Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The cumulative effect of unemployment on risks for acute myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND Employment instability is a major source of strain affecting an increasing number of adults in the United States. Little is known about the cumulative effect of multiple job losses and unemployment on the risks for acute myocardial infarction (AMI). METHODS We investigated the associations between different dimensions of unemployment and the risks for AMI in US adults in a prospective cohort study of adults (N = 13,451) aged 51 to 75 years in the Health and Retirement Study with biennial follow-up interviews from 1992 to 2010. Unadjusted rates of age-specific AMI were used to demonstrate observed differences by employment status, cumulative number of job losses, and cumulative time unemployed. Cox proportional hazards models were used to examine the multivariate effects of cumulative work histories on AMI while adjusting for sociodemographic background and confounding risk factors. RESULTS The median age of the study cohort was 62 years, and 1061 AMI events (7.9%) occurred during the 165,169 person-years of observation. Among the sample, 14.0% of subjects were unemployed at baseline, 69.7% had 1 or more cumulative job losses, and 35.1% had spent time unemployed. Unadjusted plots showed that age-specific rates of AMI differed significantly for each dimension of work history. Multivariate models showed that AMI risks were significantly higher among the unemployed (hazard ratio, 1.35 [95% CI, 1.10-1.66]) and that risks increased incrementally from 1 job loss (1.22 [1.04-1.42]) to 4 or more cumulative job losses (1.63 [1.29-2.07]) compared with no job loss. Risks for AMI were particularly elevated within the first year of unemployment (hazard ratio, 1.27 [95% CI, 1.01-1.60]) but not thereafter. Results were robust after adjustments for multiple clinical, socioeconomic, and behavioral risk factors. CONCLUSIONS Unemployment status, multiple job losses, and short periods without work are all significant risk factors for acute cardiovascular events.
FoxB of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Functions in the Utilization of the Xenosiderophores Ferrichrome, Ferrioxamine B, and Schizokinen: Evidence for Transport Redundancy at the Inner Membrane

ABSTRACT Expression of the inner membrane protein FoxB (PA2465) of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in mutants of Sinorhizobium meliloti that are defective in the utilization of ferrichrome, ferrioxamine B, and schizokinen resulted in the restoration of siderophore utilization. Mutagenesis of foxB in P. aeruginosa did not abolish siderophore utilization, suggesting that the function is redundant.
Exact closed form formula for partial mutual inductances of on-chip interconnects

In this paper we propose a new exact closed form mutual inductance equation for on-chip interconnects. We express the mutual inductance between two parallel rectangular conductors as a weighted sum of self-inductances. We do not place any restrictions on the alignment of the two parallel rectangular conductors. Moreover they could be co-planar or reside on different layers. Most important, experimental results show that our formula is numerically more stable than that derived by Hoer and Love (1965) for long parallel onchip interconnects.
Bridging and Bonding Social Capital: Which is More Prevalent in Europe?

There are a variety of ways of measuring social capital, including social trust, social networks, social support and participation in organisations. In this paper we use cluster analysis to show patterns of social capital or ‘social capital regimes' across Europe, where the different elements are combined in various ways. The paper then goes on to look at how this differentiates European societies. Using the Eurobarometer 62.2, which covers a representative sample of 27 countries, the analysis found that European countries can be clustered according to the extent to which they have high or low levels of bridging and bonding social capital as developed in the theories of Michael Woolcock and David Halpern. The paper provides empirical challenges to previous studies that have shown that social capital reflects mainly welfare regimes and other studies that have tried to differentiate societies according to bridging and bonding social capital on a purely speculative basis by providing an exploratory “bottom up” classification based upon cluster analysis.
The role of pulsatile flow in controlling microvascular retinal endothelial and pericyte cell apoptosis and proliferation.

