Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Soft tissue sarcomas of the trunk wall (STS-TW): a study of 343 patients from the French Sarcoma Group (FSG) database.

BACKGROUND Soft tissue sarcomas of the trunk wall (STS-TW) are usually studied together with soft tissue sarcomas of other locations. We report a study on STS-TW forming part of the French Sarcoma Group database. PATIENTS AND METHODS Three hundred and forty-three adults were included. We carried out univariate and multivariate analysis for overall survival (OS), metastasis-free survival (MFS) and local recurrence-free survival (LRFS). RESULTS Tumor locations were as follows: thoracic wall, 82.5%; abdominal wall, 12.3% and pelvic wall, 5.2%. Median tumor size was 6.0 cm. The most frequent tumor types were unclassified sarcoma (27.7%) and myogenic sarcoma (19.2%). A total of 44.6% of cases were grade 3. In all, 21.9% of patients had a previous medical history of radiotherapy (PHR). Median follow-up was 7.6 years. The 5-year OS, MFS and LRFS rates were 60.4%, 68.9% and 58.4%, respectively. Multivariate analysis retained PHR and grade for predicting LRFS and PHR, size and grade as prognostic factors of MFS. Factors influencing OS were age, size, PHR, depth, grade and surgical margins. The predictive factors of incomplete response were PHR, size and T3. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest similar classical prognostic factors as compared with sarcomas of other locations. However, a separate analysis of STS-TW revealed a significant poor prognosis subgroup of patients with PHR.
Self-Organized Bottleneck and Coexistence of Incongruous States in a Microwave Phonon Laser (Phaser)

Phenomena of emergence of regular and chaotic fine structure (FS) in stimulated emission (SE) power spectra of an autonomous microwave phonon laser (phaser) have been revealed and investigated experimentally in pink ruby at liquid helium temperatures. The phenomenon of a self-organized bottleneck in evolution of the microwave acoustic FS lines has been observed by means of narrow-range phonon SE spectral analysis. The large-scale phenomenon of coexistence of incongruous (stationary, periodic and chaotic) states in the whole spin-phonon phaser system has been revealed in experiments with panoramic power spectra of phonon SE. We propose a possible direction for modeling of both the observed phenomena on the basis of three-level cellular automata (S.D.Makovetskiy and D.N.Makovetskii, arXiv:cond-mat/0410460v2; S.D.Makovetskiy, arXiv:cond-mat/0602345v1) which emulate evolution of a bounded phaser-like excitable system.
Sinica Treebank: Design Criteria, Representational Issues and Implementation

The disclosed apparatus measures the mass rate of flow of gas through an orifice of a flow nozzle under critical flow conditions and comprises a reservoir having an inlet connected to a source of high pressure through a first valve and an outlet connected to a flow nozzle adapted to conduct pressurized gas from said reservoir under critical flow conditions to a region of low pressure downstream of the flow nozzle. The critical flow conditions are established by a second valve mounted downstream of the nozzle orifice. Density and pressure measuring devices are coupled to the reservoir and provide signals representative of the density and pressure, respectively, of the gas flowing through the flow nozzle. The density and pressure signals are applied to a device which calculates the square root of the product of density and pressure to provide a signal proportional to the mass rate of gas flow.
Rigorous Capital Requirements Under Basel III: Possible Impact on Turkey's Financial Sector

Turkey has experienced the biggest financial and economic shock in 2001 resulting a massive overhauling of its entire banking system that eventually cost the government over $50 billion. The IMF was involved in the recovery process from the beginning providing Turkey nearly $24 billion of financial assistance between the fragile years of 1999 and 2002. After 19 Stand-By arrangements, the Turkish government recently announce that it had decided to put an end to its partnership with the IMF since 1947 and it also said that it would not commit to another arrangement after the last payment of the existing loan is made on April 2013. The resilient Turkish banking system capable of absorbing shocks during financial stress, thanks to the extraordinary work by the BRSA, a decade long political stability (one-party government since 2002) along with improved global investor confidence enabled Turkey becoming the 16th largest economy in the world with over $1 trillion in GDP. On the contrary of common arguments, a large number of Turkish government officials and the top banking executives believe that Basel III’s new rigorous capital requirements will have little or no impact on the Turkish banking sector which currently has a capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of little over 16%, thatis significantly higher than Basel III’s 10.5% in effect by January 2019.
Orthogonal design of unitary constellations for uncoded and trellis-coded noncoherent space-time systems

