Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relative Effectiveness of Mating Success and Sperm Competition at Eliminating Deleterious Mutations in Drosophila melanogaster

Condition-dependence theory predicts that sexual selection will facilitate adaptation by selecting against deleterious mutations that affect the expression of sexually selected traits indirectly via condition. Recent empirical studies have provided support for this prediction; however, their results do not elucidate the relative effects of pre- and postcopulatory sexual selection on deleterious mutations. We used the Drosophila melanogaster model system to discern the relative contributions of pre- and postcopulatory processes to selection against deleterious mutations. To assess second-male ejaculate competition success (P2; measured as the proportion of offspring attributable to the experimental male) and mating success, mutant and wild-type male D. melanogaster were given the opportunity to mate with females that were previously mated to a standard competitor male. This process was repeated for males subjected to a diet quality manipulation to test for effects of environmentally-manipulated condition on P2 and mating success. While none of the tested mutations affected P2, there was a clear effect of condition. Conversely, several of the mutations affected mating success, while condition showed no effect. Our results suggest that precopulatory selection may be more effective than postcopulatory selection at removing deleterious mutations. The opposite result obtained for our diet manipulation points to an interesting discrepancy between environmental and genetic manipulations of condition, which may be explained by the multidimensionality of condition. Establishing whether the various stages of sexual selection affect deleterious mutations differently, and to what extent, remains an important issue to resolve.
A Field Experiment on the Effects of Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status on the Quality of Representation

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Cooperative multiple access transmission using precoding vectors

We address in this paper the problem of transmitting data to multiple mobile stations (MS) using a decode-and-forward strategy. The links between the base station and relays are considered ideal and we study the downlink between relays and mobile stations. We propose a method to optimize the precoding vector in relays to cancel out multiple access interference and to maximize the signal to noise ratio at the mobile stations. Simulation results show that the maximum diversity advantage can be obtained, which is the product of the number of antennas at each relay by the number of relays minus the total number of system constraints. Furthermore, using Lagrange multipliers to optimize precoding vectors, we obtain a flexibility that enables us to consider different cases for signal to noise ratio at mobile stations.
Bridging the gap between policy and practice: A reflective review and looking forward to the future

Without a doubt e-learning is now truly embedded in all educational institutions; from the provision of an appropriate technological infrastructure to support teaching, research and administrative activities in the institutions through to the innovative use of technologies for learning. National and international policies in the area reflect this and are filled with rhetoric about the potential technologies offer for education – personalisation, flexibility, adaptively, lifelong learning and engaging authentic and immersive environment. However, closer inspection suggests that there is still a gap between the promises inherent in the policy rhetoric and actual use in practice. This paper will focus on a e-learning timeline, mapping the shifting directions of policy perspectives and their subsequent impact on practice. It will reflect on implications for the future. It will then present a new framework for ensuring that e-learning interventions are effective that emphasises the relationship between e-learning policy, research and practice. The paper argues that use of such a framework can help ensure that e-learning research informs and helps shape both policy and practice and vice versa that activities in practice can in turn inform further policy directions and suggestions for areas which need further research investigation.
Efficient and versatile manipulation of the peripheral CD4+ T-cell compartment by antigen targeting to DNGR-1/CLEC9A

DC NK lectin group receptor‐1 (DNGR‐1, also known as CLEC9A) is a C‐type lectin receptor expressed by mouse CD8α+ DC and by their putative equivalents in human. DNGR‐1 senses necrosis and regulates CD8+ T‐cell cross‐priming to dead‐cell‐associated antigens. In addition, DNGR‐1 is a target for selective in vivo delivery of antigens to DC and the induction of CD8+ T‐cell and Ab responses. In this study, we evaluated whether DNGR‐1 targeting can be additionally used to manipulate antigen‐specific CD4+ T lymphocytes. Injection of small amounts of antigen‐coupled anti‐DNGR‐1 mAb into mice promoted MHC class II antigen presentation selectively by CD8α+ DC. In the steady state, this was sufficient to induce proliferation of antigen‐specific naïve CD4+ T cells and to drive their differentiation into Foxp3+ regulatory lymphocytes. Co‐administration of adjuvants prevented this induction of tolerance and promoted immunity. Notably, distinct adjuvants allowed qualitative modulation of CD4+ T‐cell behavior: poly I:C induced a strong IL‐12‐independent Th1 response, whereas curdlan led to the priming of Th17 cells. Thus, antigen targeting to DNGR‐1 is a versatile approach for inducing functionally distinct CD4+ T‐cell responses. Given the restricted pattern of expression of DNGR‐1 across species, this strategy could prove useful for developing immunotherapy protocols in humans.
Globalization and Similarities in Corporate Governance: A Cross-Country Analysis

