Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ligand-Independent Canonical Wnt Activity in Canine Mammary Tumor Cell Lines Associated with Aberrant LEF1 Expression

Pet dogs very frequently develop spontaneous mammary tumors and have been suggested as a good model organism for breast cancer research. In order to obtain an insight into underlying signaling mechanisms during canine mammary tumorigenesis, in this study we assessed the incidence and the mechanism of canonical Wnt activation in a panel of 12 canine mammary tumor cell lines. We show that a subset of canine mammary cell lines exhibit a moderate canonical Wnt activity that is dependent on Wnt ligands, similar to what has been described in human breast cancer cell lines. In addition, three of the tested canine mammary cell lines have a high canonical Wnt activity that is not responsive to inhibitors of Wnt ligand secretion. Tumor cell lines with highly active canonical Wnt signaling often carry mutations in key members of the Wnt signaling cascade. These cell lines, however, carry no mutations in the coding regions of intracellular Wnt pathway components (APC, β-catenin, GSK3β, CK1α and Axin1) and have a functional β-catenin destruction complex. Interestingly, however, the cell lines with high canonical Wnt activity specifically overexpress LEF1 mRNA and the knock-down of LEF1 significantly inhibits TCF-reporter activity. In addition, LEF1 is overexpressed in a subset of canine mammary carcinomas, implicating LEF1 in ligand-independent activation of canonical Wnt signaling in canine mammary tumors. We conclude that canonical Wnt activation may be a frequent event in canine mammary tumors both through Wnt ligand-dependent and novel ligand–independent mechanisms.
Strategic decisions of multinational enterprises : foreign direct investment and technology

This thesis consists of three self-contained chapters concerning the determination of 'equilibrium industrial structures' in 'international oligopolies'. In each model presented in the thesis rival oligopolists in the industry concerned choose their 'corporate structures' and then compete to serve the national product markets (either via local production following foreign direct investment (FDI) or via imports). Our analyses are united by the general types of 'corporate structure' choices considered and by the broad features of 'industrial structure' that are endogenously determined in equilibrium. We emphasise, the roles played by the following three phenomena in shaping 'equilibrium industrial structures': the distinction between greenfield-FDI ('greenfield investment') and acquisition-FDI (cross-border mergers and acquisitions); RD and the potential entry into the industry of "outside' firms, and incumbent firms' strategic reactions to the entry threat. The distinction between greenfield-FDI and acquisition-FDI is both empirically and theoretically important: whereas greenfield-FDI adds an extra plant to the host country, acquisition-FDI changes only the ownership pattern of existing plants. Despite this, previous game-theoretic models of equilibrium FDI flows have concentrated exclusively on one type of FDL Therefore, allowing theform of FDI to be endogenously selected as part of the 'equilibrium industrial structure' is both a novel and an interesting feature of our analysis. It also allows us to investigate the differential relationships between the two types of FDI and industry R&D spending (and therefore to test a popular 'failing firm' defence of inward acquisition-FDI: that it fosters 'technological development', the benefits of which outweigh the welfare costs of increased 'concentration'). A further novel feature of our analysis is the potential for (de novo) entry into the industry (at a global level): previous work assumed blockaded entry. We show that a credible entry threat by 'outside' firms has significant consequences for 'equilibrium industrial structure'. At a general level, the results derived in this thesis provide a perspective on the relationship between MNEs' behaviour and industrial structure in 'globalized' industries that contrasts with that offered by Dunning's 'OLI paradigm'. I t is also hoped that this thesis will be viewed as having made a useful contribution to unpicking the aggregation, which frequently occurs in public debate, of greenfield-FDI and acquisition-FDI into a (supposedly homogeneous) flow of 'inward investment'.
Cyber Hate Speech on Twitter: An Application of Machine Classification and Statistical Modeling for Policy and Decision Making

The use of “Big Data” in policy and decision making is a current topic of debate. The 2013 murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich, London, UK led to an extensive public reaction on social media, providing the opportunity to study the spread of online hate speech (cyber hate) on Twitter. Human annotated Twitter data was collected in the immediate aftermath of Rigby's murder to train and test a supervised machine learning text classifier that distinguishes between hateful and/or antagonistic responses with a focus on race, ethnicity, or religion; and more general responses. Classification features were derived from the content of each tweet, including grammatical dependencies between words to recognize “othering” phrases, incitement to respond with antagonistic action, and claims of well-founded or justified discrimination against social groups. The results of the classifier were optimal using a combination of probabilistic, rule-based, and spatial-based classifiers with a voted ensemble meta-classifier. We demonstrate how the results of the classifier can be robustly utilized in a statistical model used to forecast the likely spread of cyber hate in a sample of Twitter data. The applications to policy and decision making are discussed.
Design and Characterization of a Silk-Fibroin-Based Drug Delivery Platform Using Naproxen as a Model Drug

