Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of a BSE Outbreak in a Specific Factors Model

This paper gauges the potential impact on the US economy of a large scale BSE outbreak in the context of a specific factors model of production. The collapse in the price of beef and associated price changes lead to general equilibrium adjustments in outputs, wages, and capital returns. Changes in beef output and capital return closely mirror the collapsed price of beef, while pork and poultry industries expand with higher prices. Wages and energy prices fall slightly while capital returns across the rest of the economy rise negligibly. Beef safety incidents such as E coli, foot and mouth, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE have been highly publicized worldwide. BSE may be linked to human Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease CJD as developed by Holt and Phillips (1988), Dealler (1993), Lacey (1993), and Sawcer et al (1993) making the potential impact of BSE outbreaks on the demand for beef severe. The outbreak in the UK during the mid 1990s led to import bans, increased monitoring, and the virtual collapse of the UK beef industry. The spread of BSE to Japan and Canada during 2003 increased surveillance and research. When a case of BSE was then reported in Washington during the same year, cattle prices in the US immediately fell 16% and cattle future prices 20%. Both rose back over the coming quarter, however, consistent with a regionally targeted consumer survey reported by Coffey, Mintert, Fox, Schroeder, and Valentin (2005) that finds most consumers did not change habits with the single BSE case but would with an outbreak. Exports had accounted for 10% of US beef revenue but within days of the Washington case US beef was banned in 53 countries and some of the bans lasted for years. Almost immediately following a subsequent Canadian BSE case the same year, the US and a host of other countries banned Canadian imports. Exports had accounted for almost 40% of Canadian beef production and 30% of fed cattle sales, and the loss of exports led to a 63% decline in Canadian fed cattle prices within three months. In an applied general equilibrium model, Weick and Holland (2006) estimate the import ban increased US fed cattle prices by 2% but also eliminated 11,000 jobs and led to a loss of $1.7 billion lost income.
Thermodynamic, structural and dynamic properties of ionic liquids [C4mim][CF3COO], [C4mim][Br] in the condensed phase, using molecular simulations

In this work a series of thermodynamic, structural, and dynamical properties for the 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoroacetate ([C4mim][CF3COO]) and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide, ([C4mim][Br]) ionic liquids (ILs) were calculated using Non-polarizable Force Fields (FF), parameterized using a methodology developed previously within the research group, for condensed phase applications. Properties such as the Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium (VLE) curve, critical points (ρc, Tc), Radial, Spatial and Combined Distribution Functions and self-diffusion coefficients were calculated using Equilibrium Molecular Dynamics simulations (EMD); other properties such as shear viscosities and thermal conductivities were calculated using Non-Equilibrium Molecular Dynamics simulations (NEMD). The results obtained in this work indicated that the calculated critical points are comparable with those available in the literature. The calculated structural information for these two ILs indicated that the anions interact mainly with hydrogen atoms from both the imidazolium ring and the methyl chain; the bromide anion displays twice the hydrogen coordination number than the oxygen atoms from the trifluoroacetate anion. Furthermore, Non-Covalent interactions (NCI index), determined by DFT calculations, revealed that some hydrogen bonds in the [C4mim][Br] IL displayed similar strength to those in the [C4mim][CF3COO] IL, in spite of the shorter O−–H distances found in the latter IL. The majority of the calculated transport properties presented reasonable agreement with the experimental available data. Nonetheless, the self-diffusion coefficients determined in this work are under-estimated with respect to experimental values; however, by escalating the electrostatic atomic charges for the anion and cation to ±0.8e, only for this property, a remarkable improvement was obtained. Experimental evidence was recovered for most of the calculated properties and to the best of our knowledge, some new predictions were done mainly in thermodynamic states where data are not available. To validate the FF, developed previously within the research group, dynamic properties were also evaluated for a series of ILs such as [C4mim][PF6], [C4mim][BF4], [C4mim][OMs], and [C4mim][NTf2] ILs.
Female Sexual Pain Disorders and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Female sexual pain disorders are prevalent and have a deleterious effect on women's well-being. Because there are psychological elements to this pain, cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) may be a viable treatment alternative, particularly when compared to more physically invasive treatments such as surgery or medication. This article provides a critical analysis of research studies in this area by evaluating each study in detail, identifying gaps in the research base, and providing directions for future study. For the most part, all of the studies reviewed in this article found CBT to be effective. However, CBT modalities with minimal therapist direction or interaction were found to be problematic. In addition, there may be other noninvasive treatment types that are equally or more effective, such as biofeedback or supportive psychotherapy.
18 Gchips/s Electronic CDMA for Low-Cost Optical Access Networks

