Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Collisional Evolution of Edgeworth–Kuiper Belt Objects

The Edgeworth–Kuiper Belt contains a population of objects ≈103times that of the main asteroid belt, spread over a volume ≈103larger and with relative speeds ≈10 times lower. As for the asteroids, the size distribution of Edgeworth–Kuiper Belt objects has been modified by mutual impacts over Solar System history. We have modeled this collisional evolution process using a numerical code developed originally to study asteroid collisional evolution but modified to reflect collision rates in the Edgeworth–Kuiper Belt. Our numerical simulations show that collisional evolution is substantial in the inner part of the Edgeworth–Kuiper Belt, but its intensity decreases with increasing distance from the Sun. In the inner belt, objects with diametersD> 50–100 km are not depleted by disruptive collisions; hence they reflect the original (formative) population (many of them, however, may have been converted into “rubble piles”). On the other hand, smaller objects are mostly multigenerational fragments, although the original population must have contained a significant number of bodies down to at least a few tens of kilometers in size in order to initiate a collisional cascade. About 10 fragments, 1–10 km in size, are produced per year in the inner Edgeworth–Kuiper Belt, with a few percent of them inserted into chaotic resonant orbits. This is in rough agreement with the required influx rate of Jupiter-family comets. Both collisions and dynamical instabilities associated with resonances are processes that can inject comets into the “escape hatches,” but our results indicate that most comets coming from the Edgeworth–Kuiper Belt would be fragments from larger parent bodies, rather than primitive planetesimals. However, this does not apply to Chiron-sized (D> 100 km) objects, which must be primordial and delivered to the outer Solar System by either dynamical processes or nondisruptive collisions.
Simulation of length-preserving motions of flexible one dimensional oObjects using optimization

During the motion of one dimensional flexible objects such as ropes, chains, etc., the assumption of constant length is realistic. Moreover,their motion appears to be naturally minimizing some abstract distance measure, wherein the disturbance at one end gradually dies down along the curve defining the object. This paper presents purely kinematic strategies for deriving length-preserving transformations of flexible objects that minimize appropriate ‘motion’. The strategies involve sequential and overall optimization of the motion derived using variational calculus. Numerical simulations are performed for the motion of a planar curve and results show stable converging behavior for single-step infinitesimal and finite perturbations 1 as well as multi-step perturbations. Additionally, our generalized approach provides different intuitive motions for various problem-specific measures of motion, one of which is shown to converge to the conventional tractrix-based solution. Simulation results for arbitrary shapes and excitations are also included.
Impact of dissociation and interpersonal functioning on inpatient treatment for early sexually abused adults

Background Little is known about the possible predictors of treatment outcome in early chronically sexually abused adults. The current study aimed to investigate what impact initial levels of dissociation and pre-treatment negative change in interpersonal functioning have on treatment response after 3 months of first-phase trauma inpatient treatment as well as after a period of 1 year the patients returned to their usual lives. Methods The sample comprised 48 inpatients with childhood sexual abuse histories and mixed trauma-related disorders who were examined at discharge and prospectively followed up for a period of 1 year under naturalistic conditions. Outcome variables were general psychiatric symptoms and interpersonal problems as measured with the Symptom Check List-Revised (SCL-R) and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP) Circumplex. Results The central findings were that pathological dissociation and deterioration in interpersonal functioning prior to admittance predicted general psychiatric symptom levels and interpersonal problems at the end of treatment and at 1-year follow-up. Pathological dissociation, involving memory and identity problems, alone predicted negative outcome at the end of treatment. The findings at 1-year follow-up indicate that it is not pathological dissociation in isolation that affects outcomes, but rather the interaction between dissociation and change in interpersonal functioning prior to treatment. Conclusion These findings indicate the need of addressing dissociation and interpersonal problems in treatment planning and favor an integrated treatment approach for complex trauma patients. Future research should investigate whether and how this leads to better outcome, including long-term maintenance of gains after the end of treatment.
Cost-effectiveness of bazedoxifene versus raloxifene in the treatment of postmenopausal women in Spain

Background The purpose of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of bazedoxifene and raloxifene for prevention of vertebral and nonvertebral fractures among postmenopausal Spanish women aged 55–82 years with established osteoporosis and a high fracture risk. Methods A Markov model was developed to represent the transition of a cohort of postmenopausal osteoporotic women through different health states, ie, patients free of fractures, patients with vertebral or nonvertebral fractures, and patients recovered from a fracture. Efficacy data for bazedoxifene were obtained from the Osteoporosis Study. The perspective of the Spanish National Health Service was chosen with a time horizon of 27 years. Costs were reported in 2010 Euros. Deterministic results were presented as expected cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY), and probabilistic results were represented in cost-effectiveness planes. Results In deterministic analysis, the expected cost per patient was higher in the raloxifene cohort (€13,881) than in the bazedoxifene cohort (€13,436). QALYs gained were slightly higher in the bazedoxifene cohort (14.56 versus 14.54). Results from probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed that bazedoxifene has a slightly higher probability of being cost-effective for all threshold values independent of the maximum that the National Health Service is willing to pay per additional QALY. Conclusion Bazedoxifene was shown to be a cost-effective treatment option for the prevention of fractures in Spanish women with postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high fracture risk. When comparing bazedoxifene with raloxifene, it may be concluded that the former is the dominant strategy.
Mothers’ own weight concerns predict early child feeding concerns

