Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trehalose augments osteoprotegerin production in the FHs74Int human intestinal epithelial cell line

SummaryThe disaccharide trehalose has been shown to inhibit both bone loss in ovariectomized mice and excessive osteoclastogenesis in lipopolysaccharide-injected mice. However, the mechanism of osteoclastogenesis inhibition by oral administration of trehalose is still unclear. We report here for the first time that a human intestinal epithelial cell line FHs74Int, also produces osteoprotegerin (OPG) and that trehalose augments, OPG production by this cell line. Thus, these results suggest that trehalose promotes the production of OPG by intestinal epithelial cells, which then acts on bone marrow cells, resulting in the suppression of osteoclastogenesis.
Brokerage Commissions and Institutional Trading Patterns

The institutional brokerage industry faces an ever-increasing pressure to lower trading costs, which has already driven down average commissions and shifted volume toward low-cost execution venues. However, traditional full-service brokers that bundle execution with services remain a force and their commissions are still considerably higher than the marginal cost of trade execution. We hypothesize that commissions constitute a convenient way of charging a prearranged fixed fee for long-term access to a broker's premium services. We derive testable predictions based on this hypothesis and test them on a large sample of institutional trades from 1999 to 2003. We find that institutions negotiate commissions infrequently, and thus commissions vary little with trade characteristics. Institutions also concentrate their order flow with a relatively small set of brokers, with smaller institutions concentrating their trading more than large institutions and paying higher per-share commissions. These results are stable over time, are consistent with our predictions, and cannot be explained by cost-minimization alone. Finally, we discuss the evolution of the institutional brokerage market within the proposed framework and make informal predictions about future developments in the industry. The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.
An integrative approach to unravel the Ceratitis FAR (Diptera, Tephritidae) cryptic species complex: a review

Abstract This paper reviews all information gathered from different disciplines and studies to resolve the species status within the Ceratitis FAR (Ceratitis fasciventris, Ceratitis anonae, Ceratitis rosa) complex, a group of polyphagous fruit fly pest species (Diptera, Tephritidae) from Africa. It includes information on larval and adult morphology, wing morphometrics, cuticular hydrocarbons, pheromones, microsatellites, developmental physiology and geographic distribution. The general consensus is that the FAR complex comprises Ceratitis anonae, two species within Ceratitis rosa (so-called R1 and R2) and two putatitve species under Ceratitis fasciventris. The information regarding the latter is, however, too limited to draw final conclusions on specific status. Evidence for this recognition is discussed with reference to publications providing further details.
Common Factors in the Performance of European Corporate Bonds – Evidence Before and after Financial Crisis

We examine monthly excess returns for 23 Euro-denominated corporate bond indices and propose a new specification for bond asset pricing models. Specifically, we separate level and slope components of term and default risk factors and examine liquidity risk. Our results suggest that level and slope risk factors, derived from complete interest rate and default spread term structures, significantly improve the explanatory power of the Fama and French (1993) 2-factor model. We also demonstrate different sensitivities of risk factors before and after recent financial crisis. The results are robust to calendar seasonality and the consideration of equity market returns. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Superdiffusivity for a Brownian polymer in a continuous Gaussian environment

This paper provides information about the asymptotic behavior of a one-dimensional Brownian polymer in random medium represented by a Gaussian field W on R+ × R assumed to be white noise in time and function-valued in space. According to the behavior of the spatial covariance of W, we give a lower bound on the power growth (wandering exponent) of the polymer when the time parameter goes to infinity: the polymer is proved to be superdiffusive, with a wandering exponent exceeding any � < 3/5.
Hydrogels Synthesized by Electron Beam Irradiation for Heavy Metal Adsorption

Poly(acrylamide co-acrylic acid) hydrogels were prepared by free-radical copolymerization of acrylamide and acrylic acid in aqueous solutions using electron beam irradiation in the dose range of 2.5 kGy to 6 kGy in atmospheric conditions and at room temperature. The influence of the absorbed dose, the amount of cross-linker (trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate) and initiator (potassium persulfate) on the swelling properties and the diffusion coefficient and network parameters of hydrogels were investigated. The structure and morphology of hydrogels were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The use of the obtained hydrogels by the removal of Cu2+ and Cr6+ from aqueous solutions was investigated at room temperature. During the adsorption of metal ions on hydrogels, the residual metal ion concentration in the solution was measured by an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS). It has been established that the use of a relatively small amount of trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate for hydrogel preparation has led to the increasing of swelling up to 8500%.
Modeling reciprocity in social interactions with probabilistic latent space models

