Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real Exchange Rates in Developing Countries: Are Balassa-Samuelson Effects Present?

There is surprisingly little empirical research on whether Balassa-Samuelson effects can explain the long-run behavior of real exchange rates in developing countries. This paper presents new evidence on this issue based on a panel-data sample of 16 developing countries. The paper finds that the traded-nontraded productivity differential is a significant determinant of the relative price of nontraded goods, and the relative price in turn exerts a significant effect on the real exchange rate. The terms of trade also influence the real exchange rate. These results provide strong verification of Balassa-Samuelson effects for developing countries
Minimal Consistent Subset Selection as Integer Nonlinear Programming Problem

The minimal consistent subset selection is a solution of high computational demands problem of the nearest neighbor decision system. This paper presents a new approach that aims to make the problem more clearly by stating it as a constrained optimization problem, called "integer nonlinear programming problem (INLP)". In this context, we propose method that formulates the minimal consistent subset selection problem as 0-1 integer nonlinear programming problem. We show experimental result of the minimal consistent subset of "IRIS dataset", obtained by solving its constrained optimization model. The results obtained suggest that the approach offers exactly optimal solution of the problem
THE IMPACTS OF BYPASSES ON SMALL- AND MEDIUM-SIZED COMMUNITIES: AN ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS

A relief route is a segment of a highway that moves traffic around the central business district of a city. Planners perceive it as a means of enhancing mobility and often associate regional economic progress with construction of bypasses. This paper examines the economic impacts of highway relief routes on small- and medium-size communities in Texas. Per capita sales in four different industry sectors were chosen as the indicators of impact. The models suggest that the bypassed cities suffered a loss in per capita sales in all four industrial sectors considered. The magnitude of the traffic volume diverted appeared to be greatest determinant of the impact. The overall impacts of the bypass were the most negative for gasoline service stations and the least for service industries. The impacts were less negative for cities that had high per capita traffic volumes. In addition, city demographics, regional trends, and proximity to a large city were estimated to have important impacts on the local economy. The industrial sectors considered for analysis represent only a portion of the total economy of the city. Therefore, negative impacts to these sectors do not necessarily mean that the economy as a whole suffers.
LOW-ERROR AND AREA-EFFICIENT FIXEDWIDTH MULTIPLIER BY USING MINOR INPUT CORRECTION

: In this paper, we describe a new novel algorithm for design of low power an hardware efficient error compensation circuit by using the dual group minor input correction vector to lower input correction vector compensation error. The on chip soc applications increase the capacity of data transfer that can be utilizing the symmetric property of the minor input correction vector, and complex hardware of the error compensation circuit can be lowered. The error compensation circuit mainly from the “outer” partial products, the hardware complexity only increases slightly as the multiplier input bits increase. Real time signal processing requires high accuracy fixed width multiplier with reduced circuit complexity. In the majority of the digital signal processing applications critical operations are multiplication and accumulation. By utilizing the symmetry property of minor input correction, complexity of error compensation circuit can be further lowered even the number of multiplier bits increases. Directly truncating the final product of multiplier in order to obtain the fixed width multiplier results more truncation error. To compensate the truncation error, error compensation value is obtained from outer partial products. Modified error compensation circuit mainly reduces the mean square error introduced in the final product of the proposed fixed width multiplier.
Prevalencija sustavnih bolesti i lijekova u bolesnika s oralnim lihenom planusom the Prevalence of Systemic diseases and Medications in Patients with oral lichen Planus

