Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reconstitution of self-organizing protein gradients as spatial cues in cell-free systems

Intracellular protein gradients are significant determinants of spatial organization. However, little is known about how protein patterns are established, and how their positional information directs downstream processes. We have accomplished the reconstitution of a protein concentration gradient that directs the assembly of the cell division machinery in E.coli from the bottom-up. Reconstituting self-organized oscillations of MinCDE proteins in membrane-clad soft-polymer compartments, we demonstrate that distinct time-averaged protein concentration gradients are established. Our minimal system allows to study complex organizational principles, such as spatial control of division site placement by intracellular protein gradients, under simplified conditions. In particular, we demonstrate that FtsZ, which marks the cell division site in many bacteria, can be targeted to the middle of a cell-like compartment. Moreover, we show that compartment geometry plays a major role in Min gradient establishment, and provide evidence for a geometry-mediated mechanism to partition Min proteins during bacterial development. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.03949. 001
Original Paper

Animal personalities (sometimes referred also as coping styles) and their fitness consequences are currently among the most intensively explored subjects in behavioral ecology. To estimate the evolvability and adaptability of individually consistent behavioral variation, there is a crucial need to quantify the genetics underlying personality. Here, we experimentally studied the repeatability of various individual behaviors and then estimated heritability of formed boldness, exploration, and aggression components in juvenile brown trout Salmo trutta in standardized laboratory environment. Principal component analysis indicated that individually recorded behaviors were described by two personality axes: the first reflecting boldness, exploration, and aggression and the second tendency to freeze. These personality components, as well as the originally recorded behaviors, were statistically significantly repeatable over time. The latter PC, but not the first one, was statistically significantly heritable, though at low level (h 2 =0.142±0.096). These results suggest that additive genetic variation underlies phenotypically consistent behav-ioral patterns, proposing that any selection acting on behavior, stress tolerance, or correlated traits has a potential to induce evolution in fish personality.
Ethnomedicinal Cichorium intybus Seed Extracts: An Impending Preparation against Multidrug Resistant Bacterial Pathogens

Background The present study was undertaken to analyze the phytochemical content and biological activity of Cichorium intybus seeds traditionally used in Charsadda, Pakistan against multidrug resistant (MDR) bacterial pathogens. Objectives This study explored the qualitative and quantitative antibacterial potential of C. intybus. Further qualitative analysis of phytochemical content was performed. Methods Cichorium intybus seed extracts were prepared in aqueous, chloroform, ethanol, and hexane separately. Results All the extracts of C. intybus seeds were screened for antibacterial activity and phytochemical content. Cichorium intybus seed extract showed considerable activity against MDR pathogenic bacteria. In the well diffusion method, aqueous extracts showed a higher zone of inhibition against Pseudomonas aeruginosa (16 mm ± 0.7 mm) and Acinetobacter baumannii (13 mm ± 0.5 mm), whereas chloroform, ethanol, and hexane extracts showed activity against P. aeruginosa (11 mm ± 0.3 mm, 12 mm ± 0.5 mm, and 11 mm ± 0 mm, respectively) as compared to Imipenem, a broad spectrum antibiotic. Minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration values for aqueous and ethanol extracts indicate that they were more effective against MDR bacteria. Phytochemical analysis revealed that aqueous and ethanol extracts were rich in alkaloids, carbohydrates, gallotannins, and triterpenoids, whereas chloroform and hexane extracts were more concentrated with phenolics, pseudotannins, saponins, and tannins. Cichorium intybus seed extract demonstrated potential activity against MDR human pathogenic bacteria. Conclusions The undertaken study has for the first time reported the effects of C. intybus seed extracts against MDR bacterial pathogens. Findings of the current study will be helpful for further elucidation of bioactive molecules for therapeutic use against MDR bacterial pathogens.
Applying ArchOptions to value the payoff of refactoring

ArchOptions is a real-options based model that we have pro-posed to value the flexibility of software architectures in response to future changes in requirements. In this paper, we build on ArchOptions to devise an options-based model, which values the architectural flexibility that results from a refactoring exercise. This value assists in understanding the payoff of investing in refactoring: if the refactored system results in an architecture that is more flexible, such that the expected added value (in the form of options) due to the en-hanced flexibility outweighs the cost of investing in this exer-cise, then refactoring is said to payoff. We apply our model to a refactoring case study from the literature.
Labor market policy research for developing countries : recent examples from the literature - what do we know and what should we know?

