Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association between rs 9904341 G < C gene polymorphism and susceptibility to pancreatic cancer in a Chinese population

We conducted a case-control study to investigate the association between the survivin rs9904341 G<C polymorphism and risk of pancreatic cancer. A total of 261 pancreatic cancer patients who were pathologically confirmed to have pancreatic cancer were included in the study. Polymorphisms of rs9904341 G<C were assessed by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism. Pancreatic cancer patients were more likely to be smokers, have a family history of cancer, and have diabetes. Using multivariate logistic regression analysis, the CC genotype was found to be associated with a significantly increased risk of pancreatic cancer risk compared with the GG genotype (odds ratio = 1.85, 95% confidence interval = 1.12-3.01). Moreover, those carrying the C allele had a higher risk of pancreatic cancer compared to those with the G allele (odds ratio = 1.38, 95% confidence interval = 1.08-1.77). In conclusion, we found that the survivin rs9904341 polymorphism was associated with an increased risk of acute pancreatitis.
Nematicidal Activity of 5-Hydroxymethyl-2-furoic Acid against Plant-Parasitic Nematodes

Abstract A nematicide, 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furoic acid (1), was isolated from cultures of the fungus Aspergillus sp. and its structure was identified by spectroscopic analysis. Compound 1 showed effective nematicidal activities against the pine wood nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus and the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans without inhibitory activity against plant growth, but 1 did not show any effective nematicidal activity against Pratylenchus penetrans.
Impacts of Financial Literacy on the Loan Decisions of Financially Excluded Households in the People's Republic of China

Financial literacy is a key tool being used to bring economically vulnerable populations into the financial mainstream. Data from the 2013 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) were used to investigate the impacts of various dimensions of financial literacy on the use of bank and non-bank loans among rural, illiterate, and migrant populations in the People’s Republic of China. The findings show that the most vulnerable groups may be less likely to benefit from financial literacy, especially when it comes to usage of formal bank loans. Other factors such as those related to social networks and infrastructure may matter more than financial literacy. Results were found to vary across measures of financial literacy and financial inclusion. The findings suggest that barriers to access likely need to be overcome so that financial literacy can be more effective. The current study provides important insights for policy makers and international organizations designing national strategies to improve financial inclusion via financial literacy, especially for populations that have been traditionally excluded. Researchers are encouraged to reexamine previous definitions and measures of financial literacy and inclusion to develop a better understanding of the relationship between the two dimensions.
DLL-based clock recovery in a PRML channel

A DLL-based clock recovery circuit is designed to eliminate drawbacks of the VCO while maintaining the advantages of a PLL for frequency multiplication and jitter filtering. This design demonstrates that the tracking jitter is 1/20 of that of a PLL for a 1024 times frequency multiplication. The circuits are verified with PRML detectors for BD/DVD at channel bit rates of 264/478 Mb/s.
Effect of Message Format and Content on Attitude Accessibility Regarding Sexually Transmitted Infections

ABSTRACT Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are widespread in the United States among people ages 15–24 years and cost almost $16 billion yearly. It is therefore important to understand message design strategies that could help reduce these numbers. Guided by exemplification theory and the extended parallel process model (EPPM), this study examines the influence of message format and the presence versus absence of a graphic image on recipients’ accessibility of STI attitudes regarding safe sex. Results of the experiment indicate a significant effect from testimonial messages on increased attitude accessibility regarding STIs compared to statistical messages. Results also indicate a conditional indirect effect of testimonial messages on STI attitude accessibility, though threat is greater when a graphic image is included. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Rapid phenotyping of HPA‐1a using either diabody‐based hemagglutination or recombinant IgG1‐based assays

BACKGROUND: The HPA‐1 system is carried on the β3 integrin. HPA‐1a (Zwa, PlA1) is immunogenic in an HPA‐1b homozygote (HPA‐1b1b). In pregnancy, 1 of 365 women forms anti‐HPA‐1a, which causes severe thrombocytopenia in 1 in 1100 neonates. Identification of women at risk of forming anti‐HPA‐1a and the screening of donors to obtain HPA‐1a‐negative platelets for therapy need reliable, low‐cost, automated assays.
The Influence of Transformational Leadership on Top Management’s Behavioral Integration and Organizational Ambidexterity in Dynamic Environment—An Empirical Study based on E-commerce Enterprises in China

