Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polymorphism in the IL4R gene and clinical features are associated with glioma prognosis

Abstract Inflammatory gene polymorphisms may be associated with glioma risk. The purpose of this study was to analyze effects of certain inflammatory gene and some clinical factors on patient survival. The clinical information of 269 glioma patients conceived operation from September 2010 to May 2014 to decide the 1-, 3-year survival rates according to follow-up results and analyze age, gender, the WHO classification, extent of surgical resection, radiotherapy and chemotherapy factors effects on prognosis. Survival distributions were estimated by using the Kaplan–Meier method and difference in the survival was tested using the log-rank test. To estimate the association between the IL4, IL13, IL10, IL4R SNPs, and PFS and OS in glioma, the HR and 95% CI were calculated by univariate Cox proportional hazards model. Multivariate Cox model were performed to compute adjusted HR and 95% CI. All data was analyzed with SPSS17.0 package. Extent of surgical resection, chemotherapy, and age are an important factor in glioma overall survival and progression-free survival overall. Extent of surgery and chemotherapy are important factors in astrocytoma overall survival. Univariate analysis showed that IL4R rs1801275 was significantly associated with overall survival of glioma and astrocytoma patients (P < 0.05). Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that IL4R rs1801275 GG genotype could increase the death risk of glioma and astrocytoma patients (Glioma: hazard ratio [HR]: 4.897, 95% confidence limits [95% CI]: 1.962–12.222, P = 0.001; Astrocytoma: HR: 15.944, 95% CI: 4.019–63.253, P < 0.05). Our research results showed that extent of surgical resection, age, and chemotherapy affect the prognosis of glioma. The IL4R gene may affect the survival of glioma patients.
Detection and Characterization of Influential Cross-lingual Information Diffusion on Social Networks

Social network services (SNSs) have become new global and multilingual information platforms due to their popularity. In SNSs with content-sharing functionality, such as "retweet" in Twitter and "share" in Facebook, posts are easily and quickly shared among users, and some of which can spread over different regions and languages. In this work, we first define the concept of cross-lingual information cascade on the basis of the main language of users and then try to characterize and detect those information cascades which can widely spread over different regions and languages on social networks. Understanding the cross-lingual characteristics of information cascades is not only valuable for sociological research, but also beneficial in the practical sense for those who want to know globally-influential events (e.g. ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and Terrorism in Europe) and estimate the impact of global advertisements on products (e.g. Samsung galaxy phone and a movie, Your Name). On the first attempt, we conducted statistical analysis of cascade growth and language distribution of information cascades with a large Twitter dataset. Based on the results, we propose a feature-based model, by which we successfully detected influential cross-lingual information cascades.
Usefulness of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio in hormone-receptor-negative breast cancer

Purpose We aimed to investigate the relationship between pretreatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR)/platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and the estimation of hormone-receptor-negative (HR−) breast cancer patients’ survival in a Chinese cohort. Patients and methods Of 434 consecutive HR− nonmetastatic breast cancer patients treated between 2004 and 2010 in the Affiliated Hospital of Academy of Military Medical Sciences, 318 eligible cases with complete data were included in the present study. Kaplan–Meier analysis was performed to determine the overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards models were used to test the usefulness of NLR and PLR. Results Univariate analysis indicated that both elevated NLR and PLR (both P<0.001) were associated with poor OS. The utility of NLR remained in the multivariate analysis (P<0.001), but not PLR (P=0.104). The analysis results for DFS were almost the same as OS. Subgroup analysis revealed a significant association between increased NLR and PLR (P<0.001 and P=0.011) and poor survival in triple-negative breast cancer. However, for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive breast cancer, only NLR was significantly associated with OS in the multivariate analysis (P=0.001). Conclusion The present study indicates that both increased NLR and PLR are associated with poor survival in HR−breast cancer patients. Meanwhile, NLR is independently correlated with OS and DFS, but PLR is not.
Corporate communication through nonviolent rhetoric

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the problems associated with the prevailing rhetoric in corporate communication. It proposes the consideration of nonviolent rhetorical approaches.Design/methodology/approach – This paper explains corporate communication's affinity for aggressive, militaristic language in terms of constraint of time, and expediency and efficiency of standardized communication strategies designed for large‐scale effectiveness. However, such communication strategies run the risk of dehumanizing the intended targets, distancing the individuals, and compromising socially responsible corporate behavior. The recent corporate scandals of unprecedented scale, occurring in spite of vast improvements in communication theory and technology, have highlighted the need for alternative approaches to corporate communication. Further, it examines the prerequisites that must exist for corporate communication based on nonviolent rhetoric to be effective. The conditions that must be p.
Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce Investors' Adoption of Internet Stock Trading: a Study Entrepreneurship, Information Management, International Management, Consumer Behavior and Cross-cultural Management in Journals like Human Resource Planning, Industrial Management and Data Systems, Asia P

