Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expression of specific ionotropic glutamate and GABA-A receptor subunits is decreased in central amygdala of alcoholics

The central amygdala (CeA) has a role for mediating fear and anxiety responses. It is also involved in emotional imbalance caused by alcohol abuse and dependence and in regulating relapse to alcohol abuse. Growing evidences suggest that excitatory glutamatergic and inhibitory γ-aminobutyric acid-ergic (GABAergic) transmissions in the CeA are affected by chronic alcohol exposure. Human post-mortem CeA samples from male alcoholics (n = 9) and matched controls (n = 9) were assayed for the expression level of ionotropic glutamate and GABA-A receptors subunit mRNAs using quantitative real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-qPCR). Our data revealed that out of the 16 ionotropic glutamate receptor subunits, mRNAs encoding two AMPA [2-amino-3-(3-hydroxy-5-methyl-isoxazol-4-yl)propanoic acid] receptor subunits GluA1 and GluA4; one kainate receptor subunit GluK2; one NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptor subunit GluN2D and one delta receptor subunit GluD2 were significantly decreased in the CeA of alcoholics. In contrast, of the 19 GABA-A receptor subunits, only the mRNA encoding the α2 subunit was significantly down-regulated in the CeA of the alcoholics as compared with control subjects. Our findings imply that the down-regulation of specific ionotropic glutamate and GABA-A receptor subunits in the CeA of alcoholics may represent one of the molecular substrates underlying the new balance between excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission in alcohol dependence.
Applying quality improvement methods to address gaps in medicines reconciliation at transfers of care from an acute UK hospital

Objectives Reliable reconciliation of medicines at admission and discharge from hospital is key to reducing unintentional prescribing discrepancies at transitions of healthcare. We introduced a team approach to the reconciliation process at an acute hospital with the aim of improving the provision of information and documentation of reliable medication lists to enable clear, timely communications on discharge. Setting An acute 400-bedded teaching hospital in London, UK. Participants The effects of change were measured in a simple random sample of 10 adult patients a week on the acute admissions unit over 18 months. Interventions Quality improvement methods were used throughout. Interventions included education and training of staff involved at ward level and in the pharmacy department, introduction of medication documentation templates for electronic prescribing and for communicating information on medicines in discharge summaries co-designed with patient representatives. Results Statistical process control analysis showed reliable documentation (complete, verified and intentional changes clarified) of current medication on 49.2% of patients' discharge summaries. This appears to have improved (to 85.2%) according to a poststudy audit the year after the project end. Pharmacist involvement in discharge reconciliation increased significantly, and improvements in the numbers of medicines prescribed in error, or omitted from the discharge prescription, are demonstrated. Variation in weekly measures is seen throughout but particularly at periods of changeover of new doctors and introduction of new systems. Conclusions New processes led to a sustained increase in reconciled medications and, thereby, an improvement in the number of patients discharged from hospital with unintentional discrepancies (errors or omissions) on their discharge prescription. The initiatives were pharmacist-led but involved close working and shared understanding about roles and responsibilities between doctors, nurses, therapists, patients and their carers.
Talking about science in interactive whiteboard classrooms

Teachers using interactive whiteboards (IWB) effectively can engage and motivate students with a range of digital resources to explore science's role in making sense of our world and to construct knowledge of key scientific concepts. The case study research described in this paper illustrates how interactive pedagogies in the IWB classroom were used to support whole class substantive discourse about science. A sociocultural framework structured the exploration of the discourse surrounding four teachers and their students' use of IWB technology in their primary science classrooms. Action research methods and a professional learning intervention were used for both exploring and developing teachers' understanding of the interactive technology and its impact on the nature of classroom talk. Comparing video captured lessons with and without the use of the IWB provided some initial evidence of an increase in students' participation in substantive science conversations and exploratory talk. The preliminary analysis of the data summary across the four case studies suggested that the teachers were using more open questions, greater wait time and required greater participation from students. This research suggests that teachers' effective IWB pedagogy impacts positively on the way students talk about science. Seven principles of effective interactive pedagogy focused on enhancing discourse emerged from the action research. It is recommended that these principles be used with IWB technology to scaffold deep substantial science discourse, which is essential in developing students' scientific literacy.
Factors Influencing Consumers' Decision to Purchase Beef

