Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamic properties of nuclear lamins: lamin B is associated with sites of DNA replication

The nuclear lamins form a fibrous structure, the nuclear lamina, at the periphery of the nucleus. Recent results suggest that lamins are also present as foci or spots in the nucleoplasm at various times during interphase of the cell cycle (Goldman, A. E., R. D. Moir, M. Montag- Lowy, M. Stewart, and R. D. Goldman. 1992. J. Cell Biol. 104:725-732; Bridger, J. M., I. R. Kill, M. O'Farrell, and C. J. Hutchison. 1993. J. Cell Sci. 104:297-306). In this report we demonstrate that during mid- late S-phase, nuclear foci detected with lamin B antibodies are coincident with sites of DNA replication as detected by the colocalization of sites of incorporation of bromodeoxyuridine (BrDU) or proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). The relationship between lamin B and BrDU is not maintained in the following G1 stage of the cell cycle. Furthermore, the nuclear staining patterns seen with antibodies directed against lamins A and C in mid-late S-phase do not coalign with the lamin B/BrDU-containing structures. These results imply that there is a role for lamin B in the organization of replicating chromatin during S phase.
Superficial spreading and nodular melanoma are distinct biological entities: a challenge to the linear progression model

The classification of melanoma subtypes into prognostically relevant and therapeutically insightful categories has been a challenge since the first description of melanoma in the 1800s. One limitation has been the assumption that the two most common histological subtypes of melanoma, superficial spreading and nodular, evolve according to a linear model of progression, as malignant melanocytes spread radially and then invade vertically. However, recent clinical, pathological, and molecular data indicate that these two histological subtypes might evolve as distinct entities. Here, we review the published data that support distinct molecular characterization of superficial spreading and nodular melanoma, the clinical significance of this distinction including prognostic relevance and the therapeutic implications.
Financial burden of household out-of-pocket expenditures for prescription drugs: Cross-sectional analysis based on national survey data

Background Commentaries on the adequacy of insurance coverage for prescription drugs available to Canadians have emphasized differences in the coverage provided by different provincial governments. Less is known about the actual financial burden of prescription drug spending and how this burden varies by province of residence, affluence and source of primary drug coverage. Methods We used data from a nationally representative household expenditure survey to analyze the financial burden of prescription drugs. We focused on the drug budget share (defined as the share of the household budget spent on prescription drugs), considering how it varied by province, total household budget and likely primary source of drug insurance coverage (i.e., provincial government plan for senior citizens, social assistance plan or private coverage). We examined both “typical” households (at the median of the distribution of the drug budget share) and households with relatively large shares (in the top 5%). Finally, we estimated the percentage of households with catastrophic drug expenditures (defined as a drug budget share of 10% or more) and the average catastrophic drug expenditures. Results Senior, social assistance and general population households accounted for 21.1%, 8.9% and 69.9% of the sample of 14 430 respondents to the 2006 Survey of Household Spending, respectively. The median drug budget share in Canada was 1.1% for senior households (range 0.4% [Ontario] to 3.6% [Saskatchewan]) and 0.1% for both social assistance households and general population households, with little appreciable variation across provinces for these latter 2 categories. The 95th percentile drug budget share in Canada was 7.4% for senior households (range 3.5% [Ontario] to 12.7% [Saskatchewan]), 5.4% for social assistance households (range 2.3% [British Columbia] to 13.0% [Prince Edward Island]) and 2.6% for general population households (range 2.1% [Ontario] to 5.4% [Prince Edward Island]). The interprovincial range of the 95th percentile drug budget share was 10.7 percentage points for social assistance households, 9.2 percentage points for senior households and 3.3 percentage points for general population households. Interpretation For most households, the financial burden of prescription drug expenditures appeared to be relatively small, with little interprovincial variation. However, a small number of households incurred catastrophic drug costs. These households were concentrated in the groups that traditionally benefit from provincial government drug plans. It is likely that some households did not purchase needed prescription drugs because of the expense, so our estimates of the financial burden of catastrophic prescription drug expenditures therefore represent a lower bound.
Power Allocation for MIMO Systems with Multiple Non-Regenerative Single-Antenna Relays

