Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Properties of single ion channel currents elicted by a pulse of agonist concentration or voltage

Experiments are often performed to study the behaviour of a single ion channel in response to a perturbation produced by a step change (‘jump’) in a variable that influences its equilibrium position, for example a voltage jump or jump in agonist concentration. It is also common to apply a rectangular pulse (consisting of an on jump followed by an off jump); for example brief concentration pulses are used to mimic synaptic transmission. Assuming a general Markov mechanism for channel dynamics, we obtain theoretical probability distributions of observable characteristics that describe the non–stationary behaviour of single ion channels which are subject to a jump, or to a pulse of finite duration. These characteristics are such things as open times, shut times, first latency, burst length and length of activation. We concentrate particularly on jumps to or from a zero level of agonist, which necessitates some modification to the usual arguments to cope with having some absorbing sets of states. Where possible, we include results which make allowance for the phenomenon of time interval omission, whereby some short intervals may be missed due to imperfect resolution of the recording method. A numerical example is studied in detail.
Safety and Efficacy of Combined Transrectal Ultrasound-Guided Prostate Needle Biopsy and Transurethral Resection of the Prostate

Purpose This study was conducted to examine whether simultaneous transrectal prostate needle biopsy (TPNB) owing to an increase in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels is safe and effective in patients who are scheduled for transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Materials and Methods Combined TPNB and TURP was performed in a total of 42 patients aged 60 years and older who had gray-zone PSA values (4-10 ng/ml) and PSA density (PSAD) values of 0.12 and less. The frequencies of fever, sepsis, and epididymitis were assessed after surgery. The diagnostic accuracy was assessed, and the results of histologic examination were evaluated in terms of TPNB or TURP. In addition, the diagnostic accuracy was assessed according to age. Results Prostate cancer was diagnosed in 6 (14.3%) of the 42 patients: 2 patients were diagnosed with prostate cancer by TPNB only, 3 patients by TURP only, and 1 patient by combined TPNB and TURP. Four (25%) of the 16 patients aged under 70 years and 2 (7.8%) of the 26 patients aged 70 years and older were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Fever was observed in 9 patients (21.4%), 4 (9.5%) of whom had a fever of higher than 38℃. The fever normalized the day after surgery in all 9 patients. No septicemia was noted. There were no serious complications related to combined TPNB and TURP. Conclusions The results of this study suggest that combined TPNB and TURP may be safe and effective in patients who require TURP.
CRIB: Consolidated rename, issue, and bypass

Conventional high-performance processors utilize register renaming and complex broadcast-based scheduling logic to steer instructions into a small number of heavily-pipelined execution lanes. This requires multiple complex structures and repeated dependency resolution, imposing a significant dynamic power overhead. This paper advocates in-place execution of instructions, a power-saving, pipeline-free approach that consolidates rename, issue, and bypass logic into one structure - the CRIB - while simultaneously eliminating the need for a multiported register file, instead storing architected state in a simple rank of latches. CRIB achieves the high IPC of an out-of-order machine while keeping the execution core clean, simple, and low power. The datapath within a CRIB structure is purely combinational, eliminating most of the clocked elements in the core while keeping a fully synchronous yet high-frequency design. Experimental results match the IPC and cycle time of a baseline outof- order design while reducing dynamic energy consumption by more than 60% in affected structures.
Effect of Cattle Breed on Meat Quality, Muscle Fiber Characteristics, Lipid Oxidation and Fatty Acids in China

The objective was to compare meat quality, muscle fiber characteristics, lipid oxidation and fatty acids of Limousin (LIM), Simmtental (SIM), Luxi (LX), Qinchuan (QC) and Jinnan (JN) offered the same diet in China. After finishing, eight bulls from each breed were randomly selected for slaughter at 18.5 months old. Longissimus dorsi (ld) muscle was taken from the carcass for meat quality evaluations. Breed had little effect on most of meat and fat color parameters except for Hue and b* in which QC had lower values. LIM showed higher pH (24 h) and better water holding capacity than other breeds. LIM showed the lowest dry matter content but the highest crude protein. LX and LIM had higher percentage and density of red muscle fiber than other breeds. Lipid oxidations were significantly lower in LIM than in QC, with the LX, SIM and JN having the intermediate values. Compared to other four breeds, QC provided the highest values of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), n-6 fatty acids and n-3 fatty acids. In conclusion, LIM scored better on most of meat quality characteristics; however, local breeds such as LX and QC also had better muscle fiber characteristics and better fatty acids composition.
The macroeconomic transition to high household debt

