Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increased expression of the Ras suppressor Rsu-1 enhances Erk-2 activation and inhibits Jun kinase activation

Studies were undertaken to determine the effect of the Ras suppressor Rsu-1 on Ras signal transduction pathways in two different cell backgrounds. An expression vector containing the mouse rsu-1 cDNA under the control of a mouse mammary tumor virus promoter was introduced into NIH 3T3 cells and the pheochromocytoma cell line PC12. Cell lines developed in the NIH 3T3 background expressed p33rsu-1 at approximately twice the normal endogenous level. However, PC12 cell clones which expressed p33rsu-1 at an increased level in a regulatable fashion in response to dexamethasone were isolated. Analysis of proteins involved in regulation of Ras and responsive to Ras signal transduction revealed similar changes in the two cell backgrounds in the presence of elevated p33rsu-1. There was an increase in the level of SOS, the guanine nucleotide exchange factor, and an increase in the percentage of GTP-bound Ras. In addition, there was an increase in the amount of p120 Ras-specific GTPase-activating protein (GAP) and GAP-associated p190. However, a decrease in Ras GTPase-activating activity was detected in lysates of the Rsu-1 transfectants, and immunoprecipitated p120 GAP from the Rsu-1 transfectants showed less Ras GTPase-activating activity than GAP from control cells. Activation of Erk-2 kinase by growth factor and tetradecanyol phorbol acetate was greater in the Rsu-1 transfectants than in control cells. However, c-Jun amino-terminal kinase activity (Jun kinase) was not activatable by epidermal growth factor in Rsu-1 PC12 cell transfectants, in contrast to the PC12 vector control cell line. Transient expression of p33rsu-1 in Cos1 cells following cotransfection with either hemagglutinin-tagged Jun kinase or hemagglutinin-tagged Erk-2 revealed that Rsu-1 expression inhibited constitutive Jun kinase activity while enhancing Erk-2 activity. Detection of in vitro binding of Rsu-1 to Raf-1 suggested that in Rsu-1 transfectants, increased activation of the Raf-1 pathway occurred at the expense of activation of signal transduction leading to Jun kinase. These results indicate that inhibition of Jun kinase activation was sufficient to inhibit Ras transformation even in the presence of activated Erk-2.
Editorial: Integrating Data Analyses in Mixed Methods Research

Although the epistemological arguments of the ‘‘paradigm wars’’ sharpened our thinking about issues related to mixed methodology, their lingering legacy has been to slow the progress of integration of methods. All mixed methods studies, by definition, attempt some form of integration, but the paradigm debates have made many researchers nervous about integrating the various strands of their research before they reach the point of drawing conclusions. There has, indeed, been a degree of illogic in the way some researchers have dealt with the issue of integration of data sources and analyses, where it has been considered epistemologically unacceptable to combine these, and yet desirable to corroborate or integrate conclusions drawn from data generated through diverse perspectives. In any case, as noted many years ago by Miles and Huberman (1994), these arguments are largely unproductive. From a pragmatic perspective, the primary issue is to determine what data and analyses are needed to meet the goals of the research and answer the questions at hand. Alternatively, a realist perspective encourages one to seek both processand variable-oriented data to both detect regularities and understand the mechanisms by which they occur (Maxwell, 2008).
The role of CD34 expression and cellular fusion in the regeneration capacity of myogenic progenitor cells

Characterization of myogenic subpopulations has traditionally been performed independently of their functional performance following transplantation. Using the preplate technique, which separates cells based on their variable adhesion characteristics, we investigated the use of cell surface proteins to potentially identify progenitors with enhanced regeneration capabilities. Based on previous studies, we used cell sorting to investigate stem cell antigen-1 (Sca-1) and CD34 expression on myogenic populations with late adhesion characteristics. We compared the regeneration efficiency of these sorted progenitors, as well as those displaying early adhesion characteristics, by quantifying their ability to regenerate skeletal muscle and restore dystrophin following transplantation into allogenic dystrophic host muscle. Identification and utilization of late adhering populations based on CD34 expression led to differential regeneration, with CD34-positive populations exhibiting significant improvements in dystrophin restoration compared with both their CD34-negative counterparts and early adhering cell populations. Regenerative capacity was found to correspond to the level of myogenic commitment, defined by myogenic regulatory factor expression, and the rate and degree of induced cell differentiation and fusion. These results demonstrate the ability to separate definable subpopulations of myogenic progenitors based on CD34 expression and reveal the potential implications of defining myogenic cell behavioral and phenotypic characteristics in relation to their regenerative capacity in vivo.
Towards a machine-learning architecture for lexical functional grammar parsing