Professor, Business Management Department, carries with him a long professional experience spanning over 35 years. He earned his Ph.D. from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar (Punjab), India. He has published over 55 research papers to his credit in refereed journals of national and international repute. Dr. Sandhu has also published one book on consumer Demand in India. His research papers are also accepted in international conferences in United States and Canada. Abstract The purpose of this paper was to examine whether investors who adopted Internet stock trading perceived differently from those of non-adopters. The primary data based on 299 investors (149 adopters and 150 non-adopters) were analyzed using advanced multivariate techniques like factor analysis and discriminant analysis besides percentages, means, and Z-test. Results indicated that attitude dimensions and demographic variables contributed significantly in classifying investors as adopters or non-adopters in Internet trading. As regards attitude dimensions, 'variety of financial products and safety' contributed significantly in discriminating between adopters and non-adopters of Internet trading followed by the factor such as 'convenience and transparency'. As far as the demographics were concerned, the mature/older, experienced, and businessmen investors were less likely to use Internet stock trading as compared to young, inexperienced, and non-businessmen investors.
Simulating the Economic and Fiscal Impacts of High- and Low-Income Elderly on a Small Rural Region

We assess the impact of an aging rural population using the Wisconsin Economic Impact Modeling System, a county-level conjoined input-output/ econometrics simulation model. Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, we construct profiles of two household types to simulate the economic and fiscal impacts of 500 additional elderly households in a small rural economy. Household types vary by income levels and expenditure patterns. The results suggest that, from the perspective of local government officials, high-income elderly households will increase local expenditures more than a similar number of low-income retiree households, but the resulting increase in revenues will more than offset the increased expenditures.
Are Current Atomistic Force Fields Accurate Enough to Study Proteins in Crowded Environments?

The high concentration of macromolecules in the crowded cellular interior influences different thermodynamic and kinetic properties of proteins, including their structural stabilities, intermolecular binding affinities and enzymatic rates. Moreover, various structural biology methods, such as NMR or different spectroscopies, typically involve samples with relatively high protein concentration. Due to large sampling requirements, however, the accuracy of classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations in capturing protein behavior at high concentration still remains largely untested. Here, we use explicit-solvent MD simulations and a total of 6.4 µs of simulated time to study wild-type (folded) and oxidatively damaged (unfolded) forms of villin headpiece at 6 mM and 9.2 mM protein concentration. We first perform an exhaustive set of simulations with multiple protein molecules in the simulation box using GROMOS 45a3 and 54a7 force fields together with different types of electrostatics treatment and solution ionic strengths. Surprisingly, the two villin headpiece variants exhibit similar aggregation behavior, despite the fact that their estimated aggregation propensities markedly differ. Importantly, regardless of the simulation protocol applied, wild-type villin headpiece consistently aggregates even under conditions at which it is experimentally known to be soluble. We demonstrate that aggregation is accompanied by a large decrease in the total potential energy, with not only hydrophobic, but also polar residues and backbone contributing substantially. The same effect is directly observed for two other major atomistic force fields (AMBER99SB-ILDN and CHARMM22-CMAP) as well as indirectly shown for additional two (AMBER94, OPLS-AAL), and is possibly due to a general overestimation of the potential energy of protein-protein interactions at the expense of water-water and water-protein interactions. Overall, our results suggest that current MD force fields may distort the picture of protein behavior in biologically relevant crowded environments.
Asynchronous Newton-Raphson Consensus for Distributed Convex Optimization

We consider the distributed unconstrained minimization of separable convex cost functions, where the global cost is given by the sum of several local and private costs, each associated to a specific agent of a given communication network. We specifically address an asynchronous distributed optimization technique called Newton-Raphson Consensus. Beside having low computational complexity, low communication requirements and being interpretable as a distributed Newton-Raphson algorithm, the technique has also the beneficial properties of requiring very little coordination and naturally supporting time-varying topologies. In this work we analytically prove that under some assumptions it shows either local or global convergence properties, and corroborate this result by the means of numerical simulations.
Moduratory effect of Thai traditional medicine (Yahom Tultavai) on hepatic cytochrome P450 enzymes and pentobarbital-induced sleeping in mice.

