Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
E2f6 and Bmi1 cooperate in axial skeletal development

Bmi1 is a Polycomb Group protein that functions as a component of Polycomb Repressive Complex 1 (PRC1) to control axial skeleton development through Hox gene repression. Bmi1 also represses transcription of the Ink4a‐Arf locus and is consequently required to maintain the proliferative and self‐renewal properties of hematopoietic and neural stem cells. Previously, one E2F family member, E2F6, has been shown to interact with Bmi1 and other known PRC1 components. However, the biological relevance of this interaction is unknown. In this study, we use mouse models to investigate the interplay between E2F6 and Bmi1. This analysis shows that E2f6 and Bmi1 cooperate in the regulation of Hox genes, and consequently axial skeleton development, but not in the repression of the Ink4a‐Arf locus. These findings underscore the significance of the E2F6–Bmi1 interaction in vivo and suggest that the Hox and Ink4a‐Arf loci are regulated by somewhat different mechanisms. Developmental Dynamics 237:1232‐1242, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Randomized controlled study of endoscopic band ligation and argon plasma coagulation in the treatment of gastric antral and fundal vascular ectasia

Background Gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE) is characterized by mucosal and submucosal vascular ectasia causing recurrent hemorrhage and thus, chronic anemia, in patients with cirrhosis. Treatment with argon plasma coagulation (APC) is an effective and safe method, but requires multiple sessions of endoscopic therapy. Endoscopic band ligation (EBL) was found to be a good alternative for APC as a treatment for GAVE, especially in refractory cases. The aim of this prospective randomized controlled study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of EBL, as compared to APC, in the treatment of GAVE and gastric fundal vascular ectasia (GFVE). Patients and methods A total of 88 cirrhotic patients with GAVE were prospectively randomized to endoscopic treatment with either EBL or APC, every 2 weeks until complete obliteration was accomplished; then they were followed up endoscopically after 6 months, plus they had monthly measurement of hemoglobin levels during that period. Results We describe the presence of mucosal and submucosal lesions in the gastric fundal area that were similar to those found in GAVE in 13 patients (29.5%) of the EBL group and 9 patients (20.5%) of the APC group; we named this GFVE. In these cases, we treated the fundal lesions with the same techniques we had used for treating GAVE, according to the randomization. We found that EBL significantly decreased the number of sessions required for complete obliteration of the lesions (2.98 sessions compared to 3.48 sessions in the APC group (p < 0.05)). Hemoglobin levels increased significantly after obliteration of the lesions in both groups, compared to pretreatment values (p < 0.05), but with no significant difference between the two groups (p > 0.05); however, the EBL group of patients required a significantly smaller number of units of blood transfusion than the APC group of patients (p < 0.05). There were no significant differences in adverse events nor complications between the two groups (p > 0.05). Conclusions This study described and histologically proved the presence of GFVE occurring comcomitantly with GAVE in cirrhotic patients. We showed that GFVE can be successfully managed by EBL or APC. Our study revealed that EBL is more effective and is comparable in safety to APC, in the treatment of GAVE and GFVE in cirrhotic patients.
Microwave radiometric technique to retrieve vapor, liquid and ice. I. Development of a neural network-based inversion method

With the advent of the microwave radiometer, passive remote sensing of clouds and precipitation has become an indispensable tool in a variety of meteorological and oceanographical applications. There is wide interest in the quantitative retrieval of water vapor, cloud liquid, and ice using brightness temperature observations in scientific studies such as Earth's radiation budget and microphysical processes of winter and summer clouds. Emission and scattering characteristics of hydrometeors depend on the frequency of observation. Thus, a multifrequency radiometer has the capability of profiling cloud microphysics. Sensitivities of vapor, liquid, and ice with respect to 20.6, 31.65 and 90 GHz brightness temperatures are studied. For the model studies, the atmosphere is characterized by vapor density and temperature profiles and layers of liquid and ice components. A parameterized radiative transfer model is used to quantify radiation emanating from the atmosphere. It is shown that downwelling scattering of radiation by an ice layer results in enhancement at 90 GHz brightness temperature. Once absorptive components such as vapor and liquid are estimated accurately, then it is shown that the ice water path can be retrieved using ground-based three-channel radiometer observations. In this paper the authors developed two- and three-channel neural network-based inversion models. Success of a neural network-based approach is demonstrated using a simulated time series of vapor, liquid, and ice. Performance of the standard explicit inversion model is compared with an iterative inversion model. In part II of this paper, actual radiometer, and radar field measurements are utilized to show practical applicability of the inverse models.
Tax Havens, Growth, and Welfare

