Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Essential Role for Rac in Heregulin β1 Mitogenic Signaling: a Mechanism That Involves Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor and Is Independent of ErbB4

ABSTRACT Heregulins are a family of ligands for the ErbB3/ErbB4 receptors that play important roles in breast cancer cell proliferation and tumorigenesis. Limited information is available on the contribution of Rho GTPases to heregulin-mediated signaling. In breast cancer cells, heregulin β1 (HRG) causes a strong activation of Rac; however, it does so with striking differences in kinetics compared to epidermal growth factor, which signals through ErbB1 (epidermal growth factor receptor [EGFR]). Using specific ErbB receptor inhibitors and depletion of receptors by RNA interference (RNAi), we established that, surprisingly, activation of Rac by HRG is mediated not only by ErbB3 and ErbB2 but also by transactivation of EGFR, and it is independent of ErbB4. Similar receptor requirements are observed for HRG-induced actin cytoskeleton reorganization and mitogenic activity via extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK). HRG-induced Rac activation was phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase dependent and Src independent. Furthermore, inactivation of Rac by expression of the Rac GTPase-activating protein β2-chimerin inhibited HRG-induced ERK activation, mitogenicity, and migration in breast cancer cells. HRG mitogenic activity was also impaired by depletion of Rac1 using RNAi. Our studies established that Rac is a critical mediator of HRG mitogenic signaling in breast cancer cells and highlight additional levels of complexity for ErbB receptor coupling to downstream effectors that control aberrant proliferation and transformation.
Analysing political ideas and political action

Abstract This paper examines the relevance of Boltanski and Thévenot's newly translated book, On justification, to the analysis of political ideas and political action. While situating the work of the authors within its initial intellectual context, namely the ‘economics of conventions’, it shows that one of the key contributions of the ‘sociology of justification’ lies in the answers it brings to two fundamental, as yet unresolved, questions in political science and political sociology: first, how is it possible to identify those ideas which are politically relevant? Second, how is it possible to capture the dynamics of public ideas? After outlining the sources of the quandaries faced within political science and political sociology as regards these two questions, the conceptual framework of Boltanski and Thévenot is presented and explained, and research perspectives suggested. This article argues that On justification provides a highly engaging, stimulating and empirically useful contribution to current debates in social and political theory around the dynamics of political arguments and ideas.
Non-Linear Periodization for General Fitness & Athletes

Non-Linear Periodization for General Fitness & Athletes Periodization of resistance training or planned changes in training volume and intensity are used to maximize strength and fitness gains. Several types of periodized resistance training plans have been developed. The most common of these plans is linear also termed classic or strength/power periodization and nonlinear periodization. The biggest difference between these two types of training plans is with nonlinear periodization changes in training volume and intensity are made more frequently. The most common type of nonlinear periodization is daily nonlinear periodization where substantial changes in training intensity and volume are made from one training session to the next training session. Periodized resistance training does result in greater strength gains than non-periodized programs. While both linear and nonlinear periodization plans result in significant strength and fitness gains some research indicates greater strength gains with daily nonlinear periodization.
ETA: A PERSISTENT PHENOMENON

Most searchers performing unit root tests on terrorism series reject the null hypothesis of unit roots (I(1)) and conclude that terrorism is stationary (I(0)). In this paper we analyze ETA activity in Spain during the last 30 years by means of examining its degree of dependence across time, using fractional integration or I(d) techniques. The results show that the activity of ETA is persistent to some extent, with an order of integration of about 0.40, implying stationarity, but also long memory behavior. We argue that this strong degree of dependence between the observations might be explained by the historical background underlying the political conflict in the area. In addition, the results indicate that the most significant factors contributing to a reduction of violence are those related to political pacts among the political parties in the Basque region. In order to put an end to ETA’s violence, these accords should involve both nationalist and non‐nationalist groups.
A novel topology for integration of solar PV and energy storage system

This paper proposes a compact topology for an integrated PV and energy storage system based on three boost converters and one bidirectional buck-boost converter. One of the boost converters is used for MPPT control, and the other two boost converters are used to implement a boost inverter that can generate sinusoidal waveform. A bidirectional buck-boost converter, to charge and discharge the energy storage system to balance the power gap between the PV panels and the load, is also integrated in the topology. A control strategy is developed to balance the supply and load demand. Simulation results validate the performance of the proposed topology and control strategy.
Towards Practical Carbonation Prediction and Modelling for Service Life Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures

Amongst the scientific community, the interest in durability of concrete structures has been high for quite a long time of over 40 years. Of the various causes of degradation of concrete structures, corrosion is the most widespread durability problem and carbonation is one of the two causes of steel reinforcement corrosion. While much scientific understanding has been gained from the numerous carbonation studies undertaken over the past years, it is still presently not possible to accurately predict carbonation and apply it in design of structures. This underscores the complex nature of the mechanisms as influenced by several interactive factors. Based on critical literature and some experience of the author, it is found that there still exist major challenges in establishing a mathematical constitutive relation for realistic carbonation prediction. While most current models employ permeability /diffusion as the main model property, analysis shows that the most practical material property would be compressive strength, which has a low coefficient of variation of 20% compared to 30 to 50% for permeability. This important characteristic of compressive strength, combined with its merit of simplicity and data availability at all stages of a structure's life, promote its potential use in modelling over permeability. By using compressive strength in carbonation prediction, the need for accelerated testing and permeability measurement can be avoided. This paper attempts to examine the issues associated with carbonation prediction, which could underlie the current lack of a sound established prediction method. Suggestions are then made for possible employment of different or alternative approaches.
The Nature of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Pathological Worry: Current Evidence and Conceptual Models

Objective: To examine the nature and conceptualization of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and chronic worry as well as data bearing on the validity of GAD as a distinct diagnosis. Method: Narrative literature review. Results: Although a wealth of data have been obtained on the epidemiology, genetics, and nature of GAD, many important questions remain regarding the validity of current conceptual models of pathological worry and the discriminability of GAD from certain emotional disorders (for instance, mood disorders) and higher-order trait vulnerability dimensions (for example, negative affect). Conclusion: Because the constituent features of GAD are salient to current conceptual models of emotional disorders (for example, models that implicate negative affect or worry/anxious apprehension as vulnerability factors), research on the nature of GAD and its associated features should provide important information on the pathogenesis, course, and cooccurrence of the entire range of anxiety and mood disorders.
Pointwise asymptotic behavior of perturbed viscous shock profiles

We consider the asymptotic behavior of perturbations of Lax and overcompressive type viscous shock profiles arising in systems of regularized conservation laws with strictly parabolic viscosity, and also in systems of conservation laws with partially parabolic regularizations such as arise in the case of the compressible Navier–Stokes equations and in the equations of magnetohydrodynamics. Under the necessary conditions of spectral and hyperbolic stability, together with transversality of the connecting profile, we establish detailed pointwise estimates on perturbations from a sum of the viscous shock profile under consideration and a family of diffusion waves which propagate perturbation signals along outgoing characteristics. Our approach combines the recent Lp-space analysis of Raoofi [Ra] with a straightforward bootstrapping argument that relies on a refined description of nonlinear signal interactions, which we develop through convolution estimates involving Green’s functions for the linear evolutionary PDE that arises upon linearization of the regularized conservation law about the distinguished profile. Our estimates are similar to, though slightly weaker than, those developed by Liu in his landmark result on the case of weak Lax type profiles arising in the case of identity viscosity [Liu3]. Texas A& M University, College Station, TX 77843; phoward@math.tamu. edu Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405; mraoofi@indiana.edu.
Risk for Attrition in Treatment of Antisocial Children and Families

Examined differences between children and families who completed outpatient treatment and those who terminated prematurely. Children (N = 160, ages 5 to 13) referred to treatment for antisocial behavior and their families participated Dysfunction in several parent, family, and child domains was predicted to distinguish those who completed treatment from those who terminated prematurely. Premature termination of treatment was greater for younger mothers, single parents, and minority-group families; for families with socioeconomic disadvantage, high stress and more adverse life events, adverse family childrearing practices; and for mothers with a history of antisocial behavior in their childhood Child characteristics associated with premature termination from treatment included severity, breadth, and history of antisocial behavior; academic and educational dysfunction; current contacts with antisocial peers; and multiple (comorbid) diagnoses. The accumulation of multiple factors placed families at increased.
Capital Punishment and the Deterrence of Violent Crime in Comparable Counties

A matching process identified 293 pairs of counties in the United States that share 45 percent or more of their borders across a state line. Data from the 1988 County and City Data Book were then used to examine social, demographic, and economic differences within these matched pairs, with the difference in the violent crime rate in each pair employed as the dependent variable. Three variables reflecting the existence and use of capital punishment in the two states represented in each matched pair-the existence of a provision for capital punishment, the number of people executed since 1976, and the number of people currently held on death row-were then entered in the analysis to examine the effects of capital punishment. The capital punishment variables did not account for any significant portion of the differences in the violent crime rates, and, contrary to deterrence theory, what effects these variables did have were positive. These findings support the large number of studies at state and national levels that have found no deterrent effect of capital punishment.
Creativity-centred design for ubiquitous musical activities: Two case studies

