Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification of an Osteocalcin Isoform in Fish with a Large Acidic Prodomain*

Osteocalcin is a small, secreted bone protein whose gene consists of four exons. In the course of analyzing the structure of fish osteocalcin genes, we recently found that the spotted green pufferfish has two possible exon 2 structures, one of 15 bp and the other of 324 bp. Subsequent analysis of the pufferfish cDNA showed that only the transcript with a large exon 2 exists. Exon 2 codes for the osteocalcin propeptide, and exon 2 of pufferfish osteocalcin is ∼3.4-fold larger than exon 2 previously found in other vertebrate species. We have termed this new pufferfish osteocalcin isoform OC2. Additional studies showed that the OC2 isoform is restricted to a unique fish taxonomic group, the Osteichthyes; OC2 is the only osteocalcin isoform found so far in six Osteichthyes species, whereas both OC1 and OC2 isoforms coexist in zebrafish and rainbow trout. The larger size of the OC2 propeptide is due to an acidic region that is likely to be highly phosphorylated and has no counterpart in the OC1 propeptide. We propose 1) that OC1 and OC2 are encoded by distinct genes that originated from a duplication event that probably occurred in the teleost fish lineage soon after divergence from tetrapods and 2) that the novel OC2 propeptide could be, if secreted, a phosphoprotein that participates in the regulation of biomineralization through its large acidic and phosphorylated propeptide.
Temporary Immigrants in a High-Skilled Labour Market: A Study of H-1Bs

High-skilled immigration to the United States is a growing area in immigration, labour and policy research. Research on this subject focuses on the labour market impact of the largest skilled immigrant group: H-1Bs, temporary visa-holders with at least a baccalaureate degree. Many studies have demonstrated that these workers are paid the prevailing wage, yet they continue to be recruited despite unemployment and wage stagnation in H-1B sectors. In this paper I argue that, to understand the attractiveness of H-1Bs, we must look beyond their effects on wages and unemployment, and frame the flow of skilled migrants to the US in terms of the broader advantages they provide: flexible labour, the most up-to-date skills, and the lower expectations of immigrants regarding working conditions and benefits. I broaden the debate on skilled immigrants by examining the relationship between recently arrived immigrant status and two crucial labour market dimensions: contingent employment and eligibility for employer-subsidised health-care and retirement benefits. In addition, wage differentials are reassessed with contingent status, years since immigration, and high-tech industry controlled. My findings support the conclusions of prior studies that H-1Bs are not ‘cheap labour’; rather, this study shows they are utilised as flexible labour.
Audio-visual feature-decision level fusion for spontaneous emotion estimation in speech conversations

Recognition of spontaneous human affect has gained a lot of interest recently after a shift in research focus from the traditional six prototypical emotions. In this paper, a combined bi-modal feature-decision fusion approach is proposed to enhance the performance of estimating emotions from spontaneous speech conversations. First, a feature vector consisting of audio information extracted from the whole speech sentence is combined with video features of the individual key frames representing that sentence. Then, the final estimate is calculated by a decision level fusion of predictions from all corresponding frames. The performance is compared with two fusion approaches, the decision level fusion using weighted linear combination, and a simple feature level fusion. The experimental results show improvement in correlation between the emotion estimates and the audio references. In addition, we evaluated the performance of supervised PCA (SPCA) for dimensionality reduction on this audio and video emotion estimation application, which led to better results compared to traditional principle component analysis (PCA).
Image compression using the overcomplete discrete wavelet transform

This paper investigates the application of a new concept called the "Overcomplete Discrete Wavelet Transform" (ODWT) for coding the image sequences. It has been demonstrated that: "The translated function with any integer multiple of the sampling period is completely represented in the wavelet space by one of the ODWT members. " This important conclusion yields a new motion estimation and motion compensation scheme working in the wavelet transform space. Our simulation experiments, performed on real image sequences, show high quality and low bit rate performances.
Supra-threshold perceptual image coding

