Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential Expression of Genes Encoding Subthreshold-Operating Voltage-Gated K+ Channels in Brain

The members of the three subfamilies (eag, erg, and elk) of the ether-a-go-go (EAG) family of potassium channel pore-forming subunits express currents that, like the M-current (IM), could have considerable influence on the subthreshold properties of neuronal membranes, and hence the control of excitability. A nonradioactive in situ hybridization (NR-ISH) study of the distribution of the transcripts encoding the eight known EAG family subunits in rat brain was performed to identify neuronal populations in which the physiological roles of EAG channels could be studied. These distributions were compared with those of the mRNAs encoding the components of the classical M-current (Kcnq2 and Kcnq3). NR-ISH was combined with immunohistochemistry to specific neuronal markers to help identify expressing neurons. The results show that each EAG subunit has a specific pattern of expression in rat brain. EAG and Kcnq transcripts are prominent in several types of excitatory neurons in the cortex and hippocampus; however, only one of these channel components (erg1) was consistently expressed in inhibitory interneurons in these areas. Some neuronal populations express more than one product of the same subfamily, suggesting that the subunits may form heteromeric channels in these neurons. Many neurons expressed multiple EAG family and Kcnq transcripts, such as CA1 pyramidal neurons, which contained Kcnq2, Kcnq3, eag1, erg1, erg3, elk2, and elk3. This indicates that the subthreshold current in many neurons may be complex, containing different components mediated by a number of channels with distinct properties and neuromodulatory responses.
Depression after CABG: a prospective study

Introduction Depression during or shortly after hospitalization elevated two to three times the risk of mortality or nonfatal cardiac events, significantly increasing the morbidity and mortality of these patients. Objective To assess the impact of revascularization on symptoms of depression in patients with coronary artery disease. Methods A prospective cohort study of 57 patients of both sexes undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting between June 2010 and June 2011. We used the SF-36 to assess quality of life, and the Beck Depression Inventory to detect depressive symptoms, applied preoperatively and six months. Results The prevalence of patients aged 60-69 years was 22 patients (38.60%), 39 men (68.42%), 26 described themselves as mixed race (45.61%), 16 literate (28.07 %) and 30 married (52.63%). The beck depression inventory score demonstrated increased after revascularization: 15 patients mild (26.32%) at time zero to 17 (29.82%) after. And with moderate, seven patients (12.28%) before and 10 (17.54%) after. In the categories of individuals with decreased minimum degree of 32 (56.14%) to 28 (49.12%), and severe of three (5.26%) for two (3.51%) patients. Association was observed between beck depression inventory, gender, age, lifestyle, comorbidities and quality of life. Conclusion There was a high prevalence of elevated beck depression inventory scores, lowest scores of depressive symptoms among men and association between the improvement of quality of life scores and beck depression inventory.
Surfaces with Parallel Mean Curvature Vector in S^2xS^2 and H^2xH^2

Two holomorphic Hopf differentials for surfaces of non-null parallel mean curvature vector in S^2xS^2 and H^2xH^2 are constructed. A 1:1 correspondence between these surfaces and pairs of constant mean curvature surfaces of S^2xR and H^2xR is established. Using that, surfaces with vanishing Hopf differentials (in particular spheres with parallel mean curvature vector) are classified and a rigidity result for constant mean curvature surfaces of S^2xR and H^2xR is proved.
Role of Pro-Inflammatory Cytokines and Biochemical Markers in the Pathogenesis of Type 1 Diabetes: Correlation with Age and Glycemic Condition in Diabetic Human Subjects

Background Type 1 diabetes mellitus is a chronic inflammatory disease involving insulin producing β-cells destroyed by the conjoined action of auto reactive T-cells, inflammatory cytokines and monocytic cells. The aim of this study was to elucidate the status of pro-inflammatory cytokines and biochemical markers and possible correlation of these factors towards outcome of the disease. Methods The study was carried out on 29 T1D subjects and 20 healthy subjects. Plasma levels of oxidative stress markers, enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants were estimated employing biochemical assays. The levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as by IL-1β & IL-17 in the serum were determined by ELISA, while the expression of TNF-α, IL-23 & IFN-γ was ascertained by qRT-PCR. Results The onset of T1D disease was accompanied with elevation in levels of Plasma malondialdehyde, protein carbonyl content and nitric oxide while plasma vitamin C, reduced glutathione and erythrocyte sulfhydryl groups were found to be significantly decreased in T1D patients as compared to healthy control subjects. Activity of antioxidant enzymes, superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione reductase and glutathione-s-transferase showed a significant suppression in the erythrocytes of T1D patients as compared to healthy subjects. Nevertheless, the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-17A were significantly augmented (***p≤.001) on one hand, while expression of T cell based cytokines IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-23 was also up-regulated (*p≤.05) as compared to healthy human subjects. Conclusion The level of pro-inflammatory cytokines and specific biochemical markers in the serum of the patient can be exploited as potential markers for type 1 diabetes pathogenesis. The study suggests that level of inflammatory markers is up-regulated in T1D patients in an age dependent manner.
The Available Scope of the Assumption of Representative Agent

