Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Uptake of rosuvastatin by isolated rat hepatocytes: comparison with pravastatin

1. The liver is the target organ for the lipid-regulating effect of rosuvastatin, a new 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitor, and liver-selective uptake of this drug is therefore a desirable property. The uptake kinetics of rosuvastatin were investigated and compared with those of pravastatin using isolated rat hepatocytes. 2. Uptake for both drugs involved both active transport and passive diffusion processes. The Michaelis constant (K m) of uptake rate for rosuvastatin (9.17 µM) was approximately half that for pravastatin (16.5 µM). However, the maximum uptake rate (V max) and carrier-mediated uptake clearance (V max / K m) of rosuvastatin were significantly (p < 0.01) greater than those of pravastatin, and a larger contribution of carrier-mediated uptake clearance to total uptake clearance was shown for rosuvastatin (contribution ratio 0.903 versus pravastatin 0.654). 3. Sodium and chloride ions did not play a significant role in the uptake of rosuvastatin and pravastatin, but the uptake of both drugs was inhibited both by depletion of cellular ATP and by organic anions such as bromosulfophthalein. 4. Rosuvastatin competitively inhibited the uptake of pravastatin, with an inhibition constant (K i) (2.75 µM) relatively similar to its K m. 5. The results suggest that an organic anion transport protein is the main mediator of the hepatic uptake of rosuvastatin and pravastatin, which occurs in an ATP-dependent manner. Our results indicated that rosuvastatin was taken up by the hepatocytes via the same transport systems as pravastatin, but with a greater affinity and efficiency than pravastatin.
A reply to Rosser and Kirman

Let me start off by thanking Alan Kirman and Barkley Rosser for their careful reviews of my book Behavioural Rationality and Heterogeneous Expectations in Complex Economic Systems. Their beautifully phrased reviews nicely capture the essential features of the book and raise a number of interesting and important points for discussion. The book shows how instability arises through nonlinearities and interactions of heterogeneous expectation rules and how this leads to Poincaré’s notion of homoclinic orbits and chaotic dynamics. The book also emphasizes the empirical relevance of nonrational expectations (REs) dynamics, especially in positive feedback systems. Where does this positive feedback come from? Alan Kirman points to a very important observation about human behaviour also made by Poincaré, when he wrote his report for Bachelier’s thesis developing the random walk hypothesis: they have an inherent tendency to act like sheep. Individuals coordinate their actions, and this is not necessarily irrational. In positive feedback systems, it is in fact better to follow the majority. In his review, Alan Kirman raises a number of points that merit further discussion: (1) ‘the wilderness of bounded rationality’, (2) coordination of beliefs that are collectively ‘wrong’, (3) gains versus forecast accuracy and (4) non-stationarity and structural breaks. Let me discuss these points in a slightly different order, starting with (2). The learning-to-forecast laboratory experiments (the last chapter of the book) show that in positive feedback systems, subjects coordinate their actions on the ‘wrong’ price, that is, on a price very different from the homogeneous REs price, and these beliefs are (almost) self-fulfilling. As Alan Kirman notes, this goes back to an old (theoretical) literature of learning, e.g. Bray (1982), Kirman (1983) and Woodford (1990). Hommes (2013) relates almost self-fulfilling equilibria in positive feedback systems to Soros’ ideas of reflexivity and fallibility (Soros, 2013). Research should focus on which of these almost self-fulfilling equilibria are empirically the most relevant and are learnable through coordination of a large group of individuals. Laboratory macro experiments, where aggregate behaviour is shaped by many individual decisions, are extremely useful in this respect. I would conjecture that simplicity of the patterns of these equilibria is crucial here. Coordination on simple almost self-fulfilling equilibria seems more likely in a large group of individuals than learning to believe in complicated erratic stochastic sunspots. What experiments have shown is that, in simple laboratory environments, coordination on a converging path to equilibrium, on an oscillating path around equilibrium and also on bubble and crash dynamics is possible through learning in the laboratory, especially in positive feedback systems.
Combining cell sorting with gas chromatography to determine phytoplankton group-specific intracellular dimethylsulphoniopropionate

