Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A High Throughput Screen Identifies Chemical Modulators of the Laminin-Induced Clustering of Dystroglycan and Aquaporin-4 in Primary Astrocytes

Background Aquaporin-4 (AQP4) constitutes the principal water channel in the brain and is clusteredat the perivascular astrocyte endfeet. This specific distribution of AQP4 plays a major role in maintaining water homeostasis in the brain. A growing body of evidence points to a role ofthe dystroglycan complex and its interaction with perivascular laminin in the clusteringof AQP4 atperivascular astrocyte endfeet. Indeed, mice lacking components of this complex or in which laminin-dystroglycan interaction is disrupted show a delayed onset of brain edema due to a redistribution of AQP4 away from astrocyte endfeet. It is therefore important to identify inhibitory drugs of laminin-dependent AQP4 clustering which may prevent or reduce brain edema. Methodolgy/Principal Findings In the present study we used primary rat astrocyte cultures toscreen a library of >3,500 chemicals and identified 6 drugs that inhibit the laminin-induced clustering of dystroglycan and AQP4. Detailed analysis of the inhibitory drug, chloranil, revealed that its inhibition of the clustering is due to the metalloproteinase-2-mediated ß-dystroglycan shedding and subsequent loss of laminin interaction with dystroglycan. Furthermore, chemical variants of chloranil induced a similar effect on ß-dystroglycan and this was prevented by the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine. Conclusion/Significance These findings reveal the mechanism of action of chloranil in preventing the laminin-induced clustering of dystroglycan and AQP4 and validate the use of high-throughput screening as a tool to identify drugs that modulate AQP4 clustering and that could be tested in models of brain edema.
A Statistical Analysis of Weekday Operating Room Anesthesia Group Staffing Costs at Nine Independently Managed Surgical Suites

At many surgical suites, surgeons and patients schedule elective cases on whatever future workday they choose, resulting in there being no limit on the number of cases performed each day. Staff are then scheduled in the manner that satisfies the marketing guarantee to the surgeons, satisfies labor contracts, and minimizes staffing costs. We assessed weekday nurse anesthesia group staffing at nine such suites to determine whether statistical methods can identify staffing solutions whereby all the cases are covered but for which staffing costs are less than those obtained using the staffing plans implemented by anesthesia groups’ managers. Two years of operating room information system case duration and staffing data were analyzed. First- and second-shift staffing was assessed using previously published algo-rithms. The statistical methods identified staffing solutions with significantly decreased labor costs than those currently being used at eight of the nine surgical suites. The statistical methods relied more on overtime than second-shift staffing. The incremental decrease in staffing costs achievable by using overlapping 8-, 10-, and 13-h shifts was negligible. Overall, we found that statistical methods can identify, for some surgical suites, staffing solutions whereby all the cases are covered but for which costs are significantly less and productivity significantly more than those obtained using the plans developed by the managers based on their experience and the data.
Motion vector analysis based homography estimation for efficient HEVC compression of 2D and 3D navigation video sequences

Navigation systems have become complex devices in automobiles nowadays. As part of large in-car infotainment systems, these devices undergo extensive hardware and software tests in order to assert correct system behavior under all circumstances. During field tests, the display output is typically recorded in compressed form for days or weeks, followed by a thorough analysis of the video data. In this paper, we demonstrate how to setup an HEVC-based compression solution specifically designed for navigation sequence content. We show how rotational motion, which is a dominant characteristic, can be estimated and compensated in an efficient way. We avoid any complex feature-based approaches for global motion estimation but find precise motion parameters by analyzing and filtering motion vector sets produced by HEVC during encoding. While achieving compression efficiency similar to a feature-based approach, processing time for global motion estimation can be significantly reduced.
A Model of Interaction for CVEs Based on the Model of Human Communication

This paper summarizes a model of interaction for CVEs inspired by the process followed in human communication in the real world, detailing both the main elements and the communication process itself. The model proposed copies some properties of the real world communication but also allows the easy integration of Task Analysis to the design of CVEs, helping the developer in the design of the application. Furthermore, some of the benefits that the usage of this model brings to the user are also shown. Finally, some implementation details of a prototype supporting the described model are given. This prototype is used all along the paper to illustrate the explanation of some parts of the model.
Rapid and Sensitive Detection of Novel Avian-Origin Influenza A (H7N9) Virus by Reverse Transcription Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Combined with a Lateral-Flow Device

