Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reverse phase protein array: validation of a novel proteomic technology and utility for analysis of primary leukemia specimens and hematopoietic stem cells

Proteomics has the potential to provide answers in cancer pathogenesis and to direct targeted therapy through the comprehensive analysis of protein expression levels and activation status. The realization of this potential requires the development of new, rapid, high-throughput technologies for performing protein arrays on patient samples, as well as novel analytic techniques to interpret them. Herein, we describe the validation and robustness of using reverse phase protein arrays (RPPA) for the analysis of primary acute myelogenous leukemia samples as well as leukemic and normal stem cells. In this report, we show that array printing, detection, amplification, and staining precision are very high, reproducible, and that they correlate with traditional Western blotting. Using replicates of the same sample on the same and/or separate arrays, or using separate protein samples prepared from the same starting sample, the intra- and interarray reproducibility was extremely high. No statistically significant difference in protein signal intensities could be detected within the array setups. The activation status (phosphorylation) was maintained in experiments testing delayed processing and preparation from multiple freeze-thawed samples. Differences in protein expression could reliably be detected in as few as three cell protein equivalents. RPPA prepared from rare populations of normal and leukemic stem cells were successfully done and showed differences from bulk populations of cells. Examples show how RPPAs are ideally suited for the large-scale analysis of target identification, validation, and drug discovery. In summary, RPPA is a highly reliable, reproducible, high-throughput system that allows for the rapid large-scale proteomic analysis of protein expression and phosphorylation state in primary acute myelogenous leukemia cells, cell lines, and in human stem cells. [Mol Cancer Ther 2006;5(10):2512–21]
Climate’s Long-term Impacts on Urban Infrastructures and Services: The Case of Metro Boston

In its development of methodologies and their applications to individual regions, this book presents a rich set of insights and a set of guides for investment and policymaking. Each of the six studies focuses on a finer geographic scale than is customary in integrated assessment research. They introduce innovations for impact analysis and contribute to the knowledge of localized experiences of climate change – how it affects a variety of sectors, how different stakeholders perceive its implications and adapt to it, and how decision support systems can promote dialogues between researchers, stakeholders and policymakers.
Instruments of Innovation Security

This paper sets out a scientific debate on the phenomenon of innovation security and regional innovation security in particular. Authors suggest that innovation security should be considered as an independent type of regional security, along with economic, environmental, political, etc. security types. It is assumed that innovation security is one of the key imperatives of regional development along with the sustainability, competitiveness, and innovativeness. Article rests upon the analysis of the mechanisms and tools within the innovation policies of the highly innovative countries of the Baltic region – Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, and Sweden, which demonstrate an ‘unintended’ application experience of the regional innovation security provision. The study underlines the most influential factors affecting the institutional framework of an innovation security establishment process. Paper concludes with a set of policy recommendations on regional innovation security in the context of contemporary socio-economic trends. Keywords: innovation security, innovation policy, innovation potential, region, Baltic region, BSR, Germany, Nordic countries, Russia, international cooperation JEL Classifications: D83; D85; F52; O33
Singing! Dancing! and Service!: A Great show needs service for them to come back

In an environment of reduced government funding and increased pressure for accountability and measurable results from corporate sponsors, the problem of getting people to attend, and to return to, a performance venue is more important. We use structural equation modelling to test a model of the relationships amongst audience members' perceptions of theatre performance, peripheral services, and intentions to return to that theatre in the future. We show that Satisfaction and Value are driven equally by perceptions of the show and perceptions of peripheral services. The results suggest a reassessment of theatre patron services for arts venue management.
Interferon-γ is a master checkpoint regulator of cytokine-induced differentiation

Significance The understanding of the molecular mechanisms of activation and checkpoint processes has important therapeutic implications. Here, we show that interferon-γ is a master checkpoint regulator for many cytokines. It operates partially by activating STAT1 signaling. However, most important is the mechanism that allows it to assume master regulator status. To do this, it induces internalization of gp130, a common component of many heterodimeric cytokine receptors. Therefore, this cytokine checkpoint could open a whole new paradigm in cell biology. Cytokines are protein mediators that are known to be involved in many biological processes, including cell growth, survival, inflammation, and development. To study their regulation, we generated a library of 209 different cytokines. This was used in a combinatorial format to study the effects of cytokines on each other, with particular reference to the control of differentiation. This study showed that IFN-γ is a master checkpoint regulator for many cytokines. It operates via an autocrine mechanism to elevate STAT1 and induce internalization of gp130, a common component of many heterodimeric cytokine receptors. This targeting of a receptor subunit that is common to all members of an otherwise diverse family solves the problem of how a master regulator can control so many diverse receptors. When one adds an autocrine mechanism, fine control at the level of individual cells is achieved.
Structure-Function relationships for the EGF/TGF-α family of mitogens

