Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CCL2 Is a Vascular Permeability Factor Inducing CCR2-Dependent Endothelial Retraction during Lung Metastasis

Increased levels of the chemokine CCL2 in cancer patients are associated with poor prognosis. Experimental evidence suggests that CCL2 correlates with inflammatory monocyte recruitment and induction of vascular activation, but the functionality remains open. Here, we show that endothelial Ccr2 facilitates pulmonary metastasis using an endothelial-specific Ccr2-deficient mouse model (Ccr2ecKO). Similar levels of circulating monocytes and equal leukocyte recruitment to metastatic lesions of Ccr2ecKO and Ccr2fl/fl littermates were observed. The absence of endothelial Ccr2 strongly reduced pulmonary metastasis, while the primary tumor growth was unaffected. Despite a comparable cytokine milieu in Ccr2ecKO and Ccr2fl/fl littermates the absence of vascular permeability induction was observed only in Ccr2ecKO mice. CCL2 stimulation of pulmonary endothelial cells resulted in increased phosphorylation of MLC2, endothelial cell retraction, and vascular leakiness that was blocked by an addition of a CCR2 inhibitor. These data demonstrate that endothelial CCR2 expression is required for tumor cell extravasation and pulmonary metastasis. Implications: The findings provide mechanistic insight into how CCL2–CCR2 signaling in endothelial cells promotes their activation through myosin light chain phosphorylation, resulting in endothelial retraction and enhanced tumor cell migration and metastasis.
Calibration of excess thermodynamic properties and elastic constant variations associated with the alpha beta phase transition in quartz

Spontaneous strains for the a ↔ b transition in quartz were determined from lattice parameter data collected by X-ray powder diffraction and neutron powder diffraction over the temperature range ;5‐1340 K. These appear to be compatible with previous determinations of the order parameter variation in a quartz only if there is a non-linear relationship between the individual strains and the square of the order parameter. An expanded form of the 2-4-6 Landau potential usually used to describe the phase transition was developed to account for these strains and to permit calculation of the elastic constant variations. Calibration of the renormalized coefficients of the basic 2-4-6 potential, using published heat capacity data, provides a quantitative description of the excess free energy, enthalpy, entropy, and heat capacity. Values of the unrenormalized coefficients in the Landau expansion that include all the strain-order parameter coupling coefficients were used to calculate variations of the elastic constants. Values of the bare elastic constants were extracted from published elasticity data for b quartz. Calculated variations of C11 and C12 match their observed variations closely, implying that the extended Landau expansion provides a good representation of macroscopic changes within the (001) plane of quartz. Agreement was not as close for C33, suggesting that other factors may influence the strain parallel to [001]. The geometrical mechanism for the transition involves both rotations and shearing of SiO4 tetrahedra, with each coupled differently to the driving order parameter. Only the shearing part of the macroscopic distortions appears to show the same temperature dependence as other properties that scale with Q 2 . Coupling between the strain and the order parameter provides the predominant stabilization energy for a quartz and is also responsible for the first-order character of the transition.
Analysis of Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Rainfall Variations over Kenya

This paper presents analysis of spatial and temporal patterns of rainfall variability over Kenya between 1971 and 2010. Rainfall data was obtained from 26 stations in Kenya, out of total 34 synoptic stations which were analyzed at monthly, seasonal and annual scales. Monthly Climate Research Unit (CRU) and Global Precipitation Climate Centre (GPCC) data sets were used. Results showed that CRU data performs better than GPCC when subjected to evaluation and comparison with station data. The findings showed that the highest and lowest annual rainfall was recorded in 1997 (1309.1.2mm) and 2000 (609.4mm) respectively. Maximum mean annual rainfall (2087.0mm) was observed on Kisii station, while the least mean annual rainfall (203mm) was reported at Lodwar station. The highest recorded total rainfall within the analysis domain occurred at Kisii location (3673.6mm), while the least was recorded at Lodwar location (54.2mm). Further results reveal that among the seasons, a noticeable decrease in March, April and May (MAM: 95.5.0mm) and slight increase in October to December (OND: 65.3mm). Overall the findings demonstrated that there is significant decrease in rainfall over Kenya and this is in line with recent trends of global warming as reported by last intergovernmental panel on climate change report (IPCC report). The significance of these findings is that it could support various policy makers and development partners in the field of climate science working in Kenya both on local to large scale related industries. Keywords: Spatial-temporal variability, Climatology, Kenya.
On the Julia set of a typical quadratic polynomial with a Siegel disk

