Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Insulin/IGF-Regulated Size Scaling of Neuroendocrine Cells Expressing the bHLH Transcription Factor Dimmed in Drosophila

Neurons and other cells display a large variation in size in an organism. Thus, a fundamental question is how growth of individual cells and their organelles is regulated. Is size scaling of individual neurons regulated post-mitotically, independent of growth of the entire CNS? Although the role of insulin/IGF-signaling (IIS) in growth of tissues and whole organisms is well established, it is not known whether it regulates the size of individual neurons. We therefore studied the role of IIS in the size scaling of neurons in the Drosophila CNS. By targeted genetic manipulations of insulin receptor (dInR) expression in a variety of neuron types we demonstrate that the cell size is affected only in neuroendocrine cells specified by the bHLH transcription factor DIMMED (DIMM). Several populations of DIMM-positive neurons tested displayed enlarged cell bodies after overexpression of the dInR, as well as PI3 kinase and Akt1 (protein kinase B), whereas DIMM-negative neurons did not respond to dInR manipulations. Knockdown of these components produce the opposite phenotype. Increased growth can also be induced by targeted overexpression of nutrient-dependent TOR (target of rapamycin) signaling components, such as Rheb (small GTPase), TOR and S6K (S6 kinase). After Dimm-knockdown in neuroendocrine cells manipulations of dInR expression have significantly less effects on cell size. We also show that dInR expression in neuroendocrine cells can be altered by up or down-regulation of Dimm. This novel dInR-regulated size scaling is seen during postembryonic development, continues in the aging adult and is diet dependent. The increase in cell size includes cell body, axon terminations, nucleus and Golgi apparatus. We suggest that the dInR-mediated scaling of neuroendocrine cells is part of a plasticity that adapts the secretory capacity to changing physiological conditions and nutrient-dependent organismal growth.
Communicative Interaction Between Mexico and Its International Critics Around the Issue of Military Jurisdiction: “Rhetorical Action” or “Truth Seeking Arguing”?

During the government of Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), international advocates showed particular concern about the issue of military jurisdiction. They persistently argued that violations of human rights by members of the armed forces should be prosecuted through the civil system of penal justice. The government responded by developing a clear and coherent human-rights-oriented discourse. This article studies this process of communicative interaction, recurring to the notions of “rhetorical action” and “truth seeking arguing. ” Which one of these two modes of communicative interaction dominated? And, what does this tell us about the reach of the socialization process around the issue of military jurisdiction in Mexico? The article concludes that “rhetorical action” was the dominant mode of communicative interaction, suggesting that the Calderón government developed human-rights-oriented arguments in order to advance its previously defined preferences and interest, and that therefore the socialization process was rather limited.
Intravascular and intracardiac ultrasound imaging. An old concept, now on the road to reality.

C onsiderable attention is currently being focused on the development of intravascular and intracardiac ultrasound imaging.1-4 Variously termed as "ultrasound angioscopy," "intravascular ultrasound imaging," or "intraluminal ultrasound imaging," this technique basically refers to the imaging modality of visualizing blood vessels and cardiac structures by an ultrasound transducer placed at the tip of a catheter or catheterlike probe introduced into the vascular system by an arteriotomy or venotomy and advanced to the
Detecting Anomalous Maritime Container Itineraries for Anti-fraud and Supply Chain Security

An important contribution to anti-fraud and supply-chain security comes from the development of Risk Analysis tools targeted to the discovery of suspicious containerized transportations. In this work we present the Anomalous Container Itinerary Detection (ACID) framework that analyses Container Status Messages to discover irregular container shipments. The system has been developed at JRC as part of an in-house global route-based risk analysis facility for containers monitoring. It adopts a flexible and modular design and its preliminary prototype applies an SVM one-class classifier to detect anomalies. The experimental evaluation %analyzed more than 300 thousand containers, demonstrates that the analysis module may be set to detect efficiently the expected number of suspicious itineraries, which can be further investigated by Customs authorities thanks to the web-based visualization tool provided with the system.
Information based clustering: Supplementary material

This technical report provides the supplementary material for a paper entitled "Information based clustering", to appear shortly in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). In Section I we present in detail the iterative clustering algorithm used in our experiments and in Section II we describe the validation scheme used to determine the statistical significance of our results. Then in subsequent sections we provide all the experimental results for three very different applications: the response of gene expression in yeast to different forms of environmental stress, the dynamics of stock prices in the Standard and Poor's 500, and viewer ratings of popular movies. In particular, we highlight some of the results that seem to deserve special attention. All the experimental results and relevant code, including a freely available web application, can be found at this http URL .
Mesenchymal Bone Marrow-derived Stem Cells Transplantation in Patients with HCV Related Liver Cirrhosis

