Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association Between Sagittal Balance and Scoliosis in Patients with Parkinson Disease: A Cross-sectional Study

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to describe the association between scoliosis and sagittal balance parameters in Parkinson disease patients. DesignThis is a cross-sectional study. ResultsFifty percent of the cohort presented a scoliosis larger than 11 degrees; 84% of the patients with scoliosis presented a thoracolumbar curve, 10% presented a thoracic one, and 6% presented a lumbar one. The group with scoliosis curves presented a lower spinosacral angle (111.6 [21.9] degrees vs. 121.7 [9.8] degrees, P < 0.05), whereas thoracic kyphosis, lumbar lordosis, and spinopelvic angle were similar. Pelvic incidence, pelvic tilt, and sacral slope were not statistically different. In the scoliosis group, the authors found negative correlations for lumbar lordosis/spinopelvic angle, sacral slope/spinosacral angle, and lumbar lordosis/pelvic tilt. Moreover, the sacral slope/pelvic tilt correlation was positive in patients without scoliosis and negative in others. The two groups did not present differences regarding age, years of disease, Hoehn-Yahr score, and Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale-motor section. ConclusionsPelvic parameters were similar in the two groups, whereas spinosacral angle was lower in patients with scoliosis. The prevalence of scoliosis in Parkinson disease was higher than what was previously described and the thoracolumbar spine was the mostly affected.
High gain observer-based higher order sliding mode controllers

It is well known that standard sliding mode controller, usually, gives rise to a dangerous chattering effect. This problem can be overcome using a higher-order sliding mode controller which preserves the main properties of the standard sliding mode and deliberately increases the control smoothness. In this paper, we propose a new sliding variable of a recently proposed higher order sliding mode controller. In the original algorithm, the sliding variable is a function of the output error. Here, we propose to add to such variable another component defined by the error between the system model and an established model reference. As the proposed sliding variable depends on the whole system state, a high gain observer is incorporated into the controller to estimate the missing states. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is showed throw numerical simulations.
Chapter 1. A Socialist Free Lunch

Since the advent in 1978 of economic reform in China, the essence of the ongoing transition from a planned to a market economy has been a redistribution of social capital and a readjustment of various interest relationships. Throughout this process, what I term the "marketization of power" (quanli de shichanghua) has played a crucial role in producing one of the most striking characteristics of this reform: from its beginning to its completion over the past dozen years in contemporary China, we have witnessed the primitive accumulation of capital. Of short duration, this rapid accumulation of great amounts of capital and wealth is quite unprecedented.
Proposing a reference process model for the citizen‐centric evaluation of e‐government services

Purpose – Evaluating and optimizing e‐government services is imperative for governments especially due to the capacity of e‐services to transform public administrations and assist the interactions of governments with citizens, businesses and other government agencies. Existing widely applied evaluation approaches neglect to incorporate citizens' satisfaction measures. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to contribute to the understanding of citizen‐centric e‐government evaluation and unify existing key performance indicators (KPIs); and to propose a reference process model of a novel evaluation approach that uses the unified KPIs to facilitate the creation of a “know‐how” repository.Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopt a quantitative research approach for the evaluation of e‐government services that is based on data envelope analysis (DEA). A survey was conducted for the empirical investigation and data were collected from 13 e‐government services in Turkey. Based on the empirical application.
The Chengzhongcun Land Market in China: Boon or Bane? — A Perspective on Property Rights

With the rapid expansion of China's cities since the 1978 economic reform, more and more villages have been swallowed up by urban sprawl. The retention of collective land ownership in "chengzhongcun" has, on the one hand, made low-rent housing affordable for migrants; on the other hand, however, it has exposed "chengzhongcun" to many social, economic and environmental problems. Based on a case study of "chengzhongcun" in Guangzhou, and using an analytical framework of property rights, this article has found that maintaining collective land ownership in "chengzhongcun" has been socially and economically costly, but a redevelopment strategy without a complementary affordable housing scheme may be problematic. In order to solve the problems of "chengzhongcun", an institutional reform of collective land is required. Copyright (c) 2008 The Author. Journal Compilation (c) 2008 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Microscopy analysis of reconstituted COPII coat polymerization and Sec16 dynamics