Let 0 << 1 be an irrational number with continued fraction expan- sion =( a1 ;a 2 ;a 3 ;::: ), and consider the quadratic polynomial P : z 7! e 2i z +z 2 . By performing a trans-quasiconformal surgery on an associated Blaschke product model, we prove that if log an = O( p n )a sn ! 1 ; then the Julia set of P is locally-connected and has Lebesgue measure zero. In particular, it follows that for almost every 0 << 1, the quadratic P has a Siegel disk whose boundary is a Jordan curve passing through the critical point of P.B y standard renormalization theory, these results generalize to the quadratics which have Siegel disks of higher periods.
Public Opinion on Immigration: Has the Recession Changed Minds?

It is widely believed that the current recession has soured public attitudes towards immigration. But most existing studies are cross sectional and can shed little light on the economy-wide forces that shift public opinion on immigration. In this paper I use the six rounds of the European Social Survey (2002-2012) to test the effects of economic shocks on immigration opinion for 20 countries. The recession that began in 2008 provides a useful test because its severity varied so widely across Europe. For Europe as a whole the shifts in average opinion have been remarkably mild. But trends in opinion have varied across countries, especially in the responses to a question on whether immigrants are good or bad for the economy. At the country level, pro-immigration opinion is negatively related to the share of immigrants in the population and to the share social benefits in GDP, but only weakly to unemployment. These effects differ somewhat across responses to different questions relating to immigration policy and to the desirability of immigrants. The recession also influenced other attitudes and traits that are sometimes linked to opinion on immigration.
Macroeconomic Impact of Foreign Direct Investment: A Study on SAARC Countries

With the greater integration of world economy foreign direct investment (FDI) has become a very common feature in almost every countries of the world. But, there is a trend of these FDI flows to be directed towards the developing nations because of emerging opportunities and huge market potentials. However, there are a lot of debates about the contribution of FDI in the developing economies. Therefore this study is intended to measure the macroeconomic impact of FDI in SAARC countries. This study has selected six macroeconomic variables: gross domestic product, inflation, current account balance, government revenue, total foreign exchange reserve and gross capital formation to test the impact of FDI on them. Required data have been collected from the websites of World Bank and International Monetary Fund for a period of 11 years from 2002 to 2012 and analyzed applying correlation and simple regression methods using SPSS 16.0. From the analysis this study has found that if FDI flows into a country increase, the level of gross domestic product, inflation, government revenue, foreign reserve and gross capital formation of that country are also expected to be increased. On the other hand, if FDI increases, current account balance is expected to be decreased in a country. Keywords: FDI, gross domestic product, inflation, current account balance, government revenue, foreign exchange reserve, gross capital formation.
A quality assessment of crude palm oil marketed in Bahia, Brazil

The characteristics of the quality of crude palm oil (CPO) and crude palm olein (CPOL) produced in the states of Bahia and Para were investigated. Twelve oil samples were analyzed; 2 (CPO) were from Para (produced industrially), while the other 10 were from Bahia (3 CPOs and 3 CPOLs produced industrially, while 1 CPOL and 3 CPOs were traditionally processed). The chemical analyses included the determination of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME), free fatty acids (FFA%), peroxide value (PV), induction time (IT), total carotenoids (TC) and total polar compounds (TPC). The major saturated fatty acids in these samples were palmitic (34.79-42.89 g 100 g –1 ) and stearic (4.49-5.84 g 100 g –1 ) acid, and the main unsaturated fatty acids were oleic (37.31-43.69 g 100 g –1 ) and linoleic (9.04- 12.74 g100 g –1 ) acid. All samples produced in Bahia exhibited higher FFA (6.77-13.49%) and TPC (13.71-19.50%) levels than permitted in the international quality standards, unlike the samples produced in Para. TC, PV and IT ranged from 422.1 to 584.2 mg g –1 , 1.32 to 3.7 meq O 2 kg –1 oil and 1.72 to 4.66 h, respectively. PV, FFA and TPC were inversely correlated with TC and IT. The use of inappropriate oil extraction processes in Bahia is clearly becoming a food safety problem.
Stress Analysis and Weight Reduction of a One-Cylinder Engine Crankshaft

