Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular genetic analysis of the cystathionine β‐synthase gene in Portuguese homocystinuria patients: three novel mutations

To the Editor: Cystathionine -synthase (CBS) deficiency is the most prevalent inborn error of methionine metabolism, and is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait (1). The pathogenic mutations in the CBS gene were recently updated and 92 different mutations have been identified in all encoding exons, but predominantly in exons 3 and 8 (2). Relatively common mutations are 833T C (I278T) and 919G A (G307S), both found in exon 8 and accounting for about 75% of the homocystinuric alleles analyzed so far. In order to elucidate the molecular basis of CBS deficiency in Portugal,
Multifractal Texture Estimation for Detection and Segmentation of Brain Tumors

A stochastic model for characterizing tumor texture in brain magnetic resonance (MR) images is proposed. The efficacy of the model is demonstrated in patient-independent brain tumor texture feature extraction and tumor segmentation in magnetic resonance images (MRIs). Due to complex appearance in MRI, brain tumor texture is formulated using a multiresolution-fractal model known as multifractional Brownian motion (mBm). Detailed mathematical derivation for mBm model and corresponding novel algorithm to extract spatially varying multifractal features are proposed. A multifractal feature-based brain tumor segmentation method is developed next. To evaluate efficacy, tumor segmentation performance using proposed multifractal feature is compared with that using Gabor-like multiscale texton feature. Furthermore, novel patient-independent tumor segmentation scheme is proposed by extending the well-known AdaBoost algorithm. The modification of AdaBoost algorithm involves assigning weights to component classifiers based on their ability to classify difficult samples and confidence in such classification. Experimental results for 14 patients with over 300 MRIs show the efficacy of the proposed technique in automatic segmentation of tumors in brain MRIs. Finally, comparison with other state-of-the art brain tumor segmentation works with publicly available low-grade glioma BRATS2012 dataset show that our segmentation results are more consistent and on the average outperforms these methods for the patients where ground truth is made available.
Reexamination of the Robustness of the Fama-French Three-Factor Model

We reexamine the robustness of the inference from the least-squares estimator under heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation of unknown form in a generic multifactor asset pricing model. It is shown that the asymptotic covariance matrix of the least-squares estimator of betas depends only on the long-run cokurtosis of factors and error terms, whereas that of alphas depends not only on the long-run cokurtosis but also on the long-run coskewness of factors and error terms. We numerically evaluate the celebrated Fama-French three-factor model using the U.S. data and …nd considerable changes in sizes of asymptotic variance estimates of the least-squares estimator of alphas and betas due to nonnormality and serial dependence.
Elastically deformable model-based motion-tracking of left ventricle

The motion of the myocardium is a sensitive indicator of many types of heart disease. Quantitative characterization of this motion is essential for the accurate diagnosis and treatment of heart disease. Although several magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques, such as tagged MRI and phase contrast MRI, provide noninvasive tools to obtain correlation of the position of points within the myocardium between images taken at subsequent time phases, the accurate tracking of the movement of these points remains a challenge due to the relatively low out-of-plane resolution of these imaging techniques. A motion tracking method based on elastic deformation estimation of a deformable model has been developed to track the three-dimensional motion of the myocardium. Elastic deformation estimation is performed on phase contrast MRI data by balancing the deformation potential energy of a deformable model and the potential energy derived from integrating velocity values of myocardial tissue points. The advantage of this method is that it can provide a physically plausible yet computationally efficient framework for cardiac motion tracking. To assess the proposed method, the motion of a normal human left ventricle (LV) was tracked throughout the entire cardiac cycle, and a quantitative strain analysis of the motion of the LV was carried out from end diastole to end systole. The results showed that the strain measurements were generally found to be consistent with previously published values.
The Link Between Voting and Life Satisfaction in Latin America

Abstract What is the relationship between voting and individual life satisfaction in Latin America? While studies of Western Europe suggest that voters are happier than nonvoters, this relationship has not been explored in the younger democracies of the developing world, including those of Latin America. Using multilevel regression models to examine individual-level survey data, this study shows a positive correlation between voting and happiness in the region, noting, however, that the relationship is attenuated in those countries that have enforced compulsory voting. We then explore the causal direction of this relationship: while the existing literature points to voting as a possible determinant of individual happiness, it is also possible that happier individuals are more likely to vote. Three different strategies are used to disentangle this relationship. On balance, the evidence suggests that individual happiness is more likely to be a cause rather than an effect of voting in Latin America.
Two Stage (Perfect) Equilibrium in Hotelling's Model

