Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Collegial Phenomenon : The Social Mechanisms of Cooperation Among Peers in a Corporate Law Partn

The soot content of a hydrogen and carbon monoxide-containing gas mixture obtained by the partial combustion of a hydrocarbonaceous fuel is substantially reduced by passing the partially-combusted gases through a soot-conversion zone maintained at an elevated temperature and pressure, and retarding the passage of soot particles through the zone for a sufficient period of time that the soot is substantially converted to carbon monoxide. An apparatus suitable for effecting soot-conversion is also disclosed.
Hybrid Micropower Source for Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless sensor networks have become a very significant enabling technology in many applications and the use of environmental energy is a feasible source for low-power wireless sensor networks. The challenges of developing a power supply including generation or conversion, storage, and power management are manifold to extend the lifetime of a wireless sensor network. The objective of this research is to develop an intelligent hybrid power system to realize a self-sustaining wireless sensor node. The photovoltaic and thermoelectric generators are adopted as energy converters. The lithium ion battery and ultracapacitor are used as reservoirs. An intelligent power management system has been developed to control the power distribution. The design data and experimental results show that the hybrid micropower source can extend the lifetime of a sensor network.
Gray hole attack detection in MANETs

Networking system does not liable on static infrastructure that interconnects various nodes in identical broadcast range dynamically called as Mobile Ad-hoc Network. A Network requires adaptive connectivity due to this data transmission rate increased. In this paper, we designed developed a dynamic cluster head selection to detect gray hole attack in MANETs on the origin of battery power. MANETs has dynamic nodes so we delivered novel way to choose cluster head by self-stabilizing election algorithm followed by MD5 algorithm for security purposes. The Dynamic cluster based intrusion revealing system to detect gray hole attack in MANET. This Architecture enhanced performance in terms of Packet delivery ratio and throughput due to dynamic cluster based IDS, associating results of existing system with proposed system, throughput of network increased, end to end delay and routing overhead less compared with existing system due to gray hole nodes in the MANET. The future work can be prolonged by using security algorithm AES and MD6 and also by including additional node to create large network by comparing multiple routing protocol in MANETs.
Genetic Variability of MicroRNA Genes in 15 Animal Species

MicroRNAs (miRNA) are a class of non-coding RNAs important in posttranscriptional regulation of target genes. Previous studies have proven that genetic variability of miRNA genes (miR-SNP) has an impact on phenotypic variation and disease susceptibility in human, mice and some livestock species. MicroRNA gene polymorphisms could therefore represent biomarkers for phenotypic traits also in other animal species. We upgraded our previously developed tool miRNA SNiPer to the version 4.0 which enables the search of miRNA genetic variability in 15 animal genomes: http://www.integratomics-time.com/miRNA-SNiPer. Genome-wide in silico screening (GWISS) of 15 genomes revealed that based on the current database releases, miRNA genes are most polymorphic in cattle, followed by human, fruitfly, mouse, chicken, pig, horse, and sheep. The difference in the number of miRNA gene polymorphisms between species is most probably not due to a biological reason and lack of genetic variability in some species, but to different stage of sequencing projects and differences in development of genomic resource databases in different species. Genome screening revealed several interesting genomic hotspots. For instance, several multiple nucleotide polymorphisms (MNPs) are present within mature seed region in cattle. Among miR-SNPs 46 are present on commercial whole-genome SNP chips: 16 in cattle, 26 in chicken, two in sheep and two in pig. The update of the miRNA SNiPer tool and the generated catalogs will serve researchers as a starting point in designing projects dealing with the effects of genetic variability of miRNA genes.
The Genome Sequence DataBase

The Genome Sequence DataBase (GSDB) is a database of publicly available nucleotide sequences and their associated biological and bibliographic information. Several notable changes have occurred in the past year: GSDB stopped accepting data submissions from researchers; ownership of data submitted to GSDB was transferred to GenBank; sequence analysis capabilities were expanded to include Smith-Waterman and Frame Search; and Sequence Viewer became available to Mac users. The content of GSDB remains up-to-date because publicly available data is acquired from the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration databases (IC) on a nightly basis. This allows GSDB to continue providing researchers with the ability to analyze, query and retrieve nucleotide sequences in the database. GSDB and its related tools are freely accessible from the URL: http://www.ncgr. org
Control of a transformerless STATCOM based on the MMCC-SDBC (modular multilevel cascade converter — Single-delta bridge-cells)