ABSTRACT The COPII coat and the small GTPase Sar1 mediate protein export from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) via specialized domains known as the ER exit sites. The peripheral ER protein Sec16 has been proposed to organize ER exit sites. However, it remains unclear how these molecules drive COPII coat polymerization. Here, we characterized the spatiotemporal relationships between the Saccharomyces cerevisiae COPII components during their polymerization by performing fluorescence microscopy of an artificial planar membrane. We demonstrated that Sar1 dissociates from the membrane shortly after the COPII coat recruitment, and Sar1 is then no longer required for the COPII coat to bind to the membrane. Furthermore, we found that Sec16 is incorporated within the COPII–cargo clusters, and that this is dependent on the Sar1 GTPase cycle. These data show how Sar1 drives the polymerization of COPII coat and how Sec16 is spatially distributed during COPII coat polymerization. Highlighted Article: COPII components mediate the formation of transport carriers from the ER. Fluorescence microscopy analysis of artificial planar membrane is used to define the dynamics of COPII coat polymerization.
Species' borders: A unifying theme in ecology

Biologists have long been fascinated by species' borders, and with good reason. Understanding the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of species' borders may prove to be the key that unlocks new understanding across a wide range of biological phenomena. After all, geographic range limits are a point of entry into understanding the ecological niche and threshold responses to environmental change. Elucidating patterns of gene flow to, and returning from, peripheral populations can provide important insights into the nature of adaptation, speciation and coevolution. Species' borders form natural laboratories for the study of the spatial structure of species interactions. Comparative studies from the center to the margin of species' ranges allow us to explore species' demographic responses along gradients of increasing environmental stress. Range dynamics further permit investigation into invasion dynamics and represent bellwethers for a changing climate. This set of papers explores ecological and evolutionary dynamics of species' borders from diverse empirical and theoretical perspectives.
Type I Phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate 5-Kinases

Type I phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PtdIns(4)P) 5-kinases (PIP5K) catalyze the synthesis of phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate, an essential lipid molecule in various cellular processes. Here, we report the cloning of the third member (PIP5Kγ) and the characterization of members of the type I PIP5K family. Type I PIP5Kγ has two alternative splicing forms, migrating at 87 and 90 kDa on SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The amino acid sequence of the central portion of this isoform shows approximately 80% identity with those of the α and β isoforms. Northern blot analysis revealed that the γ isoform is highly expressed in the brain, lung, and kidneys. Among three isoforms, the β isoform has the greatest V max value for the PtdIns(4)P kinase activity and the γ isoform is most markedly stimulated by phosphatidic acid. By analyzing deletion mutants of the three isoforms, the minimal kinase core sequence of these isoforms were determined as an approximately 380-amino acid region. In addition, carboxyl-terminal regions of the β and γ isoforms were found to confer the greatest V max value and the highest phosphatidic acid sensitivity, respectively. It was also discovered that lysine 138 in the putative ATP binding motif of the α isoform is essential for the PtdIns(4)P kinase activity. As was the case with the α isoform reported previously (Shibasaki, Y., Ishihara, H., Kizuki, N., Asano, T., Oka, Y., Yazaki, Y. (1997) J. Biol. Chem.272, 7578–7581), overexpression of either the β or the γ isoform induced an increase in short actin fibers and a decrease in actin stress fibers in COS7 cells. Surprisingly, a kinase-deficient substitution mutant also induced an abnormal actin polymerization, suggesting a role of PIP5Ks via structural interactions with other molecules.
A 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS 1-Gb/s serial link transceiver by using PWM and PAM techniques

A high-speed serial link transceiver employing pulse-width-modulation (PWM) and pulse-amplitude-modulation (PAM) techniques is presented. A 4-level PWM and 4-level PAM signaling is implemented to push high data rates through bandwidth-limited channels effectively. The chip fabricated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology can achieve the transfer rate of 1-Gb/s. The PWM/PAM transmitter and receiver cells exhibit a power consumption of 175-mW and 81-mW, respectively, under a 1.8-V supply voltage.
Differences in HIV-Related Hospitalization Among White, Black, and Hispanic Men and Women of Florida

ABSTRACT Patients hospitalized for Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease among the multi-ethnic population of Florida have been incompletely characterized to date. The objectives of the present study were to determine the race/ethnic (whites, blacks, Hispanics) differences in characteristics of patients by gender and the correlates of HIV-related mortality among them. A retrospective analysis of 9,113 discharge records (January to December 2001) with primary diagnosis of HIV disease was performed. Characteristics of patients in six sex-race/ethnic groups were compared using the χ2 tests and multiple regression models. A multiple logistic regression modeling was used to evaluate the odds of HIV-related death associated with these characteristics. Approximately 64%, 23%, and 13% of records were for blacks, whites, and Hispanics, respectively. The adjusted length of stay (LOS) and hospital charges significantly differed only between black men and women. The insurance status, LOS, and age were significant correlates of HIV-related deaths. The potential causes of disparities between sex-ethnic groups of patients should be further explored.
The Impact of Mandatory Disclosure Laws on Product Choices: An Analysis of the Salad Dressing Market*

