Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrated Endoscopic System Based on Optical Imaging and Hyperspectral Data Analysis for Colorectal Cancer Detection.

BACKGROUND/AIM Two-dimensional hyperspectral data systems with enhanced area detection and diagnostic abilities are now available in gastrointestinal endoscopy for colorectal cancer. We evaluated a new hyperspectral system for diagnosis of colorectal cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS A resected-specimen spectrum observation module (stereoscopic macroscope, hyperspectral camera, and xenon lamp) was used to evaluate 21 resected colorectal cancer specimens (ex vivo experiment). A colonoscopy spectrum observation module (imaging fiberscope and hyperspectral camera) was used to perform 24 colonoscopic spectroscopy evaluations (in vivo experiment). RESULTS An approximately 525-nm increase in spectral absorption occurred between normal mucosa and adenoma, with a tendency toward decreased absorption rates with aggravation of other tumor types. In vivo discrimination between tumorous and non-tumorous tissues showed 72.5% sensitivity and 82.1% specificity. CONCLUSION This in vivo hyperspectral diagnostic system showed that reflectance spectra intensity may discriminate between normal and abnormal colonic mucosa.
A Simplified Adaptive Modulation Scheme for MIMO Spatial Multiplexing Systems

In this paper, a simplified adaptive modulation (AM) scheme is presented for MIMO spatial multiplexing systems to improve the bit error rate (BER) performance. Constrained to total data rate and equal power allocated to each transmit antenna, an efficient AM algorithm is described to minimize the average BER of the system. The performances of vertical Bell labs layered space-time (V-BLAST) structure combined with the presented AM scheme are investigated. Simulation results have shown that the presented scheme can provide superior performances over the original V-BLAST system under perfect and imperfect channel state information (CSI).
NADPH Inhibits [2Fe-2S] Cluster Protein Transfer from Diabetes Drug Target MitoNEET to an Apo-acceptor Protein*

Background: MitoNEET functions as a [2Fe-2S] cluster transfer protein, and the anti-type II diabetes drug pioglitazone can inhibit cluster transfer. Results: Binding of NADPH inhibits transfer of the [2Fe-2S] cluster to apo-acceptor proteins. Conclusion: NADPH, through interactions with Asp-84, inhibits the cluster transfer ability of mitoNEET. Significance: In the cellular environment, NADPH may act as a key regulator of mitoNEET [2Fe-2S] cluster transfer. MitoNEET (mNT) is the founding member of the recently discovered CDGSH family of [2Fe-2S] proteins capable of [2Fe-2S] cluster transfer to apo-acceptor proteins. It is a target of the thiazolidinedione (TZD) class of anti-diabetes drugs whose binding modulate both electron transfer and cluster transfer properties. The [2Fe-2S] cluster in mNT is destabilized upon binding of NADPH, which leads to loss of the [2Fe-2S] cluster to the solution environment. Because mNT is capable of transferring [2Fe-2S] clusters to apo-acceptor proteins, we sought to determine whether NADPH binding also affects cluster transfer. We show that NADPH inhibits transfer of the [2Fe-2S] cluster to an apo-acceptor protein with an inhibition constant (Ki) of 200 μm, which reflects that of NADPH concentrations expected under physiological conditions. In addition, we determined that the strictly conserved cluster interacting residue Asp-84 in the CDGSH domain is necessary for the NADPH-dependent inhibition of [2Fe-2S] cluster transfer. The most critical cellular function of NADPH is in the maintenance of a pool of reducing equivalents, which is essential to counteract oxidative damage. Taken together, our findings suggest that NADPH can regulate both mNT [2Fe-2S] cluster levels in the cell as well as the ability of the protein to transfer [2Fe-2S] clusters to cytosolic or mitochondrial acceptors.
Le pouvoir local en débats. Pour une sociologie du rapport entre leadership et territoire

This article deals with the pertinence of the notion of leadership for improving the understanding of the changing patterns of territorial powerand action that have occured over the last twenty years. Having conducted areview of the existing approach to this question, the authors underline theimportance of a gap in this research: the relationship between leadershipand territory. As an antidote, they then propose a three dimensional analytical grid which simultaneously tackles: territorial configurations of power, the political construction of leadership and the role of territorial identiy. This proposition is illustrated with examples taken from a range of empirical research conducted by the authors themselves.
Differential antitumor effects of vitamin D analogues on colorectal carcinoma in culture