The objective of this proof-of-concept study was to develop a platform for controlled drug delivery based on silk fibroin (SF) and to explore the feasibility of using SF in oral drug delivery. The SF-containing matrixes were prepared via spray-drying and film casting, and the release profile of the model drug naproxen sodium was evaluated. Attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) has been used to observe conformational changes in SF- and drug-containing compositions. SF-based films, spray-dried microparticles, and matrixes loaded with naproxen were prepared. Both FTIR spectra and in vitro dissolution data demonstrated that SF β-sheet conformation regulates the release profile of naproxen. The controlled release characteristics of the SF-containing compositions were evaluated as a function of SF concentration, temperature, and exposure to dehydrating solvents. The results suggest that SF may be an attractive polymer for use in controlled drug delivery systems.
Cloning and characterization of a single-stranded DNA binding protein that specifically recognizes deoxycytidine stretch

We previously identified a G-rich silencer element involved in negative regulation of catalase gene expression in some hepatoma cells (Mol. Cell. Biol., (1992), 12, 2525-2533). To study a nuclear binding protein for this element, we screened cDNA libraries from a rat ascites hepatoma cell line by binding with a synthetic oligonucleotide probe and obtained several clones. One of them, designated SW, was studied in detail. A clone (SW2) of this series contained a near full length cDNA encoding a putative peptide with 463 amino acid residues. We isolated this peptide as a fusion protein. It was found that the protein strongly bound to the C-stretch of the DNA sequence in a single strand specific fashion, but absolutely did not to G-rich sequence. The protein bound weakly to the corresponding double-stranded DNA as well as to C-rich RNA sequence. This protein, though not the expected one, was found to be a novel protein whose DNA binding domain was located on the region containing at least 75 amino acid residues of the carboxyl terminus. A proline rich region was also observed in the middle part of the protein. Northern blot profiles indicated extensive and slight expression of both 2.0 kb and 2.7 kb mRNA species in some hepatoma cell lines and in the rat liver, respectively.
A low complexity soft-output Viterbi decoder architecture

A means to adapt the classical architecture of a Viterbi decoder to make it able to provide soft (weighted) decisions is presented. After a theoretical justification of the proposed method, based on Battail or Hagenauer-Hoeher algorithms, the new architecture is detailed. It leads to a real-time circuit, the size of which is roughly twice the size of the classical Viterbi decoder. In order to appreciate the quality of the weighting method, an application to the decoding of concatenated convolutional codes, with the proposed soft-output decoder as the inner decoder, is examined. <<ETX>>
Cutaneous Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma with Perineural Invasion Treated by Mohs Micrographic Surgery—A Case Report with Literature Review

We report a 58-year-old woman with cutaneous adenoid cystic carcinoma arising on the chest treated with Mohs micrographic surgery. The patient remained tumor-free at 24-month follow-up. To date, only six other cases of cutaneous adenoid cystic carcinoma were reportedly managed by Mohs surgery. Cutaneous adenoid cystic carcinoma has low potential for distant metastasis but is notorious for its aggressive infiltrative growth pattern, frequent perineural invasion, and high risk of local recurrence after excision. We propose that Mohs surgery is an ideal method to achieve margin-free removal of cutaneous adenoid cystic carcinoma. A brief literature review is provided.
Tunable sparse network coding for multicast networks

This paper shows the potential and key enabling mechanisms for tunable sparse network coding, a scheme in which the density of network coded packets varies during a transmission session. At the beginning of a transmission session, sparsely coded packets are transmitted, which benefits decoding complexity. As the transmission continues and the receivers have accumulated coded packets, the coding density is increased. We propose a family of tunable sparse network codes (TSNCs) for multicast erasure networks with a controllable trade-off between completion time performance to decoding complexity. Coding density tuning can be performed by designing time-dependent coding matrices. In multicast networks, this tuning can be performed within the network by designing time-dependent pre-coding and network coding matrices with mild conditions on the network structure for specific densities. We present a mechanism to perform efficient Gaussian elimination over sparse matrices going beyond belief propagation but maintaining low decoding complexity. Supporting implementation results are provided showing the trade-off between decoding complexity and completion time.
To Blame or to Forgive? Reconciling Punishment and Forgiveness in Criminal Justice

