Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrity in higher education marketing? A typology of misleading data-based claims in the university prospectus

This paper examines misleading marketing claims in UK university prospectuses. It reviews earlier studies suggesting that the imagery and language of university marketing can be misleading. It considers the use of data and statistics by universities in their advertising – a topic not previously studied. From a sample of UK university prospectuses a typology of misleading data-based marketing claims is proposed, with nine categories: omission of facts and selective reporting; misleading wording; misleading inferences about an attribute; misleading associations between attributes; misleading endorsements; claim-fact discrepancies; falsehoods; carefully crafted comparisons, and claims without a reference point. Because choosing a university is so important to students and because universities aspire to high ethical and scholarly standards, the issues raised by these findings are significant. The two bodies empowered to address this issue in the UK do not take a proactive approach and so it must fall to universities themselves to address the ethical challenges raised by misleading marketing.
Does overfitting affect performance in estimation of distribution algorithms

Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDAs) are a class of evolutionary algorithms that use machine learning techniques to solve optimization problems. Machine learning is used to learn probabilistic models of the selected population. This model is then used to generate next population via sampling. An important phenomenon in machine learning from data is called overfitting. This occurs when the model is overly adapted to the specifics of the training data so well that even noise is encoded. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether overfitting happens in EDAs, and to discover its consequences. What is found is: overfitting does occur in EDAs; overfitting correlates to EDAs performance; reduction of overfitting using early stopping can improve EDAs performance.
Endosonography-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy in the evaluation of pancreatic masses

OBJECTIVES:Diagnosis of pancreatic tumors can be problematic. This study aimed to determine the performance of endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy (EUS FNA) in pancreatic malignancy when prior biopsies performed by CT guidance or ERCP were negative.METHODS:A total of 185 patients with known or suspected pancreatic masses were prospectively evaluated with EUS FNA. Before EUS FNA, all patients were evaluated with abdominal CT (61 with CT-guided biopsy) and 91 with ERCP (41 had brushings or biopsy). RESULTS:EUS had greater sensitivity than CT in detecting a mass (99% vs 57%, p < 0.0001). In 58 patients with negative CT-guided biopsies, EUS FNA had 90% sensitivity for malignancy, 50% specificity for benign disease and 84% accuracy. Similarly, in 36 patients with negative ERCP tissue sampling, results for EUS FNA were 94%, 67% and 92%, respectively. Complications were mild and infrequent (0.5%). CONCLUSION:EUS FNA of pancreatic masses safely and accurately diagnoses pancreatic malignancy when prior biopsy techniques have been unsuccessful.
College Binge Drinking and Social Norms: Advancing Understanding Through Statistical Applications

ABSTRACT The extent to which social norms (injunctive and descriptive) are associated with collegiate alcohol use—including binge drinking—has been examined at length, but studies examining the efficacy of interventions derived thereof have reported mixed outcomes. This study examines data from 5,124 college students at 13 different colleges collected by the 2010 Indiana College Substance Use Survey in order to further elucidate the relationship between social norms and binge drinking. We apply seven different regression models to the data, finding the zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) model to fit best, likely due to the unique characteristics of the binge-drinking variable; individuals who do not consume any alcohol do not binge drink, inflating the frequency of zeroes for the variable. We contrast key findings from this model to those from other regression models as well as information from the literature and provide preliminary suggestions as to future directions for social norms research as it relates to collegiate binge drinking.
Linking family functioning to dating relationship quality via novelty-seeking and harm-avoidance personality pathways

