Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epigenetic Silencing of Host Cell Defense Genes Enhances Intracellular Survival of the Rickettsial Pathogen Anaplasma phagocytophilum

Intracellular bacteria have evolved mechanisms that promote survival within hostile host environments, often resulting in functional dysregulation and disease. Using the Anaplasma phagocytophilum–infected granulocyte model, we establish a link between host chromatin modifications, defense gene transcription and intracellular bacterial infection. Infection of THP-1 cells with A. phagocytophilum led to silencing of host defense gene expression. Histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1) expression, activity and binding to the defense gene promoters significantly increased during infection, which resulted in decreased histone H3 acetylation in infected cells. HDAC1 overexpression enhanced infection, whereas pharmacologic and siRNA HDAC1 inhibition significantly decreased bacterial load. HDAC2 does not seem to be involved, since HDAC2 silencing by siRNA had no effect on A. phagocytophilum intracellular propagation. These data indicate that HDAC up-regulation and epigenetic silencing of host cell defense genes is required for A. phagocytophilum infection. Bacterial epigenetic regulation of host cell gene transcription could be a general mechanism that enhances intracellular pathogen survival while altering cell function and promoting disease.
Factors Affecting Career Identity of High School Student

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting career identity of high school student. Data were obtained from the Korean Child-Youth panel Survey. Multiple regression analysis was employed for statistical analysis. On the results of this study, self-esteem, self-identity, conversation related to career with academy teacher, school club activity have significant effect on the career identity. Based on the results, methods to increase youth career identity are proposed.
Is Hiding Foot and Mouth Disease Sensitive Behavior for Farmers? A Survey Study in Sri Lanka

Foot and mouth disease (FMD) has a long history in Sri Lanka and was found to be endemic in various parts of the country and constitutes a constant threat to farmers. In Sri Lanka, currently there is no regular, nationwide vaccination programme devised to control FMD. Therefore, improving farmers’ knowledge regarding distinguishing FMD from other diseases and ensuring prompt reporting of any suspicion of FMD as well as restricting movement of animals are critical activities for an effective FMD response effort. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship between farmers’ knowledge levels and their behaviors to establish a strategy to control FMD. In our study, item count technique was applied to estimate the number of farmers that under-report and sell FMD-infected animals, although to do so is prohibited by law. The following findings were observed: about 63% of farmers have very poor knowledge of routes of FMD transmission; ‘under-reporting’ was found to be a sensitive behavior and nearly 23% of the farmers were reluctant to report FMD-infected animals; and ‘selling FMD-infected animals’ is a sensitive behavior among high-level knowledge group while it is a non-sensitive behavior among the low-level knowledge group. If farmers would understand the importance of prompt reporting, they may report any suspected cases of FMD to veterinary officials. However, even if farmers report honestly, they do not want to cull FMD-infected animals. Thus, education programs should be conducted not only on FMD introduction and transmission, but also its impact. Furthermore, consumers may criticize the farmers for culling their infected animals. Hence, not only farmers, but also consumers need to be educated on the economic impact of FMD and the importance of controlling an outbreak. If farmers have a high knowledge of FMD transmission, they consider selling FMD-infected animals as a sensitive behavior. Therefore, severe punishment should be levied for selling FMD-infected animals.
Accretion of cool stellar winds on to Sgr A*: another puzzle of the Galactic Centre?

Sgr A* is currently being fed by winds from a cluster of gravitationally bound young mass-losing stars. Using observational constraints on the orbits, mass-loss rates and wind velocities of these stars, we numerically model the distribution of gas in the ∼ 0.1–10 arcsec region around Sgr A*. We find that radiative cooling of recently discovered slow winds leads to the formation of many cool filaments and blobs, and to a thin and rather light accretion disc on a scale of about an arcsecond. The disc, however, does not extend all the way to our inner boundary. Instead, hot X-ray-emitting gas dominates the inner arcsecond. In our simulations, cool streams of gas frequently enter this region on low angular momentum orbits, and are then disrupted and heated up to the ambient hot gas temperature. The accreting gas around Sgr A* is thus two-phase, with a hot component, observable at X-ray wavelengths, and a cool component, which may be responsible for the majority of the time variability of Sgr A* emission on time-scales of 100–1000 yr. We obtain an accretion rate of a few ×10−6 M⊙ yr−1, consistent with Chandra estimates, but variable on time-scales even shorter than 100 yr. These results strongly depend on the chosen stellar orbits and wind parameters. Further observational input is thus key to a better modelling of the Sgr A* wind accretion.
Economic burden of cardiovascular diseases in Serbia.