Primary objective: This research examined children’s birth weight and maternal weight concerns as predictors of mothers’ concerns about their infants’ eating behaviours. Research design: This study employed a survey design. Methods and procedures: Seventy-one mothers (M age = 29.98 years, SD = 6.10) of infants 2 years and younger (M age = 1.05 years, SD = 0.53) provided information about their children’s birth weight, their early feeding experiences, their current weight status, and their own weight concerns. Main outcomes and results: Results indicated that maternal weight concerns predicted mothers’ early concerns about their children’s eating behaviours. Further, infant birth weight and mother’s own weight status could not account for this relation. Conclusion: These findings may contribute to researchers’, clinicians’ and laypersons’ attempts to understand the current childhood obesity epidemic and the role parental influences on eating behaviours play in children’s weight status.
Role of hemochromatosis C282Y and H63D mutations in HFE gene in development of type 2 diabetes and diabetic nephropathy.

OBJECTIVE In patients with clinical hemochromatosis, the frequency of diabetes ranges from 20 to 50%, and the heterozygosity for the C282Y mutation in the HFE gene might be associated with an increased risk for diabetes. There are also some reports that suggest that iron overload might cause diabetic nephropathy. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We performed an association study to assess the role of the C282Y and H63D mutations in the HFE gene as a risk factor for type 2 diabetes and diabetic nephropathy. Altogether, 563 patients with type 2 diabetes were included in the study. In the analyzed group, 108 patients had overt proteinuria, 154 had microalbuminuria, and 301 had normoalbuminuria. Among the patients with normoalbuminuria, only those with known diabetes duration > or = 10 years were considered normoalbuminuric (n = 162). A total of 196 unrelated healthy subjects were used as a control group. All subjects were genotyped for C282Y and H63D using the polymerase chain reaction-based protocol. RESULTS There was an increased frequency of 282Y allele carriers among patients with type 2 diabetes versus healthy control subjects (OR 5.3, 95% CI 1.6-17.3). We observed an increased frequency of the 63D allele carriers among patients with diabetic nephropathy (1.8, 1.2-2.8). CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, our study is the first to indicate that being a carrier of the H63D hemochromatosis mutation is a risk factor for nephropathy in type 2 diabetic patients. We also confirmed previous observations that the frequency of the 282Y mutation was higher in patients with type 2 diabetes than it was in the general population of healthy subjects.
Metagenomic Analysis of the Pygmy Loris Fecal Microbiome Reveals Unique Functional Capacity Related to Metabolism of Aromatic Compounds

The animal gastrointestinal tract contains a complex community of microbes, whose composition ultimately reflects the co-evolution of microorganisms with their animal host. An analysis of 78,619 pyrosequencing reads generated from pygmy loris fecal DNA extracts was performed to help better understand the microbial diversity and functional capacity of the pygmy loris gut microbiome. The taxonomic analysis of the metagenomic reads indicated that pygmy loris fecal microbiomes were dominated by Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria phyla. The hierarchical clustering of several gastrointestinal metagenomes demonstrated the similarities of the microbial community structures of pygmy loris and mouse gut systems despite their differences in functional capacity. The comparative analysis of function classification revealed that the metagenome of the pygmy loris was characterized by an overrepresentation of those sequences involved in aromatic compound metabolism compared with humans and other animals. The key enzymes related to the benzoate degradation pathway were identified based on the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway assignment. These results would contribute to the limited body of primate metagenome studies and provide a framework for comparative metagenomic analysis between human and non-human primates, as well as a comparative understanding of the evolution of humans and their microbiome. However, future studies on the metagenome sequencing of pygmy loris and other prosimians regarding the effects of age, genetics, and environment on the composition and activity of the metagenomes are required.
Language Usage, Participation, Employment and Earnings - Evidence for Foreigners in West Germany with Multiple Sources of Selection

Language proficiency may not only affect the earnings of the individual, but the probability to participate in the labor market or becoming employed as well. It may also affect selection of people into economic sector and occupation. In this paper, the effects of language proficiency on earnings are analyzed for foreigners in Germany with joint consideration of up to four types of selection. The results show that language proficiency significantly increases participation and employment probability and affects occupational choice. When selection into economic sector and occupation is regarded, we do not find an impact of language ability on earnings thereby implying an indirect effect.
Visualization of the genus of knots