AbstractEpidermal growth factor (EGF) and transforming growth factor alpha (TGF-α) are ligands for the EGF-receptor and act as mitogens for a variety of tissues. TGF-α, in particular, has been implicated as an autocrine growth factor for several cancer cell lines. Over the last 10 years many groups have examined the structure-function relationships in EGF/TGF-α in attempts to develop antagonists or agonists. In this review the results of these studies are summarised and related to the three-dimensional structure of EGF/TGF-α. The dificulties associated with the purification and characterisation of analogues of EGF/TGF-α and with the biological assays are discussed. It is clear that these difficulties have, in some cases, led to apparently contradicting results. The available binding data indicate that the receptor interaction surface for EGF/TGF-α might encompass one complete side of the molecule with a few strong binding determinants, in particular Arg41 and Leu47. The arginine at position 41 is the most.
Design of hair-like appendages and comparative analysis on their coordination toward steady and efficient swimming

The locomotion of water beetles has been widely studied in biology owing to their remarkable swimming skills. Inspired by the oar-like legs of water beetles, designing a robot that swims under the principle of drag-powered propulsion can lead to highly agile mobility. But its motion can easily be discontinuous and jerky due to backward motions (i.e. retraction) of the legs. Here we proposed novel hair-like appendages and consider their coordination to achieve steady and efficient swimming on the water surface. First of all, we propose several design schemes and fabrication methods of the hair-like appendages, which can passively adjust their projected area while obtaining enough thrust. The coordination between the two pairs of legs, as with water beetles in nature, were also investigated to achieve steady swimming without backward movement by varying the beating frequency and phase of the legs. To verify the functionality of the hair-like appendages and their coordinations, six different types of appendages were fabricated, and two robots (one with a single pair of legs and the other with two pairs of legs) were built. Locomotion of the robots was extensively compared through experiments, and it was found that steady swimming was achieved by properly coordinating the two pairs of legs without sacrificing their speed. Also, owing to the lower velocity fluctuation during swimming, it was shown that using two pairs of legs was more energy efficient than the robot with single pair of legs.
Mammography Screening and the Theory of Planned Behavior: Suggestions Toward an Extended Model of Prediction

Mammography screening is probably the most effective method for the early detection of breast cancer. Existing models of health behavior, such as the theory of planned behavior, could improve their predictive validity and, therefore, their ability to promote health-related interventions by identifying additional factors associated with health decision making. This review provides an overview of research on factors related to mammography screening within the context of the theory of planned behavior and identifies the potential benefits of adding motivational factors, such as time perspective, optimism, and risk perception, in an attempt to enhance its explanatory power.
Active Antiretroviral Therapy Effect of Lipodystrophy on the Quality of Life among People Living with HIV / AIDS ( PLHIV ) on Highly

Background: Lipodystrophy is a known adverse effect of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Lipodystrophy resulting in body dysmorphism can lower the quality of life (QoL) among HAART recipients. The main aim of our study was to find the effect of lipodystrophy on QoL among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) on HAART. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital in south India. The participants were assessed for the presence of lipodystrophy. Their QoL was assessed using HIV-AIDS-targeted QoL questionnaire (HAT-QoL). Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS version 11.5. Results: Lipodystrophy was present in 21 participants (42%). The QoL among individuals with lipodystrophy was found to be significantly lower in terms of disclosure worries (P 1⁄4 .023) and financial worries (P 1⁄4 .049). Conclusions: Lipodystrophy adversely affects QoL among PLHIV. There is a need for studies analyzing factors that can potentially improve the QoL in such individuals.
Short Sales and Price Discovery in the Hong Kong Stock Market

This paper examines the impact of short sales on the speed of price adjustment in the Hong Kong market over the ten year period 2001-2011. It uses a bivariate model based on six different estimation methods. These are OLS and WLS in which the models are estimated separately, VAR and WVAR in which correlations between the residuals in the equations are taken into account and GARCH (1, 1) and BEKK models which take into account time varying variances and, with the BEKK model, covariances. The empirical findings show that for the majority of stocks permitted short sales do not contribute to price discovery improvement. There is however a substantial minority of stocks for which there is significant acceleration in the speed of price adjustment as lower autocorrelations in both quote revisions and trades are caused by short sales. To test hypotheses about the effect of short selling on model parameters, the paper presents a number of non-standard statistical procedures that are required to deal the effect of unequal stock specific volatility.
Cladistic analysis: its applications in association studies of complex diseases.

