Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of local anesthetics on single channel behavior of skeletal muscle calcium release channel

The effects of the two local anesthetics tetracaine and procaine and a quaternary amine derivative of lidocaine, QX314, on sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+ release have been examined by incorporating the purified rabbit skeletal muscle Ca2+ release channel complex into planar lipid bilayers. Recordings of potassium ion currents through single channels showed that Ca(2+)- and ATP-gated channel activity was reduced by the addition of the tertiary amines tetracaine and procaine to the cis (cytoplasmic side of SR membrane) or trans (SR lumenal) side of the bilayer. Channel open probability was lowered twofold at tetracaine and procaine concentrations of approximately 150 microM and 4 mM, respectively. Hill coefficients of 2.0 and greater indicated that the two drugs inhibited channel activity by binding to two or more cooperatively interacting sites. Unitary conductance of the K(+)- conducting channel was not changed by 1 mM tetracaine in the cis and trans chambers. In contrast, cis millimolar concentrations of the quaternary amine QX314 induced a fast blocking effect at positive holding potentials without an apparent change in channel open probability. A voltage-dependent block was observed at high concentrations (millimolar) of tetracaine, procaine, and QX314 in the presence of 2 microM ryanodine which induced the formation of a long open subconductance. Vesicle-45Ca2+ ion flux measurements also indicated an inhibition of the SR Ca2+ release channel by tetracaine and procaine. These results indicate that local anesthetics bind to two or more cooperatively interacting high-affinity regulatory sites of the Ca2+ release channel in or close to the SR membrane. Voltage-dependent blockade of the channel by QX314 in the absence of ryanodine, and by QX314, procaine and tetracaine in the presence of ryanodine, indicated one low-affinity site within the conduction pathway of the channel. Our results further suggest that tetracaine and procaine may primarily inhibit excitation-contraction coupling in skeletal muscle by binding to the high-affinity, regulatory sites of the SR Ca2+ release channel.
Normal Thickness and Appearance of the Prevertebral Soft Tissues on Multidetector CT

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Analysis of the prevertebral soft tissue (PVST) is helpful in detecting osseous and ligamentous injuries of the cervical spine. Because the standard of care has shifted from radiographs to multidetector CT (MDCT), a re-examination of the PVST on MDCT images is needed to establish normal values for thickness appropriate for this imaging technique. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thickness of the PVST was measured in 192 patients undergoing screening cervical spine MDCT with multiplanar reconstructions as part of a trauma protocol. Patients included in the study were not intubated, had an immobilized cervical spine, had normal findings on cervical spine CT, and did not have a diagnosis of osseous or soft-tissue cervical injury. Exclusion criteria included patients with a congenital or acquired (nondegenerative) abnormality of the cervical spine or PVST. RESULTS: The upper limits of normal for the thickness of the PVST were 8.5 mm at C1, 6 mm at C2, 7 mm at C3, 18 mm at C6, and 18 mm at C7. The upper limit of normal was not determined for C4 and C5 levels due to variable position of the esophagus and larynx. The smallest variability and calculated SDs were found at C2 and C3. CONCLUSIONS: The thickness of the PVST is important in the detection of underlying injuries to the cervical spine. We propose the obtained values as the upper limits of normal for PVST thickness on MDCT images in the adult population.
Demand for Organic Food: Focus Group Discussions in Armidale, NSW

In Australia, the retail value of organic food production was estimated at A$250 million, with farm gate value at around A$90 million, and exports at around A$40 million. The current share of organic sales in total food sales in Australia is about 1 per cent. The growth rate in organic production was forecast to continue at 10-30% per annum. Despite the positive outlook, there are concerns about consumer confusion over product recognition, organic certification, and misleading advertising. To understand how demand for organic products is changing, it is important to investigate consumer attitudes and knowledge about these issues. The objective of this study is to identify issues that may hinder or promote demand. Given the qualitative nature of these issues we use a focus group study to probe consumers. The results suggest that consumers are in general concerned about the use of chemicals, the treatment of farm animals and the environment impact of food production. Organic food consumers are more knowledgeable about organic foods as well as being more tolerant of higher prices and inaccessibility. The results also suggest that increasing consumers' awareness of organic farming and certification as well as the availability of organic foods may be the most effective ways of moving organic foods into mainstream.
After Apartheid: The Effects of ANC Power