Background and Aims To evaluate the effect of intraparenchymal transplantation of mesenchymal bone marrow-derived stem cells (BMSCs) in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related liver cirrhosis (LC). Methods Mononuclear cells were isolated from patient bone marrow and were passaged several times in vitro in order to reach the required volume. Attributes of the BMSCs were evaluated by the presence of the surface markers CD105+, CD90+, and CD73+. Cells from each passage were evaluated for sterility, and they were transplanted intraparenchymally into liver tissue. Clinical and laboratory data were evaluated and morphological studies of liver biopsy were performed prior to and 6 months after transplantation. Results On clinical evaluation, the general state of these patients was improved at 1 month following transplantation of BMSCs. At 1 and 6 months post-transplantation, jaundice was absent in four (67%) patients. After 6 months, functional hepatic indices were improved, i.e. decrease of ALT and AST activity and bilirubin level. However, these decreases were not statistically different (P>0.05). Expression of CD34 and α-SMA in liver biopsy samples were decreased at 6 months after transplantation, consistent with structural improvements in mitochondria and nuclear compartments. Conclusions Intraparenchymal transplantation of autologous BMSCs improved the functional condition of the liver, stimulated reparative processes in hepatocytes, and decreased extracellular matrix protein (EMP) count in hepatic tissues of patients with LC. It was well tolerated and was not associated with any complications both during and after BMSC transplantation.
Anastasia Might Still be Alive, But the Monarchy is Dead

Denis Phillips writes that almost all knowledgeable philosophers and social sc ient is ts have con­ cluded tha t logical positivism is dead, but that they might be mis­ taken. Like Anastasia, positivism might be hiding out somewhere or even walking among us. To devel­ op his thes i s Phi l l ips t akes us through the intellectual history of positivistic thought, identifies the confusions he perceives among ed­ ucators and social scientists re­ garding the nature of positivism, and points out what he believes to be the dangers inheratiLin the reaction against positivism by those in educatioń añd the social sci­ ences. His argument has several parts.
Algorithms for Batch Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) exploits temporal abstraction to solve large Markov Decision Processes (MDP) and provide transferable subtask policies. In this paper, we introduce an off-policy HRL algorithm: Hierarchical Q-value Iteration (HQI). We show that it is possible to effectively learn recursive optimal policies for any valid hierarchical decomposition of the original MDP, given a fixed dataset collected from a flat stochastic behavioral policy. We first formally prove the convergence of the algorithm for tabular MDP. Then our experiments on the Taxi domain show that HQI converges faster than a flat Q-value Iteration and enjoys easy state abstraction. Also, we demonstrate that our algorithm is able to learn optimal policies for different hierarchical structures from the same fixed dataset, which enables model comparison without recollecting data.
Induction and postremission strategies in acute myeloid leukemia: what is new?

Purpose of reviewInduction followed by postremission therapy is recognized as the main road toward cure in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Induction approach has not changed substantially for many years. Despite identifying numerous heterogeneous factors in AML, bench-derived insights are sluggishly translated into clinical protocols. In the current review, advances in intensified dose induction protocols, risk stratification, and disease monitoring are presented. Some promising as well as disappointing agents used for tailoring and targeting therapies in AML are also discussed. Recent findingsIntensifying anthracycline dose in young AML patients was recently shown to improve induction results. Importantly, maximal doses in induction have been shown to be safe also in older adults, negating a common perception that too often led to attenuation of induction therapy in this population. Novel targeted agents and the explosive number of newly identified prognostic factors or disease-specific biomarkers are promoting AML therapy toward a more personalized future. SummarySurvival of AML patients is constantly improving. High doses of ‘old drugs’ for chemotherapy induction, followed by a postremission combination of chemotherapy and novel targeted agents may hold the key for cure. Disease-specific molecular abnormalities may play a role in monitoring and guiding therapy.
Prediction of work functioning following accidental injury: The contribution of PTSD symptom severity and other established risk factors

Responses to a mail survey were used to investigate the contribution of PTSD symptom severity to work functioning in 69 previously employed adult survivors of accidental injury approximately 8 months post‐hospitalization. Associations of PTSD symptom severity with other established risk factors for poor work functioning were also examined. Participants were initially divided into three groups based on PTSD symptom severity and analysis of variance undertaken to determine the differences in work functioning between survivors with PTSD, subclinical PTSD, and no PTSD. As anticipated, survivors with PTSD reported significantly poorer work functioning than those with subclinical PTSD and no PTSD. Those with subclinical PTSD, however, reported significantly lower levels of work functioning than survivors with no PTSD, suggesting that this population may also be at risk of poor outcomes and in need of vocational interventions post‐accident. To determine the influence of PTSD symptom severity on work functioning .
Chemical Therapeutics The HSP 90 Inhibitor NVP-AUY 922 Potently Inhibits Non – Small Cell Lung Cancer Growth

Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) is involved in protein folding and functions as a chaperone for numerous client proteins, many of which are important in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) pathogenesis. We sought to define preclinical effects of the HSP90 inhibitor NVP-AUY922 and identify predictors of response. We assessed in vitro effects of NVP-AUY922 on proliferation and protein expression in NSCLC cell lines. We evaluated gene expression changes induced byNVP-AUY922 exposure. Xenograft models were evaluated for tumor control and biological effects. NVP-AUY922 potently inhibited in vitro growth in all 41NSCLC cell lines evaluatedwith IC50 < 100 nmol/L. IC100 (complete inhibition of proliferation) < 40 nmol/Lwas seen in 36 of 41 lines. Consistent gene expression changes after NVP-AUY922 exposure involved a wide range of cellular functions, including consistently decreased dihydrofolate reductase after exposure. NVP-AUY922 slowed growth of A549 (KRAS-mutant) xenografts and achieved tumor stability and decreased EGF receptor (EGFR) protein expression in H1975 xenografts, a model harboring a sensitizing and a resistance mutation for EGFRtyrosine kinase inhibitors in the EGFR gene. These datawill help inform the evaluation of correlative data from a recently completed phase II NSCLC trial and a planned phase IB trial of NVP-AUY922 in combination with pemetrexed in NSCLCs. Mol Cancer Ther; 12(6); 890–900. 2013 AACR.
Online Counseling and Therapy for Mental Health Problems: A Systematic Review of Individual Synchronous Interventions Using Chat

Online interventions are increasingly seen as having the potential to meet the growing demand for mental health services. However, with the burgeoning of services provided online by psychologists, counselors, and social workers, it is becoming critical to ensure that the interventions provided are supported by research evidence. This article reviews evidence for the effectiveness of individual synchronous online chat counseling and therapy (referred to as “online chat”). Despite using inclusive review criteria, only six relevant studies were found. They showed that although there is emerging evidence supporting the use of online chat, the overall quality of the studies is poor, including few randomized control trials (RCTs). There is an urgent need for further research to support the widespread implementation of this form of mental health service delivery.
Maternal Depression and Maternal Treatment of Siblings as Predictors of Child Psychopathology.

Maternal treatment of sibling pairs with affectively ill and well mothers was examined longitudinally in relation to child psychiatric status. Mothers and children in 77 families (34 unipolar, 16 bipolar, and 27 control mothers) were observed in interaction across early, middle, and late childhood and early adolescence. Interaction was assessed on dimensions of maternal engagement and critical-irritable behavior. The study examined the relative contributions of maternal depression, the quality of maternal treatment, and differential treatment of siblings to each child's psychiatric status. By maternal report, older siblings' symptoms were predicted by maternal bipolar or unipolar illness; younger siblings' symptoms were predicted by lower maternal engagement and higher maternal critical-irritable behavior in early childhood, in addition to maternal affective illness. For the younger sibling, persistent patterns of maternal treatment were also related to both maternal and child reports of problems
Exploring the Role of Emotions on Sport Consumers' Behavioral and Cognitive Responses to Marketing Stimuli

Abstract Sport provides a unique opportunity to explore how emotions operate in people. However, the prevailing sport consumer behavior research has focused on emotion as an outcome variable and little research has examined the motivational function of such transitory emotional states on subsequent behavior and cognitive processing. The purpose of this research is to investigate the approach/avoidance characteristics of emotion in a spectator sport setting. We manipulated participants' emotional state by using a fictitious publicity about their favorite team and examined its effect on behavioral and cognitive responses to marketing stimuli. Study 1 examined the effect of message-induced emotion on participants' acceptance of a promotional item. In an effort to identify the underlying mechanism of the stimulus-behavior link, Study 2 investigated whether such message-induced emotions influenced brand-related product evaluation. Findings suggest that emotions elicited from a single exposure to a written communication acted as a crucial motivator of information processing and behavior.
Carleson measures associated with families of multilinear operators

Abstract. In this work we investigate the construction of Carleson measures from families of multilinear integral operators applied to tuples of L∞ and BMO functions. We show that if the family Rt of multilinear operators possesses cancellation in each variable, then for BMO functions b1, . , bm, the measure |Rt(b1, . . . , bm)(x)|dxdt/t is Carleson. However, if the family of multilinear operators has cancellation in all variables combined this result is still valid if bj are L∞ functions, but it may fail if bj are unbounded BMO functions, as we indicate via an example. As an application of our results we obtain a multilinear quadratic T (1) type theorem and a multilinear version of a quadratic T (b) theorem analogous to those in Semmes [23].
NegI-NSP: Negative sequential pattern mining based on loose constraints

