Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
APC E1317Q Is Not Associated with Colorectal Cancer in a Population-Based Case-Control Study in Northern Israel

A variant in the adenomatous polyposis coli gene, APC E1317Q, has been inconsistently associated with risk of colorectal cancer. We used data collected as a part of the Molecular Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer study, a population-based study of colorectal cancer in northern Israel (1,834 matched cases and controls), to evaluate the relationship between this variant and risk of sporadic colorectal cancer. There was no association between E1317Q and colorectal cancer [odds ratio (OR), 1.15; 95% CI, 0.65-2.02]. When the control sample was restricted to polyp-free controls, the OR was 0.87 (95% CI, 0.36-2.14), indicating that this result is unlikely to be due to nondifferential misclassification due to undiagnosed polyps. A meta-analysis including these data and prior published reports found a nonsignificant summary OR nearly identical to the association reported here in the Molecular Epidemiology of Colorectal Cancer case-control study. Although there are previously published reports addressing this question, due to the low frequency of the variant, many of these studies lack the power to estimate the risk in a meaningful way. Given the substantial size of our study and the consistency of our findings with the results of our meta-analyses, we conclude that it is unlikely that APC E1317Q is associated with a clinically meaningful risk of colorectal cancer. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15(11):2325–7)
Structural Requirements for the Antifungal Activities of Natural Drimane Sesquiterpenes and Analogues, Supported by Conformational and Electronic Studies

Seventeen drimanes including polygodial (1), isopolygodial (2), drimenol (3) and confertifolin (4) obtained from natural sources and the semi-synthetic derivatives 5–17 obtained from 1–3, were evaluated in vitro for antifungal properties against a unique panel of fungi with standardized procedures by using two end-points, MIC100 and MIC50. A SAR analysis of the whole series, supported by conformational and electronic studies, allowed us to show that the Δ7,8 -double bond would be one of the key structural features related to the antifungal activity. The MEPs obtained for active compounds exhibit a clear negative minimum value (deep red zone) in the vicinity of the Δ7,8 -double bond, which is not present in the inactive ones. Apart of this negative zone, a positive region (deep blue) appears in 1, which is not observed either in its epimer 2 nor in the rest of the active compounds. The LogP of active compounds varies between 2.33 and 3.84, but differences in MICs are not correlated with concomitant variations in LogP values.
Multiple Descriptions With Symbol Based Turbo Codes Over Noisy Channels With Packet Loss: Design and Performance Analysis

Channel optimized multiple description (MD) vector quantization with symbol-based turbo codes are proposed, where the decoder exploits both nonuniformity of descriptions and their dependencies. The joint source channel coding strategy is devised by setting an entropy constraint for quantizer design, which together with the MD index assignment (IA), control the level of redundancy at the MD source coder output. This is in turn exploited by the source and channel decoders for robust transmission in presence of noise and packet loss. At the source coder, the IA is designed for an M-description vector quantizer using an efficient simulated annealing algorithm. Various numerical results and comparisons are provided to investigate the effect of different system and design parameters on the performance. The results specifically indicate improved performance in comparison to the prior art, and also in multiple input multiple output communications.
Experimental Validation of a Feed-Forward Predictor for the Spring-Loaded Inverted Pendulum Template

Widely accepted utility of simple spring-mass models for running behaviors as descriptive tools, as well as literal control targets, motivates accurate analytical approximations to their dynamics. Despite the availability of a number of such analytical predictors in the literature, their validation has mostly been done in simulation, and it is yet unclear how well they perform when applied to physical platforms. In this paper, we extend on one of the most recent approximations in the literature to ensure its accuracy and applicability to a physical monopedal platform. To this end, we present systematic experiments on a well-instrumented planar monopod robot, first to perform careful identification of system parameters and subsequently to assess predictor performance. Our results show that the approximate solutions to the spring-loaded inverted pendulum dynamics are capable of predicting physical robot position and velocity trajectories with average prediction errors of 2% and 7%, respectively. This predictive performance together with the simple analytic nature of the approximations shows their suitability as a basis for both state estimators and locomotion controllers.
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES THE INTERNATIONAL DYNAMICS OF R&D AND INNOVATION IN THE SHORT AND IN THE LONG RUN

