Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alcohol Consumption by Cirrhotic Subjects: Patterns of Use and Effects on Liver Function

OBJECTIVE:We investigated patterns of use of alcohol and its clinical effects among cirrhotic subjects who participated in a randomized clinical trial comparing the efficacy of transjugular intravenous portosystemic shunt and distal splenorenal shunt.METHODS:There were 132 cirrhotic subjects, 78 with alcoholic liver disease (ALD), who were followed for a median of 49 months (range 2–93 months). Alcohol use was assessed by patient questionnaire, with corroboration by family members.RESULTS:Twenty-eight subjects (21%) were drinking at study entry and 60 subjects (45%) drank during follow-up. Heavy drinking (>4 drinks/day) was recorded in 25 ALD subjects, but in no non-ALD subjects (P < 0.0001). Drinking by ALD subjects was associated with a 153% increase in gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) (P < 0.0001). The frequencies of death (46% vs 30%), ascites (33% vs 20%), encephalopathy (56% vs 42%), and variceal bleeding (11% vs 3%) were greater in the ALD group. In a Cox proportional hazards model only “ever heavy drinking” was associated with death (P= 0.0099), while recent heavy drinking increased the hazard of variceal hemorrhage dramatically (odds ratio 10.85). CONCLUSIONS:Whereas most cirrhotic subjects, alcoholic or not, did not drink during 5 yr of observation, heavy alcohol use occurred exclusively in ALD patients. Alcohol use by ALD subjects was associated with elevations in GGT and was linked to death and with rebleeding from shunt dysfunction.
Generating iconic gestures based on graphic data analysis and clustering

Gesture generation is one of the most important tasks in humanoid interfaces because hand gestures by humanoid robots and animated agents are useful in improving the comprehensibility of conversation content. This study proposes a method for automatically generating iconic drawing gestures using image processing and machine learning techniques. First, we collected a set of graphic images for over 1000 objects and classified the objects into 4 types of shapes; these shapes were used as the drawing gesture shapes. By implementing a gesture shape decision mechanism, we also built a system that takes a sentence as the system input and produces hand gesture animations that are synchronized with synthetic speech.
Glycerol carbon contributes to hepatic glucose production during the first eight hours in healthy term infants

The newborn infant must mobilize endogenous substrate stores to meet the requirements of glucose‐dependent organs. High concentrations of free fatty acids and glycerol, and a rapid decrease in the respiratory quotient, indicate that lipids are an important fuel soon after birth. The purpose of the present study was to determine the onset of lipolysis and gluconeogenesis from glycerol in healthy, term, unfed infants. Eight infants were studied from a postnatal age of 3.5 ± 0.5 h to 7.4±0.2h using [6,6‐2H2]glucose and [2‐13C]glycerol analysed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Plasma concentrations of glucose, glycerol and insulin averaged 2.9±0.4mM, 369±89μM and 9.4 ±3.7 μU·ml‐1, respectively. The hepatic glucose production rate averaged 25.0±3.5 μmol·kg‐1 min‐1 (4.5 ±0.6mgkg‐1·min‐1) and the endogenous plasma appearance rate of glycerol 8.7±1.2/μmol·kg‐1min‐1. On average, 57.9±8.4% of the glycerol was converted to glucose, representing 11.1 ± 2.3% of hepatic glucose output. Thus, lipolysis and gluconeogenesis from glycerol are established within the first 8 h of life in term infants.
Extracting compact representation of knowledge from gene expression data for protein-protein interaction

DNA microarrays help measure the expression levels of thousands of genes concurrently. A major challenge is to extract biologically relevant information and knowledge from massive amounts of microarray data. In this paper, we explore learning a compact representation of gene expression profiles by using a multi-task neural network model, so that further analyses can be carried out more efficiently on the data. The proposed network is trained with prediction tasks for Protein-Protein Interactions (PPIs), predicting Gene Ontology (GO) similarities as well as geometrical constrains, while simultaneously learning a high-level representation of gene expression data. We argue that deep networks can extract more information from expression data as compared to standard statistical models. We tested the utility of our method by comparing its performance with famous feature extraction and dimensionality reduction methods on the task of PPI prediction, and found the results to be promising.
The Role of Coercive and Non-coercive Influence Tactics in Sales Manager/Marketing Manager Working Relationships

