Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Price-level uncertainty and stability in the UK

Was the UK price level more stable and predictable before World War I or after World War II? We answer these questions by estimating changes in volatilities of transient and permanent components of inflation over the period 1791-2011. For much of the 19th century, trend inflation and its innovation variance were both close to zero, but transient inflation was variable. After World War II, transient volatility was substantially lower, but trend inflation was higher and more variable. On balance, future price levels were least uncertain on the eve of World War I under the classical gold standard, before the Great Inflation under Bretton Woods, and in the 2000s after the Bank of England adopted a policy of inflation targeting. But they were most stable just before World War I. For price-level stability, the decline in transient volatility was more than counterbalanced by the rise in the level and volatility of trend inflation. For price-level uncertainty, the two forces roughly offset.
Can Naturbanization Promote Environmentally Friendly Built-Up Areas? A Comparison Between Cadí-Moixeró (Catalonia, Spain) and Comana (Romania) Natural Parks

Abstract The study compares the on-going naturbanization processes in and around two Natural Parks under the impact of newcomers, but also tourists from Barcelona and Bucharest and their metropolitan areas. The landscape value of these areas attracts the urban population, which contributes to local sustainable development process but also promotes construction. New businesses associated with rural multifunctionality and value-added activities related to environmental quality were identified. New residents have contributed introducing responsible patterns of consumer, ecoentrepreneurship by women, recovery of abandoned buildings and intensification of rural-urban relationships. Negative impacts such as intensive construction of second homes, with a lower use, in some areas around Cadí-Moixeró threaten biodiversity and habitat connectivity. Insufficient integration of environmental policies, particularly in the Comana wetlands, reduces the potential for rural renewal. Research methods included a review of the counterurbanization literature and the statistical data related to processes of naturbanization in both areas, along with the conduct of 30 structured interviews with key local actors in each area. Naturbanization still offers the potential to enhance local development; however, it is urgent to assess social perspectives in natural parks management in order to achieve environmentally friendly built-up areas.
Localisation of apoptosis and expression of apoptosis related proteins in the synovium of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether apoptosis occurs in the synovium of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and the intermediate molecules operating in this process. METHODS: DNA fragmentation was detected by in situ nick end labelling (ISNEL) in the synovium of patients with RA (n = 11) and control patients with femoral neck fracture (n = 5). The expression of proteins p53, p21WAFI/CIPI, c-myc, proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), and Bcl-2 was also examined by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: ISNEL positive synovial cells with apoptosis specific morphology were detected in extremely limited areas in only two RA synovial tissue specimens. Proteins p53, p21WAFI/CIPI, and c-myc, known inducers of apoptosis or cell cycle arrest or both, were expressed in the sublining cells independent of ISNEL positive cells. PCNA, a marker for cell proliferation, was observed in the synovial lining cells. Bcl-2, an inhibitor of apoptosis, was expressed mainly in infiltrated lymphocytes and in parts of the sublining layer cells of RA; it also did not correspond with ISNEL staining. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that RA synovial cells undergo apoptosis in addition to cell proliferation, but the frequency of apoptosis was very low. We suspect that the apoptotic process in the RA synovium may be suppressed by over-expression of Bcl-2. Although expressed proteins p53, p21WAFI/CIPI, and c-myc were present in the RA synovium, these protooncogenes are probably not implicated in the apoptotic process.
Identification and ab initio simulations of early folding units in proteins

The location of protein subunits that form early during folding, constituted of consecutive secondary structure elements with some intrinsic stability and favorable tertiary interactions, is predicted using a combination of threading algorithms and local structure prediction methods. Two folding units are selected among the candidates identified in a database of known protein structures: the fragment 15‐55 of 434 cro, an all‐α protein, and the fragment 1‐35 of ubiquitin, an α/β protein. These units are further analyzed by means of Monte Carlo simulated annealing using several database‐derived potentials describing different types of interactions. Our results suggest that the local interactions along the chain dominate in the first folding steps of both fragments, and that the formation of some of the secondary structures necessarily occurs before structure compaction. These findings led us to define a prediction protocol, which is efficient to improve the accuracy of the predicted structures. It involves a first simulation with a local interaction potential only, whose final conformation is used as a starting structure of a second simulation that uses a combination of local interaction and distance potentials. The root mean square deviations between the coordinates of predicted and native structures are as low as 2–4 Å in most trials. The possibility of extending this protocol to the prediction of full proteins is discussed. Proteins 2001;42:164–176. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Dunnett‐type inference in the frailty Cox model with covariates

