Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Weighted Solidarity Values

We present a noncooperative bargaining protocol among n players, applied to the setting of cooperative games in coalitional form with transferable utility. In this model, players are chosen randomly to make proposals until one is accepted unanimously, and after each proposal rejection, the probability that players leave the game increases. If after a rejection, some players withdraw the bargaining, the remaining players continue the process. We define a new family of values, called the weighted solidarity values, and we show that these values arise as the associated equilibrium payoffs of this bargaining protocol. In these values players have an altruistic behavior between them as the null player property is not satisfied.
Polarization Properties of Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers

| Polarization state selection, polarization state dynamics, and polarization switching of a quantum-well Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser is explored using a recently developed model that incorporates semiconductor physics, material birefringence, and material sensitivity to the vector character of the electric eld amplitude. For the lowest order transverse spatial mode of the laser, we nd conditions of switching of the polarization from one linearly polarized state to the other. Switching is induced by a combination of increased injection current, saturable dispersion, and the splitting of the optical frequencies of the two linearly polarized "modes" by the material birefringence. We demonstrate conditions of bistability, monostability, and dy-namical instability. The results of our model satisfactorily match recent experimental results on bistability and switch-ings caused by changes in the injection current and changes in an injected optical signal.
World Market Development and Consumer Acceptance of Irradiation Technology

Food irradiation is an efficient technology that can be used to ensure food safety by eliminating insects and pathogens to prolong the shelf life. The process could be applied to fresh or frozen products without affecting the nutritional value. Presently more than 60 countries have adopted the technology. However, the technology adaptation differs from one country to another and, in some cases, consumers’ misunderstanding and lack of acceptance may hinder the technology adaptation process. This review summarizes the development of irradiation treatment worldwide and consumer attitudes towards the introduction of this technology. Also, the wholesomeness, beneficial effects, and regulation of irradiation are assessed.
Identification and Lossy Reconstruction in Noisy Databases

A high-dimensional database system is studied where the noisy versions of the underlying feature vectors are observed in both the enrollment and query phases. The noisy observations are compressed before being stored in the database, and the user wishes to both identify the correct entry corresponding to the noisy query vector and reconstruct the original feature vector within a desired distortion level. A fundamental capacity-storage-distortion tradeoff is identified for this system in the form of single-letter information theoretic expressions. The relation of this problem to the classical Wyner-Ziv rate-distortion problem is shown, where the noisy query vector acts as the correlated side information available only in the lossy reconstruction of the feature vector.
Direct and indirect contribution of bone marrow‐derived cells to cancer

Stromal‐epithelial interactions may control the growth and initiation of cancers. Here, we not only test the hypothesis that bone marrow‐derived cells may effect development of cancers arising from other tissue cells by forming tumor stroma but also that sarcomas may arise by transformation of stem cells from the bone marrow and epithelial cancers may arise by transdifferentiation of bone marrow stem cells to epithelial cancers. Lethally irradiated female FVB/N mice were restored with bone marrow (BM) transplants from a male transgenic mouse carrying the polyoma middle T‐oncoprotein under the control of the mouse mammary tumor virus promoter (MMTV‐PyMT) and followed for development of lesions. All of 8 lethally irradiated female FVB/N recipient mice, restored with BM transplants from a male MMTV‐PyMT transgenic mouse, developed Y‐chromosome negative (Y−) cancers of various organs surrounded by Y+ stroma. One of the female FVB/N recipient mice also developed fibrosarcoma and 1, a diploid breast adenocarcinoma containing Y chromosomes. In contrast, only 1 of 12 control female mice restored with normal male BM developed a tumor (lymphoma) during the same time period. These results indicate not only that the transgenic BM‐derived stromal cells may indirectly contribute to development of tumors in recipient mice but also that sarcomas may arise by transformation of BM stem cells and that breast cancers arise by transdifferentiation of BM stem cells, presumably by mesenchymal‐epithelial transition.
Calcium ions induce collapse of charged O-side chains of lipopolysaccharides from Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) monolayers deposited on planar, hydrophobic substrates were used as a defined model of outer membranes of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain dps 89. To investigate the influence of ions on the (out-of-plane) monolayer structure, we measured specular X-ray reflectivity at high energy (22 keV) to ensure transmission through water. Electron density profiles were reconstructed from the reflectivity curves, and they indicate that the presence of Ca2+ ions induces a significant change in the conformation of the charged polysaccharide head groups (O-side chains). Monte Carlo simulations based on a minimal computer model of LPS molecules allow for the modelling of 100 or more molecules over 10−3 s and theoretically explained the tendency found by experiments.
Considerations for the Optimization of Induced White Matter Injury Preclinical Models