In the statistical physics, each microstate must be permitted by the Newton equations (or Schrodinger equations). Likewise, each microstate of economic system must be allowed by the general equilibrium theory. Our study shows that the competitive economy, over a long time scale, would produce a large number of general equilibria each of which can be regarded as a possible microstate of this economy. Then by the principle of maximum entropy, we can obtain the most probable macrostate, which is shown as the revenue distribution of a society. In particular, we verify that the “assumption of representative agent” in modern micro-founded macroeconomics only holds in an ideal situation where the perfect competition involving a single industry is taken into account.
Essays on Wage Inequality and Economic Growth

This thesis is about the relationship between wage inequality and minimum wage, and then about parental choice and the impact of this on economic growth. First, it empirically examines the relation between wage inequality and the federal minimum wage. Then it develops a theory of how a parent of children with heterogeneous abilities makes choices on (a) investments in education for her children and (b) on the number of children she will have. Parental choices on these margins are shown to affect the rate of economic growth. Chapter 1 briefly introduces my studies for the dissertation. In Chapter 2, I use a time-series analysis to examine whether real federal minimum wage is an important factor of wage inequality. Revisionists claim that non-market factors — falling real minimum wage and unionization in the United States labor market — rather than market factors — shifts in labor supply and demand — are responsible for increasing wage inequality, especially in the 1980s. Traditional economists, while disagreeing with the revisionist view, have yet to show explicitly that the falling real minimum wage is unrelated to wage inequality. The chapter demonstrates, using a time-series analysis, that non-market factors (minimum wage) may have a spurious relationship with wage inequality, and that market factors (shifts in labor supply and demand) are still important in determining wage inequality. In Chapter 3, I show that when children’s ability is heterogeneous, a parent’s
Extremely low levels of serum uric acid are associated with endothelial dysfunction in humans.

ative role of UA in CV risk is primarily supported by in vitro study results demonstrating that exposure of cultured endothelial cells to UA induces NADPH oxidase activity and the production of reactive oxygen species.4 Conversely, the association between hyperuricemia and CV disease is only marginal or may be cofounded by other risk factors, such as hypertension, gout, and male sex. Likewise, hyperuricemia could be a consequence of impaired kidney function, diuretic therapy or oxidative stress, and as such, the role of SUA in conditions associated with oxidative stress is not entirely clear.2 Increasing experimental and clinical evidence shows that SUA has an antioxidant role in vivo that protects the CV system. Studies have shown a J-shaped relationship of SUA with CV events.5,6 For instance, the rate of CV events tended to be higher in SUA quartile 1 than in SUA quartile 2 in the PIUMA study ric acid (UA) is the endproduct of purine metabolism in humans. Most serum UA (SUA) is freely filtered in the glomerulus, and approximately 90% of the filtered SUA is reabsorbed, implying that SUA is likely to have a physiological role, rather than simply being a waste of purine metabolism.1 Furthermore, the SUA level in humans is almost 10-fold higher than those in the majority of other mammals, which supports the hypothesis that the SUA level increased during human evolution as an advantage to humans.1
Dietary Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Alter the Fatty Acid Composition of Hepatic and Plasma Bioactive Lipids in C57BL/6 Mice: A Lipidomic Approach

Background Omega (n)-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are converted to bioactive lipid components that are important mediators in metabolic and physiological pathways; however, which bioactive compounds are metabolically active, and their mechanisms of action are still not clear. We investigated using lipidomic techniques, the effects of diets high in n-3 PUFA on the fatty acid composition of various bioactive lipids in plasma and liver. Methodology and Principal Findings Female C57BL/6 mice were fed semi-purified diets (20% w/w fat) containing varying amounts of n-3 PUFA before mating, during gestation and lactation, and until weaning. Male offspring were continued on their mothers’ diets for 16 weeks. Hepatic and plasma lipids were extracted in the presence of non-naturally occurring internal standards, and tandem electrospray ionization mass spectrometry methods were used to measure the fatty acyl compositions. There was no significant difference in total concentrations of phospholipids in both groups. However, there was a significantly higher concentration of eicosapentaenoic acid containing phosphatidylcholine (PC), lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), and cholesteryl esters (CE) (p < 0.01) in the high n-3 PUFA group compared to the low n-3 PUFA group in both liver and plasma. Plasma and liver from the high n-3 PUFA group also had a higher concentration of free n-3 PUFA (p < 0.05). There were no significant differences in plasma concentrations of different fatty acyl species of phosphatidylethanolamine, triglycerides, sphingomyelin and ceramides. Conclusions/Significance Our findings reveal for the first time that a diet high in n-3 PUFA caused enrichment of n-3 PUFA in PC, LPC, CE and free fatty acids in the plasma and liver of C57BL/6 mice. PC, LPC, and unesterified free n-3 PUFA are important bioactive lipids, thus altering their fatty acyl composition will have important metabolic and physiological roles.
Iowa College and Career Readiness: Indicators Literature Review.

