Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
KLF8 promotes tumorigenesis, invasion and metastasis of colorectal cancer cells by transcriptional activation of FHL2

The transcription factor Krüppel-like factor (KLF)8 plays an important role in the formation of several human tumors, including colorectal cancer. We recently identified four-and-a-half LIM protein 2 (FHL2) as a critical inducer of the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and invasion. However, the molecular mechanism by which KLF8 affects FHL2-mediated tumor proliferation, EMT and metastasis remains unknown. Here, we showed that KLF8 overexpression promoted EMT and metastatic phenotypes. KLF8 expression was stimulated by transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1. Moreover, KLF8 acted as a potential EMT inducer by stimulating vimentin expression and inducing a loss of E-cadherin in stable KLF8-transfected cells. KLF8 overexpression induced a strong increase in FHL2 expression, and a positive correlation between the expression patterns of KLF8 and FHL2 was observed in CRC cells. Promoter reporter and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays demonstrated that KLF8 directly bound to and activated the human FHL2 gene promoter. However, siRNA-mediated repression of FHL2 in KLF8-overexpressing cells reversed the EMT and the proliferative and metastatic phenotypes. In vivo, KLF8 promoted FHL2-mediated proliferation and metastasis via orthotopic implantation. Taken together, this work identified KLF8-induced FHL2 activation as a novel and critical signaling mechanism underlying human breast/colorectal cancer invasion and metastasis.
Cross-Listing, Investment Sensitivity to Stock Price and the Learning Hypothesis

Cross-listed firms in the United States have a higher investment-to-price sensitivity than do firms that never cross-list. This difference is strong, does not exist prior to the cross-listing date, and does not vanish afterward. Moreover, it does not appear to be primarily driven by improvements in governance, disclosure, and access to capital associated with a U.S. cross-listing. Instead, we argue that a cross-listing enhances managers' reliance on stock prices because it makes stock prices more informative to them. Consistent with this explanation, U.S. cross-listings that are more likely to strengthen the informativeness of stock prices for managers feature a higher investment-to-price sensitivity. The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. , Oxford University Press.
Cosmological evolution and hierarchical galaxy formation

We calculate the rate at which dark matter haloes merge to form higher mass systems. Two complementary derivations using Press–Schechter theory are given, both of which result in the same equation for the formation rate. First, a derivation using the properties of the Brownian random walks within the framework of Press–Schechter theory is presented. We then use Bayes’ theorem to obtain the same result from the standard Press–Schechter mass function. The rate obtained is shown to be in good agreement with results from Monte Carlo and N-body simulations. We illustrate the usefulness of this formula by calculating the expected cosmological evolution in the rate of star formation that is due to short-lived, merger-induced starbursts. The calculated evolution is well-matched to the observed evolution in ultraviolet luminosity density, in contrast to the lower rates of evolution that are derived from semi-analytic models that do not include a dominant contribution from starbursts. Hence we suggest that the bulk of the observed ultraviolet starlight at z>1 arises from merger-induced starbursts. Finally, we show that a simple merging-halo model can also account for the bulk of the observed evolution in the comoving quasar space density.
IMBALANCED RELATIVISTIC FORCE-FREE MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC TURBULENCE

When magnetic energy density is much larger than that of matter, as in pulsar/black hole magnetospheres, the medium becomes force-free and we need relativity to describe it. As in non-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), Alfvénic MHD turbulence in the relativistic limit can be described by interactions of counter-traveling wave packets. In this paper, we numerically study strong imbalanced MHD turbulence in such environments. Here, imbalanced turbulence means the waves traveling in one direction (dominant waves) have higher amplitudes than the opposite-traveling waves (sub-dominant waves). We find that (1) spectrum of the dominant waves is steeper than that of sub-dominant waves, (2) the anisotropy of the dominant waves is weaker than that of sub-dominant waves, and (3) the dependence of the ratio of magnetic energy densities of dominant and sub-dominant waves on the ratio of energy injection rates is steeper than quadratic (i.e., with n > 2). These results are consistent with those obtained for imbalanced non-relativistic Alfvénic turbulence. This corresponds well to the earlier reported similarity of the relativistic and non-relativistic balanced magnetic turbulence.
Genetic Algorithms vs. Simulated Annealing: A Comparison of Approaches for Solving the Circuit Partitioning Problem

An important stage in circuit design is placement where components are assigned to physical locations on a chip A popular contemporary method for placement is the use of simulated annealing While this approach has been shown to produce good placement solutions recent work in genetic algorithms has produced promising results The purpose of this study is to determine which approach will result in better placement solutions A simpli ed model of the placement problem circuit partitioning was tested on three circuits with both a genetic algorithm and a simulated annealing algorithm When compared with simulated annealing the genetic algorithm was found to produce similar results for one circuit and better results for the other two circuits Based on these results genetic algorithms may also yield better results than simulated annealing when applied to the placement problem
PARENTAL WARMTH AND PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT AND THEIR ASSOCIATIONS WITH CHILDREN’S SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC SKILLS IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

