Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transgene escape: what potential for crop–wild hybridization?

To date, regional surveys assessing the risk of transgene escape from GM crops have focused on records of spontaneous hybridization to infer the likelihood of crop transgene escape. However, reliable observations of spontaneous hybridization are lacking for most floras, particularly outside Europe. Here, we argue that evidence of interspecific reproductive compatibility derived from experimental crosses is an important component of risk assessment, and a useful first step especially where data from field observations are unavailable. We used this approach to assess the potential for transgene escape via hybridization for 123 widely grown temperate crops and their indigenous and naturalized relatives present in the New Zealand flora. We found that 66 crops (54%) are reproductively compatible with at least one other indigenous or naturalized species in the flora. Limited reproductive compatibility with wild relatives was evident for a further 12 crops (10%). Twenty‐five crops (20%) were found to be reproductively isolated from all their wild relatives in New Zealand. For the remaining 20 crops (16%), insufficient information was available to determine levels of reproductive compatibility with wild relatives. Our approach may be useful in other regions where spontaneous crop–wild hybridization has yet to be well documented.
Corporate Investment and the Real Exchange Rate

We examine the relationship between real exchange rate depreciations and indicators of firm performance using data for a sample of more than 30,000 firms from 66 (advanced and emerging market) countries over the 2000-2011 period. We show that depreciations boost profits, investment, and sales of firms that are more financially-constrained and have higher labor shares. These findings are consistent with the view that depreciations boost internal financing opportunities by reducing real wages, thereby spurring investment. We show that these effects on firm performance are enduring, including in the market valuation of firms.
MIMO Detection by Lagrangian Dual Maximum-Likelihood Relaxation: Reinterpreting Regularized Lattice Decoding

This paper considers lattice decoding for multi-input multi-output (MIMO) detection under PAM constellations. A key aspect of lattice decoding is that it relaxes the symbol bound constraints in the optimal maximum-likelihood (ML) detector for faster implementations. It is known that such a symbol bound relaxation may lead to a damaging effect on the system performance. For this reason, regularization was proposed to mitigate the out-of-bound symbol effects in lattice decoding. However, minimum mean square error (MMSE) regularization is the only method of choice for regularization in the present literature. We propose a systematic regularization optimization approach considering a Lagrangian dual relaxation (LDR) of the ML detection problem. As it turns out, the proposed LDR formulation is to find the best diagonally regularized lattice decoder to approximate the ML detector, and all diagonal regularizations, including the MMSE regularization, can be subsumed under the LDR formalism. We show that for the 2-PAM case, strong duality holds between the LDR and ML problems. Also, for general PAM, we prove that the LDR problem yields a duality gap no worse than that of the well-known semidefinite relaxation method. To physically realize the proposed LDR, the projected subgradient method is employed to handle the LDR problem so that the best regularization can be found. The resultant method can physically be viewed as an adaptive symbol bound control wherein regularized lattice decoding is recursively performed to correct the decision. Simulation results show that the proposed LDR approach can outperform the conventional MMSE-based lattice decoding approach.
Young Men and Masculinities: Global Cultures and Intimate Lives

* Preface and Acknowledgements. * 1. Introduction : Young Men and Masculinities * 2. Masculinities, Histories, Cultures and Religions. * 3. Listening, Speaking and Learning. * 4. Questioning Adam : Men, Power and Love. * 5. Rethinking Fatherhood. * 6. Masculinities, Bodies and Emotional Lives. * 7. Bodies, Desires, Pleasures and Love. * 8. Authority, Identities, Bodies and Intimacies. * 9. Bodies, Ethics, Fears and Desires. * 10. Friends, Risks and Transgressions. * 11. Risks, Fears, 'Race' and Belongings. * 12. Risks, Self-Harm, Power and Control. * 13. Young Men, Bodies, Sexualities and Health. * 14. Young Men's Sexual and Reproductive Health. * 15. Young Men, Families, Intimacies and Global Cultures.
Cortical Thickness, Surface Area and Volume Measures in Parkinson's Disease, Multiple System Atrophy and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy

Objective Parkinson's disease (PD), Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) are neurodegenerative diseases that can be difficult to distinguish clinically. The objective of the current study was to use surface-based analysis techniques to assess cortical thickness, surface area and grey matter volume to identify unique morphological patterns of cortical atrophy in PD, MSA and PSP and to relate these patterns of change to disease duration and clinical features. Methods High resolution 3D T1-weighted MRI volumes were acquired from 14 PD patients, 18 MSA, 14 PSP and 19 healthy control participants. Cortical thickness, surface area and volume analyses were carried out using the automated surface-based analysis package FreeSurfer (version 5.1.0). Measures of disease severity and duration were assessed for correlation with cortical morphometric changes in each clinical group. Results Results show that in PSP, widespread cortical thinning and volume loss occurs within the frontal lobe, particularly the superior frontal gyrus. In addition, PSP patients also displayed increased surface area in the pericalcarine. In comparison, PD and MSA did not display significant changes in cortical morphology. Conclusion These results demonstrate that patients with clinically established PSP exhibit distinct patterns of cortical atrophy, particularly affecting the frontal lobe. These results could be used in the future to develop a useful clinical application of MRI to distinguish PSP patients from PD and MSA patients.
Gene Expression Correlations in Human Cancer Cell Lines Define Molecular Interaction Networks for Epithelial Phenotype

Using gene expression data to enhance our knowledge of control networks relevant to cancer biology and therapy is a challenging but urgent task. Based on the premise that genes that are expressed together in a variety of cell types are likely to functions together, we derived mutually correlated genes that function together in various processes in epithelial-like tumor cells. Expression-correlated genes were derived from data for the NCI-60 human tumor cell lines, as well as data from the Broad Institute’s CCLE cell lines. NCI-60 cell lines that selectively expressed a mutually correlated subset of tight junction genes served as a signature for epithelial-like cancer cells. Those signature cell lines served as a seed to derive other correlated genes, many of which had various other epithelial-related functions. Literature survey yielded molecular interaction and function information about those genes, from which molecular interaction maps were assembled. Many of the genes had epithelial functions unrelated to tight junctions, demonstrating that new function categories were elicited. The most highly correlated genes were implicated in the following epithelial functions: interactions at tight junctions (CLDN7, CLDN4, CLDN3, MARVELD3, MARVELD2, TJP3, CGN, CRB3, LLGL2, EPCAM, LNX1); interactions at adherens junctions (CDH1, ADAP1, CAMSAP3); interactions at desmosomes (PPL, PKP3, JUP); transcription regulation of cell-cell junction complexes (GRHL1 and 2); epithelial RNA splicing regulators (ESRP1 and 2); epithelial vesicle traffic (RAB25, EPN3, GRHL2, EHF, ADAP1, MYO5B); epithelial Ca(+2) signaling (ATP2C2, S100A14, BSPRY); terminal differentiation of epithelial cells (OVOL1 and 2, ST14, PRSS8, SPINT1 and 2); maintenance of apico-basal polarity (RAB25, LLGL2, EPN3). The findings provide a foundation for future studies to elucidate the functions of regulatory networks specific to epithelial-like cancer cells and to probe for anti-cancer drug targets.
Educational differences in mortality and the relative importance of different causes of death: a 7-year follow-up study of Spanish adults