HOTELLING [I 929] suggests that his spatial competition model can be used to describe a wide range of differentiation problems. He points to the selection of product variety within an industry as a potential application. Most of the subsequent work in his tradition has taken the equivalence of the two problems for granted. In this note, we look more closely at this equivalence. We distinguish between two types of differentiated products according to the variety of preferences assumed with respect to those products. Building on this distinction, we recognize that the demand faced by a firm locating on Hotelling's line is analogous to the demand faced by a firm selecting a horizontally differentiated product. It should be emphasized, thus, that the equivalence between the geographical and the product selection problem is by no means general and relies on specific assumptions about consumers' preferences. Next, we formulate a small model, close to Hotelling's one in which firms select a horizontally differentiated product. Within this model, it will be shown that a pure strategy price equilibrium exists for every pair of products. This statement is to be contrasted with the results of d'Aspremont et al. [I979], who have shown that in the original Hotelling's setting an equilibrium fails to exist when firms are too close together. 1 In addition, we will examine the product selection problem faced by firms in a two-stage game: in the first stage, each firm selects a product; in the second stage, the firm defines a price for its product. We will seek the existence of a perfect equilibrium in this game. A perfect equilibrium in this context can be viewed as a Nash equilibrium in a game in which firms select a product, aware of the non-cooperative price equilibrium that will occur for each of their choices. It will be shown that contrary to Hotelling's principle, the two firms will maximise their differentiation (i.e. firms will locate at opposite ends of the market).
Coagulation effects of low molecular weight heparin compared with heparin in dogs considered to be at risk for clinically significant venous thrombosis.

OBJECTIVE Compare the effects of 3 anticoagulation protocols on anti-factor Xa activity (AXa). DESIGN Prospective, randomized, double-blind study. SETTING University veterinary teaching hospital. ANIMALS Eighteen dogs considered to be at risk for venous thrombosis. INTERVENTIONS Each dog was randomly assigned to 1 of the following 3 groups (n=6/group) and was treated for 24 hours: low-dose heparin (LDH), high-dose heparin (HDH), and dalteparin (DP). Dogs in the LDH group received a constant rate infusion (CRI) of unfractionated heparin (UFH) at 300 U/kg/d, the HDH group received a bolus of 100 U/kg of UFH IV, then a CRI of 900 U/kg/day, and the DP group received 100 U/kg DP SC at 0, 12, and 24 hours. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS A total of 54 samples for activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) and AXa assays were collected at 0, 4, and 28 hours. Six samples had an AXa >0.1 U/mL, 5 of those were from the HDH group at hour 4. Two samples from the HDH group at hour 4 had a prolonged aPTT (93 and 200 seconds) and the highest AXa (0.6 and 1.0 U/mL, respectively). Four additional dogs in the HDH group did not complete the study due to hemorrhage; none of the dogs completing the study showed signs of hemorrhage. CONCLUSIONS Neither DP nor LDH increased AXa to values considered therapeutic in humans (0.5-1 and 0.35-0.75 U/mL, respectively), and both protocols appear to be inadequate to increase AXa in dogs with clinical illness. HDH increased AXa to this range in 2 of 6 dogs, but had unpredictable effects on aPTT and resulted in hemorrhage in some dogs.
Price Formats, Discounts, and Consumers' Perceptions: A Comparison Between Hospitality and Non-Hospitality Industries

Price promotions play a crucial role in enhancing value and creating an economic incentive for consumers to purchase products and services. Results from this study clearly demonstrate that different discount levels and discount formats have a significant impact on consumers' perceptions. Non-hospitality services differed significantly from hospitality firms preferring the percentage format over the dollar format for value perceptions and purchase intentions. There is little or no preference for discount formats in the case of hospitality services. In contrast, the relationship between the four discount levels and value perceptions is positive and direct, except at the 80% level. The relationship between discount levels and other dependent variables was found to be significantly different between hospitality and non-hospitality firms.
Thyroid eye disease

Thyroid eye disease is a relatively rare condition, with an incidence of 2.9 to 16.0 cases per 100 000 population per year.1 The disease mainly affects women. Many patients experience distressing symptoms, and a few develop sight threatening complications. Patients are often young or middle aged and at the peak of their career. Most patients are very aware of their altered appearance. Sight loss can be prevented by appropriate management, yet it still occurs even in countries with advanced healthcare systems. This problem is largely due to delays in starting treatment, because health professionals are not always aware of the remarkable difference that treatment can make in restoring visual function and appearance.2 For example, treatment can reverse blindness and help a reclusive patient to become socially reintegrated. Referral to specialist centres is appropriate for all but the mildest cases.3 Thyroid eye disease is an autoimmune disorder, with associated thyroid autoimmunity always discernible.4 The presence of one or more shared autoantigens between the thyroid and the orbit may explain why retro-orbital tissues are affected.5 6 Extraocular muscles and retro-ocular connective tissue are infiltrated by lymphocytes, leading to activation of cytokine networks and inflammation and interstitial oedema of the extraocular muscles.7 8 Excess secretion of glycosaminoglycans by orbital fibroblasts seems to be an important contributor. The end result is expansion of the volume of extraocular muscles, retro-orbital fat, and connective tissue. Similar changes affect the eyelids and anterior periorbital tissues. Smoking increases the risk of developing thyroid eye disease by seven to eight fold.9 Apart from visible swelling and redness of the eyelids and conjunctiva, the other clinical features of thyroid eye disease can also be accounted for by the expansion of inflammatory soft tissue within the constraints of the rigid bony orbit. Anterior displacement of …
A nondisruptive multi-path handoff scheme for peer-to-peer live video streaming