A severe disease in humans caused by a novel avian-origin influenza A (H7N9) virus emerged in China recently, which has caused at least 128 cases and 26 deaths. Rapid detection of the novel H7N9 virus is urgently needed to differentiate the disease from other infections, and to facilitate infection control as well as epidemiologic investigations. In this study, a reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification combined with a lateral flow device (RT-LAMP-LFD) assay to rapidly detect H7N9 virus was developed and evaluated. The RT-LAMP primers were designed to target the haemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) genes of H7N9 virus. Results of 10-fold dilution series assays showed that analysis of RT-LAMP products by the LFD method was as sensitive as real-time turbidity detection, and that the analytic sensitivities of the HA and NA RT-LAMP assays were both 10 copies of synthetic RNA. Furthermore, both the assays showed 100% clinical specificity for identification of H7N9 virus. The performance characteristics of the RT-LAMP-LFD assay were evaluated with 80 clinical specimens collected from suspected H7N9 patients. The NA RT-LAMP-LFD assay was more sensitive than real time RT-PCR assay. Compared with a combination of virus culture and real-time RT-PCR, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the RT-LAMP-LFD assay were all 100%. Overall, The RT-LAMP-LFD assay established in this study can be used as a reliable method for early diagnosis of the avian-origin influenza A (H7N9) virus infection.
Footprints of climate change on Mediterranean Sea biota

The Mediterranean Sea ranks among the ocean regions warming fastest. There is evidence for impacts of climate change on marine Mediterranean organisms but a quantitative assessment is lacking. We compiled the impacts of warming reported in the literature to provide a quantitative assessment for the Mediterranean Sea. During the last three decades the summer surface temperature has increased 1.15 oC. Strong heat wave events have occurred in years 1994, 2003 and 2009. Impacts of warming are evident on growth, survival, fertility, migration and phenology of pelagic and benthic organisms, from phytoplankton to marine vegetation, invertebrates and vertebrates. Overall, 50 % of biological impacts in the Mediterranean Sea occur at summer surface temperature anomaly ≤ 4.5 oC and at summer surface temperature of 27.5 oC. The activation energy (geometric mean 1.58 ± 0.48 eV), the slope of the Arrhenius equation describing the temperature-dependence of biological processes, for the response of Mediterranean marine biota to warming reveals that these responses in the Mediterranean are far steepest than possibly explained by the direct effect of warming alone. The observations are biased toward the northern and western sectors of the basin, likely underestimating the impacts of warming in areas where warming is particularly intense.
An Introduction to Varieties of Capitalism

Political economists have always been interested in the differences in economic and political institutions that occur across countries. Some regard these differences as deviations from 'best practice' that will dissolve as nations catch up to a technological or organizational leader. Others see them as the distillation of more durable historical choices for a specific kind of society, since economic institutions condition levels of social protection, the distribution of income, and the availability of collective goods — features of the social solidarity of a nation. In each case, comparative political economy revolves around the conceptual frameworks used to understand institutional variation across nations. On such frameworks depend the answers to a range of important questions. Some are policy-related. What kind of economic policies will improve the performance of the economy? What will governments do in the face of economic challenges? What defines a state's capacities to meet such challenges? Other questions are firm-related. Do companies located in different nations display systematic differences in their structure and strategies? If so, what inspires such differences? How can national differences in the pace or character of innovation be explained? Some are issues about economic performance. Do some sets of institutions provide lower rates of inflation and unemployment or higher rates of growth than others? What are the trade-offs in terms of economic performance to developing one type of political economy rather than another? Finally, second-order questions about institutional change and stability are of special significance today. Can we expect technological progress and the competitive pressures of globalization to inspire institutional conver-gence? What factors condition the adjustment paths a political economy takes in the face of such challenges? The object of this book is to elaborate a new framework for understanding the institutional similarities and differences among the developed economies, one that offers a new and intriguing set of answers to 1111 211 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 211 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40 1 such questions. 1 We outline the basic approach in this Introduction. Subsequent chapters extend and apply it to a wide range of issues. In many respects, this approach is still a work-in-progress. We see it as a set of contentions that open up new research agendas rather than settled wisdom to be accepted …
Doing comparative education research: issues and problems