Organized by the systems theory concepts of equifinality and interdependence (Broderick, 1993) and Huston's (2000) social ecology model, this study examined two personality-based pathways to dating relationship quality among college students. The first pathway extends from family dysfunction to dating relationship quality via novelty seeking and excessive drinking. The second pathway extends from family dysfunction to relationship quality via harm avoidance and interpersonal competence. Male (n = 64) and female (n = 105) undergraduates completed questionnaires. The findings strongly supported the first hypothesis that was derived from Huston's social ecology model and the systems principle of equifinality. There were significant associations between adjacent variables in the path model and the presence of both pathways in the tested model provided a good fit to the data. The second hypothesis, based on the systems principle of interdependence, was not supported when cross-pathway links were included in the tested model. Implications for theory and research are discussed.
α-Actinin-4 Is Required for Amoeboid-type Invasiveness of Melanoma Cells*

Background: Melanoma cells invasion through the dermis directly correlates with death, defining migration as critical. Results: ACTN4 down-regulation limits aggressive melanoma cells to a mesenchymal phenotype that retards collagen I matrix invasiveness. Conclusion: Amoeboidal morphology necessary for melanoma invasion requires ACTN4. Significance: This finding provides for a role of ACTN4 in melanoma invasion and implicates a linkage between actin cytoskeleton and melanoma progression. α-Actinin-4 (ACTN4), a key regulator of the actin cytoskeleton, is up-regulated in melanoma, though its role in melanoma remains speculative. We have discovered that in WM1158, a highly aggressive melanoma cell line, down-regulation of ACTN4 by shRNA induces a collagen I-dependent amoeboidal-to-mesenchymal transition. Re-expression of low levels of WT ACTN4 but not similar expression levels of ACTN1 successfully restores the amoeboidal morphology and limits collagen I gel compaction. A truncated ACTN4 mutant 1–890, which lacks the C-terminal tail, fails to rescue the amoeboidal morphology and to compact collagen I gel. Interestingly, in three-dimensional collagen I gels, ACTN4 KD cells are more polarized compared with cells in which scrambled shRNA is expressed. Surprisingly, ACTN4 KD cells migrate faster than the ones expressing the scrambled shRNA on a collagen I gel (two-dimensional) although these two cell lines migrate similarly on tissue culture. Most importantly, down-regulation of ACTN4 significantly reduced invasion of WM1158 cells into the three-dimensional collagen I gel, a representative of the dermis. Taken together, these findings suggest that ACTN4 plays an important role in maintaining the amoeboidal morphology of invasive melanoma and thus promoting dissemination through collagen-rich matrices.
Fabrication and Test of 90-mm $\hbox{Nb}_{3}\hbox{Sn}$  Quadrupole Coil Impregnated With MATRIMID—Bismaleimide Based Material

The traditional fabrication process used for Nb3Sn accelerator magnets involves reaction of the coils at high temperature and impregnation with epoxy to restore the electrical and mechanical properties of the insulation. The traditional epoxy offers adequate structural and electrical properties, but has low radiation strength, limiting the lifetime of magnets operating in severe radiation environments. This paper presents the results of a study in which the traditional epoxy was replaced with Matrimid 5292 as a coil impregnation material. Test stacks of cable were fabricated and impregnated with epoxy and Matrimid. Electrical, structural and thermal properties were measured and compared. A 90-mm-bore, 1-meter-long Nb3Sn quadrupole coil made of RRP 54/61 strand was fabricated, reacted, impregnated with Matrimid, and tested in a single coil test structure (quadrupole magnetic mirror). Test results are compared with the results for similar coils impregnated with epoxy.
Quasi-static scheduling for multiprocessor real-time systems with hard and soft tasks

We address in this paper the problem of scheduling for multiprocessor real-time systems with hard and soft tasks. Utility functions are associated to soft tasks to capture their relative importance and how the quality of results is affected when a soft deadline is missed. The problem is to find a task execution order that maximizes the total utility and guarantees the hard deadlines. In order to account for actual execution times, we consider time intervals for tasks rather than fixed execution times. A single static schedule computed offline is pessimistic, while a purely online approach, which computes a new schedule every time a task completes, incurs an unacceptable overhead. We propose therefore a quasi-static solution where a number of schedules are computed at design-time, leaving for run-time only the selection of a particular schedule, based on the actual execution times. We propose an exact algorithm as well as heuristics that tackle the time and memory complexity of the problem. We evaluate our approach through synthetic examples and a realistic application.
Dependency Injection with Static Analysis and Context-Aware Policy