We investigate different algorithms and performance criteria for supra-threshold image compression. The algorithms include JPEG and perceptual JPEG, the Safranek-Johnston perceptual subband image coder (PIC), and the Said-Pearlman algorithm which is based on Shapiro's embedded zerotree wavelet algorithm. We also consider a number of performance criteria. These include mean-squared error, Watson's perceptual metric, a metric based on the PIC coder, as well as an eye-filter weighted mean-squared-error metric. Our experiments indicate that the PIC metric provides the best correlation with subjective evaluations. The metric predicts that at very low bit rates the Said-Pearlman algorithm and the 8/spl times/8 subband PIC coder perform the best, while at high bit rates the 4/spl times/4 subband PIC coder dominates.
The narrative potential of the British Birth Cohort Studies

This paper draws attention to the narrative potential of longitudinal studies such as the British Birth Cohort Studies (BBCS), and explores the possibility of creating narrative case histories and conducting narrative analysis based on information available from the studies. The BBCS have historically adopted a quantitative research design and used structured interviews and questionnaires to collect data from large samples of individuals born in specific years. However, the longitudinal nature of these studies means that they follow the same sample of individuals from birth through childhood into adult life, and this leads to the creation of data that can be understood as a quantitative auto/biography.
VASCULAR AND INTERSTITIAL CELL CHANGES IN THIAMINE-DEFICIENT ANIMALS

Prickett 1 seems to have been the first to describe hemorrhages in the brains of thiamine-deficient rats. These lesions were usually recent, small and bilaterally located in the vestibular nuclei, the nucleus solitarius, the abducens nucleus, the cerebellar nuclei and the cerebellum. In several animals which had been restored clinically from deficiency and subsequently made thiamine deficient again, the hemorrhages were old and were accompanied by proliferation of the interstitial and vascular connective tissues or replaced by scars. Degeneration of myelin sheaths was not seen in Marchi or Busch preparations, but in Nissl preparations chromatolysis and sclerosis of cell bodies were observed in the vestibular and cerebellar nuclei. Similar lesions were also noted by Church 2 in thiamine-deficient rats. Prickett 1 observed the same type of hemorrhage in thiamine-deficient pigeons. As in the rat, the lesions were located chiefly in the vestibular and cerebellar nuclei, but also in the optic
Distributed audit trail analysis

An implemented system for on-line analysis of multiple distributed data streams is presented. The system is conceptually universal since it does not rely on any particular platform feature and uses format adaptors to translate data streams into its own standard format. The system is as powerful as possible (from a theoretical standpoint) but still efficient enough for on-line analysis thanks to its novel rule-based language (RUSSEL) which is specifically designed for efficient processing of sequential unstructured data streams. The generic concepts are applied to security audit trail analysis. The resulting system provides powerful network security monitoring and sophisticated tools for intrusion/anomaly detection. The rule-based and command languages are described as well as the distributed architecture and the implementation. Performance measurements are reported, showing the effectiveness of the approach. <<ETX>>
Changing the burden of COPD mortality

COPD is a major cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide with an estimated 2.75 million deaths in 2000 (fourth leading cause of death). In addition to the considerable morbidity and mortality associated with COPD, this disease incurs significant healthcare and societal costs. Current COPD guidelines acknowledge that the following can improve COPD mortality: smoking cessation; long-term oxygen therapy; and lung volume reduction surgery in small subsets of COPD patients. To date, no randomized controlled trials have demonstrated an effect of pharmacological treatment on mortality, although several observational studies suggest that both long-acting bronchodilators and inhaled corticosteroids may provide a survival benefit. The possibility that these treatments reduce mortality is being investigated in ongoing large-scale clinical trials.
Zona pellucida glycoproteins.