In this paper we estimate the dynamic relationship between employment in R&D and generation of knowledge as measured by patent applications across OECD countries. In several recently developed models, known as `idea-based' models of growth, the afore mentioned "idea-generating" process is the engine of productivity growth. Moreover, in real business cycle models technological shocks are an important source of fluctuations. Our empirical strategy is able to test whether knowledge spillovers are strong enough to generate sustained endogenous growth and to estimate the quantitative impact of international knowledge on technological innovation of a country in the short and in the long run. We find that a country's stock of knowledge, its R&D resources and the stock of international knowledge move together in the long run. International knowledge has a very significant impact on innovation. As a consequence, a positive shock to R&D in the US (the largest world innovator) has a significant positive effect on the innovation of all other countries. Such a shock produces its largest effect on domestic and international innovation after five to ten years from its occurrence. Laura Bottazi Universita’ L. Bocconi and IGIER via Salasco, 3 Milano 20136 ITALY Giovanni Peri University of California, Davis Department of Economics One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 and NBER gperi@ucdavis.edu
Just war or just peace? : humanitarian intervention and international law

Introduction 1. The Just War: The origins of humanitarian intervention 2. The Scourge of War: Humanitarian intervention and the prohibition of the use of force in the UN Charter 3. 'You, the People': Unilateral intervention to promote democracy 4. The New Interventionism: Threats to international peace and security and Security Council actions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter 5. Passing the Baton: The delegation of Security Council enforcement powers from Kuwait to Kosovo 6. Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian intervention, inhumanitarian non-intervention and other peace strategies Bibliography
Functional verification of power gate design in SystemC RTL

With the growth of number of transistors, thermal density and market drive towards battery power, the necessity to develop low power integrated circuits is evident. There are several methodologies and techniques that help in the development of this type of SoC. There is consensus that the techniques when applied in the initial phases of the design flow, especially in design and architecture of the system have a higher impact factor in relation to those applied during the implementation or layout phase. Considering this fact, the possibility to accomplish functional verification of the system with low power design modeled in TLM and RTL is attractive. The purpose of this paper is to show a method for functional verification of power gate design in RTL. A case study is presented to demonstrate the application of power gate using new features for the OSCI SystemC simulator developed for this purpose and the accomplishment of the functional verification of the design using the VeriSC methodology.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Psychophysiological Responses to Imagined Infidelity: the Specific Innate Modular View of Jealousy Reconsidered