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is an emerging global problem with the rapid increase in its incidence being associated with an unhealthy lifestyle. Epidemiological studies have shown that decreased levels of vitamin D3 significantly increases the risk of CRC. Furthermore, negative effects of vitamin D3 deficiency can be compensated by appropriate supplementation. Vitamin D3 was shown to inhibit growth and induce differentiation of cancer cells, however, excessive vitamin D3 intake leads to hypercalcemia. Thus, development of efficient vitamin D3 analogues with limited impact on calcium homeostasis is an important scientific and clinically relevant task. The aims of the present study were to compare the antiproliferative potential of classic vitamin D3 metabolites (1α,25(OH)2D3 and 25(OH)D3) with selected low calcemic analogues (calcipotriol and 20(OH)D3) on CRC cell lines and to investigate the expression of vitamin D-related genes in CRC cell lines and clinical samples. Vitamin D3 analogues exerted anti-proliferative effects on all CRC cell lines tested. Calcipotriol proved to be as potent as 1α,25(OH)2D3 and had more efficacy than 20-hydroxyvitamin D3. In addition, the analogs tested effectively inhibited the formation of colonies in Matrigel. The expression of genes involved in 1α,25(OH)2D3 signaling and metabolism varied in cell lines analysed, which explains in part their different sensitivities to the various analogues. In CRC biopsies, there was decreased VDR expression in tumor samples in comparison to the surgical margin and healthy colon samples (P<0.01). The present study indicates that vitamin D3 analogues which have low calcemic activity, such as calcipotriol or 20(OH)D3, are very promising candidates for CRC therapy. Moreover, expression profiling of vitamin D-related genes is likely to be a powerful tool in the planning of anticancer therapy. Decreased levels of VDR and increased CYP24A1 expression in clinical samples underline the importance of deregulation of vitamin D pathways in the development of CRC.
System Testing of Repository-Style Software: An Experience Report

System testing based on a black box approach is a common industrial practice in information systems. Despite its widespread use, however, little guidance is available for testing engineers facing the problem of selecting the best test strategy. In previous work, we proposed to adopt functional models and related testing patterns according to the architectural style of the application under test. In this paper, we present an industrial study that applies this technique to system testing of repository based applications. We define a set of functional models abstracting different concerns of software applications: hierarchy of functions, business processes and states/transitions of application objects. The models are used to derive the functional test cases through the definition of test patterns. We applied this approach in an industrial context for over 5 years. In this paper, we analyze a data set of 37 test projects including about 22000 test cases and 1500 failures. We relate failures to the originating defect types. The study confirms that a system test strategy that uses multiple functional models according to the architectural style of the software application generates a better cost/benefit ratio than the use of just one model. The explanation is that – despite a small overlap – each model detects specific types of software defects. The results of the study can guide testing engineers in selecting the best system test strategy and significantly improve the efficiency of their work.
Light Reinforcement in the Rat: The Effects of Continuous and Discontinuous Periods of Apparatus Familiarization

The effects of continuous and discontinuous periods of apparatus familiarization on light reinforcement in rats were examined. A previous finding that the light reinforcement effect is greater with longer pretest periods in the dark box was confirmed by comparing 270 min and 30 min periods in the box prior to testing 24 h later. A discontinuous period of 9 daily 30 min sessions, however, produced a bigger effect than the 270 min continuous period. It was concluded that the degree of familiarization with the apparatus is a more important factor than length of time per se in the dark in determining the effectiveness of light as a reinforcer.
When the kingmaker stays home

After reviewing the theoretical underpinnings behind the ‘conventional wisdom’ that voters on the left abstain more, this article critically assesses the traditional approach of the so-called ideological bias on turnout. By compiling a new large dataset (197 country elections in Europe), this paper shows that centrist abstention is higher than leftist or rightist abstention. The analysis reveals that a society’s ideological turnout bias reflects its socioeconomic context (traditional explanation), but also that party strategies play a key role. Most importantly, results show that convergence towards the centre triggers a higher centrist abstention. Additionally, this article demonstrates that both socioeconomic and partisan factors have heterogeneous effects across ideological positions. These findings critically challenge prior understanding of the ideological bias on turnout and the impact of parties’ election strategies when pursuing the key centre voter.
Levamisole-Adulterated Cocaine Nephrotoxicity:  Ultrastructural Features.

OBJECTIVES The issue of levamisole-adulterated cocaine is emerging as a rapidly growing public health concern due to an increasing number of reports describing its role in cutaneous vasculitis and agranulocytosis. Of note, levamisole is recognized as a contaminant in 69% of the cocaine used within the United States. METHODS We describe a patient who was a chronic cocaine user and developed systemic vasculitis characterized by polyarthralgia, bullous skin lesions, agranulocytosis, and antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-positive rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis. RESULTS The skin biopsy specimen demonstrated leukocytoclastic vasculitis. The renal biopsy specimen revealed pauci-immune necrotizing and crescentic glomerulonephritis and unusual deposits with medium electron density composed of granules, microspherules, and rare single fibrils on electron microscopy. CONCLUSIONS The electron microscopic features of levamisole-adulterated cocaine toxicity are novel findings that are presented for the first time, to our knowledge, in this report.
Exact Capacity Analysis of Spectrum Sharing Systems: Average Received-Power Constraint

