Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The cytokine response element of the rat alpha 1-acid glycoprotein gene is a complex of several interacting regulatory sequences

Expression of the rat alpha 1-acid glycoprotein gene is stimulated by interleukin-1 (IL-1) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) and is synergistically enhanced by the combination of the two. The distal regulatory element (DRE), a 142-base-pair (bp) sequence located 5 kilobase pairs upstream of the transcriptional start site, appears to be crucial for this cytokine response. The cytokine-specific regulatory sequences within the DRE have been identified by inserting individual DRE subregions, selected combinations of these, or a few linker mutated fragments into a plasmid containing an enhancerless simian virus 40 promoter linked to the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene. The regulatory activity was determined in transiently transfected human and rat hepatoma cells. The IL-1 response region was confined to the 5'-most 62 bp of the DRE, and its function seemed to depend on at least two separate components. The same region was also responsive to phorbol ester treatment. The IL-6 regulatory function was dependent on a 54-bp sequence located within the 3' half of the DRE. When the IL-1 response region was recombined with the IL-6 regulatory region of the DRE or with IL-6 response elements of other plasma protein genes, a strong cooperative action by IL-1 and IL-6 was achieved. The functional DRE sequences were recognized by nuclear proteins extracted from rat liver and hepatoma cells. However, no cytokine-inducible binding activity was detectable, which suggests that transcriptional regulation through the DRE might be controlled by posttranslational modification of constitutively bound trans-acting factors.
The contractile ring coordinates curvature-dependent septum assembly during fission yeast cytokinesis

Cytokinesis in fission yeast is accomplished by inward growth of the cell wall septum guided by the contractile ring. The ring promotes local septum growth in a curvature-dependent manner, allowing even a misshapen septum to grow into a more regular shape. This suggests that the ring regulates cell wall assembly through a mechanosensitive mechanism.
Spinal Cord Toll-Like Receptor 4 Mediates Inflammatory and Neuropathic Hypersensitivity in Male But Not Female Mice

The innate immune system is increasingly appreciated to play an important role in the mediation of chronic pain, and one molecule implicated in this process is the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). Here, using pharmacological and genetic manipulations, we found that activating TLR4 in the spinal cord, with the agonist lipopolysaccharide (LPS), causes robust mechanical allodynia but only in male mice. Spinal LPS had no pain-producing effect in female mice. TLR4 also has a sex-specific role in inflammatory (complete Freund's adjuvant) and neuropathic (spared nerve injury) pain: pain behaviors were TLR4 dependent in males but TLR4 independent in females. The sex differences appear to be specific to the spinal cord, as LPS administered to the brain or the hindpaw produces equivalent allodynia in both sexes, and specific to pain, as intrathecal LPS produces equivalent hypothermia in both sexes. The involvement of TLR4 in pain behaviors in male mice is dependent on testosterone, as shown by gonadectomy and hormone replacement. We found no sex differences in spinal Tlr4 gene expression at baseline or after LPS, suggesting the existence of parallel spinal pain-processing circuitry in female mice not involving TLR4.
Risk-Constrained Offering Strategy of Wind Power Producers Considering Intraday Demand Response Exchange

This paper proposes a comprehensive stochastic decision making model for wind power producers' (WPPs) participation in a competitive market. The presented model incorporates three trading floors: 1) day-ahead; 2) intraday; and 3) balancing markets. An efficient integration of intraday markets allows market players to react to the latest information (e.g., more accurate wind forecast). Creating a platform that allows demand response resources (DRRs) to contribute to the intraday markets improves both WPP's business and power system flexibility. In this context, providing an intraday demand response exchange (IDRX) market for trading demand response (DR) between DR providers and DR users (e.g., WPPs) is proposed. The problem uncertainties, such as wind power and market prices, are considered using a scenario-based approach. Moreover, an appropriate risk measurement, conditional value-at-risk (CVaR), is incorporated with the model. Numerical results illustrate that utilizing DR to compensate wind generation imbalances can increase WPP's profit and reduce the related risks.
Global mRNA Stabilization Preferentially Linked to Translational Repression during the Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Response

