Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Boule Is Present in Fish and Bisexually Expressed in Adult and Embryonic Germ Cells of Medaka

Background The DAZ family genes boule, daz and dazl encode RNA binding proteins essential for fertility of diverse animals including human. dazl has bisexual expression in both mitotic and meiotic germ cells, whereas daz has male premeiotic expression, and boule is largely a unisexual meiotic regulator. Although boule has been proposed as the ancestor for dazl/daz by gene duplication, it has been identified only in invertebrates and mammals. It has, however, remained unclear when and how the DAZ family has evolved in vertebrates. Methodology and Principal Findings This study was aimed at identifying and characterizing the DAZ family genes in fish as the basal vertebrate. We show that boule and dazl coexist in medaka and stickleback. Similar to the medaka dazl (Odazl), the medaka boule (Obol) is maternally supplied and segregates with primordial germ cells. Surprisingly, Obol is expressed in adult germ cells at pre-meiotic and meiotic stages of spermatogenesis and oogenesis. However, the maximal meiotic Obol expression in spermatocytes contrasts with the predominant pre-meiotic Odazl expression in spermatogonia, and the diffuse cytoplasmic Obol distribution in early oocytes contrasts with the Odazl concentration in the Balbinani's body. Conclusions The identification of fish boule and dazl genes provides direct evidence for the early gene duplication during vertebrate evolution. Our finding that Obol exhibits bisexual expression in both embryonic and adult germ cells considerably extends the diversity of boule expression patterns and offers a new insight into the evolutions of DAZ family members, expression patterns and functions in animal fertility.
Spatial and Temporal Transferability of Trip Generation Demand Models in Israel

This research investigates the transferability of person-level disaggregate trip generation models (TGMs) in time and space using two model specifications: multinomial linear regression and Tobit. The models are estimated for the Tel Aviv and Haifa metropolitan areas based on data from the 1984 and 1996/97 Israeli National Travel Habits Surveys. The paper emphasizes that Tobit models perform better than regression or discrete choice models in estimating nontravelers. Furthermore, the paper notes that variables and file structures in household surveys need to be consistent. Results of the study show that the estimated regression and Tobit disaggregate person-level TGMs are statistically different in space and in time. In spite of the transferred forecasts, the aggregate forecasts were also similar.
Workers in alternative employment arrangements: a second look

In February 1997, information on workers in four alternative employment arrangements was obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS). This marked the second time such information was collected through the CPS; the first was 2 years earlier. In general, the proportion of total employment accounted for by each arrangement, as well as the characteristics of the workers, was little changed since the previous survey in February 1995. The second survey confirmed that the characteristics of workers differed significantly between the arrangements as well as within them. People employed in two of these arrangements, temporary help agency workers and contract company workers, are employees of one company and carry out assignments for another. Workers who are on call do not have an established schedule for reporting to work. And workers in the largest group, independent contractors, are not employees in the traditional sense, but rather work for themselves. About 12.6 million people, or 1 in 10 workers, were classified into one of these four alternative employment arrangements in February 1997, the same proportion as in the February 1995 survey. The proportions accounted for by each arrangement are shown in exhibit 1 and table 1. By far the largest arrangement was independent contractors, with 8.5 million, followed by on-call workers (2 million), temporary help agency workers (1.3 million), and contract company employees (800,000). The number of workers in all of these arrangements combined increased by 3 percent (400,000 people) over the 2-year period, about Workers in alternative employment arrangements: a second look
Vocale - a semi-automatic annotation tool for prosodic research

Large annotated speech corpora are a critical component of research in prosody. The classification of languages according to their speech rhythm, for example, requires a great number of annotated sentences by different speakers in different languages. We have developed Vocale, a tool for the semiautomatic annotation of vocalic and consonantal parts of speech because in recent models these units have been identified as reliable acoustic correlates of speech rhythm. Vocale is based on relative entropy and uses various additional classifiers such as energy and length for the annotation of vowels and consonants. It runs using Praat speech analysis facilities and gives a Praat label file as an output. Vocale is open source software and is available to the scientific community under http://www.ime. usp.br/ tycho/tipal/prosody/vocale/.
Participation Costs and the Sensitivity of Fund Flows to Past Performance

We present a simple rational model to highlight the effect of investors' participation costs on the response of mutual fund flows to past fund performance. By incorporating participation costs into a model in which investors learn about managers' ability from past returns, we show that mutual funds with lower participation costs have a higher flow sensitivity to medium performance and a lower flow sensitivity to high performance than their higher-cost peers. Using various fund characteristics as proxies for the reduction in participation costs, we provide empirical evidence supporting the model's implications for the asymmetric flow-performance relationship.
Molecular-Phylogenetic Characterization of the Microbiota in Ulcerated and Non-Ulcerated Regions in the Patients with Crohn's Disease