The key challenge to provide a seamless peer-to-peer live video delivery over mobile heterogeneous networks is to handle dynamic changes of networks due to vertical handoff. To adapt to the network changes, it is required to support path adaptation which changes an overlay path by selecting a new sending peer and adjusts a reception rate to the new overlay path. In order to handle the path adaptation seamlessly, multi-path handoff schemes have been proposed, which preserve an old overlay path in an overlapped area while adapting to a new network. In the existing schemes, however, flows from old and new paths may compete for the bandwidth of a shared link with each other and this causes user's video quality degradation during handoff, which we call a shared bottleneck problem. We propose a nondisruptive handoff scheme to solve the shared bottleneck problem. By detecting a shared bottleneck link when probing potential paths, the proposed scheme adjusts underestimated bandwidth of potential paths during peer selection and makes the flow from an old path yield its bandwidth smoothly during rate adaptation.
Inflation targeting and switch of fiscal regime in New Zealand

Monetary policy cannot be adequately addressed without also specifying fiscal policy. I interpret the economic reforms in New Zealand in the 1980s using a simple model that includes reaction functions of both monetary and fiscal policy. The interpretation is based on the wealth effects of the government debt. The successful and sustainable shift in monetary policy regime in New Zealand was supported by a compatible switch in fiscal policy.
Empirical Estimates of the NAIRU

Empirical studies have found that the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) has been fluctuating in OECD countries around a constant mean of several percentage points over the past decades. This mean is calculated from the constant terms carried over from the wage and price growth equations. In this paper it is shown that a high proportion of the constant term is a statistical artefact and suggests a new method which yields approximately unbiased estimates of the time-invariant NAIRU. Using data for OECD countries it is shown that the constant-term correction lowers the unadjusted time-invariant NAIRU by approximately half.
Collective Bargaining and Job Benefits: The Case of Florida Deputy Sheriffs

In 2003, the Florida Supreme Court lifted the ban that prohibited sheriff deputies from engaging in collective bargaining. Borrowing data from the Criminal Justice Agency Profile, an annual census of Florida law enforcement agencies, this study asks two questions. First, what impact does the decision have on job benefits? Second, would restricting analysis to agencies with 100+ sworn members alter the findings? Fixed-effects panel data analyses reveal a noteworthy effect on starting salaries. Focusing on just larger agencies leads to a dramatic underestimation of the decision’s impact. The timeliness of this study is appraised in light of pending federal legislation.
Redescription of Rhizodomus tagatzi (Ciliophora: Spirotrichea: Tintinnida), Based on Morphology and Small Subunit Ribosomal RNA Gene Sequence

Herein, we redescribe a tintinnid ciliate that is most commonly known as Tintinnopsis corniger Hada, 1964; but it has been described several times with different names, specifically Tintinnopsis nudicauda Paulmier, 1997 and Rhizodomus tagatzi Strelkow & Wirketis, 1950. Neotype material was collected from the water column of the coastal saline Lake Faro, a meromictic basin connected to the Straits of Messina, Central Mediterranean. The Lake Faro population is characterized by a hyaline or sparsely agglomerated lorica, which made it possible to observe in detail the basal layer structure, usually concealed by abundant incrusting particles. Along with an improved description of the lorica, we provide novel information, such as the general zooid morphology, the ciliary pattern, and the small subunit rRNA (SSU rRNA) gene sequence. Our phylogenetic analysis, based on the SSU rRNA, groups this species with Tintinnopsis radix, while the first taxonomic study designated it as R. tagatzi, introducing a new genus due to peculiarities in lorica morphology. We conclude that the species should be known as R. tagatzi, the senior synonym for the species. However, we do not transfer any other species to this genus, despite strong molecular similarities. Although it is obvious that the genus Tintinnopsis is in need of a thorough revision, current molecular and cytological information for this genus is too sparse, and the type species has not yet been redescribed with modern methods.
Costs of mandatory international financial reporting standards: Evidence of reduced accrual reliability