ABSTRACT The stability of mRNAs undergoing translation has long been a controversial question. Here, we systematically investigate links between mRNA turnover and translation during the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response, a process during which protein synthesis is potently regulated. cDNA array-based approaches to assess the stability and translational status of each mRNA were devised. First, ER stress-triggered changes in mRNA stability were studied by comparing differences in steady-state mRNA levels with differences in gene transcription. Second, changes in translational status were monitored by studying ER stress-induced shifts in the relative distribution of each mRNA along sucrose gradients. Together, the array-derived data reveal complex links between mRNA stability and translation, with all regulatory groups represented: both stabilized and destabilized mRNAs were found among translationally induced as well as translationally suppressed mRNA collections. Remarkably, however, the subset of stabilized mRNAs was prominently enriched in translationally suppressed transcripts, suggesting that ER stress was capable of causing the stabilization of mRNAs associated with a global reduction in protein synthesis. The cDNA array-based approach described here can be applied to global analyses of mRNA turnover and translation and can serve to investigate subsets of mRNAs subject to joint posttranscriptional control.
When People Remember Dreams They Never Experienced: A Study of the Malleability of Dream Recall Over Time

The source-monitoring paradigm suggests that dreams could be an important source of naturally occurring false memories. However, the malleability of memories for dreams remains to be investigated. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of suggestions on subsequent dream recall. Immediate dream recall collected in a sleep laboratory was compared with long-term recall 1 to 2 weeks later. Standard recall was also compared with hypnotic recall. Suggested elements were reported by 15% of the 26 participants. The hypnotic condition showed no differential effect. It was also found that between 3% and 7% of the dreams reported in long-term recall were probably naturally occurring false memories of dreams. These findings suggest that situations of misinformation can easily elicit false memories of specific dreams.
Managerial Incentives and Takeover Wealth Gains

This study examines the relationship between managerial equity incentives and takeover wealth gains both for target and acquirer firms. Takeovers provide an opportunity to liquidate personal equity portfolio for managers who hold an undiversified portfolio of their firms’ stock. In this study, I identify two hypotheses that potentially explain the effect of target managers’ incentives on wealth gains. While incentive alignment hypothesis predicts a positive relationship, diversification driven-liquidity hypothesis predicts a negative relationship between target managerial incentives and target wealth gains. I use a sample of 656 successful and 104 failed acquisitions over the period 1994-2003 to test these competing hypotheses. I find that for targets that are less (more) diversified, equity incentives are negatively (positively) related to wealth effects. I also find that the target managerial incentives increase the success probability of a takeover bid and this positive effect is less pronounced for diversified target managers. Based on these results, I conclude that incentive alignment argument is dominated by liquidity argument in less diversified target firms, however, holds in diversified firms. For acquirer managers, I do not find any evidence that supports incentive alignment or diversification arguments.
Foreign Operating Mode Selection and Performance: An Analysis of 35 Silicon Valley High-tech Manufacturers’ Venture in the Asia/Pacific Rim

This report examines the factors which influence the foreign operating mode decision of a firm and the performance implications of this choice. The study addresses these questions by first deriving an eclectic model of the foreign operating mode choice. It is posited that the operating mode choice can best be studied through an integration of four separate theoretical lenses: international strategic motivations, dominant logic theory, transaction cost economics, and options theory. This theoretical integration allows the formulation of a template model and propositions which predict a firm’s operating modality, and also provides for a contingency framework which links the operating mode choice to performance. This template model is then refined through an iterative multiple case analysis across 35 ‘high-tech’ manufacturers headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area which have recently established operations in the Asia/Pacific Rim. The iterative case analysis allowed a refinement and validation of the template decision model. The findings of the study point to the efficacy of the adapted operating mode decision/performance model based on replication logic analysis. Further, a number of insights which emerged from the case analysis lend greater context to the final model development. To sum, it is shown through the case analysis methodology that a contingent link between operating mode decision factors and mode selection does exist and that creating a good ‘fit’ between these decision factors and the operating mode choice does lead to improved venture performance. Specifically, foreign venture performance is shown to be explained in part by choosing an operating mode which meets the requirements of a firm’s international strategy and environmental considerations. The results indicate that a firm’s international strategy is clearly the driving force in a firm’s choice of a particular operating mode. Further, the operating mode selection should be chosen to meet the requirements of a firm’s international strategy to facilitate good venture performance. Additionally, appropriate international strategy formulation and operating mode selection are shown to be enabled through a high decision context (high decision process comprehensiveness and high decision team heterogeneity). Finally, the results also indicate that technology transfer costs and environmental concerns are normally managed by more refined means than operating mode selection.
Antioxidant vitamin supplements do not reduce reactive oxygen species activity in Helicobacter pylori gastritis in the short term

