Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hitting Times, Cover Cost, and the Wiener Index of a Tree

We exhibit a close connection between hitting times of the simple random walk on a graph, the Wiener index, and related graph invariants. In the case of trees, we obtain a simple identity relating hitting times to the Wiener index. It is well known that the vertices of any graph can be put in a linear preorder so that vertices appearing earlier in the preorder are “easier to reach” by a random walk, but “more difficult to get out of. ” We define various other natural preorders and study their relationships. These preorders coincide when the graph is a tree, but not necessarily otherwise. Our treatise is self‐contained, and puts some known results relating the behavior or random walk on a graph to its eigenvalues in a new perspective.
1.2Gb/s 3.9pJ/b mono-phase pulse-modulation inductive-coupling transceiver for mm-range board-to-board communication

Recently, short distance board-to-board interconnections are widely employed in portable systems and wearable devices to accommodate many components into an extremely tight footprint. In particular, portable devices such as smart phone and tablet require over 1Gb/s data transfer through ~1mm distance between AP board and a high resolution wide screen display board. Most of display interfaces are implemented with wire-line F-PCB connector, but, they suffer from: 1) high manufacturing cost, 2) the large form factor of the connector and standard socket and 3) large capacitance values of the connector and socket degrading the channel characteristics. So far, various communication interfaces have been tried to realize low cost, small form factor and low energy operation, but with limited success. The bi-phase pule modulation was used in board-to-board communication rather than base-band transmission due to its low energy operation [1-5]. This method used the positive pulse current for data `1' and the negative pulse current for data `0', and the receiver recovered the data by sampling the data at the exact time, which requires an accurate delay control unit. However, the bi-phase pulse modulation consumes significant power because: 1) current pulses sampled at every data consume large current in TX, and 2) a power hungry delay control unit is required to exactly control the sampling time.
Chronic Direct Stimulation of Adenylyl Cyclase Induces Cardiac Desensitization to Catecholamine and Beta-Adrenergic Receptor Downregulation in Rabbits

Chronic stimulation of beta-adrenergic receptors (βARs) induces βAR downregulation. However, it is not known whether continuous activation of adenylyl cyclase without direct stimulation of βARs leads to receptor downregulation. This study investigated the effects of chronic stimulation of adenylyl cyclase with colforsin, on hemodynamic variables, and on myocardial βAR density. In all, 55 rabbits received intravenous colforsin (1.6 μg/kg/min, n = 20), isoproterenol (ISO; 0.4 μg/kg/min, n = 16), or saline (n = 19) for two weeks. After chronic drug administration, responses of systolic (Δ% peak LV +dP/dt) and diastolic function (Δ% peak LV −dP/dt), and heart rate (Δ% heart rate), to acute administration of ISO (0.05 to 0.2 μg/kg/min) or colforsin (5 to 20 nmol/kg/min) were decreased compared to those before chronic administration. βAR density in the colforsin group (69.8 ± 13.8 fmol/ml protein) was less than that in the saline group (79.8 ± 15.0 fmol/ml protein, P < 0.05), but was greater than that in the ISO group (56.3 ± 8.4 fmol/ml protein, P < 0.05). Thus, chronic direct stimulation of adenylyl cyclase elicited systolic and diastolic functional desensitization to βAR stimulation or adenylyl cyclase stimulation, and myocardial βAR downregulation.
Vascular causes of vertebral asymmetry and the laterality of scoliosis

The aetiology of idiopathic scoliosis is multifactorial and complex, but the direction (laterality) of the curvature may depend on normal growth factors. It is postulated that vascular asymmetries are responsible for the left laterality of infantile thoracic scoliosis and the right laterality of adolescent thoracic scoliosis. Two hypotheses are presented. The left laterality of thoracic scoliosis in infancy may be due to the streaming of blood from the aortic arch to the right and streaming of blood from the ductus arteriosus to the left so that right vertebral arches receive better oxygenated blood, develop faster and grow larger. It is also suggested that, at a later stage, spontaneous resolution of infantile scoliosis and the right laterality of adolescent thoracic curvatures are due to the rotational force that is exerted on growing thoracic vetebrae by the asymmetrically situated descending thoracic aorta. It is emphasized that the normal growth factors that tend to a slight left thoracic scoliosis in infancy, and to a right thoracic scoliosis in adolescence, by themselves produce only a minimal scoliosis, and that progressive scoliosis involves additional unknown factors.
Charismatic leadership and tacit knowledge sharing in the context of enterprise systems learning: the mediating effect of psychological safety climate and intrinsic motivation