BACKGROUND/AIM Cardiovascular disease imposes a burden to society in terms of mortality, morbidity and economic losses. The aim of this study was to estimate the economic burden of cardiovascular disease in Serbia in 2009 from the perspective of the society. METHODS For the purpose of the study cardiovascular disease was defined by the International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision, as the following diagnosis: hypertension, coronary heart disease, cardiomyopathy, heart failure and cerebrovascular disease. The prevalence, top-down method was used to quantify the annual cardiovascular costs. Productivity losses were estimated using the human capital approach and the friction cost method. A discount rate of 5% was used to convert all future lifetime earnings into the present value. RESULTS The total direct costs of cardiovascular disease in 2009 were Euro 400 million. The results showed that more than half a million working days were lost due to incapacity resulting from cardiovascular diseases, yielding the Euro 113.9 millon. The majority of total costs (Euro 514.3 million) were for: medication (29.94%), hospital days (28.97%) and hospital inpatient care--surgical and diagnostic interventions (17.84%). The results were robust to a change in 20% of volume or the unit price of all direct and indirect cost and to discount rate 2% and 10%. CONCLUSIONS; The total cardiovascular disease costs in 2009 represented approximately 1.8% of the Serbian gross domestic product. The results of the study would be valuable to health policy makers to bridge the gap between invested resources and needs, in order to improve cardiovascular disease outcomes.
Throughput analysis of massive MIMO uplink with one-bit ADCs

Massive MIMO is a disruptive technology that consists of equipping communication transceivers with an excessive number of antennas to enable unprecedented gains in throughput and radiated energy efficiency. From an industry perspective, massive MIMO will happen only if the required large antenna arrays can be built out of low-cost (and, hence, low-precision) components. Therefore it is of interest to investigate whether the above mentioned massive MIMO gains, which were theoretically derived under the assumption of ideal hardware, survive in the presence of significant impairments due to low-cost hardware solutions The specific focus of this thesis is on low-precision analog-to-digital converters. Equipping base stations with a large number of high-precision converters would yield an intolerable increase in power consumption, especially for wideband systems operating at very large central frequencies (e.g., millimetre-wave systems). Therefore, radio-frequency solutions involving low-precision converters are attractive for systems equipped with large antenna arrays. This thesis investigates the achievable uplink throughput in a massive MIMO system under the presence of one-bit converters. The base station is assumed not to have any a priori channel state information. Hence, uplink fading coefficients have to be estimated based on the one-bit quantised channel outputs. In this thesis, it is shown that simple signal processing techniques, such as least squares channel estimation and maximal-ratio combining, are sufficient to enable the use of highorder modulation schemes, as well as to support multiuser operation, despite of the nonlinearity introduced by the one-bit quantisers. Furthermore, a data-aided version of least squares channel estimation is shown to be capacity-achieving in the singleantenna case.
Combination of the histone deacetylase inhibitor depsipeptide and 5-fluorouracil upregulates major histocompatibility complex class II and p21 genes and activates caspase-3/7 in human colon cancer HCT-116 cells

Epigenetic anticancer drugs such as histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors have been combined with existing anticancer drugs for synergistic or additive effects. In the present study, we found that a very low concentration of depsipeptide, an HDAC inhibitor, potentiated the antitumor activity of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) in a human colon cancer cell model using HCT-116, HT29, and SW48 cells via the inhibition of colony formation ability or cellular viability. Exposure to a combination of 5-FU (1.75 µM) and 1 nM depsipeptide for 24 and 48 h resulted in a 3- to 4-fold increase in activated caspase-3/7, while 5-FU alone failed to activate caspase-3/7. Microarray and subsequent gene ontology analyses revealed that compared to 5-FU or depsipeptide alone, the combination treatment of 5-FU and depsipeptide upregulated genes related to cell death and the apoptotic process consistent with the inhibition of colony formation and caspase-3/7 activation. These analyses indicated marked upregulation of antigen processing and presentation of peptide or polysaccharide antigen via major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class (GO:0002504) and MHC protein complex (GO:0042611). Compared with vehicle controls, the cells treated with the combination of 5-FU and depsipeptide showed marked induction (3- to 8.5-fold) of expression of MHC class II genes, but not of MHC class I genes. Furthermore, our global analysis of gene expression, which was focused on genes involved in the molecular regulation of MHC class II genes, showed enhancement of pro-apoptotic PCAF and CIITA after the combination of 5-FU and depsipeptide. These results may indicate a closer relationship between elevation of MHC class II expression and cellular apoptosis induced by the combination of depsipeptide and 5-FU. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to report that the combination of 5-FU and depsipeptide induces human colon cancer cell apoptosis in a concerted manner with the induction of MHC class II gene expression.
Technical Trading Rules and the Size of the Risk Premium in Security Returns