This work was originally produced in whole or in part by the Midwest Comprehensive Center and the College and Career Readiness and Success Center with funds from the U.S. Department of Education under cooperative agreement number S283B120020. The content does not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Education, nor does mention or visual representation of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the federal government.
Joint Feature Selection and Structure Preservation for Domain Adaptation

The essence of domain adaptation is to explore common latent factors shared by the involved domains. These factors can be specific features or geometric structures. Most of previous methods exploit either the shared features or the shared geometric structures separately. However, the two strategies are complementary with each other and jointly exploring them is more optimal. This paper proposes a novel approach, named joint Feature Selection and Structure Preservation (FSSP), for unsupervised domain adaptation. FSSP smoothly integrates structure preservation and feature selection into a unified optimization problem. Intensive experiments on text categorization, image classification and video event recognition demonstrate that our method performs better, even with up to 30% improvement in average, compared with the state-of-the-art methods.
The Logic of Sufficiency

What if modern society put a priority on the material security of its citizens and the ecological integrity of its resource base? What if it took ecological constraint as a given, not a hindrance but a source of long-term economic security? How would it organize itself, structure its industry, shape its consumption? Across time and across cultures, people actually have adapted to ecological constraint. They have changed behavior; they have built institutions. And they have developed norms and principles for their time. Today's environmental challenges -- at once global, technological, and commercial -- require new behaviors, new institutions, and new principles.In this highly original work, Thomas Princen builds one such principle: sufficiency. Sufficiency is not about denial, not about sacrifice or doing without. Rather, when resource depletion and overconsumption are real, sufficiency is about doing well. It is about good work and good governance; it is about goods that are good only to a point.With examples ranging from timbering and fishing to automobility and meat production, Princen shows that sufficiency is perfectly sensible and yet absolutely contrary to modern society's dominant principle, efficiency. He argues that seeking enough when more is possible is both intuitive and rational -- personally, organizationally and ecologically rational. And under global ecological constraint, it is ethical. Over the long term, an economy -- indeed a society -- cannot operate as if there's never enough and never too much.
Custom becomes crime, crime becomes custom

This thesis examines the changing relationship between customary activities of the poor and economic change. The social crime debate is used to illustrate the historical importance of informal economic activity, both as a survival strategy and as a means of protest. Key issues of the experience in Britain will be highlighted, and issues such as self-interest will be placed within community toleration. Ironically, social criminal activities are also in the wider interests of the class of people from which social criminals themselves originate. The change from Feudalism and the origin of capitalism (particularly industrial capitalism) created the working class. The peasantry were increasingly displaced from the land, and habits suitable for work paid in cash were inculcated and forced upon people. Customary agricultural practices were gradually whittled away, but the working class changed these into perquisites and new customary work-based appropriation. Protest became located within the official structures of the labour movement, and increasingly orientated around the wage form. The post World War II economic boom encouraged standardisation and stabilisation of products, and within society itself. The onset of economic crises, beginning in the late 1960s, had increasingly global effects, and involved new markets encouraged by European integration. This changed the nature of (un)employment relations, the composition of the working class, consumption demands and possibilities, as well as creating a large and growing informal economy. This new casual and opportunistic, official/unofficial labour market, has meant a resurgence of social crime as a normal feature of survival. Shoplifting, tobacco and alcohol smuggling will be theoretically and practically examined; social crime content assessed; and protest capacity explored. Informant narratives highlight these key features of our time. The thesis further argues that crime has returned as a central aspect of culture.
A global-local optimization framework for simultaneous multi-mode multi-corner clock skew variation reduction

As combinations of signoff corners grow in modern SoCs, minimization of clock skew variation across corners is important. Large skew variation can cause difficulties in multi-corner timing closure because fixing violations at one corner can lead to violations at other corners. Such “ping-pong” effects lead to significant power and area overheads and time to signoff. We propose a novel framework encompassing both global and local clock network optimizations to minimize the sum of skew variations across different PVT corners between all sequentially adjacent sink pairs. The global optimization uses linear programming to guide buffer insertion, buffer removal and routing detours. The local optimization is based on machine learning-based predictors of latency change; these are used for iterative optimization with tree surgery, buffer sizing and buffer displacement operators. Our optimization achieves up to 22% total skew variation reduction across multiple testcases implemented in foundry 28nm technology, as compared to a best-practices CTS solution using a leading commercial tool.
Improved rhombus interpolation for reversible watermarking by difference expansion