Abstract The South Korean beef import market was deregulated in 2000. As the beef import quotas were lifted in January 2001, increased market opportunities became available for exporters. Beef exporters are allowed to have direct communication with beef merchandisers in South Korea, which enable them to respond to Korean consumer demand more effectively. Korean consumers apparently have a negative perception on the quality of imported beef. However, little information is available to guide international beef exporters in the design of an export market development program. This study used a consumer mail survey in order to examine the Korean consumer beef market. While this study is exploratory by nature, it goes beyond traditional demand analysis, and it aims to provide comprehensive information on the important factors affecting Korean consumers' beef purchasing behavior. Marketing implications for beef exporters are drawn.
Machine learning for finding bugs: An initial report

Static program analysis is a technique to analyse code without executing it, and can be used to find bugs in source code. Many open source and commercial tools have been developed in this space over the past 20 years. Scalability and precision are of importance for the deployment of static code analysis tools - numerous false positives and slow runtime both make the tool hard to be used by development, where integration into a nightly build is the standard goal. This requires one to identify a suitable abstraction for the static analysis which is typically a manual process and can be expensive. In this paper we report our findings on using machine learning techniques to detect defects in C programs. We use three offthe- shelf machine learning techniques and use a large corpus of programs available for use in both the training and evaluation of the results. We compare the results produced by the machine learning technique against the Parfait static program analysis tool used internally at Oracle by thousands of developers. While on the surface the initial results were encouraging, further investigation suggests that the machine learning techniques we used are not suitable replacements for static program analysis tools due to low precision of the results. This could be due to a variety of reasons including not using domain knowledge such as the semantics of the programming language and lack of suitable data used in the training process.
A comparison of currency crisis dating methods: East Asia 1970-2002

Generally, a currency crisis is defined to occur if an index of currency pressure exceeds a threshold. This paper compares several currency crisis dating methods adopting different definitions of currency pressure indexes and ad-hoc and extreme value based thresholds. We illustrate the methods with data of six East Asian countries for the January 1970? December 2002 period, and evaluate the methods on the basis of the IMF chronology of the Asia crisis in 1997-1998.
Topological susceptibility from the overlap

The chiral symmetry at finite lattice spacing of Ginsparg-Wilson fermionic actions constrains the renormalization of the lattice operators; in particular, the topological susceptibility does not require any renormalization, when using a fermionic estimator to define the topological charge. Therefore, the overlap formalism appears as an appealing candidate to study the continuum limit of the topological susceptibility while keeping the systematic errors under theoretical control. We present results for the SU(3) pure gauge theory using the index of the overlap Dirac operator to study the topology of the gauge configurations. The topological charge is obtained from the zero modes of the overlap and using a new algorithm for the spectral flow analysis. A detailed comparison with cooling techniques is presented. Particular care is taken in assessing the systematic errors. Relatively high statistics (500 to 1000 independent configurations) yield an extrapolated continuum limit with errors that are comparable with other methods. Our current value from the overlap is χ1/4 = 188±12±5 MeV.
Organizational commitment during organizational changes A longitudinal case study on acquired key employees

Purpose – Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) represent major organizational changes, and create traumatic, stressful situations to employees. The purpose of this paper is to study the acquired key employees' organizational commitment towards the acquiring organization during the post‐acquisition integration phase.Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a longitudinal single case study of a European‐acquisition within the high‐tech sector. Data are collected for nearly two years both with four repetitive quantitative surveys and 58 interviews.Findings – The results imply that the key employees perceive the organizational changes differently. In friendly acquisitions, key employees not only expect organizational changes but also they may have an active role in inducing changes. Moreover, the results imply that key employees' organizational commitment is closely linked to the prior role of the key employees in the acquired company, and how they perceive and experience the post‐acquisition integration phase.
Volunteer Tourism: Experiences that Make a Difference

