Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Locally formed dopamine inhibits Na+-K+-ATPase activity in rat renal cortical tubule cells.

Dopamine, generated locally from L-dopa, inhibits Na+-K+-ATPase in permeabilized rat proximal tubules under maximum transport rate conditions for sodium. To determine whether locally formed dopamine inhibits Na+-K+-ATPase activity in intact cortical tubule cells we studied the effect of L-dopa on ouabain-sensitive oxygen consumption rate (QO2) and 86Rb uptake in renal cortical tubule cell suspensions. L-Dopa (10(-4) M) did not affect ouabain-insensitive QO2 or mitochondrial respiration. However, L-dopa inhibited ouabain-sensitive QO2 in a concentration-dependent manner, with half-maximal inhibition (K0.5) of 5 x 10(-7) M and a maximal inhibition of 14.1 +/- 1.5% at 10(-4) M (P less than 0.05). L-Dopa also blunted the nystatin-stimulated QO2 in a concentration-dependent manner, with a K0.5 of 5 x 10(-8) M and a maximal inhibition of 21.8 +/- 1.2% at 10(-5) M (P less than 0.05), indicating that L-dopa directly inhibits Na+-K+-ATPase activity and not sodium entry. Ouabain-sensitive 86Rb uptake was also inhibited by L-dopa (16.0 +/- 2.4%, P less than 0.05). Carbidopa (10(-4) M), an inhibitor of the conversion of L-dopa to dopamine, eliminated the effect of L-dopa on ouabain-sensitive QO2 and 86Rb uptake, indicating that dopamine rather than L-dopa was the active agent. The finding that the L-dopa concentration-response curve was shifted to the left by one order of magnitude in the presence of nystatin suggests that the inhibitory effect is enhanced when the intracellular sodium concentration is increased. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Fully automated hippocampus segmentation with virtual ant colonies

The development of tools for a fully automatic segmentation of the relevant brain structures, such as the hippocampus, is potentially very useful for pathologies detection. In this paper, a method for the automated hippocampal segmentation, based on virtual ant colonies, is proposed. The algorithm used, the Channeler Ant Model (CAM), represents an effective way to segment 3D objects with a complex shape in a noisy background. The CAM was modified by inserting a shape knowledge that is crucial to face the hippocampus segmentation. The algorithm was trained and tested using a database of 56 T1 weighted MRI images with a known manual segmentation of the hippocampus volume. The results are comparable to other methods: an average Dice Index of 0.74 and 0.72 is obtained over the left and right hippocampi, respectively. The lack of a heavy training procedure, because all the model parameters are fixed, and the speed make this approach very effective.
Positive and normative analysis of tax policy : does the representation of the household decision process matter ? Evidence for France ¤

The burgeoning literature on collective models has recently focused on attempts to estimate such models of household behaviour. However, no simple econometric technique is available when accounting for participation decisions and tax-bene…t system leading to non-linear and possibly non-convex budget sets. This delays the use of collective models for policy recommendation purposes. Relying on cruder calibration techniques to …ll the gap is thus necessary. The paper …rst suggests a piecemeal approach to simulate labour supply using a collective model with taxation. The second contribution is to compare the predictions in term of policy analysis between the unitary and the collective models. The exercise consists in assessing a current French tax reform using a unitary model estimated on data generated by the collective one. The size of errors from the unitary model, both on positive and normative conclusions, suggests that ³ ´
Nonlinear adjustment to purchasing power parity in China

This study applies a simple and powerful nonlinear unit root test proposed by Sollis (2009) to investigate the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) for China's real exchange rate vis-à-vis her nine trading partner countries over the period January 1986 to October 2009. The empirical results indicate that China's real exchange is a nonlinear process and a unit root in real exchange rate was not found for most of the cases under study. These results provide strong support for PPP for China relative to her major trading partner countries.
Prevention slot flow-control mechanism for low latency torus network-on-chip