The paper proposes an interpolation error expansion reversible watermarking algorithm. The main novelty of the paper is a modified rhombus interpolation scheme. The four horizontal and vertical neighbors are considered and, depending on their values, the interpolated pixel is computed as the average of the horizontal pixels, of the vertical pixels or of the entire set of four pixels. Experimental results are provided. The proposed scheme outperforms the results obtained by using the average on the four horizontal and vertical neighbors and the ones obtained by using well known predictors as MED or GAP.
Improvements of the Surgical Technique on the Established Mouse Model of Orthotopic Single Lung Transplantation

Background A wide range of knockout and transgenic murine models for the study of nonimmune and immune mechanisms in lung transplants are available nowadays, but the microsurgical techniques are difficult to learn. We describe methods to simplify techniques and facilitate learning. Methods Traditional procedures were implemented to perform lung transplants in 30 cases (group 1). Improved techniques which included cuff without tail, broadening of the cuff diameter for bronchus, establishment of one tunnel between three structures, innovative technology of the vascular anastomosis and placement of the chest tube post-operation were used to perform lung transplants in 30 cases (group 2). Results The improved techniques considerably shorten operative times (96.75±6.16 min and 85.32±6.98 min in groups 1 and 2, respectively). The survival rates in the recipient animals were 86.7% and 96.7% in groups 1 and 2, respectively. Chest X-rays and macroscopic changes of transplanted recipients showed that grafts were well inflated on postoperative day 30. There was no significant difference of the arterial oxygen tension (PaO2) between two groups (115.9±7.11 mm Hg and 116.3±6.87 mm Hg in groups 1 and 2, respectively). Histologically, no lung injury was seen in grafts. Conclusions We described the modified procedures of orthotopic left lung transplants in mice, which could shorten operative time and increase survival rate.
THE EFFECT OF ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH ON ONLINE TRUST AND PURCHASE INTENTION AMONG MILLENNIALS GENERATION ON INSTAGRAM

The purpose of this research were (1) to analyze the effect of E-WOM to online trust on Instagram; (2) to analyze the effect of E-WOM to purchase intention on Instagram; (3) to analyze the effect of online trust to purchase intention on Instagram. The quantitative approach is carried out by online survey methods to respondents. The data was collected from July to September 2018. The respondents were determined by purposive sampling technique. Respondents of this research were 20-35 aged people (millennials) who bought fashion products through Instagram in the past months. Data processing technique used in this research were descriptive analysis and SEM (Structural Equation Modeling). The result of this study shows electronic word of mouth was significantly positive to online trust and purchase intention.
Not only cardiovascular, but also coordinative exercise increases hippocampal volume in older adults

Cardiovascular activity has been shown to be positively associated with gray and white matter volume of, amongst others, frontal and temporal brain regions in older adults. This is particularly true for the hippocampus, a brain structure that plays an important role in learning and memory, and whose decline has been related to the development of Alzheimer’s disease. In the current study, we were interested in whether not only cardiovascular activity but also other types of physical activity, i.e., coordination training, were also positively associated with the volume of the hippocampus in older adults. For this purpose we first collected cross-sectional data on “metabolic fitness” (cardiovascular fitness and muscular strength) and “motor fitness” (e.g., balance, movement speed, fine coordination). Second, we performed a 12-month randomized controlled trial. Results revealed that motor fitness but not metabolic fitness was associated with hippocampal volume. After the 12-month intervention period, both, cardiovascular and coordination training led to increases in hippocampal volume. Our findings suggest that a high motor fitness level as well as different types of physical activity were beneficial to diminish age-related hippocampal volume shrinkage or even increase hippocampal volume.
How far is Europe from the Caucasus? National Images of Europe in the Minds of Georgian Students

Utilizing a mixed methods approach, survey and focus groups, the study shows that psychological distance of Georgian students to Europe is much smaller than the geographic one. 100 students from two Tbilisi universities filled out a questionnaire while 40 students provided qualitative data through four focus groups. We measured social distances towards ethnic and religious groups, some related to Europe and the United States, and others to minorities of Georgia or the country’s neighbors. The quantitative measure of social distances revealed that Georgian students feel closer to Europeans and Christian culture representatives than to their neighbors or minorities and non-Christian cultures. Qualitative data provided explanations for such distances: national images of Europeans and of minorities or neighboring countries’ representatives differ from each other; Georgian students favor European values and lifestyle more than those of their neighbors, and experience closer ties to Christian cultures.