PERSPECTIVES AND SUMMARY . 4 1 5 INTRODUCTION . 416 OOCYTES, EGGS, AND EMBRYOS: DEFINITIONS OF TERMS. 417 PURIFICATION OF ZONA PELLUCIDA GLYCOPROTEINS. 4 1 9 GLYCOPROTEIN COMPOSITION O F THE ZONA PELLUCIDA. 420 SITE OF SYNTHESIS OF ZONA PELLUCIDA GL YCOPROTEINS . 422 CHARACTERIZATION OF ZONA PELLUCIDA GL YCOPROTEINS . 423 Mouse Oocyte ZP Glycoproteins . " . " . 423 Porcine Oocyte ZP Glycoproteins . " . 426 CHARACTERIZATION AND EXPRESSION OF ZONA PELLUCIDA GENES . 429 STRUCTURE OF THE ZONA PELLUCIDA . 430 FUNCTIONS OF ZONA PELLUCIDA GLYCOPROTEINS. 433 ZP Glycoproteins as Sperm Receptors. 434 ZP Glycoproteins as Acrosome Reaction-Inducers . " . 436 ZP Glycoptoteins and the Zona Reaction . 437 Summary . , . " . 438 PROSPECTS AND COMMENTS """"""'"' ' ' ' ' '''' '''''' ' ' ' '' ' ' '''''' '''''' ' '''' ' ' '''' ' ' ' ' ' 438
Modelling the operation of pass transistor and CPL gates

Pass transistor logic and complementary pass-transistor logic (CPL) are becoming increasingly important in the design of a specific class of digital integrated circuits owing to their speed and power efficiency as compared with conventional CMOS logic. In this paper, a simple and very accurate technique for the timing analysis of gates that involve pass transistor logic is presented. This investigation offers for the first time the possibility of simulating pass transistor and CPL gates by partitioning the behaviour of complex structures into well defined subcircuits whose interaction is studied separately. Using the proposed analysis, which is validated by results for two submicron technologies, most pass-transistor logic styles can be modelled efficiently. Consequently, a significant speed advantage can be gained compared with simulation tools that employ numerical methods such as SPICE.
A methodological analysis of randomized clinical trials of computer-assisted therapies for psychiatric disorders: toward improved standards for an emerging field.

OBJECTIVE Computer-assisted therapies offer a novel, cost-effective strategy for providing evidence-based therapies to a broad range of individuals with psychiatric disorders. However, the extent to which the growing body of randomized trials evaluating computer-assisted therapies meets current standards of methodological rigor for evidence-based interventions is not clear. METHOD A methodological analysis of randomized clinical trials of computer-assisted therapies for adult psychiatric disorders, published between January 1990 and January 2010, was conducted. Seventy-five studies that examined computer-assisted therapies for a range of axis I disorders were evaluated using a 14-item methodological quality index. RESULTS Results indicated marked heterogeneity in study quality. No study met all 14 basic quality standards, and three met 13 criteria. Consistent weaknesses were noted in evaluation of treatment exposure and adherence, rates of follow-up assessment, and conformity to intention-to-treat principles. Studies utilizing weaker comparison conditions (e.g., wait-list controls) had poorer methodological quality scores and were more likely to report effects favoring the computer-assisted condition. CONCLUSIONS While several well-conducted studies have indicated promising results for computer-assisted therapies, this emerging field has not yet achieved a level of methodological quality equivalent to those required for other evidence-based behavioral therapies or pharmacotherapies. Adoption of more consistent standards for methodological quality in this field, with greater attention to potential adverse events, is needed before computer-assisted therapies are widely disseminated or marketed as evidence based.
Insect–Machine Interface Based Neurocybernetics