Adresa za dopisivanje Prof.dr.sc. Marinka Mravak-Stipetic Zavod za oralnu medicinu Stomatoloskog fakulteta Sveucilista u Zagrebu Gunduliceva 5, 10000 Zagreb Tel: +385 1 4802114 Fax: +385 1 4802159 e-mail:mravak@sfzg.hr Sažetak Lichen planus je kronicna imunosna upalna bolest koja cesto zahvaca sluznicu usne supljine. Sustavne bolesti i lijekovi smatraju se precipitirajucim cimbenicima u njegovom nastanku. Svrha rada: ispitati prevalenciju sustavnih bolesti i lijekova u bolesnika s oralnim lihenom planusom(OLP) i utvrditi njihovu međusobnu povezanost. Materijal i metode: anamnesticki podatci uzeti su retrospektivno iz medicinskih kartona 145 bolesnika s OLP-om od cega 104 žene i 41 muskarca koji su radi lijecenja OLP-a upuceni na Zavod za oralnu medicinu. U svih je bolesnika dijagnoza OLPa postavljena na temelju klinickih i histopatoloskih kriterija. Podatci o sustavnim bolestima i lijekovima u bolesnika s OLP-om bilježeni su za period od dvije godine (jesen 2007.jesen 2009.) i uspoređeni sa prevalencijom sustavnih bolesti i najcesce koristenih lijekova u bolesnika s oralnom leukoplakijom (LPL) kao i s podatcima opce populacije prema nacionalnom registru bolesti. Svi su podatci obrađeni primjenom χ testa, s razinom znacajnosti od p<0,05. Rezultati: sustavne bolesti imalo je 77,9% bolesnika s OLP-om; znacajno vise nego bolesnika s LPL, pri cemu je najucestalija bolest bila hipertenzija. Hipertenzija je najucestalija bolest u opcoj populaciji prema podatcima iz nacionalnog registra. Zakljucak: sustavne bolesti ucestalije su u populaciji pacijenata s OLP-om u odnosu na LPL, pri cemu se veca prevalencija hipertenzije među bolesnicima s OLP-om ne može smatrati etioloskim cimbenikom za razvoj OLP-a jer hipertenzija prevalira i u opcoj populaciji. Kljucne rijeci oralni lichen planus; leukoplakija; hipertenzija; sustavne bolesti 1 Zavod za Oralnu medicinu Stomatoloskog fakulteta Sveucilista u Zagrebu Department of Oral Medicine, School of Dental Medicine, University of Zagreb 2 Zavod za medicinsku statistiku, epidemiologiju i medicinsku informatiku, Skola narodnog zdravlja Andrija Stampar, Zagreb Department of Medical Statistics, Epidemiology and Medical Informatics, Andrija Stampar School of Public Health, Zagreb
Distributed power allocation for interfering wireless links based on channel information partitioning

Network-wide optimization of transmit power with the goal of maximizing the total throughput, promises significant system capacity gains in interference-limited data networks. Finding distributed solutions to this global optimization problem however, remains a challenging task. In this work, we first focus on the maximization of the weighted sum-rate capacity, as this allows the incorporation of QoS criteria in the objective function. For the case of two links, we are able to analytically characterize the optimal solution to the weighted sum-rate maximization problem. However, computing the optimal solution requires centralized knowledge of network information. We thus formulate a framework for distributed power optimization valid for N mutually interfering links, based on the concept of channel state partitioning. By assuming instantaneous knowledge of local information and statistical knowledge of non-local information, we derive a distributed power allocation algorithm, which we first analyze for the case of N = 2. Although a gain is observed over equal power allocation, the distributed algorithm shows a performance gap as compared to a centralized solution, as expected. We show however, that minimal information message passing (in this case one bit) between interfering links can help reduce this gap substantially. Finally, we also propose a method to incorporate user scheduling into the distributed power allocation algorithm.
Hippocampal CA3 NMDA Receptors Are Crucial for Adaptive Timing of Trace Eyeblink Conditioned Response