Background The dysbiosis of intestinal microbiota has been established in Crohn's disease (CD), but the molecular characterization of this dysbiosis in Chinese subjects with CD remains unclear. This study aims to investigate the predominant bacterial composition of the faecal and mucosal-associated microbiota in Chinese CD patients using culture-independent techniques. Methods/Principal Findings Eighteen patients with CD and 9 healthy controls were included in this study. The faeces and the intestinal mucosal tissues from the ulcerated and nonulcerated sites were subjected to bacterial community fingerprinting using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). The predominant bacterial composition in the faeces and mucosa was determined with DNA sequencing and BLAST. We showed that the bacterial diversity in the faeces of CD patients was reduced compared with that in healthy controls (p<0.01). The faecal bacterial dysbiosis of the patients was characterized by an elevated abundance of γ-Proteobacteria (especially Escherichia coli and Shigella flexneri) and a reduced proportion of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. Five bacterial species defined the microbiota imbalance of the ulcerated mucosa in CD, including an increase in Escherichia coli, a decrease in Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Lactobacillus coleohominis, Bacteroides sp and Streptococcus gallolyticus in the bacterial community as compared with the nonulcerated (p<0.01). Conclusions/Significance This is the first description of intestinal microbiota dysbiosis in Chinese CD patients. These results allow a better understanding of the faecal and mucosal microbiota in CD, showing a predominance of some opportunistic pathogenic bacteria and a decrease in beneficial bacterial species. The findings may provide novel insights into the pathogenesis of CD in Chinese population.
Link-level Measurements of Outdoor 802.11g Links

802.11 based outdoor community mesh networks have seen several deployments in the last few years. Prior link- level studies focus mostly on 802.11 b links, and a systematic and detailed link-level study of 802.11 g is lacking. In this paper, we present a study of the link error rate as a function of the RSSI; we closely examine the RSSI threshold beyond which the link error rate is negligible. Our study is based on a wireless network testbed established in IIT Bombay. The testbed has nine nodes with links varying from 90 m to 1.2 km. We find that the link abstraction holds in the case of 802.11 g and RSSI threshold range can be used for the predictable performance for such links. Significantly, we also observe a shift in the RSSI threshold for outdoor links, as compared to controlled experiments. We report the features of this shift, and analyze the possible causes. Additionally, we have measured the UDP saturation throughput of these links using two different platforms: Soekris net4521, and MikroTik RB433AH. We also document some of the significant unexpected experiences while conducting experiments on our testbed.
Evaluating the effects of asthma therapy on childhood growth: principles of study design

Inhaled corticosteroids have been established as the most effective treatment for childhood asthma. However, concerns persist regarding their potential effects on growth and, most importantly, final height. To assess their effects on growth, inhaled corticosteroids can be compared with placebo (type 1 study), nonsteroidal anti-asthma therapy (type 2 study), another inhaled corticosteroid (type 3 study) or “real-life” anti-asthma therapy (type 4 study). Owing to the difficulties in obtaining final height data, several different surrogate measures have often been used: short-term lower leg growth, longer-term statural height growth velocity, childhood height and predicted final height. This paper discusses the choice of end point, key trial design issues (including selection and number of subjects in the active and control populations) duration of assessments and methods for measuring height and data analysis, in the context of the different study types. Specific study design recommendations have been developed after consideration of these factors, and these principles will be used to guide the interpretation of previously published growth studies.
The TRMM Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA): Quasi-Global, Multiyear, Combined-Sensor Precipitation Estimates at Fine Scales

Abstract The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) provides a calibration-based sequential scheme for combining precipitation estimates from multiple satellites, as well as gauge analyses where feasible, at fine scales (0.25° × 0.25° and 3 hourly). TMPA is available both after and in real time, based on calibration by the TRMM Combined Instrument and TRMM Microwave Imager precipitation products, respectively. Only the after-real-time product incorporates gauge data at the present. The dataset covers the latitude band 50°N–S for the period from 1998 to the delayed present. Early validation results are as follows: the TMPA provides reasonable performance at monthly scales, although it is shown to have precipitation rate–dependent low bias due to lack of sensitivity to low precipitation rates over ocean in one of the input products [based on Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-B (AMSU-B)]. At finer scales the TMPA is successful at approximately reproducing the s.
Addressing the Personalization-Privacy Paradox: An Empirical Assessment from a Field Experiment on Smartphone Users