ABSTRACT Drawing upon charismatic leadership and intrinsic motivation theory, we developed a theoretical model to examine the impact mechanism of leader charisma on individuals’ tacit knowledge-sharing behaviour in the context of an Enterprise Systems learning team. We conducted a survey-based field study to examine the theoretical model and hypotheses. A total of 153 questionnaires were distributed to employees from more than 20 branches of the Beidahuang Group in China and 117 valid questionnaires were returned. Results from partial least squares analysis suggest that leader charisma has a strong influence on psychological safety climate, which in turn has a positive impact on individuals’ intrinsic motivation and their tacit knowledge-sharing behaviour. Our research findings unpack the impact mechanism of charismatic leadership on tacit knowledge sharing, and provide guidelines for the team leader to exhibit charismatic leadership traits in order to promote a psychological safety climate and facilitate an effective knowledge sharing of enterprise systems.
Time Discounting: The Delay Effect and Procrastinating Behavior

The delay effect, that people discount the near future more than the distant future, has not been verified rigorously. An experiment conducted by us in China confirms that, by separating the delay from the interval, the delay effect exists only within a short delay. The results are reliable, because the rewards paid were very large, in order to elicit the subjects - true preferences. The interval and magnitude effects are also confirmed. Finally, subjects - procrastinating behavior, as reported in the questionnaire conducted at the end of the experiment, is explained by the time discount rates and the degree of the delay effect revealed in the experiment.
Hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 expression overcomes repression of the hepatic phenotype in dedifferentiated hepatoma cells

The capacity of the liver-enriched transcription factor hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 (HNF4) to direct redifferentiation of dedifferentiated rat hepatoma cells was investigated by stable transfection of epitope-tagged HNF4 cDNA into H5 variant cells. HNF4-producing cells expressed the previously silent HNF1 gene and showed activation of some hepatic functions, including alpha1-antitrypsin, beta-fibrinogen, and transthyretin, but not of the endogenous HNF4 gene. Expression of the other hepatocyte-enriched transcription factors was not modified. Treatment of the HNF4tag-expressing cells with dexamethasone induced expression of the transgene by 10-fold, resulting in enhanced expression of target genes of both glucocorticoid hormones and HNF4. The set of activated hepatic genes was extended by treatment of cells with the demethylating agent 5-azacytidine followed by selection in dexamethasone-containing glucose-free medium. Some of the colonies that developed reexpressed the entire set of hepatic functions tested. Fusion of HNF4tag-producing H5 cells with well-differentiated Fao cells showed that only those hybrids which maintained expression of HNF4tag were protected from complete extinction, including that of the Fao HNF4 gene. Thus, H5 cells must produce an extinguisher of the HNF4 gene. In addition, this result implies that HNF4 itself, or its target HNF1, is a positive regulator of HNF4. In conclusion, HNF4tag expression overcomes repression of the hepatic phenotype of the H5 cell without abolishing its potential to extinguish an active genome. Taken together, these results predict that expression of HNF4 should be sufficient to establish heritable expression of many parameters of the hepatic differentiated state.
The Result of Treatment on Vestibular and General Pain Thresholds in Women With Provoked Vestibulodynia

ObjectiveTo correlate changes in vestibular pain thresholds to general pain thresholds in a subgroup of women with provoked vestibulodynia taking part in a treatment study. MethodsThirty-five women with provoked vestibulodynia were randomized to 4 months' treatment with either electromyographic biofeedback (n=17) or topical lidocaine (n=18). Vestibular and general pressure pain thresholds (PPTs) were measured and the health survey Short Form-36 (SF-36) was filled out before treatment and at a 6-month follow-up. Subjective treatment outcome and bodily pain were analyzed. Thirty healthy women of the same age served as controls for general PPTs and SF-36. ResultsNo differences in outcome measures were observed between the 2 treatments. Vestibular pain thresholds increased from median 30 g before to 70 g after treatment in the anterior vestibule (P<0.001) and from median 20 to 30 g in the posterior vestibule (P<0.001). PPTs on the leg and arm were lower in the patients as compared with controls both before and at the 6-month follow-up. Patients reporting total cure were 3/35; 25/35 were improved. The number of patients who frequently reported of other bodily pain was reduced after the treatment. The patients had lower scores for SF-36 (General Health, Vitality) before treatment, which was restored at the 6-month follow-up. DiscussionTreating provoked vestibulodynia by either topical lidocaine or electromyographic biofeedback increased vestibular pain thresholds, reduced dyspareunia, and improved bodily pain. The patients showed a general hypersensitivity to pressure pain compared with controls and in this study the hypersensitivity did not seem to be affected by treating the superficial dyspareunia.
Building Representative-Based Data Aggregation Tree in Wireless Sensor Networks