The genus of a knot or link can be defined via Seifert surfaces. A Seifert surface of a knot or link is an oriented surface whose boundary coincides with that, knot or link. Schematic images of these surfaces are shown in every text book on knot theory, but from these it is hard to understand their shape and structure. In this paper the visualization of such surfaces is discussed. A method is presented to produce different styles of surfaces for knots and links, starting from the so-called braid representation. Also, it is shown how closed oriented surfaces can be generated in which the knot is embedded, such that the knot subdivides the surface into two parts. These closed surfaces provide a direct visualization of the genus of a knot.
Calcium Dysregulation, IP 3 Signaling, and Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating and always fatal neurodegenerative disease that slowly and perniciously destroys neurons and cognitive abilities. Although a variety of drug treatments can delay or temporarily reduce the severity of the disease, there is still no cure or long-term effective treatment. AD can be divided into two categories; the most common is termed sporadic, with a relatively late onset (70+ years), moderate to extreme severity, and no known origin or cause for onset. Definitive diagnosis is made through postmortem findings of diffuse β amyloid plaques (Aβ plaques), neu-rofibrillary tangles, and neuronal cell loss in brain tissue. With inherited familial AD (FAD), the pattern of cognitive decline and histopathological markers are essentially the same as the sporadic form but differ considerably in that the age of onset is markedly younger (as early as 30 years) and the progression of symptoms is more aggressive. FAD is tightly linked to mutations in a select set of genes, namely, the presenilin 1 and 2 (PS1, PS2) and APP genes. Although the exact mechanistic link between expression of the mutant genes and onset of AD is not yet known, it is clear that expression of the mutation will lead to onset of FAD (for reviews, see Rossor and others 1996; LaFerla 2002). The hallmark features of AD, accumulation of Aβ plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, and neuronal cell loss, are often used as diagnostic markers in conjunction with severe cognitive decline. The accumulation of intra-and extracellular Aβ plaques results from the aberrant prote-olysis of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) by enzy-matic activity of γ secretase, of which the presenilin protein is an integral constituent. Hyperphosphorylated tau forms the primary component of the intracellular neu-rofibrillary tangles found in neurites in AD brains. And selective neuronal loss is integral to the disease and is concentrated in brain regions associated with cognition and memory such as the frontal cortex and hippocam-pus. Much attention has focused on Aβ as a trigger for AD, but accumulating evidence points to disruptions in neuronal Ca 2+ signaling as a consistent progenitor of AD, occurring prior to the development of the histopatholog-ical markers and cognitive decline. Whether the early Ca 2+ dysregulation is a cause, effect, or an independent parallel track of AD is still being debated. At the very least, enhanced endoplasmic reticulum (ER) Ca 2+ is believed to exacerbate Aβ and tau formation and alter synaptic signaling and neuronal …
Critical Success Factors Affecting Knowledge Management Adoption: A Review of the Literature

Knowledge management and CSFs are important issues in today's organisational world. Knowledge is understood as one of the crucial driving forces for business success and competitiveness. This study points out a number of success factors that were determined to be critical and affect knowledge management in all organisations. This paper is particularly helpful for further research on knowledge management-related issues, since it contributes to better identification and establishment of CSFs affecting knowledge management adoption
Explaining the International Mobility of Chinese Workers, 1992-2012

Using unique panel data on the temporary movement of Chinese workers to 186 economies during 1992-2012, I investigate the patterns and determinants of labor mobility in the services trade. I estimate a gravity model of labor mobility in two categories, namely, overseas labor services and overseas contracted projects. I find that distance (proxy for migration costs) and income are not the most important determinants of the latter. For overseas contracted projects, the dispatch of workers is not driven by their pure economic aims but by the Chinese government's policies and strategies such as its overseas project promotion policy. Furthermore, I employ propensity score matching with the difference-in-difference estimation method to investigate the impact of this policy upon labor mobility. The results show that the policy of promoting overseas contracted projects has causal and strong positive effects on labor mobility in construction-related sectors.
Interactive presentation: On power-profiling and pattern generation for power-safe scan tests

With increasing use of low cost wire-bond packages for mobile devices, excessive dynamic IR-drop may cause tests to fail on the tester. Identifying and debugging such scan test failures is a very complex and effort-intensive process. A better solution is to generate correct-by-construction "power-safe" patterns. Moreover, with glitch power contributing to a significant component of dynamic power, pattern generation needs to be timing-aware to minimize glitching. In this paper, we propose a timing-based, power and layout-aware pattern generation technique that minimizes both global and localized switching activity. Techniques are also proposed for power-profiling and optimizing an initial pattern set to obtain a power-safe pattern set, with the addition of minimal patterns. The proposed technique also comprehends irregular power grid topologies for constraints on localized switching activity. Experiments on ISCAS benchmark circuits reveal the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Highlighting the Structure-Function Relationship of the Brain with the Ising Model and Graph Theory