This paper reports, for the first time, the coding and decoding of code-division multiple-access (CDMA) signals for use in optical access networks using electronic transversal filters at a at achip rate of 18 Gchips/s, a ninefold improvement over previous demonstrations. We demonstrate a 2-user ECDMA system. The use of 7-chip transversal filters gives a potential for 7 users, where each user has a data rate of 1.25 Gb/s. This is comparable to typical all-optical CDMA systems but with potentially lower cost, power consumption and complexity. Error-free transmission of a 1.25 Gb/s electronic CDMA user signal, with and without a single interferer, over 10 km of single-mode fiber is reported for the first time.
Quantitative ultrasound at the hand phalanges in adolescent boys in relation to their pubertal development and physical efficiency.

INTRODUCTION Our aim was to assess the ultrasound properties of bone measured at hand phalanges in 55 adolescent boys aged 13-15 years regarding the influence of pubertal status and level of physical efficiency including muscular strength. MATERIAL AND METHODS They were divided into two age groups: Group I (n = 37, boys aged 159-171 months) and Group II (n = 18, aged 172-184 months). The controls were 94 boys matched for age, recruited from 1,256 subjects undergoing bone measurement for screening purposes. The skeletal status (amplitude-dependent speed of sound - Ad-SoS) was assessed by quantitative ultrasound (QUS) at proximal phalanges with the use of DBM Sonic 1200. Physical efficiency was assessed using Zuchora's test, and pubertal development by Tanner's score. RESULTS There was no difference in mean Ad-SoS between the entire study group and controls. Ad-SoS values were greater in older than in younger boys, both in right and left hands. There were no differences between left and right hand measurements. There were positive correlations between Ad-SoS and shoulder muscle strength in boys. Negative correlations between Ad-SoS at phalanges of right and left hand and BMI were shown in younger adolescent boys only. Similarly, only in the younger group were positive correlations present between both hands Ad-SoS and overall physical efficiency and age. Ad-SoS correlated positively better with Tanner's scale scoring in the older group. CONCLUSION QUS at hand phalanges in adolescent boys aged 13-15 years depends on pubertal development and shoulder muscle strength. The overall physical efficiency has limited influence on bone properties assessed by QUS.
Prevalence of Symptomatic Arterial Disease and Risk Factors for its Development in Patients on Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis

The prevalence of coronary, cerebral, and peripheral arterial disease was assessed using a standard cardiovascular questionnaire in a cohort of 70 patients on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD). Symptomatic vascular disease was found in 47% of patients, 72% of whom were smokers and 30% diabetic. In 39% of these patients vascular disease was evident prior to the commencement of peritoneal dialysis. A case control study matching for age and sex revealed patients with vascular disease to have higher median systolic blood pressure (162 mmHg vs 150 mmHg, p=0.026), cholesterol (6.60 mmol/L vs 6.00 mmol/L, p=0.014), and LDL cholesterol (4.80 mmol/L vs 3.80 mmol/L, p=0.009). Vascular disease is common in patients on peritoneal dialysis, a considerable proportion of whom have the disease prior to the commencement of dialysis. Elevated systolic blood pressure and hypercholesterolemia, but not smoking, are most closely associated with vascular disease in these patients.
Analysis of glycoprotein E-selectin ligands on human and mouse marrow cells enriched for hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells.

Although well recognized that expression of E-selectin on marrow microvessels mediates osteotropism of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs), our knowledge regarding the cognate E-selectin ligand(s) on HSPCs is incomplete. Flow cytometry using E-selectin-Ig chimera (E-Ig) shows that human marrow cells enriched for HSPCs (CD34(+) cells) display greater E-selectin binding than those obtained from mouse (lin(-)/Sca-1(+)/c-kit(+) [LSK] cells). To define the relevant glycoprotein E-selectin ligands, lysates from human CD34(+) and KG1a cells and from mouse LSK cells were immunoprecipitated using E-Ig and resolved by Western blot using E-Ig. In both human and mouse cells, E-selectin ligand reactivity was observed at ~ 120- to 130-kDa region, which contained two E-selectin ligands, the P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 glycoform "CLA," and CD43. Human, but not mouse, cells displayed a prominent ~ 100-kDa band, exclusively comprising the CD44 glycoform "HCELL. " E-Ig reactivity was most prominent on CLA in mouse cells and on HCELL in human cells. To further assess HCELL's contribution to E-selectin adherence, complementary studies were performed to silence (via CD44 siRNA) or enforce its expression (via exoglycosylation). Under physiologic shear conditions, CD44/HCELL-silenced human cells showed striking decreases (> 50%) in E-selectin binding. Conversely, enforced HCELL expression of LSK cells profoundly increased E-selectin adherence, yielding > 3-fold more marrow homing in vivo. These data define the key glycoprotein E-selectin ligands of human and mouse HSPCs, unveiling critical species-intrinsic differences in both the identity and activity of these structures.
Joint Bayesian inference of condition-specific miRNA and transcription factor activities from combined gene and microRNA expression data