White matter (WM) injury in relation to acute neurologic conditions, especially stroke, has remained obscure until recently. Current advances in imaging technologies in the field of stroke have confirmed that WM injury plays an important role in the prognosis of stroke and suggest that WM protection is essential for functional recovery and post-stroke rehabilitation. However, due to the lack of a reproducible animal model of WM injury, the pathophysiology and mechanisms of this injury are not well studied. Moreover, producing selective WM injury in animals, especially in rodents, has proven to be challenging. Problems associated with inducing selective WM ischemic injury in the rodent derive from differences in the architecture of the brain, most particularly, the ratio of WM to gray matter in rodents compared to humans, the agents used to induce the injury, and the location of the injury. Aging, gender differences, and comorbidities further add to this complexity. This review provides a brief account of the techniques commonly used to induce general WM injury in animal models (stroke and non-stroke related) and highlights relevance, optimization issues, and translational potentials associated with this particular form of injury.
Cotranscriptional Recruitment of the U1 snRNP to Intron-Containing Genes in Yeast

ABSTRACT Evidence that pre-mRNA processing events are temporally and, in some cases, mechanistically coupled to transcription has led to the proposal that RNA polymerase II (Pol II) recruits pre-mRNA splicing factors to active genes. Here we address two key questions raised by this proposal: (i) whether the U1 snRNP, which binds to the 5′ splice site of each intron, is recruited cotranscriptionally in vivo and, (ii) if so, where along the length of active genes the U1 snRNP is concentrated. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) in yeast, we show that elevated levels of the U1 snRNP were specifically detected in gene regions containing introns and downstream of introns but not along the length of intronless genes. In contrast to capping enzymes, which bind directly to Pol II, the U1 snRNP was poorly detected in promoter regions, except in genes harboring promoter-proximal introns. Detection of the U1 snRNP was dependent on RNA synthesis and was abolished by intron removal. Microarray analysis revealed that intron-containing genes were preferentially selected by ChIP with the U1 snRNP. Thus, U1 snRNP accumulation at genes correlated with the presence and position of introns, indicating that introns are necessary for cotranscriptional U1 snRNP recruitment and/or retention.
Customer sociability and the total service experience

Purpose – The service‐dominant logic describes customer‐actualized value as being idiosyncratic, experiential, contextual, and meaning laden. Since positive word‐of‐mouth (WOM) is an expression of customer‐actualized value, the paper postulate that WOM is not only related to a holistic set of assessments of the service experience but also to the idiosyncratic nature of the individual customer. In particular, do socially oriented individuals have a greater propensity to engage in positive WOM? The purpose of this paper is to test hypotheses that socially oriented personality traits, and personal values as well as a set of dimensions of the total service experience, are antecedents of positive WOM. The context studied is a surgical operation involving considerable personal meaning and implication in the whole service process.Design/methodology/approach – A cohort of 500 surgical patients are studied prior to, three‐days after and one‐month post‐surgery. Independent variables include the socially oriented pe.
Behavior in Organizations

For one-semester, undergraduate and graduate level courses in Organizational Behavior. Unique and current insight on the everyday processes and phenomena of OB. Behavior in Organizations shows students the real world of OB through its blend of cutting-edge research and practical applications. This text then challenges students to take theory one step further by having them put the concepts into action. The many changes in the tenth edition reflect the authors never-ending mission to present a balance between knowledge and application, while including coverage on the latest advances in the field.
Bracing for loss.