As market competition continuously intensifies, how to cope with existing and potential market challenges in complex, dynamic environments is a major problem haunting Chinese e-commerce enterprises in their strategic planning. In order to solve this problem, the theory of organizational ambidexterity is applied in this paper to the strategic practices of Chinese e-commerce enterprises, and starting from the view of corporate leadership, the mediated role of top management’s behavioral integration (referred to as TMBI in the following content) in the relationship between transformational leadership behavior and organizational ambidexterity is discussed. In addition, against the practical background that Chinese e-commerce enterprises are facing highly competitive environments, further clarification is made herein by using environmental dynamics as the moderator variable for the mediated link. Through empirical tests on 198 samples of Chinese e-commerce enterprises, we find that: 1) transformational leadership has a positive influence on organizational ambidexterity, and TMBI plays a full mediated role in that influencing process; 2) environmental dynamics moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and TMBI, but don’t have a moderated effect on the relationship between TMBI and organizational ambidexterity. According to the research conclusion in this paper, the mechanism of transformational leadership influencing organizational ambidexterity can be better explained when two important factors, TMBI and environmental dynamics, are taken into consideration. The research in this paper provides not only important revelations for the development of organizational ambidexterity research as well as the application of relevant research achievements, but also supports for Chinese e-commerce enterprises’ effective strategic practices in theory.
A role for calnexin (IP90) in the assembly of class II MHC molecules.

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II antigens consist of alpha and beta chains that associate intracellularly with the invariant (I) chain. The HLA‐DR alpha beta I complex assembles in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) into a nonameric structure via progressive addition of three alpha beta dimers to a core invariant chain trimer. We have examined intracellular association of alpha beta I complexes with the resident ER protein calnexin. Calnexin associates rapidly (within 3 min) with newly synthesized alpha, beta and I chains, and remains associated with the assembling alpha beta I complex until the final alpha beta dimer is added, forming the complete nonamer. Dissociation of calnexin parallels egress of alpha beta I from the ER. These results suggest that calnexin retains and stabilizes both free class II subunits and partially assembled class II‐I chain complexes until assembly of the nonamer is complete.
Impact of clinicopathological characteristics on the efficacy of neoadjuvant therapy in patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor‐2‐positive breast cancer

Neoadjuvant therapy has become increasingly common in human epidermal growth factor receptor‐2 (HER2)‐positive breast cancer. In this study, we examined the impact of different clinicopathological characteristics on pathological complete response (pCR) in patients treated with anti‐HER2 agents. The PubMed and Embase databases were searched from inception through April 2017 to identify studies that met pre‐specified criteria. The odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were extracted directly or were calculated with other available information. Eleven randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that involved 3,269 HER2‐positive women were included in this meta‐analysis. Patients with hormone receptor (HR)‐negative breast cancer benefited more from anti‐HER2 therapy than did patients with HR‐positive tumours (OR, 2.25; 95% CI, 1.93‐2.62). Furthermore, this improvement in pCR was independent of anti‐HER2 agents, phase, combined chemotherapy, neoadjuvant duration, year the trials started and region where the trials were conducted. Patients with small tumours achieved greater benefits than patients with large tumours (OR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.00‐1.55). Age did not predict an additional benefit from anti‐HER2 neoadjuvant treatment (OR, 1.02; 95% CI, 0.73‐1.45). The impact of nodal status on pCR was dependent on the anti‐HER2 agents. In conclusion, for HER2‐targeted neoadjuvant treatment in breast cancer, greater benefits were achieved in patients with small HR‐negative tumours compared with patients with large HR‐positive tumours. These results may improve drug development and treatment strategies, economic analyses and the design and interpretation of clinical trials.
Description of the eudoxid stages of Lensia havock and Lensia leloupi (Cnidaria: Siphonophora: Calycophorae), with a review of all known Lensia eudoxid bracts

The majority of calycophoran siphonophores release cormidia from the end of the polygastric colony to form a free-living sexual unit, called the eudoxid stage. Despite having a very different morphology from that of the polygastric colony, nearly all calycophoran species have had their eudoxid stages described, through a combination of morphological and distributional similarities with the polygastric stages. However, in the catch-all genus Lensia, less than half of the small, rocket-shaped polygastric stages have had eudoxid stages assigned to them. In this work, DNA barcoding of the mitochondrial 16S gene allowed two new Lensia eudoxid stages to be reliably linked with their polygastric stages: L. havock and L. leloupi. A re-examination of the latter species has indicated that L. nagabhushanami is a junior synonym. A review of all known Lensia eudoxid bracts is given, with some notes on five as-yet unassigned eudoxid stages. http//zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:0C7F3376-B07C-481D-8F2F-367E2B7152CC
Where Were You Yesterday: Privacy Risk of Published Anonymous Trajectories

