Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trp64Arg polymorphism of the β3-adrenergic receptor gene, pre-pregnancy obesity and risk of pre-eclampsia

Objective: Trp64Arg polymorphism of the β3-adrenergic receptor (β3-AR) gene was reported to be associated with increased risk of obesity and insulin resistance. Both traits have been implicated in the epidemiology and pathogenesis of pre-eclampsia. We investigated the relation of the β3-AR gene to pre-pregnancy obesity and risk of pre-eclampsia. The present study is a case-control study of 87 Caucasian pre-eclampsia cases and 214 controls. Methods: Logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), adjusted for maternal age and parity. Normotensive carriers of the variant allele (i.e. Arg64 allele) were 3.6 times more likely to be obese (body mass index (BMI) ⩾ 30 kg/m2) as compared with women not carrying the variant allele (OR = 3.6, 95% CI 0.8–15.0). Results: Arg64 allele was more frequent in controls as compared with pre-eclampsia cases (11.7 vs. 5.3%, p < 0.01). After adjusting for age and parity, carriers experienced a 60% reduction in risk of pre-eclampsia (OR = 0.4, 95% CI 0.2, 0.9) as compared with women not carrying this allele. The association between carriage of the variant allele and risk of pre-eclampsia appeared to be modified by maternal BMI. Compared with lean carriers, lean women without the variant allele experienced only a small increase in the risk of pre-eclampsia (OR = 1.5; 95% CI: 0.6, 3.9). The OR for overweight women without the variant allele was 7.3 (95% CI 2.7–19.2). Conclusions: Our results suggest a puzzling relationship between the polymorphism and the risk of pre-eclampsia. Future studies are needed to confirm these findings.
WIRS through the ages

There was a time before WIRS when what we knew of industrial relations was based primarily upon small scale surveys and case studies. WIRS marked a radical departure in the study of industrial relations for two reasons. First, following in the footsteps of a small number of survey forerunners, it sought to ‘map’ industrial relations in Britain with nationally-representative large-scale surveys of workplace managers, thus permitting investigation of the incidence of practices and changes over time. Second, it focused on industrial relations institutions and outcomes, linking them to the processes of industrial relations that had been the chief focus of studies up until that point. This paper reflects on some of what we have learned in the five surveys over the quarter century since 1980, focusing selectively on the demise of collective IR and the coming of human resource management (HRM), pay determination and the union wage effects, variable pay, the climate of employment relations and union effects on employment growth.
A geospatial analysis between the sale prices of single-family properties and the presence of registered sex offenders in Jefferson County, Kentucky

This study explores whether a relationship exists between sale prices and the presence of registered sex offenders in Jefferson County, Kentucky after accounting for observed and unobserved neighbourhood characteristics in accompaniment with property characteristics. The sale prices of single-family properties sold in 2015 were estimated as a function of the characteristics of the property, the housing and population characteristics of the neighbourhood, block group fixed effects and two separate measures of sex offender presence: a) the distance of the nearest registered sex offender to sold single-family properties; and b) the density of registered sex offenders within a half mile distance to sold single-family properties. Registered sex offender distance and density are associated with sale price when controlling for property characteristics and observed neighbourhood characteristics of the property, but these relationships cease to exist when unobserved neighbourhood characteristics are accounted for in the model.
Food sovereignty and consumer sovereignty: Two antagonistic goals?

ABSTRACT The concept of food sovereignty is becoming an element of everyday parlance in development politics and food justice advocacy. Yet to successfully achieve food sovereignty, the demands within this movement have to be compatible with the way people are pursuing consumer sovereignty and vice versa. The aim of this article is to examine the different sets of demands that the two ideals of sovereignty bring about, analyze in how far these different demands can stand in constructive relations with each other, and explain why consumers have to adjust their food choices to seasonal production variability to promote food sovereignty and so secure future autonomy.
Image‐Guided Cancer Therapy Using PET/CT

Functional imaging with positron emission tomography (PET) is playing an increasingly important role in the diagnosis and staging of malignant disease, image-guided therapy planning, and treatment monitoring. PET scanning with the radiolabeled glucose analogue 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18FDG) is a relatively recent addition to the clinically available technology for imaging cancer, complementing the more conventional anatomical imaging modalities of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR). These modalities are complementary in the sense that CT provides accurate localization of organs and lesions while PET maps both normal and abnormal tissue function. When combined, the two modalities can identify and localize functional abnormalities. Attempts to align CT and PET data sets with fusion software are generally successful in the brain, whereas the remainder of the body is more challenging owing to the increased number of possible degrees of freedom between the two scans. Recently these challenges have been addressed by the introduction of the combined PET/CT scanner, a hardware-oriented approach to image fusion. With this device, accurately registered anatomical and functional images can be acquired for each patient in a single scanning session. Currently, over 400 combined PET/CT scanners are installed in medical institutions worldwide, almost all of them for the diagnosis and staging of malignant disease. However, the real impact of this technology undoubtedly will be for cancer therapy, where PET/CT images will be used to guide biopsies and assist in surgical intervention, to define target volumes for radiation therapy and optimize dose, and to monitor response to chemotherapy and establish individualized patient treatment strategies
Correlating drought conservation practices and drought vulnerability in a tropical agricultural system

