Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Born under a lucky star? Latin American CEOs' perceptions about their own career development

This article explores Latin American Chief Executive Officers' (CEOs') perceptions about the influence of career self-management practices and chance events on their career pathways. Through an edited topical life story approach, we investigate the relationship between those variables throughout CEO's career trajectories in the Latin American context. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with 22 CEOs working for multinational companies were conducted. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed with the aid of QSR NVivo 7 software. The study showed that even in volatile macroeconomic environments, typical of Latin American countries, CEOs do plan their careers. Career planning constitutes the backbone of the career management process. To deal with low predictability chance events, CEOs relied on active development network as the main career self-management practice. However, choice of mobility was the key career self-management behavior when responding to high predictability chance events. These central strategies were frequently combined with other career self-management practices, taking into consideration the type of chance event being responded to. According to this study, if individuals want to develop their careers in unstable environments, they will need to be proficient in career self-management practices, with particular emphasis on network development and choice of job mobility, as well as in happenstance skills.
Preferential activity of Tie2 promoter in arteriolar endothelium

The tyrosine kinase Tie2/Tek (the receptor for angiopoietins) is considered one of the most reliable markers of the endothelial phenotype, across organisms, organs, and developmental stages. However, endothelium is intrinsically heterogeneous in origin, composition and function, presenting an arteriolar/venular asymmetry. In this regard, the expression of Tie2 along the vascular tree, although thought to be homogenous, has not been systematically investigated. Therefore we questioned whether the activity of Tie2 promoter is uniform in the microvascular endothelium. To this end, we analyzed in situ the expression of the markers β‐galactosidase [LacZ(Tie2)] and green fluorescent protein (GFP) [GFP(Tie2)], placed under the Tie2 promoter in transgenic mice, in whole mount tissue samples, which allow the simultaneous evaluation of its relative distribution in various microvascular compartments. In the mesenteries of LacZ(Tie2) and GFP(Tie2) mice, we found that the activity of Tie2 promoter is asymmetrically distributed, being much stronger in arteries and arterioles than on the venular side of the vascular tree. This observation was replicated in the diaphragm of LacZ(Tie2) mice. The capillaries presented a mosaic pattern of Tie2 promoter activity. Stimulation of angiogenesis either by wounding, or by intraperitoneal injection of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF), revealed that the arteriolar/venular asymmetry is established at endothelial cellular level early during new capillary formation, even before the starting of the microvasular blood flow. In conclusion, a strong Tie2 promoter activity qualifies as a novel marker of the arteriolar phenotype in microvascular endothelium.
Compressed Predictive State Representation: An Efficient Moment-Method for Sequence Prediction and Sequential Decision-Making

The construction of accurate predictive models over sequence data is of fundamental importance in the pursuit of developing artificial agents that are capable of (near)-optimal sequential decision-making in disparate environments. If such predictive models are available, they can be exploited by decision-making agents, allowing them to reason about the future dynamics of a system. Constructing models with sufficient predictive capacity, however, is a difficult task. Under the standard maximum likelihood criterion, these models tend to have non-convex learning objectives, and heuristics such as expectation-maximization suffer from high computational overhead. In contrast, an alternative statistical objective, the so-called method of moments, leads to convex optimizations that are often efficiently solvable via spectral decompositions. This work further improves upon the scalability, efficiency, and accuracy of this moment-based framework by employing techniques from the field of compressed sensing. Specifically, random projections of high-dimensional data are used during learning to (1) provide computational efficiency and (2) regularize the learned predictive models. Both theoretical analyses, outlining an explicit bias-variance trade-off, and experiments, demonstrating the superior empirical performance of the novel algorithm (e.g., compared to uncompressed moment-methods), are provided. Going further, this work introduces a sequential decision-making framework which exploits these compressed learned models. Experiments demonstrate that the combination of the compressed model learning algorithm and this decision-making framework allows for agents to successfully plan in massive, complex environments without prior knowledge.
Electrophilic Nitro-fatty Acids Activate NRF2 by a KEAP1 Cysteine 151-independent Mechanism*