This paper describes a transformerless STATCOM (Static synchronous compensator) based on the MMCC-SDBC (modular multilevel cascade converter — single-delta bridge-cells) for independent control of positive- and negative-sequence reactive powers. A three-phase 200-V 6-kVA experimental system is designed, constructed and tested to verify the effectiveness of the topology and the control method including dc voltage regulation.
Graph-Based Fraud Detection in the Face of Camouflage

Given a bipartite graph of users and the products that they review, or followers and followees, how can we detect fake reviews or follows? Existing fraud detection methods (spectral, etc.) try to identify dense subgraphs of nodes that are sparsely connected to the remaining graph. Fraudsters can evade these methods using camouflage, by adding reviews or follows with honest targets so that they look “normal. ” Even worse, some fraudsters use hijacked accounts from honest users, and then the camouflage is indeed organic. Our focus is to spot fraudsters in the presence of camouflage or hijacked accounts. We propose FRAUDAR, an algorithm that (a) is camouflage resistant, (b) provides upper bounds on the effectiveness of fraudsters, and (c) is effective in real-world data. Experimental results under various attacks show that FRAUDAR outperforms the top competitor in accuracy of detecting both camouflaged and non-camouflaged fraud. Additionally, in real-world experiments with a Twitter follower--followee graph of 1.47 billion edges, FRAUDAR successfully detected a subgraph of more than 4, 000 detected accounts, of which a majority had tweets showing that they used follower-buying services.
A Follow-Up Study on Music and Lexical Tone Perception in Adult Mandarin-Speaking Cochlear Implant Users.

OBJECTIVE The aim was to evaluate the development of music and lexical tone perception in Mandarin-speaking adult cochlear implant (CI) users over a period of 1 year. STUDY DESIGN Prospective patient series. SETTING Tertiary hospital and research institute. PATIENTS Twenty five adult CI users, with ages ranging from 19 to 75 years old, participated in a year-long follow-up evaluation. There were also 40 normal hearing adult subjects who participated as a control group to provide the normal value range. INTERVENTIONS Musical sounds in cochlear implants (Mu.S.I.C.) test battery was undertaken to evaluate music perception ability. Mandarin Tone Identification in Noise Test (M-TINT) was used to assess lexical tone recognition. The tests for CI users were completed at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after the CI switch-on. MAIN OUTCOMES MEASURES Quantitative and statistical analysis of their results from music and tone perception tests. RESULTS The performance of music perception and tone recognition both demonstrated an overall improvement in outcomes during the entire 1-year follow-up process. The increasing trends were obvious in the early period especially in the first 6 months after switch-on. There was a significant improvement in the melody discrimination (p < 0.01), timbre identification (p < 0.001), tone recognition in quiet (p < 0.0001), and in noise (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS Adult Mandarin-speaking CI users show an increasingly improved performance on music and tone perception during the 1-year follow-up. The improvement was the most prominent in the first 6 months of CI use. It is essential to strengthen the rehabilitation training within the first 6 months.
Influence of chronic naltrexone treatment on growth hormone secretion in normal subjects.