AIMS Aberrant retinal blood flow is a hallmark of various retinopathies and may be a causative factor in the pathology associated with these conditions. We examined the effects of pulsatile flow on bovine retinal endothelial cell (BREC) and bovine retinal pericyte (BRP) apoptosis and proliferation. METHODS AND RESULTS Co-cultured BRECs and BRPs were exposed to low (0.3 mL/min) or high (25 mL/min) pulsatile flow for 72 h using a perfused transcapillary culture system. Pulsatile flow increased BREC nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression and activity concomitant with a significant decrease in pre-pro-endothelin-1 (ET-1) mRNA and peptide. BREC apoptosis was significantly attenuated following exposure to high flow. The inhibition of NOS, COX, and ET receptors significantly reduced the pro-survival effects of flow on BREC. In contrast, BRP apoptosis was significantly enhanced following exposure to high flow. The inhibition of COX and ET receptors significantly attenuated the high flow-induced increase in BRP apoptosis when compared with untreated controls. Treatment of static BREC with NO donor (S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine, SNAP), ET-1, or iloprost inhibited serum deprivation-induced apoptosis, whereas treatment of BRP with ET-1 and iloprost, but not SNAP, was ineffective. High pulsatile flow decreased BRP proliferation, in the absence of any changes in BREC proliferation. CONCLUSION Increased pulsatile flow promotes BREC survival and enhances BRP apoptosis through the activation of endothelial-derived vasoactive substances. Altered pulsatile flow does not alter BREC proliferation in co-culture with BRP, whereas BRP proliferation was significantly decreased at high flow rates. These interactions have important implications for vessel growth and regression during retinal vascular pathogenesis.
Databases and ontologies MEPD : a resource for medaka gene expression patterns

Summary: The Medaka Expression Pattern Database (MEPD) is a database for gene expression patterns determined by in situ hybridization in the small freshwater fish medaka (Oryzias latipes). Data have been collected from various research groups and MEPD is developing into a central expression pattern depository within the medaka community. Gene expression patterns are described by images and terms of a detailed medaka anatomy ontology of over 4000 terms, which we have developed for this purpose and submitted to Open Biological Ontologies. Sequences have been annotated via BLAST match results and using Gene Ontology terms. These new features will facilitate data analyses using bioinformatics approaches and allow cross-species comparisons of gene expression patterns. Presently, MEPD has 19 757 entries, for 1024 of them the expression pattern has been determined. Availability: A new version has been implemented at the EMBL in Heidelberg and is now accessible at http://www.embl.de/mepd Contact: henrich@embl.de Supplementary information: http://www.embl.de/mepd/supplement.
Practical dynamic interference management in multi-carrier multi-cell wireless networks: A reference user based approach

In order to overcome low performance of conventional static interference management algorithms and high complexity of existing dynamic interference management algorithms, this paper proposes an efficient, low-complex and fully distributed power control and user scheduling algorithm in downlink multi-carrier multi-cell wireless networks. We decompose the original optimization problem, which requires intractable computation complexity for global optimality, into per-BS (base station) problems based on the notion of reference user. This idea is a good approximation of the optimal algorithms that permits significant complexity reduction, yet sustains near-optimal performance. We further reduce feedback overhead to make the resulting algorithm more practical by exploiting temporal correlations and spatial simplification. We verify the efficiency of our proposed algorithm through extensive simulations over various topologies and scenarios motivated by the current 3G BS deployment map.
A Simple Framework for Analyzing Bull and Bear Markets

Bull and bear markets are a common way of describing cycles in equity prices. To fully describe such cycles one would need to know the data generating process (DGP) for equity prices. We begin with a definition of bull and bear markets and use an algorithm based on it to sort a given time series of equity prices into periods that can be designated as bull and bear markets. The rule to do this is then studied analytically and it is shown that bull and bear market characteristics depend upon the DGP for capital gains. By simulation methods we examine a number of DGPs that are known to fit the data quite well—random walks, GARCH models, and models with duration dependence. We find that a pure random walk provides as good an explanation of bull and bear markets as the more complex statistical models. In the final section of the paper we look at some asset pricing models that appear in the literature from the viewpoint of their success in producing bull and bear markets which resemble those in the data.
Improving Focused Crawling with Genetic Algorithms