Three studies measured psychophysiological reactivity (heart rate, blood pressure, and electrodermal activity) while participants imagined a mate's infidelity. The specific innate modular theory of gender differences in jealousy hypothesizes that men are upset by sexual infidelity and women are upset by emotional infidelity, because of having faced different adaptive challenges (cuckoldry and loss of a mate's resources, respectively). This view was not supported. In men, sexual-infidelity imagery elicited greater reactivity than emotional-infidelity imagery. But, sexual imagery elicited greater reactivity even when infidelity was not involved, suggesting that the differential reactivity may not specifically index greater jealousy. In two studies with reasonable power, women did not respond more strongly to emotional infidelity. Moreover, women with committed sexual relationship experience showed reactivity patterns similar to those of men. Hypothetical infidelity self-reports were unrelated to reactivity. Several evolutionary psychologists have proposed a theory of gender differences in jealousy, which claims that men and women are innately predisposed to react differently to sexual versus emo-These theorists argued that men and women have different innate cognitive or emotional "mod-ules," which determine their reactions to a mate's infidelity. Because fertilization occurs internally within females, paternity is never completely certain. Therefore, a mate's sexual infidelity could lead a male to devote limited resources to raising another's offsiaring, thus reducing his Darwinian fitness. To forestall this, selective pressures supposedly shaped a specific innate module in men that causes them to be particularly bothered by a mate's sexual infidelity. Women, on the other hand, cannot be tricked into bringing up another's offspring; hence, there is little reason for them to be concerned about their mate's sexual unfaithfulness per se. Instead, women face the risk (to Darwinian fitness) of losing a mate's resources and assistance in raising offspring. It is therefore proposed that selective pressures shaped a specific innate module in women that causes them to be particularly upset by a mate's emotional involvement with a rival. Inherent in this hypothesis is the assumption that a man's emotional involvement is a proxy for his spending resources on another. In sum, male sexual jealousy is seen as a specific mechanism designed by evolution to prevent cuckoldry, whereas female emotional jealousy is seen as a mechanism to prevent resource loss. for helpful comments and suggestions. I also gratefully acknowledge Amy Rezec for her assistance with various aspects of data collection. This view of jealousy as a sexually dimorphic adaptation is widely discussed …
Hfe Deficiency Impairs Pulmonary Neutrophil Recruitment in Response to Inflammation

Regulation of iron homeostasis and the inflammatory response are tightly linked to protect the host from infection. Here we investigate how imbalanced systemic iron homeostasis in a murine disease model of hereditary hemochromatosis (Hfe−/− mice) affects the inflammatory responses of the lung. We induced acute pulmonary inflammation in Hfe−/− and wild-type mice by intratracheal instillation of 20 µg of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and analyzed local and systemic inflammatory responses and iron-related parameters. We show that in Hfe−/− mice neutrophil recruitment to the bronchoalveolar space is attenuated compared to wild-type mice although circulating neutrophil numbers in the bloodstream were elevated to similar levels in Hfe−/− and wild-type mice. The underlying molecular mechanisms are likely multifactorial and include elevated systemic iron levels, alveolar macrophage iron deficiency and/or hitherto unexplored functions of Hfe in resident pulmonary cell types. As a consequence, pulmonary cytokine expression is out of balance and neutrophils fail to be recruited efficiently to the bronchoalveolar compartment, a process required to protect the host from infections. In conclusion, our findings suggest a novel role for Hfe and/or imbalanced iron homeostasis in the regulation of the inflammatory response in the lung and hereditary hemochromatosis.
Deploying a Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Network

Placing few heterogeneous nodes in wireless sensor network is an effective way to increase network lifetime and reliability. In this paper, we address the deployment problem of heterogeneous wireless sensor networks. We present an algorithm to decide how many and where heterogeneous nodes should be deployed in the wireless sensor network The core algorithm, based on the locations of all sensor nodes, can optimize placement of heterogeneous nodes in an arbitrary sensor network. Finally, the evaluation results of this algorithm are shown in this paper.
Proliferating cell nuclear antigen/cyclin in the ciliate Euplotes eurystomus: localization in the replication band and in micronuclei

Human autoimmune sera specific for proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA)/cyclin (auxiliary protein for DNA polymerase delta) demonstrated the presence of epitopes within the macro- and micronuclei of the hypotrichous ciliated protozoa Euplotes eurystomus. Tightly bound PCNA/cyclin was localized at the site of DNA synthesis in macronuclei, the rear zone of the replication band. Starvation or heat shock, conditions that reduce macronuclear replication, resulted in a decrease of PCNA/cyclin in replication bands. Micronuclei also exhibited PCNA/cyclin localization which persisted for a large proportion of the vegetative cell cycle and exhibited significant resistance to adverse culture conditions. Immunoprecipitation of 35S-labeled soluble Euplotes proteins with PCNA/cyclin autoimmune sera revealed a spectrum of low molecular mass proteins. PCNA/cyclin-like proteins have now been observed in the widely divergent species: human, rat, amphibian, yeast, and ciliated protozoa.
Microtubule cross-linking triggers the directional motility of kinesin-5