The article deals with the weight reduction and the achievement of a more homogeneous stress distribution of a one-cylinder engine’s crankshaft, developed for the Formula Student series. In order to achieve this goal, a series of static FEM analysis were performed on the crankshaft. For the FEM analyses, the critical loading and kinematic boundary conditions of the crankshaft were calculated with two different methods. The loads were determined analytically and were verified by Creo Mechanism software. The calculations were done for different engine speeds and - as a result - the critical engine speed, where the highest loads appear could be determined. An essential weight reduction and a more homogeneous stress distribution were achieved on the crankshaft as the result of FEM analysis.
M L ] 1 8 Ja n 20 09 Maximum Entropy Discrimination Markov Networks

Standard maximum margin structured prediction methods lack a straightforward probabilistic interpretation of the learning scheme and the prediction rule. Therefore its unique advantages such as dual sparseness and kernel tricks cannot be easily conjoined with the merits of a probabilistic model such as Bayesian regularization, model averaging, and allowing hidden variables. In this paper, we present a novel and general framework called Maximum Entropy Discrimination Markov Networks (MaxEnDNet), which integrates these two approaches and combines and extends their merits. Major innovations of this model include: 1) It generalizes the extant Markov network prediction rule based on a point estimator of weights to a Bayesian-style estimator that integrates over a learned distribution of the weights. 2) It extends the conventional max-entropy discrimination learning of classification rule to a new structural max-entropy discrimination paradigm of learning the distribution of Markov networks. 3) It subsumes the well-known and powerful Maximum Margin Markov network (MN) as a special case, and leads to a model similar to an L1regularized MN that is simultaneously primal and dual sparse, or other types of Markov network by plugging in different prior distributions of the weights. 4) It offers a simple inference algorithm that combines existing variational inference and convex-optimization based MN solvers as subroutines. 5) It offers a PAC-Bayesian style generalization bound. This work represents the first successful attempt to combine Bayesian-style learning (based on generative models) with structured maximum margin learning (based on a discriminative model), and outperforms a wide array of competing methods for structured input/output learning on both synthetic and real OCR and web data extraction data sets.
Perception to dissection among undergraduate students in a Nigerian medical school

Cadaveric dissection has always been an integral part of undergraduate medical education. In recent times, this traditional method of anatomy education has either been relegated or replaced by other modes of teaching. We used a structured questionnaire with Likert-scale questions ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree on the quality of the cadavers, state of the dissection room, emotional impact of dissection, anxiety, alternatives to dissection and supervision of dissection classes by lecturers. This study was carried out among 30 second- and 40 third-year medical students of the Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria. Majority of the students strongly disagree with the notion of the cadaver as frightening but also deemed the cadaver a stressor. Majority of the respondents (65.7%) agreed that the preservative used on the cadaver causes eye irritation. The quality of the cadaver used for dissection matters to a majority of the students and 51.4% considered the dissection room stressful. There was no overwhelming support for the replacement of dissection with computer assisted learning (CAL) multimedia while most favoured the combination of both methods. A good number of the students supported lecturer’s supervision of dissection classes. The present findings demonstrate that though students find dissection stressful, they also find it very critical to the study of anatomy. There is need to establish a body bequest program in the department to facilitate the acquisition of cadavers. Traditional dissection should also be complemented with the use of CAL to promote students’ comprehension. Keywords: Cadaver, anatomy, body bequest, dissection
Evaluation of the Quality of Life of Female Family Caregivers of Patients with Breast Cancer in Iran (2013)