People find unexpected bad news aversive and often brace themselves by predicting the worst. Three experiments examined whether the pessimism is influenced by personal need. Students who differed in financial need learned that a billing error meant that some students would receive an additional bill from their university. Financially needy students were consistently pessimistic in predicting their likelihood of receiving a bill, whereas non-needy students were not. In addition, the experiments reveal that (a) the pessimism occurred for potential losses but not potential gains, (b) needy students were pessimistic about their own chances but not the chances of a friend, (c) the pessimism was not attributable to needy students' being more readily primed by the news of a possible bill or to needy students' having more experience with billing errors, and (d) the pessimism was specific to monetary losses and did not generalize to other events.
Control of macaw palm seed germination by the gibberellin/abscisic acid balance.

The hormonal mechanisms involved in palm seed germination are not fully understood. To better understand how germination is regulated in Arecaceae, we used macaw palm (Acrocomia aculeata (Jacq.) Lodd. Ex Mart. ) seed as a model. Endogenous hormone concentrations, tocopherol and tocotrienol and lipid peroxidation during germination were studied separately in the embryo and endosperm. Evaluations were performed in dry (D), imbibed (I), germinated (G) and non-germinated (NG) seeds treated (+GA3 ) or not treated (control) with gibberellins (GA). With GA3 treatment, seeds germinated faster and to a higher percentage than control seeds. The +GA3 treatment increased total bioactive GA in the embryo during germination relative to the control. Abscisic acid (ABA) concentrations decreased gradually from D to G in both tissues. Embryos of G seeds had a lower ABA content than NG seeds in both treatments. The GA/ABA ratio in the embryo was significantly higher in G than NG seeds. The +GA3 treatment did not significantly affect the GA/ABA ratio in either treatment. Cytokinin content increased from dry to germinated seeds. Jasmonic acid (JA) increased and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboylic acid (ACC) decreased after imbibition. In addition, α-tocopherol and α-tocotrienol decreased, while lipid peroxidation increased in the embryo during germination. We conclude that germination in macaw palm seed involves reductions in ABA content and, consequently, increased GA/ABA in the embryo. Furthermore, the imbibition process generates oxidative stress (as observed by changes in vitamin E and MDA).
Validating a Plasma Momentum Flux Sensor to an Inverted Pendulum Thrust Stand

The accuracy of a plasma impact force sensor was compared with that of the more commonly used inverted pendulum thrust stand using a 5 kW Xe Hall effect thruster. An improved plasma momentum flux sensor was designed and constructed based on a previous design. Real-time force measurements were made with both the plasma momentum flux sensor and the inverted pendulum thrust stand. The plasma momentum flux sensor measured the force exerted onto it by the Hall effect thruster exhaust plume with a resolution of 0.1 mN and an average discrepancy of 2 % compared with thrust stand measurements. Experiments were completed using a 9 m by 6 m cylindrical vacuum chamber. The total force from the Hall effect thruster was modulated from 34 to 356 mN by varying both the anode voltage, from 150 to 500 V, and the neutral Xe gas flow rate, from 5 to 15 mg/s.
The language instinct : the new science of language and mind

Simply by making noises with our mouths, we can reliably cause precise new combinations of ideas to arise in each other's minds. The ability comes so naturally that we are apt to forget what a miracle it is. Pursuing the ideas of Darwin and Chomsky, Steven Pinker offers a look at why we use language and where this ability comes from. Rather than being an acquired cultural artefact, it is vigorously argued that language is a biological adaptation to communicate information and as such is a system of great richness and beauty. Using examples of the way language is used in daily life from the mouths of children to the pontifications of politicians, Pinker explores this system and our instinct to use it.
Informing physicians using a situated decision support system: Disease management for the smart city