This study investigates the impact of mandatory adoption of international financial reporting standards on accrual reliability. Using a large sample of Australian firm-years drawn from before and after the mandatory adoption of international financial reporting standards, we find that accrual reliability declined significantly after mandatory international financial reporting standards implementation. Working capital, non-current operating, and financing accruals all contribute to this decline. We also find that brand name audit firms (i.e. the Big four) are able to significantly attenuate any decrease in accrual reliability during the post international financial reporting standards period. Our results contrast with evidence identifying benefits of mandatory international financial reporting standards, such as increased value relevance, but are consistent with at least some degree of trade-off between relevance and reliability. Such trade-offs seem to have been largely ignored in prior examinations of the impact of mandatory international financial reporting standards.
Applications of carbon nanotubes in the twenty–first century

Carbon nanotubes, which consist of rolled graphene sheets built from sp2 hybridized carbon atoms, are now attracting scientists from various disciplines due to their fascinating physico–chemical properties. In this account, we will review the recent progress on the synthetic techniques for the large–scale production of carbon nanotubes, especially focusing on the floating–catalyst method used in the chemical vapour deposition (CVD) process. We will also describe effective purification methods avoiding structural damage, and discuss the electrochemical applications of these systems including the fabrication of: (i) lithium–ion secondary batteries; (ii) lead–acid batteries; (iii) electric double–layer capacitors; (iv) fuel cells; and (v) multifunctional fillers in polymer composites. We foresee that carbon nanotubes will find numerous applications and take an important place in the development of emerging technologies in the near future.
Agricultural growth and poverty in an archetypical middle income country: Chile 1987-2003

Is a reduced share of agriculture in the economy an obstacle for the agricultural sector to play an important role in poverty alleviation? What is the key channel, if any, by which agriculture is benefiting the poor in Chile that would be worthwhile to promote in other countries? By answering these questions we expand the literature on poverty and composition of growth by proposing a methodology that allows to disentangle the mechanisms by which agricultural growth can be poverty reducing. We find that in Chile agriculture plays a large role in reducing poverty, and most of this effect is channeled through the labor market.
Economic openness and technical efficiency: A case study of Chinese manufacturing industries

This paper presents a study of the technical efficiency of industries in a transitional economy: China. Using data for 28 manufacturing industries across 29 provinces and the Data Envelopment Analysis approach, the technical efficiency of each industry is measured and compared across regions and provinces. The determinants of differential technical efficiency performance are analysed, with a particular focus on the impact of trade orientation and foreign investment. Trade openness is found generally to have a positive effect on technical efficiency.
The human papillomavirus E7 oncoprotein and the cellular transcription factor E2F bind to separate sites on the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein

The ability of the high-risk and low-risk human papillomavirus E7 oncoproteins to disrupt complexes of the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein pRB and the cellular transcription factor E2F was studied. The ability of E7 to disrupt this transcription factor complex correlated with the different pRB binding efficiencies of the high-risk and low-risk human papillomavirus-encoded E7 proteins. The pRB binding site was the sole determinant for these observed differences. The phosphorylation status of the casein kinase II site that is immediately adjacent to the pRB binding site in E7 had no marked effect on this biochemical property of E7. Peptides consisting of the pRB binding site of E7, however, were not able to disrupt the pRB/E2F complex. These data suggest that additional carboxy-terminal sequences in E7 are also required for the efficient disruption of the pRB/E2F complex and that E7 and E2F may interact with nonidentical sites of pRB.
An Assessment of the PeerWise Student-Contributed Question System's Impact on Learning Outcomes: Evidence from a Large Enrollment Political Science Course

The academic literature on teaching and learning provides compelling evidence that active and collaborative learning strategies, as well as frequent formative assessments with corrective feedback, significantly improve student learning outcomes. A central challenge faculty face in teaching large undergraduate courses (150 students) is providing students with these types of learning opportunities without overburdening the teaching staff (instructors and their graduate student teaching assistants). To address this challenge, this study assesses the use of PeerWise, an online pedagogical tool that allows students to write, share, answer, and discuss multiple choice questions (MCQs) in a large enrollment political science course. Using both quantitative and qualitative student data, it finds that student use of PeerWise is not only positively correlated with student learning gains at statistically significant levels (p = 0.001), but also that it promotes student perceptions of learning and motivation to learn.
Ecient Mechanism Design É

We study Bayesian mechanism design in situations where agents' infor- mation may be multi-dimensional, concentrating on mechanisms that lead to ecient allocations. Our main result is that a generalization of the well-known Vickrey-Clarke-Groves mechanism maximizes the planner's "revenue" among all ecient mechanisms. This result is then used to study multiple object auctions in situations where bidders have privately known "demand curves" and extended to include situations with complementarities across objects or externalities across bidders. We also illustrate how the main result may be used to analyze the possibility of allocating both private and public goods ef- Þciently when budget balance considerations are important. The generalized VCG mechanism, therefore, serves to unify many results in mechansim design theory.