Using the major tenets of interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory (IPARTheory), Baumrind’s parenting styles typologies and the Developmental Niche Model as guides, this study examined the moderating role of parental warmth on the associations between severity and fairness of physical punishment and preschool-aged children’s social and academic skills in families in the twin-island Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago. The sample consisted of 191 mothers and 179 fathers, and their preschool-aged children from four diverse ethnic and socioeconomic communities. Mothers and fathers filled out a socio-demographic questionnaire, the parental acceptance-rejection questionnaire (PARQ-Short-Form), and the physical punishment questionnaire (PPQ). Teachers provided assessments of children’s early academic skills using the Child Development Index Card. Teachers also assessed children’s social skills by completing the Child Rating Questionnaire. Three questions were examined: (a) Do mothers and fathers differ in the use of different modes of physical punishment with boys and girls? (b) Does maternal warmth moderate the associations between maternal assessments of severity and fairness of physical punishment and children’s early social and academic skills? And, (c) Does paternal warmth moderate the associations between paternal assessments of severity and fairness of physical punishment and children’s early social and academic skills? Results indicate that mothers were more likely to slap, pull, and pinch children than fathers. Mothers and fathers did not differ in their use of different modes of physical punishment with boys and girls. There were no significant direct associations between paternal and maternal assessments of severity and fairness of punishment and children’s social and academic skills. Paternal and maternal warmth did not moderate the associations between paternal and maternal assessments of severity and fairness of punishment and children’s social and academic skills. Findings are discussed within the context of a children’s rights perspective.
Symmetry Is Not a Universal Law of Beauty

Scientific disciplines as diverse as biology, physics, and psychological aesthetics regard symmetry as one of the most important principles in nature and one of the most powerful determinants of beauty. However, symmetry has a low standing in the arts and humanities. This difference in the valuation of symmetry is a remarkable illustration of the gap between the two cultures. To close this gap, we conducted an interdisciplinary, empirical study to directly demonstrate the effects of art expertise on symmetry appreciation. Two groups of art experts—artists and art historians—and a group of non-experts provided spontaneous beauty ratings of visual stimuli that varied in symmetry and complexity. In complete contrast to responses typically found in non-art experts, art experts found asymmetrical and simple stimuli as most beautiful. This is evidence of the effects of specific education and training on aesthetic appreciation and a direct challenge to the universality of symmetry.
Generation and Characterization of Six Recombinant Botulinum Neurotoxins as Reference Material to Serve in an International Proficiency Test

The detection and identification of botulinum neurotoxins (BoNT) is complex due to the existence of seven serotypes, derived mosaic toxins and more than 40 subtypes. Expert laboratories currently use different technical approaches to detect, identify and quantify BoNT, but due to the lack of (certified) reference materials, analytical results can hardly be compared. In this study, the six BoNT/A1–F1 prototypes were successfully produced by recombinant techniques, facilitating handling, as well as improving purity, yield, reproducibility and biosafety. All six BoNTs were quantitatively nicked into active di-chain toxins linked by a disulfide bridge. The materials were thoroughly characterized with respect to purity, identity, protein concentration, catalytic and biological activities. For BoNT/A1, B1 and E1, serotypes pathogenic to humans, the catalytic activity and the precise protein concentration were determined by Endopep-mass spectrometry and validated amino acid analysis, respectively. In addition, BoNT/A1, B1, E1 and F1 were successfully detected by immunological assays, unambiguously identified by mass spectrometric-based methods, and their specific activities were assigned by the mouse LD50 bioassay. The potencies of all six BoNT/A1–F1 were quantified by the ex vivo mouse phrenic nerve hemidiaphragm assay, allowing a direct comparison. In conclusion, highly pure recombinant BoNT reference materials were produced, thoroughly characterized and employed as spiking material in a worldwide BoNT proficiency test organized by the EQuATox consortium.
When Stars Shine: The Effects of Faculty Founders on New Technology Ventures

Despite the increasing importance of faculty entrepreneurship to technology diffusion, wealth creation, and economic growth, we know little about the effects that academic faculty turned entrepreneurs have on the performance of new technology ventures. We argue faculty inventors select their most promising projects for commercialization. We further posit that star faculty founders have positive effects on new venture performance, above and beyond that of the average faculty founder. In addition, we develop two contingency hypotheses to unearth specific situations when ‘stars shine. ’ We posit that star faculty founders are able to overcome geographic distance to venture capitalists as well as the disadvantages of not being affiliated with a top research university. We test our hypotheses on a broad sample of 238 university-related new technology ventures at 65 U.S. universities. Copyright © 2012 Strategic Management Society.
Test preparation strategies and test taking strategies use in Chinese high school students

