Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Universal languages?: A reply to Moravcsik1

Existing formulations of liberal theory in International Relations (IR), claimed Andrew Moravcsik in 1997, were ‘ideological’. Yet they need not be. A reformulation in line with the requirements of empirical social science could provide a ‘nonideological and nonutopian’ liberal IRs theory (1997: 513). And this is what he sought to achieve. Moravcsik’s empirical reformulation of liberal IR theory, I have argued, did not manage to address the problem of ideology satisfactorily; instead, ironically, it resulted in a deeply ideological formulation of liberal international relations theory (Jahn, 2009). This argument holds Moravcsik in response ‘reflects an unwillingness to engage in subtle or sympathetic interpretation’ (2010). It misunderstands the logic and requirements of empirical social theory. It ignores abundant literature supporting his position and, worse, fails to provide evidence for its own alternative claims. Its judgments are based on ‘methodological or philosophical fiat’ (2010). And, couched at the level of abstract reflection, it cannot engage with, and provide solutions for, concrete political problems in world affairs. So wide ranging are these counter-criticisms that they make it appear as if Moravcsik and I must inhabit different planets regarding the aims and requirements of IR as a social science. On Moravcsik’s planet, the positivist empiricist method provides a universal language designed to overcome the fragmentation of the field, while on my planet, apparently, relativism rules. On Moravcsik’s planet theoretical claims have to be
Free-standing TiO2 nanotube membranes from electrochemical anodization

In this paper, a series of electrochemical anodization experiments have been carried out to understand the formation mechanism and to increase control over the morphology of free-standing TiO2 nanotube membranes. Immobilized TiO2 nanotube arrays with ordered structure on Ti substrates were prepared under anodization with low voltage (≤60V). High anodization voltage (>80V) directly induces detachment of the nanotube membranes from Ti substrate, but the surface of membrane is covered by many disordered nanowires. A facile two-step anodic route has been developed to solve this problem. By taking advantage of conventional anodization of Ti substrates, followed by a thermal treatment and further low voltage anodization, a free-standing crystallized membrane with ordered TiO2 nanotube arrays has been synthesized. The resulting membrane is mechanically robust and with a large area. The ability to fabricate this free-standing TiO2 nanotube membrane is an essential step towards the exploitation of extended applications.
Infusing higher-order thinking and learning to learn into content instruction: A case study of secondary computing studies in Scotland

This case study examines ideas on a thinking curriculum and learning to learn in the context of secondary education, by exploring one subject area- computing studies- at the Scottish secondary 3/4 (S3/S4) level with 14- to 16-year-olds. The infusion approach used in this project combines direct teaching on problem solving strategies, modeling of solution processes, on-going formative assessment, and developing metacognition through processes of reflection, articulation and exploration. The case study provides an example of how these approaches can be interweaved within a problem-based learning methodology for teaching computer programming at an introductory level. The study demonstrates how an appropriate balance can be struck between content objectives and broader educational goals within an infusion approach, resulting in the achievement of successful learning outcomes. Extending the approach to other subject domains could greatly enhance the connectedness of the secondary curriculum, thus enabling students to learn more efficiently. This would require cross-curricular collaborations and a reformulation of existing curricula.
Quantitative Allele-Specific Expression and DNA Methylation Analysis of H19, IGF2 and IGF2R in the Human Placenta across Gestation Reveals H19 Imprinting Plasticity

Imprinted genes play important roles in placental differentiation, growth and function, with profound effects on fetal development. In humans, H19 and IGF2 are imprinted, but imprinting of IGF2R remains controversial. The H19 non-coding RNA is a negative regulator of placental growth and altered placental imprinting of H19-IGF2 has been associated with pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia, which have been attributed to abnormal first trimester placentation. This suggests that changes in imprinting during the first trimester may precede aberrant placental morphogenesis. To better understand imprinting in the human placenta during early gestation, we quantified allele-specific expression for H19, IGF2 and IGF2R in first trimester (6–12 weeks gestation) and term placentae (37–42 weeks gestation) using pyrosequencing. Expression of IGF2R was biallelic, with a mean expression ratio of 49∶51 (SD = 0.07), making transient imprinting unlikely. Expression from the repressed H19 alleles ranged from 1–25% and was higher (P<0.001) in first trimester (13.5±8.2%) compared to term (3.4±2.1%) placentae. Surprisingly, despite the known co-regulation of H19 and IGF2, little variation in expression of the repressed IGF2 alleles was observed (2.7±2.0%). To identify regulatory regions that may be responsible for variation in H19 allelic expression, we quantified DNA methylation in the H19-IGF2 imprinting control region and H19 transcription start site (TSS). Unexpectedly, we found positive correlations (P<0.01) between DNA methylation levels and expression of the repressed H19 allele at 5 CpG’s 2000 bp upstream of the H19 TSS. Additionally, DNA methylation was significantly higher (P<0.05) in first trimester compared with term placentae at 5 CpG’s 39–523 bp upstream of the TSS, but was not correlated with H19 repressed allele expression. Our data suggest that variation in H19 imprinting may contribute to early programming of placental phenotype and illustrate the need for quantitative and robust methodologies to further elucidate the role of imprinted genes in normal and pathological placental development.
Feasibility of an Internet Physical Activity Intervention