The challenge for on-chip networks is to provide low latency communication in a very low power budget. To reduce the latency and maintain the simplicity of a mesh topology, torus topology is proposed. As torus topology has an inherent circular dependency, additional effort is needed to prevent deadlock, even if deadlock free routing algorithms are used. The authors propose a novel flow-control mechanism to address cost/performance constraints in torus networks and ensure deadlock freedom. They achieve flow-control by using a prevention mechanism and ensure deadlock freedom while requiring only a single packet buffer per input port. They simplify the router design by having a simple switch allocator that prioritises in-flight packets, and a single packet buffer per input port that eliminates the need for virtual channels. They also propose a mechanism to avoid starvation that can arise because of the prioritised arbitration. Experimental validation reveals that the authors design achieves significant improvement in throughput, as compared with the traditional design, while using significantly fewer buffers.
Factors Affecting the Formation of Audit Committees in Major UK Listed Companies

Abstract This research investigates the proposition that there are differences between companies which have voluntarily formed audit committees and those which have not. The results of univariate and multivariate tests reveal statistically significant differences between the two groups for variables representing: (i) agency costs of equity, (ii) agency costs of debt, and (iii) director pressure to reduce information asymmetries.
Recursive 3-D Road and Relative Ego-State Recognition

The general problem of recognizing both horizontal and vertical road curvature parameters while driving along the road has been solved recursively. A differential geometry representation decoupled for the two curvature components has been selected. Based on the planar solution of E.D. Dickmanns and A. Zapp (1986) and its refinements, a simple spatio-temporal model of the driving process makes it possible to take both spatial and temporal constraints into account effectively. The estimation process determines nine road and vehicle state parameters recursively at 25 Hz (40 ms) using four Intel 80286 and one 386 microprocessors. Results with the test vehicle (VaMoRs), which is a 5-ton van, are given for a hilly country road. >
On Information Rates of Time-Varying Fading Channels Modeled as Finite-State Markov Channels

We study information rates of time-varying flat-fading channels (FFC) modeled as finite-state Markov channels (FSMC). FSMCs have two main applications for FFCs: modeling channel error bursts and decoding at the receiver. Our main finding in the first application is that receiver observation noise can more adversely affect higher-order FSMCs than lower-order FSMCs, resulting in lower capacities. This is despite the fact that the underlying higher-order FFC and its corresponding FSMC are more predictable. Numerical analysis shows that at low to medium SNR conditions (SNR lsim 12 dB) and at medium to fast normalized fading rates (0.01 lsim fDT lsim 0.10), FSMC information rates are non-increasing functions of memory order. We conclude that BERs obtained by low-order FSMC modeling can provide optimistic results. To explain the capacity behavior, we present a methodology that enables analytical comparison of FSMC capacities with different memory orders. We establish sufficient conditions that predict higher/lower capacity of a reduced-order FSMC, compared to its original high-order FSMC counterpart. Finally, we investigate the achievable information rates in FSMC-based receivers for FFCs. We observe that high-order FSMC modeling at the receiver side results in a negligible information rate increase for normalized fading rates fDT lsim 0.01.
Portfolio Theory Forward Testing

Portfolio Theory has during many decades been considered as the holy grail of investment despite the fact that very few empirical studies in the public domain have shown that portfolio theory outperforms a random equal weighted portfolio. We will in this paper empirically investigate how successful portfolio theory is when it comes to generating large positive returns with low return volatility. The dataset that is used consists of approximately 4000 US stocks. We find weak support that portfolio theory by itself would have generated any returns different than a random portfolio allocation. In general optimized historical cumulative returns are not the same as forward cumulative returns.
Antibacterial gene transfer across the tree of life