Test Preparation Strategies and Test Taking Strategies Use in Chinese High School Students by Yun Peng Eunsook Hong, Examination Committee Chair Professor of Educational Psychology University of Nevada, Las Vegas This study investigated the use of test-preparation and test-taking strategies of 429 tenth graders from a key high school in Guangzhou, China. Differences in strategy uses among low-, medium-, and high-achieving groups were determined in two subject-matter areas (Chinese language and mathematics). Instruments used for data collection were the Test Preparation Strategies Questionnaire (TPSQ) and Test Taking Strategies Questionnaire (TTSQ), which examined students' strategy use in cognitive/metacognitive, motivational/emotional, environmental management areas. Results indicated that Chinese tenth graders memorized contents more often than other strategies while preparing for tests. Students planned their course of action for test preparation and selected study strategies more often than monitoring their study behaviors. High achievers expended more effort, valued testing, had more competence, had low test anxiety, used more test tactics, preferred a quite environment, managed time better, and asked assistance more Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. often than low achievers when preparing for tests and during tests. However, group differences were not significant in most of the cognitive and metacognitive strategies examined in this study.
When Consumers Produce on the Internet: The Relationship between Cognitive-affective, Socially- based, and Behavioral Involvement of Prosumers

This article advances our understanding of the motivational sources for consumer involvement in online joint innovation. The ‘free’ or ‘open-source’ software movement is the largest socio-technical network and most visible empirical evidence of this new phenomenon. The paper promotes a behavioral view of involvement and offers a conceptualization and empirical evidence of the relationship between cognitive-affective, socially-based and behavioral involvement in online joint production. An Internet survey with 1486 contributors to open-source software revealed that the extent of behavioral involvement is strongly related to the structure and strength of relationships between different motivations. The relationship between concern for self and concern for others especially distinguishes the level of contribution to online projects.
Laparoscopic Spleen-Preserving Splenic Hilar Lymphadenectomy Performed by Following the Perigastric Fascias and the Intrafascial Space for Advanced Upper-Third Gastric Cancer

Background Laparoscopic spleen-preserving Splenic hilar lymphadenectomy (LSPL) is required in laparoscopy-assisted total gastrectomy for advanced proximal gastric cancer. However, it is considerably difficult and risk in clinical practice. Thus, we explore the application of LSPL performed by following the perigastric fascias and the intrafascial space in D2 radical gastrectomy for advanced upper-third gastric cancer. Methods From July 2010 to December 2012, 109 patients with T2–3 upper-third gastric cancer underwent LSPL. Of these patients, 55 underwent classic LSPL (classic group), and the remaining 54 patients underwent LSPL performed by following the fascias and intrafascial space (fascia group). Clinicopathologic characteristics and intraoperative and postoperative variables were compared between the two groups. Results There were no significant differences in clinicopathological characteristics between the two groups (P>0.05). All of the operations were successful without conversion to laparotomy. The operation time, mean splenic hilar lymph node (LN) dissection time, mean total blood loss and mean blood loss from splenic hilar LN dissection were significantly lower in the fascia group than in the classic group (P<0.05), whereas the times to first flatus, fluid diet and soft diet and the duration of hospital stay were similar in both groups. The mean number of harvested LNs (No. 10 and No. 11d) was slightly higher in the fascia group, but the difference was not significant. No significant difference in morbidity was found between the fascia group and the classic group (9.3% vs.10.9%, P>0.05). At a median follow-up of 12 months(range 5 to 35 months), none of the patients had died or experienced recurrent or metastatic disease. Conclusion LSPL performed by following the fascias and intrafascial space is an optimal and safe technique based on anatomical logic, and it reduces the difficulties associated with LSPL, making it easier to master and allowing its widespread adoption.
A Fast Extraction Algorithm for Defect-Free Subcrossbar in Nanoelectronic Crossbar

Due to the super scale, high defect density, and per-chip designing paradigm of emerging nanoelectronics, the runtime of the algorithms for defect-tolerant design is of vital importance from the perspective of practicability. In this article, an efficient and effective heuristic defect-free subcrossbar extraction algorithm is proposed which improves performance by mixing the heuristics from two state-of-the-art algorithms and then is speeded up significantly by considerably reducing the number of major loops. Compared with the current most effective algorithm that improves the solution quality (i.e., size of the defect-free subcrossbar obtained) at the cost of high time complexity O(n3), the time complexity of the proposed heuristic algorithm is proved to be O(n2). Using a large set of instances of various scales and defect densities, the simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can offer similar high-quality solutions as the current most effective algorithm while consuming much shorter runtimes (reduced to about 1/3 to 1/5) than the current most effective algorithm.
Chagasic Thymic Atrophy Does Not Affect Negative Selection but Results in the Export of Activated CD4+CD8+ T Cells in Severe Forms of Human Disease