Abstract Reciprocity is a pervasive concept that plays an important role in governing people's behavior, judgments, and thus their social interactions. In this paper we present an analysis of the concept of reciprocity as expressed in English and a way to model it. At a larger structural level the reciprocity model will induce representations and clusters of relations between interpersonal verbs. In particular, we introduce an algorithm that semi-automatically discovers patterns encoding reciprocity based on a set of simple yet effective pronoun templates. Using the most frequently occurring patterns we queried the web and extracted 13,443 reciprocal instances, which represent a broad-coverage resource. Unsupervised clustering procedures are performed to generate meaningful semantic clusters of reciprocal instances. We also present several extensions (along with observations) to these models that incorporate meta-attributes like the verbs' affective value, identify gender differences between participants, consider the textual context of the instances, and automatically discover verbs with certain presuppositions. The pattern discovery procedure yields an accuracy of 97 per cent, while the clustering procedures – clustering with pairwise membership and clustering with transitions – indicate accuracies of 91 per cent and 64 per cent, respectively. Our affective value clustering can predict an unknown verb's affective value (positive, negative, or neutral) with 51 per cent accuracy, while it can discriminate between positive and negative values with 68 per cent accuracy. The presupposition discovery procedure yields an accuracy of 97 per cent.
Bending Instability of an Accretion Disk around a Black Hole

We demonstrate that generically an accretion disk around a compact object could have a new type of instability in that the accretion flow need not be symmetric with respect to the equatorial plane even when matter is supplied symmetrically farther out. We find that this behavior is mainly due to the interaction of outgoing matter bounced off the centrifugal barrier and the incoming accretion. We believe that X-ray variability could be developed by this instability.
Probability of Hysterectomy After Endometrial Ablation

OBJECTIVE: To investigate risk factors for hysterectomy after endometrial ablation. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort analysis of data from Kaiser Permanente Northern California members, aged 25–60 years undergoing endometrial ablation from 1999 to 2004 and collected through 2007. Risk factors assessed included age, presence of leiomyomas, setting of procedure (inpatient or outpatient), and type of endometrial ablation procedure (first generation, radio frequency, hydrothermal, or thermal balloon). Univariable and survival analyses were performed to identify risk factors and estimate probability of hysterectomy. RESULTS: From 1999 to 2004, 3,681 women underwent endometrial ablation at 30 Kaiser Permanente Northern California facilities. Hysterectomy was subsequently performed in 774 women (21%), whereas 143 women (3.9%) had uterine-conserving procedures. Age was a significant predictor of hysterectomy (P<.001). Cox regression analysis found that compared with women aged older than 45 years, women aged 45 years or younger were 2.1 times more likely to have hysterectomy (95% confidence interval 1.8–2.4). Hysterectomy risk increased with each decreasing stratum of age and exceeded 40% in women aged 40 years or younger. Overall, type of endometrial ablation procedure, setting of endometrial ablation procedure, and presence of leiomyomas were not predictors of hysterectomy. In analysis of individual procedure types, concomitant myomectomy was associated with a decreased risk of hysterectomy for patients receiving first-generation endometrial ablation (P=.002), and outpatient location for hydrothermal endometrial ablation increased hysterectomy risk (P<.001). CONCLUSION: Age is more important than type of procedure or presence of leiomyomas in predicting subsequent hysterectomy after endometrial ablation. Women undergoing endometrial ablation at younger than 40 years of age are at elevated risk of hysterectomy, and rather than plateauing within several years of endometrial ablation, hysterectomy risk continues to increase through 8 years of follow-up. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: II
CMOS analogue amplifier circuits optimisation using hybrid backtracking search algorithm with differential evolution

This paper proposes a novel hybrid optimisation algorithm which combines the recently proposed evolutionary algorithm Backtracking Search Algorithm (BSA) with another widely accepted evolutionary algorithm, namely, Differential Evolution (DE). The proposed algorithm called BSA-DE is employed for the optimal designs of two commonly used analogue circuits, namely Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) differential amplifier circuit with current mirror load and CMOS two-stage operational amplifier (op-amp) circuit. BSA has a simple structure that is effective, fast and capable of solving multimodal problems. DE is a stochastic, population-based heuristic approach, having the capability to solve global optimisation problems. In this paper, the transistors’ sizes are optimised using the proposed BSA-DE to minimise the areas occupied by the circuits and to improve the performances of the circuits. The simulation results justify the superiority of BSA-DE in global convergence properties and fine tuning ability, and prove it to be a promising candidate for the optimal design of the analogue CMOS amplifier circuits. The simulation results obtained for both the amplifier circuits prove the effectiveness of the proposed BSA-DE-based approach over DE, harmony search (HS), artificial bee colony (ABC) and PSO in terms of convergence speed, design specifications and design parameters of the optimal design of the analogue CMOS amplifier circuits. It is shown that BSA-DE-based design technique for each amplifier circuit yields the least MOS transistor area, and each designed circuit is shown to have the best performance parameters such as gain, power dissipation, etc., as compared with those of other recently reported literature.
Response to Selection in Finite Locus Models with Nonadditive Effects