The African National Congress (ANC) can look back on eighty years of struggle which resulted in the liberation of black Africans, the creation of a democratic constitution and free elections. However, the last twenty years of ANC rule has been criticized for the failure to bring higher living standards for the formerly oppressed. With the party's dominance and the challanges facing South Africa in mind, I estimate the effect of ANC power in municipalities on economic, social and budgetary outcomes. To estimate the causal effect of the party, this paper uses an instrumental variable approach developed by Freier & Odendahl (2012) and a regression discontinuity design. Taken together, the results point to an adverse effect of the party: less is spent on repairs and water provision which in turn may explain why ANC power seems to lower the share of individuals who have access to piped water and electricity. Further, more resources are used on municipal employees and the councillors themselves, while I find suggestive evidence of an increase in the poverty rate due to the party. Lastly, although being their major political support, we cannot conclude that the ANC affects black African's living standards. From the IV analysis, I find indications that oppositional parties many times have a more positive impact on outcomes as they gain power at the expence of the ANC.
Performance of vector perturbation multiuser MIMO systems with limited feedback

This paper considers the multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Rayleigh fading broadcast channel. We consider the case where the multiple transmit antennas are used to deliver independent data streams to multiple users via a multiuser technique known as vector perturbation. We propose lattice-theoretic and rate-distortion based approaches to analyze the performance of these systems, taking into account the practical restrictions imposed by limited feedback and training. We show that performance is primarily determined by the ratio between the number of users and the number of transmit antennas. We then propose a new practical low-complexity low-rate feedback scheme, and show that the performance approaches the ideal rate-distortion based scheme.
Measures of relative relevance and ranked half-life: performance indicators for interactive IR

This paper introduces the concepts of the relative relevance (RR) measure and a new performance indicator of the positional strength of the retrieved and ranked documents. The former is seen as a measure of associative performance computed by the application of the Jaccard formula. The latter is named the Ranked Half-Life (RHL) indicator and denotes the degree to which relevant documents are located on the top of a ranked retrieval result. The measures are proposed to be applied in addition to the traditional performance parameters such as precision and/or recall in connection with evaluation of interactive IR systems. The RR measure describes the degree of agreement between the types of relevance applied in evaluation of information retrieval (IR) systems in a non-binary assessment context. It is shown that the measure has potential to bridge the gap between subjective and objective relevance, as it makes it possible to understand and interpret the relation between these two main classes of relevance used in interactive IR experiments. The relevance concepts are defined, and the application of the measures is demonstrated by interrelating three types of relevance assessments: algorithmic; intellectual topical@ and; situational assessments. Further, the paper shows that for a given set of queries at given precision levels the RHL indicator adds to the understanding of comparisons of IR performance.
Britain and Ireland 1050-1530: Economy and Society

This book analyses the economic and social development of Britain and Ireland between 1050 and 1530. It compares economic institutions, the structure of production and rates of economic development and is richly supplied with up-to-date evidence. After considering the principal geographical, cultural and political constraints on economic development, the book examines in detail the development of towns and trade, settlement patterns, agriculture and relations between lords and tenures. The book is structured so that it can be used on both short courses and longer ones, with the material divided at 1300 in order to facilitate its adaptation for different study needs.
Visual exploration of the spatial distribution of temporal behaviors

The paper elaborates on the previous research on the analysis of temporal and spatio-temporal data done in statistical graphics and geo-visualization. We focus on the exploration of spatially distributed time-series data, i.e. values of numeric attributes referring to different moments in time and locations in space. After considering appropriate interactive visualization techniques, we propose several methods of exploration based on user-controlled data transformation and aggregation, easy-to-understand calculations, and dynamic linking of data displays. The proposed methods are potentially scalable, i.e. they can be applied to large data sets without overcrowding the displays and loosing interactivity.
The Role of IRS Monitoring in Equity Pricing in Public Firms

We analyze the importance of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) monitoring to equity pricing in U.S. public firms. Our evidence from large samples implies that equity financing is cheaper when the probability of an IRS audit is higher, enabling investors to learn more about the firm. Reflecting its first-order economic impact, our coefficient estimates translate into the cost of equity capital falling, on average, by 58 basis points when the expected probability of an IRS audit rises from 30.51 percent (the 25th percentile in other data) to 45.86 percent (the 75th percentile). In evidence supporting our second prediction, we find that the link between IRS oversight and equity pricing is stronger in firms with relatively poor corporate governance. Consistent with recent theory on the corporate governance role that tax enforcement plays, our research suggests that a spillover benefit accompanying strict IRS monitoring is lower information asymmetry evident in equity financing costs.
Effective resource management for enhancing performance of 2D and 3D stencils on GPUs