This study examines the effects of coercive and non-coercive influence tactic use in Sales Manager/Marketing Manager working relationships. These influence tactics are used to predict the level of manifest influence of the manager using the tactic, and the effectiveness of these managers’ working relationships. The findings reveal that not all of the tactics increase one’s influence. Those that do are threats, rational persuasion, and consultation, though the use of threats comes at a large cost to the effectiveness of the relationship. The tactics which are most appropriate are those which are built on engagement with the peer manager, rather than an attempt to secure cooperation or compliance through more formal, or coercive means.
Analysis of Queuing Delay and Medium Access Distribution Over Wireless Multihop PANs

This paper proposes a novel analytical approach to the analysis of the queuing delay and medium access distribution of carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA-CA) protocols over multihop personal area networks (MPANs). The proposed approach considers a general case without restrictions on the topology, traffic generation patterns, or multipath routing policy, and it accounts for heterogeneous traffic patterns, all possible packet loss scenarios, and the effect of the length of the backoff on the channel assessment. This paper uses statistical theorems to derive the moment generating function (mgf) of the time required to service a packet and then uses this function as a service distribution in a GI/G/1 queuing model to derive the interdeparture and total queuing delays. From these functions, the end-to-end delay, jitter, throughput, and failure transmission probability over a path are derived. In addition to determining these metrics, this paper exploits the statistical features of the mgf to determine the rare-event probability of the service function. The proposed approach is exemplified using the state-of-the-art IEEE 802.15. 4 CSMA-CA protocol, and its accuracy is demonstrated through comparison with simulations.
A Novel Voltage-Feedback Pixel Circuit for AMOLED Displays

This study presents a novel voltage-modulated pixel circuit for active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) consisting of five n-type thin-film transistors (TFTs), one additional control signal, and one storage capacitor. The proposed circuit, which can be implemented in all-n-type and all-p-type low temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) TFT technologies, successfully compensates for threshold voltage deviation of TFTs and facilitates correction of OLED degradation using a voltage feedback method. Simulation and experimental results for all-n-type TFTs indicate that the proposed pixel circuit reduced the nonuniformity brightness problem effectively by compensating for threshold voltage variation in TFTs and reduced the degradation of emission efficiency in OLEDs.
Content-based comic retrieval using multilayer graph representation and frequent graph mining

Comics has its large audience and market throughout the world, yet despite the huge research interest given to content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems, the question of how to effectively retrieve comic images has been little studied. In this paper, we propose a scheme to represent and retrieve comic-page images using attributed Region Adjacency Graphs (RAGs) and their frequent subgraphs. We first extract the graphical structures and local features of each panel of the whole comic volume, then separate different categories of local features to different layers of attributed RAGs. After that, a list of frequent subgraphs for each layer is obtained by using frequent subgraph mining (FSM) technique. For indexing and CBIR purpose, the recognition and ranking are done by checking for isomorphism between the graphs representing the query versus the discovered frequent subgraphs. Our experimental results show that the proposed approach can achieve reliable retrieval results of comic images using query-by-example (QBE) model.
AN A2-PROOF OF STRUCTURE THEOREMS FOR CHEVALLEY GROUPS OF TYPES