Though horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is widespread, genes and taxa experience biased rates of transferability. Curiously, independent transmission of homologous DNA to archaea, bacteria, eukaryotes, and viruses is extremely rare and often defies ecological and functional explanations. Here, we demonstrate that a bacterial lysozyme family integrated independently in all domains of life across diverse environments, generating the only glycosyl hydrolase 25 muramidases in plants and archaea. During coculture of a hydrothermal vent archaeon with a bacterial competitor, muramidase transcription is upregulated. Moreover, recombinant lysozyme exhibits broad-spectrum antibacterial action in a dose-dependent manner. Similar to bacterial transfer of antibiotic resistance genes, transfer of a potent antibacterial gene across the universal tree seemingly bestows a niche-transcending adaptation that trumps the barriers against parallel HGT to all domains. The discoveries also comprise the first characterization of an antibacterial gene in archaea and support the pursuit of antibiotics in this underexplored group. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.04266. 001
CachinMobile: An energy-efficient users caching scheme for fog computing

Recently, fog computing has emerged as an attractive research topic, which extends the cloud computing paradigm to the edge of networks. It is envisioned that traditional cloud computing gradually fail to fully meet the requirements of evergrowing large-scale mobile services due to potential problems, such as high service latency, lack of location-awareness and user mobility support. Compared to cloud computing, fog computing can address these problems by utilizing elastic resources (e.g., computation, storage and networking) of edge nodes (i.e., fog nodes) to provide enhanced service quality with increased network capacity and low latency. However, due to the limited resources of the edge nodes, especially for resource-poor mobile devices, there are strict constraints on energy conservation. As an efficient way, wireless communication at a short distance could be exploited to reduce energy consumption for resource-poor mobile devices in fog computing. In addition, it's crucial to improve the utilization of edge nodes and guarantee that mobile devices can access to the edge nodes rapidly. In this paper, by leveraging social networking and Device-to-device (D2D) communication, we are motivated to propose a novel paradigm of mobile caching network with energy-efficient edge nodes, called CachinMobile. Performance evaluation is carried out to verify that CachinMobile can considerably improve energy efficiency, and meanwhile, maintain satisfying QoS.
West Nile Virus Infection among the Homeless, Houston, Texas

Among 397 homeless participants studied, the overall West Nile virus (WNV) seroprevalence was 6.8%. Risk factors for WNV infection included being homeless >1 year, spending >6 hours outside daily, regularly taking mosquito precautions, and current marijuana use. Public health interventions need to be directed toward this high-risk population.
Evaluation of State-of-the-Art Acoustic Feedback Cancellation Systems for Hearing Aids

In this work we evaluate four state-of-the-art acoustic feedback cancellation systems for hearing aid applications. We show that significant improvements in cancellation performance can be made over traditional systems by allowing small alterations in the loudspeaker signal and a computational complexity increase by a factor of 2 − 3. The evaluation is based on a listening test and objective assessments of simulation results.
THE MATHEMATICAL STRUCTURE OF A DECISION MODEL: THE OSLO SUB-MODEL*)

Summary: § 1. List of variables to be considered. –§ 2. The relations of the model. –§ 3. The number of degrees of freedom. The selection problem and the steering problem. –§ 4. How to ask specific questions. –§ Tables of the first kind. –§ 6. Tables of the second kind. –§ 7. A technique for the selection of optimal solutions. Some useful ≪search≫ formulae. –§ 8. Note on the elasticity of spending and the flexibility of the marginal utility of money.
Maternal visibility at the commodity frontier: Weaving love into birthday party consumption

Children's birthday parties are celebrations that offer a means to understand consumption values surrounding motherhood that can remain understated or even taken for granted. Mother's consumption activities and the involvement of their child can reveal their management of the commodity frontier. As the marketplace increasingly provides goods and services to support mothers and parenting, the extent to which this is acceptable is a source of anxiety for the enactment of ‘good’ mothering in some social groups. The maternal visibility that birthday parties demand adds further strain. Building from previous work that acknowledges mothers to be the organisers of family celebrations and work that identifies ideologies of motherhood as important in the enactment, or performance, of mothering, this study examined mother–child consumption and the management of the commodity frontier in the preparation and hosting of young children's birthday parties. The findings show that mothers could publicly demonstrate their intimate knowledge and care for their child by personalising the birthday party through the gift of their time and effort to create a ‘homemade’ event. Although overt commercialisation was managed, do-it-yourself understates the need to consume the constituent elements of the celebration. Instead mothers' abiding care was woven into the party to express something special for the child without material excess. Effortful work, time and emotional energy were all understated in the creation of a memorable event for the child. The underpinning rationalisation asserted that the fun, innocent simplicity of childhood was an imperative. The involvement of the child in consumption for the party allowed the mother to gauge the child's pleasure, teach values and manage the commodity frontier.
The Economics of Seasonal Cycles