The Web, containing a large amount of useful information and resources, is expanding rapidly. Web crawlers are one of the most crucial components in search engines and their optimization would have a great effect on improving the searching efficiency. Focused Crawlers can selectively retrieve Web documents relevant to a specific domain to build collections for domain-specific search engines. In this paper, we use a genetic algorithm with focused crawling for improving its crawling performance. Expands initial keywords by using a genetic algorithm for focused crawling. The results showed that our approach could build domainspecific collections with higher quality than traditional focused crawling techniques. General Terms Focused crawling, keyword enhance
Quantitative analysis of the speed/accuracy trade-off in transaction level modeling

The increasing complexity of embedded systems requires modeling at higher levels of abstraction. Transaction level modeling (TLM) has been proposed to abstract communication for high-speed system simulation and rapid design space exploration. Although being widely accepted for its high performance and efficiency, TLM often exhibits a significant loss in model accuracy. In this article, we systematically analyze and quantify the speed/accuracy trade-off in TLM. To this end, we provide a classification of TLM abstraction levels based on model granularity and define appropriate metrics and test setups to quantitatively measure and compare the performance and accuracy of such models. Addressing several classes of embedded communication protocols, we apply our analysis to three common bus architectures, the industry-standard AMBA advanced high-performance bus (AHB) as an on-chip parallel bus, the controller area network (CAN) as an off-chip serial bus, and the Motorola ColdFire Master Bus as an example for a custom embedded processor bus. Based on the analysis of these individual busses, we then generalize our results for a broader conclusion. The general TLM trade-off offers gains of up to four orders of magnitude in simulation speed, generally however, at the price of low accuracy. We conclude further that model granularity is the key to efficient TLM abstraction, and we identify conditions for accuracy of abstract models. As a result, this article provides general guidelines that allow the system designer to navigate the TLM trade-off effectively and choose the most suitable model for the given application with fast and accurate results.
A Novel Similarity Measure Framework on Financial Data Mining

Similarity measure is one of the core problems in data mining research on time series. Both Euclidean Distance and Dynamic Time Warping methods are widely used in similarity measure, which have their own limitations. Based on the symbolic time series data, this paper creatively brought forward a new kind of similarity measure framework SFVM (SAX Feature Vector Model). Based on the architecture of SFVM, we introduced three feature extraction methods, which can be extended as three new similarity measure methods. The paper obtained stock data from the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, and compared the behavior of several similarity measure methods in clustering research. The experiment results showed that the three methods could efficiently measure the similarity according to the whole trend by comparing with the classic methods.
An exploration with online complex activity recognition using cellphone accelerometer

We investigate the problem of online detection of complex activities (such as cooking, lunch, work at desk), i.e., recognizing them while the activities are being performed using parts of the sensor data. In contrast to prior work, where complex activity recognition is performed offline with the observation of the activity available for its entire duration and utilizing deeply-instrumented environments, we focus on online activity detection using only accelerometer data from a single body-worn smartphone device. We present window based algorithms for online detection that effectively perform different tradeoffs between classification accuracy and detection latency. We present results of our exploration using a longitudinally-extensive and clearly-annotated cellphone accelerometer data trace that captures the true-life complex activity behavior of five subjects.
The Credit Risk Transfer Market and Stability Implications for U.K. Financial Institutions

The increasing ability to trade credit risk in financial markets has facilitated its dispersion across the financial and other sectors. However, specific risks attached to credit risk transfer (CRT) instruments in a market with still-limited liquidity means that its rapid expansion may actually pose problems for financial sector stability in the event of a major negative shock to credit markets. This paper attempts to quantify the exposure of major U.K. financial groups to credit derivatives, by applying a vector autoregression (VAR) model to publicly available market prices. Our results indicate that use of credit derivatives does not pose a substantial threat to financial sector stability in the United Kingdom. Exposures across major financial institutions appear sufficiently diversified to limit the impact of any shock to the market, while major insurance companies are largely exposed to the "safer" senior tranches.
pEF-BOS, a powerful mammalian expression vector.

