Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Ultra-Sensitive Immunoassay for Quantifying Biomarkers in Breast Tumor Tissue

Urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and plasminogen activator inhibitor type-1 (PAI-1) have been validated at the highest level of evidence as clinical biomarkers of prognosis in breast cancer. The American Society of Clinical Oncology recommends using uPA and PAI-1 levels in breast tumors for deciding whether patients with newly diagnosed node-negative breast cancer can forgo adjuvant chemotherapy. The sole validated method for quantifying uPA and PAI-1 levels in breast tumor tissue is a colorimetric ELISA assay that takes 3 days to complete and requires 100-300 mg of fresh or frozen tissue. In this study we describe a new assay method for quantifying PAI-1 levels in human breast tumor tissue. This assay combines pressure-cycling technology to extract PAI-1 from breast tumor tissue with a highly sensitive liposome polymerase chain reaction immunoassay for quantification of PAI-1 in the tissue extract. The new PAI-1 assay method reduced the total assay time to one day and improved assay sensitivity and dynamic range by >100, compared to ELISA.
Oral Administration of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii Decreased the Incidence of Severe Diarrhea and Related Mortality Rate and Increased Weight Gain in Preweaned Dairy Heifers

Probiotics are a promising alternative to improve food animal productivity and health. However, scientific evidence that specific microbes can be used to benefit animal health and performance is limited. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of administering a live culture of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii to newborn dairy calves on subsequent growth, health, and fecal microbiome. Initially, a safety trial was conducted using 30 newborn bull calves to assess potential adverse effects of the oral and rectal administration of F. prausnitzii to neonatal calves. No adverse reactions, such as increased body temperature or heart and respiratory rates, were observed after the administration of the treatments. All calves survived the experimental period, and there was no difference in fecal consistency score, attitude, appetite or dehydration between the treatment groups. The rectal route was not an efficient practice while the oral route ensures that the full dose is administered to the treated calves. Subsequently, a randomized field trial was completed in a commercial farm with preweaned calves. A total of 554 Holstein heifers were assigned to one of two treatment groups: treated calves (FPTRT) and non-treated calves (control). Treated calves received two oral doses of F. prausnitzii, one at treatment assignment (1st week) and another one week later. The FPTRT group presented significantly lower incidence of severe diarrhea (3.1%) compared with the control group (6.8%). Treated calves also had lower mortality rate associated with severe diarrhea (1.5%) compared to control calves (4.4%). Furthermore, FPTRT calves gained significantly more weight, 4.4 kg over the preweaning period, than controls calves. The relative abundance of F. prausnitzii in the fecal microbiota was significantly higher in the 3rd and 5th weeks of life of FPTRT calves than of the control calves, as revealed by sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. Our findings showed that oral administration of F. prausnitzii improves gastrointestinal health and growth of preweaned calves, supporting its use as a potential probiotic.
Menstrual taboos and social rigidity

thoroughout most of a woman's life. The restrictions range from generally held beliefs that menstrual blood is somehow dangerous through a wide vari? ety of limitations on personal behavior, requirements that men and male things be avoided, and, in some cases, physical seclusion in a hut or segregated area. In their long-term and periodic aspect they differ from initiation ceremonies that occur once in a lifetime, although there is considerable overlap in the content of the customs. Moreover, menstrual taboos are not obviously directed toward the enhancement of the individual as are most initia? tion ceremonies. In their degrading aspect they are closer to the customs of social separation and abasement imposed on ethnic groups and low-caste persons, except, of course, that the latter apply at all times. Actually, the periodicity of menstrual taboos, while helpful for a prelimi? nary operational definition, is a secondary problem. It may be that some of the restrictions apply at all times and are simply not reported. It may be also that menstruation is not the only signal for the observance of restrictions on female behavior. At any rate, there is no necessary relationship between the physical facts of menstruation and the taboo customs, as is demonstrated by the widespread nonoccurrence of the latter. Like skin color, the particular stimulus is used to hang the customs on, but another cue might conceivably just as well have been found.
Regular bipartite graphs are antimagic

A labeling of a graph G is a bijection from E(G) to the set {1, 2,… |E(G)|}. A labeling is antimagic if for any distinct vertices u and v, the sum of the labels on edges incident to u is different from the sum of the labels on edges incident to v. We say a graph is antimagic if it has an antimagic labeling. In 1990, Hartsfield and Ringel conjectured that every connected graph other than K2 is antimagic. In this article, we show that every regular bipartite graph (with degree at least 2) is antimagic. Our technique relies heavily on the Marriage Theorem. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 60: 173–182, 2009
Power Can Bias Impression Processes: Stereotyping Subordinates by Default and by Design