Under the finite-locus model in the absence of mutation, the additive genetic variation is expected to decrease when directional selection is acting on a population, according to quantitative-genetic theory. However, some theoretical studies of selection suggest that the level of additive variance can be sustained or even increased when nonadditive genetic effects are present. We tested the hypothesis that finite-locus models with both additive and nonadditive genetic effects maintain more additive genetic variance (VA) and realize larger medium- to long-term genetic gains than models with only additive effects when the trait under selection is subject to truncation selection. Four genetic models that included additive, dominance, and additive-by-additive epistatic effects were simulated. The simulated genome for individuals consisted of 25 chromosomes, each with a length of 1 M. One hundred bi-allelic QTL, 4 on each chromosome, were considered. In each generation, 100 sires and 100 dams were mated, producing 5 progeny per mating. The population was selected for a single trait (h2 = 0.1) for 100 discrete generations with selection on phenotype or BLUP-EBV. VA decreased with directional truncation selection even in presence of nonadditive genetic effects. Nonadditive effects influenced long-term response to selection and among genetic models additive gene action had highest response to selection. In addition, in all genetic models, BLUP-EBV resulted in a greater fixation of favorable and unfavorable alleles and higher response than phenotypic selection. In conclusion, for the schemes we simulated, the presence of nonadditive genetic effects had little effect in changes of additive variance and VA decreased by directional selection.
An Analysis Framework for Access Methods

Designing and tuning access methods (AMs) has always been more of a black art than a rigorous discipline, with performance assessments being mostly reduced to presenting bottom-line runtime or I/O numbers. This paper presents an analysis framework for AMs that defines performance metrics which are more meaningful than bottom-line numbers and thereby allow the AM designer to detect and isolate deficiencies in an AM design. The analysis process takes a workload--a tree and a set of queries--as input and provides metrics that characterize the performance of each query as well as that of the tree structure and the structure-shaping aspects of the AM implementation. Central to the framework is the use of the optimal behavior--which can be approximated relatively efficiently--as a point of reference against which the actual observed performance is measured. The performance metrics themselves reflect the fundamental performance-relevant properties of the input tree. The framework applies to most balanced tree-structured AMs and is not restricted to particular types of of data or queries. It is implemented in "amdb," a comprehensive graphical design tool for AMs that are constructed on top of the Generalized Search Tree abstraction. Amdb complements the analysis framework with visualization and debugging functionality, allowing the AM designer to investigate the source of those deficiencies that were brought to light with the help of the analysis framework.
The Intrinsic Self-Time of Biosystems

In biological systems, self-time differs from the physical time scale. Biological self-time is the characteristic of individual biosystems and invariantly describes the various dynamic processes in organisms. This biological invariance is introduced by using 2 basic theorems: Allometric scaling and the Weibull psychometric function. Our objective was to precisely describe the timing phenomenon in biosystems and provide a framework to further develop this analogy for other fields.
Exemplars or beliefs? The impact of self-view on the nature and relative influence of brand associations

This research examines whether various forms of brand associations-overall brand beliefs (e.g., Sony is high quality) versus exemplars of the brand (e.g., Sony TV)-are differentially accessible for individuals with independent self-views and those with an interdependent self-view. Since independents emphasize the "traitedness" of behavior and tend to focus on attributes of objects, brand beliefs are relatively more accessible than exemplars to them. Conversely, since interdependents focus more on the role of contextual factors and the interrelatedness of events, exemplars are relatively more accessible to them than brand beliefs. Further, examination of the implications of this difference on brand attitudes and brand extension evaluations occurs. (c) 2006 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc.
Immediate and late inflammatory responses to ragweed antigen challenge of the peripheral airways in allergic asthmatics. Cellular, mediator, and permeability changes.

Asthma may represent the clinical manifestations of a unique form of chronic airway inflammation and is often associated with allergy. To better define the components of allergic inflammation in the lung, fluids obtained by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) were examined for cells, inflammatory mediators, and markers of airway permeability 5 min and 19 h following instillation of ragweed antigen directly into an airway segment of allergic asthmatic subjects. The 5-min response to antigen challenge (n = 10) was characterized by 17- to 208-fold increases in histamine, prostaglandin D2 (PGD2), and its metabolite, 9 alpha,11 beta-PGF2, thromboxane B2, and 6-keto-PGF1 alpha compared with a saline-challenged segment (0.004 less than p less than 0.017). The increases in most of these mediators were significantly correlated with each other (0.0001 less than p less than or equal to 0.01), and the magnitude of all significant mediator increases was directly correlated with skin test sensitivity to ragweed antigen (0.007 less than or equal to p less than or equal to 0.05). There was also a slight increase in kinins (p = 0.04). Changes in cells and airway permeability were not detected. In contrast, the 19-h response to antigen challenge (n = 9) was characterized by a 13-fold increase in total cells recovered by BAL. Eosinophils, basophils, and lymphocytes were significantly increased and comprised 38, 1, and 9% of total cells, respectively. A neutrophil influx was also observed but was not specific for antigen challenge since a similar change was observed in a sham, saline-challenged site. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Rituximab dosing and monitoring strategies in neuromyelitis optica patients: creating strategies for therapeutic success

