Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systematic Functional Study of Cytochrome P450 2D6 Promoter Polymorphisms in the Chinese Han Population

The promoter polymorphisms of drug-metabolizing genes can lead to interindividual differences in gene expression, which may result in adverse drug effects and therapeutic failure. Based on the database of CYP2D6 gene polymorphisms in the Chinese Han population established by our group, we functionally characterized the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the promoter region and corresponding haplotypes in this population. Using site-directed mutagenesis, all the five SNPs identified and ten haplotypes with a frequency equal to or greater than 0.01 in the population were constructed on a luciferase reporter system. Dual luciferase reporter systems were used to analyze regulatory activity. The activity produced by Haplo3(−2183G>A, −1775A>G, −1589G>C, −1431C>T, −1000G>A, −678A>G), Haplo8(−2065G>A, −2058T>G, −1775A>G, −1589G>C, −1235G>A, −678A>G) and MU3(−498C>A) was 0.7−, 0.7−, 1.2− times respectively compared with the wild type in human hepatoma cell lines(p<0.05). These findings might be useful for optimizing pharmacotherapy and the design of personalized medicine.
Monitoring data identification for a water distribution system based on data self-recognition approach

Detecting the occurrence of hydraulic accidents or contamination events in the shortest time has always been a significant but difficult task. The simple and efficient way is to identify the sudden changes or outliers hidden in the vast amounts of monitoring data produced minute by minute, which is unpractical for human. A new method, which employs a data self-recognition approach to achieve that automatically, has been proposed in this paper. The autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model was employed in this research to construct the self-recognition model. 56 months monitoring data from Changping water distribution network in Beijing, which was firstly cut into different time-slice series, was used to establish the ARMA model. This provided a prediction confidence interval in order to identify the outliers in the test data series. The results showed a good performance in outlier identification and the accuracy ranges from 90% to 95%. Thus, the ARMA model showed great potential in dealing with monitoring data and achieving the expected performance of data self-recognition technology.
The Association of Sleep Disordered Breathing with Heart Failure and Other Cardiovascular Conditions

An abundance of evidence exists in support of primary and secondary prevention for tackling the scourge of cardiovascular disease. Despite our wealth of knowledge, certain deficiencies still remain. One such example is the association between sleep disordered breathing (SDB) and cardiovascular disease. A clear body of evidence exists to link these two disease entities (independent of other factors such as obesity and smoking), yet our awareness of this association and its clinical implication does not match that of other established cardiovascular risk factors. Here, we outline the available evidence linking SDB and cardiovascular disease as well as discussing the potential consequences and management in the cardiovascular disease population.
Patterns of GPS Tracks Suggest Nocturnal Foraging by Incubating Peruvian Pelicans (Pelecanus thagus)

Most seabirds are diurnal foragers, but some species may also feed at night. In Peruvian pelicans (Pelecanus thagus), the evidence for nocturnal foraging is sparse and anecdotal. We used GPS-dataloggers on five incubating Peruvian pelicans from Isla Lobos de Tierra, Perú, to examine their nocturnality, foraging movements and activities patterns at sea. All instrumented pelicans undertook nocturnal trips during a 5–7 day tracking period. Eighty-seven percent of these trips (n = 13) were strictly nocturnal, whereas the remaining occurred during the day and night. Most birds departed from the island after sunset and returned a few hours after sunrise. Birds traveled south of the island for single-day trips at a maximum range of 82.8 km. Overall, 22% of the tracking period was spent at sea, whereas the remaining time was spent on the island. In the intermediate section of the trip (between inbound and outbound commutes), birds spent 77% of the trip time in floating bouts interspersed by short flying bouts, the former being on average three times longer than the latter. Taken together, the high sinuosity of the bird's tracks during floating bouts, the exclusively nocturnal trips of most individuals, and the fact that all birds returned to the island within a few hours after sunrise suggest that pelicans were actively feeding at night. The nocturnal foraging strategy of Peruvian pelicans may reduce food competition with the sympatric and strictly diurnal Guanay cormorants (Phalacrocorax bougainvillii), Peruvian boobies (Sula variegata) and Blue-footed boobies (S. nebouxii), which were present on the island in large numbers. Likewise, plankton bioluminescence might be used by pelicans as indirect cues to locate anchovies during their upward migration at night. The foraging success of pelicans at night may be enhanced by seizing prey close to the sea surface using a sit-and-wait strategy.
MRSA eradication of newly acquired lower respiratory tract infection in cystic fibrosis