Extrathymic CD4+CD8+ double-positive (DP) T cells are increased in some pathophysiological conditions, including infectious diseases. In the murine model of Chagas disease, it has been shown that the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi is able to target the thymus and induce alterations of the thymic microenvironment and the lymphoid compartment. In the acute phase, this results in a severe atrophy of the organ and early release of DP cells into the periphery. To date, the effect of the changes promoted by the parasite infection on thymic central tolerance has remained elusive. Herein we show that the intrathymic key elements that are necessary to promote the negative selection of thymocytes undergoing maturation during the thymopoiesis remains functional during the acute chagasic thymic atrophy. Intrathymic expression of the autoimmune regulator factor (Aire) and tissue-restricted antigen (TRA) genes is normal. In addition, the expression of the proapoptotic Bim protein in thymocytes was not changed, revealing that the parasite infection-induced thymus atrophy has no effect on these marker genes necessary to promote clonal deletion of T cells. In a chicken egg ovalbumin (OVA)-specific T-cell receptor (TCR) transgenic system, the administration of OVA peptide into infected mice with thymic atrophy promoted OVA-specific thymocyte apoptosis, further indicating normal negative selection process during the infection. Yet, although the intrathymic checkpoints necessary for thymic negative selection are present in the acute phase of Chagas disease, we found that the DP cells released into the periphery acquire an activated phenotype similar to what is described for activated effector or memory single-positive T cells. Most interestingly, we also demonstrate that increased percentages of peripheral blood subset of DP cells exhibiting an activated HLA-DR+ phenotype are associated with severe cardiac forms of human chronic Chagas disease. These cells may contribute to the immunopathological events seen in the Chagas disease.
Toward Extracting All Phylogenetic Information from Matrices of Evolutionary Distances

Theoretically Speedy Trees Phylogenetic tree construction often uses distance matrix methods, which offer promising scalable methods for rapid building of very large phylogenies. It has generally been assumed that trees constructed from distance matrices are intrinsically less accurate than those inferred from maximum likelihood methods, but the latter are slower to make. Roch (p. 1376; see the Perspective by Allman and Rhodes) theoretically examined this problem and showed that distance methods can achieve the same level of accuracy as likelihood methods. Thus, the generally assumed tradeoff between accuracy and speed in phylogenetic reconstruction can be overcome. Methods recently developed for taxonomic analysis are fast and do not compromise accuracy. The matrix of evolutionary distances is a model-based statistic, derived from molecular sequences, summarizing the pairwise phylogenetic relations between a collection of species. Phylogenetic tree reconstruction methods relying on this matrix are relatively fast and thus widely used in molecular systematics. However, because of their intrinsic reliance on summary statistics, distance-matrix methods are assumed to be less accurate than likelihood-based approaches. In this paper, pairwise sequence comparisons are shown to be more powerful than previously hypothesized. A statistical analysis of certain distance-based techniques indicates that their data requirement for large evolutionary trees essentially matches the conjectured performance of maximum likelihood methods—challenging the idea that summary statistics lead to suboptimal analyses. On the basis of a connection between ancestral state reconstruction and distance averaging, the critical role played by the covariances of the distance matrix is identified.
The Emergence of Perceived Position in the Visual System

Representing object position is one of the most critical functions of the visual system, but this task is not as simple as reading off an object's retinal coordinates. A rich body of literature has demonstrated that the position in which we perceive an object depends not only on retinotopy but also on factors such as attention, eye movements, object and scene motion, and frames of reference, to name a few. Despite the distinction between perceived and retinal position, strikingly little is known about how or where perceived position is represented in the brain. In the present study, we dissociated retinal and perceived object position to test the relative precision of retina-centered versus percept-centered position coding in a number of independently defined visual areas. In an fMRI experiment, subjects performed a five-alternative forced-choice position discrimination task; our analysis focused on the trials in which subjects misperceived the positions of the stimuli. Using a multivariate pattern analysis to track the coupling of the BOLD response with incremental changes in physical and perceived position, we found that activity in higher level areas—middle temporal complex, fusiform face area, parahippocampal place area, lateral occipital cortex, and posterior fusiform gyrus—more precisely reflected the reported positions than the physical positions of the stimuli. In early visual areas, this preferential coding of perceived position was absent or reversed. Our results demonstrate a new kind of spatial topography present in higher level visual areas in which an object's position is encoded according to its perceived rather than retinal location. We term such percept-centered encoding “perceptotopy”.