Powerholders may engage in two stereotyping processes: (a) by default, inattention to stereotype-inconsistent information, due to lack of dependency, and (b) by design, effortful attention to stereotype-consistent information, due to explicit control. Study 1 manipulated control (not dependency) over internship applicants; powerful decision-makers increased attention to stereotypic attributes, consistent with stereotyping by design. Study 2 measured differences in trait dominance as an analog to situational control, replicating Study 1. Study 3 separately manipulated perceiver control and dependency; powerful perceivers increased attention to powerless targets’ stereotypic attributes (by design) and also decreased attention to counter-stereotypic attributes (by default). Study 4 compared powerful perceivers’ ratings of potential subordinates to their own prior ratings of target categories and target traits. Relative to the powerless, powerful perceivers’ impressions were based significantly less on target traits, supporting the attention results.
If given the choice, would you choose to be a man or a woman?

Recent research in North America has failed to find evidence of sexist attitudes on measures of explicit sexual attitudes. This suggests that social desirability may affect self-reports of gender-related attitudes. This study used an indirect means to assess gender-related attitudes—individual’s interest in experiencing being the other gender. Participants were 209 individuals (107 men, 102 women) who completed an online survey. Participants indicated whether they would choose to be reincarnated as a man or a woman and whether they would choose to experience being the other gender on a temporary basis. They also provided the reason for their choices. We found that 30% indicated that they would choose to be the other gender if reincarnated, 56% for a week, 67% for a day, and 65% for an hour. There were no significant gender differences. Content analysis of responses indicated three primary reasons for choosing to experience being the other gender: wanting a new experience or perspective; the perceived positives of being the other gender; and, the perceived negatives of being their current gender. It also yielded three primary reasons for choosing not to experience being the other gender: desire to maintain the status quo; the perceived positives of their current gender; and, the perceived negatives of the other gender. Many participants also identified the temporary nature of the change as important to their decisions regarding a time-limited experience of being the other gender. The results are discussed in terms of the insights they provide on implicit gender-related attitudes.
JFA modeling with left-to-right structure and a new backend for text-dependent speaker recognition

This paper introduces a new formulation of Joint Factor Analysis (JFA) for text-dependent speaker recognition based on left-to-right modeling with tied mixture HMMs. It accommodates many different ways of extracting multiple features to characterize speakers (features may or may not be HMM state-dependent, they may be modeled with subspace or factorial priors and these priors maybe imputed from text-dependent or text-independent background data). We feed these features to a new, trainable classifier for text-dependent speaker recognition in a manner which is broadly analogous to the i-vector/PLDA cascade in text-independent speaker recognition. We have evaluated this approach on a challenging proprietary dataset consisting of telephone recordings of short English and Urdu pass-phrases collected in Pakistan. By fusing results obtained with multiple front ends, equal error rate of around 2% are achievable.
A Mixed Methods Study of Special Education Teachers' Knowledge of Reading Instruction and Perceptions Concerning Their Preparation to Teach Reading

Significant changes in requirements for reading instruction and special education teacher preparation have occurred in recent years due to provisions found in the No Child Left Behind legislation of 2001 and the 2004 Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. This study examined the preparation for reading instruction that prospective special education teachers received during their teacher preparation and their beliefs concerning their preparation. Reading instruction preparation was examined in the context of the knowledge and skills associated with reading instruction acquired in two required university reading courses. Using a mixed methods sequential explanatory design-participant-selection model (Creswell & Piano Clark, 2010), the role of reading courses taken by current and prospective special education teachers on their knowledge and beliefs related to reading instruction was investigated. Multiple choice and constructive responses on a reading credentialing exam described the knowledge prospective special education teacher have in in four knowledge domains. Further, an additional literacy related course did not significantly predict reading knowledge as measured by the credentialing exam. A questionnaire (n=28) on special education teachers' beliefs concerning their preparation was conducted with follow up semistructured interviews (n=10) with two extreme case cohorts that represented teachers with high knowledge and low knowledge of reading instruction. Quantitative findings suggested that prospective special education teachers acquire significant content knowledge of reading instruction in their reading courses, but may lack the procedural knowledge to apply their knowledge. Moreover, responses to questionnaire items on teachers' beliefs concerning their reading courses suggested that teachers believed their SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTIONS OF READING INSTRUCTION iii preparation resulted in a lack of procedural knowledge related to creating flexible grouping and differentiating reading instruction for struggling readers. Follow up semistructured interviews identified similar concerns with delivering the reading instruction necessary to address emergent literacy across grade levels and disability categories. Additional reading instructional courses, field experiences, and practicums are recommended to address the need for differentiated special education preparation in the area of reading instruction. SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTIONS OF READING INSTRUCTION iv
A Novel Approach to Generate Test Cases from UML Activity Diagrams