OBJECTIVE To verify if a chronic opioid blockade could affect the GH/IGF-I axis. DESIGN We have investigated the effects of naltrexone (NTX) treatment on GH response to GHRH in normal women. METHODS GHRH test (50 micrograms i.v.) performed in seven normal female volunteers (age 25-38 years, with a body mass index ranging from 19.8 to 23.1 kg/m2) before and after 4-weeks NTX treatment (50 mg p.o. daily). RESULTS Basal GH, IGF-I, insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3) plasma levels and the IGF-I/IGFBP-3 molar ratio remained unaffected by NTX. NTX significantly reduced the GH peak values (15.52 +/- 3.59 vs 4.78 +/- 0.49 micrograms/l; P < 0.01), and GH area under curve (918.93 +/- 253.96 vs 401.09 +/- 79.63 micrograms/l; P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS This finding suggests that the long-term opioid receptor blockade has an inhibitory role on GHRH-induced GH secretion. A central influence on neurotransmitter control of GH might be hypothesised. The inhibition of stimulated GH release, without interference with the basal level, could indicate an enhanced somatostatin secretion and/or activity. Opioids could be involved only in the regulation of GH dynamics and not in basal secretion. Nevertheless, a direct involvement of opioids at the pituitary level, which could be modified by NTX, cannot be excluded.
Identification of the Nerve-Cancer Cross-Talk-Related Prognostic Gene Model in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

The incidence of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC) is increasing year by year. The nerve is an important component of the tumor microenvironment, which has a wide range of cross-talk with tumor cells and immune cells, especially in highly innervated organs, such as head and neck cancer and pancreatic cancer. However, the role of cancer-nerve cross-talk-related genes (NCCGs) in HNSC is unclear. In our study, we constructed a prognostic model based on genes with prognostic value in NCCGs. We used Pearson’s correlation to analyze the relationship between NCCGs and immune infiltration, microsatellite instability, tumor mutation burden, drug sensitivity, and clinical stage. We used single-cell sequencing data to analyze the expression of genes associated with stage in different cells and explored the possible pathways affected by these genes via gene set enrichment analysis. In the TCGA-HNSC cohort, a total of 23 genes were up- or downregulated compared with normal tissues. GO and KEGG pathway analysis suggested that NCCGs are mainly concentrated in membrane potential regulation, chemical synapse, axon formation, and neuroreceptor-ligand interaction. Ten genes were identified as prognosis genes by Kaplan-Meier plotter and used as candidate genes for LASSO regression. We constructed a seven-gene prognostic model (NTRK1, L1CAM, GRIN3A, CHRNA5, CHRNA6, CHRNB4, CHRND). The model could effectively predict the 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates in the TCGA-HNSC cohort, and the effectiveness of the model was verified by external test data. The genes included in the model were significantly correlated with immune infiltration, microsatellite instability, tumor mutation burden, drug sensitivity, and clinical stage. Single-cell sequencing data of HNSC showed that CHRNB4 was mainly expressed in tumor cells, and multiple metabolic pathways were enriched in high CHRNB4 expression tumor cells. In summary, we used comprehensive bioinformatics analysis to construct a prognostic gene model and revealed the potential of NCCGs as therapeutic targets and prognostic biomarkers in HNSC.
Essays in labour economics : school leaving, unemployment and retirement

This thesis investigates empirically three topics related, respectively, to school leaving, unemployment and retirement. It consists of three independent research articles, accompanied by a general introduction and a conclusion section. Chapter 1 investigates the extent to which the demand for post-compulsory education of British 16-year-olds responds to local labour market conditions. The findings show that prevailing unemployment rates influence the schooling decisions of students from a less affluent family background, while students from better-off families tend to enrol in post-compulsory education irrespectively of labour market conditions. Factors associated with the family’s socio economic status, such as parental tastes for education and social norms, are arguably at the base of the different behaviours. Chapter 2 analyses the persistence in unemployment incidence during the last two decades. The methodology employed allows disentangling the true state dependence from the confounding role played by observed and unobserved heterogeneity. The evidence supports that unemployment experiences "scar" British workers by compromising their future employability. The findings also suggest a countercyclical pattern of true state dependence as unemployment scars more during recessions. Chapter 3 studies the extent to which retirement influences the cognitive capital of British older workers. The analysis relies on an instrumental variable approach to address the endogeneity bias. Consistent with the "use it or lose it" hypothesis, the results suggests that retirement contributes significantly to the cognitive decline suffered at older ages by British workers. The final section of the thesis summarises the main findings of the three chapters and discusses policy implications and extensions.
New Evidence on Valuation-Based Acquisition Theory