Privacy has been an enduring concern associated with commercial information technology (IT) applications, in particular regarding the issue of personalization. IT-enabled personalization, while potentially making the user computing experience more gratifying, often relies heavily on the user's personal information to deliver individualized services, which raises the user's privacy concerns. We term the tension between personalization and privacy, which follows from marketers exploiting consumers' data to offer personalized product information, the personalization--privacy paradox. To better understand this paradox, we build on the theoretical lenses of uses and gratification theory and information boundary theory to conceptualize the extent to which privacy impacts the process and content gratifications derived from personalization, and how an IT solution can be designed to alleviate privacy concerns. Set in the context of personalized advertising applications for smartphones, we propose and prototype an IT solution, referred to as a personalized, privacy-safe application, that retains users' information locally on their smartphones while still providing them with personalized product messages. We validated this solution through a field experiment by benchmarking it against two more conventional applications: a base nonpersonalized application that broadcasts non-personalized product information to users, and a personalized, nonprivacy safe application that transmits user information to a central marketer's server. The results show that (compared to the non-personalized application), while personalized, privacy-safe or not increased application usage (reflecting process gratification), it was only when it was privacy-safe that users saved product messages (reflecting content gratification) more frequently. Follow-up surveys corroborated these nuanced findings and further revealed the users' psychological states, which explained our field experiment results. We found that saving advertisements for content gratification led to a perceived intrusion of information boundary that made users reluctant to do so. Overall our proposed IT solution, which delivers a personalized service but avoids transmitting users' personal information to third parties, reduces users' perceptions that their information boundaries are being intruded upon, thus mitigating the personalization--privacy paradox and increasing both process and content gratification.
Ex situ Diet Influences the Bacterial Community Associated with the Skin of Red-Eyed Tree Frogs (Agalychnis callidryas)

Amphibians support symbiotic bacterial communities on their skin that protect against a range of infectious pathogens, including the amphibian chytrid fungus. The conditions under which amphibians are maintained in captivity (e.g. diet, substrate, enrichment) in ex situ conservation programmes may affect the composition of the bacterial community. In addition, ex situ amphibian populations may support different bacterial communities in comparison to in situ populations of the same species. This could have implications for the suitability of populations intended for reintroduction, as well as the success of probiotic bacterial inoculations intended to provide amphibians with a bacterial community that resists invasion by the chytrid fungus. We aimed to investigate the effect of a carotenoid-enriched diet on the culturable bacterial community associated with captive red-eyed tree frogs (Agalychnis callidryas) and make comparisons to bacteria isolated from a wild population from the Chiquibul Rainforest in Belize. We successfully showed carotenoid availability influences the overall community composition, species richness and abundance of the bacterial community associated with the skin of captive frogs, with A. callidryas fed a carotenoid-enriched diet supporting a greater species richness and abundance of bacteria than those fed a carotenoid-free diet. Our results suggest that availability of carotenoids in the diet of captive frogs is likely to be beneficial for the bacterial community associated with the skin. We also found wild A. callidryas hosted more than double the number of different bacterial species than captive frogs with very little commonality between species. This suggests frogs in captivity may support a reduced and diverged bacterial community in comparison to wild populations of the same species, which could have particular relevance for ex situ conservation projects.
Protein kinase C activators block specific calcium and potassium current components in isolated hippocampal neurons

Whole-cell voltage-clamp techniques were used to study the effects of the protein kinase C (PKC) activators phorbol esters and OAG on Ca and K currents in differentiated neurons acutely dissociated from adult hippocampus and in tissue-cultured neurons from fetal hippocampus. PKC activators had selective depressant effects on K currents, with persistent currents (IK and IK-Ca) being reduced and transient current (IA) being unaffected. In both cell types we recorded both high-voltage- activated, noninactivating (L-type) and high-voltage-activated, rapidly inactivating (N-type) Ca current. A low-voltage-activated, rapidly inactivating (T-type) Ca current was also recorded in tissue-cultured neurons but not in acutely dissociated neurons. PKC activators markedly reduced N-type current with less effect on L-type and no effect on T- type Ca current. Effects of PKC activators could be reversed with washing or with application of PKC inhibitors H-7 or polymyxin-B, an effect that could not be attributed to inhibition of cAMP-dependent protein kinase. The Ca/calmodulin inhibitor calmidazolium was ineffective in reversing the actions of PKC activators. Using whole- cell voltage-clamp techniques, we have demonstrated that hippocampal neurons possess 3 distinguishable components of calcium current. Distinct K currents were also observed. Our data strongly support the hypothesis that both Ca and K currents are selectively regulated by PKC and that these effects occur directly on the postsynaptic neuron.
Who cares about the Chinese Yuan