This letter presents an exact closed-form expression for the ergodic capacity of the secondary user in a spectrum sharing environment under an average received-power constraint, considering the effect of the interference from the primary user. Using capacity maximizing water-filling power allocation, we provide the closed-form expressions for the ergodic capacity and the average received-power assuming Rayleigh fading channels. Numerical results show that the primary user interference significantly affects the ergodic capacity of the secondary user. The obtained formulas can be used when predicting whether spectrum sharing is beneficial in a practical channel environment.
Backwardness and its discontents

Historians of modern Spain have traditionally written in what has recently been called the ‘paradigm of backwardness’. Franco’s long dictatorial regime (1939–75) delayed the entrance of the country into a consolidated modern democratic western Europe. But Spain had fallen out of the European picture long before the Franco era. For English-speaking scholarship, the origins of Spain’s decline were closely related to the spread of the nineteenth-century notion of ‘Prescott’s paradigm’, a term devised by Richard Kagan, by which he means the histories, generally written by foreign scholars, that emphasized the decline of Spain associated with the progressive loss of its empire. For William Hickling Prescott, this decline was due to the despotic nature of Spanish Catholicism which ossified the nation at the moment of its greatest power in the sixteenth century. Indeed, ‘Prescott’s paradigm’ is clearly a latter-day version of what historians know as the ‘Black Legend’, a narrative of Spanish history and culture with early modern roots that depicted Spaniards as cruel and intolerant, sadistic murderers of Protestants in Europe and Indians in the Americas. However, with the eclipse of Spanish hegemony, backwardness, rather than cruelty, became the object of historical explanation. The profound legacy of such a cliché erased Spain’s nineteenth and twentieth centuries from post-war European historians’ most pressing agendas – whether they included the transition from the Old Regime to a capitalist bourgeois society; histories of the working classes; the experience of the world wars; European processes of political and economic modernization; or questions related to empire, decolonization and post-colonialism. In this context, when the ‘crisis’ of Spain attracted historians’ attention, their interest focused on the failure of the democratic system of the Second Republic (1931–6), and the causes of the Spanish Civil War (1936–9). Thus, the latter appeared as the clash between ‘two Spains’, both of which inhabited a politically, economically and socially pre-modern country. The result of this clash was the establishment of an archaic and peculiar kind of fascism: the authoritarian and Catholic dictatorship of Franco. At the same time, in Spain, the pessimistic atmosphere of the Franco regime shaped the modern histories written in the 1960s and 1970s. From this perspective, the crisis of the
The Unending Search for Equity: California Policy, the "Improved School Finance," and the Williams Case

This paper examines school finance as a potential solution for inequity, identifying problems with the conventional solution of simply providing additional funding when inequities and inadequacies appear. The paper notes that states have developed a large roster of policy instruments, or state mechanisms of achieving educational policy. California's finance system is complex, and while it establishes greater equity in funding in some provisions, it undermines them in others. School finance reforms have always been argued in terms of dollars spent on schooling. New school finance, instead, concentrates on how dollars are actually used within classrooms and schools to produce desirable educational outcomes. In California, the most recent in a long line of litigation promoting greater equity is Williams v. State of California. This case provides an example of a new school finance lawsuit, since the facts of the case (too many uncredentialed teachers, inadequate and outdated textbooks, and inadequate and deteriorating facilities) move beyond dollars to the instructional conditions students experience in schools and classrooms. The paper asserts that solutions for these inequalities may require a complex combination of top-down funding patterns with a bottom-up process based on inequities in either instructional conditions or outputs. (Contains 148 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. REVISED DRAFT August 2002 For comments to the authors only* Prepared for the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA), University of California, Los Angeles THE UNENDING SEARCH FOR EQUITY: CALIFORNIA POLICY, THE "NEW" SCHOOL FINANCE, AND THE WILLIAMS CASE W. Norton Grubb David Gardner Chair in Higher Education
On Psychological Growth and Vulnerability: Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Need Frustration as a Unifying Principle

Humans have a potential for growth, integration, and well-being, while also being vulnerable to defensiveness, aggression, and ill-being. Self-determination theory (R. M. Ryan & E. L. Deci, 2000, Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development and well-being,American Psychologist, Vol. 55, pp. 68‐78) argues that satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness both fosters immediate well-being and strengthens inner resources contributing to subsequent resilience, whereas need frustration evokes illbeing and increased vulnerabilities for defensiveness and psychopathology. We briefly review recent research indicating how contextual need support and the experience of need satisfaction promote well-being and different growth manifestations (e.g., intrinsic motivation, internalization), as well as a rapidly growing body of work relating need thwarting and need frustration to ill-being, pursuit of need substitutes, and various forms of maladaptive functioning. Finally, we discuss research on differences in autonomous self-regulation and mindfulness, which serve as factors of resilience.
Task-Decomposition via Plan Parsing