Data-driven grammar induction aims at producing wide-coverage grammars of human languages. Initial efforts in this field produced relatively shallow linguistic representations such as phrase-structure trees, which only encode constituent structure. Recent work on inducing deep grammars from treebanks addresses this shortcoming by also recovering non-local dependencies and grammatical relations. My aim is to investigate the issues arising when adapting an existing Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) induction method to a new language and treebank, and find solutions which will generalize robustly across multiple languages. The research hypothesis is that by exploiting machine-learning algorithms to learn morphological features, lemmatization classes and grammatical functions from treebanks we can reduce the amount of manual specification and improve robustness, accuracy and domain- and language -independence for LFG parsing systems. Function labels can often be relatively straightforwardly mapped to LFG grammatical functions. Learning them reliably permits grammar induction to depend less on language-specific LFG annotation rules. I therefore propose ways to improve acquisition of function labels from treebanks and translate those improvements into better-quality f-structure parsing. In a lexicalized grammatical formalism such as LFG a large amount of syntactically relevant information comes from lexical entries. It is, therefore, important to be able to perform morphological analysis in an accurate and robust way for morphologically rich languages. I propose a fully data-driven supervised method to simultaneously lemmatize and morphologically analyze text and obtain competitive or improved results on a range of typologically diverse languages.
Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) -1, -2, -3 and -9 promoter polymorphisms in colorectal cancer.

BACKGROUND Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are a group of matrix-degrading proteins implicated in several pathological processes, e.g., invasion and metastasis in malignant diseases such as colorectal cancer (CRC). MATERIALS AND METHODS One hundred and twenty-seven CRC patients and 208 controls were genotyped for MMP-1, -2, -3 and -9 promoter polymorphisms. The genotyping was performed with PCR/primer-extension/DHPLC or PCR/RFLP. RESULTS The MMP-1 2G allele was significantly associated with CRC (p=0.037). No significant association between CRC and MMP-2, -3 or -9 polymorphisms was evident. The analysis of polymorphisms in the clinicopathological subgroups displayed no significant associations. CONCLUSION The MMP-1 promoter polymorphism seems to affect the susceptibility to CRC, while MMP-2, -3 and -9 polymorphisms appear less likely to have any impact on CRC.
Does Past Unauthorized Immigrant Status Result in a Wage Penalty for Legalized Immigrants?

Unauthorized immigrants are an important concern in the current immigration policy agenda. The most recent policy on unauthorized immigrants is the Deferred Deportation Action for Childhood Arrivals (DDA), which protects certain unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the US at a young age, from removal/deportation action, and provides them with authorization for employment for two years and a potential path to citizenship. It is estimated that about 1.7 million unauthorized immigrants will benefit from this initiative. But will these immigrants have to endure lower wages after legalization than a similar immigrant with no history of unauthorized immigrant activity? This question is important to understand the labor market assimilation implications of this new policy directive. In this context, this study investigates if past unauthorized immigrant status results in a wage penalty for legal permanent residents in the US? The analysis is based on longitudinal data from the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), which contains rare information about prior unauthorized immigrant statuses held by current legal immigrants. The methodology is a Hausman Taylor model and the identification of the model is based on the indicator variable for past unauthorized immigrant status. This paper contributes to existing literature by focusing on the wage penalty due to past unauthorized immigrants status using recent data that is more applicable in the current context and overcomes the limitations of previous literature by using longitudinal data consisting of both authorized and unauthorized immigrants instead of using two disparate data sources. Author
The facets of job satisfaction among vice‐principals in elementary schools

Purpose – Literature on vice‐principals that aims to get a better understanding of their roles, role perceptions in school management, and their attitudes towards school management have revealed that the vice‐principalship is one of the least researched and least discussed. The purpose of this paper is to explore the facets of job satisfaction among Turkish vice‐principals.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected via a survey administered to 159 vice‐principals working for elementary schools in a city in the eastern part of Turkey and results were gathered by May 2010. A two‐part survey questionnaire was used to elicit responses from vice‐principals. The instrument consists of 31 items and asks respondents to indicate the extent of their agreement with each of the items on a four‐point Likert scale. In this study items were designed as a five‐point scale. There is a section to collect personal information. It was included together with an item asking for their career orientation.Findings – The re.
Humiliation and the Global War on Terror