MOTIVATION There have been many successful experimental and bioinformatics efforts to elucidate transcription factor (TF)-target networks in several organisms. For many organisms, these annotations are complemented by miRNA-target networks of good quality. Attempts that use these networks in combination with gene expression data to draw conclusions on TF or miRNA activity are, however, still relatively sparse. RESULTS In this study, we propose Bayesian inference of regulation of transcriptional activity (BIRTA) as a novel approach to infer both, TF and miRNA activities, from combined miRNA and mRNA expression data in a condition specific way. That means our model explains mRNA and miRNA expression for a specific experimental condition by the activities of certain miRNAs and TFs, hence allowing for differentiating between switches from active to inactive (negative switch) and inactive to active (positive switch) forms. Extensive simulations of our model reveal its good prediction performance in comparison to other approaches. Furthermore, the utility of BIRTA is demonstrated at the example of Escherichia coli data comparing aerobic and anaerobic growth conditions, and by human expression data from pancreas and ovarian cancer. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION The method is implemented in the R package birta, which is freely available for Bio-conductor (>=2.10) on http://www.bioconductor. org/packages/release/bioc/html/birta.html.
Discourse marker generation and syntactic aggregation in Bengali text generation

In discourse, the elementary text spans are semantically connected by coherence relations. Discourse markers linguistically realize the coherence relations in the surface form. On the other hand, by text aggregation, redundant entities are eliminated, resulting in more fluent, coherent, and concise text. For any but the most application of text generation, appropriate discourse marker selection and text aggregation are two important aspects for coherent text generation. In this paper, we explore the prevalent syntactic aggregation constructs in Bengali and present a rule based approach towards generating Bengali compound sentences using the identified constructs. We present a user based evaluation to validate our approach. At the end, we have also given an outline of a corpus based approach for generating suitable discourse marker in Bengali.
Digestion of DNA with Restriction Endonucleases

Restriction endonucleases recognize short DNA sequences and cleave double‐stranded DNA at specific sites within or adjacent to the recognition sequences. Restriction endonuclease cleavage of DNA into discrete fragments is one of the most basic procedures in molecular biology. The first method presented in this unit is the cleavage of a single DNA sample with a single restriction endonuclease. A number of common applications of this technique are also described. These include digesting a given DNA sample with more than one endonuclease, digesting multiple DNA samples with the same endonuclease, and partially digesting DNA such that cleavage only occurs at a subset of the restriction sites. A protocol for methylating specific DNA sequences and protecting them from restriction endonuclease cleavage is also presented. A collection of tables describing restriction endonucleases and their properties (including information about recognition sequences, types of termini produced, buffer conditions, and conditions for thermal inactivation) is given at the end of the unit.
Functionalized mesoporous thin-film directly self-assembled on resonant-cantilevers for batch-producible chemical sensors

The paper reports a top-down/bottom-up combined resonant micro-cantilever chemical sensor, where functionalized mesoporous thin-film (MTF) is directly self-assembled on the sensing region of the integrated cantilever. By using the batch-producible nano construction technique, a large number of such sensors can be volume fabricated with uniform performance among individual sensors or different runs. More importantly, sensing groups can be simultaneously constructed at the pore inner surface when the MTF is directly constructed on the cantilever. With -NH2 groups modified, the functionalized MTF is grown onto the surface of the cantilever free-end, the micro-gravimetric sensor exhibits quick response and high-sensitive detection to gaseous CO2.
Uncemented total hip arthroplasty for primary osteoarthritis in young patients: A mid-to long-term follow-up study from the Finnish Arthroplasty Register