The Internet is a relatively new method of delivering strategies for health behavior change. The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of delivering a physical activity intervention by the Internet to improve outcomes in adults with the metabolic syndrome. Twenty-two participants (16 males; 6 females) were recruited from a cardiology clinic database, age range 32-66 years. Participants were randomly assigned to the Internet intervention (n = 12) or the usual care ( n = 10) group. The mean total dose, in terms of the time the intervention Web site was accessed was 2 hours over 6 weeks, which was greater than the time spent delivering usual care. Overall, participants' evaluations of the Internet intervention were positive. The costs of development and delivery of the Internet intervention were less than that of a consultation and follow-up in the cardiology clinic for this sample. The Internet intervention appears feasible for testing in a larger study.
The experience of living with stroke: a qualitative meta-synthesis.

OBJECTIVE The effects of stroke on stroke survivors are profound and cannot adequately be understood from a single approach or point of view. Use of qualitative study, in addition to quantitative research, provides a comprehensive picture of the consequences of stroke grounded in the experience of stroke survivors. The purpose of the present study was to examine the contribution of the published qualitative literature to our understanding of the experience of living with stroke. DESIGN Qualitative meta-synthesis. METHOD A literature search was conducted to identify qualitative studies focused on the experience of living with stroke. Themes and supporting interpretations from each study were compiled and reviewed independently by 2 research assistants in order to identify recurring themes and facilitate interpretation across studies. RESULTS From 9 qualitative studies, 5 inter-related themes were identified as follows: (i) Change, Transition and Transformation, (ii) Loss, (iii) Uncertainty, (iv) Social Isolation, (v) Adaptation and Reconciliation. CONCLUSION The present synthesis suggests the sudden, overwhelming transformation of stroke forms a background for loss, uncertainty and social isolation. However, stroke survivors may move forward through adaptation towards recovery. Meta-synthesis of qualitative research is needed to promote the inclusion of what we know about patient preferences and values in evidence-based practice.
Early Social Environment and the Fighting Behaviour of Young Oreochromis Niloticus (Pisces, Cichlidae)

[This study examines the influence of early experience with different forms of aggressive behaviour on the fighting behaviour of young fish. Fry of the cichlid fish, Oreochromis niloticus, were raised from hatching in small groups consisting of a normal individual (the test fish) and either mutant conspecifics lacking the dorsal fin and thereby the ability to perform fin displays, or normal ones. Following a 63-day period of development in groups the test fish were confronted in their home tanks with an unfamiliar normal fish for 10 min. The fighting behaviour of the test fish was analyzed considering their previous group type (mutant or normal) and rank (α: or β). There was no difference between test fish in the rate and sequence of behaviour patterns used in fighting. However, test fish that had developed in mutant groups were rarely the first to bite in contests and had a longer latency to biting following the first bite of the stimulus fish than test fish with normal experience. This finding is attributable to the form of aggressive behaviour experienced by the test fish during development but not to existing differences in the amount of aggression previously experienced, nor to previous rank, sex, or size relative to the stimulus fish. The results suggest that early experience influenced decision making by the test fish during the fight. The involvement of the fin displays and the possible mechanism of this influence are discussed. , This study examines the influence of early experience with different forms of aggressive behaviour on the fighting behaviour of young fish. Fry of the cichlid fish, Oreochromis niloticus, were raised from hatching in small groups consisting of a normal individual (the test fish) and either mutant conspecifics lacking the dorsal fin and thereby the ability to perform fin displays, or normal ones. Following a 63-day period of development in groups the test fish were confronted in their home tanks with an unfamiliar normal fish for 10 min. The fighting behaviour of the test fish was analyzed considering their previous group type (mutant or normal) and rank (α: or β). There was no difference between test fish in the rate and sequence of behaviour patterns used in fighting. However, test fish that had developed in mutant groups were rarely the first to bite in contests and had a longer latency to biting following the first bite of the stimulus fish than test fish with normal experience. This finding is attributable to the form of aggressive behaviour experienced by the test fish during development but not to existing differences in the amount of aggression previously experienced, nor to previous rank, sex, or size relative to the stimulus fish. The results suggest that early experience influenced decision making by the test fish during the fight. The involvement of the fin displays and the possible mechanism of this influence are discussed. ]
Assessing identity, redundancy and confounds in Gene Ontology annotations over time