Model-based test case generation is gaining acceptance to the software practitioners. Advantages of this are the early detection of faults, reducing software development time etc. In recent times, researchers have considered difierent UML diagrams for generating test cases. Few work on the test case generation using activity diagrams is reported in literatures. However, the existing work consider activity diagrams in method scope and mainly follow UML 1:x for modeling. In this paper, we present an approach of generating test cases from activity diagrams using UML 2:0 syntax and with use case scope. We consider a test coverage criterion, called activity path coverage criterion. The test cases generated using our approach are capable of detecting more faults like synchronization faults, loop faults unlike the existing approaches.
Automatizing alphabet arithmetic: I. Is extended practice necessary to produce automaticity?

Four experiments tested the necessity of extended practice in producing automaticity in an alphabet-arithmetic task in which subjects verified equations of the form A + 2 = C, asking whether C was two letters down the alphabet from A. Experiment 1 trained subjects on 40 alphabet-arithmetic facts for 12 sessions, demonstrating that extended practice was sufficient to produce automaticity. Experiment 2 produced the same degree of automaticity in a single session by having subjects rote memorize 6 facts, suggesting that extended practice is not necessary. Experiments 3 and 4 explored procedural differences between Experiments 1 and 2 to determine what was responsible for the large difference in the time required to develop automaticity. Experiment 3 compared learning rates with different numbers of facts (6, 12. and 18), and found learning rate to depend on the number of presentations of individual items, not on the number of items to be learned. Experiment 4 compared learning by performing the task (as in Experiment 1) with learning by remembering the facts (as in Experiment 2) and found no important differences between them. The results of all 4 experiments cannot be predicted by approaches that define automaticity in terms of resources or by listing properties, although they are readily predictable from theories that assume memory retrieval is the process that underlies automaticity. Is extended practice necessary to produce automaticity? Can automaticity to be produced without it? Extended practice is certainly sufficient. Many of the properties of automaticity can be produced by extended practice (e.g., Logan, 1978; Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977) or by using materials such as familiar words that have a history of extended practice outside the laboratory (e.g., Neely, 1977). However, sufficiency does not imply necessity. Existing data provide no answer. Common theoretical approaches to automaticity provide no answer either. Approaches that define atuomaticity in terms of manifest properties, such as speed, effortlessness, and autonomy (property-list approaches), are stipulative or descriptive but not predictive (e.g., Hasher & Zacks, 1979; LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977). They provide no underlying mechanism from which predictions about the properties of automaticity or necessity of extended practice can be deduced.
Energy resolved ultrafast relaxation dynamics close to the band edge of low-temperature grown GaAs

We investigate the relaxation dynamics of photogenerated carriers in low-temperature grown GaAs by femtosecond pump-probe measurements. The carrier dynamics in the vicinity of the band edge is disentangled in a two-color technique. The filling of shallow bound states close beneath the band edge is resolved. A temporal delay in the occupation of these states as well as a large optical nonlinearity points towards microscopic potential fluctuations forming these states.
How Should a Firm Go Public? A Dynamic Model of the Choice between Fixed-Price Offerings and Auctions in Ipos and Privatizations

We develop a theoretical analysis of the choice of firms between fixed-price offerings and uniform-price auctions for selling shares in IPOs and privatizations. We consider a setting in which a firm goes public by selling a fraction of its equity in an IPO market where insiders have private information about intrinsic firm value. Outsiders can, however, produce information at a cost about the firm before bidding for shares. Firm insiders care about the extent of information production by outsiders, since this information will be reflected in the secondary market price, giving a higher secondary market price for higher intrinsic-value firms. We show that auctions and fixed-price offerings have different properties in terms of inducing information production. Thus, in many situations, firms prefer to go public using fixed-price offerings rather than IPO auctions in equilibrium. We relate the equilibrium choice between fixed-price offerings and IPO auctions to various characteristics of the firm going public. Unlike the existing literature, our model is able to explain not only the widely-documented empirical finding that underpricing is lower in IPO auctions than in fixed-price offerings (e.g., Derrien and Womack (2000)), but also the fact that, despite this, auctions are losing market share around the world. Our model thus suggests a resolution to the above "IPO auction puzzle," and indicates how current IPO auction mechanisms can be reformed to become more competitive with fixed-price offerings. Our results also provide various other hypotheses for further empirical research.
Substitutions in the interdomain loop of the Tn10 TetA efflux transporter alter tetracycline resistance and substrate specificity.

