Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Framing Game Theory

An economic agent (player) sometimes fails to correct hypothetical (contingent) thinking, which may increase the occurrence of anomalies in various economic situations. This paper demonstrates a method to encourage such a boundedly rational player to practice correct hypothetical thinking in strategic situations with imperfect information. We introduce a concept termed "frame" as a description of a synchronized cognitive procedure, through which a player decides multiple actions in a step-by-step manner, shaping his (or her) strategy selection as a whole. We could regard a frame as a supposedly irrelevant factor from the viewpoint of full rationality. However, this paper theoretically shows that in a multi-unit auction with private values, the ascending proxy auction has a significant advantage over the second-price auction in terms of the boundedly rational players' incentive to practice correct hypothetical thinking, because of the difference, not in physical rule, but in background frame, between these auction formats. By designing frames appropriately, we generally show that any static game that is solvable in iteratively undominated strategies is also solvable even if players cannot practice correct hypothetical thinking without the help of a well-designed frame.
The impact of foreign aid on economic development in fragile states

Over the past decade, fragile states has become a resonant term in the development lexicon, frequently employed to draw attention to the need to assist these countries. Among other reasons, external intervention has been justified by their lagging performance in the achievement of development outcomes and the threats they impose to global security and stability. Still, fragile states impose a dilemma. Although they are in great need of development assistance, aid towards these countries is expected to be less effective. This is the starting point of this thesis, which contributes to the understanding of the effect of foreign aid on economic development in fragile states, using political economy theory and standard econometric techniques. A review of existing measures of state fragility highlights that most of them lack a strong theoretical grounding, thus confusing causes and outcomes of fragility. This thesis suggests an alternative measurement approach that draws on Besley and Persson’s (2011a) theoretical model, and uses principal component analysis to derive an index for each of the two core dimensions of fragility: state ineffectiveness and political violence. This distinction follows a recent call for using multidimensional approaches and finds support in an exploratory cluster analysis. This thesis then contributes to the quantitative studies examining the fragility-growth link by replacing the CPIA with the two obtained indices as proxies for fragility and considering the effects of distinct dimensions separately. Using data for the period 19932012, the results from regression analysis show distinct effects for each dimension and find no significant impact of fragility on growth when employing a single index. Finally, inspired by the empirical aid effectiveness literature, this thesis tests the proposition that aid is less effective in promoting growth in countries with higher levels of state ineffectiveness or political violence. The results show no support for this hypothesis.
Erbin Is a Protein Concentrated at Postsynaptic Membranes That Interacts with PSD-95*

Neuregulin is a factor essential for synapse-specific transcription of acetylcholine receptor genes at the neuromuscular junction. Its receptors, ErbB receptor tyrosine kinases, are localized at the postjunctional membrane presumably to ensure localized signaling. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying synaptic localization of ErbBs are unknown. Our recent studies indicate that ErbB4 interacts with postsynaptic density (PSD)-95 (SAP90), a PDZ domain-containing protein that does not interact with ErbB2 or ErbB3. Using as bait the ErbB2 C terminus, we identified Erbin, another PDZ domain-containing protein that interacts specifically with ErbB2. Erbin is concentrated in postsynaptic membranes at the neuromuscular junction and in the central nervous system, where ErbB2 is concentrated. Expression of Erbin increases the amount of ErbB2 labeled by biotin in transfected cells, suggesting that Erbin is able to increase ErbB2 surface expression. Furthermore, we provide evidence that Erbin interacts with PSD-95 in both transfected cells and synaptosomes. Thus ErbB proteins can interact with a network of PDZ domain-containing proteins. This interaction may play an important role in regulation of neuregulin signaling and/or subcellular localization of ErbB proteins.
Undergraduate Dermatology Education in Canada: A National Survey

Background: Canadian dermatology curriculum was reviewed in 1983, 1987, 1996, and 2008. All these surveys highlighted the disproportionately low level of dermatology teaching in relation to the significant amount of skin disease seen by physicians. Since the official adoption and dissemination of the Canadian Professors of Dermatology (CPD) core curriculum and competencies, there has been no assessment of how these changes have influenced dermatology curriculum. Objective: This survey gathered information on the current status of undergraduate dermatology education across Canadian medical schools. Methods: A survey was sent electronically to all undergraduate dermatology directors at each of the 17 Canadian medical schools. Results: Between 2008 and 2017, dermatology teaching has increased 25% to 25.6 ± 17.2 hours of teaching. However, 75% of this teaching is delivered in preclinical years. The number of faculty members, both dermatologists and nondermatologists, has also increased. A growing number of schools are now using electronic formats of teaching. Most schools (59%) are covering all the CPD core curriculum topics. Conclusion: Dermatology education is demonstrating positive trends with regards to teaching hours and faculty members. Nevertheless, a more even distribution of content so that students have increased clinical exposure should be achieved. Furthermore, an online atlas of resources would be helpful in standardising curriculum.
Biomechanical Comparison of Posterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion Cages