Background The evidence on mortality patterns by education in Spain comes from regional areas. This study aimed to estimate these patterns in the whole Spanish population. Methods All citizens aged 25 years and over and residing in Spain in 2001 were followed during 7 years to determine their vital status, resulting in a total of 196 470 401 person-years and 2 379 558 deaths. We estimated the age-adjusted total and cause-specific mortality by educational level—primary, lower secondary, upper secondary and university education—and then calculated the relative and absolute measures of inequality in mortality and contribution of the leading causes of death to absolute inequalities. Results Except for some cancer sites, the mortality rate for the leading causes of death shows an inverse gradient with educational level. The leading causes of death with the highest relative index of inequality ratios were HIV disease (9.81 in women and 11.61 in men), diabetes in women (4.02) and suicide in men (3.52). The leading causes of death that contribute most to the absolute inequality in mortality are cardiovascular diseases (48.8%), respiratory diseases (9.3%) and diabetes mellitus (8.8%) in women, and cardiovascular diseases (20.8%), respiratory diseases (19.8%) and cancer (19.6%) in men. Conclusions Although the causes of death with the strongest gradient in mortality rate are HIV disease in both sexes, diabetes mellitus in women and suicide in men, most of the absolute education-related inequalities in total mortality are due to cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases and diabetes mellitus in women and to cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases and cancer in men.
Intrinsic tensile properties of cocoon silk fibres can be estimated by removing flaws through repeated tensile tests

Silk fibres from silkworm cocoons have lower strength than spider silk and have received less attention as a source of high-performance fibres. In this work, we have used an innovative procedure to eliminate the flaws gradually of a single fibre specimen by retesting the unbroken portion of the fibre, after each fracture test. This was done multiple times so that the final test may provide the intrinsic fibre strength. During each retest, the fibre specimen began to yield once the failure load of the preceding test was exceeded. For each fibre specimen, a composite curve was constructed from multiple tests. The composite curves and analysis show that strengths of mass-produced Muga and Eri cocoon silk fibres increased from 446 to 618 MPa and from 337 to 452 MPa, respectively. Similarly, their toughness increased from 84 to 136 MJ m−3 and from 61 to 104 MJ m−3, respectively. Composite plots produced significantly less inter-specimen variations compared to values from single tests. The fibres with reduced flaws as a result of retests in the tested section have a tensile strength and toughness comparable to naturally spun dragline spider silk with a reported strength of 574 MPa and toughness of 91–158 MJ m−3, which is used as a benchmark for developing high-performance fibres. This retesting approach is likely to provide useful insights into discrete flaw distributions and intrinsic mechanical properties of other fatigue-resistant materials.
Moral Hazard and Moral Motivation: Corporate Social Responsibility as Labor Market Screening

Morally motivated individuals behave more cooperatively than predicted by standard theory. Hence,if a firm can attract workers who are strongly motivated by ethical concerns, moral hazard problems like shirking can be reduced. We show that employers may be able to use the firm’s corporate social responsibility profile as a screening device to attract more productive workers. Both pooling and separating equilibria are possible. Even when a substantial share of the workers have no moral motivation whatsoever, such screening may in fact drive every firm with a low social responsibility profile out of business.
In-Kind Finance: A Theory of Trade Credit

It is typically less profitable for an opportunistic borrower to divert inputs than to divert cash. Therefore, suppliers may lend more liberally than banks. This simple argument is at the core of our contract theoretic model of trade credit in competitive markets. The model implies that trade credit and bank credit can be either complements or substitutes. Among other things, the model explains why trade credit has short maturity, why trade credit is more prevalent in less developed credit markets, and why accounts payable of large unrated firms are more countercyclical than those of small firms.
Planetary-Scale Views on an Instant-Messaging Network

We present a study of anonymized data capturing a month of high-level communication activities within the whole of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging system. We examine characteristics and patterns that emerge from the collective dynamics of large numbers of people, rather than the actions and characteristics of individuals. The dataset contains summary properties of 30 billion conversations among 240 million people. From the data, we construct a communication graph with 180 million nodes and 1.3 billion undirected edges, creating the largest social network constructed and analyzed to date. We report on multiple aspects of the dataset and synthesized graph. We find that the graph is well-connected and robust to node removal. We investigate on a planetary-scale the oft-cited report that people are separated by “six degrees of separation” and find that the average path length among Messenger users is 6.6. We also find that people tend to communicate more with each other when they have similar age, language, and location, and that cross-gender conversations are both more frequent and of longer duration than conversations with the same gender.
Cross-modal associations in synaesthesia: Vowel colours in the ear of the beholder