Polypeptide chain elongation factor l a (EF-la) is an eukaryotic counterpart of E. coli EF-Tu which promotes the GTP-dependent binding of an aminoacyl-tRNA to ribosomes. EF-la is one of the most abundant proteins in eukaryotic cells, and expressed in almost all kinds of mammalian cells. Recently, we have isolated human chromosomal gene coding for EF-la, and shown that the promoter of EF-la chromosomal gene very efficiently stimulates the in vitro transcription (1). In this report, we have constructed a powerful mammalian expression vector, pEF-BOS, using the promoter of human EF-la chromosomal gene. As shown in Fig. 1, pEF-BOS carries the SV40 replication origin (311 bp of EcoRH G fragment), the promoter region of human EF-la chromosomal gene (1.2 kb), the stuffer fragment (450 bp) from CDM8 vector (2) and poly(A) adenylation signal from human G-CSF cDNA (700 bp EcoSll ~ EcoRl DNA fragment) (3) in HindUL-EcoRl site of pUC119. The promoter region of EF-la gene is from nucleotide position 373 to 1561 (1) which includes 203 bp 5' flanking region, 33 bp first exon, 943 bp first intron and 10 bp of the part of the second exon located at 20 bp upstream of the ATG initiation codon. The size of pEFBOS is 5.8 kb, and the cDNA to be expressed can be inserted at BstXl site using BstXl adapter, or Xbal site using Xbal linker. Human G-CSF cDNA (4) was inserted into BstXl site of pEFBOS or CDM8, or into BamhU site of pKCR vector containing SV40 early promoter (5). As shown in Table 1, when these plasmids were transfected into COS cells by DEAEdextran/chloroquine method, the construct in pEF-BOS has directed the synthesis of human G-CSF about 20 times more efficiently than the construct in CDM8, and 50 ~ 200 times more efficiently than the construct in pKCR. In addition, when E. coli chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene was inserted into pEF-BOS, the CAT activities observed with pEF-BOS-CAT were 1.5 ~ 50 times higher than that of pSV2-CAT or pRSV-CAT after transfection into various cell lines including murine L929, human HeLa, CHU-2 and simian COS cells (Table 2). The pEFBOS vector, therefore, will be used to produce a large amount of growth factors and proteins in mammalian cells, to express a high level of anti-sense RNA. Furthermore, the pEF-BOS-CAT will be an ideal positive control for CAT assay in various cell types.
Experimental Tests on Rubble Masonry Specimens – Diagonal Compression , Triplet and Compression Tests

Aiming to characterize the seismic behavior of old masonry buildings in Lisbon some experimental tests were performed within the scope of a Portuguese national research project, the called Seismic Vulnerability of Old Masonry Buildings (www.severes.org). In this paper the diagonal compression tests, triplet tests and compression tests performed are described and the results obtained presented. Depending on the type of tests carried out, different dimensions of masonry specimens were adopted and, for all of the tests, two different types of mortar, hydraulic and air lime mortar were considered. Based on the results obtained it was possible to assess different masonry characteristics, namely: i) shear strength of masonry via diagonal compression test, ii) initial shear strength and coefficient of friction by performing triplet test, and iii) compressive strength and Young modulus of elasticity through compression test. Moreover, for all tests, load-displacement diagrams and expected collapse mechanism are presented.
Forward and Backward Pressure Waveform Morphology in Hypertension

