Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of manipulating sedentary behavior on physical activity and food intake.

OBJECTIVES Sedentary behaviors have been correlated with obesity. We investigated whether changes in sedentary behaviors relate to changes in energy intake and/or physical activity. STUDY DESIGN Experimental within-subject crossover design in which children participated in three 3-week phases: baseline and increased and decreased targeted sedentary behaviors. PARTICIPANTS Thirteen 8- to 12-year-old, nonobese children. MEASUREMENTS Sedentary behaviors were measured through the use of daily activity logs, physical activity measured with accelerometers, and energy intake measured by means of repeated 24-hour recalls collected during each phase. Energy intake, energy expenditure, and energy balance per day were calculated. RESULTS Children showed significant (P <.001) increases of 50% and decreases of 53% in targeted sedentary behaviors from baseline during the increase and decrease phases, respectively. There was a significant (P =.05) increase in energy balance per day (+350.7 kcal) when sedentary behaviors were increased, as the result of an increase in energy intake per day (+250.9 kcal) and a decrease in energy expenditure (-99.8 kcal). No significant changes in energy balance were observed when sedentary behaviors were decreased. CONCLUSIONS Increasing sedentary behaviors had a greater influence on physical activity and energy intake than reducing sedentary behavior in nonobese youth. In some children, changes in sedentary behaviors may be important to modify energy balance and prevent obesity.
The CCND1 G870A gene polymorphism and leukemia or non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk: a meta-analysis.

UNLABELLED In recent years, mounting evidence has indicated that the CCND1 G870A gene polymorphism, which impacts the mitotic cell cycle, may influence leukemia or non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk. Unfortunately, the previous results were inconsistent. Therefore, a meta-analysis was performed to obtain a more precise estimation of any association. We conducted a search in PubMed, Embase and CNKI covering all published papers up to March, 2014. A total of 9 publications including 10 case-control studies met the inclusion criteria. Odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) were applied to assess association. The pooled ORs showed significant association in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (comparison A vs G: OR= 1.114, 95%CI=1.053-1.179, p=0.000; homozygote comparison AA vs GG: OR=1.245, 95%CI=1.110-1.396, p=0.000; heterozygote comparison AG vs GG: OR=1.095, 95%CI=1.000-1.199, p=0.05; dominant model AA/GA vs GG: OR=1.137, 95%CI=1.043-1.239, p=0.003; and recessive model AA vs GA/GG OR=1.177, 95%CI=1.066-1.301, p=0.001). However, there was no association between the CCND1 G870A polymorphism and leukemia risk. In conclusion, the CCND1 G870A polymorphism may increase risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but not leukemia. However, more primary large scale and well-designed studies are still required to evaluate the interaction of CCND1 G870A polymorphism with leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk.
Evaluation of the Phytoremediation Potential of Sugarcane for Metal-Contaminated Soils

Heavy metal pollution is a worldwide problem. Phytoremediation is an effective and low-cost interesting technology. Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) could be a promising candidate for phytoremediation on metal-contaminated soils due to its high biomass, faster growth and moderate takeup and accumulation of heavy metals such as Cu, Cd, Se, Pb and Mn. As a follow-up processing of sugarcane, bagasse could adsorb heavy metal ions in aqueous solutions and sugarcane juice could be used to produce fuel ethanol efficiently. And some new directions for further research such as biosurfactants-assisted and plant-microorganism associations phytoremediation were also prospected.
Analyzing the Interaction of RseA and RseB, the Two Negative Regulators of the σE Envelope Stress Response, Using a Combined Bioinformatic and Experimental Strategy*