Task-decomposition planners make use of schemata that define tasks in terms of partially ordered sets of tasks and primitive actions. Most existing task-decomposition planners synthesize plans via a top-down approach, called task reduction, which uses schemata to replace tasks with networks of tasks and actions until only actions remain. In this paper we present a bottom-up plan parsing approach to task-decomposition. Instead of reducing tasks into actions, we use an incremental parsing algorithm to recognize which partial primitive plans match the schemata. In essence, our approach exploits the observation that schemata are a convenient means for reducing search. We compile the schemata into a declarative search control language (like that used in machine learning research), which rejects plan refinements that cannot be parsed. We demonstrate that neither parsing nor reduction dominates the other on efficiency grounds and provide preliminary empirical results comparing the two. We note that our parsing approach allows convenient comparison (and combination) of different search control technologies, generates minimal plans, and handles expressive languages (e.g., universal quantification and conditional effects) with ease.
Educating Prospective Managers in the Complexity of Organizational Life

This article questions whether we can educate managers according to linear principles based on Newtonian laws and expect them subsequently to operate successfully in a world of increasing change and complexity where non-linear processes dominate. We explore this with the perspective of complexity science and through our experience of and reflections on recent examples which have arisen in our teaching practice. We argue that the increasing focus on outcomes in learning/teaching practice, both as a measure of learning and of quality in teaching, closes valuable areas of the learning/teaching experience to all participants in the process. Managers facing lives of ambiguity and anxiety for themselves and their organizations are let down by the very institutions whose role it is to support and prepare them.
Physical Symptoms During Pleasurable Emotional States

INVESTIGATIONS of psychosomatic relationships have shown that a wide variety of bodily changes occur during emotional disturbances associated with such feeling states as anxiety, resentment, guilt, or depression. The symptoms and diseases which are associated with these unpleasant states are understandably the chief preoccupation of physicians interested in this aspect of medicine. Somatic changes during pleasurable emotional states such as joy or happiness have also been observed. The changes in the gastrointestinal tract with pleasurable thoughts of food are familiar ( r ) . Changes in the heart rate (2), blood pressure ( n ) , and respiration (5, 6) with pleasurable emotional states have also been observed. Tears of joy are perhaps not much less common than tears of anguish. The Hindus consider such tears an index of religious experiences (10).
The selective closure of feline carotid arteriovenous anastomoses (AVAs) by GR43175

The haemodynamic effects of the selective 5-HT1-like agonist GR43175 have been compared with that of ergotamine in anaesthetized cats. Both GR43175 (30–1000 μg/kg intravenously) and ergotamine (0.3–30 μg/kg intravenously) caused a dose-dependent reduction in the proportion of cardiac output passing through arteriovenous anastomoses (AVAs). However, unlike GR43175, the effect of ergotamine (30 μg/kg intravenously) was associated with marked increases in diastolic blood pressure and total peripheral resistance. In further studies, the effect of GR43175 on the distribution of blood flow within the carotid bed has been examined. GR43175 caused a reduction in total carotid arterial blood flow which was entirely due to a reduction in flow through carotid AVAs. These results demonstrate that GR43175, unlike ergotamine, has a highly selective vasoconstrictor action on AVAs within the cranial circulation of anaesthetized cats. Such a mechanism may be important in its antimigraine activity.
Short-term change in self-reported COPD symptoms after smoking cessation in an internet sample

Smoking is the first risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Some recent reports suggest that, unexpectedly, some respiratory symptoms may increase transiently after smoking cessation, but there is a dearth of short-term data to test this hypothesis. The aim of the present study was to assess the validity of an online screening tool and to describe short-term associations between smoking behaviour and self-reported respiratory symptoms, in cross-sectional and longitudinal data. An internet survey was conducted in 2003–2009, on a smoking cessation website, with a follow-up survey after 30 days. There were 15,916 participants at baseline and 1,831 at follow-up. In the 252 baseline smokers who had quit smoking at 30-day follow-up, there was a substantial decrease in the proportion of participants who declared that they often coughed even without a cold (from 51.6% at baseline to 15.5% at follow-up), expectorated when they coughed in the morning (from 47.6% to 19.4%), were out of breath after climbing stairs or after a quick walk (from 75.0% to 48.4%), and who had a wheezing respiration (from 33.7% to 10.3%) (p<0.001 for all before/after comparisons). In participants who did not change their smoking behaviour between assessments, the test–retest reliability was r = 0.87 for a score summing these four symptoms. Smoking cessation was followed by a rapid and substantial improvement in self-reported respiratory symptoms. COPD is largely underdiagnosed and undertreated. Internet screening is reliable and may allow for the early detection of COPD symptoms at a large scale, in patients who may otherwise have no access to COPD case-finding efforts.