An approach combining flow-cytometric fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) of specific phytoplankton groups and subsequent quantification of dimethylsulphoniopropionate (DMSP) content by gas chromatography (GC) is introduced and applied to cultivated microalgae and natural seawater samples. The FACS-GC based method produces statistically robust estimates of the intracellular DMSP content of a variety of phytoplankton groups ranging from prokaryotic Synechococcus spp. to eukaryotic nanophytoplankton. Comparison between FACS and traditional filtration approaches to determine intracellular DMSP content of cultivated microalgae illustrates variable responses between species to the 2 methods. Natural photosynthetic nanoeukaryote populations contained high intracellular DMSP content; comparable to many cultivated prymnesiophyte taxa. A surprisingly high DMSP content was found in natural populations of Synechococcus spp. , in contrast to previous values measured in cultivated strains, but possibly confirming the uptake and retention of DMSP by this photosynthetic prokaryote. When combined, the DMSP contributions of each phytoplankton group amounted to between 40 and 57 % of total DMSP in each water sample, with the bulk of the total comprising nanoeukaryote-DMSP. The approach has high potential to provide information that enables better parameterisation of phytoplankton functional types in mechanistic dimethyl sulphide models and to help elucidate the environmental controls that govern the extent and diversity of DMSP production in the oceans.
Use of randomized algorithms for enhancing learning ability in algorithms course

In the field of Computer Science and Engineering, the Algorithms course is considered very important for not only it forms the basis for several concepts but also, its in-depth understanding can help one solve many new and challenging problems in an efficient manner. Whether a student pursues his career in academia or industry, depth of his understanding in Algorithms is certainly tested during competitive exams directly or indirectly. In this paper, we discuss a case study of using an innovative approach based on randomized algorithms and some statistics in teaching Algorithms to engineering students, with aim to provide students a better individual learning experience. The approach has wider applicability but here it is practiced in relation to sorting algorithms. In this paper, we also discuss the student's feedback that we collected after completion of the course. It was observed that students were very appreciative of this novel approach used, and the majority of students found that it helped them in getting more clarity and deeper understanding of sorting algorithms.
A Millinewton Resolution Fiber Bragg Grating-Based Catheter Two-Dimensional Distal Force Sensor for Cardiac Catheterization

This paper presents the development of a novel 2-D fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-based micro-force sensing design for detection of catheter tip-tissue interaction forces. A miniature and symmetrical force-sensitive flexure-based catheter distal sensor has been prototyped, and four optical fibers inscribed with one FBG element each have been mounted on it for force and temperature decoupling and detection. The axial property of the tightly suspended fiber configuration has been utilized with a pre-tensioned force, and the embedded FBG element can be stretched and compressed to sense the force-induced and temperature-caused strain variations. The proposed configuration can achieve an improved resolution and sensitivity than the light intensity modulation-based approaches, and avoid the limitations closely associated with the commonly direct FBG-pasting methods, such as chirping failure and low repeatability. Finite-element modeling (FEM)-based simulation has been implemented to investigate the flexure performance and improve the design. The decoupling approach has been proposed based on the simulation results and implemented to separate and determine the force and temperature. The force-sensing flexure prototype has been calibrated to achieve a resolution of around 4.6 mN within the measurement range of 0 ~ 3.5 N. Both static calibration experiments and in-vitro dynamic experiments have been performed to prove the feasibility of the proposed design. The decoupling capacity of force and temperature will benefit its broad implementations in generalized intravascular catherization procedures.
Thermal Adaptability of Proteins on Amino Acid Composition

This paper is on composition difference of proteins with different thermal adaptability. Statistic analysis of protein sequences and lattice simulation according to the composition differences were done. Differently with the other works on this subject, the composition comparison was based upon hyperthermophilic, thermophilic, mesophilic, psychrotolerantic and psychrophilic proteins together. According to the results, we think that the composition differences of proteins with different thermal adaptability indeed have biological effects of thermal adaptability. The results also show the consistency of the composition difference between thermophilic and psychrophilic proteins and the composition difference between prokaryotic and eukaryotic proteins. This supports the hypothesis of biological evolution from thermophiles.
A Classification Study of Carbon Assets into Commodities

This paper explores the classification of carbon assets generally considered as commodities by examining the characteristics of carbon prices. We propose a carbon price model reflecting the characteristics of the prices. The empirical studies using EUA (EU allowance) futures prices traded on the European Climate Exchange show that convenience yield of EUAs violates the property of commodities in terms of negative correlations between convenience yields of EUAs and EUA prices. It corresponds to the characteristics of the model we propose. Next, we examine mean reversion and seasonality of EUA futures prices often observed in commodity markets using AR(1) model with an annual sinusoidal trend. We show that EUA price analyses reject the existence of mean reversion and seasonality. We also examine the conditional correlations between EUA different delivery futures prices, resulting in almost positive correlations which may hold the same shape of the term structure as contango. In addition, the empirical studies using EUA option prices traded on the ECX show that carbon prices behave unlike commodities but like securities in terms of volatility smile. These empirical studies may support the counter argument to the classification of carbon assets into commodities.
A collaborative framework for generating probabilistic contracts