Some scholars have argued that globalization should pressure firms to adopt the most efficient form of corporate governance; others maintain that such convergence will not occur because of path dependence. We find robust evidence that economically interdependent countries have similar corporate governance laws protecting stakeholders. In contrast, we find virtually no relationship between corporate governance practices and globalization in a battery of estimations at the country, industry, and firm levels. We conclude that globalization may have induced the adoption of some common corporate governance standards but these standards may not have been implemented.
Antibiotic Abscess Penetration: Fosfomycin Levels Measured in Pus and Simulated Concentration-Time Profiles

ABSTRACT The present study was performed to evaluate the ability of fosfomycin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic, to penetrate into abscess fluid. Twelve patients scheduled for surgical or computer tomography-guided abscess drainage received a single intravenous dose of 8 g of fosfomycin. The fosfomycin concentrations in plasma over time and in pus upon drainage were determined. A pharmacokinetic model was developed to estimate the concentration-time profile of fosfomycin in pus. Individual fosfomycin concentrations in abscess fluid at drainage varied substantially, ranging from below the limit of detection up to 168 mg/liter. The fosfomycin concentrations in pus of the study population correlated neither with plasma levels nor with the individual ratios of abscess surface area to volume. This finding was attributed to highly variable abscess permeability. The average concentration in pus was calculated to be 182 ± 64 mg/liter at steady state, exceeding the MIC50/90s of several bacterial species which are commonly involved in abscess formation, such as streptococci, staphylococci, and Escherichia coli. Hereby, the exceptionally long mean half-life of fosfomycin of 32 ± 39 h in abscess fluid may favor its antimicrobial effect because fosfomycin exerts time-dependent killing. After an initial loading dose of 10 to 12 g, fosfomycin should be administered at doses of 8 g three times per day to reach sufficient concentrations in abscess fluid and plasma. Applying this dosing regimen, fosfomycin levels in abscess fluid are expected to be effective after multiple doses in most patients.
Smooth Switching Technique for Voltage Balance Management Based on Three-Level Neutral Point Clamped Cascaded Rectiﬁer

This paper discussed the topology of in the three-level neutral point clamped cascaded rectiﬁer (3LNPC-CR) for designing the Chinese Power Electronic Traction Transformer (PETT). To balance the DC-link voltage (Vdc) in 3LNPC-CR, a smooth switching technique is proposed in this paper. The controlling processes of each module are relatively independent when the proposed technique is applied in 3LNPC-CR. The proposed technique can keep the switching frequency constant and change the switch state smoothly while balancing Vdc. The Vdc balance ability is analyzed by calculating the unbalance degree of the loads. Simulation and experiment of three-module 3LNPC-CR are built, and then the effectiveness of the proposed technique is veriﬁed.
Cardiac Components Categorization and Coronary Artery Enhancement in CT Angiography

Coronary artery analysis is an important phase of each cardiac image processing system. Once physicians decide to check up coronary arteries and also other cardiac components in CT Angiography, it should be done precisely to give the correct information about them. In this paper, we proposed a new method for cardiac components categorization, aorta segmentation, and coronary artery enhancement from CT Angiography images. This method is very helpful for the surgeon and cardiologist to have a clear view of each components and also to visualize coronary arteries prior to coronary artery bypass graft surgery or other types of cardiac treatments. To this end, firstly we constructed a proper mask based on the Hounsfield Unit to categorize CT Angiography slices' components. Then aorta as an important component is segmented from initial slices. And finally coronary arteries are enhanced as tubular shape objects in all slices.
International Financial Transmission of the Fed's Monetary Policy

This paper proposes a way to study the transmission mechanism of the US monetary policy to foreign yield curves. It elaborates the high-frequency identification of monetary policy shocks from (Piazzesi, 2005) in an international setting. The shocks are extracted from a two-country term structure model and the procedure is illustrated on the US-UK daily data.
Degradation of P-glycoprotein by pristimerin contributes to overcoming ABCB1-mediated chemotherapeutic drug resistance in vitro

ABCB1 (P-glycoprotein, ABCB1/MDR1) is one of the major members of the ABC transporters linked to MDR in cancer cells. In this study, we observed that pristimerin, a natural triterpenoid, potently decreased P-gp in a dose-dependent manner in both drug-resistant KBv200 and stable transfected HEK293/ABCB1 cell lines. Moreover, pristimerin also inhibited cell proliferation and induced apoptosis in both cell lines. Intriguingly, reverse transcription-PCR, real-time PCR and protein turn-over assay revealed that the decrease of P-gp was independent of mRNA level but primarily owing to its protein stability. Furthermore, immunofluorescence study with anti-P-gp antibody showed that pristimerin disturbed the subcellular distribution of P-gp with decreased location in the plasma membrane. Taken together, these data suggest that subcellular distribution of P-gp and subsequent downregulation by pristimerin contribute to overcoming ABCB1-mediated chemotherapeutic drug resistance. Our findings suggested inducing the decrease of P-gp membrane protein could be a new promising alternative therapeutic strategy in ABCB1-mediated MDR.
Altruists, Egoists and Hooligans in a Local Interaction Model