Reactive oxygen species have been implicated in Helicobacter pylori-mediated gastric carcinogenesis, whereas diets high in antioxidant vitamins C and E are protective. We have examined the effect of vitamin C and E supplements in combination with H. pylori eradication on reactive oxygen species activity in H. pylori gastritis. H. pylori-positive patients were randomized into four groups: triple therapy alone (Bismuth chelate, tetracycline, and metronidazole for 2 weeks), vitamins alone (200 mg vitamin C and 50 mg vitamin E, both twice per day for 4 weeks), both treatments or neither. Plasma and mucosal ascorbic acid, malondialdehyde and reactive oxygen species were determined before and after treatment. Compared with normal controls (n 61), H. pylori-positive patients (n 117) had higher mucosal reactive oxygen species and malondialdehyde levels and lower plasma ascorbic acid. Plasma ascorbic acid doubled in both groups of patients receiving vitamins and mucosal levels also increased. Malondialdehyde and reactive oxygen species fell in patients in whom H. pylori was eradicated but vitamin supplements were not effective either alone or in combination with H. pylori eradication. Supplements of vitamins C and E do not significantly reduce mucosal reactive oxygen species damage in H. pylori gastritis.
Evidence for remembering when events occurred in a rodent model of episodic memory

The content of episodic memory consists of representations of unique past events. Episodic memories are grounded in a temporal framework (i.e., we remember when an event occurred). It has recently been argued that episodic-like memory in rats is qualitatively different from human episodic memory because, rather than remembering when an earlier past event occurred, rats used the cue of how long ago it occurred. We asked, therefore, whether rats remember the time of day at which they encountered a distinctive event, in addition to what occurred and where it happened. Rats were tested in the morning and afternoon, on separate days. A distinctive flavor (chocolate) was replenished at a daily-unique location at only one of these times. The interval between first and second daily opportunities to eat (study and test, respectively) was constant. Rats adjusted their revisits to the chocolate location at different times of day by using time of day rather than the cue of how long ago an event occurred. Two lines of evidence suggest that rats remembered the time at which the distinctive event occurred. First, under conditions in which the time of test (but not time of study) was novel, rats immediately transferred their knowledge of the chocolate contingency to the new test time. Second, under conditions in which predictions for study and test times were put in conflict, rats again used study time. Our results suggest that, at the time of memory assessment, rats remember when a recent episode occurred, similar to human episodic memory.
An alternating direction method for optical flow estimation with lp regularization

We consider the optical flow estimation problem with lp sub-quadratic regularization, where 0 ≤ p ≤ 1. As in other image analysis tasks based on functional minimization, sub-quadratic regularization is expected to admit discontinuities and avoid oversmoothing of the estimated optical flow field. The problem is mathematically challenging, since the regularization term is non-differentiable. It is harder than the l1 case, that can be addressed via Moreau proximal mapping with a closed form solution. In this paper, we propose a novel approach, based on variable splitting and the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM). We exemplify that our method can outperform optical flow with l1 regularization, but this is not the essence of this paper. The contribution is in demonstrating that state of the art optimization methods can be harnessed to solve a mathematically-challenging class of important image processing problems, and to highlight crucial numerical aspects that are often obscured in the image processing literature.
C 1 C 2 C 1 C 2 ( b ) : Highly oblique ( a ) : Nadir

Accurate and robust real-time map generation onboard of a fixed-wing UAV is essential for obstacle avoidance, path planning, and critical maneuvers such as autonomous take-off and landing. Due to the computational constraints, the required robustness and reliability, it remains a challenge to deploy a fixed-wing UAV with an online-capable, accurate and robust map generation framework. While photogrammetric approaches have underlying assumptions on the structure and the view of the camera, generic simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) approaches are computationally demanding. This paper presents a framework that uses the autopilot’s state estimate as a prior for sliding window bundle adjustment and map generation. Our approach outputs an accurate georeferenced dense point-cloud which was validated in simulation on a synthetic dataset and on two real-world scenarios based on ground control points.
Continuous proliferation of murine antigen-specific helper T lymphocytes in culture

Murine helper T cells activated to sheep or horse erythrocyte antigens in vivo have been established as continuous cell lines in culture. T cells require the presence of a T-cell growth factor (TCGF) for continuous proliferation. TCGF purified from murine, rat, or human sources all stimulate murine T-cell growth. The T-cell mitogens concanavalin A and phytohemagglutinin do not stimulate cell proliferation in continuous T-cell lines. All cells that grow in the presence of TCGF express Thy-1 antigens. Helper activity of T-cell lines is both antigen specific and effective for syngeneic or F1 B cells. Supernates from T-cell lines do not contain antigen-specific or nonspecific helper factors. Although several T-cell lines have shown stable helper activity for greater than 50 wk in culture, other cell lines have shown a gradual decline in effector function. The procedure used to establish and maintain proliferation of T cells in culture should be suitable for the selection and growth of antigen-specific effector T cells from each subclass.
On-To-Knowledge in a Nutshell

