Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Crystal structure of the cyclophilin‐like domain from the parasitic nematode Brugia malayi

Cyclophilins are a family of proteins that exhibit peptidyl‐prolyl cis‐trans isomerase activity and bind the immuno‐suppressive agent Cyclosporin A (CsA). Brugia malayi is a filarial nematode parasite of humans, for which a cyclophilin‐like domain was identified at the N‐terminal of a protein containing 843 amino acid residues. There are two differences in sequence in the highly conserved CsA binding site: A histidine and a lysine replace a tryptophan and an alanine, respectively. The crystal structure of this domain has been determined by the molecular replacement method and refined to an R‐factor of 16.9% at 2.15 Å resolution. The overall structure is similar to other cyclophilins; however, major differences occur in two loops. Comparison of the CsA binding site of this domain with members of the cyclophilin family shows significant structural differences, which can account for the reduced sensitivity of the Brugia malayi protein to inhibition by CsA.
Caught in the Headlights: Revising the Road Kill Hypothesis of Antebellum Illinois Bank Failures

Illinois had a dismal free banking experience, with over 80% of its free banks failing by the start of the Civil War. Researchers agree that a dramatic change in bond prices was the catalyst, and some have shown that the riskiest banks, ex ante, were the most likely to fail. This study examines how Illinois free banks adjusted their portfolios in the face of increased political and financial risks prior to Abraham Lincoln’s election as president. Lincoln’s nomination in May 1860 and the Democratic Party schism in June 1860 raised the likelihood of secession and the potential for a significant decline in Southern bond prices. Given this heightened risk, did free bankers reduce their exposure to such a decline? In general, it appears that the free bankers took risks commensurate with expected returns and the uncertain political climate, purchased the most readily available bonds, and had sufficient backing to withstand a moderate decline in Southern bond prices. The dramatic price decline soon after the election appears to have caught many banks by surprise, like a deer caught in the headlights.
Driving Cessation Anno 2010 Which Older Drivers Give Up Their License and Why? Evidence From Denmark

This study focuses on the decision to either stop or continue driving among a cohort of Danish seniors whose driving licenses expire, for the first time, at the age of 70. Based on 1537 standardized telephone interviews with licensed drivers, we compared persons who intended to renew or not to renew their licenses. The results partly recapture the findings of earlier studies. However, in contrast to former cohorts, a much higher percentage of older drivers intended to keep their licenses. The strongest factors predicting the intention to renew were active car use, feeling safe as a driver, not being dependent on others and not having illnesses that impaired driving ability. Three of these factors were strongly correlated with gender, indicating that efforts to prevent premature driving cessation should especially focus on increasing women’s confidence and experience in driving.
Art as an Investment: The Top 500 Artists

This paper studies the historical prices and returns of the artworks of the top 500 artists in the world. We perform an advanced hedonic regression analysis, based on the two-step methodology developed by Kraeussl and van Elsland (2008). We investigate whether investing in art is an interesting alternative investment opportunity in times of economic turmoil. Furthermore, we examine whether art should be included in a well diversified portfolio. Based on our Top 500 Art Market index, we conclude that over a period of more than 24 years, art realizes a geometric return of 7.3% annually and that it has the highest standard deviation in our model. Our CAPM regression results show that art has a positive market beta of 0.70. Moreover, it positively correlates with the global equity index, having a correlation coefficient of 25.14%. From this, we conclude that the art market tends to move in the same directions as the global equity market. Therefore, art does not seem to be an interesting alternative asset to hedge returns of the global equity index. However, investing in art leads to diversification benefits and should be included in a well-diversified optimal portfolio.
Major Greenwood (1880–1949): a biographical and bibliographical study

Major Greenwood was the foremost medical statistician of the first half of the 20th century in the UK. Trained in both medicine and statistics, his career extended over 45years during which he published eight books, 23 extensive reports and over 200 papers. His classical education extended to Latin and Greek, and he was fluent in German and French. We provide an overview of his life including family background, training and his career subdivided according to the places where he worked. We describe in particular the key role he played with others in the development of medical statistics within the Medical Research Council, the General Register Office, the Department of Health and the Universities. © 2015 The Authors. Statistics in Medicine Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Effects of gonadal steroids in women with a history of postpartum depression.