We consider a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system assisted by multiple non-regenerative single-antenna relays. This system where the antennas of all the relays are distributed geographically is fundamentally different from a single relay case with multiple antennas. The optimal power allocation for a relay with multiple antennas has already been known. In that solution, the power is distributed among the eigenmodes which are computed by the singular value decompositions of the first and the second hop channels. However, no closed form solution is known for the proposed system. In this paper, we propose a near optimal inter-relay power allocation method that combines the relay selection with the water-filling type closed form solution based on an asymptotic approach. In fact, the asymptotic approach itself is effective only for a specific antenna configuration, but we demonstrate through numerical simulations that if we combine this approach with the relay selection technique, the performance is comparable to the optimal case by exhaustive search even for a general antenna configuration.
Evolutionarily conserved regulation of hypocretin neuron specification by Lhx9

Loss of neurons that express the neuropeptide hypocretin (Hcrt) has been implicated in narcolepsy, a debilitating disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy. Cell replacement therapy, using Hcrt-expressing neurons generated in vitro, is a potentially useful therapeutic approach, but factors sufficient to specify Hcrt neurons are unknown. Using zebrafish as a high-throughput system to screen for factors that can specify Hcrt neurons in vivo, we identified the LIM homeobox transcription factor Lhx9 as necessary and sufficient to specify Hcrt neurons. We found that Lhx9 can directly induce hcrt expression and we identified two potential Lhx9 binding sites in the zebrafish hcrt promoter. Akin to its function in zebrafish, we found that Lhx9 is sufficient to specify Hcrt-expressing neurons in the developing mouse hypothalamus. Our results elucidate an evolutionarily conserved role for Lhx9 in Hcrt neuron specification that improves our understanding of Hcrt neuron development. Summary: The transcription factor Lhx9 is sufficient to drive the specification of zebrafish and mouse hypocretin-expressing neurons, the neuron type that is affected in narcolepsy.
The conformal window in QCD and supersymmetric QCD

In both QCD and supersymmetric QCD (SQCD) with Nf flavors there are conformal windows where the theory is asymptotically free in the ultraviolet while the infrared physics is governed by a non-trivial fixed-point. In SQCD, the lower Nf boundary of the conformal window, below which the theory is confining is well understood thanks to duality. In QCD there is just a sufficient condition for confinement based on superconvergence. Studying the Banks-Zaks expansion and analyzing the conditions for the perturbative coupling to have a causal analyticity structure, it is shown that the infrared fixed-point in QCD is perturbative in the entire conformal window. This finding suggests that there can be no analog of duality in QCD. On the other hand in SQCD the infrared region is found to be strongly coupled in the lower part of the conformal window, in agreement with duality. Nevertheless, we show that it is possible to interpolate between the Banks-Zaks expansions in the electric and magnetic theories, for quantities that can be calculated perturbatively in both. This interpolation is explicitly demonstrated for the critical exponent that controls the rate at which a generic physical quantity approaches the fixed-point.
Boosted Lasso

In this paper, we propose the Boosted Lasso (BLasso) algorithm which ties the Boosting algorithm with the Lasso method. BLasso is derived as a coordinate descent method with a fixed step size applied to the general Lasso loss function (L1 penalized convex loss). It consists of both a forward step and a backward step. The forward step is similar to Boosting and Forward Stagewise Fitting, but the backward step is new and makes the Boosting path to approximate the Lasso path. In the cases of a finite number of base learners and a bounded Hessian of the loss function, when the step size goes to zero, the BLasso path is shown to converge to the Lasso path. For cases with a large number of base learners, our simulations show that since BLasso approximate the Lasso paths, the model estimates are sparser than Forward Stagewise Fitting with equivalent or better prediction performance when the true model is sparse and there are more predictors than the sample size. In addition, we extend BLasso to minimizing a general convex loss penalized by a general convex function. Since BLasso relies only on differeneces not derivatives, we demonstrate this extension as a simple off-the-shelf algorithm for tracing the solution paths of regularization problems.
Societal Diversities and the Issue of ‘The Other’

Abstract This paper examines the nature of European societies with particular reference to the presence of territorial and immigrant minorities. It raises issues of the definition of these communities and the role of such definitions in positioning them as ‘The Other’ in the European context. The construction of ‘The Other’ in European thought has implications for the contemporary presence of such communities in Europe.
How Do Husbands Affect the Labour Market Participation of Majority and Immigrant Women?