A frequent objective in medical research is the investigation of differences in patient survival between several experimental treatments and one standard treatment. In order to assess these differences statistically, we have to apply adjustments for multiple comparisons to prevent an increased number of false‐positive findings. The most prominent procedure of this type is the Bonferroni correction, which maintains the error level but leads to conservative results. On the basis of a general statistical framework for simultaneous inference, we propose a new statistical procedure for many‐to‐one comparisons of treatments with adjustment for covariates for clustered survival data modeled by a frailty Cox model. In contrast to the Bonferroni method, dependencies between estimated effects are taken into account. The resulting simultaneous confidence intervals for the hazard ratios of the experimental treatments compared with a control can be interpreted in terms of both statistical significance and clinical importance. The quality of the new procedure is judged by the coverage probability for the simultaneous confidence intervals. Simulation results show an acceptable performance in balanced and various unbalanced designs. The practical merits are demonstrated by a reanalysis of a chronic myelogeneous leukemia clinical trial. The procedure presented here works well for multiple comparisons with a control with adjustment for covariates for survival data from multicenter clinical trials. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Fast and accurate evaluation of multilayered Green's functions by extracting surface and leaky wave poles based on GPU/CPU heterogeneous platform

In this paper, a fast and accurate method for extracting surface and leaky wave poles in planar multilayered structure is reported, which is based on GPU/CPU heterogeneous platform. To realize high-level parallel computing, the way to balance hardware computing and communications between different units are discussed in detail. By accurately extracting all the discrete poles on the complex plane, the multilayered dyadic Green's functions are calculated by using the all-mode method, including the quasi-static term, the surface- and leaky-wave term and the branch cut integral term. From several numerical examples, very good agreement between the proposed method and direct integral method can be observed, while a significant enhancement of efficiency is obtained.
Radio channel measurement and characterization for wireless communications in tunnels

There is an increasing demand on wireless communications in subway tunnels to provide video surveillance and sensory data for security, maintenance and train control, and to offer various communication or entertainment services (e.g., Internet, etc.) to passengers as well. The wireless channel in tunnels is quite unique due to the confined space and the waveguide effects. Modeling the channel characteristics in tunnels is critically important to design or optimize subway wireless communication systems. This paper investigates the key radio channel characteristics of a subway tunnel in Beijing, China, such as the path loss, root mean square (RMS) delay spread, K-factor, channel stationarity, RMS Doppler spread, and channel capacity. Our field measurements show that channel characteristics in tunnels are highly location-dependent and there exists a dominant path in line-of-sight (LOS) scenarios as well as in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios, which is quite different from that in the land mobile communications. In the straight section of the subway tunnel, the measured path loss exponents at 2.45 GHz and 5.7GHz are 1.58 and 1.62, respectively.
The effects of familiarity on escape responses in the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

Predation is the main cause of mortality during early life stages. The ability to avoid and evade potential threats is, therefore, favoured to evolve during the early stages of life. It is also during these early stages that the process of familiarization occurs. It has long been recognized that associating with familiar individuals confers antipredator benefits. Yet gaps in our knowledge remain about how predator evasion is affected by social experience during early stages. In this study, we test the hypothesis that familiarization acquired during early life stages improves escape responses. Using the guppy Poecilia reticulata, we examine the effect of different recent social conditions in the three main components of predator evasion. Using high-speed motion analysis, we compared the number of individuals in each test group that responded to a visual stimulus, their reactive distance and magnitude of their response (maximum speed, maximum acceleration and distance) in groups composed either of familiar or non-familiar individuals. Contrary to the prediction, groups composed of familiar individuals were less responsive than groups of unfamiliar individuals. Reactive distance and magnitude of response were more dependent on individual size rather than on familiarity. Larger individuals reached higher maximum speeds and total distances in their escape response. Our result indicates that familiarity is likely to affect behaviour earlier in a predator-prey interaction, which then affects the behavioural component of the response. Taken together, our study contributes to previous ones by distinguishing which components of an escape response are modulated by familiarity.
Injection molding of a WDM system for POF communication