We present details of a novel bioelectric interface formed by placing microfabricated probes into insect during metamorphic growth cycles. The inserted microprobes emerge with the insect where the development of tissue around the electronics during the pupal development allows mechanically stable and electrically reliable structures coupled to the insect. Remarkably, the insects do not react adversely or otherwise to the inserted electronics in the pupae stage, as is true when the electrodes are inserted in adult stages. We report on the electrical and mechanical characteristics of this novel bioelectronic interface, which we believe would be adopted by many investigators trying to investigate biological behavior in insects with negligible or minimal traumatic effect encountered when probes are inserted in adult stages. This novel insect-machine interface also allows for hybrid insect-machine platforms for further studies. As an application, we demonstrate our first results toward navigation of flight in moths. When instrumented with equipment to gather information for environmental sensing, such insects potentially can assist man to monitor the ecosystems that we share with them for sustainability. The simplicity of the optimized surgical procedure we invented allows for batch insertions to the insect for automatic and mass production of such hybrid insect-machine platforms. Therefore, our bioelectronic interface and hybrid insect-machine platform enables multidisciplinary scientific and engineering studies not only to investigate the details of insect behavioral physiology but also to control it.
Notes sur des « symptômes contemporains »

« Ce travail developpe la tension entre les symptomes classiques et les symptomes dits contemporains, ecart avance par certains psychanalystes aujourd’hui. Dans cette perspective, il s’agira d’interroger la formulation meme de symptome contemporain et plus particulierement de se demander si le concept de symptome, au sens freudien du terme, reste valide quant on parle de symptome contemporain. »
Creating the Nation in Provincial France: Religion and Political Identity in Brittany

Although religion has often been pressed into the service of defining national identities in Western Europe, in post-revolutionary France religion has generally been regarded as an impediment to national integration. Focusing on Brittany, a region marked by its profound religiosity and cultural difference, Caroline Ford shows that religious institutions, which often questioned the unity claims of the French "nation, " promoted a process of national assimilation by the early twentieth century. Through a study of Breton social Catholicism, she reveals why and how the inhabitants of provincial France came to resist, appropriate, and create national allegiances as they voiced new political ideologies and identities fashioned from local understanding. Ford challenges prevailing center-based analyses of nation formation, in which the center is believed to impose a fixed set of attributes that define the nation at the periphery, by arguing that national identity is created through a continual process of negotiation. In placing the Breton case within a comparative European perspective, this book contributes to a broader reexamination of the relationship between religion and nation formation in old and new states. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of history, religious studies, political science, anthropology, and contemporary European politics.
On Using Surrogates with Genetic Programming

One way to accelerate evolutionary algorithms with expensive fitness evaluations is to combine them with surrogate models. Surrogate models are efficiently computable approximations of the fitness function, derived by means of statistical or machine learning techniques from samples of fully evaluated solutions. But these models usually require a numerical representation, and therefore cannot be used with the tree representation of genetic programming (GP). In this paper, we present a new way to use surrogate models with GP. Rather than using the genotype directly as input to the surrogate model, we propose using a phenotypic characterization. This phenotypic characterization can be computed efficiently and allows us to define approximate measures of equivalence and similarity. Using a stochastic, dynamic job shop scenario as an example of simulation-based GP with an expensive fitness evaluation, we show how these ideas can be used to construct surrogate models and improve the convergence speed and solution quality of GP.
Kolmogorov dissipation scales in weakly ionized plasmas

In a weakly ionized plasma, the evolution of the magnetic field is described by a ‘generalized Ohm’s law’ that includes the Hall effect and the ambipolar diffusion terms. These terms introduce additional spatial and time-scales which play a decisive role in the cascading and the dissipation mechanisms in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. We determine the Kolmogorov dissipation scales for the viscous, the resistive and the ambipolar dissipation mechanisms. The plasma, depending on its properties and the energy injection rate, may preferentially select one of these dissipation scales, thus determining the shortest spatial scale of the supposedly self-similar spectral distribution of the magnetic field. The results are illustrated taking the partially ionized part of the solar atmosphere as an example. Thus, the shortest spatial scale of the supposedly self-similar spectral distribution of the solar magnetic field is determined by any of the four dissipation scales given by the viscosity, the Spitzer resistivity (electron–ion collisions), the resistivity due to electron–neutral collisions and the ambipolar diffusivity. It is found that the ambipolar diffusion dominates for reasonably large energy injection rate. The robustness of the magnetic helicity in the partially ionized solar atmosphere would facilitate the formation of self-organized vortical structures.
Department of Quantitative Social Science Widening Participation in Higher Education : Analysis Using Linked Administrative Data