The Escherichia coli envelope stress response is controlled by the alternative sigma factor, σE, and is induced when unfolded outer membrane proteins accumulate in the periplasm. The response is initiated by sequential cleavage of the membrane-spanning antisigma factor, RseA. RseB is an important negative regulator of envelope stress response that exerts its negative effects onσE activity through its binding to RseA. In this study, we analyze the interaction between RseA and RseB. We found that tight binding of RseB to RseA required intact RseB. Using programs that performed global and local sequence alignment of RseB and RseA, we found regions of high similarity and performed alanine substitution mutagenesis to test the hypothesis that these regions were functionally important. This protocol is based on the hypothesis that functionally dependent regions of two proteins co-evolve and therefore are likely to be sequentially conserved. This procedure allowed us to identify both an N-terminal and C-terminal region in RseB important for binding to RseA. We extensively analyzed the C-terminal region, which aligns with a region of RseA coincident with the major RseB binding determinant in RseA. Both allele-specific suppression analysis and cysteine-mediated disulfide bond formation indicated that this C-terminal region of similarity of RseA and RseB identifies a contact site between the two proteins. We suggest a similar protocol can be successfully applied to pairs of non-homologous but functionally linked proteins to find specific regions of the protein sequences that are important for establishing functional linkage.
The influence of cognitive ability and instructional set on causal conditional inference

We report a large study in which participants are invited to draw inferences from causal conditional sentences with varying degrees of believability. General intelligence was measured, and participants were split into groups of high and low ability. Under strict deductive-reasoning instructions, it was observed that higher ability participants were significantly less influenced by prior belief than were those of lower ability. This effect disappeared, however, when pragmatic reasoning instructions were employed in a separate group. These findings are in accord with dual-process theories of reasoning. We also took detailed measures of beliefs in the conditional sentences used for the reasoning tasks. Statistical modelling showed that it is not belief in the conditional statement per se that is the causal factor, but rather correlates of it. Two different models of belief-based reasoning were found to fit the data according to the kind of instructions and the type of inference under consideration.
Analysis of a Passive Sensor for Predicting Process-Induced Stress in Advanced Integrated Circuit Interconnect

Process-induced stress and its deleterious effects on interconnect reliability become increasingly severe as current densities escalate at scaled geometries. Accurate and reliable measurements of stress are paramount to understand the failure mechanisms in advanced interconnect schemes, the control of process technologies, the integration of new materials, and the reliability-driven architecture design. An analytical model of a recently developed passive strain sensor that is suitable for predicting process-induced stress in advanced interconnect technology is presented. This passive strain sensor is scalable for future interconnect geometries predicted by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. The model is developed using complementary energy principles and is compared against the available experimental data on aluminum interconnect. Agreement between the model and the experiment is shown to be within 5%. The use of the developed model enables critical design parameters to be identified and optimized for any level of stress. Furthermore, as the model is scalable, it will facilitate the design of such sensors for future interconnect geometries.
Membrane Synthesis, Specific Lipid Requirements, and Localized Lipid Composition Changes Associated with a Positive-Strand RNA Virus RNA Replication Protein

ABSTRACT Multifunctional RNA replication protein 1a of brome mosaic virus (BMV), a positive-strand RNA virus, localizes to the cytoplasmic face of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membranes and induces ER lumenal spherules in which viral RNA synthesis occurs. We previously showed that BMV RNA replication in yeast is severely inhibited prior to negative-strand RNA synthesis by a single-amino-acid substitution in the ole1w allele of yeast Δ9 fatty acid (FA) desaturase, which converts saturated FAs (SFAs) to unsaturated FAs (UFAs). Here we further define the relationships between 1a, membrane lipid composition, and RNA synthesis. We show that 1a expression increases total membrane lipids in wild-type (wt) yeast by 25 to 33%, consistent with recent results indicating that the numerous 1a-induced spherules are enveloped by invaginations of the outer ER membrane. 1a did not alter total membrane lipid composition in wt or ole1w yeast, but the ole1w mutation selectively depleted 18-carbon, monounsaturated (18:1) FA chains and increased 16:0 SFA chains, reducing the UFA-to-SFA ratio from ∼2.5 to ∼1.5. Thus, ole1w inhibition of RNA replication was correlated with decreased levels of UFA, membrane fluidity, and plasticity. The ole1w mutation did not alter 1a-induced membrane synthesis, 1a localization to the perinuclear ER, or colocalization of BMV 2a polymerase, nor did it block spherule formation. Moreover, BMV RNA replication templates were still recovered from cell lysates in a 1a-induced, 1a- and membrane-associated, and nuclease-resistant but detergent-susceptible state consistent with spherules. However, unlike nearby ER membranes, the membranes surrounding spherules in ole1w cells were not distinctively stained with osmium tetroxide, which interacts specifically with UFA double bonds. Thus, in ole1w cells, spherule-associated membranes were locally depleted in UFAs. This localized UFA depletion helps to explain why BMV RNA replication is more sensitive than cell growth to reduced UFA levels. The results imply that 1a preferentially interacts with one or more types of membrane lipids.
Sticky Dividends: A New Explanation