OBJECTIVE Endocrine factors are purported to play a role in the etiology of postpartum depression, but direct evidence for this role is lacking. The authors investigated the possible role of changes in gonadal steroid levels in postpartum depression by simulating two hormonal conditions related to pregnancy and parturition in euthymic women with and without a history of postpartum depression. METHOD The supraphysiologic gonadal steroid levels of pregnancy and withdrawal from these high levels to a hypogonadal state were simulated by inducing hypogonadism in euthymic women-eight with and eight without a history of postpartum depression-with the gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist leuprolide acetate, adding back supraphysiologic doses of estradiol and progesterone for 8 weeks, and then withdrawing both steroids under double-blind conditions. Outcome measures were daily symptom self-ratings and standardized subjective and objective cross-sectional mood rating scales. RESULTS Five of the eight women with a history of postpartum depression (62.5%) and none of the eight women in the comparison group developed significant mood symptoms during the withdrawal period. Analysis of variance with repeated measures of daily and cross-sectional ratings of mood showed significant phase-by-group effects. These effects reflected significant increases in depressive symptoms in women with a history of postpartum depression but not in the comparison group after hormone withdrawal (and during the end of the hormone replacement phase), compared with baseline. CONCLUSIONS The data provide direct evidence in support of the involvement of the reproductive hormones estrogen and progesterone in the development of postpartum depression in a subgroup of women. Further, they suggest that women with a history of postpartum depression are differentially sensitive to mood-destabilizing effects of gonadal steroids.
Distributed Resource Allocation Scheme for Multicell OFDMA Networks Based on Combinatorial Auction

Users' competition in a multicell OFDMA network has been modeled as auction game. A combinatorial auction, which takes into account the interference from adjacent cells is presented. Users' valuation for a set of subcarriers is sent to the base station, which acts as an auctioneer and makes the decisions on the allocation. Auction objective is to minimize the interference, while power of users is limited. Our proposed valuation function will enforce truth-telling of the users. Due to the complexity of original problem, we apply a heuristic approach, which orders the bids based on the linear programming approximation of combinatorial auction, and then makes local improvements in the order of bids. Our iterative approach along with the proposed load control scheme provides fair distribution of resources to the users, regardless of their position in the cell. Simulation results demonstrate the performance of our proposed method.
Catalysts of integration – the role of core intergovernmental forums in EU politics

Abstract This article synthetises the contributions of the special issue along three major lines of reasoning. First, the European Council is considered as a catalyst of post-Maastricht integration. This is mainly due to its policy-making role in core new areas of European Union (EU) activity. Second, inter-institutional relations that have emerged between the European Council, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament in the post-Maastricht era and in particular the post-Lisbon era are seen to reflect both the centrality of the European Council and a novel way of initiating and implementing EU policy. Finally, the political process within and around the European Council is considered that has taken place against the background of the most recent crises conditions. In particular, the simultaneous occurrence of consensus and domination is identified as a key element of further research related to the ‘new intergovernmentalism’ and the ‘intergovernmental union’.
Discovering EEG Signals Response to Musical Signal Stimuli by Time-frequency analysis and Independent Component Analysis

In recent years, a lot of research has focus on the physiological effect of music. The electroencephalographic (EEG) is often used to verify the influence of music on human brain activity. In this study, we used frequency distribution analysis and the independent component analysis (ICA) to analyze to discover the EEG responses of subjects with different musical signal stimuli. It is expected that some features on EEG can be demonstrated to reflect the different musical signal stimuli. The EEG of six healthy volunteers listening different music was recorded. We used International 10-20 System to get 19 channels of EEG signal. Musical signal stimuli are metal music, sonata music and the favorite music selected by subjects. Spectra analyses based on Fourier transform were applied to obtain the alpha, beta, gamma and thetas band power of EEG signal under different music stimuli. We used the power at each band of each channel as the features of EEG. The correlation of the features between different situations and subjects was used to show which channel display the difference of EEG signals. Besides, ICA was applied to assist us in the process of isolating noise components and to provide cues to explain the functions of different brain areas in point of neurology. The result showed that some independent components obtained from ICA can demonstrate more significant difference for different music. The features composed of spectral power of each band are very similar in listening metal music, but showed less similarity in listening sonata music. Hence, the response of EEG to sonata is more meaningful and metal music may induce same effect for different subjects. T3 and Pz are the channels with relatively lower correlation under different music stimuli. Therefore, the locations of T3 and Pz of brain may play an important role in feeling music
Polymeric immunoglobulin receptor traffics through two distinct apically targeted pathways in primary lacrimal gland acinar cells