Data aggregation is an essential operation to reduce energy consumption in large-scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs). A compromised node may forge an aggregation result and mislead base station into trusting a false reading. Efficient and secure aggregation scheme is critical in WSN applications due to the stringent resource constraints. In this paper, we propose a method to build up the representative-based aggregation tree in the WSNs such that the sensing data are aggregated along the route from the leaf cell to the root of the tree. In the cinema of large-scale and high-density sensor nodes, representative-based aggregation tree can reduce the data transmission overhead greatly by directed aggregation and cell-by-cell communications. It also provides security services including the integrity, freshness, and authentication, via detection mechanism in the cells.
Vanadyl sulfate protects against streptozotocin‐induced morphological and biochemical changes in rat aorta

The aim of this study was to investigate the protective effects of vanadyl sulfate on aorta tissue of normal and streptozotocin (STZ)‐induced diabetic rats, morphologically and biochemically. The animals were made diabetic by an intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (65 mg/kg) and vanadyl sulfate (100 mg/kg) that was given every day for 60 days by gavage technique to rats. Under the light and transmission electron microscopes, hypertrophy of the vessel wall, focal disruption in the elastic lamellae, an increase in thickness of total aortic wall, tunica intima, subendothelial space and adventitial layer, and a disorganization in smooth muscular cells of the tunica media were observed in diabetic animals. The aorta lipid peroxidation (LPO) levels were significantly increased and the aorta glutathione (GSH) levels were significantly reduced in STZ diabetic rats. In diabetic rats administered vanadyl sulfate for 60 days, aorta LPO levels significantly decreased and the aorta GSH level significantly increased. In conclusion, in vivo treatment with vanadyl sulfate of diabetic rats prevented the morphological and biochemical changes observed in thoracic aorta of diabetic animals. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Molecular analysis reveals a genetic basis for the phenotypic diversity of metaplastic breast carcinomas

Cancers may be composed of multiple populations of submodal clones sharing the same initiating genetic lesions, followed by the acquisition of divergent genetic hits. Intra‐tumour genetic heterogeneity has profound implications for cancer clinical management. To determine the extent of intra‐tumour genetic heterogeneity in breast cancers, and whether the morphological diversity of breast cancers is underpinned by divergent genetic aberrations, we analysed the genomic profiles of microdissected, morphologically distinct components of six metaplastic breast carcinomas, tumours characterized by the presence of morphological areas with divergent differentiation. Each morphologically distinct component was separately microdissected and subjected to high‐resolution microarray‐based comparative genomic hybridization. Each component was also analysed by immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization. Clonal relationship between the distinct components was tested by TP53 sequencing and human androgen receptor (HUMARA) X‐chromosome inactivation assay. In the majority of cases, all morphologically distinct components from each case were clonal and displayed remarkably similar genetic profiles. In two cases, however, morphologically distinct components harboured specific genetic aberrations. In an adenosquamous carcinoma, the differences were such that only 20% of the genome harboured similar copy number changes. The squamous component displayed EGFR gene amplification, EGFR over‐expression and lack of expression of hormone receptors, whereas the lobular component displayed the reverse pattern. The components of a biphasic spindle cell carcinoma harboured similar gains, losses, amplifications of 9p23 and 17q12 (HER2) and identical TP53 mutations, suggesting that these were relatively early events in the development of this tumour; however, each component displayed divergent focal amplifications. Importantly, the metastatic deposit of this case, despite harbouring a TP53 mutation identical to that found in the primary tumour, harboured additional specific focal amplifications. This proof‐of‐principle study provides direct evidence of intra‐tumour genetic heterogeneity in breast cancers, and shows that in some cases morphological diversity may be underpinned by distinct genetic aberrations. Copyright © 2009 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Evaluation of community pharmacy service mix: evidence from the 2004 National Pharmacist Workforce Study.

OBJECTIVES To describe the mix of pharmacy services being offered in different types of community pharmacy practices and to identify factors associated with a community pharmacy offering pharmacy services. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING Community pharmacies (independent, chain, mass merchandiser, and supermarket pharmacies). PARTICIPANTS Pharmacists practicing full-time or part-time who worked in community pharmacies and responded to the 2004 National Pharmacist Workforce Survey. INTERVENTION Mailed survey from the 2004 National Pharmacist Workforce Survey, which included core content questions for all sampled pharmacists and supplemental surveys that included workplace questions for a selected subsample of pharmacists. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Type and frequency of pharmacy services being offered in a community pharmacy, including dispensing and product-related services (e.g., specialty compounding), and pharmacist care services (e.g., immunizations, smoking cessation, health screening, medication therapy management, wellness screening, nutritional support, and disease management services). RESULTS Four pharmacist care services were reported as being offered at more than 10% of community pharmacy practices: immunizations, smoking cessation, health screening, and diabetes management. The number of pharmacist care services offered at a community pharmacy was positively associated with having at least three pharmacists on duty, innovativeness of the pharmacy, status as an independent pharmacy, and status as a supermarket pharmacy. More than one half of the community pharmacy practices did not offer any of the eight pharmacist care services included in a pharmacy service index. CONCLUSION Pharmacy services were reported at relatively few community pharmacies, and were associated with pharmacy innovativeness, pharmacist staffing levels, and pharmacy setting. Some community pharmacies are offering pharmacy services as part of their business strategy, while others are dedicated to dispensing services. Continued study of pharmacy service availability in community pharmacies is needed to improve our understanding of our capacity to deliver such services, including medication therapy management services.
Volume structured ordinal features with background similarity measure for video face recognition