For observers across the world, the use of cruel interrogation techniques by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib prison were horrifying for many reasons: because of the brute violence, because many of the victims were likely innocent, and because of the shocking parallels it created between the old regime and the new. The resulting outrage confirmed many beliefs that U.S. actions in Iraq were motivated by Machiavellian self-interest and imperial hubris that blinded the United States to the heightened resentment and instability they would create regionally. Perhaps most of all, however, the events of Abu Ghraib generated outrage and anger because the pictures tell a story of interrogators who, smiling through the flash bulbs, not only failed to respect the basic human rights of their prisoners through inaction, but actively sought to humiliate, mutilate, and destroy the human dignity of their victims.
Role-Related Identity Structure in Adult Women

This study explored women's role-related identity structures through in-depth interviews with 60 employed and stay-at-home women married to professional men. The employment, wife, mother, and homemaking roles of these women were examined to understand how married women integrate employment and family roles (i.e., wife, mother, and homemaking roles) within their identity. The women arranged the structure of their multiple roles in a variety of ways: Most structured their roles hierarchically, others intertwined several roles, some perceived their roles as equally important, a few indicated that they were "more than" their roles, and a small group of women were actively reworking their role-related identity structure. The structures observed are interpreted as representing a range of personal settlements with contemporary adult gender-role-related societal expectations.
The Intentional School: Effective Elementary Education for All Children

The 6 or 7 years that children spend in elementary school are crucial for determining the path they will follow for their entire lives. Children enter kindergarten full of promise and eager to learn. Some leave fifth or sixth grade with even greater motivation and thirst for knowledge, ready to take on the challenges of secondary school, while others, perhaps equally capable and enthusiastic at first, leave elementary school with little sense of accomplishment, little enjoyment of learning, and little hope for success in school. Children who are placed at risk of school failure by such factors as poverty or limited English proficiency enter school no less enthusiastic and hopeful than other children, but are particularly likely to have their enthusiasm and positive expectations dashed by their experiences in school. While home environment, social class, and other nonschool factors play a pervasive role in either preparing or failing to prepare a child for success, the preschool and elementary grades provide the first extended opportunity for the good intentions of society at large to have a direct and powerful influence on children’s development. For at-risk children, who are likely to have fewer resources at home to help them recover from early failures (such as failure to learn to read in the first grade), the elementary school experience may be particularly crucial. While a nation concerned about its future must invest in all levels of schooling, it especially cannot afford to allow children to fail at the beginning of their formal schooling. The elementary school provides what is perhaps the most accessible setting for creating profound changes in the education of all children, including those who are placed at risk. Elementary children, especially those in the early grades, still have enormous enthusiasm for
Assisting Users with Clustering Tasks by Combining Metric Learning and Classification

Interactive clustering refers to situations in which a human labeler is willing to assist a learning algorithm in automatically clustering items. We present a related but somewhat different task, assisted clustering, in which a user creates explicit groups of items from a large set and wants suggestions on what items to add to each group. While the traditional approach to interactive clustering has been to use metric learning to induce a distance metric, our situation seems equally amenable to classification. Using clusterings of documents from human subjects, we found that one or the other method proved to be superior for a given cluster, but not uniformly so. We thus developed a hybrid mechanism for combining the metric learner and the classifier. We present results from a large number of trials based on human clusterings, in which we show that our combination scheme matches and often exceeds the performance of a method which exclusively uses either type of learner.
Decrease of 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine Is Associated with Progression of Hepatocellular Carcinoma through Downregulation of TET1

DNA methylation is an important epigenetic modification and is frequently altered in cancer. Convert of 5-methylcytosine (5 mC) to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5 hmC) by ten-eleven translocation (TET) family enzymes plays important biological functions in embryonic stem cells, development, aging and disease. Recent reports showed that level of 5 hmC was altered in various types of cancers. However, the change of 5 hmC level in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and association with clinical outcome were not well defined. Here, we reported that level of 5 hmC was decreased in HCC tissues, as compared with non-tumor tissues. Clincopathological analysis showed the decreased level of 5 hmC in HCC was associated with tumor size, AFP level and poor overall survival. We also found that the decreased level of 5 hmC in non-tumor tissues was associated with tumor recurrence in the first year after surgical resection. In an animal model with carcinogen DEN-induced HCC, we found that the level of 5 hmC was gradually decreased in the livers during the period of induction. There was further reduction of 5 hmC in tumor tissues when tumors were developed. In contrast, level of 5 mC was increased in HCC tissues and the increased 5 mC level was associated with capsular invasion, vascular thrombosis, tumor recurrence and overall survival. Furthermore, our data showed that expression of TET1, but not TET2 and TET3, was downregulated in HCC. Taken together, our data indicated 5 hmC may be served as a prognostic marker for HCC and the decreased expression of TET1 is likely one of the mechanisms underlying 5 hmC loss in HCC.
Study on Coexistence of a Narrow Band System with Terrestrial DTV System: Focused on DTV White Space Utilization with TETRA Release 1