Summary The polymeric immunoglobulin receptor (pIgR) mediates transcytosis of dimeric immunoglobulin A (dIgA) and its release into mucosal secretions. The present study reveals the complexity of the trafficking of pIgR to the apical plasma membrane in epithelial cells with exocrine secretory functions; in rabbit lacrimal gland acinar cells (LGACs), trafficking of pIgR involves both the transcytotic pathway and one arm of the regulated secretory pathway. By specifically tracking pIgR endocytosed from the basolateral membrane, we show here that the Rab11a-regulated transcytotic pathway mediates the basal-to-apical transport of pIgR, and that pIgR sorted into the transcytotic pathway does not access the regulated secretory pathway. However, previous work in LGACs expanded in the present study has shown that some pIgR is localized to Rab3D-enriched mature secretory vesicles (SVs). Myosin Vb and myosin Vc motors modulate release of proteins from the Rab11a-regulated transcytotic pathway and the Rab3D-enriched secretory pathway in LGACs, respectively. Confocal fluorescence microscopy and biochemical assays showed that inhibition of myosin Vb and myosin Vc activity by overexpression of their dominant-negative mutants each significantly but differentially impaired aspects of apically targeted pIgR trafficking and secretory component release, suggesting that these motors function to regulate pIgR trafficking in both the transcytotic and exocytotic pathways. Intriguingly, a second mature SV population enriched in Rab27b was devoid of pIgR cargo, suggesting the specialization of Rab3D-enriched mature SVs to carry a particular subset of cargo proteins from the trans-Golgi network to the apical plasma membrane.
Orthometric height determination based upon optical clocks and fiber frequency transfer technique

A previous report at GGHS 2012 meeting in Italy suggested that the gravity potential difference as well as the orthometric height difference between two points P and Q connected by optical fibers might be determined by remote optical fiber frequency transfer technique under the assumption that electromagnetic signals transmit in optical fiber just as they propagate in vacuum. The present study is a further improvement of the same topic with more details and without the mentioned assumption. After synchronization, two optical clocks Cp and Cq are set at points P and Q, which are connected by optical fibers. After measuring the signal's frequency shift by comparing the emitting and receiving frequencies between the optical clocks Cp and Cq via remote optical fiber frequency transfer technique, the orthometric height between the two points could be measured, and its accuracy depends on both the accuracy of the optical clocks and the transmitting frequency comparison accuracy. The present accuracy level 10E-17 to 10E18 of optical clocks provides an equivalent accuracy of decimeter to centimeter level in height measurement, while the frequency comparison technique at present can provide transmitting frequency comparison accuracy as high as 10E-19 level. Future 10E-18 to 10E-19 level accuracy of optical clocks provides potential of measuring the orthometric height with centimeter to millimeter accuracy level using remote optical fiber frequency transfer technique.
Segmentation of White Blood Cells From Microscopic Images Using a Novel Combination of K-Means Clustering and Modified Watershed Algorithm

Recognition of white blood cells (WBCs) is the first step to diagnose some particular diseases such as acquired immune deficiency syndrome, leukemia, and other blood-related diseases that are usually done by pathologists using an optical microscope. This process is time-consuming, extremely tedious, and expensive and needs experienced experts in this field. Thus, a computer-aided diagnosis system that assists pathologists in the diagnostic process can be so effective. Segmentation of WBCs is usually a first step in developing a computer-aided diagnosis system. The main purpose of this paper is to segment WBCs from microscopic images. For this purpose, we present a novel combination of thresholding, k-means clustering, and modified watershed algorithms in three stages including (1) segmentation of WBCs from a microscopic image, (2) extraction of nuclei from cell’s image, and (3) separation of overlapping cells and nuclei. The evaluation results of the proposed method show that similarity measures, precision, and sensitivity respectively were 92.07, 96.07, and 94.30% for nucleus segmentation and 92.93, 97.41, and 93.78% for cell segmentation. In addition, statistical analysis presents high similarity between manual segmentation and the results obtained by the proposed method.
Genetic and epigenetic alterations of the reduced folate carrier in untreated diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma

The reduced folate carrier (RFC) is a transmembrane protein that mediates cellular uptake of reduced folates and antifolate drugs, including methotrexate (MTX). Acquired alterations of the RFC gene have been associated with resistance to MTX in cancer cell lines and primary osteosarcomas. Here, we examined RFC for mutations and promoter hypermethylation in (i) the inherently MTX‐resistant lymphoma cell line (RL); (ii) 30 paired cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) obtained at diagnosis and at relapse after treatment with MTX; and (iii) 25 cases of diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma (DLBCL) at diagnosis, none of which had been previously exposed to MTX. Aberrant hypermethylation of the RFC promoter occurred in RL cells and two of the primary DLBCLs. In one additional DLBCL, a single‐base substitution in RFC was identified, leading to the introduction of a premature termination codon (c.1396C>T; p.Q466X). A missense mutation affecting the 11th transmembrane domain of RFC (c.1250T>C; p.I417T) was found in one case of ALL at diagnosis. In ALL, RFC promoter hypermethylation was found neither at diagnosis nor at relapse and thus is not a common cause of low levels of RFC expression associated with adverse outcome. In DLBCL, genetic and epigenetic alterations of RFC were detected at diagnosis in the absence of a selective MTX pressure, suggesting that these alterations may possibly contribute to the development of lymphoma.
Controllability measure for nonlinear systems in complex region