With more and more trajectory traces available, conducting analysis and mining on those trajectories can obtain valuable information. Although the published traces are often made anonymous by substituting the true identities of mobile nodes with random identifiers, the privacy concern remains. In this paper, we propose a new de-anonymization attack based on the movement pattern of moving objects. Since moving objects are open to observe in public spaces, an attacker can easily learn information about a victim's movement either through direct observations or from third parties. After collecting a few trajectory segments of a mobile object, the movement pattern of the victim can be extracted, using an improved TF-IDF method. By comparing the movement pattern of the victim with those extracted from historical anonymous traces, it is possible to identify the victim from the anonymous traces. We conduct extensive trace-driven simulations and the results demonstrate that the attacker is able to de-anonymize anonymous trajectories with high probability.
OWAD operators in Type-2 fuzzy ontologies

Fuzzy ontologies provide an efficient tool to represent and utilize imprecise and vague data in decision making problems. In the presence of imprecise data in ontologies, aggregation operators play an important role in the decision making process. In this paper we present new definitions of ordered weighted averaging distance (OWAD) operators for interval-valued fuzzy numbers (IVFN) and show that the new definitions satisfy some important properties. The operators are employed to aggregate information in fuzzy ontologies in order to aid decision makers to find the most similar object in the ontology to a given case.
Gene expression study of mitochondrial complex I in schizophrenia and paranoid personality disorder

Abstract Objectives: The aetiology and molecular mechanisms of schizophrenia (SCZ) and paranoid personality disorder (PPD) are not yet clarified. The present study aimed to assess the role of mitochondrial complex I and cell bioenergetic pathways in the aetiology and characteristics of SCZ and PPD. Methods: mRNA levels of all genomic and mitochondrial genes which encode mitochondrial complex I subunits (44 genes) were assessed in blood in 634 SCZ, 340 PPD patients and 528 non-psychiatric subjects using quantitative real-time PCR, and associated comprehensive psychiatric, neurological and biochemical assessments. Results: Significant expression changes of 18 genes in SCZ patients and 11 genes in PPD patients were detected in mitochondrial complex I. Most of these genes were novel candidate genes for SCZ and PPD. Several correlations between mRNA levels and severity of symptoms, drug response, deficits in attention, working memory, executive functions and brain activities were found. Conclusions: Deregulations of both core and supernumerary subunits of complex I are involved in the aetiology of SCZ and PPD. These deregulations have effects on brain activity as well as disorder characteristics.
Redesign of extensive protein–DNA interfaces of meganucleases using iterative cycles of in vitro compartmentalization

Significance Specific gene-targeting nucleases are critical for genetic engineering and therapy. Meganucleases have been shown to harbor many properties, including small monomeric folds and high cleavage specificities, that are appropriate for this purpose. However, they are rarely used for genome modification because their DNA specificity requires an extensive network of up to 50 amino acids, making redesign difficult. Because extensively reprogramming molecular recognition across such a complex interface is a fundamental biotechnology challenge, meganucleases are used here as a model system for the development of an efficient approach to alter their specificity. The nucleases produced by this method, when tethered to transcription activator-like effector domains, resulted in highly active DNA targeting reagents with notable recognition properties. LAGLIDADG homing endonucleases (meganucleases) are sequence-specific DNA cleavage enzymes used for genome engineering. Recently, meganucleases fused to transcription activator-like effectors have been demonstrated to efficiently introduce targeted genome modifications. However, retargeting meganucleases to genomic sequences of interest remains challenging because it usually requires extensive alteration of a large number of amino acid residues that are situated in and near the DNA interface. Here we describe an effective strategy to extensively redesign such an extensive biomolecular interface. Well-characterized meganucleases are computationally screened to identify the best candidate enzyme to target a genomic region; that protein is then redesigned using iterative rounds of in vitro selections within compartmentalized aqueous droplets, which enable screening of extremely large numbers of protein variants at each step. The utility of this approach is illustrated by engineering three different meganucleases to cleave three human genomic sites (found in two exons and one flanking intron in two clinically relevant genes) and a fourth endonuclease that discriminates between single-nucleotide polymorphism variants of one of those targets. Fusion with transcription activator-like effector DNA binding domains significantly enhances targeted modification induced by meganucleases engineered in this study. Simultaneous expression of two such fusion endonucleases results in efficient excision of a defined genomic region.
Human Development in Gujarat: Evidence from 2011 Population Census

This article uses the data available from the 2011 population census to construct the human development index (HDI) right up to the village and municipal ward level in Gujarat. The analysis reveals that the human progress in the state and in its constituent districts, sub-districts, towns and villages has largely been average to low, and strong residence and social class inequalities in human development continue to persist. The human development scenario is contrastingly different in rural and urban areas of the state. There is, however, a substantial proportion of municipal wards within towns where human development appears to be low or very low. The analysis also suggests very strong residence and social class effects on human development in the state. It also appears that human progress in the state has stagnated at average levels during the last decade. Despite the fact that there is still substantial scope for human progress. There is a need to reinvigorate human development efforts in the state.
Dehydration in Southern Toads (Anaxyrus terrestris): Metabolic Costs and Effects of Temperature Selection