UK cystic fibrosis (CF) guidelines recommend eradication of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) when cultured from respiratory samples. As there is no clear consensus as to which eradication regimen is most effective, we determined the efficacy of eradication regimens used in our CF centre and long-term clinical outcome. All new MRSA positive sputum cultures (n=37) that occurred between 2000 and 2014 were reviewed. Eradication regimen characteristics and clinical, microbiological and long-term outcome data were collected. Rifampicin plus fusidic acid was the most frequently used regimen (24 (65%) out of 37 patients), with an overall success rate of 79% (19 out of 24 patients). Eradication failure was more likely in patients with an additional MRSA-positive peripheral screening swab (p=0.03) and was associated with worse survival (p=0.04). Our results demonstrate the feasibility and clinical benefits of MRSA eradication. As peripheral colonisation was associated with lower eradication success, strategies combining systemic and topical treatments should be considered to optimise outcomes in CF patients. In CF, eradication of MRSA from the respiratory tract is feasible and is associated with better clinical outcome http://ow.ly/YfbqD
Standard of disocclusion in complete dentures supported by implants without free distal ends: analysis by the finite elements method

Objective The occlusal patterns are key requirements for the clinical success of oral rehabilitation supported by implants. This study compared the stresses generated by the disocclusion in the canine guide occlusion (CGO) and bilateral balanced occlusion (BBO) on the implants and metallic infrastructure of a complete Brånemark protocol-type denture modified with the inclusion of one posterior short implant on each side. Material and Methods A three-dimensional model simulated a mandible with seven titanium implants as pillars, five of them installed between the mental foramen and the two posterior implants, located at the midpoint of the occlusal surface of the first molar. A load of 15 N with an angle of 45º was applied to a tooth or distributed across three teeth to simulate the CGO or BBO, respectively. The commercial program ABAQUS® was used for the model development, before and after the processing of the data. The results were based on a linear static analysis and were used to compare the magnitude of the equivalent stress for each of the simulations. Results The results showed that the disocclusion in CGO generated higher stresses concentrated on the working side in the region of the short implant. In BBO, the stresses were less intense and more evenly distributed on the prosthesis. The maximum stress found in the simulation of the disocclusion in CGO was two times higher than that found in the simulation of the BBO. The point of maximum stress was located in the neck of the short implant on the working side. Conclusions Under the conditions of this study, it was concluded that the BBO pattern was more suitable than CGO for the lower complete denture supported by implants without free distal ends.
The Design of High Performance Barrel Integer Adder

This paper proposes a new kind of parallel integer addition algorithm - the barrel integer addition algorithm on the basis of researching the structure of half adder. It also elaborates the principle and structure of barrel integer addition algorithm, analyses the time and the degree of complexity in the area of the algorithm and at the same time compares it with the traditional integer addition algorithm. We realized that the 16-bit barrel integer adder using Verilog HDL and verifies comprehensively in the Altera device. The result shows that the speed of the barrel integer adder designed in this paper improves obviously on the basis of a small increase of area, which lays the foundation for the improvement of the multiplier performance.
Support Vector Discriminant Analysis on Local Binary Patterns for Facial Expression Recognition

In this paper, A new approach to facial expression recognition is constructed by combining the support vector discriminant analysis (SVDA) and local binary pattern (LBP) operator. LBP is an effective low-cost image descriptor to extract facial texture representing expression features. The basic idea of SVDA is to find the projection axes according to the margin maximization criterion. SVDA is an excellent data dimension reduction method which benefits from the intrinsic merits of SVM such as generalization abilities and kernel tricks for nonlinear classification. The proposed algorithm is experimented on the Japanese female facial expression (JAFFE) database. Extensive experiments are carried out to compare with other common methods such as PCA and LDA. The experiment results show that the combination of LBP+SVDA provides better performance than that of those traditional algorithms and prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Multilayered Organization of Jasmonate Signalling in the Regulation of Root Growth

Physical damage can strongly affect plant growth, reducing the biomass of developing organs situated at a distance from wounds. These effects, previously studied in leaves, require the activation of jasmonate (JA) signalling. Using a novel assay involving repetitive cotyledon wounding in Arabidopsis seedlings, we uncovered a function of JA in suppressing cell division and elongation in roots. Regulatory JA signalling components were then manipulated to delineate their relative impacts on root growth. The new transcription factor mutant myc2-322B was isolated. In vitro transcription assays and whole-plant approaches revealed that myc2-322B is a dosage-dependent gain-of-function mutant that can amplify JA growth responses. Moreover, myc2-322B displayed extreme hypersensitivity to JA that totally suppressed root elongation. The mutation weakly reduced root growth in undamaged plants but, when the upstream negative regulator NINJA was genetically removed, myc2-322B powerfully repressed root growth through its effects on cell division and cell elongation. Furthermore, in a JA-deficient mutant background, ninja1 myc2-322B still repressed root elongation, indicating that it is possible to generate JA-responses in the absence of JA. We show that NINJA forms a broadly expressed regulatory layer that is required to inhibit JA signalling in the apex of roots grown under basal conditions. By contrast, MYC2, MYC3 and MYC4 displayed cell layer-specific localisations and MYC3 and MYC4 were expressed in mutually exclusive regions. In nature, growing roots are likely subjected to constant mechanical stress during soil penetration that could lead to JA production and subsequent detrimental effects on growth. Our data reveal how distinct negative regulatory layers, including both NINJA-dependent and -independent mechanisms, restrain JA responses to allow normal root growth. Mechanistic insights from this work underline the importance of mapping JA signalling components to specific cell types in order to understand and potentially engineer the growth reduction that follows physical damage.
Depth silhouettes context: A new robust feature for human tracking and activity recognition based on embedded HMMs