Nitro-fatty acids (NO2-FAs) are electrophilic signaling mediators formed in vivo via nitric oxide (NO)- and nitrite (NO2−)-dependent reactions. Nitro-fatty acids modulate signaling cascades via reversible covalent post-translational modification of nucleophilic amino acids in regulatory proteins and enzymes, thus altering downstream signaling events, such as Keap1-Nrf2-antioxidant response element (ARE)-regulated gene expression. In this study, we investigate the molecular mechanisms by which 9- and 10-nitro-octadec-9-enoic acid (OA-NO2) activate the transcription factor Nrf2, focusing on the post-translational modifications of cysteines in the Nrf2 inhibitor Keap1 by nitroalkylation and its downstream responses. Of the two regioisomers, 9-nitro-octadec-9-enoic acid was a more potent ARE inducer than 10-nitro-octadec-9-enoic acid. The most OA-NO2-reactive Cys residues in Keap1 were Cys38, Cys226, Cys257, Cys273, Cys288, and Cys489. Of these, Cys273 and Cys288 accounted for ∼50% of OA-NO2 reactions in a cellular milieu. Notably, Cys151 was among the least OA-NO2-reactive of the Keap1 Cys residues, with mutation of Cys151 having no effect on net OA-NO2 reaction with Keap1 or on ARE activation. Unlike many other Nrf2-activating electrophiles, OA-NO2 enhanced rather than diminished the binding between Keap1 and the Cul3 subunit of the E3 ligase for Nrf2. OA-NO2 can therefore be categorized as a Cys151-independent Nrf2 activator, which in turn can influence the pattern of gene expression and therapeutic actions of nitroalkenes.
Basic study of beam pilot signal for terrestrial microwave power transmission

A retro-directive system with beam pilot signal is proposed in order to solve the multi-path propagation problem in microwave power transmission along the horizontal direction. In this system, a beamed pilot signal radiating from the entire surface of the power receiving antenna. It is shown that the high transmission efficiency of the microwave power can be maintained even in the gradient refractive index by inverting the phase of the beam pilot signal.
Closest-point problems

A number of seemingly unrelated problems involving the proximity of N points in the plane are studied, such as finding a Euclidean minimum spanning tree, the smallest circle enclosing the set, k nearest and farthest neighbors, the two closest points, and a proper straight-line triangulation. For most of the problems considered a lower bound of O(N log N) is shown. For all of them the best currently-known upper bound is O(N2) or worse. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a single geometric structure, called the Voronoi diagram, which can be constructed rapidly and contains all of the relevant proximity information in only linear space. The Voronoi diagram is used to obtain O(N log N) algorithms for all of the problems.
Medical student psychological distress and academic performance

Abstract Introduction: The impact of medical student psychological distress on academic performance has not been systematically examined. This study provided an opportunity to closely examine the potential impacts of workplace and study related stress factors on student’s psychological distress and their academic performance during their first clinical year. Methods: This one-year prospective cohort study was performed at a tertiary hospital based medical school in Melbourne, Australia. Students completed a questionnaire at three time points during the year. The questionnaire included the validated Kessler psychological distress scale (K10) and the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28), as well as items about sources of workplace stress. Academic outcome scores were aggregated and correlated with questionnaire results. Results: One hundred and twenty six students participated; 126 (94.7%), 102 (76.7%), and 99 (74.4%) at time points one, two, and three, respectively. 33.1% reported psychological distress at time point one, increasing to 47.4% at time point three. There was no correlation between the K10 scores and academic performance. There was weak negative correlation between the GHQ-28 at time point three and academic performance. Keeping up to date with knowledge, need to do well and fear of negative feedback were the most common workplace stress factors. Conclusions: Poor correlation was noted between psychological distress and academic performance.
Implementation and commissioning of an integrated micro-CT∕RT system with computerized independent jaw collimation.