Abstract Recent droughts in Puerto Rico and throughout the Caribbean have emphasized the region's agricultural vulnerability to this hazard and the increasing need for adaptation mechanisms to support sustainable production. In this study, we assessed the geographic extent of agricultural conservation practices incentivized by US Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and evaluated their large-scale contribution to drought adaptability. We identified concentrations of drought-related practices (e.g. cover crops, ponds) applied between 2000 and 2016. Using information from spatial databases and interviews with experts, we assessed the spatial correlation between these practices and areas exposed to drought as identified by the US Drought Monitor. Between 2000 and 2016, Puerto Rico experienced seven drought episodes concentrated around the south, east and southeastern regions. The most profound drought occurred between 2014 and 2016 when the island experienced 80 consecutive weeks of moderate drought, 48 of severe drought and 33 of extreme drought conditions. A total of 44 drought-related conservation practices were applied at 6984 locations throughout 860 km2 of farmlands between 2000 and 2016 through the NRCS-Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Practices related to water availability were statistically clustered along the coasts, whereas soil and plant health practices were clustered in the mountainous region. While these concentrations strongly correlated with areas exposed to moderate drought conditions, >80% did not coincide with areas that experienced severe or extreme drought conditions, suggesting that areas highly exposed to drought conditions generally lacked drought preparedness assisted by EQIP. Climate projections indicate an increase in the frequency and intensity of drought events, particularly in the eastern region of Puerto Rico. Our analysis highlighted the need to implement more conservation practices in these areas subject to drought intensification and exposure. Government programs intended to address vulnerabilities and enhance capacity and resilience may not be reaching areas of highest exposure. Recommendations include raising producer awareness of past and future exposure and making programs more accessible to a broader audience.
Prize Allocation and Incentives in Team Contests

We study a contest between teams that compete for multiple indivisible prizes. Team output is a CES function of all the team members' efforts. We use a generalized Tullock contest success function to allocate prizes between teams. We study how different intra-team prize allocation rules impact team output. We consider an egalitarian rule that gives all members the same chance of receiving a prize, and a list rule that sets ex-ante the order in which members receive a prize. The convexity of the cost of effort function and the complementarity of individual efforts determine which rule maximizes team output and success. Our results speak to many real world situations, such as elections, contests for the allocation of local public goods and the internal organization of firms.
A Supervised Feature-Projection-Based Real-Time EMG Pattern Recognition for Multifunction Myoelectric Hand Control

Electromyographic (EMG) pattern recognition is essential for the control of a multifunction myoelectric hand. The main goal of this study was to develop an efficient feature- projection method for EMG pattern recognition. To this end, a linear supervised feature projection is proposed that utilizes a linear discriminant analysis (LDA). First, a wavelet packet transform (WPT) is performed to extract a feature vector from four-channel EMG signals. To dimensionally reduce and cluster the WPT features, an LDA, then, incorporates class information into the learning procedure, and identifies a linear matrix to maximize the class separability for the projected features. Finally, a multilayer perceptron classifies the LDA-reduced features into nine hand motions. To evaluate the performance of the LDA for WPT features, the LDA is compared with three other feature-projection methods. From a visualization and quantitative comparison, it is shown that the LDA produces a better performance for the class separability, plus the LDA-projected features improve the classification accuracy with a short processing time. A real-time pattern-recognition system is then implemented for a multifunction myoelectric hand. Experiments show that the proposed method achieves a 97.4% recognition accuracy, and all processes, including the generation of control commands for the myoelectric hand, are completed within 97 ms. Consequently, these results confirm that the proposed method is applicable to real-time EMG pattern recognition for multifunction myoelectric hand control.
The Labor(s) of Degrowth