2 Introduction . 2 Methods and Materials. 5 Experimental Animals . 5 Preparation for Metabolic Rate and Thermal Gradient Experiments . 5 Metabolic Rate Experiment . 7 Thermal Gradient Experiment . 8 Statistics . 10 Results . 10 Discussion . 12 Literature Cited . 18
Face recognition with occlusion via support vector discrimination dictionary and occlusion dictionary based sparse representation classification

In Sparse Representation based Classification (SRC), the construction of the dictionary is very important for the sparse model. The atoms in the dictionary are hoped to be representative and discriminant. In this paper, we propose the face recognition with occlusion via support vector discrimination dictionary and Gabor occlusion dictionary based Sparse Representation Classification (SVGSRC). We apply support vector machine (SVM) scheme to train the non-occlusion dictionary, guaranteeing that the resulting dictionary can not only express testing samples from the same class, but also can reduce the interferene of samples of different classes; Meanwhile, we use the Gabor features to learn a compact occlusion dictionary. It will reduce the dimension and increase the sparsity. We put the method on the AR face database which has natural occlusion and USTB multimodal database. Compared with other SRC methods, according to the experimental results, the proposed method gets better performance on recognition rate.
How Citizen Influencers Persuade Their Followers

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how today’s new type of opinion leaders, “Citizen Influencers” (CIs), persuade their followers by exploring which characteristics contribute to their persuasiveness. ,Combining theories within opinion leadership, celebrity endorsement, product placement and user-generated content (UGC) five source characteristics – namely, expertise, trustworthiness, likeability, similarity and familiarity – are investigated using fashion as an example. A longitudinal netnographic study of ten CIs and their UGC and six focus groups with followers of specific CIs on Instagram are conducted. ,All five characteristics contribute to the persuasiveness of CIs with trustworthiness as the main contributor. CIs persuasiveness lies in their unique ability to encompass two opposing qualities simultaneously: being attainable and relatable like ordinary consumers; being taste leaders with superior, celebrity-like status. ,Only qualitative studies within the fashion category have been conducted, wherefore the relative weight between the two qualities cannot be quantified. ,When choosing a CI, managers may consider: the amount of followers per CI as an indicator of influence; similarity between follower and CI as it provides the basis for trust; and the CIs personal universe on their Instagram profile as it leverage the meanings associated with the brand. ,The key driver of CIs persuasiveness is their trustworthiness which mediates and amplifies the effect of the other four characteristics. CIs’ persuasive power rests upon the balancing act of being relatable and aspirational.
Hepatocyte growth factor‐induced differentiation of bone mesenchymal stem cells toward hepatocyte‐like cells occurs through nuclear factor‐kappa B signaling in vitro

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is multifaceted cytokine that regulates proliferation, differentiation, morphology, and motility within numerous stem cells. More recently, HGF has been reported to induce the differentiation of bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) into mature hepatocytes, but the underlying biochemical and molecular signaling is largely unknown. We isolated BMSC from the bone marrow of rats, which were then cultured and exposed to HGF for 15 days. We subsequently assayed these cells for liver functionality and markers, and blocked NF‐кB signaling at various stages of the pathway. The present results demonstrate that HGF induces the differentiation of BMSCs toward hepatocyte‐like cells through the NF‐кB signaling. More specifically, HGF upregulated the translocation of NF‐кB to the nucleus.
A new look at compactly supported biorthogonal Riesz bases of wavelets

In this paper, we give two algorithms to compute compactly supported biorthogonal Riesz basis of wavelets. The input to these algorithms are filters of the transfer and the dual transfer functions, which are obtained by solving the Bezout equation. This Bezout equation arises from biorthogonality of the scaling function and the dual scaling function. We solve the Bezout equation in a simple and algebraic way. We also give a case study of the biorthogonal wavelets showing their detail construction. Some references to Sobolev regularity of the wavelets which is a qualitative property of the wavelet is also made by us.
A sea surface height estimator using synthetic aperture radar complex imagery

The reflectivity density approximately describing electromagnetic scattering from a "two-scale" rough surface has a phase linearly dependent on surface height. The synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image is a complicated partially understood transformation of this reflectivity density, but in demonstrable situations the complex image's phase also contains sea height information: reported here is an initial study of an algorithm that exploits this. Envelope and phase demodulation, regression, and filtering algorithms are verified and applied to simulated and actual satellite radar SEASAT-SAR data. The simulation of a simplified stationary scene established tentative sufficient conditions on large-scale SAR and sampling parameters for accurate estimation of the large-scale structure's height and imply feasible system design. The algorithm accurately estimated a long wavelength low-amplitude large-scale sea height structure present in a SEASAT-SAR data record, consistent with available sea truth.