This study is among the first that attempt to define a methodology for creativity-centred software design in educational contexts, more specifically for musical activities in ubiquitous settings. We propose and apply a set of design techniques – the Ubimus Planning and the Ubimus Design protocols – as alternatives to experimental procedures that leave out relevant aspects of social and procedural dimensions in educational research. Two workshops were conducted to assess both technological and domain- specific requirements for support of creative musical activities. The first workshop was conducted with music teachers and school teachers that had no formal musical training. The objective of this workshop was to assess domain-specific requirements for musical creative activities by educational staff. The second workshop focused on technological support for tool development by non-musicians. This workshop yielded two software projects that involved user evaluations of creative processes. Participants in the corresponding user studies included both musicians and non-musicians. The Ubimus Planning protocol served to raise important questions regarding technolog - ical usage by musicians and naive subjects in educational contexts. Non-technical approaches, such as those proposed by traditional soundscape activities, may not be suited for introducing non-musicians to sonic composition. Naive subjects may respond better to technologically based approaches, such as those used in ecocomposi - tion. The Ubimus Design approach proved to be effective to test the usability of musi - cal tools at early stages of development. Prototypes were implemented and usability studies were carried out by undergraduate IT students within a three-week time slot. Sharp differences were observed in the type of requirements expressed by musicians and non-musicians regarding creativity support tools. Nevertheless, both groups of subjects assessed the use of software prototypes within exploratory musical activities as being fun and expressive.
Multimodal Classification of Moderated Online Pro-Eating Disorder Content

Social media sites are challenged by both the scale and variety of deviant behavior online. While algorithms can detect spam and obscenity, behaviors that break community guidelines on some sites are difficult because they have multimodal subtleties (images and/or text). Identifying these posts is often regulated to a few moderators. In this paper, we develop a deep learning classifier that jointly models textual and visual characteristics of pro-eating disorder content that violates community guidelines. Using a million Tumblr photo posts, our classifier discovers deviant content efficiently while also maintaining high recall (85%). Our approach uses human sensitivity throughout to guide the creation, curation, and understanding of this approach to challenging, deviant content. We discuss how automation might impact community moderation, and the ethical and social obligations of this area.
A shared place of discovery and creativity: Practices of contemporary art and design pedagogy.

This article explores the practices of 50 beginning teachers on an Art and Design PGCE course working with 250 learners within a sixth form context. The aim of this project was to explore contemporary art and design practices, explore the concept of artist/designer/craftsperson/teacher/learner/researcher, enable PGCE students to collaborate with sixth form pupils and develop new approaches and strategies to art and design pedagogy. Through practices that blurred learner-teacher identities a dialogical pedagogy emerged and a collaborative community of practice was developed. The beginning teachers also started to construct their artist teacher identities, understand what it means to practice as an artist teacher in the classroom, the impact of these practices on teaching and learning and develop new learning methods. This project demonstrates the possibilities of these practices for contemporary art and design pedagogy however, how and can these endure and be sustainable for this community of beginning teachers in the current cultural, social and political contexts of education.
Communication Problems Between Researchers and Informants With Speech Difficulties: Methodological and Analytic Issues

Using data collected in a study of how people living with Parkinson's disease assess the efficacy of the alternative and complementary therapies they use, the author addresses the impact on qualitative data collection and analysis of communication problems between researchers and informants who experience speech difficulty. There is little literature that deals with these issues. In what little does, the emphasis is most often on the “problem” informants who experience speech difficulty present for communication, rather than seeing communication problems as a product of interviewer/informant interaction in which the researcher also plays a role in hindering communication. In this article, the author argues that a focus on the linguistic inability of informants, however unwitting, constructs the person who experiences difficulty speaking as problematic and the researcher as the “expert” who solves the communication problem the informant presents.
The pattern of growth failure in Rett syndrome.