We propose a collaborative framework for generating probabilistic contracts for Android smartphones aimed at detecting repackaged applications. To this end, a network of users sends to the application server the sequences of actions that represent the usage profile of the application. Then, the application server generates a contract from this set of traces. Contracts are represented through clustered probabilistic automata. At run-time, a monitoring system on the smartphone verifies the compliance of the running application against the contract through the Pearson's Chi Squared test. In the preliminary tests, the proposed framework has been able to detect repackaged applications whose behavior is strongly similar to the original application but hide malware.
Social incidence and economic costs of carbon limits: a computable general equilibrium analysis for Taiwan

In this paper, a computable general equilibrium model is constructed and is applied to analyse the economic costs of carbon emissions limits on the Taiwanese economy. The counterfactual simulation technique is applied to investigate the economic effects of mitigating carbon emissions via a carbon tax with a compensation policy. Empirical results basing on the Taiwan's data show that both compensation policies, i.e. income tax rate decrease and carbon tax revenues transfer, can reduce the costs of carbon emissions limits and possibly offset welfare reductions due to implementation of a carbon tax. These results also show that, with respect to allocation and distributional effects, the carbon tax revenues transfer is better than the income tax rate decrease for the selection in compensation policy. From the acceptability of national greenhouse policy, this finding reveals that the economic costs of limiting carbon emissions via a carbon tax can be reduced, if carbon emissions limits are accompanied by redistributing carbon tax revenues.
Disciplining firms: the impact of trade reforms on profit margins in Indian industry

The paper analyses the effects of increased trade exposure on the profitability of firms in Indian industry. While trade reforms are often expected to decrease profit margins as firms struggle to compete in international markets, there is the possibility that increased competition may improve firm efficiency and provide a positive impetus to firm profitability. This paper is different from many others in this area in that it considers both these possibilities. An efficiency index is created to directly analyse the impact of changing efficiency levels on firm profit margins. Results indicate that liberalization significantly influenced profit margins. However, its main effect is through the impact that it has had on other firm variables - market shares, advertising, R&D and exports - all of which changed after 1991. While exports have had a pro-competitive effect on profit margins in the selected sample, AD and R&D both cause an increase in profit margins. It is also found that neither capital nor managerial capabilities (as proxied by remuneration) are particularly effective in increasing profit margins.
Patterns of childhood poverty: New challenges for policy

Poverty takes many forms. Using data from the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this article (1) distinguishes different kinds of childhood poverty, defined in terms of the spacing, severity, and duration of spells; and (2) establishes the extent and distribution of childhood poverty, employing new measures that take into account both duration and severity. Some strategies for targeting assistance on particular forms of poverty are briefly considered.
Margining : Strategy vs Risk

This paper presents the results of a novel mathematical and experimental analysis of two approaches to margining customer accounts, strategy-based and risk-based. Building combinatorial models of hedging mechanisms of these approaches, we show that the strategy-based approach is, at this point, the most appropriate one for margining security portfolios in customer margin accounts, while the risk-based approach can work efficiently for margining only index portfolios in customer mar-gin accounts and inventory portfolios of brokers. We also show that the application of the risk-based approach to security portfolios in customer margin accounts is very risky and can result in the pyramid of debt in the bullish market and the pyramid of loss in the bearish market. The results of this paper support the thesis that the use of the risk-based approach to margining customer accounts with positions in stocks and stock options since April 2007 influenced and triggered the U.S. stock market crash in October 2008. We also provide recommendations on ways to set appropriate margin requirements to help avoid such failures in the future.
A new intellectual property organization for Africa

Against the backdrop of Final Draft Statute of the Pan-African Intellectual Property Organization (PAIPO) (Ref: AU/STRC/522), this paper takes a look at the desirability, efficacy and practicability of an African-continental-wide intellectual property organization (Pan-African Intellectual Property Organization).
The nature of market competition and innovation: does competition improve innovation output?