We tested the hypothesis that increased pulse wave reflection and altered backward waveform morphology contribute to increased pulse pressure in subjects with higher pulse pressure compared with lower pulse pressure and to actions of vasoactive drugs to increase pulse pressure. We examined the relationship of backward to forward wave morphology in 158 subjects who were evaluated for hypertension (including some normotensive subjects) divided into 3 groups by central pulse pressure: group 1, 33±6.5 mm Hg; group 2, 45±4.1 mm Hg; and group 3, 64±12.9 mm Hg (means±SD) and in healthy normotensive subjects during administration of inotropic and vasomotor drugs. Aortic pressure and flow in the aortic root were estimated by carotid tonometry and Doppler sonography, respectively. Morphology of the backward wave relative to the forward wave was similar in subjects in the lowest and highest tertiles of pulse pressure. Similar results were seen with the inotropic, vasopressor and vasodilator drugs, dobutamine, norepinephrine, and phentolamine, with the backward wave maintaining a constant ratio to the forward wave. However, nitroglycerin, a drug with a specific action to dilate muscular conduit arteries, reduced the amplitude of the backward wave relative to the forward wave from 0.26±0.018 at baseline to 0.19±0.019 during nitroglycerin 30 &mgr;g/min IV (P<0.01). These results are best explained by an approximately constant amount of reflection of the forward wave from the peripheral vasculature. The amount of reflection can be modified by dilation of peripheral muscular conduit arteries but contributes little to increased pulse pressure in hypertension.
Human APOBEC3G-mediated hypermutation is associated with antiretroviral therapy failure in HIV-1 subtype C-infected individuals

Human APOBEC3G/F (hA3G/F) restricts retroviral replication through G‐to‐A hypermutations, which can generate drug‐resistant progenies in vitro. The clinical relevance is still inconclusive. To bridge this gap, we aim to study the role of these hypermutations in evolution of drug resistance; we characterised hA3G/F‐mediated hypermutations in the RT region of the pol gene of patients with or without antiretroviral therapy (ART).
Outbursts on normal stars. FH Leo misclassified as a novalike variable

We present high resolution spectroscopy of the common proper motion system FH Leo (components HD 96273 and BD+07 2411B), which has been classified as a novalike variable due to an outburst observed by Hipparcos, and we present and review the available photometry. We show from our spectra that neither star can possibly be a cataclysmic variable, instead they are perfectly normal late-F and early-G stars. We measured their radial velocities and derived the atmospheric fundamental parameters, abundances of several elements including Fe, Ni, Cr, Co, V, Sc, Ti, Ca and Mg, and we derive the age of the system. From our analysis we conclude that the stars do indeed constitute a physical binary. However, the observed outburst cannot be readily explained. We examine several explanations, including pollution with scattered light from Jupiter, binarity, microlensing, background supernovae, interaction with unseen companions and planetary engulfment. While no explanation is fully satisfactory, the scattered light and star-planet interaction scenarios emerge as the least unlikely ones, and we give suggestions for further study.
Bi-modal control of vacuum-powered soft pneumatic actuators with embedded liquid metal-based strain sensitive skin

Soft robotic systems are composed of active and passively deformable structures which are intrinsically compliant, flexible, and elastic. Although these features offer benefits of adaptability, robustness, and safety, controlling these types of robots is a significant challenge, in part from the difficulty of obtaining feedback from sensors which provide state information without hindering the advantageous material properties which grant these systems their unique mechanical behavior. We demonstrate here the first integration of a flexible, stretchable, liquid metal-based strain sensor with vacuum-powered soft pneumatic actuators (V-SPAs) for simultaneous controlled feedback of the soft actuators as well as user input and soft robotic device interaction. The soft sensors which are encapsulated within a Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane are directly embedded in the outer body skin of the soft actuators, and can be used to correlate the deformation of the body under vacuum actuation to overall actuator strain or to detect external disturbances. This information is used to compute and control the angle of a rotational 3-DoF actuator module, as well as detect implicit user input control signals by direct interaction without the need for an external control interface. The dual use of embedded sensing shown in this work provides a fundamental strategy for soft collaborative robot applications.