Human speech conveys many forms of information, but for some exceptional individuals (synaesthetes), listening to speech sounds can automatically induce visual percepts such as colours. In this experiment, grapheme–colour synaesthetes and controls were asked to assign colours, or shades of grey, to different vowel sounds. We then investigated whether the acoustic content of these vowel sounds influenced participants' colour and grey-shade choices. We found that both colour and grey-shade associations varied systematically with vowel changes. The colour effect was significant for both participant groups, but significantly stronger and more consistent for synaesthetes. Because not all vowel sounds that we used are “translatable” into graphemes, we conclude that acoustic–phonetic influences co-exist with established graphemic influences in the cross-modal correspondences of both synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes.
Coastal Staphylinidae (Coleoptera): A worldwide checklist, biogeography and natural history

Abstract We provide a list of the 392 described species of Staphylinidae confined to coastal habitats worldwide. The list is in taxonomic sequence by subfamily, tribe, and genus and includes 91 genera. We provide the page reference of the original description of every species and genus listed and of many synonyms. We note the existence of recent reviews, phylogenies and keys of each of the tribes and genera included. Coastal Staphylinidae contain eight subfamilies: Microsilphinae, Omaliinae, Pselaphinae, Aleocharinae, Oxytelinae, Scydmaeninae, Paederinae, and Staphylininae. By ‘coastal habitats’ we mean habitats existing on the sea coast and subject to inundation or at least splashing by the very highest tides. This includes rocky, boulder, coral, sandy, and muddy seashores, and at least portions of salt-marshes, estuaries, and mangrove swamps. We exclude the sand dune habitat and higher parts of sea-cliffs. The list notes distribution of all the species, first according to the ocean or sea on whose shores it has been recorded, and second by country (and for the larger countries by province or state). Although this distribution is undoubtedly incomplete, it provides a basis for future development of a dedicated database. The ‘Habitats, Habits, and Classificatory Notes’ section is designed to provide ecologists with further taxonomic and ecological information. It includes references to descriptions of the immature stages, behavior of adults and immatures, their food, natural enemies, and habitat. We would have preferred to separate these entities, but current knowledge of ecology is developed in few instances beyond natural history. The Pacific Ocean basin was the origin and contributed to the dispersal of the majority of specialist coastal Staphylinidae at the level of genus. However, at the level of species, species belonging to non-coastal-specialist genera are about as likely to occur on the shores of other oceans as on the shores of the Pacific. This difference is a reflection of the antiquity of coastal genera and species. A complete bibliography, and habitat and habitus photographs of some representative coastal Staphylinidae species are provided.
Fate of patients undergoing transluminal angioplasty for lower-limb ischemia.

A prospective study of 370 patients who underwent 500 percutaneous transluminal angioplasties (PTAs) for lower-limb ischemia over a 7-year period was performed. A 97% follow-up rate was achieved. The first PTA was successful in 188 patients (51%). Of the failures, 31% were failed attempts at dilation and 73% occurred within 1 month of intervention. Of the patients with failed PTA, 39% underwent bypass surgery and 24% underwent amputation. The 30-day mortality rate was 3%, with 1% of the deaths attributed to PTA. The survival rate at 5 years for the successes was double that for the failures (P less than .0005). The best results were in femoropopliteal stenoses with two or three patent calf vessels (cumulative patency rate, 78% at 3 years) and the worst in femoropopliteal occlusions with one or no patent calf vessels (cumulative patency rate, 25% at 3 years). Log rank tests on the life-table data were used to show factors favoring a good outcome. It is concluded that PTA is the treatment of first choice in suitable patients and, although the failure of intervention in critical ischemia has a significant risk, it is a valuable addition to the therapeutic options in patients with little chance of surgical treatment.
Stochastic Approach for Evaluating the Operation of Electric Power Distribution Systems