The chapters that appear in this book are based on a series of papers that were first presented at the inaugural conference of the British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE) held at the University of Reading in September 1998. The chapters are: Introduction: rethinking the role of comparative education / Keith Watson; Comparative educational research: the need for reconceptualisation and fresh insights / Keith Watson; Reconceptualising comparative and international education / Michael Crossley; Contextual and methodological influences on trends in comparative and international educational research / Rosemary Preston; Stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of this one: towards a 'comparology' of education / Patricia Broadfood; Conducting research into EU education and training policy: some theoretical and methodological considerations / David Phillips and Anastasia Economou; Life in school: pupil perspectives and pupil experience of schooling and learning in three European countries / Marilyn Osborn; Learners' diversity: the integration of Maghrebi children in mainstream classrooms in Spain / Juan Navarro; Schools, universities and society in England and Germany / Claudius Gellert; Going places: social, legal and fiscal aspects of international faculty mobility / Sylvia G.M. van de Bunt-Kokhuis; Approaches to comparing education systems / Joanna Le Metais; Gleaning meaning from case studies in international comparison: teachers' experiences of reform in Russia and South Africa / Michele Schweisfurth; Doing comparative historical education research: problems and issues from and about Hong Kong / Anthony Sweeting; Post-colonialism and comparative education research / Leon Tikly; Confessions of a long distance runner: reflections from an international and comparative education research project / Simon McGrath; A dance on six floors: some issues of ownership and collaboration within the MUSTER (Multi-site Teacher Education Research) Project / Janet S. Stuart; The evaluation of education development projects and bureaucratic cultures: prospects for the education sector within the context created by the white paper on international development / Colin Lacey and Angela Jacklin; Classifying out of school education / Edwina Peart; International examinations, national systems and the global market / John Lowe; The development of a discipline: some reflections on the development of comparative education as seen through the pages of the journal 'Compare' / J.H. Higginson.
Herbig-Haro flows in B335

Mass is clearly the most important parameter of a star as it determines the phases it will go through, its physical parameters, the elements produced and its life span. Two important processes that occur simultaneously in young stars are directly related to the final mass a star ends up with; the accretion of material onto the star from a circumstellar disk and the bipolar outflow of material from the star. These processes are related since the infalling material drives the outflow. The life span of circumstellar disks is also important for the possibility of life, as this limits the time available for planet formation. This may depend on the stellar mass and its environment.Three detailed observational case-studies are presented, a globule (B335) that is forming only one or two stars, a medium-sized star formation region (L1551) and a large cluster of young stars (YSOs) in a part of our nearest giant molecular cloud (L1641N). The first part of this thesis concerns finding YSOs by looking for mid-IR excess, indicative of circumstellar disks, using the ISO and Spitzer satellites in combination with ground-based observations. Other signs of youth are also used; H-alpha in emission (accretion), Li 6707 in absorption (Li is destroyed with age) and cloud membership based on extinction. The detection of 15 new YSO candidates in L1551 (Paper I) and 89 YSOs in L1641N (Paper II) is presented. In L1641N, distributions are presented of stellar age and mass. An empirical extinction law is found and the star formation history is presented. There seems to be an accelerated star formation with time. This can however also be explained, at least partly, by migration of older stars from the cluster - a migration that may very well be mass dependent.The second part concerns bipolar outflows. The discovery of six Herbig-Haro objects and at least 15 H2 objects in B335 is presented (Paper III) as well as proper motions for previously known objects. A planar shock model is used to calculate shock velocities. In L1641N (Paper IV) we discover a new outflow source and connect this to a number of H2 objects that are found to be part of this flow from proper motion measurements.
uStream: A User-Level Stream Protocol over Infiniband

As one of the most popular high speed networks, InfiniBand demonstrates several enhanced features, such as RDMA and zero-copy mechanisms, which offer high bandwidth and low latency. Communication stacks IPoIB and SDP (Sockets Direct Protocol) have been proposed on InfiniBand for sockets based applications to take advantage of these features. However, these protocols are inefficient to utilize the performance capabilities provided by the physical network. In order to fully exploit the high performance of InfiniBand, we present uStream, a relatively simple and efficient protocol on the user-level socket layer with a stream interface to enable RDMA capability and zero-copy mechanism. Experiment results have shown that the performance of uStream is comparable to raw InfiniBand Verbs/RDMA interface, and uStream outperforms SDP with 7. 9µs minimum latency and 10.4Gbps peak bandwidth in our testbed. In addition, a Java communication library, jStream, is built upon uStream to enable Java to use RDMA directly. Preliminary results have shown Java clusters communication performance has been improved to a level similar to C programs over InfiniBand through combined uStream and jStream.
A reduction method for noncommutative L_p-spaces and applications

We consider the reduction of problems on general noncommutative L p -spaces to the corresponding ones on those associated with finite von Neumann algebras. The main tool is an unpublished result of the first-named author which approximates any noncommutative L p -space by tracial ones. We show that under some natural conditions a map between two von Neumann algebras extends to their crossed products by a locally compact abelian group or to their noncommutative L p -spaces. We present applications of these results to the theory of noncommutative martingale inequalities by reducing most recent general noncommutative martingale/ergodic inequalities to those in the tracial case.
A re-examination of long-run Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) hypothesis: the case of two Southern African countries