Aggressive deregulation of the household debt market in the early 1980s triggered innovations that greatly reduced the required home equity of U.S. households, allowing them to cash-out a large part of accumulated equity. In 1982, home equity equaled 71 percent of GDP; so this generated a borrowing shock of huge macroeconomic proportions. The combination of increasing household debt from 43 to 56 percent of GDP with high interest rates during the 1982-1990 period is consistent with such a shock to households’ demand for funds. This paper uses a quantitative general equilibrium model of lending from the wealthy to the middle class to evaluate the positive and normative aspects of the transition to a high debt economy. Using the model, we interpret evidence on the changing distribution of assets and debt as well as macro time series since 1982.
Context matters: primary schools and academies reform in England

Abstract There is little conclusive evidence linking academies reform in England with school improvement. While this reform has been effective in improving educational outcomes in some contexts, it has been resoundingly unsuccessful in others. Nevertheless, political faith in autonomous schooling as key to a world-class education remains strong. This paper considers how matters of context impact on approaches to and enactments of this policy. Drawing on case study data from two groups of primary schools from (1) a local authority and (2) an academy chain, the paper examines the particular situated, professional, material and external factors that impact on these schools’ capacities to cope with and respond to academies reform. In light of the continued tendency within policy for schools to be dematerialised, the paper argues the ongoing significance of greater attention to matters of context in understanding how schools are navigating the complex terrain of this reform.
Emotional intelligence, emotional labor, coach burnout, job satisfaction, and turnover intention in sport leadership

ABSTRACT Research Question(s): Emotions play a critical role in the leadership process. Relatively little is known about the management of emotions and its impact on individual well-being within the realm of sport leadership. To fill this void, this study examined the relationships between emotional intelligence, the three forms of emotional labor, coach burnout, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions among high school athletic coaches. Research Methods: Three hundred twenty-two high school coaches in the United States completed the online questionnaires measuring the proposed variables. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Results and Findings: Emotional intelligence was significantly associated with all three forms of emotional labor in different directions. Additionally, surface acting was positively associated with coach burnout and negatively associated with job satisfaction. Deep acting and genuine expression were negatively associated with coach burnout and positively associated with job satisfaction. Finally, turnover intention was positively associated with coach burnout and negatively associated with job satisfaction. Implications: Practically, coaches should use deep acting and genuine expressions and avoid surface acting for the benefit of both coaches and organizations. The results also showed the significant role of emotional intelligence on the health-detrimental strategy of surface acting and the health-beneficial strategy of deep acting and genuine expression.
THE REFLECTION OF SPECIAL OLYMPICS SPORTS INTERVENTIONAL PROGRAMME IN INNER EXPERIENCE OF ADOLESCENTS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

The article presents a part of extensive longitudinal project** undertaken during the years 1995–1997. The used methodology was described (Válková, 1996; Válková, 1998). The content of article is focused on the development of inner experience of adolescents with mental retardation. Members of the SOI group (SOI) were involved in Special Olympics sports programme, the members of NON did not participate in any sports activities. Research project lasted more than 2 years, the Special Olympics sports programme constituted a minimum of 4 hours per week more than the programme for general education in NON group in residential homes. The “Technique of incomplete sentences“ was used for analysis of inner personal experience of adolescents with mental retardation. Research assessment was applied during March 1995 and repeated in June 1997. SOI and NON groups presented different picture both in the first and later in repeated assessments, above all in the categories: meal and board orientation, performance orientation, home and house, hypercriticism, attituted towards sports activities, ideals, etc. After two years of different programmes, different developmental trends were found in SOI and NON groups in subjective personal experience categories. We can hence deduce that the influence of inner enrichment in experience of adolescents with mental retardation as well as socialization seems to be very important.
A Mathematical Proof of the Existence of Trends in Financial Time Series

We are settling a longstanding quarrel in quantitative finance by proving the existence of trends in financial time series thanks to a theorem due to P. Cartier and Y. Perrin, which is expressed in the language of nonstandard analysis (Integration over finite sets, F. & M. Diener (Eds): Nonstandard Analysis in Practice, Springer, 1995, pp. 195--204). Those trends, which might coexist with some altered random walk paradigm and efficient market hypothesis, seem nevertheless difficult to reconcile with the celebrated Black-Scholes model. They are estimated via recent techniques stemming from control and signal theory. Several quite convincing computer simulations on the forecast of various financial quantities are depicted. We conclude by discussing the role of probability theory.
A Broad View of the Ecosystem of Socially Engineered Exploit Documents