ABSTRACT The degrowth debate so far has lacked a clear vision of what social subjects, and which processes of political subjectivation, can turn its vision into a political strategy. In this contribution to the debate on degrowth and eco-socialism, I point to the place of labor in the politics of socio-ecological revolution, arguing that degrowth should aim for a truly democratic, workers’ controlled production system, where alienation is actively countered by a collective reappropriation of the products of labor and by a truly democratic decision-making process over the use of the surplus. Such strategy must be based on an extended concept of class relations that goes beyond the wage labor relation, and toward a broader conception of work as a (gendered and racialized) mediator of social metabolism. I conclude that ecosocialist degrowth should take the form of a struggle for dealienating both industrial and meta-industrial labor.
A large sustained Ca2+ elevation occurs in unstimulated spines during the LTP pairing protocol but does not change synaptic strength

Synapses in the CA1 region of the hippocampus undergo bidirectional synaptic modification in response to different patterns of activity. Postsynaptic Ca2+ elevation can trigger either synaptic strengthening or weakening, depending on the properties of the local Ca2+ signal. During the pairing protocol for long‐term potentiation (LTP) induction, the cell is depolarized under voltage‐clamp and is given low‐frequency synaptic stimulation. As an initial step toward understanding the Ca2+ dynamics during this process, we used confocal microscopy to study the Ca2+ signals in spines evoked by the depolarization itself. This depolarization activates voltage‐dependent Ca2+ channels (VDCC), but whether these channels inactivate rapidly or remain functional throughout the long depolarizations used in the pairing protocol remains unknown. Cells were depolarized to 0 mV for 2–3 min. This depolarization led to a large initial elevation of Ca2+ in spines that never decayed back to resting levels. The maintained signal was close to the Kd of the low‐affinity (5 μM) Ca2+ dye, Magnesium Green. We attempted to determine the functional role of this elevation, using the Ca2+‐channel blocker D‐890. The addition of D‐890 in the internal solution produced a nearly complete abolition of the Ca2+ elevation during depolarization. Under these conditions, the NMDA conductance was normal, but LTP was almost completely blocked. This might suggest the importance of VDCC in LTP; however, we found that high concentrations of D‐890 can directly inhibit calmodulin protein kinase II (CaMKII), an enzyme required for LTP induction. Thus, whereas D‐890 is a useful tool for blocking postsynaptic VDCC, it cannot be used to study the contribution of these channels to plasticity. We conclude that the activation of VDCC produces a large and persistent elevation of Ca2+ in all spines, but does not produce either LTP or long‐term depression (LTD) in the absence of synaptic stimulation. The possible reasons for this are discussed. Hippocampus 2002;12:667–679. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Role of Empowerment in the Professional Development of Middle Managers: An Exploratory Study in a Private School in Lebanon

This study is conducted in a Lebanese private school that began an initiative for clarifying job descriptions for middle managers and empowering them in order to enhance their work performance. The study explores the effects of this initiative by eliciting views of middle and senior management on the role of empowerment in professional development and performance. The study follows a mixed methods approach in which qualitative and quantitative data complement each other so that weaknesses of one type are overcome by strengths of the other as the main research questions are addressed. Five instruments were used for data collection: a valid and reliable published questionnaire was administered to all 18 middle managers regarding the 3 forms of empowerment-psychological, discretion and leadershipas well as their professional development in light of their empowerment. Reflective journals by one middle manager on her empowerment and extensive mentoring by external expert, and by the researcher who is also a middle manager in that school, created a platform for devising interview items for the other participants. Data from a semi-structured interview with the school principal and from relevant school records and documents were cross checked with middle managers’ data to enhance reliability of findings. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis yielded results that were grounded within the framework of selfdetermination, self-efficacy and empowerment theories and were compared to findings form the reviewed literature. Findings showed that middle managers perceived that empowerment enhanced their self-efficacy and performance but felt they needed a more rigorous professional development plan to prepare them for their roles and responsibilities as middle managers, and that their evaluations need to be linked to those.
Growth Induced by Incremental Static Stretch in Adult Rabbit Latissimus Dorsi Muscle

Incrementally applied static stretch over 3 weeks resulted in a 72% increase in the weight of the in situ latissimus dorsi muscle in rabbits. True growth rather than tissue oedema was confirmed by increases in the protein content (130%), the cross‐sectional area of the type I fibres (30%) and the muscle length (i.e. number of sarcomeres in series increased 25%). Despite an increase in the proportion of fibres staining positive for the enzyme succinate dehydrogenase (SDH), the myosin ATPase stain showed no appreciable fibre type transformation. While total power output in the stretched muscle was unchanged, its maximum mass specific power output, as determined by oscillatory work loops, was decreased by 50%. The cross‐sectional area that was occupied by connective tissue increased from 15 to 19% in the stretched muscles, with a concomitant increase in passive energy dissipation. Some incrementally stretched muscles were then allowed an additional 3 weeks of maintained stretch to determine whether the adaptive changes would be preserved or reversed. Previous gains in muscle weight, length and area of type I fibres all remained. In contrast, the connective tissue content and the passive properties returned to control values during this period.
Principles of parametric temporal imaging. II. System performance