This paper studies a population of agents, each of whom can be either an Altruist or an Egoist. Altruists confer benefits on others at a cost to themselves. Altruism is thus a strictly dominated strategy and cannot survive if agents are rational best-responders. We assume that agents choose their actions by imitating others who earn high payoffs. We also assume that interactions between agents are local, so that each agent affects (and is affected by) only his neighbors. Altruists can survive in such a world if they are grouped together, so that the benefits of altruism are enjoyed primarily by other Altruists, who then earn relatively high payoffs and are imitated.
Microbial Origin of Plant-Type 2-Keto-3-Deoxy-d-arabino-Heptulosonate 7-Phosphate Synthases, Exemplified by the Chorismate- and Tryptophan-Regulated Enzyme from Xanthomonas campestris

ABSTRACT Enzymes performing the initial reaction of aromatic amino acid biosynthesis, 2-keto-3-deoxy-d-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate (DAHP) synthases, exist as two distinct homology classes. The three classic Escherichia coli paralogs are AroAI proteins, but many members of theBacteria possess the AroAII class of enzyme, sometimes in combination with AroAI proteins. AroAII DAHP synthases until now have been shown to be specifically dedicated to secondary metabolism (e.g., formation of ansamycin antibiotics or phenazine pigment). In contrast, here we show that the Xanthomonas campestris AroAII protein functions as the sole DAHP synthase supporting aromatic amino acid biosynthesis. X. campestris AroAII was cloned in E. coli by functional complementation, and genes corresponding to two possible translation starts were expressed. We developed a 1-day partial purification method (>99%) for the unstable protein. The recombinant AroAII protein was found to be subject to an allosteric pattern of sequential feedback inhibition in which chorismate is the prime allosteric effector.l-Tryptophan was found to be a minor feedback inhibitor. An N-terminal region of 111 amino acids may be located in the periplasm since a probable inner membrane-spanning region is predicted. Unlike chloroplast-localized AroAII of higher plants, X. campestris AroAII was not hysteretically activated by dithiols. Compared to plant AroAII proteins, differences in divalent metal activation were also observed. Phylogenetic tree analysis shows that AroAII originated within theBacteria domain, and it seems probable that higher-plant plastids acquired AroAII from a gram-negative bacterium via endosymbiosis. The X. campestris AroAII protein is suggested to exemplify a case of analog displacement whereby an ancestral aroAI species was discarded, with thearoAII replacement providing an alternative pattern of allosteric control. Three subgroups of AroAIIproteins can be recognized: a large, central group containing the plant enzymes and that from X. campestris, one defined by a three-residue deletion near the conserved KPRS motif, and one possessing a larger deletion further downstream.
MiniCPS: A Toolkit for Security Research on CPS Networks

In recent years, tremendous effort has been spent to modernizing communication infrastructure in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) such as Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and related Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. While a great amount of research has been conducted on network security of office and home networks, recently the security of CPS and related systems has gained increased attention. Unfortunately, real-world CPS are often not open to security researchers, and as a result very few reference physical-layer processes, control systems and communication topologies are available. In this work, we present MiniCPS, a toolkit intended to alleviate this problem. The goal of MiniCPS is to create an extensible, reproducible research environment for network communications, control systems, and physical-layer interactions in CPS. Instead of focusing on a customized simulation settings for specific subsystems, the main goal is to establish a framework to connect together real CPS soft- and hardware, simulation scripts for such components, and physical-layer simulation engines. MiniCPS builds on Mininet to provide lightweight real-time network emulation, and extends Mininet with tools to simulate typical CPS components such as programmable logic controllers, which use industrial protocols (eg. EtherNet/IP, Modbus/TCP). To capture physical-layer interactions, MiniCPS defines a simple API to connect to physical-layer simulations. We demonstrate applications of MiniCPS in two example scenarios, and show how MiniCPS can be used to develop attacks and defenses that are directly applicable to real systems.
Evaluation of context models to code wavelet-transformed hyperspectral images

Context modeling is key in wavelet-based image coding schemes to achieve competitive coding performance. Commonly, context models are devised for a particular coding system and are employed for many different types of images. The aim of this work is to evaluate the suitability of three well-known context models for coding hyperspectral images, without focusing on a particular wavelet-based coding system. To do so, an entropy-based measure defined using the mechanisms utilized by modern image codecs is employed. The experimental results assess the appropriateness of the context models considering different coding rates and transform strategies. They reveal that some widely-used context models may not be as adequate as it is generally thought. The hints provided by this analysis may help to design simpler and more efficient wavelet-based codecs for hyperspectral images.
Performance of asynchronous two-relay two-hop wireless cooperative networks