Study Design. Cadaveric human and bovine lumbar spine models simulating the acute postoperative period were used to compare the biomechanical properties of two designs of intervertebral body threaded fusion cages. The instrumented spines were compared with intact spines and with spines with resected posterior elements, representing a revision case. Objective. To determine the relative biomechanical performance of these competing devices. Summary of Background Data. These cages are currently under clinical investigation, and basic biomechanical data are needed. Methods. Insertion torques and maximum pushout loads were measured for each cage. Intact spines, posteriorly instrumented spines (posterior lumbar interbody fusion), and spines with resected posterior elements were loaded in axial compression, flexion and extension bending, and axial torsion. Stiffness comparisons were made between the different configurations. Results. Insertion torques and pushout loads were similar for the cages. Both cages significantly increased stiffnesses above those of the intact spines and the resected spines. The BAK‐instrumented spines were more stiff in axial compression, while the Threaded Interbody Fusion Device spines were more stiff in extension. Conclusions. This study revealed the two cages to have similar biomechanical characteristics immediately after posterior insertion and warrant further clinical studies.
Prediction of horizontal gene transfer in escherichia coil using machine learning

Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT), also known as Lateral Gene Transfer is a process where an organism acquires genetic material from another organism without being a descendant of that organism. Horizontal gene transfer is said to be the predominant method of evolution in prokaryotic organisms. This study is focused on constructing a method that employs genome comparison and semi supervised learning to identify genes that are horizontally transferred to Escherichia coli 0157:H7 and attempting to find a link between these genes and other organisms that display pathogenic behaviour. E.coli 0157:H7 is compared to E.coli K-12 which is a harmless strain of the same organism. This comparison yields the set of genes that has not originated from the same ancestor (non-homologous) and is the possible cause of its pathogenic properties. A supervised self-organizing map was constructed to classify the non-homologous genes as either horizontally or vertically transferred. Most of the obtained horizontally transferred genes have shown a striking similarity to other pathological bacteria and Achaea. The results have indicated that, while it is possible to discern the mode of transfer of a gene based on compositional feature to a certain degree, it is better to combine several other features to further refine the findings.
Serotonergic neurotransmission in emotional processing: New evidence from long-term recreational poly-drug ecstasy use

The brain’s serotonergic system plays a crucial role in the processing of emotional stimuli, and several studies have shown that a reduced serotonergic neurotransmission is associated with an increase in amygdala activity during emotional face processing. Prolonged recreational use of ecstasy (3,4-methylene-dioxymethamphetamine [MDMA]) induces alterations in serotonergic neurotransmission that are comparable to those observed in a depleted state. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigated the responsiveness of the amygdala to emotional face stimuli in recreational ecstasy users as a model of long-term serotonin depletion. Fourteen ecstasy users and 12 non-using controls underwent fMRI to measure the regional neural activity elicited in the amygdala by male or female faces expressing anger, disgust, fear, sadness, or no emotion. During fMRI, participants made a sex judgement on each face stimulus. Positron emission tomography with 11C-DASB was additionally performed to assess serotonin transporter (SERT) binding in the brain. In the ecstasy users, SERT binding correlated negatively with amygdala activity, and accumulated lifetime intake of ecstasy tablets was associated with an increase in amygdala activity during angry face processing. Conversely, time since the last ecstasy intake was associated with a trend toward a decrease in amygdala activity during angry and sad face processing. These results indicate that the effects of long-term serotonin depletion resulting from ecstasy use are dose-dependent, affecting the functional neural basis of emotional face processing.
Paying Attention to Multi-Word Expressions in Neural Machine Translation

Processing of multi-word expressions (MWEs) is a known problem for any natural language processing task. Even neural machine translation (NMT) struggles to overcome it. This paper presents results of experiments on investigating NMT attention allocation to the MWEs and improving automated translation of sentences that contain MWEs in English->Latvian and English->Czech NMT systems. Two improvement strategies were explored -(1) bilingual pairs of automatically extracted MWE candidates were added to the parallel corpus used to train the NMT system, and (2) full sentences containing the automatically extracted MWE candidates were added to the parallel corpus. Both approaches allowed to increase automated evaluation results. The best result - 0.99 BLEU point increase - has been reached with the first approach, while with the second approach minimal improvements achieved. We also provide open-source software and tools used for MWE extraction and alignment inspection.
Predicting power for home appliances based on climatic conditions