We are in the midst of a healthcare paradigm shift driven by the wide adoption of ubiquitous computing and various modes of information communications technologies. As a result, cities worldwide are undergoing a major process of urbanization with ever increasing wealth of sensing capabilities – hence the Internet of Things (IoT). These trends impose great pressure on how healthcare is done. This paper describes the design and implementation of a situated clinical decision support (SCDSS) system, most appropriate for smart cities. The SCDSS was prototyped and enhanced in a clinic. The SCDSS was then used in a clinic as well as in a university hospital centre. In this article, the system’s architecture, subcomponents and integrated workflow are described. The systems’ design was the result of a knowledge acquisition process involving interviews with five specialists and testing with 50 patients. The reports (specialist consultation report) generated by the SCDSS were shown to general practitioners who were not able to distinguish them from human specialist reports. We propose a context-aware CDSS and assess its effectiveness in managing a wide medical range of patients. Five different patient cases were identified for analysis. The SCDSS was used to produce draft electronic specialist consultations, which were then compared to the original specialists’ consultations. It was found that the SCDSS-generated consults were of better quality for a number of reasons discussed herein. SCDSSs have great promise for their use in the clinical environment of smart cities. Valuable insights into the integration and use of situated clinical decision support systems are highlighted and suggestions for future research are given. https://doi.org/10.34105/j.kmel. 2014.06. 032
Conditions for Propagating Synchronous Spiking and Asynchronous Firing Rates in a Cortical Network Model

Isolated feedforward networks (FFNs) of spiking neurons have been studied extensively for their ability to propagate transient synchrony and asynchronous firing rates, in the presence of activity independent synaptic background noise (Diesmann et al., 1999; van Rossum et al., 2002). In a biologically realistic scenario, however, the FFN should be embedded in a recurrent network, such that the activity in the FFN and the network activity may dynamically interact. Previously, transient synchrony propagating in an FFN was found to destabilize the dynamics of the embedding network (Mehring et al., 2003). Here, we show that by modeling synapses as conductance transients, rather than current sources, it is possible to embed and propagate transient synchrony in the FFN, without destabilizing the background network dynamics. However, the network activity has a strong impact on the type of activity that can be propagated in the embedded FFN. Global synchrony and high firing rates in the embedding network prohibit the propagation of both, synchronous and asynchronous spiking activity. In contrast, asynchronous low-rate network states support the propagation of both, synchronous spiking and asynchronous, but only low firing rates. In either case, spiking activity tends to synchronize as it propagates, challenging the feasibility to transmit information in asynchronous firing rates. Finally, asynchronous network activity allows to embed more than one FFN, with the amount of cross talk depending on the degree of overlap in the FFNs. This opens the possibility of computational mechanisms using transient synchrony among the activities in multiple FFNs.
Can urologists introduce the concept of “oligometastasis” for metastatic bladder cancer after total cystectomy?