With the advent of neuroimaging techniques, it becomes feasible to explore the structure-function relationships in the brain. When the brain is not involved in any cognitive task or stimulated by any external output, it preserves important activities which follow well-defined spatial distribution patterns. Understanding the self-organization of the brain from its anatomical structure, it has been recently suggested to model the observed functional pattern from the structure of white matter fiber bundles. Different models which study synchronization (e.g., the Kuramoto model) or global dynamics (e.g., the Ising model) have shown success in capturing fundamental properties of the brain. In particular, these models can explain the competition between modularity and specialization and the need for integration in the brain. Graphing the functional and structural brain organization supports the model and can also highlight the strategy used to process and organize large amount of information traveling between the different modules. How the flow of information can be prevented or partially destroyed in pathological states, like in severe brain injured patients with disorders of consciousness or by pharmacological induction like in anaesthesia, will also help us to better understand how global or integrated behavior can emerge from local and modular interactions.
Conditionally Replicating Adenoviruses Kill Tumor Cells via a Basic Apoptotic Machinery-Independent Mechanism That Resembles Necrosis-Like Programmed Cell Death

ABSTRACT Conditionally replicating adenoviruses (CRAds) represent a promising class of novel anticancer agents that are used for virotherapy. The E1AΔ24 mutation-based viruses, Ad5-Δ24 [CRAd(E3−); E3 region deleted] and infectivity-enhanced Ad5-Δ24RGD [CRAd(E3+)] have been shown to potently eradicate tumor cells. The presence of the E3 region in the latter virus is known to improve cell killing that can be attributed to the presence of the oncolysis-enhancing Ad death protein. The more precise mechanism by which CRAds kill tumor cells is unclear, and the role of the host cell apoptotic machinery in this process has been addressed only in a limited way. Here, we examine the role of several major apoptotic pathways in the CRAd-induced killing of non-small-cell lung cancer H460 cells. As expected, CRAd(E3+) was more potent than CRAd(E3−). No evidence for the involvement of the p53-Bax apoptotic pathway was found. Western blot analyses demonstrated strong suppression of p53 expression and unchanged Bax levels during viral replication, and stable overexpression of human papillomavirus type 16-E6 in H460 cells did not affect killing by both CRAds. CRAd activity was also not hampered by stable overexpression of anti-apoptotic Bcl2 or BclXL, and endogenous Bcl2/BclXL protein levels remained constant during the oncolytic cycle. Some evidence for caspase processing was obtained at late time points after infection; however, the inhibition of caspases by the X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein overexpression or cotreatment with zVAD-fmk did not inhibit CRAd-dependent cell death. Analyses of several apoptotic features revealed no evidence for nuclear fragmentation or DNA laddering, although phosphatidylserine externalization was detected. We conclude that despite the known apoptosis-modulating abilities of individual Ad proteins, Ad5-Δ24-based CRAds trigger necrosis-like cell death. In addition, we propose that deregulated apoptosis in cancer cells, a possible drug resistance mechanism, provides no barrier for CRAd efficacy.
A compact model for early electromigration lifetime estimation

A compact model for early electromigration failures in copper dual-damascene M1/via structures is proposed. The model is derived based on relevant physical effects of the early failure mode, where a rigorous void nucleation model and a simple mechanism for slit void growth are considered. As a result, a simple analytical model for the early electromigration lifetime is obtained. In addition, it is shown that the simulations provide a reasonable estimation for the early lifetimes.
A Secure Data Self-Destructing Scheme in Cloud Computing

With the rapid development of versatile cloud services, it becomes increasingly susceptible to use cloud services to share data in a friend circle in the cloud computing environment. Since it is not feasible to implement full lifecycle privacy security, access control becomes a challenging task, especially when we share sensitive data on cloud servers. In order to tackle this problem, we propose a key-policy attribute-based encryption with time-specified attributes (KP-TSABE), a novel secure data self-destructing scheme in cloud computing. In the KP-TSABE scheme, every ciphertext is labeled with a time interval while private key is associated with a time instant. The ciphertext can only be decrypted if both the time instant is in the allowed time interval and the attributes associated with the ciphertext satisfy the key's access structure. The KP-TSABE is able to solve some important security problems by supporting user-defined authorization period and by providing fine-grained access control during the period. The sensitive data will be securely self-destructed after a user-specified expiration time. The KP-TSABE scheme is proved to be secure under the decision l-bilinear Diffie-Hellman inversion (l-Expanded BDHI) assumption. Comprehensive comparisons of the security properties indicate that the KP-TSABE scheme proposed by us satisfies the security requirements and is superior to other existing schemes.