This study analyses the labour market participation of married immigrant and married majority women in Norway over the period 1995–2005. Panel data from several public register databases of the population of married women (N = 54,619) in Norway are used. The purpose of the present study is to examine the extent to which women's labour market participation is affected by the labour market resources of their husbands, and if these influences differ for majority women and immigrant women. The result shows that the husbands' employment status and earnings have a positive effect on the wives' employment probabilities. However, this effect gets smaller after controlling for the unobserved stable characteristics of the women. But for women of Iranian, Iraqi or Vietnamese origin, the effect holds even after controlling for the women's unobserved stable characteristics. However, for the other country groups, including women from the majority, the husbands' labour market resources seem to be a less important factor determining whether or not the women participate in paid labour.
Sense of Competence and Individual Managerial Performance

This study relates an individual's sense of competence to his actual performance in managerial settings. The sense of competence is the set of psychological feelings of confidence an individual has about his abilities to master his external environment. The sense of competence of 123 managers was measured 6 mo. prior to the collection of three separate, independently obtained measures of individual managerial performance. There was a significant (p < .001) and positive relation between sense of competence and all three performance measures.
In vitro study of axonal migration and myelination of motor neurons in a three‐dimensional tissue‐engineered model

Primary motor neurons are difficult to study in conventional culture systems because of their short‐term survival without trophic support from glia. In addition, axonal migration on a two‐dimensional Petri dish does not reflect the three‐dimensional (3D) environment in vivo. A unique in vitro 3D model of motor nerve regeneration was developed to study motor neuron axonal migration and myelination. Mouse spinal cord motor neurons were seeded on a collagen sponge populated with Schwann cells and fibroblasts. This fibroblast‐populated sponge was intended to mimic the connective tissue through which motor axons have to elongate in vivo. Addition of conventional neurotrophic supplements was not required for motor neuron survival but was necessary to promote deep neurite outgrowth, as assessed by immunostaining of neurofilament M. A vigorous neurite elongation was detected inside the sponge after only 14 days of neuron culture, reaching more than 850 μm. The model also allowed the maturation of motor fibers as one‐third of them were positive for neurofilament H. Neurites growing in the sponge were subject to myelination when Schwann cells were present, as shown by myelin basic protein immunostaining and electron microscopy. We demonstrated in this model the spontaneous formation of numerous thick myelin sheaths surrounding motor fibers after long‐term culture (28 days). Thus, this model might be a valuable tool to study the effect of various cells and/or attractive or repulsive molecules on motor neurite outgrowth in vitro and also for the study of myelination and pathogenesis of motor neuron diseases. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Perceptual image hashing using SVD based Noise Resistant Local Binary Pattern

Image hashing has become a major research area due to rapid growth of image alteration techniques that can tamper digital images. The major concern of all image hashing schemes is the selection of robust features. Local Binary Pattern (LBP) is a technique that selects robust features for different image applications. This paper presents a perceptual image hashing scheme by the utilization of Noise Resistant Local Binary Pattern (NRLBP), a modified form of the LBP. The features of NRLBP are extracted from non-overlapping blocks of a gray scale image. The NRLBP is combined with Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) to provide good robustness characteristics against a number of non-malicious distortions. Another major advantage of the proposed scheme is to detect localized tampered regions. Experimental results exhibit that the proposed scheme has the capability to detect tampering as small as 3% of the image size and at the same time offers good robustness properties.
Formally modeling a metal processing plant and its closed loop specifications

We present a case study on automatic synthesis of control software from formal specifications for an industrial automation control system. Our aim is to compare the effectiveness (i.e. design effort and controller quality) of automatic controller synthesis from closed loop formal specifications with that of manual controller design followed by automatic verification. The system to be controlled (plant) models a metal processing facility near Karlsruhe. We succeeded in automatically generating C code implementing a (correct by construction) embedded controller for such a plant from closed loop formal specifications. Our experimental results show that for industrial automation control systems automatic synthesis is a viable and profitable (especially as far as design effort is concerned) alternative to manual design followed by automatic verification.
GAZE-2: conveying eye contact in group video conferencing using eye-controlled camera direction