Cysteine replacement of Asp190, Glu192 and Ser201 residues in the cytoplasmic interdomain loop of the TetA(B) tetracycline efflux antiporter from Tn10 reduces tetracycline resistance [Tamura, N. , Konishi, S. , Iwaki, S. , Kimura-Someya, T. , Nada, S. & Yamaguchi, A. (2001). J Biol Chem 276, 20330-20339]. It was found that these Cys substitutions altered the substrate specificity of TetA(B), increasing the relative resistance to doxycycline and minocycline over that to tetracycline by three- to sixfold. Substitutions of Asp190 and Glu192 by Ala, Asn and Gln also impaired the ability of TetA(B) to mediate tetracycline resistance while Ser201Ala and Ser201Thr substitutions did not. A Leu9Phe substitution in the first transmembrane helix of TetA(B) suppressed the Ser201Cys mutation, undoing the alterations in resistance and specificity. That the interdomain loop might contact substrate during transport, as is suggested from its role in substrate specificity, is unexpected considering that the primary sequence in the loop is not conserved among a group of otherwise homologous TetA proteins. However, in the interdomain loop of 11 of 14 homologous TetA efflux proteins, computational analysis revealed a short alpha-helix, which includes some residues affecting activity and substrate specificity. Perhaps this conserved secondary structure accounts for the role of the non-conserved interdomain loop in TetA function.
Long-term meditation is associated with increased gray matter density in the brain stem

Extensive practice involving sustained attention can lead to changes in brain structure. Here, we report evidence of structural differences in the lower brainstem of participants engaged in the long-term practice of meditation. Using magnetic resonance imaging, we observed higher gray matter density in lower brain stem regions of experienced meditators compared with age-matched nonmeditators. Our findings show that long-term practitioners of meditation have structural differences in brainstem regions concerned with cardiorespiratory control. This could account for some of the cardiorespiratory parasympathetic effects and traits, as well as the cognitive, emotional, and immunoreactive impact reported in several studies of different meditation practices.
D″ discontinuity structure beneath the North Atlantic from Scd observations

We analyzed transverse and radial component recordings from the 2010 M6.3 southern Spain earthquake (depth = 620 km) recorded on 370 broadband stations in North America. We grouped these seismograms into subarrays and applied fourth root vespa processing (vespagram analysis) in order to enhance low‐amplitude arrivals. These vespagrams show clear Scd arrivals which indicate the existence of the D″ discontinuity beneath the North Atlantic Ocean (45–60°N, 45–55°W). These observations are best fit with a +2–4% velocity increase at the top of the D″ discontinuity at a height above the core‐mantle boundary of 304 ± 14 km. We do not observe Scd arrivals at the eastern end of our study region which is consistent with the presence of the easternmost edge of the ancient Farallon plate.
Joint bandwidth and power allocation in wireless multi-user decode-and-forward relay networks

The resource allocation problem in wireless multi-user decode-and-forward (DF) relay networks is considered. The conventional resource allocation schemes based on the equal distribution of bandwidth and/or power may not be efficient for the networks with constrained/limited power and bandwidth resources at both sources and relays. Therefore, joint bandwidth and power allocation schemes are proposed based on (i) the maximization of the sum capacity of all users (source-destination pairs); (ii) the maximization of the worst user capacity; (iii) the minimization of the total power consumptions for all users. It is shown that the proposed problem formulations can be transformed to equivalent convex optimization problems. Therefore, the joint bandwidth and power allocation problems can be efficiently solved. The performance improvements offered by the proposed schemes are demonstrated by simulations.
Discussion of ‘ A Bayesian generalized linear model for the Bornhuetter-Ferguson method of claims reserving ’

Professor Verrall nicely illustrates how Bayesian models can be applied to claims reserving within the framework of Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) and how they lead to posterior predictive distributions of quantities of interest. In this discussion we apply a Bayesian model in the context of discounted loss reserves. The outcomes of this approach are compared with results on approximations for the distribution of the discounted loss reserve when the run-off triangle is modelled by a GLM. These approximations are based on the concepts of comonotonicity and convex order and are explained in full details in Hoedemakers et al. (2003) (for lognormal claims reserving models) and Hoedemakers et al. (2004) (for claims reserving using GLMs). The comonotonicity approach has been shown to provide elegant solutions to various other actuarial and financial problems involving the distribution of a sum of dependent random variables (check www.kuleuven.ac.be/insurance research papers for more illustrations). We realize that the Bayesian posterior predictive distribution is a very general workhorse, which takes into account all sources of uncertainty in the model formulation and is applicable to different statistical domains, whereas our approximations originate from a specific actuarial context. We want to illustrate however that the predictive distribution based on the comonotonic bounds provides results that are close to the results obtained via MCMC. The main advantage of the bounds is that several risk measures such as percentiles (VaRs), expected shortfalls (stop-loss premia) and TailVaRs can be calculated easily from it.