Background & aim: Family caregivers of cancer patients are at a high risk of physical, psychological and emotional problems, which could adversely affect their quality of life. This study aimed to evaluate the quality of life of the female caregivers of breast cancer patients in Sabzevar, Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 105 participants in Sabzevar, Iran in 2013. Subjects were selected via purposive sampling, and required data were collected using the Caregiver Quality of Life Index-Cancer (CQOLC) scale, which was completed by the family caregivers of breast cancer patients through interviews. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 20 using independent t-test, analysis of variance, Pearson’s correlation-coefficient, and stepwise multiple regression analysis. Results: Mean age of the participants was 36.9±10.9 years, and total mean score of quality of life was 55.48±10.87. The highest score was observed in the subscale of “lifestyle disruption” (mean: 66.14±17.31), while the lowest score belonged to the subscale of “emotional/mental burden” (mean: 49.43±18.49). Total mean score of quality of life in the sisters of breast cancer patients was 4.678 units higher compared to the caregivers who were the daughter of the patients. Moreover, total mean score of quality of life in breast cancer patients with no insurance was 5.457 scores lower compared to those with insurance. Conclusion: According to the results of this study, emotional and psychological needs of the female caregivers of patients with breast cancer (as informal caregivers) must be considered in developing related educational programs for the formal caregivers of these patients, especially mental health nurses.
Long-term denudation rates from the Central Andes (Chile) estimated from a Digital Elevation Model using the Black Top Hat function and Inverse Distance Weighting: implications for the Neogene climate of the Atacama Desert

A methodology for determining long-term denudation rates from morphologic markers in a Digital Eleva- tion Model (DEM) is checked by a comparative study of two drainage basins in the Precordillera of the Central Andes. In both cases the initial confi guration of an incised pediment surface has been restored by using two different methods: the Black Top Hat (BTH) function and the Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) interpolation. Where vertical incision and hillslope erosion are recorded, the IDW appears to be the most adequate to reconstitute the pediment surfaces. Conversely, where only vertical incision is observed, the BTH describes more precisely the former pediment surfaces and it is easier to solve. By subtracting the DEM from the reconstructed marker we calculated an eroded volume, and estimated its uncertainty by considering Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and DEM grid error. For the last ~10 Myr we obtained long-term denudation rates of 7.33±1.6 m/Myr in the San Andres drainage basin and 13.59±1.9 m/Myr in the El Salado drainage basin. These estimations are largely in agreement with other reported estimates of long-term denudation rates in the Atacama Desert. Comparison with long-term denudation rates reported in a wide range of climatic regimes suggests that our estimates cannot be explained by the current rainfall in the Precordillera. However they could be explained by a rainfall similar to that reported 40 km to the east in the Puna. This suggests that during the time span concerned the geomorphologic evolution of the study area, this evolution is dominated by an orographically controlled rainfall pattern. The preserved pediment surface and the small long term denudation rates determined in this study also indicate that the Precordillera was never reached by humid tropical air masses and precipitation as currently observed in the Altiplano during the summer months.
Changes in freshwater content in the North Atlantic Ocean 1955–2006

Freshwater content changes (FW) for the North Atlantic Ocean (NA) are calculated from in situ salinity profiles for the period 1955–2006 from the surface to 2,000 meters. Heat content (HC) is also calculated from in situ temperature profiles for comparison. A decrease in FW between 1955 and 2006 of ∼30,000 km3 is found for the NA, despite an increase in FW of ∼16,000 km3 in the subpolar North Atlantic (SNA) and Nordic Seas between the late 1960s and the early 1990s. Over the last two decades there is a pattern of decreasing FW in the upper 400 meters and increasing FW below 1,300 meters for the NA. FW and HC are strongly negatively correlated for both the SNA (r = −0.93) and the NA (r = −0.79). Net precipitation, from NCEP/NCAR, is found to have a strong influence on FW changes in the SNA but this relation is weaker elsewhere.
Improving Attention-Based End-to-End ASR Systems with Sequence-Based Loss Functions