Among analysts, technical trading rules are widely used for forecasting security returns. Recent literature provides evidence that these rules may provide positive profits after accounting for transaction costs. This would be contrary to the theory of the efficient market hypothesis which states that security prices cannot be forecasted from their past values or other past variables. This paper uses the daily Dow Jones Industrial Average Index from 1963 to 1988 to examine the linear and nonlinear predictability of stock market returns with simple technical trading rules, by using the nearest neighbors and the feedforward network regressions. Evidence of nonlinear predictability is found in the stock market returns by using the past returns and the buy and sell signals of the moving average rules.
Near unity ideality factor and Shockley-Read-Hall lifetime in GaN-on-GaN p-n diodes with avalanche breakdown

Textbook-like device characteristics are demonstrated in vertical GaN p-n diodes grown on bulk GaN substrates. These devices show simultaneously an avalanche breakdown voltage (BV) of >1.4 kV under reverse bias, an ideality factor plateau of ∼2.0 in a forward bias window followed by a near unity ideality factor of 1.1, which are consistently achieved over a temperature range of 300–400 K. At room temperature (RT), the diode with a mesa diameter of 107 μm showed a differential on-resistance Ron of 0.12 mΩcm2, thus resulting in a record figure-of-merit BV2/Ron of ∼16.5 GW/cm2, which is the highest ever demonstrated in any semiconductors. Analytical models are used to fit experimental I-Vs; based on the recombination current with an ideality factor of ∼2.0, a Shockley-Read-Hall lifetime of 12 ns is extracted at RT with an estimated recombination center concentration of 3 × 1015 cm−3.
Spatial Sequential Pattern Mining for Seismic Data

A myriad of applications from different domains collects time series data for further analysis. In many of them, such as seismic datasets, the observed data is also associated to a space dimension, which corresponds, in fact, to spatial-time series. The analysis of these datasets is difficult due to both the continuous nature of the observed data and the relationship between spatial and time dimensions. Meanwhile, sequential patterns mining techniques have been successfully used in large volume of transactional databases to obtain insights from data. In this work, we start exploring the discovery of frequent sequential patterns in seismic datasets. For that, we discretize continuous values into symbols and adapt well known sequential algorithm to mine spatial-time dataset. To better understand the quality of the identified patterns, we visualize them over the original seismic traces images. Our preliminary results indicate that the study of sequence mining in seismic datasets is promising.
Game-Based E-Learning Is More Effective than a Conventional Instructional Method: A Randomized Controlled Trial with Third-Year Medical Students

Background When compared with more traditional instructional methods, Game-based e-learning (GbEl) promises a higher motivation of learners by presenting contents in an interactive, rule-based and competitive way. Most recent systematic reviews and meta-analysis of studies on Game-based learning and GbEl in the medical professions have shown limited effects of these instructional methods. Objectives To compare the effectiveness on the learning outcome of a Game-based e-learning (GbEl) instruction with a conventional script-based instruction in the teaching of phase contrast microscopy urinalysis under routine training conditions of undergraduate medical students. Methods A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 145 medical students in their third year of training in the Department of Urology at the University Medical Center Freiburg, Germany. 82 subjects where allocated for training with an educational adventure-game (GbEl group) and 69 subjects for conventional training with a written script-based approach (script group). Learning outcome was measured with a 34 item single choice test. Students' attitudes were collected by a questionnaire regarding fun with the training, motivation to continue the training and self-assessment of acquired knowledge. Results The students in the GbEl group achieved significantly better results in the cognitive knowledge test than the students in the script group: the mean score was 28.6 for the GbEl group and 26.0 for the script group of a total of 34.0 points with a Cohen's d effect size of 0.71 (ITT analysis). Attitudes towards the recent learning experience were significantly more positive with GbEl. Students reported to have more fun while learning with the game when compared to the script-based approach. Conclusions Game-based e-learning is more effective than a script-based approach for the training of urinalysis in regard to cognitive learning outcome and has a high positive motivational impact on learning. Game-based e-learning can be used as an effective teaching method for self-instruction.
Word and beyond-word issues in morphological processing

Despite intensive study of morphological effects using various on-line techniques such as masked priming, psycholinguistic accounts of morphological processing have not yet managed to grasp the complexity of the various kinds of relationships between words. We focus on three issues related to aspects of processing that have not been given much importance but can considerably influence the effects we observe. The first issue to be dealt with is the role of frequency of the lexical items used and particularly the role of prime-target relative frequency. Second, ‘morphological’ effects with nonwords (e.g. sportation –sport), which are very often interpreted as if the status of possible word did not exist. Finally, the role of a novel variable, pseudo-family size, reflecting the influence of formally related but morphologically unrelated word forms, providing evidence for interference/competition during the early stages of morphological processing. These factors suggest that the complex set of activation/inhi.
Bayesian model selection approaches to MIDAS regression