Although assembly of the mitotic spindle is known to be a precisely controlled process, regulation of the key motor proteins involved remains poorly understood. In eukaryotes, homotetrameric kinesin-5 motors are required for bipolar spindle formation. Eg5, the vertebrate kinesin-5, has two modes of motion: an adenosine triphosphate (ATP)–dependent directional mode and a diffusive mode that does not require ATP hydrolysis. We use single-molecule experiments to examine how the switching between these modes is controlled. We find that Eg5 diffuses along individual microtubules without detectable directional bias at close to physiological ionic strength. Eg5's motility becomes directional when bound between two microtubules. Such activation through binding cargo, which, for Eg5, is a second microtubule, is analogous to known mechanisms for other kinesins. In the spindle, this might allow Eg5 to diffuse on single microtubules without hydrolyzing ATP until the motor is activated by binding to another microtubule. This mechanism would increase energy and filament cross-linking efficiency.
Spontaneous Optic Nerve Compression in the Osteopetrotic (op/op) Mouse: A Novel Model of Myelination Failure

We report a focal disturbance in myelination of the optic nerve in the osteopetrotic (op/op) mouse, which results from a spontaneous compression of the nerve resulting from stenosis of the optic canal. The growth of the op/op optic nerve was significantly affected, being maximally suppressed at postnatal day 30 (P30; 33% of age matched control). Myelination of the nerve in the optic canal was significantly delayed at P15, and myelin was almost completely absent at P30. The size of nerves and myelination were conserved both in the intracranial and intraorbital segments at P30, suggesting that the axons in the compressed site are spared in all animals at P30. Interestingly, we observed recovery both in the nerve size and the density of myelinated axons at 7 months in almost half of the optic nerves examined, although some nerves lost axons and became atrophic. In vivo and ex vivo electrophysiological examinations of P30 op/op mice showed that nerve conduction was significantly delayed but not blocked with partial recovery in some mice by 7 months. Transcardial perfusion of FITC-labeled albumin suggested that local ischemia was at least in part the cause of this myelination failure. These results suggest that the primary abnormality is dysmyelination of the optic nerve in early development. This noninvasive model system will be a valuable tool to study the effects of nerve compression on the function and survival of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells/oligodendrocytes and axons and to explore the mechanism of redistribution of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells with compensatory myelination.
Reliable Communication Network Design with Evolutionary Algorithms

For the reliable communication network design (RCND) problem links are unreliable and for each link several options are available with different reliabilities and costs. The goal is to find a cost-minimal communication network design that satisfies a pre-defined overall reliability constraint. This paper presents two new EA approaches, LaBORNet and BaBORNet, for the RCND problem. LaBORNet uses an encoding that represents the network topology as well as the used link options and repairs infeasible solutions using an additional repair heuristic (CURE). BaBORNet encodes only the network topology and determines the link options by using the repair heuristic CURE as a local search method. The experimental results show that the new EA approaches using repair heuristics outperform existing EA approaches from the literature using penalties for infeasible solutions and find better solutions for existing problems from the literature as well as for new and larger test problems.
Acute effects of acrolein in human volunteers during controlled exposure