In wireless cooperative networks, the asynchronism between the relays can be a source of diversity which is similar in its essence to the multipath diversity of frequency selective channels. In this context, an asynchronous two-relay cooperative wireless network is studied for Decode-and-Forward (DF) and Amplify-and-Forward (AF) protocols. The outage probability in the high Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) regime is derived and the impact of the relative delay between the two relays on this outage probability is evaluated. It is shown that for a sufficiently high relative delay, the outage probability performance becomes independent from the relative delay and approaches from the synchronous protocol performance. Besides, an optimization of the power distribution between the transmitting nodes of the network is carried out in the high SNR regime based on the outage probability minimization. Moreover, the Diversity Multiplexing Tradeoff (DMT) of the network is characterized for the two cooperative protocols DF and AF. The DMT curve does not depend on the relative delay as long as the latter is non-zero.
The Decidability of Some Restricted Implication Problems for Path Constraints

Abst ract In 10], we introduced a path constraint language and established the undecidability of its associated implication problems. In this paper, we identify several fragments of the language, and establish the decidability of the implication and nite implication problems for each of these fragments in the context of semistructured databases. In addition, we demonstrate that these fragments suuce to express important semantic information such as extent constraint, inverse relationships and local database constraints commonly found in object-oriented databases. We also show that these fragments are useful for, among other things, query optimization.
Whom Should We Target to Prevent? Analysis of Organized Crime in England using Intelligence Records

Much of the literature on organized crime is based on media, arrests and prosecution records, while research based on intelligence data on this otherwise clandestine criminality is scarce. We present aggregated intelligence data on all known organized crime groups (ocgs) and ocgs members in West Midlands region of the United Kingdom, encompassing records on 2,726 highly-prolific offenders and 280 groups, collated based on over a million records from multiple law enforcement agencies. Using a cross-sectional analysis of the records, we describe in granular details the characteristics, patterns and criminal endeavor of organized crime in one of the largest regions in the United Kingdom. Social network analyses are explored as well, in order to observe the links between both offenders within the same ocg as well as between ocgs. The results debunk previously assumed notions about suitable targets in the policing of organized crime. (a) Based on internal records, police pursue is responsible for the archiving of less than 6% of inactive ocgs, while more than 2/3’s of the ocgs become inactive due to ‘market’ reasons regardless of enforcement pursues; (b) more than half of ocg members have ‘replaceable’, low-level jobs (i.e., drug suppliers, enforcers and criminal activity organizers), while 20% are considered principal members of the groups (who are older and more experienced offenders, as per their arrest records) (c) larger ocgs appear to pose a greater threat to society than smaller ocgs, while the latter are more likely to be ‘naturally’ dispersed over time; (d) given the inefficiencies that characterize the current pursue approach, a promising avenue of exploration is the targeting of younger and less experienced co-offenders of ocg members, before they ‘formally’ join the ocgs and through preventative mechanism. We discuss these findings and offer scholars and practitioners new considerations for future inquiries.
Histone H1 functions as a stimulatory factor in backup pathways of NHEJ

DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) induced in the genome of higher eukaryotes by ionizing radiation (IR) are predominantly removed by two pathways of non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) termed D-NHEJ and B-NHEJ. While D-NHEJ depends on the activities of the DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK) and DNA ligase IV/XRCC4/XLF, B-NHEJ utilizes, at least partly, DNA ligase III/XRCC1 and PARP-1. Using in vitro end-joining assays and protein fractionation protocols similar to those previously applied for the characterization of DNA ligase III as an end-joining factor, we identify here histone H1 as an additional putative NHEJ factor. H1 strongly enhances DNA-end joining and shifts the product spectrum from circles to multimers. While H1 enhances the DNA-end-joining activities of both DNA Ligase IV and DNA Ligase III, the effect on ligase III is significantly stronger. Histone H1 also enhances the activity of PARP-1. Since histone H1 has been shown to counteract D-NHEJ, these observations and the known functions of the protein identify it as a putative alignment factor operating preferentially within B-NHEJ.
The Power of Empowerment: Mediating the Relationship between Teachers’ Participation in Decision Making and Their Professional Commitment

This study examines the mediating effect of teacher empowerment on the relationship between teachers’ participation in decision making and their professional commitment. The data were collected through quantitative questionnaires from a sample of 983 teachers in 25 junior high schools and 27 high schools in Israel. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that teacher empowerment mediated the effect of teachers’ participation in decision making (technical domain) on teacher commitment, thus demonstrating the critical role of empowerment in enhancing teacher commitment. The teachers’ sense of empowerment is also related to their desire to be leaders. Implications are drawn regarding the important role that principals and other school administrators need to play in enhancing the teachers’ sense of empowerment.