This paper documents recent advances of research on labor market institutions, behavior, and policies in developing countries and makes suggestions for future research. The four areas of research analyzed are: i) theoretical and empirical implications of employment protection legislation on labor outcomes; ii) the issue of shifting from job to worker protection, namely, the different alternatives to severance pay: unemployment insurance and unemployment insurance savings accounts and their application to developing countries; iii) the effect of active labor market programs, particularly of training, on labor market outcomes; and iv) the causes and consequences of informality in the labor market, with special emphasis on the efforts to model the informal sector. The focus of the four sections is on theoretical and empirical work on published in the last five to seven years, and each one concludes with new directions for future research.
Games for the -calculus

Given a formula of the propositional-calculus, we construct a tableau of the formula and deene an innnite game of two players of which one wants to show that the formula is satissable, and the other seeks the opposite. The strategy for the rst player can be further transformed into a model of the formula while the strategy for the second forms what we call a refutation of the formula. Using Martin's Determinacy Theorem, we prove that any formula has either a model or a refutation. This completeness result is a starting point for the completeness theorem for the-calculus to be presented elsewhere. However, we argue that refutations have some advantages of their own. They are generated by a natural system of sound logical rules and can be presented as regular trees of the size exponential in the size of a refuted formula. This last aspect completes the small model theorem for the-calculus established by Emerson and Jutla 3]. Thus, on a more practical side, refutations can be used as small objects testifying incorrectness of a program speciication expressed by a-formula, we illustrate this point by an example.
One-Bit Compressive Sensing With Norm Estimation

Consider the recovery of an unknown signal x from quantized linear measurements. In the one-bit compressive sensing setting, one typically assumes that x is sparse, and that the measurements are of the form sign((a<sub>i</sub>, x)) ϵ {±1}. Since such measurements give no information on the norm of x, recovery methods typically assume that ∥x∥<sub>2</sub> = 1. We show that if one allows more generally for quantized affine measurements of the form sign((a<sub>i</sub>, x) + b<sub>i</sub>), and if the vectors ai are random, an appropriate choice of the affine shifts bi allows norm recovery to be easily incorporated into existing methods for one-bit compressive sensing. In addition, we show that for arbitrary fixed x in the annulus r ∥×∥<sub>2</sub> R, one may estimate the norm ∥×∥<sub>2</sub> up to additive error δ from ≳ R<sup>4</sup>r<sup>-2</sup>δ<sup>-2</sup> such binary measurements through a single evaluation of the inverse Gaussian error function. Finally, all of our recovery guarantees can be made universal over sparse vectors in the sense that with high probability, one set of measurements and thresholds can successfully estimate all sparse vectors x in a Euclidean ball of known radius.
Estimating Euler Equations with Measurement Error : A Nonparametric Approach ∗ .

This paper proposes two new identification schemes for estimating the parameter of intertemporal allocation, exploiting the equilibrium condition delivered by the rational expectations consumption model. The two identification schemes constitute an alternative to the existing methods of estimating Euler equations in the presence of measurement error. The small sample performance of the proposed identification schemes and of the existing approaches is evaluated by conducting a Monte Carlo experiment.
Health-Related Quality of Life and Blood Pressure Control in Hypertensive Patients with and without Complications

INTRODUCTION: The goal of antihypertensive treatment is to reduce blood pressure without interfering in health-related quality of life (HRQL) OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the influence of hypertension control upon HRQL in hypertensive patients with and without complications. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seventy-seven hypertensive outpatients (71% women, 58% white, 60% with elementary school level education, average age 54 ± 8 years) were observed during a 12-month special care program (phase 1: clinical visits every two months, donation of all antihypertensive medications, meetings with a multidisciplinary team, and active telephone calls) and three years of standard care (phase 2: clinical visits every four months, medication provided by the drugstore of the hospital with a two-hour wait and a possible lack of medication, no meetings with a multidisciplinary team or active telephone calls). The patient HRQL was assessed using Bulpitt and Fletcher’s Specific Questionnaire, as well as the SF-36 scores. Hypertensive patients were divided into “with complications” (n=37, diastolic blood pressure great than 110 mm Hg for patients with or without treatment, with clinically evident target-organ or other associated illness) and “without complications” (n=40). The variables studied were quality of life, blood pressure control, hypertension gravity, and demographic characteristics. RESULTS: In hypertensive patients with and without complications, both the systolic and diastolic blood pressure were significantly higher (p<0.05) in phase 2 of observation (143±18/84±11 and 144±21/93±11 mm Hg for patients with and without complications, respectively) relative to phase 1 (128±17/75±13 and 128±15/83±11mmHg). The proportion of patients with controlled blood pressure (defined as a blood pressure less than 140/90 mm Hg) decreased from 70% to 49% in the “with complications” group and from 78% to 50% in the “without complications” group during phase 2 of observation. The patients with complications showed a decrease in bodily pain, vitality, and mental health component summary scores in both phases. In phase 2, the patients without complications had significantly better HRQL scores compared to complicated patients using both the Bulpitt and Fletcher’s Questionnaire and the SF-36 assessment of physical capacity, bodily pain, and vitality domain summary scores. With regards to hypertension control, there was a significant decrease from phase 1 to phase 2 in the vitality component summary scores and an increase in the emotional aspect component summary scores assessed by the SF-36, whereas Bulpitt and Fletcher’s Questionnaire showed no differences in these scores. CONCLUSION: Special care programs with multidisciplinary activities, individualized and personalized assistance, easy access to pharmacological treatment, frequent meetings, and active telephone calls for hypertensive patients significantly increase blood pressure control but do not interfere with the HRQL.
Leisure, Consumption and Long Run Risk: An Empirical Evaluation