In the present paper we prove the main structure theorem for Chevalley groups G = G(Φ, R) of types Φ = E6, E7 over a commutative ring R. More precisely, we describe subgroups in G normalized by the elementary subgroup E(Φ, R). This result is not new, since structure theorems are known for all Chevalley groups [25, 27, 28, 30], [38]–[40], and [58, 61] (see [42, 65, 34, 56] for further references). The gist of the present paper resides not in the results themselves, but rather in the method of their proof based on the geometry of exceptional groups. We believe that this method is novel and of significant interest. Actually the Schwerpunkt of the present paper abides in a new descent procedure, which enables reduction to groups of smaller rank. This procedure is both simpler and more powerful than any other method known today. Our results on the geometry of the 27-dimensional module for Chevalley groups of type E6 and of the 56dimensional module for Chevalley groups of type E7 pave the way to much more general results such as description of subgroups normalized by some of elementary matrices. Groups of types E8 and F4 can be handled in essentially the same style, and we intend to return to these cases in our subsequent publications. However, from a technical viewpoint the proofs in these cases are noticeably more involved because these groups do not have microweight representations.
Surface Downregulation of Major Histocompatibility Complex Class I, PE-CAM, and ICAM-1 following De Novo Infection of Endothelial Cells with Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus

ABSTRACT Under selective pressure from host cytotoxic T lymphocytes, many viruses have evolved to downregulate major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and/or T-cell costimulatory molecules from the surface of infected cells. Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) encodes two proteins, MIR-1 and MIR-2, that serve this function during lytic replication. In vivo, however, KSHV exists in a predominantly latent state, with less than 5% of infected cells expressing discernible lytic gene products. Thus, mechanisms of immune evasion that depend on genes expressed only during lytic replication are unlikely to be active in most KSHV-infected cells. As a result, we searched for evidence of similar defensive strategies extant during latency, employing culture systems that strongly favor latent KSHV infection. We measured cell surface levels of immunomodulatory proteins on both primary dermal microvascular endothelial cells (pDMVEC) infected through coculture with induced primary effusion lymphoma cells and telomerase-immortalized DMVEC infected directly with cell-free virus. Employing a panel of antibodies against several endothelial cell surface proteins, we show that de novo infection with KSHV leads to the downregulation of MHC class I, CD31 (PE-CAM), and CD54 (ICAM-I) but not CD58 (LFA-3) or CD95 (Fas). Furthermore, flow cytometry with a fluorescently labeled monoclonal antibody to the latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA) revealed that downregulation occurred predominantly on KSHV-infected (LANA-positive) cells. Although the vast majority of infected cells displayed this downregulation, less than 1% expressed either immediate-early or late lytic proteins detectable by immunofluorescence. Together, these results suggest that downregulation of immunomodulatory proteins on the surface of target cells may represent a constitutive mode of immune evasion employed by KSHV following de novo infection.
Aiming for Average: The Effect of Peer Standing on the Dynamic Process of Corporate Social Responsibility

We evidence a non-linear relationship between firm value and corporate social responsibility, adding to the mixed evidence on this relationship. We show that corporate social responsibility exhibits a dynamic process, which is largely dependent on a firm’s industry, relative standing amongst peers and the distinction between responsible and irresponsible behavior. Surprisingly, we find that responsible behavior could sometimes destroy firm value, while irresponsible behavior could sometimes increase firm value. Endogeneity is mitigated through a novel process that allows us to keep constant the endogeneity inherent in this field, examining corporate social responsibility’s effect on firm value separately.
Differential Modulation of Surface Antigens on Human Macrophages by IFN‐Gamma and GM‐CSF: Effect on Susceptibility to LAK Lysis

We have previously reported that cultured human monocytes are lysed by autologous lymphokine‐activated killer (LAK) cells in vitro and that treatment of monocytes with interferon‐gamma (IFN‐gamma) decreased their sensitivity to lysis. Conversely, incubation of monocytes with granulocyte‐macrophage colony‐stimulating factor (GM‐CSF) significantly enhanced their susceptibility to LAK‐mediated cytotoxicity. To determine if certain antigens were differentially modulated on macrophages by IFN‐gamma and GM‐CSF, cytokine‐treated and untreated monocytes were analyzed for the expression of a variety of cell surface markers by flow cytometry. Cytotoxicity assays were performed to assess the ability of antibodies to each of these markers to block LAK lysis of macrophage target cells. While several of the surface structures were differentially modulated by cytokine treatment, it was found that only monoclonal antibodies to the adhesion proteins CD11a and CD18 were capable of blocking lysis of either cytokine‐treated or untreated target macrophages.
The progression from obesity to type 2 diabetes in Alström syndrome