Purpose Power management in households has become the periodic issue for electric suppliers and household occupants. The number of electronic appliances is increasing day by day in every home with upcoming technology. So, it is becoming difficult for the energy suppliers to predict the power consumption for households at the appliance level. Power consumption in households depends on various factors such as building types, demographics, weather conditions and behavioral aspect. An uncertainty related to the usage of appliances in homes makes the prediction of power difficult. Hence, there is a need to study the usage patterns of the households appliances for predicting the power effectively. Design/methodology/approach Principal component analysis was performed for dimensionality reduction and for finding the hidden patterns to provide data in clusters. Then, these clusters were further being integrated with climate variables such as temperature, visibility and humidity. Finally, power has been predicted according to climate using regression-based machine learning models. Findings Power prediction was done based on different climatic conditions for electronic appliances in the residential sector. Different machine learning algorithms were implemented, and the result was compared with the existing work. Social implications This will benefit the society as a whole as it will help to reduce the power consumption and the electricity bills of the house. It will also be helpful in the reduction of the greenhouse gas emission. Originality/value The proposed work has been compared with the existing work to validate the current work. The work will be useful to energy suppliers as it will help them to predict the next day power supply to the households. It will be useful for the occupants of the households to complete their daily activities without any hindrance.
A multi-level force-feedback CTV-based analog sensing circuits with delta-sigma modulator for CMOS micro-accelerometers

In this paper, a multi-level force-feedback analog sensing circuits with delta-sigma modulator for CMOS micro-accelerometers is newly designed. The proposed circuits are attractive due to that the multi-level force-feedback circuits are proposed to null the sensor and all the analog and digital block circuits for CMOS micro-accelerometers are robust and compact to be integrated. Based upon the device parameters of 0.35 μm 2P4M CMOS technology with 3 V power supply, all the functions and performance of the proposed circuits for CMOS micro-accelerometers are successfully tested and proven through SPICE simulations. The proposed circuits with CMOS micro-accelerometer is suitable for automobiles, consumer electronics, such as Wii game player.
The GTPase-deficient Rab27A(Q78L) Mutant Inhibits Melanosome Transport in Melanocytes through Trapping of Rab27A Effector Protein Slac2-a/Melanophilin in Their Cytosol

Background: A GTPase-deficient Rab27A(Q78L) mutation caused perinuclear melanosome aggregation by an unknown mechanism. Results: Forcible targeting of Rab27A(Q78L) to melanosomes by a novel melanosome-targeting tag restored peripheral melanosome distribution in Rab27A-deficient cells. Conclusion: The GTPase activity of Rab27A is required for its melanosome localization, not for melanosome transport. Significance: These findings provide new insights into the mechanism underlying the spatiotemporal regulation of Rab27A activity. The small GTPase Rab27A is a crucial regulator of actin-based melanosome transport in melanocytes, and functionally defective Rab27A causes human Griscelli syndrome type 2, which is characterized by silvery hair. A GTPase-deficient, constitutively active Rab27A(Q78L) mutant has been shown to act as an inhibitor of melanosome transport and to induce perinuclear aggregation of melanosomes, but the molecular mechanism by which Rab27A(Q78L) inhibits melanosome transport remained to be determined. In this study, we attempted to identify the primary cause of the perinuclear melanosome aggregation induced by Rab27A(Q78L). The results showed that Rab27A(Q78L) is unable to localize on mature melanosomes and that its inhibitory activity on melanosome transport is completely dependent on its binding to the Rab27A effector Slac2-a/melanophilin. When we forcibly expressed Rab27A(Q78L) on mature melanosomes by using a novel melanosome-targeting tag that we developed in this study and named the MST tag, the MST-Rab27A(Q78L) fusion protein behaved in the same manner as wild-type Rab27A. It localized on mature melanosomes without inducing melanosome aggregation and restored normal peripheral melanosome distribution in Rab27A-deficient cells. These findings indicate that the GTPase activity of Rab27A is required for its melanosome localization but is not required for melanosome transport.
Affective states asessment system based on heart rate and facial expressions using LabVIEW