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION i: Experiences that make a difference ii: Historical context of alternative tourism iii: Selves in the Tourism Experience iv: Operators, Communities and Volunteer Tourism v: The Santa Elena Experience vi: A new approach CHAPTER 2: ALTERNATIVE TOURISM EXPERIENCES v: Situating Volunteer Tourism Within the Context of the Alternative Tourism Experience vi: Commodification and the Tourism Industry vii: Volunteer Tourism and the Tourism Industry CHAPTER 3: VOLUNTEER TOURISM EXPERIENCES viii: Youth Challenge International (YCI) ix: Introducing the Interacting Elements x: The Ecotourism Element xi: The Volunteer Element xii: Serious Leisure Element xiii: The Elements and Interactionism CHAPTER 4: EXPLORING THE EXPERIENCE xiv: The Volunteers xv: Similarities and Variations xvi: Motivation xvii: Motivation Categories xviii: Summary of Motivation xix: How Do the Volunteers Define Themselves? xx: Constructing a Framework to Examine the Data CHAPTER 5: THE VOLUNTEER TOURIST'S EXPERIENCE - SELF AND IDENTITY xxi: The Relational Elements of the Alternative Tourism Experience xxii: Environment/Nature xxiii: Interaction/Exchange/Group xxiv: Primary Influences on the Self and Identity CHAPTER 6: THE SITE, SOCIAL VALUE AND THE SELF xxv: Social Value, Identity and the Alternative Tourism Experience CHAPTER 7: DEVELOPING THE SELF THROUGH THE VOLUNTEER TOURISM EXPERIENCE xxvi: Framing the experience xxvii: Personal development in volunteer tourism experiences xxviii: Personal Awareness and Learning xxix: Interpersonal Awareness and Learning xxx: Confidence xxxi: Self-Contentment xxxii: Conceptualising the development of self xxxiii: The selves of volunteer tourism CHAPTER 8: THE IMPACTS ON COMMUNITIES: MOVING BEYOND THE PASSING GAZE xxxiv: Resisting the impact of global capital in developing countries xxxv: The challenge of community involvement xxxvi: The quest for sustainability xxxvii: Empirical explorations of commodification in volunteer tourism a): 'World Expeditions': the market denying nature and traditional community b): 'Adventure World': market colonisation of local communities c): 'One World travel': guest-host dialogues beyond colonisation xxxviii: Natural resource conservation through volunteer tourism xxxix: Beyond the passing gaze CHAPTER 9: VOLUNTEER TOURISM: MOVING ON FROM THE EMPTY MEETING GROUND xxxx: The Self and Community xxxxi: Towards a sociology of volunteer tourism experiences
Low-Income Household Spending Patterns and Measures of Poverty. Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research

This report looks at spending patterns for food, housing, health care, and other categories of low-income households in 2005. It compares allocations of consumption across spending categories for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) households, eligible nonparticipating households, and ineligible low income households. It also analyzes how SNAP eligibility might change under an expenditure-based poverty threshold and explores savings and credit for these three groups.
Ureaplasma urealyticum and Mycoplasma hominis infection in women with urogenital diseases.