Background: Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is an autoimmune condition that predominantly causes severe optic neuritis and transverse myelitis. Rituximab therapy has dramatically improved patient care, but standardized dosing regimens and guidelines are lacking. Objectives: The objective of this study was to define a rituximab dosing strategy for NMO patients that achieves the lowest rate of relapses. Methods: This was a retrospective chart review of patients treated with various doses of rituximab. Results: Combining data from the NMO and multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, identified that the mean number of days after a 100 mg dose of rituximab until the CD19 population was greater than 2% was 99 days (standard deviation 36, range 43–172). When allowed to rise, the mean number of days after a 1000 mg dose of rituximab until the CD19 population was greater than 2% was 184 (standard deviation 72, range 52–288). The median number of days until a CD19 percentage of 2% was achieved was 133 days in the 100 mg dosing arm and 259 days in the 1000 mg dosing arm. Analysis of the survival curves via both the Mantel–Cox log-rank test and the Wilcoxon test determined that the difference between medial survival for 100 and 1000 mg doses was statistically significant with p-values <0.0001. Conclusions: Low doses of rituximab have a high rate of early B-cell repopulation. Any NMO patient treated with rituximab should be followed with monthly CD19 counts in order to identify the rare, but clinically significant, early repopulators.
Comparison of PCR- and HinfI Restriction Endonuclease-Based Methods for Typing of Candida krusei Isolates

ABSTRACT We compared HinfI restriction endonuclease-based analysis of genomic DNA with a PCR-based method for molecular typing of 90 Candida krusei isolates from 17 geographically related patients. Strain groupings by these methods were the same for 89 of 90 isolates. Ten of 17 patients were infected with related strains of C. krusei.
Urban Stormwater Runoff: A New Class of Environmental Flow Problem

Environmental flow assessment frameworks have begun to consider changes to flow regimes resulting from land-use change. Urban stormwater runoff, which degrades streams through altered volume, pattern and quality of flow, presents a problem that challenges dominant approaches to stormwater and water resource management, and to environmental flow assessment. We used evidence of ecological response to different stormwater drainage systems to develop methods for input to environmental flow assessment. We identified the nature of hydrologic change resulting from conventional urban stormwater runoff, and the mechanisms by which such hydrologic change is prevented in streams where ecological condition has been protected. We also quantified the increase in total volume resulting from urban stormwater runoff, by comparing annual streamflow volumes from undeveloped catchments with the volumes that would run off impervious surfaces under the same rainfall regimes. In catchments with as little as 5–10% total imperviousness, conventional stormwater drainage, associated with poor in-stream ecological condition, reduces contributions to baseflows and increases the frequency and magnitude of storm flows, but in similarly impervious catchments in which streams retain good ecological condition, informal drainage to forested hillslopes, without a direct piped discharge to the stream, results in little such hydrologic change. In urbanized catchments, dispersed urban stormwater retention measures can potentially protect urban stream ecosystems by mimicking the hydrologic effects of informal drainage, if sufficient water is harvested and kept out of the stream, and if discharged water is treated to a suitable quality. Urban stormwater is a new class of environmental flow problem: one that requires reduction of a large excess volume of water to maintain riverine ecological integrity. It is the best type of problem, because solving it provides an opportunity to solve other problems such as the provision of water for human use.
Characterization of the complete chloroplast genome of Incarvillea arguta (Bignoniaceae)

Abstract IIncarvillea arguta belongs to the family Bignoniaceae, is an economically and medicinally important plant. The complete chloroplast genome of I. arguta is 159,135 bp in size, including a large single copy (LSC) region of 87.192 bp, a small single copy (SSC) region of 19,023 bp and a pair of inverted repeats (IRs) of 26,460 bp. The genome contains 108 genes, including 72 protein-coding genes, 32 tRNA genes, and 4 rRNA genes. The GC content in chloroplast genome, LSC region, SSC region, and IR region were 39.5%, 37.9%, 34.7%, and 43.7%, respectively. The evolutionary analysis suggested that I. arguta is related to Tecomaria capensis.