Our understanding of exploit documents as a vector to deliver targeted malware is limited to a handful of studies done in collaboration with the Tibetans, Uyghurs, and political dissidents in the Middle East. In this measurement study, we present a complementary methodology relying only on publicly available data to capture and analyze targeted attacks with both greater scale and depth. In particular, we detect exploit documents uploaded over one year to a large anti-virus aggregator (VirusTotal) and then mine the social engineering information they embed to infer their likely targets and contextual information of the attacks. We identify attacks against two ethnic groups (Tibet and Uyghur) as well as 12 countries spanning America, Asia, and Europe. We then analyze the exploit documents dynamically in sandboxes to correlate and compare the exploited vulnerabilities and malware families targeting different groups. Finally, we use machine learning to infer the role of the uploaders of these documents to VirusTotal (i.e., attacker, targeted victim, or third-party), which enables their classification based only on their metadata, without any dynamic analysis. We make our datasets available to the academic community.
Opportunity to Learn, Engagement, and Science Achievement: Evidence form TIMSS 2003 Data

This study examined the relationships between opportunity to learn (OTL), science engagement, and science achievement in students’ middle school level. This study used the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data from the 2003 wave. The data were analyzed using structuring equation modeling and hierarchical linear modeling. It was hypothesized that students’ engagement in science is a mediator between opportunity to learn and science achievement. Moreover, class and school level variability was also examined since the organization of the data was nested. The study examined the effects of OTL on students’ emotional, cognitive, and behavioral engagement in science and subsequently on science achievement controlling for family socioeconomics status. The results of structural equation modeling supported some theoretical formulations of the conceptual model, and showed significant effect of OTL factors on students’ science engagement, especially the behavioral engagement. Furthermore, science emotional and cognitive engagement showed positive effects on science achievement, but the effect of behavioral engagement on science achievement was complex. Detailed exploration and discussions were included in this study. The findings from hierarchical linear models suggested that students’ science achievement was not only related to students’ engagement, but also varied by class and school level OTL factors. The study had both theoretical and practical significances, providing valuable insights for the pedagogy of science.
So , youwant to trace your distributed system ? Key design insights from years of practical experience

End-to-end tracing captures the workow of causally-related activity (e.g., work done to process a request) within and among the components of a distributed system. As distributed systems grow in scale and complexity, such tracing is becoming a critical tool for management tasks like diagnosis and resource accounting. Drawing upon our experiences building and using end-to-end tracing infrastructures, this paper distills the key design axes that dictate trace utility for important use cases. Developing tracing infrastructures without explicitly understanding these axes and choices for them will likely result in infrastructures that are not useful for their intended purposes. In addition to identifying the design axes, this paper identies good design choices for various tracing use cases, contrasts them to choices made by previous tracing implementations, and shows where prior implementations fall short. It also identies remaining challenges on the path to making tracing an integral part of distributed system design. Acknowledgements:We thank themembers and companies of the PDLConsortium (including Actio, APC, EMC, Emulex, Facebook, Fusionio, Google, Hewlett-Packard Labs, Hitachi, Huawei Technologies, Intel, Microso Research, NEC Laboratories, NetApp, Oracle, Panasas, Riverbed, Samsung, Seagate, STEC, Symantec, VMWare, and Western Digital) for their interest, insights, feedback, and support. is research was sponsored in part by two Google research awards, NSF grant #CNS-1117567, and by Intel via the Intel Science and Technology Center for Cloud Computing (ISTC-CC). While at Carnegie Mellon, Ilari Shafer was supported in part by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
Exposure of Phosphatidylserine on Leishmania amazonensis Isolates Is Associated with Diffuse Cutaneous Leishmaniasis and Parasite Infectivity

Diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis (DCL) is a rare clinical manifestation of leishmaniasis, characterized by an inefficient parasite-specific cellular response and heavily parasitized macrophages. In Brazil, Leishmania (Leishmania) amazonensis is the main species involved in DCL cases. In the experimental model, recognition of phosphatidylserine (PS) molecules exposed on the surface of amastigotes forms of L. amazonensis inhibits the inflammatory response of infected macrophages as a strategy to evade the host immune surveillance. In this study, we examined whether PS exposure on L. amazonensis isolates from DCL patients operated as a parasite pathogenic factor and as a putative suppression mechanism of immune response during the infection. Peritoneal macrophages from F1 mice (BALB/c×C57BL/6) were infected with different L. amazonensis isolates from patients with localized cutaneous leishmaniasis (LCL) or DCL. DCL isolates showed higher PS exposure than their counterparts from LCL patients. In addition, PS exposure was positively correlated with clinical parameters of the human infection (number of lesions and time of disease) and with characteristics of the experimental infection (macrophage infection and anti-inflammatory cytokine induction). Furthermore, parasites isolated from DCL patients displayed an increased area in parasitophorous vacuoles (PV) when compared to those isolated from LCL patients. Thus, this study shows for the first time that a parasite factor (exposed PS) might be associated with parasite survival/persistence in macrophages and lesion exacerbation during the course of DCL, providing new insights regarding pathogenic mechanism in this rare chronic disease.
THRB Genetic Polymorphisms Can Predict Severe Myelotoxicity after Definitive Chemoradiotherapy in Patients with Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Objective: Chemotherapy-related toxicities are difficult to predict before treatment. In this study, we investigated whether thyroid hormone receptor beta (THRB) genetic polymorphisms can serve as a potential biomarker in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Methods: Forty-nine Japanese patients with ESCC who received a definitive chemoradiotherapy (CRT) with 5-fluorouracil and cisplatin in conjunction with concurrent irradiation were retrospectively analyzed. Severe acute toxicities, including leukopenia, stomatitis, and cheilitis, were evaluated according to 6 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the gene; the intronic SNPs of rs7635707 G/T, rs6787255 A/C, rs9812034 G/T, and rs9310738 C/T and the SNPs in the 3′-untranslated region (3′-UTR) of rs844107 C/T and rs1349265 G/A. Results: Distribution of the 4 intronic SNPs, but not the 2 SNPs in the 3′-UTR, showed a significant difference between patients with and without severe acute leukopenia. Stomatitis and cheilitis were not associated with any of the 6 analyzed SNPs. Frequency of haplotype of the 4 intronic SNPs reached approximately 97% with the 2 major haplotypes G-A-G-C (73.4%) and T-C-T-T (23.5%). Conclusions: THRB intronic SNPs can provide useful information on CRT-related severe myelotoxicity in patients with ESCC. Future studies will be needed to confirm these findings.
Corporate Finance in Family Business Groups