We construct unitary noncoherent space-time constellations, which can be considered as a concatenation of a training block with an orthogonal design. With a simple construction, our constellations are easy to design, enjoy full antenna diversity, allow for a simplified maximum-likelihood (ML) detector, and achieve error performance comparable to existing designs that rely on computer search. To exploit the constellation structures and improve coding gains, we further pursue a trellis-coded modulation (TCM) approach. Based on the sequence pairwise error analysis, we identify two simple parameters to quantify the asymptotic error performance, which enables us to compare among different TCM schemes or uncoded alternatives.
Cell Cycle Progression and Cell Polarity Require Sphingolipid Biosynthesis in Aspergillus nidulans

ABSTRACT Sphingolipids are major components of the plasma membrane of eukaryotic cells and were once thought of merely as structural components of the membrane. We have investigated effects of inhibiting sphingolipid biosynthesis, both in germinating spores and growing hyphae of Aspergillus nidulans. In germinating spores, genetic or pharmacological inactivation of inositol phosphorylceramide (IPC) synthase arrests the cell cycle in G1 and also prevents polarized growth during spore germination. However, inactivation of IPC synthase not only eliminates sphingolipid biosynthesis but also leads to a marked accumulation of ceramide, its upstream intermediate. We therefore inactivated serine palmitoyltransferase, the first enzyme in the sphingolipid biosynthesis pathway, to determine effects of inhibiting sphingolipid biosynthesis without an accumulation of ceramide. This inactivation also prevented polarized growth but did not affect nuclear division of germinating spores. To see if sphingolipid biosynthesis is required to maintain polarized growth, and not just to establish polarity, we inhibited sphingolipid biosynthesis in cells in which polarity was already established. This inhibition rapidly abolished normal cell polarity and promoted cell tip branching, which normally never occurs. Cell tip branching was closely associated with dramatic changes in the normally highly polarized actin cytoskeleton and found to be dependent on actin function. The results indicate that sphingolipids are essential for the establishment and maintenance of cell polarity via control of the actin cytoskeleton and that accumulation of ceramide is likely responsible for arresting the cell cycle in G1.
Optimal Design of Discrete Output Feedback Control Using Genetic Algorithm for a Multi Area Power System

In this paper, a design of an optimal output feedback control for decentralized Load Frequency Controllers (LFC) of a multi-area interconnected power system using Genetic Algorithm (GA), is presented. The original system is decomposed into subsystems (areas). A Local Output Feedback Controller (LOFC) is designed for each subsystem and its relative optimal gain matrix is derived using GA. The proposed approach is implemented on a three-area interconnected power system and could be extended to more areas in different configurations (radial, ring). The system performance is analysed by simulating different disturbances. Effectiveness is shown through a comparative study with the Conventional Integral Control (CIC) for different operating conditions and a wide-range variation in the system parameters with the presence of the turbine Generation Rate Constraints (GRC) nonlinearity.
Examining the Potential of Forest Residue-Based Amendments for Post-Wildfire Rehabilitation in Colorado, USA

Wildfire is a natural disturbance, though elemental losses and changes that occur during combustion and post-fire erosion can have long-term impacts on soil properties, ecosystem productivity, and watershed condition. Here we evaluate the potential of forest residue-based materials to rehabilitate burned soils. We compare soil nutrient and water availability, and plant recovery after application of 37 t ha−1 of wood mulch, 20 t ha−1 of biochar, and the combination of the two amendments with untreated, burned soils. We also conducted a greenhouse trial to examine how biochar influenced soil nutrient and water content under two wetting regimes. The effects of wood mulch on plant-available soil N and water content were significant and seasonally consistent during the three-year field study. Biochar applied alone had few effects under field conditions, but significantly increased soil pH, Ca, P, and water in the greenhouse. The mulched biochar treatment had the greatest effects on soil N and water availability and increased cover of the most abundant native plant. We found that rehabilitation treatments consisting of forest residue-based products have potential to enhance soil N and water dynamics and plant recovery following severe wildfire and may be justified where erosion risk or water supply protection are crucial.
Coherent vorticity and current density simulation of three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic turbulence using orthogonal wavelets

A simulation method to track the time evolution of coherent vorticity and current density, called coherent vorticity and current density simulation (CVCS), is developed for three-dimensional (3D) incompressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. The vorticity and current density fields are, respectively, decomposed at each time step into two orthogonal components, the coherent and incoherent fields, using an orthogonal wavelet representation. Each of the coherent fields is reconstructed from the wavelet coefficients whose modulus is larger than a threshold, while their incoherent counterparts are obtained from the remaining coefficients. The two threshold values depend on the instantaneous kinetic and magnetic enstrophies. The induced coherent velocity and magnetic fields are computed from the coherent vorticity and current density using the Biot–Savart kernel. In order to compute the flow evolution, one should retain not only the coherent wavelet coefficients but also their neighbors in wavelet space, and the set of those additional coefficients is called the safety zone. CVCS is performed for 3D forced incompressible homogeneous MHD turbulence without mean magnetic field for a magnetic Prandtl number equal to unity and with 2563 grid points. The quality of CVCS is assessed by comparing the results with a direct numerical simulation. It is found that CVCS with the safety zone well preserves the statistical predictability of the turbulent flow with a reduced number of degrees of freedom. CVCS is also compared with a Fourier truncated simulation using a spectral cutoff filter where the number of retained Fourier modes is similar to the number of the wavelet coefficients retained by CVCS. It is shown that the wavelet representation is more suitable than the Fourier representation, especially concerning the probability density functions of vorticity and current density.
Market vs. Regulatory Responses to Corporate Fraud: A Critique of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002