Activity and action detection, tracking and recognition are very demanding research area in computer vision and human computer interaction. In this paper, a video-based novel approach for human activity recognition is presented using robust hybrid features and embedded Hidden Markov Models. In the proposed HAR framework, depth maps are analyzed by temporal motion identification method to segment human silhouettes from noisy background and compute depth silhouette area for each activity to track human movements in a scene. Several representative features, including invariant, depth sequential silhouettes and spatiotemporal body joints features were fused together to explore gradient orientation change, intensity differentiation, temporal variation and local motion of specific body parts. Then, these features are processed by the dynamics of their respective class and learned, trained and recognized with specific embedded HMM having active feature values. Our experiments on two depth datasets demonstrate that the proposed features are efficient and robust over the state of the arts features for human activity recognition especially when there are similar postures of different activities.
EQUALIZATION OF THE ELEMENT RADIATION PATERNS FOR ROOT BASED DIRECTION FINDING ALGORITHMS

Root based direction finding (DF) algorithms presume equal element radiation patterns in the terminated array environment, a requirement that can generally not be satisfied due to mutual coupling. In this paper a technique is investigated for improving the direction of arrival (DOA) estimation accuracy of root based DF algorithms through equalization of element patterns of centrally located "active" elements in a linear array by appending passively terminated "dummy" elements at both ends of the array. An iterative nonlinear optimization algorithm is employed to determine the optimum terminating impedances. A numerical example of a 10 -element dipole array shows a significant reduction in the DOA estimation error.
On the SDR: Reserve Currencies and the Future of the International Monetary System

Thus, neither the total supply nor the total demand for reserves is likely to change dramatically. There is no compelling argument for an SDR allocation to avert a pending global liquidity shortage or to remove an intrinsic instability in the reserve-supply process. There is a consistent argument for an SDR allocation to provide the resources needed to manage national financial crises with international implications--but there are more direct and desirable means of underwriting the relevant facility. European monetary unification, if and when it occurs, will have major implications for the demand and supply of reserves, but there is little reason to think that they will create a significant excess demand for international reserves or destabilize the reserve-supply process. In a future world with a single world currency or three relatively self-contained currency blocs floating against one another, the demand for international reserves would decline or disappear. While there would be a role for the SDR or an instrument like it if the IMF is the world central bank that issues the single world currency, any such scenario is exceedingly remote.
How Long Can You Run: And Where Are You Running?

Faith in the long run is the most powerful force that drives investment decisions. Investors would be lost if they had no sense of the long run. The long run is a benchmark that helps us to understand the short run, where nothing ever stands still. The long run defines high versus low. The long run establishes our normal portfolios and the choices we make about deviations from normal. Whatever its shortcomings as a meaningful sample, the long run is our firmest support as we peer into the darkness that lies ahead. My purpose here is to explore precisely what it is that we are doing when we employ the long run as a benchmark or when-as now occurs with increasing frequency-we conduct asset allocation exercises on the assumption that, over the long run, stocks are the premier investment class. When we begin to dig into the deeper meanings embedded in this process, we shall see that the whole issue is hobbled by a bunch of logical and troublesome inconsistencies.
Fcast Multicast File Distribution: "Tune in, Download, and Drop Out"

Reliable data multicast is difficult to scale. Fcast, “file multicasting”, combines multicast with Forward Error Correction (FEC). Like classic multicast, Fcast scales to large audiences, and like other FEC schemes, it uses bandwidth very efficiently. Some of the benefits of this combination were known previously, but Fcast contributes new caching methods that improve disk throughput and new optimizations for small file transfers.
A multi-mode 60-GHz power amplifier with a novel power combination technique

This paper discusses two issues including a new power-combined technique and efficiency enhancement technique in mm-wave power amplifier design. A new concept of “folded-transformer” is proposed to reduce effectively the active area of power combiner and splitter. Furthermore, the efficiency enhancement technique at power-back operations is presented to extend the battery service time of the mobile device. The 60-GHz PA adopts an ultra-compact 4-way folded-transformer based architecture and provides power level-dependent multi-operating modes. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first mm-wave power amplifier with efficiency enhancement technique at power back-off operations. The PA is implemented in TSMC 90nm low-power CMOS process. While 1.2 V supply, the measurement results show that the peak power is 18.5 dBm at 60GHz and the drain efficiency of the power stage achieves of 24.1%. At 6dB/10dB power back-off operation, the drain efficiencies of power stage can be enhanced from 5.9% / 2.4% to 11.9% / 8%, respectively.
The Complicate Observations and Multi-Parameter Land Information Constructions on Allied Telemetry Experiment (COMPLICATE)