Since macroeconomists first began the systematic study of aggregate data, they have grappled with the fact that most economic time series exhibit substantial seasonal variation. In general, macroeconomists abstract from this seasonal variation, both in their models of cyclical behavior and in their empirical testing of these models. This standard practice is a useful simplification if two key conditions hold. The first is that there are no interactions between seasonal cycles and business cycles: they result from different exogenous factors and different economic propagation mechanisms. The second is that there are no important welfare issues attached to seasonal fluctuations per se: optimal government policy toward seasonals is simply to leave them alone. The purpose of this essay is twofold. It first summarizes recent work demonstrating that seasonal cycles and business cycles are intimately related, displaying similar stylized facts and being driven by similar economic propogation mechanisms. The essay then discusses the possible welfare implications of seasonal cycles, suggesting there is no reasonable presumption they are uninteresting from a welfare or policy perspective. Taken together, these results imply the need for a significant re-orientation in economists' treatment of seasonal fluctuations. Rather than a component of the data to be adjusted away and treated as noise, seasonal fluctuations represent a key topic of economic analysis. They contain significant information about the nature of business cycles, and they require analysis in their own right because they may induce significant welfare losses.
Fetal rhesus monkey model of obstructive renal dysplasia.

BACKGROUND Disorders of kidney development represent a major cause of renal failure and end-stage renal disease in the pediatric population. To understand further the prenatal pathogenesis of obstructive renal dysplasia, a fetal monkey model was developed using ultrasound-guided techniques. METHODS Ureteropelvic obstruction (N = 13) was induced during the early or late second trimester by the injection of purified guluronic alginate spheres. All fetuses were monitored sonographically, and then fetal tissues were removed at varying time points during the second and third trimesters. RESULTS There was no evidence of oligohydramnios during the course of gestation, and the obstructed kidneys were typically progressively smaller than the contralateral (nonobstructed) kidneys when monitored sonographically over time. Obstructed kidneys displayed most features of renal dysplasia, including numerous cortical cysts of various sizes derived predominantly from collecting ducts and glomeruli. Mesenchymal changes included expansion of both the cortical and medullary interstitium, as well as mesenchymal-myocyte transformation, expressed as pericystic and peritubular fibromuscular collar formation. An important feature of this model was the disruption of normal glomerular development and architecture, associated with significant podocyte apoptosis, evident as early as the prevascularized S-shaped nephron. As in other models, collecting duct cell apoptosis was apparent, particularly in areas of cyst formation and cellular atrophy. CONCLUSIONS These results demonstrate the importance of this nonhuman primate model for exploring the pathophysiology of congenital obstructive uropathy and highlight the potential role of podocyte injury in determining long-term renal function associated with this condition.
Direct Angiotensin II Type 2 Receptor Stimulation in N&ohgr;-Nitro-L-Arginine-Methyl Ester–Induced Hypertension: The Effect on Pulse Wave Velocity and Aortic Remodeling