Yahom Tultavai is a Thai traditional medicine that has been widely used for the treatment of nausea, vomiting, dizziness and weakness in aged-people, especially. Its formula contains several medicinal plants, and one of them is Kaempferia galanga L. , which has ethyl-p-methoxycinnamate (EPMC) as its major compound. Recently, several herbs and traditional medicines have been reported to demonstrate herbal-drug interaction with conventional medicines. This study aims to investigate the effect of Yahom Tultavai extracts on hepatic cytochrome P450 enzymes and pentobarbital-induced sleeping in mice. Three extracts of Yahom Tultavai, using dichloromethane, methanol and distilled water as solvents were orally administered for 28 days prior to determine CYP1A1, CYP1A2, CYP2B, CYP2E1 and CYP3A4 activities. All three extracts significantly inhibited CYP1A1, CYP1A2 and CYP 2E1 activities, but only dichloromethane extract enhanced CYP2B activity. In addition, all three extracts had no effect on CYP3A4 activity. As an indicator for metabolic drug interaction, pentobarbital-induced sleeping time was decreased in connection with the induction of CYP2B activity between 7 and 28 days of dichloromethane extract and EPMC-treated animals when compared to control. In conclusion, Yahom Tultavai extracts affected hepatic microsomal CYP enzyme activities and reduced pentobarbital-induced sleeping time in mice. The results suggest that Yahom Tultavai may potentially cause herbal and conventional drug interaction, which can affect the clinical implication of drug action. Therefore, the co-administration of Yahom Tultavai with certain drugs should be carefully considered.
Hormones and sexual behaviour

Psychiatrists react to the complexity of human nature in two principal ways; they either take it as justification for their ascientific humanism, or, with unwavering optimism, they accept the challenge and seek scientific explanations. ‘Hormones and behaviour’ has been a favourite hunting ground for such hopefuls, and it is perhaps the sexual part of our natures that we are most ready to attribute to chemistry.
The Relationships Of Trade, Economic Growth, And Market Power: The Case Of Rice Exporting

This paper aims to (1) analyze the relationship between rice exports and economic growth for the world’s top four exporting countries (Thailand, Vietnam, India, and the U.S) and (2) seek to determine to what extent market power affects a country’s economic growth. The main objective of this paper is to determine to what extent economic growth impacts a country’s rice exports as well as to what extent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) impacts a country’s ability to export rice. This analysis also examines the impact of market power on economic growth. On the basis of these results, we examine the existence of market power in the international rice market with respect to rice supply, and moreover, propose that there is a bi-directional causality between the international rice trade and economic growth for major rice exporting countries.
Cost implications of local area traffic management

The objectives, procedures and design principles for local area traffic management (LATM) are well documented, but there is little information on costs. This paper is aimed at redressing the balance and provides data to facilitate benefit cost studies and financial planning of LATM. Using the experience of LATM in Sydney, unit costs are derived for various LATM devices. These in turn are used to develop area costs for various degrees of LATM treatment for a representative local area; $0.53 M for full treatment and $0.12 M for peripheral treatment of a 1 sq km area, at 1984 prices. Estimates are made of (i) benefit cost returns (ii) cost to treat the whole of the Sydney metropolitan area. Benefit cost ratios are comparable with those for arterial urban road projects. It is estimated that 450 sq km or 12 per cent of council area requires LATM. If 4 per cent of local government road funds were allocated annually to LATM, Sydney could be managed over a ten year period. In short, LATM as well as being sound in the engineering sense, is economically viable and financially affordable.
Heuristic Thinking and Limited Attention in the Car Market

Can heuristic information processing affect important product markets? We explore whether the tendency to focus on the left-most digit of a number affects how used car buyers incorporate odometer values in their purchase decisions. Analyzing over 22 million wholesale used-car transactions, we find substantial evidence of this left-digit bias; there are large and discontinuous drops in sale prices at 10,000-mile thresholds in odometer mileage, along with smaller drops at 1,000-mile thresholds. We obtain estimates for the inattention parameter in a simple model of this left-digit bias. We also investigate whether this heuristic behavior is primarily attributable to the final used-car customers or the used-car salesmen who buy cars in the wholesale market. The evidence is most consistent with partial inattention by final customers. We discuss the significance of these results for the literature on inattention and point to other market settings where this type of heuristic thinking may be important. Our results suggest that information-processing heuristics may be important even in markets with large stakes and where information is easy to observe.
Autonomously generating efficient running of a quadruped robot using delayed feedback control

We report on the design and stability analysis of a simple quadruped running controller that can autonomously generate steady running of a quadruped with good energy efficiency and suppress such disturbances as irregularities of terrain. In this paper, we first consider the fixed point of quasi-passive running based on a sagittal plane model of a quadruped robot. Next, we regard friction and collision as disturbances around the fixed point of quasi-passive running, and propose an original control method to suppress these disturbances. Since it is difficult to accurately measure the total energy of the system in a practical application, we use a delayed feedback control (DFC) method based on the stance phase period measured by contact sensors on the robot's feet with practical accuracy. The DFC method not only stabilizes running around a fixed point, but also results in the transition from standing to steady running and stabilization in running up a small step. The effectiveness of the proposed control method is validated by simulations. MPEG footage of these simulations can be viewed at: http://www.kimura. is.uec. ac.jp/running.
Smell identification scores of patients with essential tremor