GPUs are an attractive target for data parallel stencil computations prevalent in scientific computing and image processing applications. Many tiling schemes, such as overlapped tiling and split tiling, have been proposed in past to improve the performance of stencil computations. While effective for 2D stencils, these techniques do not achieve the desired improvements for 3D stencils due to the hardware constraints of GPU. A major challenge in optimizing stencil computations is to effectively utilize all resources available on the GPU. In this paper we develop a tiling strategy that makes better use of resources like shared memory and register file available on the hardware. We present a systematic methodology to reason about which strategy should be employed for a given stencil and also discuss implementation choices that have a significant effect on the achieved performance. Applying these techniques to various 2D and 3D stencils gives a performance improvement of 200-400% over existing tools that target such computations.
Large impact basins on Mercury: Global distribution, characteristics, and modification history from MESSENGER orbital data

[1] The formation of large impact basins (diameter D ≥ 300 km) was an important process in the early geological evolution of Mercury and influenced the planet's topography, stratigraphy, and crustal structure. We catalog and characterize this basin population on Mercury from global observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft, and we use the new data to evaluate basins suggested on the basis of the Mariner 10 flybys. Forty-six certain or probable impact basins are recognized; a few additional basins that may have been degraded to the point of ambiguity are plausible on the basis of new data but are classified as uncertain. The spatial density of large basins (D ≥ 500 km) on Mercury is lower than that on the Moon. Morphological characteristics of basins on Mercury suggest that on average they are more degraded than lunar basins. These observations are consistent with more efficient modification, degradation, and obliteration of the largest basins on Mercury than on the Moon. This distinction may be a result of differences in the basin formation process (producing fewer rings), relaxation of topography after basin formation (subduing relief), or rates of volcanism (burying basin rings and interiors) during the period of heavy bombardment on Mercury from those on the Moon.
Towards Ontology Reuse

Integration as the process of building an ontology reusing other ontologies which are parts of the resulting ontology has already been acknowledged as an essential process in building ontologies. Unfortunately little work has been done in this area. In this article we characterize the integration process, we provide some guidelines to that process, and we present a living classification of integration operations. The aim is to establish guidelines to an integration methodology and establish which integration operations should be provided to build ontologies by assembling modular ontologies.
Debt-Constrained Asset Markets

We develop a theory of general equilibrium with endogenous debt limits in the form of individual rationality constraints similar to those in the dynamic consistency literature. If an agent defaults on a contract, he can be excluded from future contingent claims markets trading and can have his assets seized. He cannot be excluded from spot markets trading, however, and he has some private endowments that cannot be seized. All information is publicly held and common knowledge, and there is a complete set of contingent claims markets. Since there is complete information, an agent cannot enter into a contract in which he would have an incentive to default in some state. In general there is only partial insurance: variations in consumption may be imperfectly correlated across agents; interest rates may be lower than they would be without constraints; and equilibria may be Pareto ranked.
Mobility-Aware Grid Computing

Grid computing has emerged as a paradigm for coordinated resource sharing and problem solving in dynamic, multiinstitutional virtual organizations (Foster, 2001). A grid computing system is essentially a large-scale distributed system designed to aggregate resources from multiple sites, giving to users the opportunity to take advantage of enormous computational, storage, or bandwidth resources that would otherwise be impossible to attain. Current applications of grid computing focus on computational-expensive processing of large volumes of scientific data, for example, for earthquake simulation, signal processing, cancer research, and pattern search in DNA sequences. At the same time, the recent advances in mobile and wireless communications have resulted in the availability of an enormous number of mobile computing devices such as laptop PCs and PDAs (personal digital assistants). Thus, it is natural to extend the idea of resource sharing to mobile and wireless computing environments. Resource-sharing collaboration between mobile users appears as a promising research direction toward the alleviation of the inherent resource constraints present in mobile computing environments. Either in the context of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) or in wireless networks based on fixed infrastructure (i.e., cellular networks, wireless local area networks (WLANs), smallor large-scale communities of mobile users can form mobile grid systems and collaborate in order to either achieve a common goal (otherwise impossible to achieve) or simply overcome their individual limitations. In the following, we highlight the fundamental issues toward the realization of a computational mobile grid system.
Incremental blind feedback

Automatic query expansion (AQE) is a useful technique for enhancing the effectiveness of information retrieval systems. In this article, we propose a novel AQE algorithm which first adopts a systematic incremental approach to choose feedback documents from the top retrieved set and then selects the expansion terms aggregating the scores from each feedback set. We also devise a term selection measure and a number of weighting schemes based on easily computable features. A set of experiments with a large number of standard test collections reveals that the proposed incremental blind feedback algorithm outperforms a number of state-of-the-art query expansion methods with remarkable significance and consistency.
Reference Values for Exercise Systolic Blood Pressure in 12- to 17-Year-Old Adolescents.