PURPOSE The aim of the study was to assess the incidence of Ureaplasma urealyticum (U. urealyticum) and Mycoplasma hominis (M. hominis) infection in women with urogenital diseases. MATERIAL AND METHODS M. hominis and U. urealyticum was assessed in 541 women from gynaecological and STD outpatient clinics, aged 18-55 years. A Mycoplasma IST 2 kit was used for biochemical determination of mycoplasmal infections (BioMerieux). Additionally, 248 of patients were examined for Chlamydia trachomatis (C. trachomatis), Trichomonas vaginalis (T. vaginalis) and Candida albicans (C. albicans) infection. C. trachomatis was detected by direct immunofluorescence method. The standard culture methods (Biomed) were applied to detect T. vaginalis and C. albicans. RESULTS U. urealyticum was detected in 161 (29.8%), and M. hominis in 20 (3.7%) women. U. urealyticum infection alone was observed in 37/79 (46.8%), and 1/8 (12.5%) patient had only M. hominis infection. The U. urealyticum infection showed most frequent coexistence with C. albicans (29.1%), and less frequent with C. trachomatis (13.9%) and M. hominis infection (10.1%). The highest percentage of mycoplasma-positive cultures was found in patients of STD clinic and in infertile women. In patients with ureaplasmal infection only the most common clinical symptom was vaginal discharge and vulval/vaginal irritation. In 8.1% of the women, the course of U urealyticum infection was asymptomatic. CONCLUSIONS The incidence rate of genitourinary infections due to U urealyticum was significantly higher as compared to M. hominis infection. Sexual mycoplasmal infections were most frequently reported in the group of patients of STD clinic and correlated with age and sexual activity.
A Generalized Additive Soil Depth Model based upon Topographic and Land Cover Attributes

Soil depth is an important input parameter in hydrological and ecological modeling. Presently, the soil depth data available in national soil databases (STATSGO, SSURGO) is provided as averages within generalized land units. Spatial uncertainty within these units limits their applicability for spatially distributed modeling. This work reports a statistical model for prediction of soil depth in a semiarid mountainous watershed that is based upon topographic and other landscape attributes. Soil depth was surveyed by driving a rod into the ground until refusal at geo-referenced locations selected to represent the range of topographic and land cover variations in Dry Creek Experimental Watershed, Boise, Idaho. The soil depth survey consisted of a model calibration set, measured at 819 locations over 8 sub-watersheds, and a model testing set, measured at 130 locations randomly distributed throughout the remainder of the watershed. Topographic attributes were derived from a Digital Elevation Model. Land cover attributes were derived from Landsat remote sensing images and high resolution aerial photographs. A Generalized Additive Model was developed to predict soil depth over the watershed from these attributes. This model explained about 50% of the soil depth spatial variation and is an important improvement towards solving the need in distributed modeling for distributed soil depth data.
The convex optimization approach to regret minimization

A well studied and general setting for prediction and decision making is regret minimization in games. Recently the design of algorithms in this setting has been influenced by tools from convex optimization. In this chapter we describe the recent framework of online convex optimization which naturally merges optimization and regret minimization. We describe the basic algorithms and tools at the heart of this framework, which have led to the resolution of fundamental questions of learning in games.
International Transmission and Monetary Policy Cooperation

We use a version of the New Area-Wide Model (NAWM) developed at the ECB in order to quantify the gains from monetary policy cooperation. The model is calibrated in order to match a set of empirical moments. We then derive the cooperative and (open-loop) Nash monetary policies, assuming that the central banks’ objectives is to maximize the welfare of the households. Our results show that given the current degree of openness of the US and euro area economies, the gains from monetary policy coordination are small, amounting to 0.03 percent of steady-state consumption. Nevertheless, the gains appear to be sensitive to the degree of openness and further economic integration between the two regions could generate sizable gains from cooperation. For example, increasing the trade shares to 32 percent of GDP in both regions, the gains from cooperation rise to about 1 percent of steady-state consumption. By decomposing the sources of the gains from cooperation with respect to the various shocks, we show that mark-up shocks are the most important source for gains from international monetary policy cooperation. JEL Classification: E32, F41, F42
Demethylation restores SN38 sensitivity in cells with acquired resistance to SN38 derived from human cervical squamous cancer cells