The rise of China in the world economy and in international trade has raised the possibility of a rise of the Yuan as an international currency, particularly after the Chinese authorities have undertaken policy initiatives such as Yuan settlement and Yuan swap lines. In this paper, we measure one dimension of Yuan internationalisation: the role of the Yuan in the exchange rate arrangements of other economies. While the magnitudes are small, our findings show that as many as 34 currencies in the world have been sensitive to movements in the Yuan. This suggests that the Yuan potentially has a significant role to play in global exchange rate arrangements. Contrary to popular belief, however, we find a limited role of the Yuan among Asian. economies.
Theoretical Aspects of Randomization in Computation

and my lovely sisters: Ira and Shalini ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to Professor Richard Lipton for supervising this thesis. Under his guidance, I was able to complete all the work in this thesis in about two years. I feel fortunate to have him as my advisor. His original mind, his keen insight in approaching hard problems, and his vast knowledge (which extends well beyond computer science) have served as an inspiration for me throughout this thesis. I am particularly thankful to him for sharing with me his prowess in number-theoretic arguments. The effortless manner in which he can demonstrate some of the hard number-theoretic results, has inspired me to learn a great deal about this beautiful subject. Indeed, this knowledge has already started to pay its dividends, as is apparent in a substantial part of this thesis. I am also grateful to him for reinforcing his faith in my abilities, for constantly encouraging me to try difficult problems, and for being a great collaborator. I cannot thank him enough for all he has done for me in the three years that I have known him. My fascination with randomness goes back to my undergraduate studies. Under the supervision of Professor Ketan Mulmuley and Professor Sundar Vishwanathan at IIT Mumbai, I studied randomized algorithms for linear programming. During this period, they introduced me to the elegant areas of randomized algorithms and the probabilistic method. This has had a tremendous impact on my view about computation and has laid the foundations for this thesis. Professor Dhruv Mubayi and Professor Prasad Tetali for the first two years of my graduate studies. In those formative years, I have learnt a lot from them. I would especially like to thank Milena for being a great collaborator and for all her advice. Though the work I did with her is not a part of this thesis, I consider it equally important and interesting. Her eye for elegance has made a clear impression on my mind, and for that, I am grateful to her. Words are not enough for me to express my gratitude for Professor Yan Ding and iv Professor H. Venkateswaran. Their role in my graduate studies at Georgia Tech. has been immense. I have greatly benefitted from them through seamless discussions over the years. From technical discussions to general advice about life, their words have been extremely valuable to me. Technically, I owe a …
Inventories and the Role of Goods-Market Frictions for Business Cycles

Changes in the stock of inventories are important for fluctuations in aggregate output. However, the possibility that firms do not sell all produced goods and inventory accumulation are typically ignored in business cycle models. This paper captures this with a goods-market friction. Using US data, "goods-market efficiency" is shown to be strongly procyclical. By including both a goods-market friction and a standard labor-market search friction, the model developed can substantially magnify and propagate shocks. Despite its simplicity, the model can also replicate key inventory facts. However, when these inventory facts are used to discipline parameter values, then goods-market frictions are quantitatively not very important.
Kvβ1.2 Subunit Coexpression in HEK293 Cells Confers O2 Sensitivity to Kv4.2 but not to Shaker Channels

Voltage-gated K+ (KV) channels are protein complexes composed of ion-conducting integral membrane α subunits and cytoplasmic modulatory β subunits. The differential expression and association of α and β subunits seems to contribute significantly to the complexity and heterogeneity of KV channels in excitable cells, and their functional expression in heterologous systems provides a tool to study their regulation at a molecular level. Here, we have studied the effects of Kvβ1. 2 coexpression on the properties of Shaker and Kv4.2 KV channel α subunits, which encode rapidly inactivating A-type K+ currents, in transfected HEK293 cells. We found that Kvβ1. 2 functionally associates with these two α subunits, as well as with the endogenous KV channels of HEK293 cells, to modulate different properties of the heteromultimers. Kvβ1. 2 accelerates the rate of inactivation of the Shaker currents, as previously described, increases significantly the amplitude of the endogenous currents, and confers sensitivity to redox modulation and hypoxia to Kv4.2 channels. Upon association with Kvβ1. 2, Kv4.2 can be modified by DTT (1,4 dithiothreitol) and DTDP (2,2′-dithiodipyridine), which also modulate the low pO2 response of the Kv4.2+β channels. However, the physiological reducing agent GSH (reduced glutathione) did not mimic the effects of DTT. Finally, hypoxic inhibition of Kv4.2+β currents can be reverted by 70% in the presence of carbon monoxide and remains in cell-free patches, suggesting the presence of a hemoproteic O2 sensor in HEK293 cells and a membrane-delimited mechanism at the origin of hypoxic responses. We conclude that β subunits can modulate different properties upon association with different KV channel subfamilies; of potential relevance to understanding the molecular basis of low pO2 sensitivity in native tissues is the here described acquisition of the ability of Kv4.2+β channels to respond to hypoxia.