PURPOSE To design, construct, and commission a set of computer-controlled motorized jaws for a micro-CT∕RT system to perform conformal image-guided small animal radiotherapy. METHODS The authors designed and evaluated a system of custom-built motorized orthogonal jaws, which allows the delivery of off-axis rectangular fields on a GE eXplore CT 120 preclinical imaging system. The jaws in the x direction are independently driven, while the y-direction jaws are symmetric. All motors have backup encoders, verifying jaw positions. Mechanical performance of the jaws was characterized. Square beam profiles ranging from 2×2 to 60×60 mm2 were measured using EBT2 film in the center of a 70×70×22 mm3 solid water block. Similarly, absolute depth dose was measured in a solid water and EBT2 film stack 50×50×50 mm3. A calibrated Farmer ion chamber in a 70×70×20 mm3 solid water block was used to measure the output of three field sizes: 50×50, 40×40, and 30×30 mm2. Elliptical target plans were delivered to films to assess overall system performance. Respiratory-gated treatment was implemented on the system and initially proved using a simple sinusoidal motion phantom. All films were scanned on a flatbed scanner (Epson 1000XL) and converted to dose using a fitted calibration curve. A Monte Carlo beam model of the micro-CT with the jaws has been created using BEAMnrc for comparison with the measurements. An example image-guided partial lung irradiation in a rat is demonstrated. RESULTS The averaged random error of positioning each jaw is less than 0.1 mm. Relative output factors measured with the ion chamber agree with Monte Carlo simulations within 2%. Beam profiles and absolute depth dose curves measured from the films agree with simulations within measurement uncertainty. Respiratory-gated treatments applied to a phantom moving with a peak-to-peak amplitude of 5 mm showed improved beam penumbra (80%-20%) from 3.9 to 0.8 mm. CONCLUSIONS A set of computer-controlled motorized jaws for a micro-CT∕RT system were constructed with position reliably better than a tenth of a millimeter. The hardware system is ready for image-guided conformal radiotherapy for small animals with capability of respiratory-gated delivery.
MEMoMR: Accelerate MapReduce via reuse of intermediate results

MapReduce has been widely regarded as a flexible, scalable, and easy‐to‐use distributed programming paradigm for big data processing such as social network data analysis on cloud computing platforms. To embrace the upcoming of big data era, many efforts have been devoted to accelerating the MapReduce performance from different aspects, especially intermediate result reusing like Dache. In this paper, we observe that existing intermediate result reusing mechanism is not efficient enough as many I/O operations are wasted. Efficient reusing of the intermediate results could potentially improve the MapReduce performance. Inspired by such fact, we propose a framework named MEMoMR (more efficient intermediate result reusing for MapReduce) by introducing a novel reusing mechanism that can substantially reduce the I/O overhead. To this end, we invent a new metadata description method and apply it in the reusing phase. We practically realize MEMoMR and evaluate its performance by implementing it in a real cluster. The experiment results show that MEMoMR can improve the system performance as high as 23.4%, comparing against Dache. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Population frequency of apolipoprotein E5 (Glu3→Lys) and E7 (Glu244→Lys, Glu245→Lys) variants in western Japana

Apolipoprotein (apo) E modulates the catabolism of chylomicrons and of very low density lipoprotein remnants. It has three major isoforms (apo E2, E3, E4) and some rare variants. To detect the variants of apo E, blood specimens from 1269 Japanese subjects were analyzed using isoelectric focusing with immunoblotting. The E5 and E7 variants were identified by IEF in 2 and 18 subjects, respectively. Both E5 (Glu3→Lys) carriers were confirmed by PCR‐mediated site‐directed mutagenesis, and all E7 (Glu244→Lys, Glu245→Lys) carriers were confirmed by the amplification refractory mutation system. The relative frequencies of the ε5 and ε7 alleles were 0.001 and 0.007, respectively. High concentrations of total cholesterol (>220 mg/dl) were detected in five of the subjects expressing apo E7 and one subject expressing apo E5, and eight subjects heterozygous for apo E7 showed elevated plasma triglyceride concentrations (>150 mg/dl). In 621 healthy subjects, the mean triglyceride concentration in subjects with apo E7/3 appeared to be higher than in those with apo E3/3, but the difference was not statistically significant.
Programming With Information Flow-Control