What do you do when faced with wrongdoing—do you blame or do you forgive? Especially when confronted with offences that lie on the more severe end of the spectrum and cause terrible psychological or physical trauma or death, nothing can feel more natural than blame. Indeed, in the UK and the USA, increasingly vehement and righteous public expressions of blame and calls for vengeance have become commonplace; correspondingly, contemporary penal philosophy has witnessed a resurgence of the retributive tradition, in the modern form usually known as the ‘justice’ model. On the other hand, people can and routinely do forgive others, even in cases of severe crime. Evolutionary psychologists argue that both vengeance and forgiveness are universal human adaptations that have evolved as alternative responses to exploitation, and, crucially, strategies for reducing risk of re-offending. We are naturally endowed with both capacities: to blame and retaliate, or to forgive and seek to repair relations. Which should we choose? Drawing on evolutionary psychology, we offer an account of forgiveness and argue that the choice to blame, and not to forgive, is inconsistent with the political values of a broadly liberal society and can be instrumentally counter-productive to reducing the risk of future re-offending. We then sketch the shape of penal philosophy and criminal justice policy and practice with forgiveness in place as a guiding ideal.
Specific biomarkers for stochastic division patterns and starvation-induced quiescence under limited glucose levels in fission yeast

Glucose as a source of energy is centrally important to our understanding of life. We investigated the cell division–quiescence behavior of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe under a wide range of glucose concentrations (0–111 mm). The mode of S. pombe cell division under a microfluidic perfusion system was surprisingly normal under highly diluted glucose concentrations (5.6 mm, 1/20 of the standard medium, within human blood sugar levels). Division became stochastic, accompanied by a curious division‐timing inheritance, in 2.2–4.4 mm glucose. A critical transition from division to quiescence occurred within a narrow range of concentrations (2.2–1.7 mm). Under starvation (1.1 mm) conditions, cells were mostly quiescent and only a small population of cells divided. Under fasting (0 mm) conditions, division was immediately arrested with a short chronological lifespan (16 h). When cells were first glucose starved prior to fasting, they possessed a substantially extended lifespan (∼14 days). We employed a quantitative metabolomic approach for S. pombe cell extracts, and identified specific metabolites (e.g. biotin, trehalose, ergothioneine, S‐adenosyl methionine and CDP‐choline), which increased or decreased at different glucose concentrations, whereas nucleotide triphosphates, such as ATP, maintained high concentrations even under starvation. Under starvation, the level of S‐adenosyl methionine increased sharply, accompanied by an increase in methylated amino acids and nucleotides. Under fasting, cells rapidly lost antioxidant and energy compounds, such as glutathione and ATP, but, in fasting cells after starvation, these and other metabolites ensuring longevity remained abundant. Glucose‐starved cells became resistant to 40 mm H2O2 as a result of the accumulation of antioxidant compounds.
Query types in the meeting domain: assessing the role of argumentative structure in answering questions on meeting discussion records

We define a new task of question answering on meeting records and assess its difficulty in terms of types of information and retrieval techniques required. The importance of this task is revealed by the increasingly growing interest in the design of sophisticated interfaces for accessing meeting records such as meeting browsers. We ground our work on the empirical analysis of elicited user queries. We assess what is the type of information sought by the users and perform a user query classification along several semantic dimensions of the meeting content. We found that queries about argumentative processes and outcomes represent the majority among the elicited queries (about 60%). We also assess the difficulty in answering the queries and focus on the requirements of a prospective QA system to successfully deal with them. Our results suggest that standard Information Retrieval and Question Answering alone can only account for less than 20% of the queries and need to be completed with additional type of information and inference.
Identifying Factors Affecting Acceptance of E-procurement Systems: An Initial Qualitative Study at an Australian City Council

Acceptance of e-procurement systems by employees working in the local government sector is important to ensure improved organisational effectiveness for city and rural councils alike. Although a rich body of literature exists regarding the organisational adoption decisions of e-procurement systems and their impact on organisational performance, little is however known about the factors that affect the acceptance of these systems by employees working in organisations. Using a qualitative case study research approach, we have thus examined the factors that are associated with e-procurement systems acceptance at a large Australian city council. Two sets of factors comprising perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, employee involvement, reliability, customised training, vendor support and management support are identified and their underlying relationships are discussed in the light of the existing literature. Finally, the implications of our findings are explained.
Behaviour-Aware Matching of Cloud Applications

OASIS TOSCA aims at solving the problem of managing complex applications across heterogeneous clouds by providing a standard, vendor-agnostic language to describe them. TOSCA permits defining a cloud application as an orchestration of typed components, which can be instantiated by matching other TOSCA applications. In this paper we first present two types of behaviour-aware matching of applications, based on a notion of simulation. We then relax this notion by permitting to match an operation with a sequence of available operations, and present a coinductive procedure to compute such relaxed simulation.
Historical Value-Based Approach for Cost-Cognizant Test Case Prioritization to Improve the Effectiveness of Regression Testing