This study proposes a generalized partial adjustment model of dividends in which managers set target dividends based on adaptively-formed earnings prospects. We show that firms adjust dividends to their target payouts much faster than previously documented. When managers form future earnings expectations based on a longer time-series of earnings, target dividends tend to become more stable. Thus, actual dividends tend to be more in line with the targets, driving up the speed of adjustment. Our model offers an insight that sticky dividends could be a consequence of managers’ attempts to match dividend payouts with the smooth targets.
Improved Analytical Model for the Study of Steady State Performance of Droop-Controlled VSC-MTDC Systems

This paper proposes an improved analytical model for the study of steady-state performance of droop-controlled VSC-MTDC systems. When power disturbances occur, such as those imposed by normal changes in power settings and converter outages, the powers of the converters with droop control may hit their limits and hence such converters no longer contribute to power sharing, which should be paid special attention when analyzing the impacts of power disturbances on the performance of multi-terminal HVDC (MTDC) systems. Based on the bisection algorithm and superposition principle, the proposed analytical model provides an easy way to estimate the results of power distributions, dc voltage deviations, and power loss variations of the MTDC system taking converter outage and converter overload into account. Simulations of a modified New England 39-bus system incorporating a four-terminal MTDC system are carried out for validating the proposed analytical model.
ESSAYS ON THE ROLE OF UNOBSERVABLES IN CORPORATE STRATEGY

The Resource Based View suggests that firms that are most successful possess certain unique resources. This logic has been applied to a wide variety of strategic choices such as market entry and mergers & acquisitions among others. An implicit assumption is that such resources or the value from such resources are perfectly observed by all concerned. However, in reality resources are imperfectly observed. Through three essays, this dissertation develops models to study the role of imperfect observability on strategic choices. Theoretically it is shown that unobservability can lead to a counter intuitive position where firms that may indeed possess valuable resources fail to capture sustainable advantages. Similarly, it is shown that firms can consider using noisy signals to reduce the unobservability problem and thereby induce an outcome favorable to them. We demonstrate this in two settings. First, where potential target firms may use signals such as open market repurchases to attract more bidders and thus gain superior valuations. Second, we also examine the case where firms use market entry as a signal of their inherent strengths and thus may deter other potential entrants. The propositions from the theoretical models are also tested empirically. The structure imposed in the theoretical models present a difficult challenge from an empirical setting. This dissertation also develops an apt empirical model which takes into account the richness of the information structure embedded in the theoretical models.
Effects of Self-esteem, Optimism, and Perceived Control on Depressive Symptoms in Stroke Survivor-Spouse Dyads

Background:Depressive symptoms are common in stroke survivors and their family caregivers. Given the interdependent relationship between the members of dyads in poststroke management, improving depressive symptoms in dyads may depend on their partner’s characteristics. Self-esteem, optimism, and perceived control, all known to be associated with depressive symptoms in an individual, may also contribute to their partner’s depressive symptoms. Purpose:The purpose of this study is to examine actor and partner effects of self-esteem, optimism, and perceived control on depression in stroke survivors and their spousal caregivers. Methods:A total of 112 ischemic stroke survivors (78% white, 34% women; mean age, 62.5 ± 12.3 years) and their spouses (mean age, 60.6 ± 12.9 years) completed surveys in which depressive symptoms, self-esteem, optimism, and perceived control were assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire, the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, the Revised Life Orientation Test, and the Sense of Control Scale. Multilevel modeling, actor-partner interdependence model regression was used to determine influences on depressive symptoms within the dyad. Results:Individuals with lower self-esteem, optimism, and perceived control had higher levels of depressive symptoms. Stroke survivors whose spouses had lower levels of self-esteem (B = −0.338, P < .001) and optimism (B = −0.361, P < .027) tended to have higher levels of depressive symptoms. Spouses whose stroke survivors had lower levels of self-esteem (B = −0.047, P = .036) also had higher levels of depressive symptoms. Conclusion:We found significant partner effects of self-esteem on depression for both members and partner effect of optimism on patient’s depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that further research is needed to determine if dyadic interventions may help to improve self-esteem, optimism, and depressive symptoms in both patients and their caregivers.
應用不定長度特徵之條件隨機域於口語不流暢語流修正 (Disfluency Correction of Spontaneous Speech using Conditional Random Fields with Variable Length Features) [In Chinese]