We informally introduce here the information flow-control domain. We then present two theoretical layouts for developping programming language with information flow-control. The approach is semantic-based and allows programs to be statically type-checked. We then consider its practical use, through the so-called Paragon language, extending Java in a user-friendly way. We’ll be especially intersted in issues about its compiler, written in Haskell. Specifically, we’ll take a close look at both the problem of infering non-specified policies, and the performance of a null-pointer analysis.
Turn Rate Estimation Techniques in IMM Estimators for ESA Radar Tracking

Electronically steered array-antenna (ESA) radars are used to perform multiple roles, such as surveillance and dedicated tracking. The beam positioning agility of ESA radars can be used to efficiently track maneuvering targets. Maneuvers made by targets are often modeled using turn models. The success of using turn models relies on the correct estimation of turn-rate. Various schemes have been proposed in literature for estimation of turn rate. This paper makes a comparative study of turn rate estimation techniques for ESA radar tracking. An adaptive revisit scheme is used for tracking maneuvering targets, using the interacting multiple-model (IMM) approach. Better turn-rate estimation techniques in this adaptive framework can significantly bring down the demand for resources while tracking maneuvering targets. Simulation studies are carried out using the benchmark target trajectories defined for phased array radar tracking. Monte-Carlo simulation results against six maneuvering target scenarios are presented and discussed.
A Comparative Study of Combining Multiple Features for Fingerprint Recognition

A number of different features, besides minutiae, have been used for fingerprint matching. There include orientation-based minutia descriptor, FingerCode, ridge feature map, orientation map, and density map. Previous studies have shown that the performance of a fingerprint recognition system can be improved by combining these features with minutiae through a fusion strategy. In this paper, a comparative study of combining multiple features is carried out on a large database. Based on the experimental results, some useful conclusions can be drawn: (1) A larger improvement can usually be obtained as we combine more features; (2) However, beyond 4 features, the performance improvement is very small. (3) MD (minutiae and orientation-based minutia descriptor) are the best of two-feature combinations. It is interesting that the single feature D (minutia descriptor) does not perform the best, but the combination of MD (minutiae and minutia descriptor) performs very well. (4) Although the combinations of MO and MD performs the best among the two-feature combinations, MDO performs not so good as MDR (minutiae, minutia descriptor, and ridge density map) due to the correlativeness between D and O. These observations are helpful for designing practical fingerprint matching systems.
Clinical and Laboratory Findings in Acute Appendicitis in the Elderly

Background: Early diagnosis and surgery are important factors by which the morbidity and mortality of acute appendicitis in elderly patients can be lowered. This study was conducted to determine clinical and laboratory results that are commonly associated with acute appendicitis in elderly patients. Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted of patients aged 60 years or older who underwent appendectomy or laparotomy for suspected acute appendicitis during a 5-year period in a metropolitan county. Acute appendicitis was confirmed by the pathology report. Results: Elevated band cells and right lower quadrant pain were predictors of acute appendicitis in clinically suspected cases. Band cells greater than 6 percent had an excellent positive predictive value, as all patients with elevated band cells had acute appendicitis. With increasing white cell count and temperature, specificity increased, sensitivity decreased, and the positive predictive value remained high. Conclusions: It is essential to have a high degree of suspicion to recognize acute appendicitis in an afebrile elderly patient who has abdominal pain, a mildly elevated white cell count, and band cells in the upper limits of normal.
Cost-effectiveness of Combined Manipulation, Stabilizing Exercises, and Physician Consultation Compared to Physician Consultation Alone for Chronic Low Back Pain: A Prospective Randomized Trial With 2-Year Follow-up