I present a theory of the optimal capital structure and dividend policy for expanding family business groups vertically or horizontally. When private control benefits are substantial, takeover threats impose a constraint on external equity financing. Debt can overcome this restriction but introduces the possibility of bankruptcy where control benefits are also lost. Relative to a horizontal structure, a vertical pyramid enhances internal capital financing, but the family has to share more of the profit from the new firm with its existing shareholders, implying that a pyramid is more likely when external financing constraints are more severe, or the new firm is less profitable but capital intensive. In equilibrium, subsidiaries are less leveraged than horizontal entities directly controlled by the family, because the parent firm supports subsidiaries with greater amounts of internal capital. Within a pyramid, the leverage ratio should decrease from top to bottom because the parent firm has a larger collateralized debt capacity. At the same time, dividend payout should increase from top to bottom because this is how the family transfers wealth out of the subsidiaries, without selling control shares to ensure its control over the parent firm against default. Therefore, the theory predicts a decreasing leverage ratio from top to bottom of the pyramid, supported by a dividend policy where the parent firm pays out less to maximize group internal capital, while subsidiaries pay out more to service the parent firm’s debt. I confirm these predictions using a unique data set on Korean business groups. Together, the empirical results and theory suggest that the structure of a business group is strategically designed to maximize control.
' s personal copy Identi fi cation of viscoelastic CSH behavior in mature cement paste by FFT-based homogenization method

a r t i c l e i n f o A powerful and robust numerical homogenization method based on fast Fourier transform (FFT) is formulated to identify the viscoelastic behavior of calcium silicate hydrates (C-S-H) in hardened cement paste from its heterogeneous composition. The identification is contingent upon the linearity of the creep law. To characterize cement paste microstructure, the model developed by Bentz at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which has the resolution of 1 μm, is adopted. Model B3 for concrete creep is adapted to characterize the creep of C-S-H in cement paste. It is found that the adaptation requires increasing the exponent of power law asymptote of creep compliance. This modification means that the rate of attenuation of creep with time is lower in C-S-H than in cement paste, and is explained by differences in stress redistribution. In cement paste, the stress is gradually transferred from the creeping C-S-H to the non-creeping components. The viscoelastic properties of C-S-H at the resolution of 1 μm were identified from creep experiments on cement pastes 2 and 30 years old, having the water–cement ratio of 0.5. The irreversible part of C-S-H creep, obtained from these old specimens at almost saturated state, is found to be negligible unless the specimens undergo drying and resaturation prior to the creep test. The existing models for predicting concrete creep are either entirely empirical or are based only on macroscopic mathematical arguments [1]. They do not take into account the random microstruc-ture and its evolution. Thanks to the recent progress in micromecha-nics, material modeling and numerical simulation, it has now become possible to relate creep to the material properties on the micrometer and nanometer scales. Here we aim at mathematical formulation of this relationship. It is beyond doubt that the mechanics of composite materials can bring new insight into the creep behavior of concrete. The recent work in linear elastic homogenization of concrete [2] or cement paste [3] demonstrated the potential of analytical or numerical homogenization methods (although, for very young hydrating concrete, these methods might not be sufficiently realistic, due to the simplifying assumption of perfect bonding among all phases, which is poor for early ages [2]). Extension of these methods to basic creep of aging concrete or hardened cement paste is made possible by linearity of the constitutive law, which permits reducing the creep problem to a quasi-static elasticity problem. …