In this paper, we have examined the validity of the PPP hypothesis for two Southern African countries, namely: Lesotho and Zambia. We have utilized four econometric tests to examine the existence of the PPP hypothesis in Lesotho and Zambia. These tests include two unit root tests without structural breaks? the DF-GLS test and the Ng-Perron test; and two unit root tests with structural breaks? the Perron test and the Zivot-Andrews test. We extracted the data on the real exchange rate for Lesotho, and for Zambia, from the Penn World Tables, version 7.1, which is compiled by Heston et al. (2012). We found that the PPP hypothesis was supported in the case of Lesotho, but rejected in the case of Zambia. The implication of this finding is that Lesotho is unlikely to profit immensely from trade and investment arbitrages, whereas Zambia is more likely to profit immensely from trade and investment arbitrages, by trading with the US.
British Society Since 1945

Social consensus 1945-57: British journey that topic all-absorbing - class the Welfare State hearth, home and street corner the culture of austerity consensus re-examined. Roads to freedom 1958-73: affluence, appliances and work critiques, boutiques and work the end of Victorianism social structure and social strains false optimism. The time of the troubles 1973-82: gloom on the man-made island 1973-80 class, race and nationalism living standards "Gimme a Man After Midnight" tolerance and confrontation the Winter of Discontent and the summer of fire bombs. Privatization, polarization and IT: the processes of change the geography of "post-industrialization" - mainland Britain and Northern Ireland the "enterprise economy" workers, yuppies and hooligans social policy and social life the hallmark of a civilization - "an ace caff with quite a nice museum attached". A society at odds with itself 1989-95: divisive bequests - cultural and political social reform with a sting class, race, identity.
Applications of MRS in the evaluation of focal malignant brain lesions

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) has clinically been most extensively used for assessing brain disorders, particularly tumors. With 1-H spectroscopy at intermediate echo times, resonances from choline, creatine, N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA), lactate, and free fatty acids can be resolved well enough to assist in diagnosis under routine conditions. Generally, an increased concentration of choline is found in all primary and secondary brain tumors, and the degree of increase correlates with the degree of anaplasia. Further indicators of anaplasia are the presence of lactate, indicating hypoxia, and of fatty acids, indicating necrosis. According to literature, the sensitivity of a combination of proton spectroscopy with contrast-enhanced dynamic susceptibility-weighted imaging for high-grade components in gliomas is better than conventional contrast-enhanced imaging alone. Today, proton spectroscopy is clearly indicated for differentiating radiation-induced damage from recurrences of irradiated brain tumors.
Z-TCAM: An SRAM-based Architecture for TCAM

Ternary content addressable memories (TCAMs) perform high-speed lookup operation but when compared with static random access memories (SRAMs), TCAMs have certain limitations such as low storage density, relatively slow access time, low scalability, complex circuitry, and are very expensive. Thus, can we use the benefits of SRAM by configuring it (with additional logic) to enable it to behave like TCAM? This brief proposes a novel memory architecture, named Z-TCAM, which emulates the TCAM functionality with SRAM. Z-TCAM logically partitions the classical TCAM table along columns and rows into hybrid TCAM subtables, which are then processed to map on their corresponding memory blocks. Two example designs for Z-TCAM of sizes 512 × 36 and 64 × 32 have been implemented on Xilinx Virtex-7 field-programmable gate array. The design of 64 × 32 Z-TCAM has also been implemented using OSUcells library for 0.18 μm technology, which confirms the physical and technical feasibility of Z-TCAM. Search latency for each design is three clock cycles. The detailed implementation results and power measurements for each design have been reported thoroughly.
Active Roles of Electrically Coupled Bipolar Cell Network in the Adult Retina

Gap junctions are frequently observed in the adult vertebrate retina. It has been shown that gap junctions function as passive electrotonic pathways and play various roles, such as noise reduction, synchronization of electrical activities, regulation of the receptive field size, and transmission of rod signals to cone pathways. The presence of gap junctions between bipolar cells has been reported in various species but their functions are not known. In the present study, we applied dual whole-cell clamp techniques to the adult goldfish retina to elucidate the functions of gap junctions between ON-type bipolar cells with a giant axon terminal (Mb1-BCs). Electrophysiological and immunohistochemical experiments revealed that Mb1-BCs were coupled with each other through gap junctions that were located at the distal dendrites. The coupling conductance between Mb1-BCs under light-adapted conditions was larger than that under dark-adapted conditions. The gap junctions showed neither rectification nor voltage dependence, and behaved as a low-pass filter. Mb1-BCs could generate Ca2+ spikes in response to depolarization, especially under dark-adapted conditions. The Ca2+ spike evoked electrotonic depolarization through gap junctions in neighboring Mb1-BCs, and the depolarization in turn could trigger Ca2+ spikes with a time lag. A brief depolarizing pulse applied to an Mb1-BC evoked a long-lasting EPSC in the postsynaptic ganglion cell. The EPSC was shortened in duration when gap junctions were pharmacologically or mechanically impaired. These results suggest that the spread of Ca2+ spikes through gap junctions between bipolar cells may play a key role in lateral interactions in the adult retina.