Study Design. A prospective, randomized controlled trial. Objective. To examine long-term effects and costs of combined manipulative treatment, stabilizing exercises, and physician consultation compared with physician consultation alone for chronic low back pain (cLBP). Summary of Background Data. An obvious gap exists in knowledge concerning long-term efficacy and cost-effectiveness of manipulative treatment methods. Methods. Of 204 patients with cLBP whose Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) was at least 16%, 102 were randomized into a combined manipulative treatment, exercise, and physician consultation group (i.e., a combination group), and 102 to a consultation alone group. All patients were clinically examined, informed about their back pain, and encouraged to stay active and exercise according to specific instructions based on clinical evaluation. Treatment included 4 sessions of manual therapy and stabilizing exercises aimed at correcting the lumbopelvic rhythm. Questionnaires inquired about pain (visual analog scale [VAS]), disability (ODI), health-related quality of life (15D Quality of Life Instrument), satisfaction with care, and costs. Results. Significant improvement occurred in both groups on every self-rated outcome measurement. Within 2 years, the combination group showed only a slightly more significant reduction in VAS (P = 0.01, analysis of variance) but clearly higher patient satisfaction (P = 0.001, Pearson &khgr;2) as compared to the consultation group. Incremental analysis showed that for combined group compared to consultation group, a one-point change in VAS scale cost $512. Conclusions. Physician consultation alone was more cost-effective for both health care use and work absenteeism, and led to equal improvement in disability and health-related quality of life. It seems obvious that encouraging information and advice are major elements for the treatment of patients with cLBP.
TLR2 & Co: a critical analysis of the complex interactions between TLR2 and coreceptors

TLRs play a major role in microbe‐host interactions and innate immunity. Of the 10 functional TLRs described in humans, TLR2 is unique in its requirement to form heterodimers with TLR1 or TLR6 for the initiation of signaling and cellular activation. The ligand specificity of TLR2 heterodimers has been studied extensively, using specific bacterial and synthetic lipoproteins to gain insight into the structure‐function relationship, the minimal active motifs, and the critical dependence on TLR1 or TLR6 for activation. Different from that for specific well‐defined TLR2 agonists, recognition of more complex ligands like intact microbes or molecules from endogenous origin requires TLR2 to interact with additional coreceptors. A breadth of data has been published on ligand‐induced interactions of TLR2 with additional pattern recognition receptors such as CD14, scavenger receptors, integrins, and a range of other receptors, all of them important factors in TLR2 function. This review summarizes the roles of TLR2 in vivo and in specific immune cell types and integrates this information with a detailed review of our current understanding of the roles of specific coreceptors and ligands in regulating TLR2 functions. Understanding how these processes affect intracellular signaling and drive functional immune responses will lead to a better understanding of host‐microbe interactions and will aid in the design of new agents to target TLR2 function in health and disease.
Npas 4 Is a Novel Activity-Regulated Cytoprotective Factor in Pancreatic b-Cells

Cellular homeostasis requires intrinsic sensing mechanisms to temper function in the face of prolonged activity. In the pancreatic b-cell, glucose is likely a physiological trigger that activates an adaptive response to stimulation, thereby maintaining cellular homeostasis. Immediate early genes (IEGs) are activated as a first line of defense in cellular homeostasis and are largely responsible for transmitting an environmental cue to a cellular response. Here we examine the regulation and function of the novel b-cell IEG, neuronal PAS domain protein 4 (Npas4). Using MIN6 cells, mouse and human islets, as well as in vivo infusions, we demonstrate that Npas4 is expressed within pancreatic islets and is upregulated by b-cell depolarizing agents. Npas4 tempers b-cell function through a direct inhibitory interaction with the insulin promoter and by blocking the potentiating effects of GLP-1 without significantly reducing glucose-stimulated secretion. Finally, Npas4 expression is induced by classical endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stressors and can prevent thapsigarginand palmitate-induced dysfunction and cell death. These results suggest that Npas4 is a key activity-dependent regulator that improves b-cell efficiency in the face of stress. We posit that Npas4 could be a novel therapeutic target in type 2 diabetes that could both reduce ER stress and cell death and maintain basal cell function.