Acoustic model and language model (LM) have been two major components in conventional speech recognition systems. They are normally trained independently, but recently there has been a trend to optimize both components simultaneously in a unified end-to-end (E2E) framework. However, the performance gap between the E2E systems and the traditional hybrid systems suggests that some knowledge has not yet been fully utilized in the new framework. An observation is that the current attention-based E2E systems could produce better recognition results when decoded with LMs which are independently trained with the same resource.In this paper, we focus on how to improve attention-based E2E systems without increasing model complexity or resorting to extra data. A novel training strategy is proposed for multi-task training with the connectionist temporal classification (CTC) loss. The sequence-based minimum Bayes risk (MBR) loss is also investigated. Our experiments on SWB 300hrs showed that both loss functions could significantly improve the baseline model performance. The additional gain from joint-LM decoding remains the same for CTC trained model but is only marginal for MBR trained model. This implies that while CTC loss function is able to capture more acoustic knowledge, MBR loss function exploits more word/character dependency.
VARIABILITY AND HERITABILITY STUDIES FOR POD YIELD AND ITS COMPONENT CHARACTERS IN WINGED BEAN (PSOPHOCARPUS TETRAGONOLOBUS (L.) DC.)

In the present investigation, twenty one genotypes of winged bean were evaluated to estimate variability, heritability and genetic advance over mean for vegetable pod yield and related attributes during 2013-14 under Kerala conditions. The analysis of variance showed significant difference among all the genotypes for yield and its attributing traits studied. The results indicated that the traits viz., primary branches per plant (79.32, 39.52), days to first flowering (93.68, 49.62), days to 50 per cent flowering (96.60, 49.95), days to first harvest (95.15, 38.50) and pod weight (78.79, 28.43) exhibited high heritability (A 60 %) coupled with high to moderate genetic advance as percent mean indicates the presence of flexible additive gene effects, which may be improved through simple plant selection methods. While, the remaining traits showed high to moderate heritability (30-60) coupled with moderate (10-20) to low (<10) genetic advance as percent of mean, suggesting predominance of nonadditive gene action in the expression of the traits, therefore may be potentially utilized in recombination breeding. Furthermore, based on the genetic parameters and per se performance, the suitable genotypes for these traits could be isolated and utilized for various winged bean improvement programmes.
Tidal Variability Related to Sea Level Variability in the Pacific Ocean

Ocean tides are changing worldwide for reasons unrelated to astronomical forcing. Changes in tidal properties coupled with altered mean sea level (MSL) may yield higher peak water levels and increased occurrence of short-term exceedance events such as storm surge and nuisance flooding. Here we investigate the hypothesis that changes in relative sea-level are correlated with alterations in tidal amplitudes. Our approach focuses on the correlation between short-term (monthly to interannual) fluctuations in sea-level with changes in tidal properties of major ocean tides (M2, and K1; S2 and O1) at 152 gauges. Results suggest that sea-level variability is correlated to inter-annual tidal variability at most (92%) of tide gauges in the Pacific, with statistically significant rates between ±10 and ±500 mm per meter sea-level rise observed. These tidal anomalies, while influenced by basin-scale climate processes and sea-level changes, appear to be locally forced (in part) and not coherent over amphidromic or basin-wide scales. Overall, the Western Pacific shows a greater concentration of tide/sea level correlations at interannual time scales than the Eastern Pacific; 44% and 46% of gauges are significant in K1 and O1 in the west compared to 29% and 30% in the east, and 63% and 53% of gauges in the west are significant in M2 and S2 versus 47% and 32% in the east. Seasonal variation in tidal properties is less apparent in the empirical record, with statistically significant seasonal variations observed at only 35% of all gauges, with the largest concentrations in Southeast Asia.