This paper develops an endogenous growth model featuring tax havens, and uses it to examine how the existence of tax havens affects the economic growth rate and social welfare in high-tax countries. We show that the presence of tax havens generates two conflicting channels in determining the growth effect. First, the public investment effect states that tax havens may erode tax revenues and in turn decrease the government’s infrastructure expenditure, thereby reducing growth. Second, the tax planning effect of tax havens reduces marginal cost of capital and hence encourages capital accumulation so as to spur economic growth. The overall growth effect is ambiguous and is determined by the extent of these two effects. The welfare analysis shows that tax havens are more likely to be welfare-enhancing if the government expenditure share in production is low, or the initial income tax rate is high. Moreover, the welfare-maximizing income tax rate is lower than the growth-maximizing income tax rate if tax havens are present.
The U.S. Military/NGO Relationship in Humanitarian Interventions,

Abstract : The end of the Cold War did not bring global peace. Since 1990 American military forces have been involved in a variety of military actions including a major effort in the Gulf. Our forces have also been involved in a variety of humanitarian operations which require close cooperation with United Nations agencies, international organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Members of the military and the NGO communities share a commitment to service, a willingness to work abroad among the dead and dying, and also an acceptance of significant risk in their daily lives. Still, their organizations are profoundly different. As they have begun working together, work in which neither is 'in charge'? they have sometimes regarded each other with suspicion. Our military has now acquired significant experience in the cooperation required in humanitarian interventions. In this volume Captain Chris Seiple, USMC, offers four case studies.
Getting somewhere with the Red Queen: chasing a biologically modern definition of the hypothesis

The Red Queen hypothesis (RQH) is both familiar and murky, with a scope and range that has broadened beyond its original focus. Although originally developed in the palaeontological arena, it now encompasses many evolutionary theories that champion biotic interactions as significant mechanisms for evolutionary change. As such it de-emphasizes the important role of abiotic drivers in evolution, even though such a role is frequently posited to be pivotal. Concomitant with this shift in focus, several studies challenged the validity of the RQH and downplayed its propriety. Herein, we examine in detail the assumptions that underpin the RQH in the hopes of furthering conceptual understanding and promoting appropriate application of the hypothesis. We identify issues and inconsistencies with the assumptions of the RQH, and propose a redefinition where the Red Queen's reign is restricted to certain types of biotic interactions and evolutionary patterns occurring at the population level.
Rational and Behavioral Motives to Trade: Evidence from Reinvestment of Dividends and Tender Offer Proceeds

We provide evidence of households’ stock market trading in response to clearly identifiable positive cash flow shocks: dividend payments and tender offer proceeds. Transaction cost motives appear important, and there is some support for rational portfolio rebalancing and life cycle considerations as well. Households’ tendency to reinvest is low, even for large and unexpected dividend payments. This is consistent with a default choice bias, and is not due to dividend clientele effects. Reinvestment of tender offer proceeds is significantly higher, controlling for other important factors. This is consistent with mental accounting, i.e., cash flows from different sources are treated differently.
Information sharing through inter‐organisational systems in local government

Purpose – The dilemma of implementing and adopting inter‐organisational systems (IOS) that enable information sharing in an electronic fashion has been regarded as an inevitable issue for the public sector. The majority of previous studies have mainly focused on Central or Federal level organisations, and more importantly applied so‐called old fashion theoretical lenses, hence failed to capture the extensive picture of information sharing in an inter‐organisational and inter‐departmental settings. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the barriers and enablers of information sharing in local level in order to clarify why sharing information in local level differs from the central/federal level, and why innovation adoption theories are not sufficient enough to explore an inter‐organisational phenomenon.Design/methodology/approach – A systematic literature review on technology adoption in public sector is carried out in order to select a suitable theoretical lens. Hence, based on previous r.
FDI, Trade, and Growth Dynamics: New Evidence from the Post-Reform India

This article has two aims: first, review the related literature on the relationship among Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Trade, and Economic Growth, and second, empirically examine the linkage between these variables. Our review of the literature indicates that despite a large volume of literature on the relationship among these variables, the direction of causality among them is far from over. Therefore, after observing a gap in the empirical literature, especially for developing economies, we investigate the linkage by using a Vector Autoregression (VAR) model applying the Ganger non-causality test of Toda and Yamamoto (1995) for the period 1991Q3 to 2006Q3. The evidence shows that there is bidirectional causality (two-way feedback) between FDI and economic growth. At the same time, there is also a unidirectional causality exists between exports and FDI, which runs from the former to the latter. Results of the test of causality between FDI and imports indicate the presence of a two-way feedback relationship between the variables.
Learning Latent Opinions for Aspect-level Sentiment Classification