GAZE-2 is a novel group video conferencing system that uses eye-controlled camera direction to ensure parallax-free transmission of eye contact. To convey eye contact, GAZE-2 employs a video tunnel that allows placement of cameras behind participant images on the screen. To avoid parallax, GAZE-2 automatically directs the cameras in this video tunnel using an eye tracker, selecting a single camera closest to where the user is looking for broadcast. Images of users are displayed in a virtual meeting room, and rotated towards the participant each user looks at. This way, eye contact can be conveyed to any number of users with only a single video stream per user. We empirically evaluated whether eye contact perception is affected by automated camera direction, which causes angular shifts in the transmitted images. Findings suggest camera shifts do not affect eye contact perception, and are not considered highly distractive.
Prospective study of frequent heavy alcohol use and the risk of major depression in the canadian general population

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of persistent alcohol consumption on the risks of major and minor depression. A retrospective cohort study design was used. The data was derived from a large scale longitudinal national health study (Canadian National Population Health Survey). Depression status was evaluated by using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview—Short Form (CIDI‐SF) for major depression. Subjects who did not have major depression at baseline were classified into groups according to the persistence of alcohol consumption during the follow‐up period. The incidence of major depression in each group was calculated in men and in women separately and were stratified by age. The same procedures were repeated for minor depression. Women who reported having 5+ drinks on one occasion at least once a month were at an elevated risk of major depression. The same pattern was not observed among men in this analysis. However, no difference was found between the groups in terms of the incidence of minor depression. Frequent heavy alcohol use may be a causal factor for major depression among women. Reducing the frequency and quantities of alcohol consumption may offer an opportunity for prevention of major depression among women. Depression and Anxiety 15:42–45, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Making Democracies Work: Social Capital and Civic Engagement in 47 Societies

Many theorists have long emphasized the importance of civic society and voluntary associations as vital to the lifeblood of democracy. Interest in this perennial topic has been revived by Putnam's theory of social capital claiming that rich and dense associational networks facilitate the underlying conditions of interpersonal trust, tolerance and cooperation, providing the social foundations for a vibrant democracy. Despite widespread interest, conclusive evidence supporting these claims in a wide range of nations remains elusive. The first part of this paper reviews and summarizes three central claims at the heart of Putnam? s theory. Part II outlines the conceptual and methodological problems of measuring trends in social capital with the available empirical evidence. Part III develops an index of social capital, combining the distribution of associational activism with social trust. In Part IV this Index is operationalized and measured using the World Values Study to compare the distribution and dimensions of social capital in the mid-1990s in 47 nations around the world. Part V uses the Index to examine the consequences of social capital and its component parts for socioeconomic and democratic development. The study establishes predictable patterns in the distribution of social capital around the world, and long-standing cultural traditions and historical legacies can help to explain the contrasts found among global regions. There are two core components in Putnam's definition of social capital, social networks and social trust. The study finds that when combined into a single index it is true, as Putnam suggests, that social capital is strongly and significantly related to multiple interrelated indicators of socioeconomic development and to institutional indicators of democratization. But if we disentangle the twin components of Putnam's definition of social capital, what is driving this process is the social trust dimension, not the associational network dimension. Given the ambiguities in operationalization, three alternative measures of associational membership and activism are employed and tested, in exploratory analysis, but these are rarely significant across almost all indicators, no matter which measure is used. Moreover social capital was only weakly related to cultural indicators of political system support. The conclusion considers the implications of the results for "making democracies work", and whether a strong and vibrant civic society is a necessary condition for the process of democratization.
Gun concealment, display, and other magical habits of the body

This analysis argues that armed Americans and their weapons are central agents in a network of objects and affects. Guns may not only assert agency on people but, also, firearm–human relations – emergent within the contested legal boundaries that discipline their bodily concealment and revelation – are best seen as an enchanted assemblage of performance, control, omnipotence, pleasure, and fear. Both material and semiotic in nature – guns are things that shoot and things that convey meaning. The cultural desire to secretly arm or openly carry a firearm in public spaces, and the range of motivations and reactions that frame it, inform this project. How are gun owners transformed by the corporeal relationships they have with their weapons? Moreover, how is this relationship a mode of affective embodiment, in which the gun so easily merges with its owner, forming and conforming to the body, dissolving into one’s person unconsciously, much like but much differently than a cell phone?
Learning Styles and Preferred Instructional Strategies of Gifted Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate unique patterns in learning style preferences among gifted elementary school students. Any observed differences were also examined as they related to IQ, ethnic group membership, grade level, sex, and reading and math achievement. With an increased national interest in education of the gifted (Passow, 1981) have come changes not only in the definition and methods of identification of the gifted but also in the planning of curriculum and instruction (Treffinger, 1982). Since the current educational and social view tends