Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evidence That Oxytocin Exerts Anxiolytic Effects via Oxytocin Receptor Expressed in Serotonergic Neurons in Mice

The oxytocin receptor has been implicated in the regulation of reproductive physiology as well as social and emotional behaviors. The neurochemical mechanisms by which oxytocin receptor modulates social and emotional behavior remains elusive, in part because of a lack of sensitive and selective antibodies for cellular localization. To more precisely characterize oxytocin receptor-expressing neurons within the brain, we generated an oxytocin receptor-reporter mouse in which part of the oxytocin receptor gene was replaced with Venus cDNA (a variant of yellow fluorescent protein). Examination of the Venus expression revealed that, in the raphe nuclei, about one-half of tryptophan hydroxylase-immunoreactive neurons were positive for Venus, suggesting a potential role for oxytocin in the modulation of serotonin release. Oxytocin infusion facilitated serotonin release within the median raphe nucleus and reduced anxiety-related behavior. Infusion of a 5-HT2A/2C receptor antagonist blocked the anxiolytic effect of oxytocin, suggesting that oxytocin receptor activation in serotonergic neurons mediates the anxiolytic effects of oxytocin. This is the first demonstration that oxytocin may regulate serotonin release and exert anxiolytic effects via direct activation of oxytocin receptor expressed in serotonergic neurons of the raphe nuclei. These results also have important implications for psychiatric disorders such as autism and depression in which both the oxytocin and serotonin systems have been implicated.
Estimation with lossy measurements: jump estimators for jump systems

In this paper, we consider estimation with lossy measurements. This problem can arise when measurements are communicated over wireless channels. We model the plant/measurement loss process as a Markovian jump linear system. While the time-varying Kalman estimator (TVKE) is known to be optimal, we introduce a simpler design, termed a jump linear estimator (JLE), to cope with losses. A JLE has predictor/corrector form, but at each time selects a corrector gain from a finite set of precalculated gains. The motivation for the JLE is twofold. The computational burden of the JLE is less than that of the TVKE and the estimation errors expected when using JLE provide an upper bound for those expected when using TVKE. We then introduce a special class of JLE, termed finite loss history estimators (FLHE), which uses a canonical gain selection logic. A notion of optimality for the FLHE is defined and an optimal synthesis method is given. The proposed design method is compared to TVKE in a simulation study.
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES IN SEARCH OF THE ARMINGTON ELASTICITY

The elasticity of substitution between goods from different countries---the Armington elasticity---is important for many questions in international economics, but its magnitude is subject to debate: the "macro" elasticity between home and import goods is often found to be smaller than the "micro" elasticity between foreign sources of imports. We investigate these two elasticities in a model using a nested CES preference structure. We explore estimation techniques for the macro and micro elasticities using both simulated data from a Melitz-style model, and highly disaggregate U.S. production data matched to Harmonized System trade data. We find that in up to one-half of goods there is no significant difference between the macro and micro elasticities, but in the other half of goods the macro elasticity is significantly lower than the micro elasticity, even when they are estimated at the same level of disaggregation. Robert C. Feenstra Department of Economics University of California, Davis One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 and NBER rcfeenstra@ucdavis.edu Philip Luck Department of Economics University of California, Davis One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 paluck@ucdavis.edu Maurice Obstfeld Department of Economics University of California, Berkeley 530 Evans Hall #3880 Berkeley, CA 94720-3880 and NBER obstfeld@econ.berkeley. edu Katheryn N. Russ Department of Economics University of California, Davis One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 and NBER knruss@ucdavis.edu
Discriminative Convolutional Sum-Product Networks on GPU