I study a long-run risk model with non-separable leisure and consumption in the Epstein-Zin preferences to price a cross-section of equity returns over 1948-2011 for the US market. The stochastic discount factor is shown by news on both leisure and consumption. While estimating these two long run factors using a vector auto-regression (VAR), I find that growth (big) stocks - lower average returns - obtain higher long run leisure betas but lower long run consumption betas than value (small) stocks do. Here leisure acts as an 'insurance' and decreases the price of long run risk. Expected returns on stocks that highly comoves with future leisure will be less because of future investment opportunities. Moreover, expected cash flows are small if there is good news on leisure. The data fact evidences that leisure absorbs more than 60.2% foregone work hours, but less than 2% for searching jobs. When job creation flows hampers for the marginal costs of hiring fails to decline fast, the rate at a vacancy is filled decreases, therefore expected cash flows become even smaller as productivity falls and wages are inelastic.
Integrin a 5 b 1 Plays a Critical Role in Resistance to Temozolomide by Interfering with the p53 Pathway in High-Grade Glioma

, Abstract Integrins play a role in the resistance of advanced cancers to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. In this study, we show that high expression of the a 5 integrin subunit compromises temozolomide-induced tumor suppressor p53 activityinhumanglioblastomacells.Wefoundthatdepletionofthe a 5integrinsubunitincreasedp53activityand temozolomide sensitivity. However, when cells were treated with the p53 activator nutlin-3a, the protective effect of a 5 integrin on p53 activation and cell survival was lost. In a functional p53 background, nutlin-3a downregulated the a 5 integrin subunit, thereby increasing the cytotoxic effect of temozolomide. Clinically, a 5 b 1 integrin expression was associated with a more aggressive phenotype in brain tumors, and high a 5 integrin gene expression was associated with decreased survival of patients with high-grade glioma. Taken together, our ﬁ ndings indicate that negative cross-talk between a 5 b 1 integrin and p53 supports glioma resistance to temozolomide, providing preclinical proof-of-concept that a 5 b 1 integrin represents a therapeutic target for high-grade brain tumors. Direct activation of p53 may remain a therapeutic option in the subset of patients with high-grade gliomas that express both functional p53 and a high level of a 5 b 1 integrin. Cancer Res; 72(14); 1 – 8. (cid:2) 2012 AACR. this study was to investigate the role of a 5 b 1 integrin in glioma resistance to temozolomide chemotherapy using in vitro and in vivo models. We found that a high expression of a 5 subunit inhibited the temozolomide-induced p53 pathway and that reactivation of p53 by nutlin-3a restores the sensitivity to temozolomide by decreasing the expression of the a 5 b 1 integrin. Finally, we found that high a 5 integrin gene expression is associated with a more aggressive phenotype in brain tumors and a decrease in survival of patients. Our results provide a clinical rationale for including a 5 b 1 integrin – targeted therapy in a subpopulation of patients with glioma.
Exploring human behaviour models through causal summaries and machine learning

This paper is a case study meant to demonstrate the relevance of causal summaries for exploratory analysis of human behaviour models. We broadly define a causal summary as a partition of the significant values of the analyzed variables (in our case the simulated motives fear and anger of human beings) into separate contributions by various “causing” factors, such as social influence or external events. We demonstrate that such causal summaries can be processed by machine learning techniques (e.g. clustering and classification) and facilitate meaningful interpretations of the emergent behaviours of complex agent-based models.
THE EVOLUTION OF SWIFT/BAT BLAZARS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE MeV BACKGROUND