This study provides new evidence on valuation-based acquisition theories. Using risk-adjusted stock returns prior to the acquisition announcement date, I find evidence that bidders have higher valuations than targets, as measured by implied long-run excess returns. I also find evidence that excess returns of bidders and targets deviate substantially from fundamental values prior to the announcement date. Both bidders and targets display mean reversion in returns, suggesting temporary swings away from fundamental values, compared with positive correlation in returns for their industries. Targets have lower valuations than bidders and their industry average. The evidence suggests both parties are mispriced prior to an acquisition: bidders appear to be overvalued while targets are undervalued. Evidence on Tobin's Q, the most commonly used valuation measure, is mixed. It is higher for bidders than targets, but lower than and their industry means, calling into question the efficacy of Tobin's Q as a valuation metric. Implied long-run excess returns are also significant predictors of whether a firm undertakes an acquisition after controlling for industry, size and Tobin's Q. Raw monthly returns for bidders are higher than a control sample prior to the acquisition but lower post-acquisition. There is evidence net returns (pre-and post- acquisition returns) are higher for the merged firm than a control sample on non- bidders and targets, supporting Shleifer and Vishny (2003).
Cyclic AMP and Acyl Homoserine Lactones Increase the Cultivation Efficiency of Heterotrophic Bacteria from the Central Baltic Sea

ABSTRACT The effect of signal molecules on the cultivation efficiency of bacteria from the Gotland Deep in the central Baltic Sea was investigated. Numbers of cultivated cells were determined by the most-probable-number (MPN) technique. Artificial brackish water supplemented with different carbon substrates at low concentrations (200 μM each) was employed as the growth medium. Compared to the results of previous studies, this approach yielded significantly higher cultivation efficiencies (up to 11% in fluid media). A further and pronounced increase in cultivation success was accomplished by the addition of cyclic AMP (cAMP), N-butyryl homoserine lactone, or N-oxohexanoyl-dl-homoserine lactone at a low concentration of 10 μM. The most effective inducer was cAMP, which led to cultivation efficiencies of up to 100% of total bacterial counts. From the highest positive dilutions of these latter MPN series, several strains were isolated in pure culture and one strain (G100) was used to study the physiological effect of cAMP. Dot blot hybridization revealed, however, that strain G100 represented only a small fraction of the total bacterial community. This points towards an inherent limitation of the MPN approach, which does not necessarily recover abundant species from highly diverse communities. Bacterial cells of strain G100 that were starved for 6 weeks attained a higher growth rate and a higher biomass yield when resuscitated in the presence of cAMP instead of AMP.
Relative glucose metabolic rate higher in white matter in patients with schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE There is increasing evidence demonstrating that circuits involving the frontal lobe, striatum, temporal lobe, and cerebellum are abnormal in individuals with schizophrenia, which suggests that metabolic activity in the white matter connecting these areas should be investigated. METHOD The authors obtained [(18)F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) and matching T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on 170 subjects. Participants were 103 normal volunteers and 67 unmedicated patients with schizophrenia (N=61) or schizoaffective disorder (N=6). The images were coregistered and warped to standard space for significance probability mapping. RESULTS Compared with normal volunteers, patients showed higher relative metabolic rates in the frontal white matter, corpus callosum, superior longitudinal fasciculus, and white matter core of the temporal lobe. Elevated activity in white matter was most pronounced in the center of large white matter tracts, especially the frontal parts of the brain and the internal capsule. The white matter elevation did not appear to be entirely related to changes in gray matter/white matter brain proportions, whole brain metabolic rate bias, or excess head motion in patients, but this cannot be ruled out without absolute glucose determinations. Patients also showed significantly lower relative glucose metabolism in the frontal and temporal lobes, caudate nucleus, cingulate gyrus, and mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus relative to normal volunteers, which is consistent with earlier studies. CONCLUSIONS In comparisons of unmedicated schizophrenia patients with normal volunteers, relative metabolic increases are apparent in white matter in patients with schizophrenia as well as decreases in gray matter. Inefficiency in brain circuitry, defects in white matter leading to enhanced energy need, white matter damage, and alterations in axon packing density are among the possible explanations for these schizophrenia-related findings of relatively increased metabolism in white matter.
Effect of Entrant and Incumbent Bidding on Public Procurement Efficiency