Sum-Product Networks (SPNs) are a deep architecture recently proposed for image classification and modeling. In contrast to loopy graphical models commonly used in computer vision, exact inference and learning in SPNs is tractable. As long as consistency and completeness are ensured, an SPN allows to efficiently calculate the partition function and all marginals of graphical models. The proposed algorithms for generative and discriminative learning show good results on image classification benchmarks such as CIFAR-10. However, previous work did not learn image features from scratch, instead it builds on dictionary learning, leading to less comparable results. In this thesis we combined the two deep learning methods Convolutional Neural Networks and SPNs for image classification. To this end, we proposed a SPN implementation, operating in logspace for efficient computation on CPU and GPU, on top of convolutions. We found that some valid architectures for SPNs, lose information about locality of features, which significantly reduces learning capabilities. Due to time constraints, we were not able to wind up architectures, preserving this information. However, we were able to show that convolutions within the network learn reasonable structures, which show the functionality of this approach. The implementation was evaluated using the image classification benchmarks MNIST and CIFAR-10, achieving classification errors on the test datasets of 1.66% and 46.71% respectively.
The Relationships among Selected Characteristics of Student Outcomes Assessment Programs at American Two- and Four-Year Higher Education Institutions.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships between attributes of faculty and administrative involvement, sources of internal and external funding, and characteristics of student outcomes assessment at U.S. twoand four-year higher education institutions. Data from selected items of the National Center for Postsecondary Improvement's Project 5.2 Inventory of Institutional Support for Student Assessment (ISSA) (M. Peterson, M. Einarson, C. Augustine, and D. Vaughan, 1999) were used to analyze the relationships among faculty involvement, administrative involvement, sources of funding, and best practices of comprehensive student outcomes assessment programs. Data were ISSA responses from 1,393 institutions. The study demonstrates that faculty and administrative involvement in student outcomes assessment, as well as diversity in funding sources, are significant predictors of the quality of student assessment programs in postsecondary institutions. Seven appendixes present instruments used in the study and some additional information about best practices and data collected. (Contains 60 tables and 85 references.) (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the ori inal document. THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS OF STUDENT OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT PROGRAMS AT AMERICAN TWOAND FOUR-YEAR HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Mississippi Noel C. Womack, IV August 2000 I-) 6 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) his document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. EST COPY AVAILA fit LE
EOS MLS cloud ice measurements and cloudy-sky radiative transfer model

A cloud ice retrieval technique is described here using measurements at frequencies near 118, 190, 240, and 640 GHz and 2.5 THz from the Earth Observing System Microwave Limb Sounder on the NASA Aura satellite. Measurement principles, methods for cloud detection, and radiative transfer models for retrieving cloud properties are discussed. The 240-GHz data from high-tangent heights are used to retrieve ice water content at pressures <215 hPa, and the 118-, 190-, 240-, and 640-GHz radiances from low-tangent heights are used to retrieve ice water paths with different penetration depths. Some early Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) results are highlighted, and the observed cloud signatures are consistent with the expectation from model simulations, in general. The simultaneous measurements from MLS 240 and 640 GHz radiometers contain useful information on particle sizes. There are significant cloud-induced radiances at 2.5 THz, despite strong attenuation from the atmosphere. Cloud-scattering signatures are polarized at 122 GHz, but the polarization differences are typically less than 10% of the total cloud-induced radiance.
Susceptibility Breakpoint for Enrofloxacin against Swine Salmonella spp

ABSTRACT Susceptibility breakpoints are crucial for prudent use of antimicrobials. This study has developed the first susceptibility breakpoint (MIC ≤ 0.25 μg/ml) for enrofloxacin against swine Salmonella spp. based on wild-type cutoff (COWT) and pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK-PD) cutoff (COPD) values, consequently providing a criterion for susceptibility testing and clinical usage of enrofloxacin.
EPA Response to Peer Review of BenMAP

BenMAP is the result of years of research and development, and reflects methods based on the peer-reviewed health and benefits analysis literature. BenMAP is first and foremost a tool for estimating health and welfare benefits associated with air pollution regulations proposed or finalized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Secondary objectives in developing BenMAP were to provide a well documented, flexible, and relatively easy to use program that could be shared with the public to enhance the transparency of our complex benefits analyses.
Column‐based model of electric field excitation of cerebral cortex

A model to explain the orientation selectivity of the neurophysiologic effects of electric‐field transients applied to cerebral cortex is proposed and supported with neuroimaging evidence. Although it is well known that transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) excites cerebral cortex in an orientation‐selective manner, a neurophysiologically compelling explanation of this phenomenon has been lacking. It is generally presumed that TMS‐induced excitation is mediated by horizontal fibers in the cortical surfaces nearest to the stimulating coil, i.e., at the gyral crowns. No evidence exists, however, that horizontal fibers are orientation selective either anatomically or physiologically. We used positron emission tomography to demonstrate that TMS‐induced cortical activation is selectively sulcal. This observation allows the well‐established columnar organization of cerebral cortex to be invoked to explain the observed orientation selectivity. In addition, Rushton's cosine principle can used to model stimulation efficacy for an electrical field applied at any cortical site at any intensity and in any orientation. Hum. Brain Mapp. 22:1–16, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Centaurus A Northern Middle Lobe as a Buoyant Bubble