INTRODUCTION With the increase in genotype data generated by high throughput typing technologies, there is currently a lack of complexity-oriented analytical methods that can maximise the information obtained from these raw data for the study of complex diseases. We introduce the cladistic analysis that is traditionally applied in evolution studies and taxonomy, to specify relevant comparisons of traits associated with each haplotype/genotype in a population sample. METHODS Haplotypes are determined from the genotype data and linked to each other by their evolutionary relationships to form a cladogram. This is then used to specify relevant statistical comparisons. The central assumption is that any functionally important genetic variation causing a phenotypic effect at any point in the course of evolution will be embedded in the framework of haplotypes represented by the cladogram. APPLICATIONS There are various applications of cladistic analysis in the study of complex diseases. Basically, it helps in the identification of haplotypes that are associated with a disease state or a significantly altered level of quantitative trait. However, its limitations are that only polymorphic sites on the same DNA strand can be analysed and that recombination events must be relatively rarer than mutational events. CONCLUSIONS In the absence of methods that can recognise the complexity of the genotype organization, and given its ability to exploit evolutionary information for optimising the analytical strategy, cladistic analysis would be a method of choice for studying multi-loci effects on a quantitative trait or disease outcome.
Comparing Motivations and Intentions of Potential Cruise Passengers from Different Demographic Groups: The Case of China

The cruise industry is the fastest growing leisure market in the world. As an essential component, the cruise market in China has been growing rapidly over recent years with the introduction of favorable government policies, new cruise terminals, and increased cruise awareness of customers. Unfortunately, only a few studies have investigated the perceptions of Mainland Chinese consumers toward such an industry. Hence, by adopting qualitative and quantitative research methods, this study explores how the motivation and intention of potential cruise consumers differ in terms of their demographic background. Travelers of different ages, incomes, and marital status groups demonstrate varying cruise motivations and intentions. The influences of motivation factors on the cruise intention of consumers were also explored. Both the theoretical and practical contributions of the study were proposed accordingly.
Development Finance

The Chinese banking system remained resilient during the 2007 global financial crisis because of three factors: (1) capital-control policies have limited its exposure to international capital and credit markets; (2) it is focused on traditional banking rather than securitization activities; and (3) it is dominated by state-owned banks that avail themselves of public trust. Although China's state-owned banks are often criticized for lending primarily to state-owned enterprises, this article argues that through credit generation, Chinese banks help to produce a Schumpeterian-Keynesian credit-investment-income-creation process that has led to the country's decades of fast growth. Given that credit creation is not constrained by prior savings, lending to state-owned enterprises need not be reduced in order to increase lending to private enterprises. The article concludes by examining three main challenges facing Chinese banks.
Effects of Valsartan and Valeryl 4-Hydroxy Valsartan on Human Platelets: A Possible Additional Mechanism for Clinical Benefits

Abstract: Valsartan selectively blocks angiotensin II binding to the AT1 receptor. ince platelet activation plays a key role in the pathogenesis of vascular disease, and because AT1 receptors are present on the platelet surface, we assessed the in vitro effects of valsartan and its metabolite, valeryl 4-hydroxy valsartan (V4HV), on platelets in 30 subjects with multiple risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Platelet characteristics in blood samples pretreated and incubated with 10 nmol to 100 μmol concentrations of valsartan and V4HV were assessed by aggregometry, rapid platelet analyzers, and by flow cytometry. Pretreatment of blood with valsartan and V4HV resulted in inhibition of conventional plasma (ADP, P = 0.0001, valsartan; epinephrine, P = 0.0001, V4HV) and whole blood collagen-induced (P = 0.01, valsartan; P = .0001, V4HV) platelet aggregation. Closure time was delayed (P = 0.02, valsartan; P = 0.03, 4VHV), indicating platelet inhibition in whole blood under high shear conditions. Expression of many surface platelet receptors, namely GP IIb/IIIa antigen, and activity, vitronectin, p-selectin, and LAMP–1 was significantly reduced compared with autologous baseline activity. Intensity of platelet-leukocyte formation and other platelet activation markers remained unchanged. Platelet inhibition was not dose dependent and was more potent for 4VHV than valsartan in the therapeutic range. Valsartan and 4VHV exhibited significant in vitro inhibition of human platelets. Their antiplatelet properties, especially more potent activity of the metabolite appear to be independent of those of other antiplatelet agents. Whether valsartan reduces vascular ischemic events via additional pathways of platelet inhibition in patients with myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke requires further clinical research.
A Tree-Based Packet Routing Table for Berkeley Unix