This paper makes use of newly linked administrative data to better understand the determinants of higher education participation amongst individuals from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. It is unique in being able to follow two cohorts of students in England — those who took GCSEs in 2001-02 and 2002-03 — from age 11 to age 20. The findings suggest that while there remain large raw gaps in HE participation (and participation at high-status universities) by socio-economic status, these differences are substantially reduced once controls for prior attainment are included. Moreover, these findings hold for both state and private school students. This suggests that poor attainment in secondary schools is more important in explaining lower HE participation rates amongst students from disadvantaged backgrounds than barriers arising at the point of entry into HE. These findings highlight the need for earlier policy intervention to raise HE participation rates amongst disadvantaged youth. JEL classification: I21, I23, I28.
Couch surfing on the margins: the reliance on temporary living arrangements as a form of homelessness amongst school-aged home leavers

This paper examines couch surfing as a form of youth homelessness. The focus is on adolescents who do not have support from parental homes and who frequently move from one temporary living arrangement to another, without a secure ‘place to be’. Drawing on the findings of sociological research with a group of young couch surfers in Australia, the aim is to unpack the marginalising social processes that produce this practice as an outcome of early home leaving. Contrary to the view that adolescent couch surfers are managing their living situations for the time being, this research suggests that couch surfing is in itself an experience and product of dislocation, which (re)inscribes disadvantage. Reflecting on the interview accounts, the paper first shows how the reliance on informal living arrangements is one way in which young people are contending with the risks of early home leaving ‘for themselves’ – in lieu of preferable alternatives from formalised welfare systems. Second, in bringing attention to the tenuousness attached to their reliance on informal living arrangements, this paper shows how couch surfing emerges as a form of homelessness without ‘rooflessness’: a situation in which young people's attempts to gain ontological security are consistently undermined. The findings of this research broaden our understanding of the social and political inequalities limiting young people's resources for negotiating adult life.
A Classical Sequent Calculus with Dependent Types

Dependent types are a key feature of the proof assistants based on the Curry-Howard isomorphism. It is well known that this correspondence can be extended to classical logic by enriching the language of proofs with control operators. However, they are known to misbehave in the presence of dependent types, unless dependencies are restricted to values. Moreover, while sequent calculi naturally support continuation-passing-style interpretations, there is no such presentation of a language with dependent types. The main achievement of this article is to give a sequent calculus presentation of a call-by-value language with a control operator and dependent types, and to justify its soundness through a continuation-passing-style translation. We start from the call-by-value version of the λμ˜μ-calculus. We design a minimal language with a value restriction and a type system that includes a list of explicit dependencies to maintain type safety. We then show how to relax the value restriction and introduce delimited continuations to directly prove the consistency by means of a continuation-passing-style translation. Finally, we relate our calculus to a similar system by Lepigre and present a methodology to transfer properties from this system to our own.
Lectin coated MgO nanoparticle: its toxicity, antileishmanial activity, and macrophage activation

Abstract The purpose of this research was to evaluate toxicity of uncoated magnesium oxide nanoparticles (MgO NPs), MgO NPs coated with Peanut agglutinin (PNA) lectin, and PNA alone on the promastigotes of Leishmania major (L. major) and macrophages of BALB/c mice. On the other hand, antileishmanial property of uncoated MgO NPs, lectin coated MgO NPs, and PNA lectin alone was evaluated, and also macrophage activation was investigated after treatment with these materials by measurement of nitrite, H2O2, and some interleukins. This study showed that PNA lectin and lectin coated MgO NPs had approximately no toxicity on L. major and macrophages, but some toxic effects were observed for uncoated MgO NPs, especially at concentration of 500 µg/mL. Interestingly, lectin coated MgO NPs had the highest antileishmanial activity and macrophage activation, compared with uncoated MgO NPs and PNA lectin.