The crashes and frauds of Enron, WorldCom and other companies have reinvigorated the debate over regulating corporate governance. Many pundits have called for corporate regulation to restore confidence in the securities markets. These recommendations appear to be supported by the fact that neither the contracting devices that were supposed to control managers, nor efficient securities markets, worked to prevent or spot the problems. Congress responded with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. But this article shows that, given the limited effectiveness of new regulation, its potential costs, and the power of markets to self-correct, new regulation of fraud in general, and Sarbanes-Oxley in particular, is unlikely to do a better job than markets.
Evaluation of toxicological and antioxidant potential of Nardostachys jatamansi in reversing haloperidol-induced catalepsy in rats

An aqueous root extract from Nardostachys jatamansi was investigated for its antioxidant and anticataleptic effects in the haloperidol-induced catalepsy rat model of the disease by measuring various behavioral and biochemical parameters. Catalepsy was induced by administration of haloperidol (1 mg/kg, ip) in male albino rats. A significant (P < 0.01) reduction in the cataleptic scores were observed in all the drug-treated groups as compared to the haloperidol-treated group; with maximum reduction observed in the Nardostachys jatamansi (250 and 500 mg/kg body weight) administered group. To estimate biochemical parameters: the generation of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS); reduced glutathione (GSH) content and glutathione-dependent enzymes; catalase; and superoxide dismutase (SOD), in the brain were assessed. Haloperidol administration increased generation of TBARS and significantly reduced GSH, which were restored to near normal level with the Nardostachys jatamansi treatment. Catalase and SOD levels were also increased to normal levels, having been reduced significantly by haloperidol administration. Our findings of behavioral studies and biochemical estimations show that Nardostachys jatamansi reversed the haloperidol-induced catalepsy in rats. We conclude that the antioxidant potential has contributed to the reduction in the oxidative stress and catalepsy induced by haloperidol administration.
Models of Machines and Modules for Mapping to Minimise Makespan in Multicomputers

It is now more than a quarter of a century since researchers started publishing papers on mapping strategies for distributing computation across the computation resource of multiprocessor systems. There exists a large body of literature on the subject, but there is no commonly-accepted framework whereby results in the field can be compared. Nor is it always easy to assess the relevance of a new result to a particular problem. Furthermore, changes in parallel computing technology have made some of the earlier work of less relevance to current multiprocessor systems. Versions of the mapping problem are classified, and research in the field is considered in terms of its relevance to the problem of programming currentlyavailablehardware in the formof adistributedmemorymultiple instruction stream multiple data stream computer: amulticomputer.
The Joint Effect of Management's Prior Forecast Accuracy and the Form of its Financial Forecasts on Investor Judgment

We examine how investor reaction to management earnings forecasts is a joint function of the form of the forecast and management's perceived credibility. In a laboratory experiment involving 126 individual investors, we compare investors' earnings predictions and their confidence therein after receiving point and closed range forecasts issued by managements whose previous forecasting accuracy is known to be either high or low. We used point and range forecasts, because they differ in the degree to which they communicate management's uncertainty about the future. We use management's prior forecasting accuracy as a measure of management's credibility, because prior research has documented the importance of this factor when considering the usefulness of management's voluntary forecasts. Our results show that, as expected, investors' earnings predictions are responsive to management's forecasts. However, as we hypothesized, forecast form did not influence investors' earnings estimates. In contrast, investors' confidence in their earnings predictions was influenced by the form of management's forecasts, but this effect emerged only when management was previously accurate in their forecasting. A similar interactive pattern was found in the dispersion of investors' predictions about the company's future earnings. Finally, consistent with the hypothesis that confidence is an important determinant of investor behavior, we find that investors' judgments of future stock price appreciation are a positive function of both unexpected earnings and the change in their confidence. Our study extends the literature on management forecasts by empirically testing the joint influence of management's credibility (i.e., forecasting accuracy) and forecast form. The prior literature has argued that both factors should be important, but has not delineated whether or how these two factors might interact. We present a theoretical framework that indicates when both factors should influence investor judgment.
How Can Studies of Animals Help to Uncover the Roles of Genes Implicated in Human Speech and Language Disorders ?