OBJECTIVE To define the growth pattern of girls with Rett syndrome with respect to height, weight, and fronto-occipital head circumference. DESIGN Longitudinal with irregular intervals between measurements. SETTING Rett Syndrome Program Project at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tex. PARTICIPANTS Ninety-six girls fulfilling criteria for Rett syndrome; comparison group with standard growth curves. SELECTION PROCEDURE Consecutive entries into the Rett Syndrome Program Project. INTERVENTION None. MEASUREMENTS/MAIN RESULTS Height, weight, and fronto-occipital head circumference data were grouped into intervals. Group medians were then generated. Regression lines were fitted through the median points and plotted on standard growth charts. Deceleration of growth velocities began at age 3 months and persisted through age 18 years. CONCLUSIONS Early deceleration of head growth, followed by deceleration of weight and height measurements, appears to be a growth pattern characteristic of Rett syndrome. This pattern of growth may provide the earliest clinical indicator for the diagnosis of Rett syndrome.
Ostracism increases social susceptibility

Ostracism, the act of ignoring and excluding, is a universally applied tactic of social control. Individuals who detect ostracism often change their behaviors to be readmitted into the group, even if it means becoming excessively socially susceptible to influence. We tested whether ostracized individuals are more socially susceptible to a subsequent influence attempt. In this study, 65 undergraduates were randomly assigned to a 2 (Inclusion or Ostracism)×3 (Compliance tactic: foot‐in‐the door, target request only, door‐in‐the‐face) between‐participants design. The participants played Cyberball and were either included or ostracized, and then they were approached with a request to donate money. Despite no differences between the three tactics, ostracism increased compliance across all request types. Our discussion focuses on the implications for ostracism‐induced social susceptibility. This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0519209 awarded to the third author. We would like to thank Janice Kelly for her comments, and Jessica Bartman, Katherine Lang, Patrick O'Brien, Vista Ritchie, and Kirsten Zeiser for their excellent acting skills as confederates.
Axonal wrapping in the Drosophila PNS is controlled by glia-derived neuregulin homolog Vein

Efficient neuronal conductance requires that axons are insulated by glial cells. For this, glial membranes need to wrap around axons. Invertebrates show a relatively simple extension of glial membranes around the axons, resembling Remak fibers formed by Schwann cells in the mammalian peripheral nervous system. To unravel the molecular pathways underlying differentiation of glial cells that provide axonal wrapping, we are using the genetically amenable Drosophila model. At the end of larval life, the wrapping glia differentiates into very large cells, spanning more than 1 mm of axonal length. The extension around axonal membranes is not influenced by the caliber of the axon or its modality. Using cell type-specific gene knockdown we show that the extension of glial membranes around the axons is regulated by an autocrine activation of the EGF receptor through the neuregulin homolog Vein. This resembles the molecular mechanism employed during cell-autonomous reactivation of glial differentiation after injury in mammals. We further demonstrate that Vein, produced by the wrapping glia, also regulates the formation of septate junctions in the abutting subperineurial glia. Moreover, the wrapping glia indirectly controls the proliferation of the perineurial glia. Thus, the wrapping glia appears center stage to orchestrate the development of the different glial cell layers in a peripheral nerve. Summary: Differentiation of Drosophila wrapping glia affects axonal wrapping and blood-brain barrier development through autocrine activation of the EGF receptor, similar to mammalian re-myelination after injury.
Low-Bremsstrahlung X-Ray Source Using a Low-Voltage High-Current-Density Nanostructured Field Emission Cathode and a Transmission Anode for Markerless Soft Tissue Imaging

We report the design, fabrication, and proof-of-concept characterization of an X-ray generator for improved X-ray absorption imaging that uses a nanostructured field emission cathode as the electron source and a microstructured transmission anode as the X-ray generating structure. Field emission cathodes consume less power, respond faster, and tolerate lower vacuum than the thermionic cathodes used in conventional X-ray generators. The use of a transmission anode, instead of a conventional reflection anode, allows filtering of the background radiation (bremsstrahlung) while allowing efficient generation of X-ray at lower voltages by exciting atomic shell transitions, resulting in emission of X-ray with narrow spectral linewidth for sharper imaging of biological tissue. The fabricated field emission cathode contains arrays of self-aligned and gated silicon field emitters. The field emission cathodes turn on at bias voltages as low as 25 V, and their gates transmit almost 100% of the electrons to the anode. The cathodes produce per-emitter electron currents in excess of 2 μA (current density >2 A/cm2) at a bias voltage of 80 V. A desktop rig is built to generate X-ray with a field emission cathode and transmission anode. Using the facility, we obtained X-ray absorption images of several objects. The images clearly show details under 500 μm in size, as well as soft tissue and fine bone structures without using contrast agents.