We empirically investigate the effect of entrants and incumbents on the efficiency of public procurement auctions. We use a unique data set that covers all Turkish public procurement auctions for the years 2004 to 2010. We find that procurement prices of auctions won by entrants are significantly lower. The survival analysis of entrants show that more than half of the entrants cannot survive in the public procurement market and cannot win more than one auction. The average number of wins by incumbent firms is ten compared to three by entrant firms.
Cochlear damage induces GAP‐43 expression in cholinergic synapses of the cochlear nucleus in the adult rat: a light and electron microscopic study

Recent studies suggest a potential for activity‐dependent reconstruction in the adult mammalian brainstem that exceeds previous expectations. We found that a unilateral cochlear lesion led within 1 week to a rise of choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) immunoreactivity in the ventral cochlear nucleus of the affected side, matching the lesion‐induced expression of growth‐associated protein 43 (GAP‐43) previously described. The rise of both ChAT and GAP‐43 immunoreactivity was reflected in the average density of the staining. Moreover, the number of light‐microscopically identifiable boutons increased in both stains. GAP‐43‐positive boutons could, by distinct ultrastructural features, regularly be identified as presynaptic endings. However, GAP‐43 immunoreactivity was not only found in presynaptic endings with a classical morphology, but also in profiles that suggest morphological dynamic structures by showing filopodia, assemblages of pleomorphic vesicles, large vesicles (diameter up to 200 nm) fusing with the presynaptic plasma membrane close to synaptic contacts, small dense‐core vesicles (diameter about 80 nm) and presynaptic ribosomes. Moreover, we observed perforated synapses as well as GAP‐43 immunoreactivity condensed in rafts, both indicative of growing or changing neuronal connections. Classical and untypical ultrastructural profiles that contained GAP‐43 also contained ChAT. We conclude that there is extensive deafness‐induced GAP‐43‐mediated synaptic plasticity in the cochlear nucleus, and that this plasticity is predominantly, if not exclusively, based on cholinergic afferents.
Directing Toddler Attention : Intonation Contours and Information Structure

From birth, infants are sensitive to native language rhythm and pitch patterns (Nazzi, Bertoncini & Mehler, 1998; Nazzi, Floccia & Bertoncini, 1998). From the onset of speech production at around one year of age, babies can approximate adult-like intonation contours (Prieto & Vanrell, 2007; Chen & Fikkert, 2007; Frota & Vigário, 2008) and align these contours with felicitous semantic and pragmatic intentions (Prieto, Estrella, Thorson & Vanrell, 2012). However, little research has been conducted on the early comprehension of contours as they reflect information status. Previous research suggests that toddler attention to referents is mediated by both intonation and information structure in discourse (Grassmann & Tomasello, 2010). In turn, attention to referents is essential for making the correct word-to-object or word-to-action mappings necessary for early word learning (Grassmann & Tomasello, 2007). The motivation for our study is to investigate how American English-acquiring 18-month-olds are guided by mappings from intonation to information structure during on-line reference resolution in discourse. Previous research by Grassmann and Tomasello (2010) claimed that German-acquiring two-year-olds attend to a referent of a familiar word if and only if the word is both stressed and new to the discourse context. Their experiment consisted of three conditions where the target referent could be introduced in a brief discourse context with either (a) stress only, (b) newness only, or (c) both stress and newness. Grassmann and Tomasello used a live speaker to present stimuli to each subject in order to ensure a level of intentionality on the part of the speaker and measured looking time and pointing to a referent as their dependent variables. Children in their experiment looked equally as long at the distractor referent as at the target when it was new only (not stressed) or stressed only (not new). Critically, they found reliable looking to the target referent in the third condition only, where it was both new and stressed.