The dependency injection design pattern improves the configurability, testability, and maintainability of object-oriented applications by decoupling components from both the concrete implementations of their dependencies and the strategy employed to select those implementations. In recent years, a number of libraries have emerged that provide automated support for constructing and connecting dependency-injected objects. Our experience developing systems with these tools has led us to identify two shortcomings of existing dependency injection solutions: the mechanisms for specifying component implementations often make it difficult to write and configure systems of arbitrarily-composable components, and the toolkit implementations often provide limited capabilities for inspection and static analysis of the object graphs of dependency-injected systems. We present Grapht, an new dependency injection container for Java that addresses these issues by providing context-aware policy, allowing component implementation decisions to depend on where in the object graph a component is required, and using a design that allows for static analysis of configured object graphs. To achieve its objectives, Grapht is built on a mathematical representation of dependency injection and object graphs that facilitates static analysis and straightforward implementation, and forms a basis for further consideration of the capabilities of dependency injection. The mathematical representation includes context-aware policy that we show to be strictly more expressive than the qualified dependencies used in many current toolkits. We demonstrate the utility of our approach with a case study showing how Grapht has aided in the development of the LensKit recommender systems toolkit.
Chalcogenopyrylium Dyes as Differential Modulators of Organic Anion Transport by Multidrug Resistance Protein 1 (MRP1), MRP2, and MRP4

Multidrug resistance proteins (MRPs) mediate the ATP-dependent efflux of structurally diverse compounds, including anticancer drugs and physiologic organic anions. Five classes of chalcogenopyrylium dyes (CGPs) were examined for their ability to modulate transport of [3H]estradiol glucuronide (E217βG; a prototypical MRP substrate) into MRP-enriched inside-out membrane vesicles. Additionally, some CGPs were tested in intact transfected cells using a calcein efflux assay. Sixteen of 34 CGPs inhibited MRP1-mediated E217βG uptake by >50% (IC50 values: 0.7–7.6 µM). Of 9 CGPs with IC50 values ≤2 µM, two belonged to class I, two to class III, and five to class V. When tested in the intact cells, only 4 of 16 CGPs (at 10 µM) inhibited MRP1-mediated calcein efflux by >50% (III-1, V-3, V-4, V-6), whereas a fifth (I-5) inhibited efflux by just 23%. These five CGPs also inhibited [3H]E217βG uptake by MRP4. In contrast, their effects on MRP2 varied, with two (V-4, V-6) inhibiting E217βG transport (IC50 values: 2.0 and 9.2 µM) and two (V-3, III-1) stimulating transport (>2-fold), whereas CGP I-5 had no effect. Strikingly, although V-3 and V-4 had opposite effects on MRP2 activity, they are structurally identical except for their chalcogen atom (Se versus Te). This study is the first to identify class V CGPs, with their distinctive methine or trimethine linkage between two disubstituted pyrylium moieties, as a particularly potent class of MRP modulators, and to show that, within this core structure, differences in the electronegativity associated with a chalcogen atom can be the sole determinant of whether a compound will stimulate or inhibit MRP2.
Forming Identities in Higher Education

Sociological theorising on academic culture takes into consideration Becher‟s (1989) distinction between hard vs. soft, and applied vs. pure disciplines. The dynamics of cultures and sub-cultures in academia is, moreover, theorise with the help of Bourdieu‟s concept of habituses of academics (Bourdieu, 1984). Depending on the disciplines position in the field exclusive, ambivalent, pragmatic and inclusive habitus are possible to discover (see Alheit, n/d). Academic culture can be presented by policy changes within HE both within academia as well as concerning access and students intake.
Teacher Supply and Demand: Surprises from Primary Research