It has been reported that patients with essential tremor have a much higher risk of Parkinson’s disease; moreover, olfactory dysfunction is common in Parkinson’s disease and becomes apparent early in the disease process. We aimed to investigate the olfactory function of essential tremor patients using the Short Smell Test Battery of GATA Haydarpaşa (GULTEST), which consists of five odors (banana, lemon, mint, rose, and chocolate). The participants in the study were 155 male essential tremor patients, 20–36 years of age (mean age: 21.2), and 290 male control subjects, 20–35 years of age (mean age: 21.1). The two groups were similar in terms of age, gender, and smoking history; their mean GULTEST scores were 3.41 and 3.4, respectively. Our results showed no loss of olfactory function in young male essential tremor patients. Neurology Asia 2014; 19(3) : 271 – 275
HyperBF Networks for Real Object Recognition

Even if represented in a way which is invariant to illumination conditions, a 3D object gives rise to an infinite number of 2D views, depending on its pose. It has been recently shown ([13]) that it is possible to synthesize a module that can recognize a specific 3D object from any viewpoint, by using a new technique of learning from examples, which are, in this case, a small set of 2D views of the object. In this paper we extend the technique, a) to deal with real objects (isolated paper clips) that suffer from noise and occlusions and b) to exploit negative examples during the learning phase. We also compare different versions of the multi-layer networks corresponding to our technique among themselves and with a standard Nearest Neighbor classifier. The simplest version, which is a Radial Basis Functions network, performs less well than a Nearest Neighbor classi-fier. The more powerful versions, trained with positive and negative examples, perform significantly better. Our results, which may have interesting implications for computer vision despite the relative simplicity of the task studied, are especially interesting for understanding the process of object recognition in biological vision. 1 Introduction Shape-based visual recognition of 3D objects may be solved by first hypothesizing the viewpoint (e.g., using information on feature correspondences between the image and a 3D model), then computing the appearance of the model of the object to be recognized from that viewpoint and comparing it with the actual image ([6; 20; 9; 11; 21]). Most recognition schemes developed in computer vision over the last few years employ 3D models of objects. Automatic learning of 3D models, however, is in itself a difficult problem that has not been much addressed in the past and which presents difficulties, especially for any theory that wants to account for human ability in visual recognition. Recently, recognition schemes have been suggested that, relying on a set of 2D views of the object instead of a 3D model ([2; 5; 13]), offer a natural solution to the problem of model acquisition. In particular, Poggio and Edelman ([13]) have argued that for each object there exists a smooth function mapping any perspective view into a "standard" view of the object and that this mul-tivariate function may be approximatevely synthesized from a small number of views of the object. Such a function would be object specific, with different functions corresponding to different 3D objects. …
Long-term variability of the optical spectra of NGC 4151. I. Light curves and flux correlations

Aims. Results of long-term spectral monitoring of the active galactic nucleus of NGC 4151 are presented (11 years, from 1996 to 2006). Methods. High quality spectra (S /N > 50 in the continuum near Hα and Hβ) were obtained in the spectral range ∼4000 to 7500 A, with a resolution between 5 and 15 A, using the 6-m and the 1-m SAO’s telescopes (Russia), the GHAO’s 2.1-m telescope (Cananea, Mexico), and the OAN-SPM’s 2.1-m telescope (San-Pedro, Mexico). The observed fluxes of the Hα ,H β ,H γ ,a nd HeIIλ4686 emission lines and of the continuum at the observed wavelength 5117 A were corrected for the position angle, the seeing, and the aperture effects. Results. We found that the continuum and line fluxes varied strongly (up to a factor 6) during the monitoring period. The emission was maximum in 1996−1998, and there were two minima in 2001 and in 2005. As a consequence, the spectral type of the nucleus changed from a Sy1.5 in the maximum activity state to a Sy1.8 in the minimum state. The Hα ,H γ ,a nd Heλ4686 fluxes correlated well with the Hβ flux. The line profiles were strongly variable, showing changes of the blue and red asymmetry. The flux ratios of the blue/red wings and of the blue (or red) wing/core of Hα and Hβ varied differently. We considered three characteristic periods during which the Hβ and Hα profiles were similar: 1996−1999, 2000−2001, and 2002−2006. The line-to-continuum flux ratios were different; in particular during the first period (1996–1999), the lines were not correlated with the continuum and saturated at high fluxes. In the second and third periods (2000–2006), where the continuum flux was small, the Hα and Hβ fluxes were well correlated to the continuum flux, meaning that the ionizing continuum was a good extrapolation of the optical continuum. The CCFs are often asymmetrical and the time lags between the lines and the continuum are badly defined, indicating the presence of a complex BLR, with dimensions from 1 to 50 light-days. Conclusions. We discuss the different responses of Hβ and Hα to the continuum during the monitoring period.