It has been shown in different studies the benefits of using spatio-temporal information for video face recognition. However, most of the existing spatio-temporal representations do not capture the local discriminative information present in human faces. In this paper we introduce a new local spatio-temporal descriptor, based on structured ordinal features, for video face recognition. The proposed method not only encodes jointly the local spatial and temporal information, but also extracts the most discriminative facial dynamic information while trying to discard spatio-temporal features related to intra-personal variations. Besides, a similarity measure based on a set of background samples is proposed to be used with our descriptor, showing to boost its performance. Extensive experiments conducted on the recent but difficult YouTube Faces database demonstrate the good performance of our proposal, achieving state-of-the-art results.
Conservation of the spleen with distal pancreatectomy.

To the Editor . —The article by Warshaw 1 in the May 1988 issue of theArchives, describing his experience with preservation of blood circulation to the spleen via the short gastric and gastroepiploic vessels during a distal pancreatectomy that includes the splenic artery and vein, complements our own experience with procurement of segmental pancreas grafts for transplantation from living related donors. 2 The technique of distal pancreatectomy for segmental transplantation from living related donors was initially described in 1980 3 and has been illustrated in detail. 4 The splenic artery and vein are ligated in the hilum of the spleen, preserving the collaterals between the short gastric and gastroepiploic vessels and leaving the spleen in its bed. The distal pancreas is then mobilized to the level of the portal vein, the pancreatic neck is transected, the splenic artery is divided at its origin from the celiac axis, and the splenic
BASIC AND TRANSLATIONAL—ALIMENTARY TRACT Bacterial Sensor Triggering Receptor Expressed on Myeloid Cells-2 Regulates the Mucosal Inflammatory Response

Bacterial Sensor Triggering Receptor Expressed on Myeloid Cells-2 Regulates the Mucosal Inflammatory Response CARMEN CORREALE,* MARCO GENUA,* STEFANIA VETRANO,* ELISA MAZZINI, CHIARA MARTINOLI, ANTONINO SPINELLI, VINCENZO ARENA, LAURENT PEYRIN–BIROULET, FLAVIO CAPRIOLI, NADIA PASSINI, PAOLA PANINA–BORDIGNON, ALESSANDRO REPICI, ALBERTO MALESCI, SERGIO RUTELLA, MARIA RESCIGNO, and SILVIO DANESE Division of Gastroenterology, Humanitas Clinical and Research Center, Rozzano, Milan, Italy; Department of Experimental Oncology, European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy; Department of Pathology, Catholic University Medical School, Rome, Italy; Department of Gastroenterology, Inserm U954, University Hospital of Nancy, Henri Poincaré University, Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France; U.O. Gastroenterologia 2, Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Ospedale Policlinico di Milano, Milan, Italy; 6 7 8 Bioxell, Milan, Italy; Reproductive Sciences Lab, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy; and Department of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, IRCCS Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, Rome, Italy
Decentralized Participation of Flexible Demand in Electricity Markets—Part II: Application With Electric Vehicles and Heat Pump Systems

Realizing the significant demand flexibility potential in deregulated power systems requires its suitable integration in electricity markets. Part I of this work has presented the theoretical, algorithmic and implementation aspects of a novel pool market mechanism achieving this goal by combining the advantages of centralized mechanisms and dynamic pricing schemes, based on Lagrangian relaxation (LR) principles. Part II demonstrates the applicability of the mechanism, considering two reschedulable demand technologies with significant potential, namely electric vehicles with flexible charging capability and electric heat pump systems accompanied by heat storage for space heating. The price response sub-problems of these technologies are formulated, including detailed models of their operational properties. Suitable case studies on a model of the U.K. system are examined in order to validate the properties of the proposed mechanism and illustrate and analyze the benefits associated with the market participation of the considered technologies.
Omnidirectional circularly polarized antenna using zeroth-order resonance of metamaterial transmission line

The omnidirectional circularly polarized (CP) antenna using a circular mushroom structure with curved branches is proposed. The antenna uses the zeroth-order resonance (ZOR) mode of epsilon negative (ENG) transmission line (TL) to obtain a vertical polarization and an omnidirectional radiation pattern. Also, the horizontal polarization is obtained by the curved branches. The measured 3 dB axial ratio is observed in 0–15° and 202–360° of an azimuthal plane.