for travel information online and booking travel through the Internet has lacked depth and sophistication. Therefore, this study developed and tested predictive models for the likelihood of booking travel online and for being a repeat booker of travel online. Using an interactive survey method, the respondents were asked to provide information on their sociodemographic characteristics, travel-related behaviors, Internet usage patterns, perceptions of the Internet, and last trips booked online. Stepwise logistic regression analysis was then applied to develop the two predictive models. A conceptual model was suggested depicting the process through which people become Internet travel bookers.
Reduction of coding artifacts at low bit rates

Many video and image coding standards such as MPEG, H.261, H.263, and JPEG are based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT). They subdivide images or frames into blocks that are encoded independently. DCT coefficients that are considered to be less important are discarded. The achievable compression ratios are normally limited by visible discontinuities along block boundaries, the so-called blocking artifacts. In this paper, a postprocessing algorithm based on Markov random fields (MRF) is proposed that efficiently removes blocking effects, while retaining the sharpness of the image and without introducing new artifacts. To prevent blurring of dominant edges. The decoded image is segmented into regions which are then enhanced separately. The segmentation is preformed in two steps. A novel texture detector first identifies all texture regions, before the remaining monotone areas are partitioned by an MRF segmentation algorithm. A new edge component has been incorporated to improve the detection of dominant edges. The proposed enhancement stage calculates the MAP estimate of the unknown original image, which is modeled by an MRF. An efficient implementation is presented, and experiments demonstrate that our proposed postprocessor gives very good results both objectively and subjectively.
INFLUENCE OF A LOW-DOSE COX-2 INHIBITOR DRUG ON EXERCISE-INDUCED INFLAMMATION, MUSCLE DAMAGE AND LIPID PEROXIDATION

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of acute low-dose celecoxib administration on exercise-induced inflammation, muscle damage and lipid peroxidation. Twenty healthy untrained males (age: 25.5±4.5 yrs, weight: 72.7±7.9 kg, height: 177.3±7.2 cm) were randomly assigned to treatment (T) or placebo (P) groups. Blood samples were obtained before, immediately after, 3 h after and 24 h after exercise. Subjects ran for 30 min at 75% V.O2 max on a treadmill. Participants consumed 100 mg celecoxib or a placebo immediately after and 12 h after the immediately post-exercise blood sample. Total leukocytes, neutrophils, creatine kinase (CK), C-reactive protein (CRP) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were assessed at each time point. Significant increases in total leukocytes and neutrophils were observed 3 h after exercise in both groups (P < 0.05). CK and CRP levels were significantly increased immediately, 3 h and 24 h after exercise in both groups (P < 0.05). A significant increase in MDA was observed immediately after exercise in both groups (P < 0.05); however, no significant group differences were observed for MDA or CK. These findings suggest that inhibition of cyclo-oxygenase activity with low-dose celecoxib does not affect exercise-induced inflammation, muscle damage, or lipid peroxidation.
Semi-supervised Convolutional Networks for Translation Adaptation with Tiny Amount of In-domain Data

In this paper, we propose a method which uses semi-supervised convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to select in-domain training data for statistical machine translation. This approach is particularly effective when only tiny amounts of in-domain data are available. The in-domain data and randomly sampled general-domain data are used to train a data selection model with semi-supervised CNN, then this model computes domain relevance scores for all the sentences in the generaldomain data set. The sentence pairs with top scores are selected to train the system. We carry out experiments on 4 language directions with three test domains. Compared with strong baseline systems trained with large amount of data, this method can improve the performance up to 3.1 BLEU. Its performances are significant better than three state-of-the-art language model based data selection methods. We also show that the in-domain data used to train the selection model could be as fewas 100sentences, whichmakesfinegrained topic-dependent translation adaptation possible.
State Funding for Human Rights Activism: Channeling Protest?

Channeling theory posits that external funding for social movements, rather than coopting activism, channels activism into more structured and less militants forms. Studies on channeling, however, focus on private funding. The following article examines whether public funding has a comparable effect on social movements. Using the human rights movement in Canada as a case study, it examines several issues relating to channeling: why funders support activism; funding as social control or altruism; how funding is related to consolidating movement gains; and the impact of funding on mobilization, activism, and internal movement dynamics. To address these questions, this article draws on an innovative new data set that includes lists of grants extracted from more than 30 years of government budgets in Canada. It also draws on several years of archival research on a network of 19 organizations in every region of Canada, as well as interviews with former members of these organizations. In addition to demonstrating that public funding has a comparable channeling effect as private funding, this article provides the first comprehensive survey of the extent of state funding for the human rights movement in Canada.
What does ‘active citizenship’ mean for Erasmus students?

Abstract Since ERASMUS (European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) was launched there has been a constant debate about the civic significance of this mobility programme. The purpose of this article is to analyse the understanding of active citizenship by Erasmus students. In order to discover Erasmus students’ perceptions, values, beliefs and attitudes regarding the issue under discussion, original data were collected from 174 students who participated in our survey in March 2014. By applying a statistical analysis, the most and the least important criteria for being considered an active citizen have been extracted from the answers of our respondents. In addition, we studied their attitudes towards and knowledge of the European Union (EU). We found that their understanding of ‘active citizenship’ echoes with the definition of the concept provided in the research literature.
Increased postexercise insulin sensitivity is accompanied by increased AS160 phosphorylation in slow‐twitch soleus muscle

A single bout of exercise can enhance insulin‐stimulated glucose uptake in both fast‐twitch (type II) and slow‐twitch (type I) skeletal muscle for several hours postexercise. Akt substrate of 160 kDa (AS160) is most distal insulin signaling proteins that have been proposed to contribute to the postexercise enhancement of insulin action in fast‐twitch muscle. In this study, we examined whether the postexercise increase in insulin action of glucose uptake in slow‐twitch muscle is accompanied by increased phosphorylation of AS160 and its paralog TBC1D1. Male Wistar rats (~1‐month‐old) were exercised on a treadmill for 180 min (9 m/min). Insulin (50 μU/mL)‐stimulated glucose uptake was increased at 2 h after cessation of exercise in soleus muscle composed of predominantly slow‐twitch fibers. This postexercise increase in insulin action of glucose uptake was accompanied by increased phosphorylation of AS160 (detected by phospho‐Thr642 and phospho‐Ser588 antibody). On the other hand, prior exercise did not increase phosphorylation of TBC1D1 (detected by phospho‐Thr590) at 2 h postexercise. These results suggest the possibility that an enhancement in AS160 phosphorylation but not TBC1D1 phosphorylation is involved with increased postexercise insulin action of glucose uptake in slow‐twitch muscle.
meets Optimization Fall 2015 Lecture 1 – Tuesday ,

In the modern era of high-dimensional data, the interface of mathematical statistics and optimization has become an increasing vibrant area of research. The goal of these lectures is to touch on various evolving areas at this interface. Before going into the details proper, let’s consider some high-level ways in which the objectives of optimization can be influenced by underlying statistical objectives: