Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bioinformatic and functional analysis of RNA secondary structure elements among different genera of human and animal caliciviruses

The mechanism and role of RNA structure elements in the replication and translation of Caliciviridae remains poorly understood. Several algorithmically independent methods were used to predict secondary structures within the Norovirus, Sapovirus, Vesivirus and Lagovirus genera. All showed profound suppression of synonymous site variability (SSSV) at genomic 5′ ends and the start of the sub-genomic (sg) transcript, consistent with evolutionary constraints from underlying RNA structure. A newly developed thermodynamic scanning method predicted RNA folding mapping precisely to regions of SSSV and at the genomic 3′ end. These regions contained several evolutionarily conserved RNA secondary structures, of variable size and positions. However, all caliciviruses contained 3′ terminal hairpins, and stem–loops in the anti-genomic strand invariably six bases upstream of the sg transcript, indicating putative roles as sg promoters. Using the murine norovirus (MNV) reverse-genetics system, disruption of 5′ end stem–loops produced ∼15- to 20-fold infectivity reductions, while disruption of the RNA structure in the sg promoter region and at the 3′ end entirely destroyed replication ability. Restoration of infectivity by repair mutations in the sg promoter region confirmed a functional role for the RNA secondary structure, not the sequence. This study provides comprehensive bioinformatic resources for future functional studies of MNV and other caliciviruses.
Paid to post: The relationships between sponsorship characteristics and user engagement indicators of beauty-related videos on Dutch YouTube channels. A quantitative content analysis

Online influencer marketing in the form of sponsored content is becoming increasingly prevalent on YouTube. However, there are multiple issues associated with sponsored content, such as inconsistencies among creators when it comes to when and where to provide a disclosure, as well as the visibility of these disclosures. As a result, viewers are oftentimes unaware that they are being exposed to an advertisement, which leads to discussion among academics and media practitioners whether or not this type of marketing strategy can be considered ethical. Despite the efforts of establishing clear guidelines, rules regarding sponsored content are often not abided by due to confusion and/or lack of consequences. While the effects of sponsored content on viewers have been researched extensively, little to no research focuses on how viewers actually experience the use of this advertising strategy on YouTube and subsequently, react upon it. Therefore, in this study the relationships between sponsorship characteristics and nine indicators of user engagement were analyzed, to see if relationships between these concepts exist. The corresponding research question that belonged to this research goal was: ‘What are the relationships between sponsorship characteristics of, and indicators of user engagement around, beauty-related videos on Dutch YouTube channels? ’. The research method that was used was a quantitative content analysis. The data set consisted of 300 Dutch videos, sampled from 15 different YouTube channels, in which beauty products were evaluated. The channels themselves were expert sampled. For each video, multiple sponsorship characteristics were coded (e.g. how the YouTuber got the product, if and how this is disclosed, the YouTuber’s valence regarding the product, and the presence of a giveaway), as well as several indicators of user engagement (such as the amount of likes, dislikes, comments, shares, etc.). The main findings were that all indicators of user engagement (except for amount of subscriptions driven) could be predicted by the sponsorship characteristics in this study. The YouTuber’s valence was the most prevalent predictor, as it predicted six out of nine user engagement variables. A visual representation of the resulting model, which highlights the significant relations between the predictors and indicators of user engagement, was provided as well. The findings of this study have theoretical implications on multiple theories, such as the uses and gratifications framework, the ACE typology, and persuasion knowledge theory. In terms of practical implications, these findings help media practitioners (such as marketeers, advertisers, and YouTube influencers) optimize their marketing and engagement strategies. Based on the results, detailed recommendations for these media practitioners were provided as well.
MU-MIMO in LTE Systems

—This article ﬁrst presents an overview of the different MU-MIMO schemes included / being studied in 3GPP standardization; from LTE to LTE-Advanced. Various receiver architectures are then studied and their performance assessed through link-level simulations. Appealing performance increase offered by interference aware receiver is notably emphasized. Furthermore, system level simulations for LTE Release 8 are provided. Interestingly, it is shown that MU-MIMO only offers marginal performance gains with respect to single-user MIMO. This arises from the limited MU-MIMO features included in Release 8 and calls for improved schemes for the upcoming releases.
Using HIV-attributable mortality to assess the impact of antiretroviral therapy on adult mortality in rural Tanzania

Background The Tanzanian national HIV care and treatment programme has provided free antiretroviral therapy (ART) to HIV-positive persons since 2004. ART has been available to participants of the Kisesa open cohort study since 2005, but data to 2007 showed a slow uptake of ART and a modest impact on mortality. Additional data from the 2010 HIV serological survey provide an opportunity to update the estimated impact of ART in this setting. Methods The Kisesa Health and Demographic Surveillance Site (HDSS) has collected HIV serological data and demographic data, including verbal autopsy (VA) interviews since 1994. Serological data to the end of 2010 were used to make two estimates of HIV-attributable mortality, the first among HIV positives using the difference in mortality between HIV positives and HIV negatives, and the second in the population using the difference between the observed mortality rate in the whole population and the mortality rate among the HIV negatives. Four time periods (1994–1999, 2000–2004, 2005–2007, and 2008–2010) were used and HIV-attributable mortality estimates were analysed in detail for trends over time. A computer algorithm, InterVA-4, was applied to VA data to estimate the HIV-attributable mortality for the population, and this was compared to the estimates from the serological survey data. Results Among HIV-positive adults aged 45–59 years, high mortality rates were observed across all time periods in both males and females. In HIV-positive men, the HIV-attributable mortality was 91.6% (95% confidence interval (CI): 84.6%–95.3%) in 2000–2004 and 86.3% (95% CI: 71.1%–93.3%) in 2008–2010, while among women, the HIV-attributable mortality was 87.8% (95% CI: 71.1%–94.3%) in 2000–2004 and 85.8% (95% CI: 59.6%–94.4%) in 2008–2010. In the whole population, using the serological data, the HIV-attributable mortality among men aged 30–44 years decreased from 57.2% (95% CI: 46.9%–65.3%) in 2000–2004 to 36.5% (95% CI: 18.8%–50.1%) in 2008–2010, while among women the corresponding decrease was from 57.3% (95% CI: 49.7%–63.6%) to 38.7% (95% CI: 27.4%–48.2%). The HIV-attributable mortality in the population using estimates from the InterVA model was lower than that from HIV sero-status data in the period prior to ART, but slightly higher once ART became available. Discussion In the Kisesa HDSS, ART availability corresponds with a decline in adult overall mortality, although not as large as expected. Using InterVA to estimate HIV-attributable mortality showed smaller changes in HIV-related mortality following ART availability than the serological results.
Teachers’ multicultural attitudes and perceptions of school policy and school climate in relation to burnout

ABSTRACT There is a growing number of ethnically and culturally diverse students in Dutch junior vocational high schools. This article examines teachers’ multicultural attitudes, their perceptions of cultural diversity related to school policy and school climate, and the chance of general and diversity-related burnout. The present research also characterises teachers in terms of their multicultural attitudes and perceptions of school policy and climate through cluster analysis. Results are based on questionnaire data of 120 teachers, working at five locations of a multicultural junior vocational high school in a highly urbanised part of the Netherlands. Correlational, regression, and variance analyses indicated that the highest levels of general and diversity-related burnout were found among teachers categorised as assimilationist in attitude and who perceived their school as pluralistic. Teachers could be divided into three types of profiles: (1) relative assimilative attitude, (2) no pronounced assimilative attitude, and (3) moderate assimilative attitude. Teachers with the second profile showed the highest chance for burnout.
Cap dependent translation contributes to resistance of myeloma cells to bortezomib

Multiple myeloma (MM) is the second most predominant blood malignancy. Proteasome inhibitors like bortezomib have increased life expectancy, but eventually patients develop resistance to therapy. It was proposed that bortezomib acts through the induction of the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), i.e., accumulation of misfolded proteins causing a lethal stress response. By this theory, increasing the proteasome load by the stimulation of translation may worsen the UPR. Here we evaluated the crosstalk between translation and bortezomib toxicity in both bortezomib sensitive and resistant cells. We found that bortezomib toxicity does not correlate with induction of proapoptotic eIF2α phosphorylation, but rather caused a late reduction in initiation of translation. This effect was accompanied by dephosphorylation of the mTORC1 target 4E-BP1. Infection of myeloma cells with constitutively dephosphorylated 4E-BP1, worsened bortezomib induced cell death. Since mTORC1 inhibitors cause pharmacological inhibition of 4E-BP1 phosphorylation, we tested whether they could act synergistically with bortezomib. We found that both rapamycin, a specific mTORC1 blocker, and PP242 a mTOR antagonist induce the arrest of myeloma cells irrespective of bortezomib sensitivity. Sensitivity to mTOR inhibitors has been associated to the levels of eIF4E/4E-BPs. We found that levels of eIF4E and 4E-BPs are variable among patients, and that 15% of myeloma patients have increased levels of 4E-BP1/2. Primary cells of myeloma retain sensitivity to mTOR inhibition, when plated on stromal cells. We propose that translational load does not contribute to bortezomib-induced death, but rather mTOR targeting may be successful in bortezomib resistant patients, stratified for eIF4E/4EBPs.
Interest rate and Economic Growth as Determinants of Firm Investment Decision: An Investigation on BIST listed firms

This study aims to investigate the effect of political uncertainty as a determinant of investment decisions on investment decisions of firms. For this purpose, this study involves 147 BIST (Istanbul Stock Exchange) listed firms displaying activity in the industry sector between 2008 and 2013. Panel data analysis with relevant quarterly data was used to analyze the relationship between political uncertainty and investment decisions of firms. Analysis results have revealed a statistically significant relationship between investments of firms and the variable representing 29 March 2009 General Local Elections, 12 June 2011 General Elections and 12 September 2010 New Constitution Referendum as an indicator of political uncertainty. This verifies the argument suggesting an uncertainty due to elections may negatively affect investments of firms through inefficient capital allocation, and this can be said to provide a strong message with regard to important economic effects of political uncertainty.
Gastrointestinal, liver and biliary tract pathology: a histopathological and epidemiological perspective from Pakistan with a review of the literature.

AIM To present an epidemiological and histological perspective of diseases of the gastrointestinal tract (including liver and biliary tract) at the Section of Histopathology, Department of Pathology, AKUH, Karachi, Pakistan. MATERIALS AND METHODS All consecutive endoscopic biopsies and resections between October 1 and December 31, 2012 were included. RESULTS A total of 2,323 cases were included. Carcinoma was overwhelmingly the commonest diagnosis on esophageal biopsies (69.1%); chronic helicobacter gastritis (45.6%) followed by adenocarcinoma (23.5%) were the commonest diagnoses on gastric biopsies; adenocarcinoma (27.3%) followed by ulcerative colitis (13.1%) were the commonest diagnoses on colonic biopsies; acute appendicitis (59.1%) was the commonest diagnosis on appendicectomy specimens; chronic viral hepatitis (44.8%) followed by hepatocellular carcinoma (23.4%) were the commonest diagnoses on liver biopsies; chronic cholecystitis was the commonest diagnosis (over 89%) on cholecystectomy specimens. CONCLUSIONS Squamous cell carcinoma comprised 88.8% of esophageal cancers. About 67% were in the lower third and 56.5% were moderately differentiated; mean ages 49.8 years for females and 55.8 years for males; 66% cases were from South West Pakistan. Over 67% patients with gastric adenocarcinoma were males; mean ages 59 and 44 years in males and females respectively, about 74% gastric carcinomas were poorly differentiated; and 62.2% were located in the antropyloric region. About 63% patients with colorectal adenocarcinoma were males; mean ages 46.1 and 50.5 years for males and females respectively; tumor grade was moderately differentiated in 54%; over 80% were located in the left colon. In 21.2% appendicectomies, no acute inflammation was found. Acute appendicitis was most common in young people. Hepatitis C (66.3%) was more common than hepatitis B (33.7%); about 78% cases of hepatocellular carcinoma occurred in males; females comprised 76.7% patients with chronic cholecystitis; and 77.8% patients with gall bladder carcinoma. All resection specimens showed advanced cancers. Most cancers occurred after the age of 50 years.
The Effect of Apolipoprotein Polymorphism on Brain in Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Voxel-Based Morphometric Study

We investigated the effect of apolipoprotein E (ApoE) on the whole brain in 51 individuals with mild cognitive impairment using voxel-based morphometry. Between cases heterozygous for the ApoE Ε4 (n = 15) and those who were ApoE Ε4 noncarriers (n = 28), only the right parahippocampal gyrus, with the entorhinal cortex included, reached the level of statistical significance. In cases homozygous for the Ε4 allele (n = 8) versus noncarriers, the greatest atrophy was located in the right amygdala followed by the right parahippocampal gyrus, the left amygdala and the left medial dorsal thalamic nucleus.
Policy and Intergenerational Transfers in Equilibrium †

This paper compares partial and general equilibrium effects of alternative financial aid policies intended to promote college participation. We build an overlapping generations life-cycle, heterogeneous-agent, incomplete-markets model with education, labor supply, and consumption/saving decisions. Altruistic parents make inter vivos transfers to their children. Labor supply during college, government grants and loans, as well as private loans, complement parental transfers as sources of funding for college education. We find that the current financial aid system in the U.S. improves welfare, and removing it would reduce GDP by two percentage points in the long-run. Any further relaxation of government-sponsored loan limits would have no salient effects. The short-run partial equilibrium effects of expanding tuition grants (especially their need-based component) are sizeable. However, long-run general equilibrium effects are 3-4 times smaller. Every additional dollar of government grants crowds out 20-30 cents of parental transfers. JEL Classification: E24, I22, J23, J24.
DUPROSY: Dual probabilistic system for biochemical activity prediction

Various methodologies have been proposed for in-silico prediction of biochemical properties: all reporting similar recognition rates but with individual strengths and optimality conditions. In this submission a dynamic strategy is proposed: depending on the input compound, it is decided which model should be used for prediction. In the dual probabilistic system DUPROSY for prediction of biochemical activity, complementary methods are given a probabilistic interpretation and joined via a probabilistic graph. In questionable cases, where there is no unanimous answer by the constituent predictive models, a locally suitable predictive model overtakes the decision process. Testing results prove the DUPROSY to yield more reliable predictions than those by the state of the art individual constituent methods.
Immunobiology of Prion Diseases

Prion diseases are invariably lethal neurodegenerative diseases, associated with the structural conversion of the cellular isoform of the prion protein to its pathological, disease-associated isoform. The cellular isoform of the prion protein is highly conserved and virtually ubiquitously expressed; nevertheless, its physiological role remains unclear. Mounting evidence suggests its involvement in the regulation and function of the immune system. At the same time, the immune system is heavily involved in the pathogenesis of the diseases, playing a major role in the peripheral replication of the infectious agent and spread toward the central nervous system. On the other hand, immunotherapies are among the most promising means of intervention. This chapter deals with these fascinating and sometimes contrasting aspects of prion biology, with an emphasis on the immunization protocols developed for prophylaxis and treatment of prion diseases.
Asymptotics for Operational Risk Quantified with Expected Shortfall

In this paper we estimate operational risk by using the convex risk measure Expected Shortfall (ES) and provide an approximation as the confidence level converges to 100% in the univariate case. Then we extend this approach to the multivariate case, where we represent the dependence structure by using a Levy copula as in Bocker and Kluppelberg (2006) and Bocker and Kluppelberg, C. (2008). We compare our results to the ones obtained in Bocker and Kluppelberg (2006) and (2008) for Operational VaR and discuss their practical relevance.
Imaging Subsurface Civil Infrastructure with Smart Seismic Network

The ability to use networked seismic instruments to image subsurface civil infrastructure and activities in data-limited extreme environments is crucial for many civil and security applications. This paper presents a non-invasive smart seismic network for imaging subsurface structures using ambient noise only. An innovative in-network spatial auto-autocorrelation method is designed to image different layers of underground infrastructures at different frequency bands and finally result in a 3D image. The proposed approach is general and can characterize the near-surface sediment and the infrastructure simultaneously. The experiments demonstrate that underground utility lines affecting sediment can be imaged, and the potential of using the method for abnormal activities like leakages. An exhaustive evaluation regarding bandwidth utilization, communication cost, and system resilience were conducted to highlight the benefits of the proposed approach.
Limitations of Majority Agreement in Crowdsourced Image Interpretation

Crowdsourcing can efficiently complete tasks that are difficult to automate, but the quality of crowdsourced data is tricky to evaluate. Algorithms to grade volunteer work often assume that all tasks are similarly difficult, an assumption that is frequently false. We use a cropland identification game with over 2,600 participants and 165,000 unique tasks to investigate how best to evaluate the difficulty of crowdsourced tasks and to what extent this is possible based on volunteer responses alone. Inter‐volunteer agreement exceeded 90% for about 80% of the images and was negatively correlated with volunteer‐expressed uncertainty about image classification. A total of 343 relatively difficult images were independently classified as cropland, non‐cropland or impossible by two experts. The experts disagreed weakly (one said impossible while the other rated as cropland or non‐cropland) on 27% of the images, but disagreed strongly (cropland vs. non‐cropland) on only 7%. Inter‐volunteer disagreement increased significantly with inter‐expert disagreement. While volunteers agreed with expert classifications for most images, over 20% would have been mis‐categorized if only the volunteers’ majority vote was used. We end with a series of recommendations for managing the challenges posed by heterogeneous tasks in crowdsourcing campaigns.
Longitudinal Change and Prediction of Everyday Task Competence in the Elderly

The present study examined longitudinal change in everyday task competence in a sample of 102 community-dwelling older adults from central Pennsylvania. Subjects were assessed on cognitive abilities, intellectual control beliefs, and everyday task competence in 1979 and 1986. The results indicated significant mean level decline on everyday task competence. However, wide individual differences were apparent in the timing and rate of decline; 62% of the sample remained stable or improved in competence over this seven-year period. Structural equation analyses were conducted to examine lagged relationships among the ability, intellectual control, and everyday task competence constructs. Fluid reasoning ability was a significant longitudinal predictor of subsequent everyday task competence. Everyday task competence was a significant longitudinal predictor of subsequent self-efficacy beliefs regarding intellectual aging. The results suggest that mean level decline in everyday task competence may not represent the intraindividual developmental trajectory of many subjects. Prior level of fluid ability influences subsequent everyday task competence, and prior level of everyday task competence influences levels of self-efficacy beliefs.
The Thermoelastic Behavior of Isolated Aortic Strips of the Dog

A detailed thermodynamic study of isolated strips of dog aorta is basic to the interpretation of the nonlinear and apparently rubber-like elastic behavior of such specimens. Experimental data indicate that the retractile force in isolated aortic strips of the dog is entropic. Volume changes with elongation in such strips are negligible. However, a large negative internal energy contribution to the total force is present at small elongations. Studies of aortic strips extracted with alkali suggest that the latter force arises from the elastic tissue itself.