Negative sequential patterns (NSP) become increasingly important and most of the existing methods introduce so strict constraints that many meaningful patterns would be lost. In this paper, we loosen these constraints and solve a series of consequent problems. Firstly, negative containment is defined to determine whether a data sequence contains a negative sequence. Secondly, an efficient method to fast calculate the supports of negative sequences is proposed. Finally, a novel and efficient algorithm, NegI-NSP, is proposed to efficiently identify meaningful NSP. Experiments show that NegI-NSP can efficiently obtain more meaningful patterns by directly using existing PSP mining algorithms.
Follow-up and nonpharmacological management of the idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patient

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic, progressive, fatal form of diffuse interstitial lung disease. Management of IPF requires an orderly approach, with regular evaluations and implementation of both pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatments. Pulmonary rehabilitation can relieve patients from the distressing symptoms of IPF and improve quality of life. Oxygen therapy is central to treatment of all patients. Lung transplantation enhances survival in selected patients. Mechanical ventilation may be used in patients with acute exacerbations, but the prognosis is poor in these cases. Palliative care focuses on symptom management, advance directives and end-of-life planning. Patient support groups may also play an important role.
Determinants of core value behavior in service brands

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of employees' core value behavior. For service brands, employees are most likely the most important vehicle in building and communicating brand core values. The paper aims to draw on two related theories on motivation to understand the basic psychological mechanisms involved, and to propose a set of hypotheses on determinants of core value behavior.Design/methodology/approach – In order to test the proposed model, a survey was conducted among employees in a Scandinavian bank. Regression analyses were used to test the proposed hypotheses.Findings – Supportive of the hypotheses, the study data suggest that attitude towards core values and role model behavior are significant determinants of core value behavior. Moreover, employee role satisfaction is found to be a key moderator of such behavior. Attitudes towards the values affect behavior only for less satisfied employees, whereas role model behavior influences behavior only for highly s.
Measuring Students' Acceptance and Confidence in Algorithms and Programming: The Impact of Engagement with CS on Greek Secondary Education

This paper presents results of a questionnaire focused on investigating students' confi � dence and behavioral intention in the area of programming, particularly that of structures, problem solving, and programming commands (Conditional - loop). Responses from 116 1 st year students regarding informatics were used. The results indicate that the engagement with programming logic yields a positive impact on students' confidence and acceptance. In addition, all the measured fac � tors are related relatively strongly. Our findings demonstrate that students' prior direction (at Ly � ceum) has a significant impact on their Confidence for using Programming Commands (CPC) and Confidence for using Data Structures (CDS); however, prior direction does not have any impact on learners Problem Solving Confidence (PSC) and Behavioral Intention (BI) for programming. In the conclusion, several issues regarding the courses of programming are discussed.
Towards an understanding of the place of ethics in school-based action research in the United Kingdom

As school-based action research has taken a higher profile in UK schools, the place of ethics warrants particular attention. This paper draws on evidence from a taught online Master of Education course collated via chat room discussion where 53 researching teachers were asked to explore policy within their own institution regarding school-based action research ethics. None of these teachers identified the existence of any such policies but described instead current practices. We analysed their reported school-based action research practices and discovered three major categories of response: the unexamined use of gatekeepers; the unsupported use of existing ethics guidelines (such as those of the British Educational Research Association); and the conflation of legal and ethical demands by schools. We raise questions relating to the relationship between ethics and education and call for all those involved in school-based action research to take part in developing action research ethical policy in school.
Automated formal analysis of internet routing configurations

Today's Internet interdomain routing protocol, the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), is increasingly complicated and fragile due to policy misconfigurations by individual autonomous systems (ASes). To create provably correct networks, the past twenty years have witnessed, among many other efforts, advances in formal network modeling, system verification and testing, and point solutions for network management by formal reasoning. On the conceptual side, the formal models usually abstract away low-level details, specifying what are the correct functionalities but not how to achieve them. On the practical side, system verification of existing networked systems is generally hard, and system testing or simulation provide limited formal guarantees. This is known as a long standing challenge in network practice—formal reasoning is decoupled from actual implementation. This thesis seeks to bridge formal reasoning and actual network implementation in the setting of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), by developing the Formally Verifiable Routing (FVR) toolkit that combines formal methods and programming language techniques. Starting from the formal model, FVR automates verification of routing models and the synthesis of faithful implementations that carries the correctness property. Conversely, starting from large real-world BGP systems with arbitrary policy configurations, FVR automates the analysis of Internet routing configurations, and also includes a novel network reduction technique that scales up existing techniques for automated analysis. By developing the above formal theories and tools, this thesis aims to help network operators to create and manage BGP systems with correctness guarantee.