The modelling of the relationship between innovation and competition through the theory of auction is simplistic. Researchers are re-evaluating previously tenuous assumptions in order to validate these thoughts for empirical use. However, the empirical verifications of this modelling remain fragmented and often unsatisfactory. Our study proposes different empirical approaches by testing the type of competition (Bertrand versus Cournot) between industries and by doing a more rigorous (by incorporating all specifications of auction models including uncertainty, extension of the property rights and capital constraints) and general (by constructing multi-sector data) verification. This paper explores also the rich information of the Community Innovation Survey. It groups together detailed innovation data sets and the patent data from the European Patent Office for France. The constructed data come from 612 firms financed by public Research and Development (R&D) investment (hereafter called public sector) and 3240 firms financed by private R&D investment (hereafter called civil sector). Our results, based mainly on a random coefficient model, illustrate that at the public sector, competition index is not correlated with innovation output. This is consistent with the belief that product market competition does not stimulate product innovation in this sector. At the civil sector, the competition index is positively and strongly correlated with innovation output. This result is expected since innovation for conquering new markets seems to be important for the civil sector. The market drives innovation output.
A Metadata-Rich File System

Despite continual improvements in the performance and reliability of large scale file systems, the management of file system metadata has changed little in the past decade. The mismatch between the size and complexity of large scale data stores and their ability to organize and query their metadata has led to a de facto standard in which raw data is stored in traditional file systems, while related, application-specific metadata is stored in relational databases. This separation of data and metadata requires considerable effort to maintain consistency and can result in complex, slow, and inflexible system operation. To address these problems, we have developed the Quasar File System (QFS), a metadata-rich file system in which files, metadata, and file relationships are all first class objects. In contrast to hierarchical file systems and relational databases, QFS defines a graph data model composed of files and their relationships. QFS includes Quasar, an XPATH-extended query language for searching the file system. Results from our QFS prototype show the effectiveness of this approach. Compared to the defacto standard, the QFS prototype shows superior ingest performance and comparable query performance on user metadata-intensive operations and superior performance on normal file metadata operations.
Impact of Freshman Transition Interventions on Ninth Grade Academic Achievement

Emily Spake Brown. IMPACT OF FRESHMAN TRANSITION INTERVENTIONS ON NINTH GRADE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT. (Under t he direction of Dr. Deanna Keith) School of Education, April, 2010. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of various freshman transition interventions on student academic achievement. Specifically, this study aim ed to measure academic success by focusing upon ninth grade End of Course Test (EOC T) scores. The data were collected using a researcher-developed survey. Aft er securing permission from all superintendents, the survey was electronically mailed to a ll high school principals within the state of Georgia. Among participating systems, the s urvey response rate was 78.4 percent. Based upon expert opinion, the twenty individual intervention items were categorized into three domains. The domain data were nalyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The researcher also ran correlat ive analysis. The results of this study indicated that no statistical significance exi sted regarding the implementation of freshman transition interventions and ninth grade EOCT scores. These results have probable implications for public school systems within the stat e of Georgia as how to best design the most effective programming for incoming ninth graders. Additionally, this information can assist educators, both at the dist rict and state level, in designing the most effective and cost-effective strategies for transition intervention.
Prospective study of determinants and outcomes of deferred treatment or watchful waiting among men with prostate cancer in a nationwide cohort.

PURPOSE To examine consequences of deferred treatment (DT) as initial management of prostate cancer (PCa) in a contemporary, prospective cohort of American men diagnosed with PCa. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS We evaluated deferred treatment for PCa in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, a prospective study of 51,529 men. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) for time to eventual treatment among men who deferred treatment for more than 1 year after diagnosis. HRs for time to metastasis or death as a result of PCa were compared between patients who deferred treatment and those who underwent immediate treatment within 1 year of diagnosis. RESULTS From among 3,331 cohort participants diagnosed with PCa from 1986 to 2007, 342 (10.3%) initially deferred treatment. Of these, 174 (51%) remained untreated throughout follow-up (mean 7.7 years); the remainder were treated an average of 3.9 years after diagnosis. Factors associated with progression to treatment among DT patients included younger age, higher clinical stage, higher Gleason score, and higher prostate-specific antigen at diagnosis. We observed similar rates for development of metastases (n = 20 and n = 199; 7.2 v 8.1 per 1,000 person-years; P = .68) and death as a result of PCa (n = 8 and n = 80; 2.4 v 2.6 per 1,000 person-years; P = .99) for DT and immediate treatment, respectively. CONCLUSION In this nationwide cohort, more than half the men who opted for DT remained without treatment for 7.7 years after diagnosis. Older men and men with lesser cancer severity at diagnosis were more likely to remain untreated. PCa mortality did not differ between DT and active treatment patients.