Aspect-level sentiment classification aims at detecting the sentiment expressed towards a particular target in a sentence. Based on the observation that the sentiment polarity is often related to specific spans in the given sentence, it is possible to make use of such information for better classification. On the other hand, such information can also serve as justifications associated with the predictions.We propose a segmentation attention based LSTM model which can effectively capture the structural dependencies between the target and the sentiment expressions with a linear-chain conditional random field (CRF) layer. The model simulates human's process of inferring sentiment information when reading: when given a target, humans tend to search for surrounding relevant text spans in the sentence before making an informed decision on the underlying sentiment information.We perform sentiment classification tasks on publicly available datasets on online reviews across different languages from SemEval tasks and social comments from Twitter. Extensive experiments show that our model achieves the state-of-the-art performance while extracting interpretable sentiment expressions.
High Fertility and Children's Schooling in Ghana: Sex Differences in Parental Contributions and Educational Outcomes

This paper explores the linkages at the family level between sustained high fertility and children's schooling in Ghana, in the context of a constrained economic environment and rising school fees. The unique feature of the paper is its exploration of the operational significance of alternative definitions of “sib size” – the number of “same-mother” siblings and “same-father” siblings – in relation to enrolment, grade attainment, and school drop-out for boys and girls of primary and secondary school age. The analysis is based on the first wave of the Ghana Living Standards Measurement Survey (GLSS) data, collected in 1987–88. The results of the statistical analysis lead to the conclusion that the co-existence of high fertility, rising school costs, and economic reversals is having a negative impact on the education of girls, in terms of drop-out rates and grade attainment. Some of the costs of high fertility are borne by older siblings (particularly girls) rather than by parents, with the result that chil.
Does Foreign Aid Really Raise Per Capita Income? A Time Series Perspective (Est‐Ce Que L’Aide Étrangère Augmente Vraiment Le Revenu Per Capita? Une Approche Par Les Séries Chronologiques)

We analyze the relationship between per capita income and foreign aid. We employ annual data and five‐year averages and carefully examine the time‐series properties of the data. Panel estimations with dynamic feasible generalized least‐squares (DFGLS) show that aid generally has an insignificant or minute negative significant impact on per capita income (particularly in highly aid‐dependent countries). This holds true for countries with different levels of human development and income, as well as for different regions. We also find that aid has a small positive impact on investment, but a significant negative impact on domestic savings (crowding out) and the real exchange rate (appreciation). (On analyse la relation entre le revenu per capita et l’aide etrangere. On utilise des donnees annuelles et des moyennes quinquennales, et on examine les proprietes de ces series chronologiques. Des estimations d’un modele dynamique utilisant des donnees de panel a l’aide de la methode des moindres carres quasi‐generalises montrent que l’aide a generalement un effet negatif minime ou insignifiant sur le revenu per capita (particulierement dans les pays qui dependent beaucoup de l’aide etrangere). Ce resultat tient tant pour des pays a divers niveaux de developpement et de revenus que pour differentes regions. On decouvre que l’aide a un petit effet positif sur l’investissement, mais un effet negatif significatif sur l’epargne (effet d’encombrement) et sur le taux de change reel (appreciation). )
Leptin and cellular and innate immunity in abstinent alcoholics and controls.

BACKGROUND Basic studies indicate that in vitro and in vivo doses of leptin modulate cellular immune responses. Given evidence that concentrations of leptin are altered in alcoholics who also show immune abnormalities, this study examined the relationships between circulating levels of leptin and markers of cellular and innate immunity. METHODS Circulating levels of leptin, natural killer cell (NK) activity, interleukin-2 (IL-2)-stimulated NK activity, and concanavalin A-stimulated production of IL-2, IL-6, IL-10, and IL-12 were compared between abstinent DSM-IV alcohol-dependent men (n = 27) and age- and gender-matched controls (n = 34). RESULTS As compared with controls, alcoholics showed lower NK activity (p < 0.01) and a trend for lower levels of leptin (p = 0.055). In the total sample, leptin predicted NK activity (beta = 0.33; p < 0.05) after controlling for the confounding influence of body mass index, alcohol intake, and smoking. Leptin was not correlated with any of the cytokine measures. To examine whether the effects of leptin were mediated by its direct action on NK, additional studies examined in vitro effects of leptin on NK activity in healthy volunteers (n = 10); leptin doses (0.1, 1, and 10 nM) yielded levels of NK activity comparable to those with media alone. CONCLUSIONS These data show that circulating levels of leptin are associated with NK activity in humans and suggest that abnormal in vivo concentrations of leptin may contribute to the declines of NK activity in alcoholics who are at risk for infectious diseases.
Interference-Resilient Block-Spreading CDMA With Minimum-MAI Sequence Design