Efficient use of digital TV spectrum is becoming one of global issues when the transition to DTV is completed. Various wideband services including spectrum sensing application are mainly discussed currently. However, there are critical issues with broadcasters as incumbent users in the DTV band. Therefore, the narrowband applications should also be considered for practical use of White Space for more efficient use of DTV spectrum. In this paper, TETRA release 1 was considered as a narrowband application for DTV White Space. Through the computing, the interoperable range of TETRA system was reviewed according to their operating modes and power classes.
Determinants of Active Leisure for Women with Young Children—an “Ethic of Care” Prevails

Women are significantly less likely than men to participate in physically active leisure. Women with children are less likely to participate in active leisure compared with women who do not have children. Social pressure to fulfil the role of being a good mother has been suggested in discussions regarding constraints to physical activity as has the use of leisure engagement as a means of challenging social expectations and structured gender relations. This study explored determinants of active leisure participation through in-depth interviews with 12 heterosexual mothers of young children who were purposively sampled with contrasting levels of partner support, physical activity, and socioeconomic status. The findings suggested that household norms relating to gender-based time negotiation and ideologies regarding an ethic of care were important determinants of active leisure among women with young children. A better understanding of these issues could be important in the development of strategies for promoting greater participation in physical activity among women.
Lipreading supplemented by voice fundamental frequency: to what extent does the addition of voicing increase lexical uniqueness for the lipreader

Lipreading in combination with an acoustic indication of voice fundamental frequency (FO) has been shown to greatly improve word recognition accuracy with sentence stimuli. A possible explanation for this effect is that FO delivers information for consonantal voicing. In experiment 1 we showed with a computational model how voicing information affects the uniqueness of lipread words in a large phonemically transcribed machine-readable lexicon. In experiment 2 the same computational methods were used to simulate the results obtained by McGrath and Summerfield (1985) for lipreading with and without acoustic FO. The model failed to account in full for the behaviourally observed enhancements. It is suggested that lexical biasing in word recognition can account for the difference between the model and the behavioural results.
Using a GPU, Online Diarization – Offline Diarization

This article presents a low-latency, online speaker diarization system (“who is speaking now? ”) based on the repeated execution of a GPU-optimized, highly efficient offline diarization system (“who spoke when”). The system fulfills all requirements of the diarization task, i.e., it does not require any a priori information about the input, including specific speaker models. In contrast to earlier attempts at online diarization, the system achieves similar accuracy to the underlying offline system and does not require explicit detection of new speakers. Using GPUs, online diarization has become a side-effect of offline diarization, obsoleting the requirement for specialized online diarization systems.
Diagnostic Value of Right Pulmonary Artery Distensibility Index in Dogs with Pulmonary Hypertension: Comparison with Doppler Echocardiographic Estimates of Pulmonary Arterial Pressure

Background Noninvasive diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension (PH) primarily relies upon Doppler echocardiography of tricuspid regurgitation (TR). However, TR might be absent or difficult to measure. Hypothesis/Objectives To determine the diagnostic value of right pulmonary artery distensibility (RPAD) index for prediction of Doppler‐derived estimates of pulmonary artery (PA) pressure compared to other indices of PH in dogs. Animals Sixty‐nine client‐owned dogs with TR. Methods Prospective observational study. Dogs were allocated to groups according to TR pressure gradient (TRPG): TRPG <36 mmHg (control, n = 22), TRPG 36–50 (n = 16), TRPG 50–75 (n = 14) and TRPG >75 mmHg (n = 17). Right pulmonary artery distensibility index, acceleration time to peak PA flow (AT), AT: ejection time of PA flow (AT:ET) and main PA size: aorta size (MPA:Ao) were calculated in each dog. Results Right pulmonary artery distensibility index demonstrated the strongest correlation (r = −0.90; P < .0001) to TRPG followed by MPA:Ao (r = 0.78; P < .0001), AT (r = −0.69; P < .0001) and AT:ET (r = −0.68; P < .0001). RPAD index possessed the most accurate cutoff (<29.5%; Sensitivity [Sn] 0.84, Specificity [Sp] 0.95) to predict TRPG >50 mmHg compared to AT (<53.9 ms; Sn 0.74, Sp 0.87), AT:ET (<0.30; Sn 0.61, Sp 0.97) and MPA:Ao (>1.04; Sn 0.94, Sp 0.74). All intra‐ and interobserver measurement variabilities exhibited coefficients of variation ≤13%. Conclusions and Clinical Importance Right pulmonary artery distensibility index is an accurate predictor of TRPG and should be particularly useful if TR is absent or difficult to measure.