This paper presents an approach to detecting and correcting edit disfluency based on conditional random fields with variable-length features. The variable-length features consist of word, chunk and sentence features. Conditional random fields (CRF) are adopted to model the properties of the edit disfluency, including repair, repetition and restart, for edit disfluency detection. For the evaluation of the proposed method, Mandarin conversational dialogue corpus (MCDC) is used. The detection error rate of edit word is 17.3%. Compared with DF-gram, Maximum Entropy and the approach combining language model and alignment model, the proposed approach achieves 11.7%, 8% and 3.9% improvements, respectively. The experimental results show that the proposed model outperforms other methods and efficiently detects and corrects edit disfluency in spontaneous speech.
Autophagic cell death of malignant glioma cells induced by a conditionally replicating adenovirus.

BACKGROUND Conditionally replicating adenoviruses (CRAds) can be engineered to replicate selectively in cancer cells and cause cancer-specific cell lysis; thus they are considered a promising cancer therapy. METHODS To elucidate the mechanisms by which CRAds induce cancer-specific cell death, we infected normal human fibroblasts (MRC5, telomerase negative), human malignant glioma (U373-MG and U87-MG), human cervical cancer (HeLa), and human prostate cancer (PC3) cells (all telomerase positive) with CRAds regulated by the human telomerase reverse transcriptase promoter (hTERT-Ad) or control nonreplicating adenoviruses (Ad-GFP). Nonapoptotic autophagy was assessed in Ad-GFP- and hTERT-Ad-infected cells by examining cell morphology, the development of acidic vesicular organelles, and the conversion of microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 from the cytoplasmic form to the autophagosome membrane form; signaling via mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), an autophagy-associated molecule, was monitored by western blot analysis. We also compared the growth of subcutaneous gliomas in nude mice that were treated by intratumoral injection with Ad-GFP or hTERT-Ad. Survival of athymic mice carrying intracranial gliomas treated by intratumoral injection with Ad-GFP or hTERT-Ad was compared by using the Kaplan-Meier method and the Cox-Mantel log-rank analysis. All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS hTERT-Ad induced tumor-specific autophagic cell death in tumor cells and in subcutaneous gliomas. hTERT-Ad-induced autophagy was associated with hTERT-Ad infection kinetics. The mTOR signaling pathway was suppressed in tumor cells and in subcutaneous gliomas treated with hTERT-Ad compared with GFP-Ad or no treatment as shown by reduced phosphorylation of mTOR's downstream target p70S6 kinase (p70S6K). hTERT-Ad treatment of mice (n = 7) slowed growth of subcutaneous gliomas (mean tumor volume = 39 mm3, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 23 to 54 mm3) compared with GFP-Ad treatment (n = 7) (mean tumor volume = 200 mm3, 95% CI = 149 to 251 mm3) at day 7 (volume difference = 161 mm3, 95% CI = 126 to 197 mm3; P < .001). Mice carrying intracranial tumors that were treated with three intratumoral injections of hTERT-Ad survived longer (53 days) than after treatment with GFP-Ad (29 days) (seven mice per group, difference = 24 days, 95% CI = 20 to 28 days; P < .001). CONCLUSIONS hTERT-Ad may kill telomerase-positive cancer cells by inducing autophagic cell death.
Fault-Tolerant Scheduling for Scientific Workflows in Cloud Environments