Classical conditioning of the eyeblink reflex is a simple form of associative learning for motor responses. To examine the involvement of hippocampal CA3 NMDA receptors (NRs) in nonspatial associative memory, mice lacking an NR1 subunit selectively in adult CA3 pyramidal cells [CA3-NR1 knock-out (KO) mice] were subjected to eyeblink conditioning paradigms. Mice received paired presentations of an auditory conditioned stimulus (CS) and a periorbital shock unconditioned stimulus (US). With repeated presentation of the CS followed by the US, wild-type mice learned to blink in anticipation of the US before its onset. We first confirmed that wild-type mice require an intact hippocampus in the trace version of eyeblink conditioning in which the CS and US do not overlap, creating a stimulus-free time gap of 500 ms. Under the same condition, CA3-NR1 KO mice successfully acquired conditioned responses (CRs) during the 10 d acquisition sessions, whereas the extinction of CRs was impaired on the first day of extinction sessions. Importantly, CA3-NR1 KO mice were impaired in the formation of an adaptively timed CR during the first five trials in the daily acquisition sessions. The aberrantly timed CR was also observed in the extinction sessions in accordance with the impaired extinction of CRs. These results indicate that CA3-NR1 KO mice are unable to rapidly retrieve adaptive CR timing, suggesting that CA3 NRs play a crucial role in the memory of adaptive CR timing in trace conditioning.
2 International Journal of Alzheimer ’ s Disease 2 . Structural Organization and Toxicological Properties of the APOE Protein 2

Alzheimer’s disease (AD)—the most common type of dementia among the elderly—represents one of the most challenging and urgent medical mysteries affecting our aging population. Although dominant inherited mutation in genes involved in the amyloid metabolism can elicit familial AD, the overwhelming majority of AD cases, dubbed sporadic AD, do not display this Mendelian inheritance pattern. Apolipoprotein E (APOE), the main lipid carrier protein in the central nervous system, is the only gene that has been robustly and consistently associated with AD risk. The purpose of the current paper is thus to highlight the pleiotropic roles and the structure-function relationship of APOE to stimulate both the functional characterization and the identification of novel lipid homeostasis-related molecular targets involved in AD.
Unified image/bitstream analysis for the robust decoding of compressed video sequences for wireless networks

This paper is concerned with the problem of error detection and correction of MPEG-4 video streams transmitted over lossy networks. The problem is first defined and some relevant detail of the MPEG-4 syntax is presented. The difficulties encountered in articulating this problem within a unified Bayesian framework are explored and two separate frameworks for dealing with error detection and error correction are then presented, along with some results. The paper concludes with some comments on the techniques used and pointers to future plans.
Characterisation of K+ Channels in Human Fetoplacental Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells

Adequate blood flow through placental chorionic plate resistance arteries (CPAs) is necessary for oxygen and nutrient transfer to the fetus and a successful pregnancy. In non-placental vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs), K+ channels regulate contraction, vascular tone and blood flow. Previous studies showed that K+ channel modulators alter CPA tone, but did not distinguish between effects on K+ channels in endothelial cells and SMCs. In this study, we developed a preparation of freshly isolated CPASMCs of normal pregnancy and investigated K+ channel expression and function. CPASMCs were isolated from normal human term placentas using enzymatic digestion. Purity and phenotype was confirmed with immunocytochemistry. Whole-cell patch clamp was used to assess K+ channel currents, and mRNA and protein expression was determined in intact CPAs and isolated SMCs with RT-PCR and immunostaining. Isolated SMCs expressed α-actin but not CD31, a marker of endothelial cells. CPASMCs and intact CPAs expressed h-caldesmon and non-muscle myosin heavy chain-2; phenotypic markers of contractile and synthetic SMCs respectively. Whole-cell currents were inhibited by 4-AP, TEA, charybdotoxin and iberiotoxin implicating functional Kv and BKCa channels. 1-EBIO enhanced whole cell currents which were abolished by TRAM-34 and reduced by apamin indicating activation of IKCa and SKCa respectively. BKCa, IKCa and SKCa3 mRNA and/or protein were expressed in CPASMCs and intact CPAs. This study provides the first direct evidence for functional Kv, BKCa, IKCa and SKCa channels in CPASMCs. These cells display a mixed phenotype implicating a dual role for CPASMCs in controlling both fetoplacental vascular resistance and vasculogenesis.
Regulation of Obesity and Metabolic Complications by Gamma and Delta Tocotrienols