Bettini V, Maffei P, Pagano C, Romano S, Milan G, Favaretto F, Marshall JD, Paisey R, Scolari F, Greggio NA, Tosetto I, Naggert JK, Sicolo N, Vettor R. The progression from obesity to type 2 diabetes in Alström syndrome.
Robust Suboptimal Guaranteed Cost Control for 2-D Discrete Systems Described by Fornasini-Marchesini First Model

This paper considers the guaranteed cost control problem for a class of two-dimensional (2-D) uncertain discrete systems described by the Fornasini-Marchesini (FM) first model with norm-bounded uncertainties. New linear matrix inequality (LMI) based characterizations are presented for the existence of static-state feedback guaranteed cost controller which guarantees not only the asymptotic stability of closed loop systems, but also an adequate performance bound over all the admissible parameter uncertainties. Moreover, a convex optimization problem is formulated to select the suboptimal guaranteed cost controller which minimizes the upper bound of the closed-loop cost function.
Principals' perceptions of the use of total quality management concepts for school improvement in Mauritius : leading or misleading?

As a small island country, Mauritius is relying on its human capital and innovative hi-tech industry to ensure future economic viability in the global market. As such, Mauritian education authorities are seeking ways to raise educational standards. One idea being canvassed is that Total Quality Management (TQM) could provide the framework for Mauritian school leaders to deliver imperatives for change and improvement and to achieve the aim of ‘world- class quality education. ’ This paper reports the findings of a research into Mauritian principals’ current practices in line with TQM tenets and their perceptions about the usefulness or otherwise of ideas implicit in TQM. The findings indicate that whilst principals agree with current progressive notions and thinking compatible with the TQM philosophy, they have not fully translated them into their practice. The paper identifies challenges and opportunities worthy of discussion for school improvement in twenty-first century Mauritius with its high-tech, world-class ambitions.
HCO3−‐independent conductance with a mutant Na+/HCO3− cotransporter (SLC4A4) in a case of proximal renal tubular acidosis with hypokalaemic paralysis

Key points • A mutant electrogenic sodium bicarbonate cotransporter NBCe1 (A799V) is associated with an inability of the kidney to regulate blood pH as well as weakness of muscles. • In the present study we employ biotinylation and electrophysiology on Xenopus oocytes as well as confocal microscopy on non‐polarized MDCK cells. We study A799V, plus three laboratory‐generated mutants A799G, A799I and A799S. • A799V and A799I show increased intracellular retention in MDCK cells. All four mutants exhibit a reduced per‐molecule Na+/HCO3− cotransport activity in oocytes. These observations probably underlie the inability of A799V to regulate blood pH. • A799V and A799I exhibit a novel, DIDS‐stimulated, HCO3−‐independent conductance – the first example in an electrogenic NBC. This observation could underlie the contribution of A799V towards muscle weakness. • A799G and A799S exhibit unusual outward rectification. A799G is unusually insensitive to DIDS and tenidap. Thus Alanine‐799 is a critical determinant of correct NBCe1 function.
Australian marketing managers’ perceptions of the Internet: A quasi‐longitudinal perspective

The Internet is playing an increasingly important role in the marketing activities of organisations across a wide range of industries. While the opportunities afforded by this phenomenon seem readily apparent, there is still much debate and speculation on exactly what impact it will have on marketing. To shed some light on this uncertainty, the present study examines managers’ perceptions of the impact of the Internet on key marketing activities. It employs a quasi‐longitudinal research design involving mail surveys to Australian marketing decision makers. Findings suggest that expectations in 1999 may have been unrealistically optimistic and exaggerated. It would appear that the so‐called “dot.com crash” has led to more realistic and pragmatic expectations among practicing managers in 2001. The study then focuses on differences in perceptions between industries. As expected, divergent views emerge, particularly from within the services sector. Managerial implications are then considered, conclusions drawn and future research directions outlined.
Information Acquisition Differences between Experienced and Novice Time Trial Cyclists