Introduction The survival of total hip arthroplasties (THAs) has been considered to be poor in young patients. We evaluated the population-based survival of uncemented THA for primary osteoarthritis (OA) in patients under 55 years of age and the factors affecting survival. Methods The Finnish Arthroplasty Register was established in 1980. Between that year and 2003, 92,083 primary THAs were entered in the register, 5,607 of which were performed for primary OA in patients under 55 years of age. Using records from these 5,607 THAs, we selected uncemented femoral and acetabular components that had been used in more than 100 operations during the study period. Survival of both components (cup/stem) and their combinations were analyzed separately with the Kaplan-Meier analysis and the Cox regression model. Results All uncemented stems studied showed a survival rate of over 90% at 10 years. The Biomet Bi-Metric stem had a 95% (95% CI 93– 97) survival rate even at 15 years. Overall survival of the extendedly porous-coated Lord Madréporique stem (p = 0.003) and the proximally porous-coated Anatomic Mesh stem (p = 0.0008) were poorer than that of the Biomet Bi-Metric stem. When endpoint was defined as stem revision for any reason, results were generally similar; there was no difference, however, between the survival rates of the Lord Madréporique stem and the Bi-Metric stem. Of the acetabular components, the Biomet Universal, the ABG Il and the Harris-Galante II cups showed < 90% survival rates at 10 years with aseptic loosening as endpoint; at 13 years the corresponding survival rates were 94% (95% CI 91–97) for the Biomet Universal and 95% (95% CI 91–98) for the Harris-Galante II cups with aseptic loosening as endpoint. The PCA Pegged porous-coated uncemented cup showed a poor 13-year survival rate of 68% (95% CI 59–78) with aseptic loosening as endpoint. However, when endpoint was defined as any revision (including exchange of liner), the 10-year survival rates of all brands of cup except Harris-Galante II declined to under 80%. Interpretation Modern second-generation uncemented stems, with proximal circumferential porous- or HA-coating, seem to be a good choice for young patients with primary OA. Similarly, modern press-fit porous- and HA-coated cups appear to have good endurance against aseptic loosening in these young patients. However, liner revisions were common; thus, survival rates of uncemented cups were unsatisfactorily low. Polyethylene wear and unfavorable locking mechanisms between the metal shell and the polyethylene liner and their sequelae remain matters of concern in this young and active group of patients. ▪
Scale economies in local public administration

ABSTRACT A renewed interest in decentralisation has profoundly affected local public governance around the world. Faced with an increasing number of tasks, Dutch municipalities have recently sought physical centralisation, merging into larger jurisdictions in order to target new policy areas more effectively and cost efficiently. Is such a policy of physical centralisation wise? We study economies of scale in local public administration, and find – given transfer payments from central government and current cooperation between municipalities and after controlling for geographical, demographic and socioeconomic variables – substantial unused scale economies of 17% for the average municipality. Between 2005 and 2014 the optimum size of municipalities increases from around 49,000 to 66,260 inhabitants, pointing at an increased importance of fixed costs relative to variable costs in local public administration.
Biotechnological Applications of Green Synthesized Silver Nanoparticles

Silver and its compound have been widely used since from ancient time for the treatment of bacteria and wound infections especially in patients of serious burns. The use of silver compounds has been deteriorated due to emergence of new therapeutic agents. In the past decade nanotechnology has acquired pace due to its ability of modifying metals ions into their nano range, which dramatically changes their chemical, physical and optical properties. Silver nanoparticles have been proved a potential antimicrobial agent. Recently, the use of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) has been greatly enhanced, due to the development of antibiotic resistance against several pathogenic bacteria. The silver nanoparticles have been widely employed in biomedical industry as coatings in dressings, in medicinal devices and in the form of nanogels in cosmetics and lotions, etc. There are well established protocols for the preparation of silver nanoparticles can be broadly classified into physical, chemical and biological protocols. The physical and chemical processes often involve high temperatures/pressure for the reaction and the use of hazardous chemicals. Therefore the research in synthesis of nanoparticles by biological methods is gaining importance. Plant extracts are considered cost-effective, environment friendly and efficient alternative for the large-scale synthesis of nanoparticles. In the present review, we critically assess the role of plants in synthesis of silver nanoparticles and their biomedical applications.
Time-independent discrete Gaussian sampling for post-quantum cryptography

As the development of a viable quantum computer nears, existing widely used public-key cryptosystems, such as RSA, will no longer be secure. Thus, significant effort is being invested into post-quantum cryptography (PQC). Lattice-based cryptography (LBC) is one such promising area of PQC, which offers versatile, efficient, and high performance security services. However, the vulnerabilities of these implementations against side-channel attacks (SCA) remain significantly understudied. Most, if not all, lattice-based cryptosystems require noise samples generated from a discrete Gaussian distribution, and a successful timing analysis attack can render the whole cryptosystem broken, making the discrete Gaussian sampler the most vulnerable module to SCA. This research proposes countermeasures against timing information leakage with FPGA-based designs of the CDT-based discrete Gaussian samplers with constant response time, targeting encryption and signature scheme parameters. The proposed designs are compared against the state-of-the-art and are shown to significantly outperform existing implementations. For encryption, the proposed sampler is 9× faster in comparison to the only other existing time-independent CDT sampler design. For signatures, the first time-independent CDT sampler in hardware is proposed.