We use three years of data from the Swift/Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) survey to select a complete sample of X-ray blazars above 15 keV. This sample comprises 26 flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and 12 BL Lacertae (BL Lac) objects detected over a redshift range of 0.03 < z < 4.0. We use this sample to determine, for the first time in the 15–55 keV band, the evolution of blazars. We find that, contrary to the Seyfert-like active galactic nuclei (AGNs) detected by BAT, the population of blazars shows strong positive evolution. This evolution is comparable to the evolution of luminous optical quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) and luminous X-ray-selected AGNs. We also find evidence for an epoch dependence of the evolution as determined previously for radio-quiet AGNs. We interpret both these findings as a strong link between accretion and jet activity. In our sample, the FSRQs evolve strongly, while our best fit shows that BL Lac objects might not evolve at all. The blazar population accounts for 10%–20% (depending on the evolution of the BL Lac objects) of the cosmic X-ray background (CXB) in the 15–55 keV band. We find that FSRQs can explain the entire CXB emission for energies above 500 keV solving the mystery of the generation of the MeV background. The evolution of luminous FSRQs shows a peak in redshift (zc = 4.3 ± 0.5) which is larger than the one observed in QSOs and X-ray-selected AGNs. We argue that FSRQs can be used as tracers of massive elliptical galaxies in the early universe.
Revenue shifts and non‐bank financial institutions' productivity: Empirical evidence from Malaysia

Purpose - The purpose of the present paper is to examine the impact of off-balance sheet (OBS) activities on non-bank financial institutions' (NBFI) productivity. Design/methodology/approach - The paper utilized the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) methodology, which allows us to examine five different indices namely, the productivity change (TFPCH), technological change (TECHCH), efficiency change (EFFCH), pure technical efficiency change (PEFFCH), and scale efficiency change (SECH) indices. A series of parametric and non-parametric tests are performed to examine whether the merchant banks and finance companies were drawn from the same population. Finally, a multivariate analysis based on the GLS fixed and random effects estimators are employed to examine the relationship between the productivity scores derived from the MPI with NBFI specific characteristic variables. Findings - The empirical findings suggest that Malaysian NBFIs have exhibited productivity progress during the study period. The decomposition of the TFPCH index into its EFFCH and TECHCH components indicates that the Malaysian NBFIs productivity progress was mainly attributed to technological progress rather than efficiency increase. We have also examined the productivity progress/regress of different NBFI groups operating in Malaysia. The results suggest that while the merchant banks have exhibited productivity progress attributed to the increase in efficiency, the finance companies on the other hand have exhibited productivity decline due to the decline in efficiency. The inclusion of OBS items has resulted in a lower Malaysian NBFIs productivity growth. However, the findings suggest that while the merchant banks' productivity was enhanced with the inclusion of OBS items, the finance companies' productivity growth seem to have worsened. The results suggest that the omission of OBS items may result in the TECHCH of both the merchant banks and finance companies to be overestimated. Conversely, the inclusion of OBS items has had positive impact on both the merchant banks' and finance companies' efficiency. The empirical findings also suggest that the omission of OBS items resulted in the overestimation of both the merchant banks and finance companies scale inefficiency. Research limitations/implications - The paper can be extended to consider the production approach along with the intermediation approach, which has been applied in this paper. Investigation of changes in efficiency over time by employing the data envelopment analysis approach could yet be another extension to the paper. Originality/value - This paper provides new empirical evidence on the productivity of NBFIs, particularly in a developing economy.
REDUCTION OF TOPOLOGICAL STABLE RANK IN INDUCTIVE LIMITS OF C*-ALGEBRAS

We consider inductive limits A of sequences A 1 →A 2 →. of finite direct sums of C * -algebras of continuous functions from compact Hausdorff spaces into full matrix algebras. We prove that A has topological stable rank (tsr) one provided that A is simple and the sequence of the dimensions of the spectra of A i is bounded. For unital A, tsr(A)=1 means that the set of invertible elements is dense in A. If A is infinite dimensional, then the simplicity of A implies that the sizes of the involved matrices tend to infinity, so by general arguments one gets tsr(A i )≤2 for large enough is whence trsr(A)≤2. The reduction of tsr from two to one requires arguments which are strongly related to this special class of C * -algebras
SUSTAINABLE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND AN APPROACH TO DECREASING REGIONAL DISPARITIES IN TURKEY

In this study, the regional development process of Turkey will be analyzed. Regional disparities, which dominate Turkey's underdevelopment, are one of the main subjects in almost all countries. First, this study will analyze the evolution of regional development in Turkey and the situation in Southeastern Anatolia Project (SAP) region. The process will be examined before, during, and after the SAP has been carried out by applying a formula used by Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkstat). Regarding the method, the development level of the SAP region and other regions of Turkey in given time periods are questioned and evaluated. This study will then examine and understand underlying reasons of disparity and importance of applied projects, which is a good opportunity to examine the development process. For the main findings, size and scale are vital; infrastructure is an important element in regional development, but it does not guarantee the elimination of disparities; and development is possible without special projects.