Pulse wave velocity (PWV), a direct marker of arterial stiffness, is an independent cardiovascular risk factor. Although the angiotensin II type 1 receptor blockade belongs to major antihypertensive and cardioprotective therapies, less is known about the effects of long-term stimulation of the angiotensin II type 2 receptor. Previously, compound 21, a selective nonpeptide angiotensin II type 2 receptor agonist improved the outcome of myocardial infarction in rats along with anti-inflammatory properties. We investigated whether compound 21 alone or in combination with angiotensin II type 1 receptor blockade by olmesartan medoxomil could prevent PWV increase and aortic remodeling in N&ohgr;-nitro-L-arginine-methyl ester (L-NAME)–induced hypertension. Male adult Wistar rats (n=65) were randomly assigned to control, L-NAME, L-NAME+compound-21, L-NAME+olmesartan, and L-NAME+olmesartan+compound-21 groups and treated for 6 weeks. We observed that L-NAME hypertension was accompanied by enhanced PWV, increased wall thickness, and stiffness of the aorta, along with elevated hydroxyproline concentration. Olmesartan completely prevented hypertension, PWV and wall thickness increase, and the increase of aortic stiffness and partly prevented hydroxyproline accumulation. Compound 21 partly prevented all of these alterations, yet without concomitant prevention of blood pressure rise. Although the combination therapy with olmesartan and compound 21 led to blood pressure levels, PWV, and wall thickness comparable to olmesartan-alone–treated rats, only in the combination group was complete prevention of increased hydroxyproline deposition achieved, resulting in even more pronounced stiffness reduction. We conclude that chronic angiotensin II type 2 receptor stimulation prevented aortic stiffening and collagen accumulation without preventing hypertension in rats with inhibited NO synthase. These effects were additive to angiotensin II type 1 receptor blockade, yet without additional blood pressure–lowering effect, and they seem to be NO and blood pressure independent.
Multicast Capacity for Hybrid MANETs with Direction Antenna and Delay Constraint

We study the multicast throughput capacity for hybrid wireless mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) with a directional antenna and delay constraint. The hybrid wireless network consists of a mobile ad hoc network with $n$ nodes and $m$ regularly placed base stations connected by high-bandwidth wired links. For the MANET, there are $n_s$ multicast sessions and each multicast session has one source which transmits identical informations to its associated $p$ destinations. Assuming that the mobile nodes adopt 2D-i.i. d. mobility model, we investigate the ad hoc mode multicast throughput capacity when each node is equipped with a directional antenna along with a tolerant delay $D$. That is, a source node transmits to its $p$ destinations only with the help of normal nodes within $D$consecutive time slots. Otherwise, the transmission will be switched to the infrastructure mode, where the base stations serve as relays. We find that the multicast throughput capacity of a hybrid wireless MANETs greatly depends on the delay constraints $D$, the number of base stations $m$, and the beamwidth of directional antenna $\theta$. We show that the multicast throughput capacity of the hybrid directional wireless network is $\Theta(\sqrt{\theta})+\Theta(\frac{m}{n_sp}W_2)$ bits/sec, if $D=\Omega(\frac{n_s}{(\log p)^2(\log(\theta n_sp))^2})$; $\Theta(\frac{m}{n_sp}W_2)$ bits/sec, if $D=O(\sqrt[3]{\frac{n_s}{(\log p)^2(\log(\theta n_sp))^2}})$; and $O((\log p)(\log(\theta n_sp))\sqrt{\frac{\theta D}{n_s}})+\Theta(\frac{m}{n_sp}W_2)$ bits/sec, otherwise. We analyze the impact of $D$, $m$ and $\theta$ on the multicast throughput capacity of the hybrid MANET. Finally, we derive lower bound of the muticast throughput using a similar raptor coding approach as in\cite{ZY10}.
Reconceptualising benchmarking development in UK organisations: the effects of size and sector

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore both the development and reconceptualisation of benchmarking and performance measurement within UK organisations, using a brief literature review, theoretical reconception and an empirical study of UK organisations.Design/methodology/approach – An empirical study was conducted involving UK organisations (n=156) across a wide range of organizational sizes and sectors. Analysis included the use of descriptives, chi‐square tests and one‐way ANOVA between and within groups.Findings – The findings show how, firstly, organisations are progressing towards benchmarking and performance measurement maturity as traditionally defined. Secondly, the findings show how organisations that have reached this stage are reconceptualising benchmarking and performance measurement to meet fundamentally changing market and operational conditions.Practical implications – The paper gives a structured outline for organisations seeking to design and implement advanced performance measure.