We model the northern middle radio lobe of Centaurus A (NGC 5128) as a buoyant bubble of plasma deposited by an intermittently active jet. The extent of the rise of the bubble and its morphology imply that the ratio of its density to that of the surrounding ISM is less than 10-2, consistent with our knowledge of extragalactic jets and minimal entrainment into the precursor radio lobe. Using the morphology of the lobe to date the beginning of its rise through the atmosphere of Cen A, we conclude that the bubble has been rising for approximately 140 Myr. This timescale is consistent with that proposed by Quillen and coworkers for the settling of postmerger gas into the presently observed large-scale disk in NGC 5128, suggesting a strong connection between the delayed reestablishment of radio emission and the merger of NGC 5128 with a small gas-rich galaxy. This suggests a connection, for radio galaxies in general, between mergers and the delayed onset of radio emission. In our model, the elongated X-ray emission region discovered by Feigelson and coworkers, part of which coincides with the northern middle lobe, is thermal gas that originates from the interstellar medium below the bubble and that has been uplifted and compressed. The "large-scale jet" appearing in the radio images of Morganti and coworkers may be the result of the same pressure gradients that cause the uplift of the thermal gas, acting on much lighter plasma, or may represent a jet that did not turn off completely when the northern middle lobe started to buoyantly rise. We propose that the adjacent emission-line knots (the "outer filaments") and star-forming regions result from the disturbance, in particular the thermal trunk, caused by the bubble moving through the extended atmosphere of NGC 5128.
Measuring Citizen and Government Ideology in the American States

We construct dynamic measures of the ideology of a state's citizens and political leaders, using the roll call voting scores of state congressional delegations, the outcomes of congressional elections, the partisan division of state legislatures, the party of the governor, and various assumptions regarding voters and state political elites. We establish the utility of our indicators for 1960-93 by (i) examining and, whenever possible, testing the assumptions on which they are based, (ii) assessing their reliability, (iii) assessing their convergent validity by correlating them with other ideology indicators, and (iv) appraising their construct validity by analyzing their predictive power within multivariate models from some of the best recent research in the state politics field. Strongly supportive results from each battery of tests indicate the validity of our annual, state-level measures of citizen and government ideology. Substantively, our measures reveal more temporal variation in state citizen ideology than is generally recognized.
Characterization of the Variability of Epstein-Barr Virus Genes in Nasopharyngeal Biopsies: Potential Predictors for Carcinoma Progression

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection is a significant factor in the pathogenesis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, especially in the undifferentiated carcinoma of nasopharyngeal type (UCNT, World Health Organization type III), which is the dominant histopathological type in high-risk areas. The major EBV oncogene is latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1). LMP1 gene shows variability with different tumorigenic and immunogenic potentials. EBV nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1) regulates progression of EBV-related tumors; however, the influence of EBNA1 sequence variability on tumor pathogenesis is controversial. The aims of this study were to characterize polymorphisms of EBV genes in non-endemic nasopharyngeal carcinoma biopsies and to investigate potential sequence patterns that correlate with the clinical presentation of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. In total, 116 tumor biopsies of undifferentiated carcinoma of nasopharyngeal type (UCNT), collected from 2008 to 2014, were evaluated in this study. The genes EBNA2, LMP1, and EBNA1 were amplified using nested-PCR. EBNA2 genotyping was performed by visualization of PCR products using gel electrophoresis. Investigation of LMP1 and EBNA1 included sequence, phylogenetic, and statistical analyses. The presence of EBV DNA was significantly distributed between TNM stages. LMP1 variability showed six variants, with the detection of the first China1 and North Carolina variants in European nasopharyngeal carcinoma biopsies. Newly discovered variants Srb1 and Srb2 were UCNT-specific LMP1 polymorphisms. The B95-8 and North Carolina variants are possible predictors for favorable TNM stages. In contrast, deletions in LMP1 are possible risk factors for the most disfavorable TNM stage, independent of EBNA2 or EBNA1 variability. A newly discovered EBNA1 subvariant, P-thr-sv-5, could be a potential diagnostic marker, as it represented a UCNT-specific EBNA1 subvariant. A particular combination of EBNA2, LMP1, and EBNA1 polymorphisms, type 1/Med/P-thr was identified as a possible risk factor for TNM stage IVB or progression to the N3 stage.
Zero forcing number, constraint matchings and strong structural controllability

The zero forcing number is a graph invariant introduced in order to study the minimum rank of the graph. In the first part of this paper, we first highlight that the computation of the zero forcing number of any directed graph (allowing loops) is NP-hard. Furthermore, we identify a class of directed trees for which the zero forcing number is computable in linear time. The second part of the paper is an application of the notion of zero forcing set in the study of the strong structural controllability of networked systems. This kind of controllability takes into account only the structure of the interconnection graph, but not the interaction strengths along the edges. We present the first efficient algorithm providing a minimum-size input set for the strong structural controllability of a self-damped or an undamped system with a tree structure.
Wages and Human Capital in Exporting Firms in Morocco