This paper introduces a stochastic approach to evaluate the performance of electric power distribution systems (EPDS). The daily load and generation curves at each node are generated in a correlated and random manner for each day of the week. These curves, spanning seven days, constitute a sample within the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) and form a synthetic representation of a week. This data from the synthetic week is then utilized to calculate power flows, yielding the metrics of interest for each day: energy losses and nodal voltage violations. These daily metrics are aggregated over a year, considering the distribution of days within that year. Once the MCS converges, statistical values for annual voltage violations and losses are derived. The methodology was applied to a 23-node distribution system with capacitor banks, voltage regulators, and distributed energy resources. The findings indicate that employing the MCS while considering the correlation between nodal power demands and generation offers a practical approach to studying EPDS operation. Disregarding this correlation results in underestimating operational indicators within the grid.
Attachment of Rod-Like (BAR) Proteins and Membrane Shape

Previous studies have shown that cellular function depends on rod-like membrane proteins, among them Bin/Amphiphysin/Rvs (BAR) proteins may curve the membrane leading to physiologically important membrane invaginations and membrane protrusions. The membrane shaping induced by BAR proteins has a major role in various biological processes such as cell motility and cell growth. Different models of binding of BAR domains to the lipid bilayer are described. The binding includes hydrophobic insertion loops and electrostatic interactions between basic amino acids at the concave region of the BAR domain and negatively charged lipids. To shed light on the elusive binding dynamics, a novel experiment is proposed to expand the technique of single-molecule AFM for the traction of binding energy of a single BAR domain.
Forgetting from Short-Term Memory in Delayed Matching to Sample: A Reinforcement Context Model

Short-term memory in nonhuman animals is typically studied in delayed matching to sample, with variation in the retention interval or delay between the to-be-remembered sample and subsequently presented choice or comparison stimuli. The forgetting function, which relates the systematic decrease in discriminability to increasing delay, is well described by an exponential in the square root of time, with an intercept and slope that vary systematically with different conditions, such as sample-stimulus disparity, retention-interval conditions, and reward parameters. We argue that the rewards for accurate matching are relative to the reinforcement context, which includes rewards Ro for extraneous or other behaviors. Forgetting results from competition between Ro and rewards for the delayed matching task. We suggest that Ro acts to shift attention from the memory task to extraneous behavior, and that Ro grows as a linear function of time in the retention interval. By incorporating these assumptions in the model proposed by White and Wixted (1999), we accurately predict the time course of forgetting under a variety of different conditions for delayed matching.
Signaling pathways for the vascular effects of hydrogen sulfide

Purpose of reviewThe physiological and pathophysiological importance of endogenous hydrogen sulfide to cardiovascular health has been recognized in recent years. The signaling mechanisms underlying the multifaceted vascular effects of H2S, on the contrary, have been unclear. This article reviews recent literature on cellular and molecular events triggered or modulated by H2S in the vascular system over the period of 2009–2010. Recent findingsH2S causes protein S-sulfhydration. The activation of ATP-sensitive K channels (KATP channels) by H2S likely occurs as the result of specific cysteine residues of KATP channel proteins being S-sulfhydrated. Produced in endothelial cells and inducing smooth muscle hyperpolarization, H2S appears to functioning as an endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor. The inhibition of phosphodiesterases by endogenous H2S is an additional exciting discovery, which offers answers for the differential vascular effects of this gasotransmitter due to the tissue-specific distribution of different isozymes of phosphodiesterases. Furthermore, endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells have opposite growth responses to H2S stimulation, involving the same sets of signaling molecules. SummaryAn array of signaling pathways in vascular tissues is enlisted by endogenous H2S. An insightful understanding of these signaling mechanisms would help elucidate the pathogenesis of selective cardiovascular diseases and develop related therapeutic interventions by targeting H2S metabolism.