Polymer Optical Fibers (POFs) possess some advantages compared to copper and glass fibers. Primarily, POFs are inexpensive, space saving, easy to handle, and not susceptible to electromagnetic interference. Therefore, POFs are a reasonable alternative in short distance data communication. Due to their specific advantages POFs are applied in a wide number of applications. The main applications include automotive communication systems and in-house-networks. Currently, only one channel is used for data transmission, which limits the bandwidth. To improve the data transmission rate over POF, the Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technique is used. Therefore an integrated Multiplexer (MUX) and Demultiplexer (DEMUX) are designed and developed in order to use multiple channels. To make the elements available to a broader market, a cost-effective mass production of MUX and DEMUX is needed. Injection molding is the only technology that allows this. However, designing the elements with regard to injection molding leads to some inherent challenges. The microstructure of an optical grating and the thick-walled 3D molded parts both result in high demands on the injection molding process. This also requires a complex machining of the molding tool. Therefore, different experiments are done to optimize the process parameter, find the best molding material, and find a suitable machining method for the molding tool. In the paper, the process steps and also the realized solutions are described.
A novel in vivo transcription assay demonstrates the presence of globin-inducing trans-acting factors in uninduced murine erythroleukemia cells

We report the development of a novel in vivo transcription assay for trans-acting factors regulating the human gamma- and beta-globin genes. A cDNA coding for the human tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA) was inserted into the globin genes. Simian virus 40 small T-antigen splice and polyadenylation signals were included to produce a mature transcript coding for t-PA, whose activity can be detected in single cells by a fibrin-agarose plaque assay. Stable murine L-cell transfectants of the gamma.t-PA and beta.t-PA hybrid genes were fused to various cell lines to show that t-PA expression is increased specifically by erythroid MEL, HEL, and K562 cell fusion. The analogous H-2Kb.t-PA construct was not inducible under the same conditions. Interestingly, uninduced MEL cells increased beta.t-PA expression to the same extent as induced MEL cells. Chemiosmotic permeabilization of the beta-globin tester cell line and exposure to nuclear extracts were used to assay for trans-acting factors capable of stimulating beta.t-PA expression. Such factors were shown to be present in the nuclei of uninduced MEL cells.
Adaptive algorithm for cooperative MIMO system

An adaptive algorithm for decode-and-forward cooperative diversity with multiple-antenna terminals is proposed in this paper on the basis of analysis of the bit error rate performance of cooperative MIMO system. The adaptive algorithm adopts direct transmission or cooperative transmission according to the instantaneous channel state information of each link to avoid unnecessary cooperation and improve the system performance further. Theory analysis and simulation results show that compared to traditional decode-and-forward cooperative diversity, the adaptive algorithm can save much energy and channel resource, and improve the outage performance as well.
Reversibility of experimental cholesteatoma epithelium using Mongolian gerbils

Conclusion The results of this study encourage our belief that some cholesteatomas can be managed using only conservative treatments. Objective We hypothesized that once cholesteatoma is in a normal environment, its cellular or molecular pathology can revert to those characteristic of normal epidermis. The aim of this study was to determine whether or not common molecular characteristics of cholesteatoma were reversible after removal of inductive factors in experimental cholesteatoma induced in gerbils. Material and methods We induced cholesteatoma using ear canal ligation in Mongolian gerbils. After ligation, the animals in the treated group were managed for 2 weeks. We examined differences between treated and untreated cholesteatomas using terminal deoxynucleotide transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL) staining and an immunohistochemical technique using the proliferation markers proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and cytokeratin (CK). Results With PCNA and CK 13/16, the untreated group showed positive staining in the suprabasal and basal cells, but the treated group showed weakly positive staining only in the basal cell layer. With TUNEL staining, there were more positive cells in the untreated than the treated group.
The risk of cancer in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a nationwide cohort study in Taiwan.

OBJECTIVE The association of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and malignancy has rarely been explored in Asian populations. The aim of this study was to investigate the relative risk of cancer in Taiwanese patients with RA and to identify groups of patients with a high risk of cancer. METHODS We conducted a nationwide cohort study of the risk of cancer among 23,644 patients with RA who had no history of malignancies, using the National Health Insurance database of Taiwan from 1996 to 2007. Standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) for various cancers were analyzed. RESULTS Among the patients with RA, 935 cancers were observed. Patients with RA had an increased risk of cancer (SIR 1.23, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.22-1.23), especially hematologic cancers (SIR 2.74, 95% CI 2.68-2.81). The relative risk of cancer was higher among younger patients. Most cancer cases were detected within the first year following the diagnosis of RA. The relative risk of cancer decreased as the duration of observation increased. Among hematologic cancers, the risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was greatest (SIR 3.54, 95% CI 3.45-3.63). Among solid tumors, the risk of cancers of the kidney and vagina/vulva was highest. A decreased risk of cancers of the cervix and nonmelanoma skin cancer in patients with RA was also observed. CONCLUSION Patients with RA have an increased risk of cancer, especially hematologic and kidney cancers. The relative risk of cancer in patients with RA decreased with long-term followup. Cancer screening with continued vigilance is recommended for patients with RA.
Encouraging Digital Civility: What Companies and Others Can Do