We study the relationship of wages and education and training practices in Morocco in a context of trade and liberalisation reforms in a matched worker-firm data of eight exporting firms in two industrial sectors: Metallurgical-Electrical industries and Textile-Clothing. We find that the specific characteristics of the surveyed firms little affect worker wages. Moreover, the textile sector does not appear to be a significant channel for promoting skills in the economy. The minimal wage legislation is found to exert a positive pressure on wages. Also, some evidence of gender wage gap exists in the data. In these data, the effects of education and experience on wages are quite limited below the third quantile of wages, as well as the role of apprenticeship. In contrast, On-the-Job Training (OJT) much contributes to labour productivity as measured by wage levels. Most of the OJT is concentrated in the Metallurgical-Electrical industries. Education is positively correlated to OJT. Moreover, estimates of explanatory relationships of task organisation (chain gangs, teams, supervision and executive workers) show the powerful sector and educational determinations of job organisation in the firms. Then, our results suggest that the impact of worker education may take indirect routes and not only appear through education coefficients in wage regressions.
The correlation between telomerase activity and Bax/Bcl-2 ratio in valproic acid-treated MCF-7 breast cancer cell line

Objective(s): Valproic acid (VPA), a drug used in the treatment of neurological disorders, has been shown to have cytotoxic effects on cancer cells through different mechanisms. Telomerase, a ribonucleoprotein reverse transcriptase, is responsible for elongation of the telomere and is activated in cancers. A relation between telomerase activity and resistance to apoptosis has been established. This study focused on probable effects of VPA on MCF-7 cancer cells. In particular, we investigated VPA effects on viability, apoptosis and telomerase activity. Materials and Methods: Cytotoxicity effects of VPA on MCF-7 cells were determined by neutral red uptake assay. Cells were treated with different concentrations of VPA (0-32 mM) and telomerase activity and Bax and Bcl-2 protein levels were determined using TRAP assay (PCR-ELISA) method and ELISA method, respectively. Results: The cytotoxic effects of different concentration of VPA on MCF-7 cells were observed as a reduction in cell viability and telomerase activity and altered expression of Bcl-2 family protein levels. The results also showed that there is a significant correlation between reduction of telomerase activity and increase in Bax/Bcl-2 ratio (P=0.001). Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that cell viability of MCF-7 cells was decreased after treatment with VPA, probably through a reduction of telomerase activity and an increase in Bax/bcl-2 ratio. Therefore, it could be concluded that VPA is a potent anti-cancer agent for breast cancer cells through inhibition of telomerase activity and induction of apoptosis.
A Cytokine Signalling Network for the Regulation of Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase Expression in Rheumatoid Arthritis

In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), nitric oxide (NO) is implicated in inflammation, angiogenesis and tissue destruction. The enzyme inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) is responsible for the localised over-production of NO in the synovial joints affected by RA. The pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines stimulate the synovial macrophages and the fibroblast-like synoviocytes to express iNOS. Therefore, the cytokine signalling network underlying the regulation of iNOS is essential to understand the pathophysiology of the disease. By using information from the literature, we have constructed, for the first time, the cytokine signalling network involved in the regulation of iNOS expression. Using the differential expression patterns obtained by re-analysing the microarray data on the RA synovium and the synovial macrophages available in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, we aimed to establish the role played by the network genes towards iNOS regulation in the RA synovium. Our analysis reveals that the network genes belonging to interferon (IFN) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) pathways are always up-regulated in the RA synovium whereas the genes which are part of the anti-inflammatory transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) signalling pathway are mostly down-regulated. We observed a consistent up-regulation of the transcription factor signal transducers and activators of transcription 1 (STAT1) in the RA synovium and the macrophages. Interestingly, we found a consistent up-regulation of the iNOS interacting protein ras-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate 2 (RAC2) in the RA synovium as well as the macrophages. Importantly, we have constructed a model to explain the impact of IFN and IL-10 pathways on Rac2-iNOS interaction leading to over-production of NO and thereby causing chronic inflammation in the RA synovium. The interplay between STAT1 and RAC2 in the regulation of NO could have implications for the identification of therapeutic targets for RA.
Integrating physiotherapy with everyday life: exploring the space of possibilities through ReHandles

Recently there have been concerns to investigate the general issues of design within the field of designing pervasive rehabilitation technology. In this paper we take these concerns as points-of-departure to explore the possible roles that digital technology can be designed to take, for supporting the integration of physiotherapy with the everyday life of the rehabilitees. Informed by the perspective of embodied interaction we engaged in four design explorations that were driven by a process of sketching-in-hardware. We take advantage of the rich social, material and physical everyday practices of the rehabilitees in these situations to design four interactive sketches. We reflect on the sketches and the explorations and synthesize our experiences in the form of an emerging space of possibilities. We position these possibilities as particular directions that future endeavors can take in order to design rehabilitation technology that supports an integration of physiotherapy with the everyday life.