Code-division multiple-access (CDMA) schemes based on block spreading implement the spreading of entire data blocks rather than single symbols, thus achieving a higher robustness against the frequency selectivity of the channel and allowing the use of efficient modulation/equalization schemes operating in the frequency domain (FD). In this paper, we present a new block CDMA (B-CDMA) system where a single cyclic prefix (CP) is used at the end of each spread block. This provides a higher spectral efficiency with respect to existing schemes. By observing that complete orthogonality among users is achievable only for half-loaded systems on dispersive channels, we introduce new criteria for the design of spreading and despreading sequences, which aim at minimizing the mean-square error at the output of the despreader. For the equalization of the received signal, we propose an iterative block decision feedback equalizer, which iterates between equalization and decoding. Equalization filters are designed to minimize the mean-square error and take into account the residual interference due to the nonorthogonality of the spreading sequences. The performance of B-CDMA is evaluated in an uplink wireless scenario and compared to existing CDMA schemes.
Intraocular lens tolerance in surgery for cataracta complicata: Assessment of four implant materials

Purpose. To evaluate various available intraocular lenses (IOL) (PMMA, acrylic, heparin coated PMMA, and silicone) in patients with cataracta complicata and evaluate IOL tolerance, post-operative inflammation, cystoid macular edema, and posterior capsular opacification(PCO) requiring Nd:YAG capsulotomy. Design. randomized, double masked clinical trial. Participants. Patients evaluated in the Ocular Immunology and Uveitis Service of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and deemed to need cataract surgery by standard criteria were asked to participate in the clinical trial. Patients had to have a diagnosis of chronic uveitis, which was inactive for 3 months prior to cataract surgery. Results. Acrylic lenses appeared to provide the best overall results when evaluated for post-operative inflammation, PCO rates, visual acuity, and cystoid macular edema (CME) (compared to PMMA, silicone, and heparin coated PMMA).
The (Dis)Saving Behavior of the Aged in Japan

In this paper, I survey the previous literature on the saving behavior of the aged in Japan and then present some survey data on the saving behavior of the aged in Japan that became available recently. To summarize the main findings of this paper, virtually all previous studies as well as the newly available data I analyze find that the retired aged dissave and that even the working aged dissave, at least at advanced ages. Moreover, there has been a sharp increase in the dissaving of the retired aged since 2000, with the increase being due primarily to reductions in social security benefits, increases in consumption expenditures, and increases in taxes and social insurance premiums. These findings are consistent with the life-cycle model and suggest that this model is highly applicable (and becoming increasingly applicable over time) in the case of Japan.
Statistical properties of the sample semi-variance

In finance theory the standard deviation of asset returns is almost universally recognized as a measure of risk. This universality continues to exist even in the presence of known limitations of using the standard deviation and also an extensive and growing literature on alternative risk measures. One possible reason for this persistence is that the sample properties of alternative risk measures are not well understood. This paper attempts to compare the sample distribution of the semi-variance with that of the variance. In particular, the belief that, while there are convincing theoretical reasons to use the semi-variance the volatility of the sample measure is so high as to make the measure impractical in applied work, is investigated. In addition arguments based on stochastic dominance are also used to compare the distribution of the two statistics. Conditions are developed to identify situations in which the semi-variance may be preferred to the variance. An empirical example using equity data from emerging markets demonstrates this approach.
An Evaluation of Whole Blood Testing for Helicobacter pylori infection in Chinese

BACKGROUND : Near patient tests for Helicobacter pylori ( H. pylori ) were developed to assist in the management of dyspepsia patients in general practice. Most studies were performed in western population. AIM : To evaluate the rapid whole blood test (Flexpack HP) for H. pylori in Chinese population. METHODS : Consecutive dyspeptic patients referred for upper endoscopy were recruited. During upper endoscopy, biopsies were taken from the antrum and corpus for CLO test and histological examination. After endoscopy, the whole blood test (FlexPack HP) was performed according to the manufacturer's instruction. Patients then received a 13 C-urea breath test ( 13 C-UBT). Results of the whole blood test were compared with the gold standard (CLO test, histology and 13 C-UBT). RESULTS : 294 consecutive patients gave a valid Flexpack HP result for interpretation. Mean age of patients was 47.7 (range 15-85) years. Analysis showed a sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of 58.2%, 92.2%, 90.6%, 63.2% and 73.1% respectively. There was no influence by the age of the patient and the familiarity of the operators. CONCLUSION : The FlexPack HP whole blood test showed good specificity but lacked sensitivity. It is not sensitive enough to be used in general practice setting for the test and treat approach in Chinese population.