OBJECTIVE In adults, blood pressure (BP) during exercise has prognostic advantages compared to resting BP, whereas its relevance for children has not been revealed as clearly. Because exercise BP among young subjects might be of clinical importance, we sought to determine reference values in adolescents. METHODS BP recordings at rest and during a cycle ergometer test (1.5W/kg) were assessed in 492 teenagers (12-17 years) in the Kiel EX.PRESS. Study (EXercise and PRESSure). The resting systolic BP (SBP) values at the 90th and 95th percentile of the German reference population were applied on our resting SBP distribution. The resulting resting SBP percentiles were then used to propose exercise SBP limits. RESULTS Of our group, 12.4% exhibited a resting SBP ≥ 90th reference percentile, with 7.9% ≥ 95th percentile. The corresponding age group- and sex-specific percentiles were assigned to the exercise SBP distribution resulting in reference values for high normal and elevated SBP (upper limit, girls/boys, mm Hg): 172/172 for 12-13 years, 174.7/177.3 for 14-15 years, 178.5/201.3 for 16-17 years). Using these limits, exercise SBP values were elevated in 8.1%, 5.5% were within the high normal range. Normal resting SBP but at least high normal exercise SBP was found in 7.7%. In contrast, 7.4% were high normal or hypertensive at rest but normotensive during exercise. CONCLUSIONS Exercise BP is expected to be of additional use for the evaluation of BP in younger age groups. As long as prognostic data for exercise BP in adolescents are not available, the limits proposed might be considered in clinical practice.
In vivo post‐transcriptional regulation of GAP‐43 mRNA by overexpression of the RNA‐binding protein HuD

HuD is a neuronal‐specific RNA‐binding protein that binds to and stabilizes the mRNAs of growth‐associated protein‐43 (GAP‐43) and other neuronal proteins. HuD expression increases during brain development, nerve regeneration, and learning and memory, suggesting that this protein is important for controlling gene expression during developmental and adult plasticity. To examine the function of HuD in vivo, we generated transgenic mice overexpressing human HuD under the control of the calcium–calmodulin‐dependent protein kinase IIα promoter. The transgene was expressed at high levels throughout the forebrain, including the hippocampal formation, amygdala and cerebral cortex. Using quantitative in situ hybridization, we found that HuD overexpression led to selective increases in GAP‐43 mRNA in hippocampal dentate granule cells and neurons in the lateral amygdala and layer V of the neorcortex. In contrast, GAP‐43 pre‐mRNA levels were unchanged or decreased in the same neuronal populations. Comparison of the levels of mature GAP‐43 mRNA and pre‐mRNA in the same neurons of transgenic mice suggested that HuD increased the stability of the transcript. Confirming this, mRNA decay assays revealed that the GAP‐43 mRNA was more stable in brain extracts from HuD transgenic mice than non‐transgenic littermates. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that HuD overexpression is sufficient to increase GAP‐43 mRNA stability in vivo.
Regional growth convergence and EU policies: Empirical evidence and measuring problems

Regional growth and its convergence has been on the top of the EU policy agenda since the first programming period of EU Structural Funds, 1989 to 1993. Over years and programming periods, the reduction of the existing gap between countries and regions in terms of per capita GDP remained one the most important policy objectives of the EU. Apart from the change in its denomination (from “Objective 1” to “Convergence Objective”), the current programming period also confirms this priority: the largest part of financial resources is going to be spent in lagging regions and, if we also include the Cohesion Fund, in lagging member states.
Why are governmental R&D and private R&D complements? (research and development).

It is well known that governmental R&D and private R&D have complementary relationship. However, no previous study has provided an explanation for why that complementary relationship exists. This paper argues that infratechnology is the critical link between governmental and private R&D and that the observed complementarity is the result of technical complementarity at the production level between funding, infratechnology, and knowledge sharing. A theoretical framework based on this argument is developed and examined empirically for supporting evidence. Evidence of technical complementarity is found as well as evidence that governmental R&D stimulates the sharing of knowledge.