The mysterious human propensity for acquiring speech and language has fascinated scientists for decades. A substantial body of evidence suggests that this capacity is rooted in aspects of neurodevelopment that are specified at the genomic level. Researchers have begun to identify genetic factors that increase susceptibility to developmental disorders of speech and language, thereby offering the first molecular entry points into neuronal mechanisms underlying human vocal communication. The identification of genetic variants influencing language acquisition facilitates the analysis of animal models in which the corresponding orthologs are disrupted. At face value, the situation raises a perplexing question: if speech and language are uniquely human, can any relevant insights be gained from investigations of gene function in other species? This chapter addresses the question using the example of FOXP2, a gene implicated in a severe monogenic speech and language disorder. FOXP2 encodes a transcription factor that is highly conserved in vertebrate species, both in terms of protein sequence and expression patterns. Current data suggest that an earlier version of this gene, present in the common ancestor of humans, rodents, and birds, was already involved in establishing neuronal circuits underlying sensory–motor integration and learning of complex motor sequences. This may have represented one of the factors providing a permissive neural environment for subsequent evolution of vocal learning. Thus, dissection of neuromolecular pathways regulated by Foxp2 in nonlinguistic species is a necessary prerequisite for understanding the role of the human version of the gene in speech and language.
Bargaining Over Managerial Delegation Contracts and Merger Incentives with Asymmetric Costs

In this paper, we examine how managerial delegation contracts within each firm affect the correspondence between the equilibrium ownership structure and the most socially preferred ownership structure. We consider the disclosure of managerial delegation contracts by studying the bargaining over the relative weightage of each firm's sales in a sales delegation contract between an owner and a manager under a model of endogenous merger formation in a three-firm asymmetric Cournot industry. We show that such a bargaining may reduce the requirement of an antitrust policy, since the equilibrium ownership structure can coincide with the most socially preferred ownership structure.
Effect of acute heat stress on rat adrenal glands: a morphological and stereological study

SUMMARY The morphological and stereological structure of rat adrenal gland was analysed by light microscopy after an acute (60 min) exposure to high ambient temperature (38°C). A significant increase in plasma corticotrophin (ACTH) and serum corticosterone (CORT) concentrations was observed, confirming that acute heat exposure has a strong stressful effect. Under these conditions the adrenal gland mass and volume were decreased, probably as the consequence of adrenal cortex reduction, especially that of the zona fasciculata (ZF). Histological examination revealed that many ZF cells were deprived of lipid droplets. Fibrosis was observed in all parts of the adrenal gland, both cortex and medulla, of heat stressed animals. Mitotic figures were absent in cortical cells after heat exposure, but there were no differences in ZF and zona reticularis (ZR) small blood vessels compared to nonstressed controls.
Inference of Markovian properties of molecular sequences from NGS data and applications to comparative genomics

MOTIVATION Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies generate large amounts of short read data for many different organisms. The fact that NGS reads are generally short makes it challenging to assemble the reads and reconstruct the original genome sequence. For clustering genomes using such NGS data, word-count based alignment-free sequence comparison is a promising approach, but for this approach, the underlying expected word counts are essential.A plausible model for this underlying distribution of word counts is given through modeling the DNA sequence as a Markov chain (MC). For single long sequences, efficient statistics are available to estimate the order of MCs and the transition probability matrix for the sequences. As NGS data do not provide a single long sequence, inference methods on Markovian properties of sequences based on single long sequences cannot be directly used for NGS short read data. RESULTS Here we derive a normal approximation for such word counts. We also show that the traditional Chi-square statistic has an approximate gamma distribution ,: using the Lander-Waterman model for physical mapping. We propose several methods to estimate the order of the MC based on NGS reads and evaluate those using simulations. We illustrate the applications of our results by clustering genomic sequences of several vertebrate and tree species based on NGS reads using alignment-free sequence dissimilarity measures. We find that the estimated order of the MC has a considerable effect on the clustering results ,: and that the clustering results that use a N: MC of the estimated order give a plausible clustering of the species. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION Our implementation of the statistics developed here is available as R package 'NGS.MC' at http://www-rcf.usc.edu/∼fsun/Programs/NGS-MC/NGS-MC.html CONTACT fsun@usc.edu SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Public Goods and Voting on Formal Sanction Schemes: An Experiment

The burgeoning literature on the use of sanctions to support public goods provision has largely neglected the use of formal or centralized sanctions. We let subjects playing a linear public goods game vote on the parameters of a formal sanction scheme capable both of resolving and of exacerbating the free-rider problem, depending on parameter settings. Most groups quickly learned to choose parameters inducing efficient outcomes. But despite uniform money payoffs implying common interest in those parameters, voting patterns suggest significant influence of cooperative orientation, political attitudes, and of gender and intelligence.