Abstract Context: Acrolein is a reactive aldehyde mainly formed by combustion. The critical effect is considered to be irritation of the eyes and airways; however, the scarce data available make it difficult to assess effect levels. Objective: The aim of the study was to determine thresholds for acute irritation for acrolein. Methods: Nine healthy volunteers of each sex were exposed at six occasions for 2 h at rest to: clean air, 15 ppm ethyl acetate (EA), and 0.05 ppm and 0.1 ppm acrolein with and without EA (15 ppm) to mask the potential influence of odor. Symptoms related to irritation and central nervous system effects were rated on 100-mm Visual Analogue Scales. Results: The ratings of eye irritation were slightly but significantly increased during exposure to acrolein in a dose-dependent manner (p < 0.001, Friedman test) with a median rating of 8 mm (corresponding to “hardly at all”) at the 0.1 ppm condition and with no influence from EA. No significant exposure-related effects were found for pulmonary function, or nasal swelling, nor for markers of inflammation and coagulation in blood (IL-6, C-reactive protein, serum amyloid A, fibrinogen, factor VIII, von Willebrand factor, and Clara cell protein) or induced sputum (cell count, differential cell count, IL-6 and IL-8). Blink frequency recorded by electromyography was increased during exposure to 0.1 ppm acrolein alone but not during any of the other five exposure conditions. Conclusion: Based on subjective ratings, the present study showed minor eye irritation by exposure to 0.1 ppm acrolein.
Phytotherapy: emerging therapeutic option in urologic disease

Phytotherapy belongs to the area of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and the definition of phytotherapy is the use of plants or plant extracts for medicinal uses. Interest in phytotherapy is growing in both Asian and western countries for its use in the prevention and management of disease, improvement of general health and anti-aging. And also, there are several studies about the efficacy of phytotherapy in urologic diseases like benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), erectile dysfunction (ED), late-onset hypogonadism (LOH) and infertility in males. Phytotherapy for BPH including saw palmetto, pygeum, and nettles, is under vigorous research for the therapeutic effect. No solid evidence showing better effective treatment modality for ED than placebo has been found yet for phytotherapy. Recently, a potent NO donor, L-arginine is under research with promising results. Phytotherapy is used by a number of patients with urological disease, and urologists need to have accurate knowledge about phytotherapy as well as keep a cautious approach. The possible effects and side effects should be defined and related to urologic patients by urologists.
Confirmatory test of two factors and four subtypes of bipolar disorder based on lifetime psychiatric co-morbidity

Background The first aim was to use confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test a hypothesis that two factors (internalizing and externalizing) account for lifetime co-morbid DSM-IV diagnoses among adults with bipolar I (BPI) disorder. The second aim was to use confirmatory latent class analysis (CLCA) to test the hypothesis that four clinical subtypes are detectible: pure BPI; BPI plus internalizing disorders only; BPI plus externalizing disorders only; and BPI plus internalizing and externalizing disorders. Method A cohort of 699 multiplex BPI families was studied, ascertained and assessed (1998–2003) by the National Institute of Mental Health Genetics Initiative Bipolar Consortium: 1156 with BPI disorder (504 adult probands; 594 first-degree relatives; and 58 more distant relatives) and 563 first-degree relatives without BPI. Best-estimate consensus DSM-IV diagnoses were based on structured interviews, family history and medical records. MPLUS software was used for CFA and CLCA. Results The two-factor CFA model fit the data very well, and could not be improved by adding or removing paths. The four-class CLCA model fit better than exploratory LCA models or post-hoc-modified CLCA models. The two factors and four classes were associated with distinctive clinical course and severity variables, adjusted for proband gender. Co-morbidity, especially more than one internalizing and/or externalizing disorder, was associated with a more severe and complicated course of illness. The four classes demonstrated significant familial aggregation, adjusted for gender and age of relatives. Conclusions The BPI two-factor and four-cluster hypotheses demonstrated substantial confirmatory support. These models may be useful for subtyping BPI disorders, predicting course of illness and refining the phenotype in genetic studies.
Vacuum driven accelerated expansion

It has been shown that an improved estimation of the quantum vacuum energy can yield not only theoretically acceptable but also experimentally realistic results. Our idea consists in a straightforward extraction of the gravitationally interacting part of the full quantum vacuum energy by means of gauge transformations. The implementation of this idea has been performed, in the background of a Friedmann‐Lemaître‐Robertson‐Walker geometry, by means of the euclidean version of the effective action formalism, in the language of Schwinger's proper time and Seeley‐DeWitt's heat kernel expansion.