For pt. I, see ibid., vol. 36, p. 430, April 2000. The waveform manipulation technique known as temporal imaging can expand or compress signals in time while maintaining the shape of their envelope profiles. The temporal imaging system is analogous to that of its spatial counterpart, with dispersive propagation performing the role of diffraction and quadratic phase modulation in time acting as a "time lens. " Recent work has concentrated on time lenses produced by the parametric mixing of the dispersed input signal with a linearly chirped optical pump pulse because of the broad bandwidth, and thus fine temporal resolution, that can be obtained. In a previous paper, we presented the numerous parametric imaging configurations that are possible and drew temporal ray diagrams to illustrate their operation. In this paper, we study the performance of these systems. Resolution, field of view, number of resolvable features, and distortions particular to this approach are discussed.
RNA versatility, flexibility, and thermostability for practice in RNA nanotechnology and biomedical applications

In recent years, RNA has attracted widespread attention as a unique biomaterial with distinct biophysical properties for designing sophisticated architectures in the nanometer scale. RNA is much more versatile in structure and function with higher thermodynamic stability compared to its nucleic acid counterpart DNA. Larger RNA molecules can be viewed as a modular structure built from a combination of many ‘Lego’ building blocks connected via different linker sequences. By exploiting the diversity of RNA motifs and flexibility of structure, varieties of RNA architectures can be fabricated with precise control of shape, size, and stoichiometry. Many structural motifs have been discovered and characterized over the years and the crystal structures of many of these motifs are available for nanoparticle construction. For example, using the flexibility and versatility of RNA structure, RNA triangles, squares, pentagons, and hexagons can be constructed from phi29 pRNA three‐way‐junction (3WJ) building block. This review will focus on 2D RNA triangles, squares, and hexamers; 3D and 4D structures built from basic RNA building blocks; and their prospective applications in vivo as imaging or therapeutic agents via specific delivery and targeting. Methods for intracellular cloning and expression of RNA molecules and the in vivo assembly of RNA nanoparticles will also be reviewed. WIREs RNA 2018, 9:e1452. doi: 10.1002/wrna.1452
Digital Strategies for Supporting Strengths- and Interests-based Learning with Children with Autism

Technologies to support children with autism tend to use predefined content to enhance specific skills, such as verbal communication or emotion recognition. Few mobilise the child's own (often very specific) interests, strengths and capabilities. Digital technologies offer opportunities for children to personalise learning with their own content, following their own interests and enabling their self-expression. This project sought to engage children to record and express their own interests within their contexts of support - the home and the classroom. The vehicle for self-expression was an audio-visual calendaring app called MeCalendar. Implementation was kept open-ended to allow teachers to use it in ways that best fit with their existing embedded practices. In this paper we report on how the prototype has been appropriated in two classrooms by teachers in an autism-specific school setting with children aged 6 to 7. Our contribution is an understanding of how technologies for self-expression led to enhanced verbal communication, positive reinforcement through video modelling, engagement in class tasks and enhanced social interaction. Children appropriated the design in unimagined ways, leading them to self-scaffold and to catalyse their confidence in social interaction and self-expression. Teachers played an integral role in appropriating the design in the classroom, specifically through their in-depth knowledge of each child and their individual needs, strengths and interests.
Towards Cloud-Aware Vulnerability Assessments

Vulnerability assessments are best practices for computer security and requirements for regulatory compliance. Potential and existing security holes can be identified during vulnerability assessments and security breaches could be averted. However, the unique nature of cloud computing environments requires more dynamic assessment techniques. The proliferation of cloud services and cloud-aware applications introduce more cloud vulnerabilities. But, current measures for identification, mitigation and prevention of cloud vulnerabilities do not suffice. Our investigations indicate a possible reason for this inefficiency to lapses in availability of precise, cloud vulnerability information. We observed also that most research efforts in the context of cloud vulnerability concentrate on IaaS, leaving other cloud models largely unattended. Similarly, most cloud assessment efforts tackle general cloud vulnerabilities rather than cloud specific vulnerabilities. Yet, mitigating cloud specific vulnerabilities is important for cloud security. Hence, this paper proposes a new approach that addresses the mentioned issues by monitoring, acquiring and adapting publicly available cloud vulnerability information for effective vulnerability assessments. We correlate vulnerability information from public vulnerability databases and develop Network Vulnerability Tests for specific cloud vulnerabilities. We have implemented, evaluated and verified the suitability of our approach.