MOTIVATION The Gene Ontology (GO) is heavily used in systems biology, but the potential for redundancy, confounds with other data sources and problems with stability over time have been little explored. RESULTS We report that GO annotations are stable over short periods, with 3% of genes not being most semantically similar to themselves between monthly GO editions. However, we find that genes can alter their 'functional identity' over time, with 20% of genes not matching to themselves (by semantic similarity) after 2 years. We further find that annotation bias in GO, in which some genes are more characterized than others, has declined in yeast, but generally increased in humans. Finally, we discovered that many entries in protein interaction databases are owing to the same published reports that are used for GO annotations, with 66% of assessed GO groups exhibiting this confound. We provide a case study to illustrate how this information can be used in analyses of gene sets and networks. AVAILABILITY Data available at http://chibi.ubc. ca/assessGO.
Overcoming surfactant inhibition with polymers

Inhibition of the function of pulmonary surfactant in the alveolar space is an important element of the pathophysiology of many lung diseases, including meconium aspiration syndrome, pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome. The known mechanisms by which surfactant dysfunction occurs are (a) competitive inhibition of phospholipid entry into the surface monolayer (e.g. by plasma proteins), and (b) infiltration and destabilization of the surface film by extraneous lipids (e.g. meconium‐derived free fatty acids).
Human resource management systems and their role in the development of strategic resources: empirical evidence

The aim of this paper is double. First, it provides a conceptual framework linking human resource management, organisational learning and knowledge management. Second, the paper builds a causal model and tests it with a sample of firms from the Spanish manufacturing industry, using a structural equation modelling technique. In particular, after the performance of a cluster analysis, a group of 72 learning firms is identified and used to test our model. Finally, major conclusions and implications for management are drawn and further avenues for research are suggested.
Human short-latency ocular vergence responses produced by interocular velocity differences

We studied human short-latency vergence eye movements to a novel stimulus that produces interocular velocity differences without a changing disparity signal. Sinusoidal luminance gratings moved in opposite directions (left vs. right; up vs. down) in the two eyes. The grating seen by each eye underwent ¼-wavelength shifts with each image update. This arrangement eliminated changing disparity cues, since the phase difference between the eyes alternated between 0° and 180°. We nevertheless observed robust short-latency vergence responses (VRs), whose sign was consistent with the interocular velocity differences (IOVDs), indicating that the IOVD cue in isolation can evoke short-latency VRs. The IOVD cue was effective only when the images seen by the two eyes overlapped in space. We observed equally robust VRs for opposite horizontal motions (left in one eye, right in the other) and opposite vertical motions (up in one eye, down in the other). Whereas the former are naturally generated by objects moving in depth, the latter are not part of our normal experience. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a behavioral consequence of vertical IOVD. This may reflect the fact that some neurons in area MT are sensitive to these motion signals (Czuba, Huk, Cormack, & Kohn, 2014). VRs were the strongest for spatial frequencies in the range of 0.35–1 c/°, much higher than the optimal spatial frequencies for evoking ocular-following responses observed during frontoparallel motion. This suggests that the two motion signals are detected by different neuronal populations. We also produced IOVD using moving uncorrelated one-dimensional white-noise stimuli. In this case the most effective stimuli have low speed, as predicted if the drive originates in neurons tuned to high spatial frequencies (Sheliga, Quaia, FitzGibbon, & Cumming, 2016).
Energy-efficient dispatching policy for virus scanning as a service under N-version protection

We investigate energy-efficient dispatching policy for virus scanning as service (VSaaS) under N-version protection. Under N-version protection, one would dispatch a file-scan request to multiple service engines, in order to reduce the missed detection error cost. However, this also increases the energy consumption of service engines and the queueing delay. To manage this tradeoff, we aim to reduce the energy consumption of service engines and the missed detection error cost, while achieving low delay for VSaaS. We first define a penalty function as the combination of the energy consumption and the missed detection error cost. We then formulate the file-scan dispatching policy as a constrained optimization problem under the framework of Lyapunov optimization. Using the Lyapunov-drift-penalty function, we propose an online algorithm, which achieves the penalty function arbitrarily close to the minimum by increasing the control variable but at the cost of increasing the queue length. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm is flexible to provide N-version protection. Using the algorithm, the cloud operator can dynamically tune the control variable in order to reduce the energy consumption and the missed detection error cost, while maintaining the queue stability.
An Optimization Framework for Heterogeneous Access Management