An investigation of primary research studies on public school teacher supply and demand revealed four surprises. Projections show that enrollments are leveling off. Relatedly, annual hiring increases should be only about two or three percent over the next few years. Results from studies of teacher attrition also yield unexpected results. Excluding retirements, only about one in 20 teachers leaves each year, and the novice teachers who quit mainly cite personal and family reasons, not job dissatisfaction. Each of these findings broadens policy makers' options for teacher supply.
The efficacy of betulinic acid in triple-negative breast cancer

Purpose: The treatment of triple-negative breast cancer remains a daunting challenge with the standard-of-care treatments eventually failing due to acquired drug resistance, toxic side effects and the presence of a deregulated immune response. New treatments for overcoming these drawbacks include the use of plant extracts. Study design: In this study, the efficacy of betulinic acid, a naturally abundant phytochemical exhibiting anti-inflammatory and anti-proliferative activity, has been evaluated for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468 cell lines. Furthermore, the ability of betulinic acid to inhibit angiogenesis was also determined. Results: Here, we report that betulinic acid was able to inhibit the inflammatory response, inhibit angiogenesis and cause cell cycle arrest ultimately causing apoptosis in triple-negative breast cancer cells. Our findings support that the identification of naturally occurring anti-tumour compounds may provide a chemotherapeutic approach for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer. Conclusion: Overall, our results provide a molecular basis for the ability of betulinic acid to mediate apoptosis, suppress inflammation and inhibit angiogenesis in triple-negative breast cancer cell lines.
Modeling Network Interference in the Angular Domain: Interference Azimuth Spectrum

The performance of wireless networks is fundamentally limited by interference [or, equivalently, the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR)]. In an attempt to characterize the interference as a direction-selective quantity and motivated by the useful analogy between classical propagation channels and wireless networks, we propose a novel network description framework, namely the interference azimuth spectrum (IAS). The IAS represents the distribution of interference in the angular domain and is parallel to the conventional power azimuth spectrum (PAS) used in propagation channels. We also extend this concept to the directional characterization of average achievable rate, assuming that interference is treated as noise. Provided with this analytical framework, we present the notion of local area outage, defined as the probability that a receiver is in the state of outage within a local area where both interference and desired signal are assumed to be wide-sense stationary (WSS). We further propose the geometry-based stochastic models (GBSMs) as a part of the IAS framework, where the interfering terminals are randomly distributed according to a specific probability density function (pdf) of their positions. The GBSMs are applicable to a wide variety of wireless network environments without and with interferer clustering. The proposed methodology would provide useful insight on the design and performance assessment of future networks, featured by opportunistic, randomized, and dense placement of nodes.
Telomerase in Breast Cancer: A Critical Evaluation

Human chromosomes have highly specialized structures at their ends termed telomeres, repetitive, non-coding DNA sequences (5′-TTAGGG-3′), ranging in size from 5 to 20 kb in human cells. These highly specialized structures prevent chromosome ends from being recognized as double-strand DNA breaks, and they also provide protection from destabilizing agents. The mechanism for maintaining telomere integrity is controlled by telomerase, a ribonucleoprotein enzyme that specifically restores telomere sequences lost during replication by using an intrinsic RNA component as a template for polymerization. Telomerase has two core functional components required for its activity: the catalytic subunit of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) and a telomerase RNA template (hTR). Telomerase is activated in the majority of immortal cell lines in culture and in most malignant tumors. This review outlines our current understanding of telomerase in breast cancer development and critically evaluates potential utilities in diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy.
Scaling effects for streaming video vs. static panorama in multirobot search