The purpose of this article consists in development of the system for affective states assessment, according to pulsometry and facial expressions of the men. The system design comprises the problem of the hardware realization of signal detection block, data recording and analysis. The advantages of LabVIEW are well observed in terms of the synchronous recording and analysis of the different types of signals, such as pulse and video. The sequence of virtual instrument construction for recording the pulse wave using a DAQ device NI USB-6008 is presented in detail. Much attention is given to the use of libraries and functions for operating with video images. The features of the window method for the analysis of heart rate variability using fluctuation analysis are briefly described. The patterns of the block diagrams design and the peculiarities of the specific libraries and functions usage are given. This article is the concern of the physicians, engineers of medical equipment and specialists occupied in the areas of human activity where the information about the men's emotional state increases the work safety.
Sleep duration is reduced in elite athletes following night-time competition

ABSTRACT This study examined the impact of competition on the sleep/wake behaviour of elite athletes. The sleep/wake behaviour of Australian Rules Football players was assessed with wrist activity monitors on the night immediately before, and the night immediately after, a day game and an evening game. The time of day that a game occurred had a marked influence on sleep/wake behaviour later that night. After the evening game, sleep onset was later, time in bed was shorter and total sleep obtained was less than after the day game. It is yet to be determined whether a reduction in sleep after evening games impairs recovery.
Cell Surface Tumor Endothelium Marker 8 Cytoplasmic Tail-independent Anthrax Toxin Binding, Proteolytic Processing, Oligomer Formation, and Internalization*

The interaction of anthrax toxin protective antigen (PA) and target cells was assessed, and the importance of the cytosolic domain of tumor endothelium marker 8 (TEM8) in its function as a cellular receptor for PA was evaluated. PA binding and proteolytic processing on the Chinese hamster ovary cell surface occurred rapidly, with both processes nearly reaching steady state in 5 min. Remarkably, the resulting PA63 fragment was present on the cell surface only as an oligomer, and furthermore, the oligomer was the only PA species internalized, suggesting that oligomerization of PA63 triggers receptor-mediated endocytosis. Following internalization, the PA63 oligomer was rapidly and irreversibly transformed to an SDS/heat-resistant form, in a process requiring an acidic compartment. This conformational change was functionally correlated with membrane insertion, channel formation, and translocation of lethal factor into the cytosol. To explore the role of the TEM8 cytosolic tail, a series of truncated TEM8 mutants was transfected into a PA receptor-deficient Chinese hamster ovary cell line. Interestingly, all of the cytosolic tail truncated TEM8 mutants functioned as PA receptors, as determined by PA binding, processing, oligomer formation, and translocation of an lethal factor fusion toxin into the cytosol. Moreover, cells transfected with a TEM8 construct truncated before the predicted transmembrane domain failed to bind PA, demonstrating that residues 321–343 are needed for cell surface anchoring. Further evidence that the cytosolic domain plays no essential role in anthrax toxin action was obtained by showing that TEM8 anchored by a glycosylphosphatidylinositol tail also functioned as a PA receptor.
Anti–Transforming Growth Factor Antibody at Low but Not High Doses Limits Cyclosporine-Mediated Nephrotoxicity Without Altering Rat Cardiac Allograft Survival: Potential of Therapeutic Applications

Background—Long-term treatment of cardiac transplant recipients with cyclosporine results in a progressive decline in kidney function in a large number of patients. This complication is one of the most important prognostic parameters that determine the outcome of cardiac transplantation. Transforming growth factor-&bgr; (TGF-&bgr;) is one of the most potent mediators of the fibrogenic effects of cyclosporine. Methods and Results—With the use of an experimental rodent model, heterotopic heart transplantation was performed, creating histocompatibility-disparate allografts. Because TGF-&bgr; in part mediates both the immunosuppressive and nephrotoxic effects of cyclosporine, recipients were treated with cyclosporine with and without anti–TGF-&bgr; antibody to determine whether anti–TGF-&bgr; antibody could reduce the nephrotoxic effects of cyclosporine. Intrarenal expression of TGF-&bgr;, collagen, fibronectin, matrix metalloproteinase-2, and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-2 was studied with the use of reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction. Intrarenal expression of TGF-&bgr; protein was studied by immunohistochemistry and with the use of ELISA to quantify circulating levels of TGF-&bgr; protein in plasma. Cyclosporine-induced graft survival (immunosuppressive effect) was abrogated with a higher concentration (2.5 mg/kg) of anti–TGF-&bgr; antibody, whereas a lower concentration (1 mg/kg) inhibited both cyclosporine-induced expression of fibrogenic molecules and renal toxicity. Conclusions—These results provide credence to the pivotal role of TGF-&bgr; in immunosuppression-associated renal toxicity in recipients of cardiac transplantation. Furthermore, these findings support a potentially significant therapeutic use of optimal concentration of anti–TGF-&bgr; antibody to ameliorate cyclosporine-associated nephrotoxicity in cardiac transplant recipients.