Regression testing has been used to support software testing activities and assure the acquirement of appropriate quality through several versions of a software program. Regression testing, however, is too expensive because it requires many test case executions, and the number of test cases increases sharply as the software evolves. In this paper, we propose the Historical Value-Based Approach, which is based on the use of historical information, to estimate the current cost and fault severity for cost-cognizant test case prioritization. We also conducted a controlled experiment to validate the proposed approach, the results of which proved the proposed approachpsilas usefulness. As a result of the proposed approach, software testers who perform regression testing are able to prioritize their test cases so that their effectiveness can be improved in terms of average percentage of fault detected per cost.
Functional response properties of VIP-expressing inhibitory neurons in mouse visual and auditory cortex

Despite accounting for about 20% of all the layer 2/3 inhibitory interneurons, the vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) expressing neurons remain the least thoroughly studied of the major inhibitory subtypes. In recent studies, VIP neurons have been shown to be activated by a variety of cortico-cortical and neuromodulatory inputs, but their basic sensory response properties remain poorly characterized. We set out to explore the functional properties of layer 2/3 VIP neurons in the primary visual (V1) and primary auditory cortex (A1), using two-photon imaging guided patch recordings. We found that in the V1, VIP neurons were generally broadly tuned, with their sensory response properties resembling those of parvalbumin (PV) expressing neurons. With the exception of response latency, they did not exhibit a significant difference from PV neurons across any of the properties tested, including overlap index, response modulation, orientation selectivity, and direction selectivity. In the A1, on the other hand, VIP neurons had a strong tendency to be intensity selective, which is a property associated with a subset of putative pyramidal cells and virtually absent in PV neurons. VIP neurons had a best intensity that was significantly lower than that of PV and putative pyramidal neurons. Finally, sensory evoked spike responses of VIP neurons were delayed relative to pyramidal and PV neurons in both the V1 and A1. Combined, these results demonstrate that the sensory response properties of VIP neurons do not fit a simple model of being either PV-like broadly tuned or pyramidal-like narrowly tuned. Instead, the selectivity pattern varies with sensory area and can even be, as in the case of low sound intensity responsiveness, distinct from both PV and pyramidal neurons.
Multiplicity of very low-mass objects in the upper scorpius ob association: a possible wide binary population

We report the initial results of a VLT/NACO high spatial resolution imaging survey for multiple systems among 58 M-type members of the nearby Upper Scorpius OB association. Nine pairs with separations below 1 '' have been resolved. Their small angular separations and the similarity in the brightn ess of the components (�MagK <1 for all of them), indicate there is a reasonable likelihood several of them are true binaries rather than chance projections. Follow-up imaging observations with WHT/LIRIS of the two widest binaries confirm that their near-infr ared colours are consistent with physical very low- mass binaries. For one of these two binaries, WHT/LIRIS spectra of each component were obtained. We find that th e two components have similar M6-M7 spectral types and signatures of low-gravity, as expected for a young brown dwarf binary in this association. Our preliminary results indicate a pos sible population of very low-mass binaries with semimajor axis in the range 100 AU-150 AU, which has not been seen in the Pleiades open cluster. If these candidates are confirmed (one is confirmed by this work), these results would indicate that th e binary properties of very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs may depend on the environment where they form.
Distributed Support Vector Machines

A truly distributed (as opposed to parallelized) support vector machine (SVM) algorithm is presented. Training data are assumed to come from the same distribution and are locally stored in a number of different locations with processing capabilities (nodes). In several examples, it has been found that a reasonably small amount of information is interchanged among nodes to obtain an SVM solution, which is better than that obtained when classifiers are trained only with the local data and comparable (although a little bit worse) to that of the centralized approach (obtained when all the training data are available at the same place). We propose and analyze two distributed schemes: a “naïve” distributed chunking approach, where raw data (support vectors) are communicated, and the more elaborated distributed semiparametric SVM, which aims at further reducing the total amount of information passed between nodes while providing a privacy-preserving mechanism for information sharing. We show the feasibility of our proposal by evaluating the performance of the algorithms in benchmarks with both synthetic and real-world datasets.
Exploratory Study of within-Country Differences in Work and Life Values

The goal of the article is to present the results of an exploratory study that analyses a sample of business students from two geographically separated regions (the North-East and the South-West) in Spain, to establish if different sub-cultures can be detected within one country, taking into account work and life values. Measures of culture (defined by a set of work and life values) were constructed, and data were obtained from 653 business students in these two distinct geographical locations. Results suggested in an indirect manner that the universal theory of culture as proposed by Hofstede and other colleagues was not entirely confirmed in the Spanish context. Variances along the set of eight value factors emerging as the underlying structure of culture (four work values and four life values) were widely spread, and significant differences in values were found for the two locations. Moreover, an individual difference, gender, was found to play a major role in attributing importance to various work and life values. Findings emphasize the importance of diverse sub-cultures within a single country (Spain), and the article explores the implications for management practices and research