Tocotrienols (T3s) are a subclass of unsaturated vitamin E that have been extensively studied for their anti-proliferative, anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory properties in numerous cancer studies. Recently, T3s have received increasing attention due to their previously unrecognized property to attenuate obesity and its associated metabolic complications. In this review, we comprehensively evaluated the recent published scientific literature about the influence of T3s on obesity, with a particular emphasis on the signaling pathways involved. T3s have been demonstrated in animal models or human subjects to reduce fat mass, body weight, plasma concentrations of free fatty acid, triglycerides and cholesterol, as well as to improve glucose and insulin tolerance. Their mechanisms of action in adipose tissue mainly include (1) modulation of fat cell adipogenesis and differentiation; (2) modulation of energy sensing; (3) induction of apoptosis in preadipocytes and (4) modulation of inflammation. Studies have also been conducted to investigate the effects of T3s on other targets, e.g., the immune system, liver, muscle, pancreas and bone. Since δT3 and γT3 are regarded as the most active isomers among T3s, their clinical relevance to reduce obesity should be investigated in human trials.
Getting credit for OCBs: potential costs of being a good actor vs. a good soldier

ABSTRACT Employing a sample of 197 employee-supervisor dyads, we explore whether employees’ attitudes and underlying motivation for engaging in organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) differentially relate to supervisors’ assessments of their individual performance and reward recommendations. We theorized that employees who perform OCBs with self-serving motives would be low on affective commitment and high on equity sensitivity, and that such individuals would receive lower performance ratings and fewer reward recommendations than those who are high on affective commitment, low on equity sensitivity, and more selflessly motivated. Our results suggest that employees with high affective commitment, low equity sensitivity, and high selfless motives were more likely to receive positive supervisor performance ratings and high reward recommendations. We also found that affective commitment moderated the mediating path of prosocial values (a selfless motive) on the relationship between OCBs and reward recommendations. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed.
Changes in Corneal Endothelial Cell after Ahmed Glaucoma Valve Implantation and Trabeculectomy: 1-Year Follow-up

Purpose To compare changes in corneal endothelial cell density (CECD) after Ahmed glaucoma valve (AGV) implantation and trabeculectomy. Methods Changes in corneal endothelium in patients that underwent AGV implantation or trabeculectomy were prospectively evaluated. Corneal specular microscopy was performed at the central cornea using a non-contact specular microscope before surgery and 6 months and 12 months after surgery. The CECD, hexagonality of the endothelial cells, and the coefficient of variation of the cell areas were compared between the two groups. Results Forty eyes of 40 patients with AGV implantation and 28 eyes of 28 patients with trabeculectomy were studied. Intraocular pressure in the AGV implantation group was significantly higher than that in the trabeculectomy group (p < 0.001), but there was no significant difference in other clinical variables between the two groups. In the AGV implantation group, the mean CECD significantly decreased by 9.4% at 6 months and 12.3% at 12 months compared with baseline values (both, p < 0.001), while it decreased by 1.9% at 6 months and 3.2% at 12 months in the trabeculectomy group (p = 0.027 and p = 0.015, respectively). The changes at 6 months and 12 months in the AGV implantation group were significantly higher than those in the trabeculectomy group (p = 0.030 and p = 0.027, respectively). In the AGV implantation group, there was a significant decrease in the CECD between baseline and 6 months and between 6 months and 12 months (p < 0.001 and p = 0.005, respectively). However, in the trabeculectomy group, a significant decrease was observed only between baseline and 6 months (p = 0.027). Conclusions Both the AGV implantation group and the trabeculectomy group showed statistically significant decreases in the CECD 1 year after surgery. The decrease in CECD in the AVG implantation group was greater and persisted longer than that in the trabeculectomy group.
Analysis of chronic lymphotic leukemia transcriptomic profile: differences between molecular subgroups

B cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a lymphoproliferative disorder with a variable clinical course. Patients with unmutated IgVH gene show a shorter progression-free and overall survival than patients with immunoglobulin heavy chain variable regions (IgVH) gene mutated. In addition, BCL6 mutations identify a subgroup of patients with high risk of progression. Gene expression was analysed in 36 early-stage patients using high-density microarrays. Around 150 genes differentially expressed were found according to IgVH mutations, whereas no difference was found according to BCL6 mutations. Functional profiling methods allowed us to distinguish KEGG and gene ontology terms showing coordinated gene expression changes across subgroups of CLL. We validated a set of differentially expressed genes according to IgVH status, scoring them as putative prognostic markers in CLL. Among them, CRY1, LPL, CD82 and DUSP22 are the ones with at least equal or superior performance to ZAP70 which is actually the most used surrogate marker of IgVH status.
The Role of the Lateral Habenula in inhibitory-driven action selection

In order to behave adaptively, animals are required to use cues that predicts the presence or the absence of the desired outcome to guide their selection of actions. Previous studies of how cue influences on choice, using the Specific Pavlovian Instrumental Transfer (S-PIT) paradigm, have yielded considerable progress in our understanding of the underlying mechanism. However, most of them focused on the influence from the excitatory association, where the cue is signalling the presence of outcome. While some pioneering studies have demonstrated the possibility of a cue predicting the absence of outcome affecting the animal's choice behaviour, the neural mechanism that specific to this effect is still largely unexplored. Therefore, the aim of the current thesis was to investigate the role of the Lateral Habenula (LHb) in this type of inhibitory-driven action selection process, as there is reasonable evidences suggesting that this region involved heavily in processing cue that signal the absence of outcome. Our result has shown that the LHb lesion i) weakened the effect of conditioned inhibition, ii) abolished the reversed S-PIT effect that caused by the negative predicting cue, but iii) not affected the normal S-PIT that elicited by the positive predicting cue nor the choice bias that based on the value of the outcomes. Overall speaking, it suggested that the LHb is essential for stimulus-based, and not value-based, choice in situations where the stimuli have been trained as negative, but not positive, predictors of their associated outcomes.
Judgemental and developmental mentoring in further education initial teacher education in England: mentor and mentee perspectives

Abstract This article presents findings from a study which sought to identify the extent to which trainee teachers and their mentors considered their mentoring experiences and approaches to be judgemental or developmental. The article draws on a case study of trainee teachers and mentors on an Initial Teacher Education programme at a further education college on the south coast of England. Data were generated from an initial survey of 22 teachers, from which seven pairs of teachers and mentors also participated in part-structured individual interviews and direct observation of one of their mentoring meetings. In addition, eight of the interviewees also participated in a follow-up email survey. The findings highlight significant variation in mentoring practices, with both judgemental and developmental mentoring approaches in use. A distinct discrepancy is also identified between the perceptions of mentors and mentees regarding the nature of the mentoring experience, with most mentors describing their approaches as developmental and most mentees describing these as judgemental. In addition, mentor education was found to enhance mentors’ enactment of developmental as opposed to judgemental mentoring. A number of possible implications for policy, practice and further research are discussed.
A novel distributed algorithm for redundant reader elimination in RFID networks

Redundant reader is a typical problem which consumes additional power and algorithm overhead for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems development. Therefore, eliminating redundant readers is of great importance to prolong the lifetime of RFID systems. In this paper, we propose a distributed algorithm for redundant reader elimination based on neighboring coverage density (NCD). We also elaborate an optimization scheme leveraging partially movement detection (MD) in RFID systems, called NCDMD. The NCDMD algorithm achieves significant optimization in tag-write operation over NCD. Our experiments show that NCD and NCDMD algorithm are effective and of low overheads as compared to other distributed algorithms. In the performance simulation, we analyze the multi-phase scheme principle and its effect. NCD and NCDMD algorithm can further improve the performance of multi-phase approach in redundant reader elimination.