Dieter Fensel, Frank van Harmelen, Ying Ding, Michel Klein, Hans Akkermans Free University Amsterdam VUA, Division of Mathematics and Informatics De Boelelaan 1081a, NL-1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands http://www.ontoknowledge. org ; contact: dieter@cs.vu. nl Jeen Broekstra, Arjohn Kampman, Jos van der Meer, AIdministrator, The Netherlands Rudi Studer, York Sure, AIFB, University of Karlsruhe, Germany John Davies, Alistar Duke, BT, Ipswich, UK Robert Engels, CognIT, Oslo, Norway Victor Iosif, Enersearch AB, Gothenburg, Sweden Atanas Kiryakov, OntoText, Sofia, Bulgaria Thorsten Lau, Ulrich Reimer, Swiss Life, Zurich, Switzerland Ian Horrocks, University of Manchester, UK
A NON-DEGENERATE ESTIMATOR FOR VARIANCE PARAMETERS IN MULTILEVEL MODELS VIA PENALIZED LIKELIHOOD ESTIMATION

In this paper we consider the problem of obtaining zero estimates for group-level variance parameters in multilevel or hierarchical linear models, a problem that occurs frequently when the number of groups or the value of the variance is small. For situations where zero variances are implausible a priori, we propose a maximum penalized likelihood approach to avoid such boundary estimates. This approach is equivalent to estimating variance parameters by their posterior mode, given a weakly informative prior distribution. By choosing the penalty from the log-gamma family with shape parameter greater than 1, we ensure that the estimated variance will be positive. We suggest default values for the shape and rate parameters so that the maximum penalized likelihood estimator is approximately one standard error from zero when the maximum likelihood estimate is zero, and thus remains consistent with the likelihood while being non-degenerate. We also show that the maximum penalized likelihood estimator with this default penalty is a good approximation to the posterior median with a non-informative prior. Our method with the default penalty provides better estimates of model parameters and standard errors than the maximum likelihood or the restricted maximum likelihood estimators. The log-gamma family can also be used to convey substantive prior information. In either case—pure penalization or prior information—our recommended procedure gives non-degenerate estimates and in the limit coincides with maximum likelihood as the number of groups increases.
An energy optimizing scheduler for mobile cloud computing environments

In mobile cloud computing, mobile devices seek to minimize computation time and/or energy consumption based on task related or user defined constraints. In earlier work [1], we proposed to minimize the total energy consumption across all the mobile devices in a cyber foraging system using a scheduler that runs in a centralized broker node, in situations where a large number of mobile devices could be expected. In this paper, we extend our earlier task scheduling problem for a large number of mobile devices to a mobile cloud computing environment. We optimally solve the task scheduling problem for task assignment to minimize the total energy consumption across the mobile devices subject to user defined constraints. Our task scheduler model at the centralized broker optimally offloads tasks and provides significant reduction in energy consumption compared to the energy consumption when tasks are offloaded from the centralized scheduler without optimization.
Accumbal dopamine and serotonin activity throughout acquisition and expression of place conditioning: correlative relationships with preference and aversion

The ability of addictive drugs to induce adaptations in mesolimbic dopamine (DA) activity offers an attractive neurobiological explanation for enhanced incentive motivation toward drug‐associated stimuli in addiction. However, direct evidence supporting this is sparse. By tracking neurochemical activity within the mouse nucleus accumbens via microdialysis during repeated pairing of morphine with environmental stimuli, we reveal a predictive relationship between enhanced DA responses to morphine and subsequent preference towards a morphine‐paired stimulus. A similar relationship for serotonin (5‐HT) was observed, suggesting that these neuromodulatory systems work in concert. During expression of preference towards a morphine‐paired stimulus, extracellular DA was not enhanced but was negatively associated with this behavior on a subject‐by‐subject basis. In contrast, avoidance of an aversively‐paired stimulus (the opiate antagonist naloxone) was associated with enhanced extracellular DA levels, and also the balance between DA and 5‐HT responses. These findings reveal a tangible predictive relationship between drug‐induced neural adaptations and conditioned behavior, and emphasize that DA activity is not generalized to all subcomponents of behavior conditioned by addictive drugs. They further provide evidence for an active role of DA–5‐HT interactions in the expression of learned behavior.