Purpose To use eye-tracking technology to directly compare information acquisition behavior of experienced and novice cyclists during a self-paced, 10-mile (16.1 km) time trial (TT). Method Two groups of novice (n = 10) and experienced cyclists (n = 10) performed a 10-mile self-paced TT on two separate occasions during which a number of feedback variables (speed, distance, power output, cadence, HR, and time) were projected within their view. A large RPE scale was also presented next to the projected information and participants. Participants were fitted with a head-mounted eye tracker and HR monitor. Results Experienced cyclists performed both TT quicker than novices (F1,18 = 6.8, P = 0.018) during which they primarily looked at speed (9 of 10 participants), whereas novices primarily looked at distance (6 of 10 participants). Experienced cyclists looked at primary information for longer than novices across the whole TT (24.5% ± 4.2% vs 34.2% ± 6.1%; t18 = 4.2; P < 0.001) and less frequently than novices during the last quarter of the TT (49 ± 19 vs 80 ± 32; t18 = −2.6; P = 0.009). The most common combination of primary and secondary information looked at by experienced cyclists was speed and distance, respectively. Looking at 10 different primary–secondary feedback permutations, the novices were less consistent than the experienced cyclists in their information acquisition behavior. Conclusions This study challenges the importance placed on knowledge of the endpoint to pacing in previous models, especially for experienced cyclists for whom distance feedback was looked at secondary to, but in conjunction with, information about speed. Novice cyclists have a greater dependence on distance feedback, which they look at for shorter and more frequent periods than the experienced cyclists. Experienced cyclists are more selective and consistent in attention to feedback during TT cycling.
Effects of charged amino‐acid mutation on the solution structure of cytochrome b5 and binding between cytochrome b5 and cytochrome c

The solution structure of oxidized bovine microsomal cytochrome b5 mutant (E48, E56/A, D60/A) has been determined through 1524 meaningful nuclear Overhauser effect constraints together with 190 pseudocontact shift constraints. The final family of 35 conformers has rmsd values with respect to the mean structure of 0.045±0.009 nm and 0.088±0.011 nm for backbone and heavy atoms, respectively. A characteristic of this mutant is that of having no significant changes in the whole folding and secondary structure compared with the X‐ray and solution structures of wild‐type cytochrome b5. The binding of different surface mutants of cytochrome b5 with cytochrome c shows that electrostatic interactions play an important role in maintaining the stability and specificity of the protein complex formed. The differences in association constants demonstrate the electrostatic contributions of cytochrome b5 surface negatively charged residues, which were suggested to be involved in complex formation in the Northrup and Salemme models, have cumulative effect on the stability of cyt c‐cyt b5 complex, and the contribution of Glu48 is a little higher than that of Glu44. Moreover, our result suggests that the docking geometry proposed by Northrup, which is involved in the participation of Glu48, Glu56, Asp60, and heme propionate of cytochrome b5, do occur in the association between cytochrome b5 and cytochrome c.
Colors of graphene and graphene-oxide multilayers on various substrates

We investigated the colors of graphene and graphene-oxide multilayers that were deposited on various dielectric layers. In particular, the effects of the material thickness, the types of dielectric layers, and the existence of a back silicon substrate were analyzed. The colors of graphene-oxide layers on a SiO2/Si substrate were found to periodically change as the material thickness increased. However, the colors of graphene layers on the same substrate became saturated without a similar periodic change. The calculated colors corresponding to the material thicknesses were verified by optical microscopy and profilometry. We believe that these results demonstrate the possibility of utilizing color as a simple tool for detecting and estimating the thicknesses of graphene and graphene-oxide multilayers.