This paper studies the problem of admission control and air interface selection in heterogeneous network environments. The statistics of random user arrivals and random service durations are considered for the optimization of heterogeneous access management strategies with respect to minimizing the expected mean cost for denial-of-service events. Based on state aggregation in a semi-Markov decision process formulation, an efficient approximation algorithm for policy optimization is proposed. Though this solution is suboptimal, it still offers considerable performance gains in comparison to simpler heuristic strategies, which is demonstrated by simulations in a heterogeneous GSM-EDGE/UMTS scenario.
Effects of Selected Dietary Secondary Metabolites on Reactive Oxygen Species Production Caused by Iron(II) Autoxidation

Iron is an essential co-factor for many enzymes that catalyze electron transfer reactions. It is well known that so-called “poorly liganded” iron can increase ROS concentrations and trigger oxidative stress that is capable of initiating apoptosis. Conversely, controlled ROS production has been recognized as an integral part of cellular signaling. Elevated ROS concentrations are associated with aging, inflammatory and degenerative diseases. Anti-aging properties have been attributed especially to antioxidant phenolic plant metabolites that represent food additives in our diet. Consequently, this study explores the effects of flavonoids (quercetin and rutin), several phenolic acids (caffeic, chlorogenic, and protocatechuic acid), and the alkaloid caffeine on iron(II) autoxidation and ROS production in comparison to the standard antioxidants ascorbic acid and Trolox. The iron(II) autoxidation assay was carried out in pH 6.0 (plant apoplast and inflamed human tissue) and 7.4 (cell cytoplasm and human blood plasma). The obtained results accentuate phenolic acids as the more specific antioxidants compared to ascorbic acid and Trolox. Flavonoid redox chemistry depends more on the chemical milieu, specifically on pH. In vivo, the presence of iron cannot be ruled out and “wrongly” or “poorly” complexed iron has been pointed out as causative agent of various age-related diseases.
Teleconnection in the martian atmosphere during the 2001 planet-encircling dust storm

Introduction: In July 2001 (Martian year 25), Mars was enshrouded by a thick veil of dust which lasted for several months and obscured the observation of its surface to spacecraft cameras and ground-based telescopes. The emergence and rapid evolution (within a few days) of multiple, isolated, regional dust storms which eventually attained planetary scale extent were observed by NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft using high resolution camera images and the thermal profiles and dust opacity measurements pro-vided by the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) [1, 2]. We have applied a technique used in Terrestrial meteorology (sequential data assimilation, [3]) to ob-tain a complete, four-dimensional evolution of all the atmospheric variables during the period of this planet-encircling dust storm, even those which were not di-rectly observed by the MGS satellite, such as surface pressure and winds. We assimilated TES nadir-pointing thermal profiles and total dust opacities in a global circulation model of the Martian atmosphere, developed jointly by the University of Oxford and the Open University in the United Kingdom, with the col-laboration of the Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dyna-mique in Paris (UK-MGCM) [4, 5, 6].
Fibronectin enhances the opsonic and protective activity of monoclonal and polyclonal antibody against group B streptococci

We have investigated the opsonic and protective effects of fibronectin (FN) against type III group B streptococci. When used by itself, the FN failed to promote actual internalization of group B organisms. The addition of FN to group B streptococci that had been preopsonized in an immunoglobulin preparation modified for intravenous use ( IgIV ) or a type-specific, murine monoclonal antibody of IgG isotype markedly enhanced interaction with human polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN). A similar enhanced effect was observed when the FN was combined with type- specific monoclonal antibody preparations of IgM and, surprisingly, IgA isotype. Preincubation experiments indicated that the major effect was upon the PMN rather than directly on the bacteria, but we could not demonstrate an effect of FN on cell surface receptors for the Fc fragment of Ig or C3b using rosetting techniques. In addition to enhancing the in vitro opsonic activity of Ig, the FN significantly increased the protective effect of the polyclonal and monoclonal Ig preparations in an animal model of neonatal group B streptococcal disease. Thus, FN appears to have a critical role in the host defense mechanisms against group B streptococci.
Imaging localized prostate cancer: current approaches and new developments.

OBJECTIVE Prostate cancer is the most common noncutaneous malignancy among men in the Western world. Imaging has recently become more important in the diagnosis, local staging, and treatment follow-up of prostate cancer. In this article, we review conventional and functional imaging methods as well as targeted imaging approaches with novel tracers used in the diagnosis and staging of prostate cancer. CONCLUSION Although prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men, imaging of localized prostate cancer remains limited. Recent developments in imaging technologies, particularly MRI and PET, may lead to significant improvements in lesion detection and staging.