The Complicate Observations and Multi-Parameter Land Information Constructions on Allied Telemetry Experiment (COMPLICATE) comprises a network of remote sensing experiments designed to enhance the dynamic analysis and modeling of remotely sensed information for complex land surfaces. Two types of experimental campaigns were established under the framework of COMPLICATE. The first was designed for continuous and elaborate experiments. The experimental strategy helps enhance our understanding of the radiative and scattering mechanisms of soil and vegetation and modeling of remotely sensed information for complex land surfaces. To validate the methodologies and models for dynamic analyses of remote sensing for complex land surfaces, the second campaign consisted of simultaneous satellite-borne, airborne, and ground-based experiments. During field campaigns, several continuous and intensive observations were obtained. Measurements were undertaken to answer key scientific issues, as follows: 1) Determine the characteristics of spatial heterogeneity and the radiative and scattering mechanisms of remote sensing on complex land surfaces. 2) Determine the mechanisms of spatial and temporal scale extensions for remote sensing on complex land surfaces. 3) Determine synergist inversion mechanisms for soil and vegetation parameters using multi-mode remote sensing on complex land surfaces. Here, we introduce the background, the objectives, the experimental designs, the observations and measurements, and the overall advances of COMPLICATE. As a result of the implementation of COMLICATE and for the next several years, we expect to contribute to quantitative remote sensing science and Earth observation techniques.
Intuitive Tip of the Tongue Judgments Predict Subsequent Problem Solving One Day Later

Often when failing to solve problems, individuals report some idea of the solution, but cannot explicitly access the idea. We investigated whether such intuition would relate to improvements in solving and to the manner in which a problem was solved after a 24hour delay. On Day 1, participants attempted to solve Compound Remote Associate problems, for which they viewed three problem words (crab, sauce, pine) and tried to generate one solution word (apple) that could form a compound word with each problem word (crabapple, applesauce, pineapple). For problems they failed to solve, participants reported whether they had an intuitive sense that they might have solution related processing in the back of their mind, similar to a Tip-of-the-Tongue (TOT) experience. After an overnight delay, on Day 2 participants attempted to solve unsolved Old problems from Day 1 (mixed among New problems). Participants solved more Old problems for which they reported a TOT on Day 1 than Old problems without a TOT, demonstrating a TOT specific incubation effect. Interestingly, participants reported solving a marginally higher proportion of these TOT problems, compared to No TOT problems, with insight. Results suggest that intuitive TOT judgments are indicative of subthreshold solution related activation that can facilitate eventual problem solving, especially with insight.
Of What Value are Shareholder Proposals Sponsored by Public Pension Funds?

This study finds that public pension fund proposals act as a signaling mechanism in alerting the market that management is unwilling or unable to negotiate a settlement with the public fund in order to prevent the submission of the proposal. We find that firms receiving proposals for the first time experience a transitory decrease in shareholder wealth, while firms targeted repeatedly exhibit negative wealth effects over much wider event windows. Long-run changes in the firms' operating performance and stock price returns are consistent with these results. A comparison of corporate governance characteristics provides further insight into our findings. Copyright 2000 by University of Chicago Press.
The HMGB1 Receptor RAGE Mediates Ischemic Brain Damage

In ischemic stroke, the necrotic core is surrounded by a zone of inflammation, in which delayed cell death aggravates the initial insult. Here, we provide evidence that the receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) functions as a sensor of necrotic cell death and contributes to inflammation and ischemic brain damage. The RAGE ligand high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) was elevated in serum of stroke patients and was released from ischemic brain tissue in a mouse model of cerebral ischemia. A neutralizing anti-HMGB1 antibody and HMGB1 box A, an antagonist of HMGB1 at the receptor RAGE, ameliorated ischemic brain damage. Interestingly, genetic RAGE deficiency and the decoy receptor soluble RAGE reduced the infarct size. In vitro, expression of RAGE in (micro)glial cells mediated the toxic effect of HMGB1. Addition of macrophages to neural cultures further enhanced the toxic effect of HMGB1. To test whether immigrant macrophages in the ischemic brain mediate the RAGE effect, we generated chimeric mice by transplanting RAGE−/− bone marrow to wild-type mice. RAGE deficiency in bone marrow-derived cells significantly reduced the infarct size. Thus, HMGB1–RAGE signaling links necrosis with macrophage activation and may provide a target for anti-inflammatory therapy in stroke.