Using seven monoclonal SN38-resistant subclones established from ME180 human cervical squamous cell carcinoma cells, we examined the demethylation effects of 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine (5-aza-CdR) on the SN38-sensitivity of the cells as well as the expression of death-associated protein kinase (DAPK) in the SN38-resistant cells. The DAPK expression levels were evaluated among parent ME180 cells, SN38-resistant ME180 cells and cisplatin-resistant ME180 cells by methylation-specific DAPK-PCR, quantitative RT-PCR and western blot analysis. The SN38-resistant cells co-treated with SN38 and 5-aza-CdR strongly exhibited enhanced SN38-sensitivities resembling those found in the parent cells. In the SN38-resistant subclones, no relationships were found between the restored SN38 sensitivity and hypermethylation of the DAPK promoter, DAPK mRNA expression, DAPK protein expression and induction of DAPK protein after 5-aza-CdR treatment, unlike the strong suppression of 5-aza-CdR-induced DAPK protein expression in the cisplatin-resistant subclones. These findings indicate that reversibly methylated molecules, but not DAPK, may regulate SN38 resistance, and that demethylating agents can be strong sensitizing anticancer chemotherapeutic drugs for SN38-resistant cancers.
Radial Gas Flows in Colliding Galaxies: Connecting Simulations and Observations

We investigate the detailed response of gas to the formation of transient and long-lived dynamical structures induced in the early stages of a disk-disk collision and identify observational signatures of radial gas inflow through a detailed examination of the collision simulation of an equal-mass bulge-dominated galaxy. Our analysis and discussion mainly focuses on the evolution of the diffuse and dense gas in the early stages of the collision, when the two disks are interacting but have not yet merged. Stars respond to the tidal interaction by forming both transient arms and long-lived m = 2 bars, but the gas response is more transient, flowing directly toward the central regions within about 108 yr after the initial collision. The rate of inflow declines when more than half of the total gas supply reaches the inner few kiloparsecs, where the gas forms a dense nuclear ring inside the stellar bar. The average gas inflow rate to the central 1.8 kpc is ~7 M☉ yr-1 with a peak rate of 17 M☉ yr-1. Gas with high volume density is found in the inner parts of the postcollision disks at size scales close to the spatial resolution of the simulations, and this may be a direct result of shocks traced by the discontinuity in the gas velocity field. The evolution of gas in a bulgeless progenitor galaxy is also discussed, and a possible link to the "chain galaxy" population observed at high redshifts is inferred. The evolution of the structural parameters such as asymmetry and concentration of both stars and gas are studied in detail. Further, a new structure parameter (the compactness parameter K) that traces the evolution of the size scale of the gas relative to the stellar disk is introduced, and this may be a useful tracer to determine the merger chronology of colliding systems. Noncircular gas kinematics driven by the perturbation of the nonaxisymmetric structure can produce distinct emission features in the "forbidden velocity quadrants" of the position-velocity diagram (PVD). The dynamical mass calculated using the rotation curve derived from fitting the emission envelope of the PVD can determine the true mass to within 20%-40%. The evolution of the molecular fraction (M/M) is a potential tracer to quantitatively assign the age of the interaction, but the application to real systems may require additional observational diagnostics to properly assess the exact chronology of the merger evolution.
A Triaxial Accelerometer-Based Physical-Activity Recognition via Augmented-Signal Features and a Hierarchical Recognizer

Physical-activity recognition via wearable sensors can provide valuable information regarding an individual's degree of functional ability and lifestyle. In this paper, we present an accelerometer sensor-based approach for human-activity recognition. Our proposed recognition method uses a hierarchical scheme. At the lower level, the state to which an activity belongs, i.e., static, transition, or dynamic, is recognized by means of statistical signal features and artificial-neural nets (ANNs). The upper level recognition uses the autoregressive (AR) modeling of the acceleration signals, thus, incorporating the derived AR-coefficients along with the signal-magnitude area and tilt angle to form an augmented-feature vector. The resulting feature vector is further processed by the linear-discriminant analysis and ANNs to recognize a particular human activity. Our proposed activity-recognition method recognizes three states and 15 activities with an average accuracy of 97.9% using only a single triaxial accelerometer attached to the subject's chest.