This paper proposes a controllability measure for nonlinear systems which evaluates a degree of controllability. There are many researches on controllability measure for linear systems. However there exists no measure for nonlinear systems. This paper introduces a theorem about a property of systems which are not strongly accessible and proposes controllability measure based on the theorem. Furthermore this paper demonstrates that the measure relates to a distance to a system which is not strongly accessible which is one of measures of evaluating a degree of controllability. Finally this paper applies the measure to an example system and calculates the controllability measure and the distance of the system.
Patience is a Virtue: An Argument for Delayed Surgical Intervention in Fulminant Clostridium difficile Colitis

Recently, the incidence and severity of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) has increased. In cases of fulminant infection, surgery is a viable therapeutic option but associated with high mortality. We sought to examine factors associated with mortality in a large sample of patients with severe CDI that underwent surgery. A retrospective study was conducted in patients with severe CDI undergoing colectomy. Demographics, risk factors, comorbidities, clinical and laboratory data, and time between admission/diagnosis of CDI and colectomy were collected. Conventional markers of severity were evaluated as predictors of mortality. Sixty-four cases were included for analysis. The overall observed mortality rate was 45.3 per cent. Few conventional markers of severity were significantly associated with mortality. Risk factors that correlated with postsurgical mortality were vasopressor use (odds ratio, 3.08; 95% confidence interval, 1.00 to 9.92) and shorter time between diagnosis and surgery (median time, 2 vs 3 days, P = 0.009). This study suggests that a delay in surgery after diagnosis of severe CDI may improve overall outcomes. The finding regarding timing of surgery is contrary to traditional teaching and may be the result of improved medical treatment and stabilization before surgery. Consideration should be given to the importance of timing of colectomy in fulminant CDI, whereas prospective studies should be conducted to elucidate causal relationships.
The disease burden associated with overweight and obesity.

CONTEXT Overweight and obesity are increasing dramatically in the United States and most likely contribute substantially to the burden of chronic health conditions. OBJECTIVE To describe the relationship between weight status and prevalence of health conditions by severity of overweight and obesity in the US population. DESIGN AND SETTING Nationally representative cross-sectional survey using data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), which was conducted in 2 phases from 1988 to 1994. PARTICIPANTS A total of 16884 adults, 25 years and older, classified as overweight and obese (body mass index [BMI] > or =25 kg/m2) based on National Institutes of Health recommended guidelines. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus, gallbladder disease, coronary heart disease, high blood cholesterol level, high blood pressure, or osteoarthritis. RESULTS Sixty-three percent of men and 55% of women had a body mass index of 25 kg/m2 or greater. A graded increase in the prevalence ratio (PR) was observed with increasing severity of overweight and obesity for all of the health outcomes except for coronary heart disease in men and high blood cholesterol level in both men and women. With normal-weight individuals as the reference, for individuals with BMIs of at least 40 kg/m2 and who were younger than 55 years, PRs were highest for type 2 diabetes for men (PR, 18.1; 95% confidence interval [CI], 6.7-46.8) and women (PR, 12.9; 95% CI, 5.7-28.1) and gallbladder disease for men (PR, 21.1; 95% CI, 4.1-84.2) and women (PR, 5.2; 95% CI, 2.9-8.9). Prevalence ratios generally were greater in younger than in older adults. The prevalence of having 2 or more health conditions increased with weight status category across all racial and ethnic subgroups. CONCLUSIONS Based on these results, more than half of all US adults are considered overweight or obese. The prevalence of obesity-related comorbidities emphasizes the need for concerted efforts to prevent and treat obesity rather than just its associated comorbidities.
Image feature extraction with the perceptual graph based on the ant colony system

In this paper, perceptual graph is proposed to represent the relationship between neighboring points in digital images. The ant colony system is applied to build the perceptual graph of digital images, which makes the basis of the layered model of a machine vision system, in the experiments, edge feature extraction and image segmentation are implemented with the proposed machine vision model. The experimental results show that the ant colony system can effectively extract image features.
A mobile instrumentation platform to distinguish airway disorders

Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are distinct but clinically overlapping airway disorders which often create diagnostic and therapeutic dilemmas. Current strategies to discriminate these diseases are limited by insensitivity and poor performance due to biologic variability. We tested the hypothesis that a gas chromatograph/differential mobility spectrometer (GC/DMS) sensor could distinguish between clinically well-defined groups with airway disorders based on the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) obtained from exhaled breath. After comparing VOC profiles obtained from 13 asthma, 5 COPD and 13 healthy control subjects, we found that VOC profiles distinguished asthma from healthy controls and also a subgroup of asthmatics taking the drug omalizumab from healthy controls. The VOC profiles could not distinguish between COPD and any of the other groups. Our results show a potential application of the GC/DMS for non-invasive and bedside diagnostics of asthma and asthma therapy monitoring. Future studies will focus on larger sample sizes and patient cohorts.