Packet forwarding for OSI poses strong challenges for routing lookups: the algorithm must be able to efficiently accommodate variable length, and potentially very long addresses. The 4.3 Reno release of Berkeley UNIX† uses a reduced radix tree to make decisions about forwarding packets. This data structure is general enough to encompass protocol to link layer address translation such as the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), and the End System to Intermediate System Protocol (ES−IS), and should apply to any hierarchical routing scheme, such as source and quality-of-service routing, or choosing between multiple Datakits on a single system. The system uses a message oriented mechanism to communicate between the kernel and user processes to maintain the routing database, inform user processes of spontaneous events such as redirects, routing lookup failures, and suspected timeouts through gateways.
The Relationship Between Federal Government Revenue and Spending: Empirical Evidence from Asean-5 Countries

The main objectives of this paper is to examine the long run relationship between total expenditure, revenue (tax and nontax) and economic growth in ASEAN-5 countries namely by Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Philippines. According to the prior studies, there are several hypotheses to explain the relationship between revenue and spend-ing such as (1) spend-revenue hypotheses, (2) revenue-spend hypotheses and (3)bi-directional causality hypotheses. To test the validity of these hypotheses, this study will util-ize a cointegration and variance decomposition analysis. Based on empirical evidence, we can concluded that the existence of long run relationship between government spending, revenue (tax and non tax) and economic growth for all ASEAN-5 countries. The result of variance decomposition also shows that the strong influence on expenditure to revenue in countries namely Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines, which support the ‘spend-revenue hypotheses. Meanwhile, for Thailand and Singapore the budget decision driven by revenue side which support the ‘revenue-spend hypotheses’. In addition, public expenditure plays no role to stimulate economic growth in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Philippines, except for Indonesia. Key words: Fiscal economics; Wagner law; cointegration test; variance decomposition
Crew injuries in container vessel accidents

ABSTRACT This paper investigates determinants of the probability of non-fatal and fatal crew injuries in container vessel accidents. The determinants are deduced from an estimated probit regression equation based upon 2001–2008 U.S. Coast Guard container vessel accident data. The estimation results suggest that a crew member is: (1) less likely to have a non-fatal injury in containership and ro-ro container vessel accidents if the vessel has a steel hull and the vessel accident occurs at nighttime, (2) more likely to have a fatal injury if fire is involved in containership and ro-ro container vessel accidents, and (3) less likely to have a fatal injury in containership and ro-ro container vessel accidents if the vessel is U.S. flagged, steel hulled, and powered by a diesel engine. These results are critical in developing new policies in reducing non-fatal and fatal crew injuries in container vessel accidents.
Demand side management in the smart grid: An efficiency and fairness tradeoff

We compare two Demand Side Management (DSM) mechanisms, introduced respectively by Mohsenian-Rad et al (2010) and Baharlouei et al (2012), in terms of efficiency and fairness. Each mechanism defines a game where the consumers optimize their flexible consumption to reduce their electricity bills. Mohsenian-Rad et al propose a daily mechanism for which they prove the social optimality. Baharlouei et al propose a hourly billing mechanism for which we give theoretical results: we prove the uniqueness of an equilibrium in the associated game and give an upper bound on its price of anarchy. We evaluate numerically the two mechanisms, using real consumption data from Pecan Street Inc. The simulations show that the equilibrium reached with the hourly mechanism is socially optimal up to 0.1%, and that it achieves an important fairness property according to a quantitative indicator we define. We observe that the two DSM mechanisms avoid the synchronization effect induced by non-game theoretic mechanisms, e.g. Peak/OffPeak hours contracts.
Species and tissue differences in serotonin glucuronidation

Abstract 1. Serotonin is a UGT1A6 substrate that is mainly found in the extrahepatic tissues where some UGT1As are expressed. The aim of the present study was to characterize serotonin glucuronidation in various tissues of humans and rodents. 2. Serotonin glucuronidation in the human liver and kidney fitted to the Michaelis–Menten model, and the Km values were similar to that of recombinant UGT1A6. However, serotonin glucuronidation in the human intestine fitted to the Hill equation, indicating that it is likely catalyzed not only by UGT1A6, but also by another UGT1A isoform. Serotonin glucuronidation in the rat liver, intestine and kidney fitted well to the Michaelis–Menten model and exhibited monophasic kinetics in the kidney, but biphasic kinetics in the liver and intestine. Furthermore, serotonin glucuronidation in the rat brain fitted best to the Hill equation. Serotonin glucuronidation in the mouse tissues fitted to the Michaelis–Menten model and exhibited monophasic kinetics in the liver and intestine microsomes, but biphasic kinetics in the kidney and brain microsomes. 3. In conclusion, we clarified that tissue and species differences exist in serotonin glucuronidation. It is necessary to take these potential differences into account when considering the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of serotonin.