The internet, the landmark invention of our lifetime, has brought us great benefit, but along with it, risk and antisocial behavior, including online bullying, hate speech, extremist content, and other ills. Prevention lies in promoting digital citizenship—safe, responsible, and appropriate use of technology and services—and a newer concept, digital civility—online interactions rooted in empathy, respect, and kindness. And, while no one entity can combat these issues alone, internet companies can play their part, as exemplified by the robust tools and resources offered by Microsoft and others. A collective focus, however, is needed to help raise awareness and change behavior, and the responsibility must be shared among the technology industry and government policy makers as well as everyone who uses the internet, including parents and caregivers, educators, and young people. This chapter explores these ideas.
A Novel Interline DC Power-Flow Controller (IDCPFC) for Meshed HVDC Grids

Power-flow control ability of meshed high-voltage direct-current grids can be improved by inserting a dc power-flow controller into the grids. Based on the study of existing dc power-flow controllers, this paper proposes a novel interline dc power-flow controller (IDCPFC) which has the benefit of fewer active switching devices, simpler control, little side effect on meshed grids, no external power source needed, and wide application occasions. The performance of the IDCPFC is validated by simulation and experimental tests. The results show that the proposed IDCPFC can achieve stable power-flow control in different conditions.
OF THERMAL THRESHOLD ASSESSMENT IN SMALL-FIBRE NEUROPATHY PATIENTS

To evaluate the test-retest reproducibility of thermal threshold testing (TTT) in small-fibre neuropathy (SFN) patients. Methods: Thermal thresholds for cold (CP) and warm (WP) perception were repeatedly evaluated over a period of 1 week in a group of 58 SFN patients and in 30 healthy volunteers. Thermal thresholds were established in the hand and foot using 3 different algorithms. The coefficients of repeatability (CR) (expressed as 2 multiple of SDdif calculated as , where n represents the number of all measurements) varied between 0.72° and 1.5°C in the hand and between 2.2 °C and 3.7 °C in the foot in healthy volunteers and SFN patients respectively. The reproducibility of all the tests in the hand and of CP tests in the foot was higher in healthy volunteers in comparison with SFN patients. Thermal threshold values in both SFN patients and healthy volunteers showed higher reproducibility in the hand compared with those in the foot. Cold threshold values obtained from the foot in the SFN group showed lower reproducibility compared to the warm threshold ones, while the opposite difference was found in healthy subjects. The method of levels displayed higher reproducibility of cold thresholds in both groups in comparison with the method of limits. If TTT is intended for use as a method of longitudinal assessment of small-fibre nerve function, different limits for the incidental (i.e. non-significant) intraindividual change of thermal threshold should be used for patients with and without disturbed thermal perception. The modality tested, type of the test, and tested region may well display a significant impact on the reproducibility of thermal threshold values.
Rapamycin impairs trabecular bone acquisition from high‐dose but not low‐dose intermittent parathyroid hormone treatment

The osteo‐anabolic effects of intermittent parathyroid hormone (PTH) treatment require insulin‐like growth factor (IGF) signaling through the IGF‐I receptor. A major downstream target of the IGF‐I receptor (via Akt) is the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), a kinase involved in protein synthesis. We investigated whether the bone‐building effects of intermittent PTH require functional mTOR signaling. Mice were treated with daily PTH 1–34 (0, 10, 30, or 90 µg/kg) for 6 weeks in the presence or absence of rapamycin, a selective inhibitor of mTOR. We found that all PTH doses were effective in enhancing bone mass, whether rapamycin was present or not. Rapamycin had little to no effect on the anabolic response at low (10 µg) PTH doses, small effects in a minority of anabolic measures at moderate doses (30 µg), but the anabolic effects of high‐dose PTH (90 µg) were consistently and significantly suppressed by rapamycin (∼4–36% reduction). Serum levels of Trap5b, a marker of resorption, were significantly enhanced by rapamycin, but these effects were observed whether PTH was absent or present. Our data suggest that intermittent PTH, particularly at lower doses, is effective in building bone mass in the presence of rapamycin. However, the full anabolic effects of higher doses of PTH are significantly suppressed by rapamycin, suggesting that PTH might normally activate additional pathways (including mTOR) for its enhanced high‐dose anabolic effects. Clinical doses of intermittent PTH could be an effective treatment for maintaining or increasing bone mass among patients taking rapamycin analogs for unrelated health issues. J. Cell. Physiol. 221: 579–585, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.