We describe Bayesian models for economic and financial time series that use regressors sampled at finer frequencies than the outcome of interest. The models are developed within the framework of dynamic linear models, which provide a great level of flexibility and direct interpretation of results. The problem of collinearity of intraperiod observations is solved using model selection and model averaging approaches which, within a Bayesian framework, automatically adjust for multiple comparisons and allows us to accurately account for all uncertainty when predicting future observations. We also introduce novel formulations for the prior distribution on model space that allow us to include additional information in a flexible manner. We illustrate our approach by predicting the gross domestic product of United Stated using the term structure of interest rates.
A Study of Marginal Performance Properties in Robotic Teams

In this paper we describe how the productivity of homogeneous robots scales with group size. Economists found that the addition of workers into a group results in their contributing progressively less productivity; a concept called the Law of Marginal Returns. We study groups that differ in their coordination algorithms, and note that they display marginal returns only until a certain group size. After this point the groups’ productivity drops with the addition of robots. However, the group size where this phenomenon occurs varies between groups. To determine the cause for the differences between coordination algorithms, we define a measure of interference that enables comparison, and find a high negative correlation between interference and productivity. Effective coordination algorithms maintain marginal productivity over larger groups by reducing the team’s interference levels. Using this result we are able to examine the productivity of robotic groups in several simulated domains in thousands of trials. We find that groups in theory always produce marginally, but that spatial limitations within domains cause robots to deviate from this ideal.
Binge-watching motivates change: Uses and gratifications of streaming video viewers challenge traditional TV research

In this article, we explore how binge-watching culture and technology are changing the ways viewers understand and interact with television. We propose that the motives and rituals of binge-viewers can be used to expand uses and gratifications (U&G) theory. We conducted qualitative, semi-structured interviews to gather thick descriptions of why people binge-watch, how they binge-watch, and how they feel about binge-watching. The findings indicate that (1) viewers’ primary motivations for binge-watching are catching up, relaxation, sense of completion, cultural inclusion, and improved viewing experience; (2) the portability and navigability of streaming video technology influence binge-watching rituals; and (3) viewers are ambivalent about their binge-watching. Based on the findings, we propose that a viewer attentiveness spectrum is a more accurate descriptor of contemporary TV watching than the passive/active dichotomy. We further argue that the changing motives and rituals of TV viewers can be used to bolster the quantitative surveys often employed in U&G research and to address the lingering criticisms of U&G theory.
Health Promoting Hospitals Model in Iran

Background: Hospitals are the central entity of each health care system and Health Promoting Hospitals (HPH) was launched by WHO in 1988. However, there has not been any accurate and detailed model for establishing a HPH in Iran up to now. Therefore, this study aimed to determine factors affecting the establishment of a health promoting hospital in Iran using factor analysis method. Methods: This applied, cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical study was conducted in Iran in four steps. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used for determining factors affecting the establishment of a HPH. Results: Society (0.97) and Policy (0.74) had the highest regression weights (effects) and management had the lowest one. Conclusion: Community assessment was the most important dimension of proposed conceptual model for establishing a HPH.
What drives memory-based attentional capture? An investigation on category-based working memory guidance of visual attention

Previous neurophysiological and behavioural studies have shown that attention can be guided by the contents of working memory (WM), and that such guidance can be involuntary even when it is detrimental to the task at hand. In three experiments, this thesis investigated whether the guidance of visual attention from WM could be generalized from a specific stimulus or a task to a category. Experiment 1 tested whether maintaining a set of stimuli of a specific category in WM would influence participants' deployment of visual attention to favour other stimuli that belonged to the same category. Experiment 2 further manipulated the interval between the onset of a critical prime (i.e., a stimulus in the same category as the stimuli held in WM) and the target to determine whether the results of Experiment 1 were associated with the lack of time for attention to be focused onto the critical prime. In both experiments, the stimuli held in WM never appeared in the prime display. In Experiment 3, the identity of the prime was manipulated so that it matched the stimuli held in WM on half of the trials. The results showed that when the stimuli held in WM never reappeared in the prime display (Experiments 1 and 2) there was no evidence that maintaining specific stimuli in WM biased the distribution of attention to other stimuli within the same category. However, when the stimuli held in WM could reappear in the prime display on some trials (Experiment 3), the participants whose reaction times were relatively fast showed evidence for category-based WM guidance of attention when the critical prime item was a new stimulus in the same category as the stimuli held in WM. In contrast, the participants whose reaction times were relatively slow showed a non-spatially specific