We investigated whether the concept of oligometastasis may be introduced to the clinical management of metastatic bladder cancer patients. Our study population comprised 128 patients diagnosed with metastatic bladder cancer after total cystectomy at our 6 institutions between 2004 and 2014. We extracted independent predictors for identifying a favorable. Occurrence that fulfilled all 4 criteria which were independently associated with cancer-specific death was defined as oligometastasis: a solitary metastatic organ; number of metastatic lesions of 3 or less; the largest diameter of metastatic foci of 5cm or less; and no liver metastasis. We evaluated differences in clinical outcomes between patients with oligometastasis (oligometastasis group) and those without oligometastasis (non-oligometastasis group). Overall, there were 43 patients in the oligometastasis group. The 2-year cancer-specific survival rate in the oligometastasis group was 53.3%, which was significantly higher than that in the non-oligometastasis group (16.1%, p<0.001). A multivariate analysis revealed that non-oligometastasis (p<0.001), not performing salvage chemotherapy (p<0.001), and not performing metastatectomy (p=0.028) were independent risk factors for cancer-specific death. In the subgroup of 83 patients who received salvage chemotherapy, 30 were in the oligometastasis group. The 2-year cancer-specific survival rate in the oligometastasis group was 55.0%, which was significantly higher than that in the non-oligometastasis group (22.0%, p=0.005). Non-oligometastasis (p=0.009) was the only independent risk factor for cancer-specific death. We presented that urothelial carcinoma with oligometastasis had a favorable prognosis and responded to systemic chemotherapy. Oligometastasis may be treated as a separate entity in the field of metastatic urothelial carcinoma.
Oral administration of dextran sodium sulphate induces a caecum‐localized colitis in rabbits

Trichuris suis ova (TSO) have shown promising results in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) but the mechanisms which underlies this therapeutic effect cannot be studied in mice and rats as T. suis fails to colonize the rodent intestine, whilst hatching in humans and rabbits. As a suitable rabbit IBD model is currently not available, we developed a rabbit colitis model by administration of dextran sodium sulphate (DSS). White Himalayan rabbits (n = 12) received 0.1% DSS in the daily water supply for five days. Clinical symptoms were monitored daily, and rabbits were sacrificed at different time points. A genomewide expression analysis was performed with RNA isolated from caecal lamina propria mononuclear cells (LPMC) and intestinal epithelial cells (IEC). The disease activity index of DSS rabbits increased up to 2.1 ± 0.4 (n = 6) at day 10 (controls <0.5). DSS induced a caecum‐localized pathology with crypt architectural distortion, stunted villous surface and inflammatory infiltrate in the lamina propria. The histopathology score reached a peak of 14.2 ± 4.9 (n = 4) at day 10 (controls 7.7 ± 0.9, n = 5). Expression profiling revealed an enrichment of IBD‐related genes in both LPMC and IEC. Innate inflammatory response, Th17 signalling and chemotaxis were among the pathways affected significantly. We describe a reproducible and reliable rabbit model of DSS colitis. Localization of the inflammation in the caecum and its similarities to IBD make this model particularly suitable to study TSO therapy in vivo.
A refinement-based compiler development for synchronous languages

In this paper, we are concerned by the elaboration of generic development steps for the code generation for synchronous languages. Our aim is to provide a correct by construction solution. For that purpose, we adopt a refinement-based approach where proof obligations for each step guarantee properties preservation. We use the Event-B formal method. We start with a big step semantics specified by an Event-B machine. Through a sequence of refinements, expressed as Event-B refinement machines, we end up with a code generation step which implements a small step semantics preserving the properties of the big step semantics.
Putting the “Biology” Back into “Neurobiology”: The Strength of Diversity in Animal Model Systems for Neuroscience Research

Current trends in neuroscience research have moved toward a reliance on rodent animal models to study most aspects of brain function. Such laboratory-reared animals are highly inbred, have been disengaged from their natural environments for generations and appear to be of limited predictive value for successful clinical outcomes. In this Perspective article, we argue that research on a rich diversity of animal model systems is fundamental to new discoveries in evolutionarily conserved core physiological and molecular mechanisms that are the foundation of human brain function. Analysis of neural circuits across phyla will reveal general computational solutions that form the basis for adaptive behavioral responses. Further, we stress that development of ethoexperimental approaches to improve our understanding of behavioral nuance will help to realign our research strategies with therapeutic goals and improve the translational validity of specific animal models. Finally, we suggest that neuroscience has a role in environmental conservation of habitat and fauna that will preserve and protect the ecological settings that drive species-specific behavioral adaptations. A rich biodiversity will enhance our understanding of human brain function and lead in unpredicted directions for development of therapeutic treatments for neurological disorders.