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) requires most food products to include a nutrition label. Prior to the NLEA, labeling was voluntary. This study uses nutrition label information and supermarket scanner data pre‐ and post‐NLEA to examine the impact of moving from a voluntary to a mandatory labeling regime on consumer product choice. The voluntary unraveling of information is shown to be an important market mechanism. Prior to the NLEA, all low‐fat salad dressings had a nutrition label, while the majority of the higher fat dressings did not. However, there remained large variation in fat content among dressings that did not voluntarily label. Those with the highest fat levels experienced a significant decline in sales after they were required to disclose. The results indicate that even in markets with credible, low‐cost mechanisms to disclose, mandatory labeling can have an impact on consumer behavior and health.
The Effects of For-Profit College Training on Earnings

In this paper, I obtain the estimates of the effects of for-profit training and credentials on students' annualized earnings. I differentiate for-profit students by the program level and account for students' self-selection into for-profit sector. I formulate the evaluation as the series progressing in the assumption on the source of selection bias: a basic specification of the Mincer earnings model is followed up by the rich-covariate model of selection on observables and finally by the multinomial model of selection into for-profit postsecondary training. To identify the selection into for-profit training, I use two exclusion restrictions: state-specific community college tuition, and county-specific share of Title-IV eligible for-profit schools. I find that selection into employment is not a pressing issue with for-profit college trained workers. Also, after controlling for self-selection into for-profit sector I find that on average a receipt of a for-profit certificate is associated with an increase in individual annualized earnings. However, this finding varies by gender, so I investigate various explanations for this gender divide. I observe that the differences in earnings effects between men and women are not systematically related to occupational differences by gender. Also, there may be some merit to the claim that the lack of the significant effects of for-profit Associate degrees for males are due to the unrelated vocational training.
A Novel Method to Predict Query Performance Based on Cluster Score

Predicting query performance has been recently recognized by the information retrieval community as a crucial issue in information retrieval systems. In this paper, we present a novel method for predicting query performance by computing cluster score. For a fixed query, cluster score quantifies and reflects the correlation between retrieved document collections and each query term and the distribution of this correlation simultaneously. Experiments demonstrate that cluster score significantly and consistently correlates with query performance in a variety of TREC test collections. We compare cluster score with the clarity score method which is the state-of-the-art technique for query performance prediction. Our experimental results show that cluster score performs better than, or at least as well as clarity score.
Dark Current Spectroscopy in Neutron, Proton and Ion Irradiated CMOS Image Sensors: From Point Defects to Clusters

Dark current spectroscopy is tested on twenty CMOS image sensors irradiated with protons, neutrons and various ions at different energies. The aim of this work is to differentiate the effect of coulomb and nuclear interactions on the radiation-induced dark current distribution and to identify the main radiation-induced defects responsible for the dark current increase for each type of interaction. For low-energy protons and low-energy light ions (which produce well-separated low energy coulomb interactions), we find that most of the pixels belong to a quantized dark current spectrum at low dark current. In these pixels, the dark current increase seems mainly dominated by specific point defects such as the divacancy and the vacancy-phosphorus complex. Thus, these simple defects seem to form when the displacement damage is rather low and sparse. On the contrary, for nuclear interactions (with neutrons or high-energy protons) producing high coulomb NIEL silicon PKAs or for low energy heavy ions (also having high coulomb NIEL), the DCS spectrum is not visible and all the pixels belong to an exponential hot pixel tail which extends to very high dark current. In these pixels, the dark current increase is mainly dominated by defects with close-to-midgap energy levels. These defects seem more complex than point defects because they can have many different generation rates (explaining the smooth hot pixel tail) and because they tend to form when the displacement damage is high and dense.
Transcriptional Architecture and Chromatin Landscape of the Core Circadian Clock in Mammals