Camera guided teleoperation has long been the preferred mode for controlling remote robots with other modes such as asynchronous control only used when unavoidable. Because controlling multiple robots places additional demands on the operator we hypothesized that removing the forced pace for reviewing camera video might reduce workload and improve performance. In an earlier experiment participants operated four teams performing a simulated urban search and rescue (USAR) task using a conventional streaming video plus map interface or an experimental interface without streaming video but with the ability to store panoramic images on the map to be viewed at leisure. Operators were more accurate in marking victims on maps using the conventional interface; however, ancillary measures suggested that the asynchronous interface succeeded in reducing temporal demands for switching between robots. This raised the possibility that the asynchronous interface might perform better if teams were larger. In this experiment we evaluate the usefulness of asynchronous video for teams of 4, 8, or 12 robots. Operators in the two conditions were equally successful in finding victims, however, the streaming video maintained its advantage for accuracy in locating victims.
Exposure-resilient extractors

An exposure-resilient extractor is an efficient procedure that, from a random variable with imperfect min-entropy, produces randomness that passes all statistical tests including those that have bounded access to the random variable, with adaptive queries that can depend on the string being tested. More precisely, EXT : {0, 1}n times {0, 1}d rarr {0, 1}m is a (k, epsi)-exposure resilient extractor resistant to q queries if, when the min-entropy of x is at least k and y is random, EXT(x, y) looks epsi-random to all statistical tests modeled by oracle circuits of unbounded complexity that can query q bits of x. We construct, for any delta < 1, a(k, epsi)-exposure resilient extractor with query resistance ndelta, k = n - nOmega(1), epsi = n-Omega(1), m = nOmega(1) and d = O(log n)
Beam-induced motion correction for sub-megadalton cryo-EM particles

In electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM), the electron beam that is used for imaging also causes the sample to move. This motion blurs the images and limits the resolution attainable by single-particle analysis. In a previous Research article (Bai et al., 2013) we showed that correcting for this motion by processing movies from fast direct-electron detectors allowed structure determination to near-atomic resolution from 35,000 ribosome particles. In this Research advance article, we show that an improved movie processing algorithm is applicable to a much wider range of specimens. The new algorithm estimates straight movement tracks by considering multiple particles that are close to each other in the field of view, and models the fall-off of high-resolution information content by radiation damage in a dose-dependent manner. Application of the new algorithm to four data sets illustrates its potential for significantly improving cryo-EM structures, even for particles that are smaller than 200 kDa. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.03665. 001
Role of vascular endothelial growth factor and placental growth factors during retinal vascular development and hyaloid regression.

PURPOSE Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A and placental growth factor (PlGF) are members of a large group of homologous peptides identified as the VEGF family. Although VEGF-A is known to act as a potent angiogenic peptide in the retina, the vasoactive function of PlGF in this tissue is less well defined. This study has sought to elucidate the expression patterns and modulatory role of these growth factors during retinal vascular development and hyaloid regression in the neonatal mouse. METHODS C57BL6J mice were killed at postnatal days (P)1, P3, P5, P7, P9, and P11. The eyes were enucleated and processed for in situ hybridization and immunocytochemistry and the retinas extracted for total protein or RNA. Separate groups of neonatal mice were also injected intraperitoneally daily from P2 through P9 with either VEGF-neutralizing antibody, PlGF-neutralizing antibody, isotype immunoglobulin (Ig)-G, or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). The mice were then perfused with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-dextran, and the eyes were subsequently embedded in paraffin wax or flat mounted. RESULTS Quantitative (real-time) reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) demonstrated similar expression patterns of VEGF-A and PlGF mRNA during neonatal retinal development, although the fluctuation between time periods was greater overall for VEGF-A. The localization of VEGF-A and PlGF in the retina, as revealed by in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry, was also similar. Neutralization of VEGF-A caused a significant reduction in the hyaloid and retinal vasculature, whereas PlGF antibody treatment caused a marked persistence of the hyaloid without significantly affecting retinal vascular development. CONCLUSIONS Although having similar expression patterns in the retina, these growth factors appear to have distinct modulatory influences during normal retinal vascular development and hyaloid regression.