Executing clustered tasks has proven to be an efficient method to improve the computation of Scientific Workflows (SWf) on clouds. However, clustered tasks has a higher probability of suffering from failures than a single task. Therefore, fault tolerance in cloud computing is extremely essential while running large-scale scientific applications. In this paper, a new heuristic called Cluster based Heterogeneous Earliest Finish Time (CHEFT) algorithm to enhance the scheduling and fault tolerance mechanism for SWf in highly distributed cloud environments is proposed. To mitigate the failure of clustered tasks, this algorithm uses idle-time of the provisioned resources to resubmit failed clustered tasks for successful execution of SWf. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm have convincing impact on the SWf executions and also drastically reduce the resource waste compared to existing task replication techniques. A trace based simulation of five real SWf shows that this algorithm is able to sustain unexpected task failures with minimal cost and makespan.
Generation of proliferating human hepatocytes using upcyte® technology: characterisation and applications in induction and cytotoxicity assays

We have developed a novel technique which causes primary human hepatocytes to proliferate by transducing them with genes that upregulate their proliferation. Upcyte® hepatocytes did not form colonies in soft agar and are not immortalised anchorage-independent cells. Confluent cultures expressed liver-specific proteins, produced urea and stored glycogen. CYP activities were low but similar to that in 5-day cultures of primary human hepatocytes. CYP1A2 and CYP3A4 were inducible; moreover, upcyte® hepatocytes predicted the in vivo induction potencies of known CYP3A4 inducers using the “relative induction score” prediction model. Placing cells into 3D culture increased their basal CYP2B6 and CYP3A4 basal activities and induction responses. Phase 2 activities (UGTs, SULTs and GSTs) were comparable to activities in freshly isolated hepatocytes. Upcyte® hepatocytes were markedly more sensitive to the hepatotoxin, α-amanitin, than HepG2 cells, indicating functional OATP1B3 uptake. The cytotoxicity of aflatoxin B1, was decreased in upcyte® hepatocytes by co-incubation with the CYP3A4 inhibitor, ketoconazole. Upcyte® hepatocytes also differentiated between ten hepatotoxic and eight non-hepatotoxic compounds. In conclusion, upcyte® hepatocyte cultures have a differentiated phenotype and exhibit functional phase 1 and 2 activities. These data support the use of upcyte® hepatocytes for CYP induction and cytotoxicity screening.
Haptic Rendering of Point Set Surfaces

We present a haptic rendering algorithm for a point set surface. Given a point set, its point set surface is an implicit surface defined by local projection of point sets using the moving least square (MLS) method. Our haptic algorithm is a penalty-based method which requires a calculation of the minimum distance between the haptic interaction point (HIP) and point set surfaces. Thus, a rapid calculation of this distance is the main ingredient of our haptic rendering algorithm. As preprocess, our algorithm builds a bounding volume hierarchy (BVH) of swept sphere volumes (SSV)for each of given point sets. Here, the SSV is defined as volume swept by a moving sphere. Then, at run-time, we find a pair of closest points between the point set and HIP using a SSV hierarchy. We attempt to further refine the distance by projecting the closest pair of point to its local point set surface by using the MLS projection. In order to execute the MLS projection, we need to find points in a local neighborhood of the closest point pair. We again use the SSV hierarchy to find the neighborhood by performing collision detection between a sphere, defining the local neighborhood, and the SSV hierarchy. This results in a highly fast and reliable calculation of closest surface distance between the point set model and HIP. In practice, our algorithm takes 0.2 ~ 0.3 msec to calculate haptic feedback for a point set consisting of more than 24K points
A 1.0-V 15.6-dBm 39.5%-PAE CMOS Class-E Power Amplifier with On-Chip Transformer for Q Enhancement

A 1-V fully-differential two-stage CMOS class-E power amplifier operating at 2.4 GHz is presented. An on-chip transformer-feedback topology is applied in the pre-amplifier in order to provide a high swing to drive the second stage. Injection-mode-locking topology is employed in the second stage to achieve high output power and high efficiency. Implemented in a 0.18-mum CMOS process, the amplifier delivers an output power of 15.6dBm with 39.5% PAE at a 1-V supply and an output power of 20.3dBm with 43% PAE at a 1.8-V supply, respectively