Transcription Around the Clock The biological clock that controls daily rhythms in mammalian physiology and behavior is thought to be regulated in large part by transcriptional events (see the Perspective by Doherty and Kay). Koike et al. (p. 349; published online 30 August) produced a comprehensive analysis of these transcriptional events across the entire mouse liver genome over a 24-hour period. Only ∼22% of cycling messenger RNA transcripts were driven by de novo transcription, suggesting that posttranscriptional events also play an important regulatory role in the mammalian clock. Biological timing in organisms can also respond to rhythmic cues from the environment. Morf et al. (p. 379, published online 23 August) explored how one such cue, cycles in ambient temperature, influence circadian timing in mammalian cells. Cold-inducible RNA–binding protein (CIRP) accumulates when body temperature is low. A systematic search for binding partners of CIRP identified RNA encoding core components of the circadian clock. Loss of CIRP decreased the amplitude of circadian gene expression and cells lacking CIRP adapted more quickly to temperature cycles. A 1-day reconstruction of transcriptional events reveals the influence of the circadian clock across the genome. The mammalian circadian clock involves a transcriptional feed back loop in which CLOCK and BMAL1 activate the Period and Cryptochrome genes, which then feedback and repress their own transcription. We have interrogated the transcriptional architecture of the circadian transcriptional regulatory loop on a genome scale in mouse liver and find a stereotyped, time-dependent pattern of transcription factor binding, RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) recruitment, RNA expression, and chromatin states. We find that the circadian transcriptional cycle of the clock consists of three distinct phases: a poised state, a coordinated de novo transcriptional activation state, and a repressed state. Only 22% of messenger RNA (mRNA) cycling genes are driven by de novo transcription, suggesting that both transcriptional and posttranscriptional mechanisms underlie the mammalian circadian clock. We also find that circadian modulation of RNAPII recruitment and chromatin remodeling occurs on a genome-wide scale far greater than that seen previously by gene expression profiling.
Images of Life

This qualitative, descriptive study used photography to capture important symbols in the lives of 16 siblings living in families raising a child with Down syndrome (CWDS). Content analysis revealed two categories: people/nonpeople. The people category included family members and friends, whereas the non-people category included objects, animals, and buildings. Similarities/differences also were noted according to age and gender. Seven- to 9-year-olds took more snapshots of themselves and their parents than did the other age groups; the 10-to 12-year-olds and 13- to 15-year-olds took more photographs of the CWDS than did the younger age group. Female siblings took more snapshots of their typically developing brothers/sisters, family members in mixed groups, and people not in their family than did male siblings. Male siblings took more photographs of their parents and themselves. Results validate the importance of gathering qualitative data from children and confirm the use of photography as one of these methods.
Is India Hedged Against Systemic Risk? An Attempt at an Answer

India has large twin deficits, high prices of some real assets, and (less familiar) fragile financial interdependence between banks and the government. So there is a systemic risk. However, India has a reasonably good record so far with regard to avoiding financial crises. This is due to five mitigating factors: (a) financial repression in banks; (b) unanticipated jumps in inflation rate; (c) somewhat regular bailouts; (d) misplaced confidence; and (e) good growth. The first three factors have ‘persistent’ costs. There are reasons to believe that these costs are high. The fourth factor is not a reliable ‘hedge’ against systemic risk. Finally, growth is a camouflage rather than a solution. The bottom line is that there is a serious problem at hand even if there has been no ‘financial crisis’ for long. We make long-term policy suggestions in this extensive but simple analytical article on the economic aspects of macro-financial stability.
Optimal Wide Area Controller and State Predictor for a Power System

An optimal wide area controller is designed in this paper for a 12-bus power system together with a Static Compensator (STATCOM). The controller provides auxiliary reference signals for the automatic voltage regulators (AVR) of the generators as well as the line voltage controller of the STATCOM in such a way that it improves the damping of the rotor speed deviations of the synchronous machines. Adaptive critic designs theory is used to implement the controller and enable it to provide nonlinear optimal control over the infinite horizon time of the problem and at different operating conditions of the power system. Simulation results are provided to indicate that the proposed wide area controller improves the damping of the rotor speed deviations of the generators during large scale disturbances. Moreover, a robust radial basis function network based identifier is presented in this paper to predict the states of a multimachine power system in real-time. This wide area state predictor (WASP) compensates for transport lags associated with the present communication technology for wide area monitoring of the electric power grid. The WASP is also robust to partial loss of information caused by larger than expected transport lags or even failed sensors throughout the network
Hierarchical self-assembly of amelogenin and the regulation of biomineralization at the nanoscale

Enamel is a highly organized hierarchical nanocomposite, which consists of parallel arrays of elongated apatitic crystallites forming an intricate three-dimensional microstructure. Amelogenin, the major extracellular matrix protein of dental enamel, regulates the formation of these crystalline arrays via cooperative interactions with forming mineral phase. Using cryoelectron microscopy, we demonstrate that amelogenin undergoes stepwise hierarchical self-assembly. Furthermore, our results indicate that interactions between amelogenin hydrophilic C-terminal telopeptides are essential for oligomer formation and for subsequent steps of hierarchical self-assembly. We further show that amelogenin assemblies stabilize mineral prenucleation clusters and guide their arrangement into linear chains that organize as parallel arrays. The prenucleation clusters subsequently fuse together to form needle-shaped mineral particles, leading to the formation of bundles of crystallites, the hallmark structural organization of the forming enamel at the nanoscale. These findings provide unique insight into the regulation of biological mineralization by specialized macromolecules and an inspiration for bottom-up strategies for the materials design.