Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ABT-737 Synergizes with Bortezomib to Induce Apoptosis, Mediated by Bid Cleavage, Bax Activation, and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in an Akt-Dependent Context in Malignant Human Glioma Cell Lines

We observed that glioma cells are differentially sensitive to N-{4-[4-(4′-chloro-biphenyl-2-ylmethyl)-piperazin-1-yl]-benzoyl}-4-(3-dimethylamino-1-phenylsulfanylmethyl-propylamino)-3-nitro-benzenesulfonamide (ABT-737) and administration of ABT-737 at clinically achievable doses failed to induce apoptosis. Although elevated Bcl-2 levels directly correlated with sensitivity to ABT-737, overexpression of Bcl-2 did not influence sensitivity to ABT-737. To understand the molecular basis for variable and relatively modest sensitivity to the Bcl-2 homology domain 3 mimetic drug ABT-737, the abundance of Bcl-2 family members was assayed in a panel of glioma cell lines. Bcl-2 family member proteins, Bcl-xL, Bcl-w, Mcl-1, Bax, Bak, Bid, and Noxa, were found to be expressed ubiquitously at similar levels in all cell lines tested. We then examined the contribution of other apoptosis-resistance pathways to ABT-737 resistance. Bortezomib, an inhibitor of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-κB), was found to enhance sensitivity of ABT-737 in phosphatase and tensin homolog on chromosome 10 (PTEN)-wild type, but not PTEN-mutated glioma cell lines. We therefore investigated the association between phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt activation and resistance to the combination of ABT-737 and bortezomib in PTEN-deficient glioma cells. Genetic and pharmacological inhibition of PI3K inhibition sensitized PTEN-deficient glioma cells to bortezomib- and ABT-737-induced apoptosis by increasing cleavage of Bid protein, activation and oligomerization of Bax, and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential. Our data further suggested that PI3K/Akt-dependent protection may occur upstream of the mitochondria. This study demonstrates that interference with multiple apoptosis-resistance signaling nodes, including NF-κB, Akt, and Bcl-2, may be required to induce apoptosis in highly resistant glioma cells, and therapeutic strategies that target the PI3K/Akt pathway may have a selective role for cancers lacking PTEN function.
The Mobile RehApp™: an AR-based mobile game for ankle sprain rehabilitation

People struggle to recover from injuries due to the lack of commitment to their rehabilitation exercises as they are often boring. Recent approaches that involve the use of interactive video games have shown positive results in exercising as users engage in physical activity while playing a game. For example Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect based games have shown to be effective in the treatment of post stroke patients. Yet, there are not tools in the market that offer portable rehabilitation exercises in the form of interactive games. The work presented in this paper focuses on the development of the Mobile RehApp™, an augmented reality based application for mobile devices designed for therapeutic support that aims to assist physiotherapists and patients on ankle sprain rehabilitation.
Winter diet and hunting success of Canada lynx in Colorado

Information regarding the diet of Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) at the southernmost extent of its range is critical for managing the species under current and predicted climate conditions. Therefore, from 1999–2009, we investigated winter diet and hunting strategies of Canada lynx in Colorado, USA by tracking individuals in the snow to identify sites where lynx encountered and killed prey. Similar to other parts of lynx range, snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) were the primary winter food in Colorado, especially when considering total biomass consumed. Red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) comprised the bulk of the remaining food items and were a substantial occurrence during several years, which is consistent with previous hypotheses regarding the diet of lynx in southerly populations. Lynx successfully captured snowshoe hares on 31% of attempts and red squirrels on 47% of attempts, similar to lynx in other regions. In contrast to other populations, the majority of chases of both prey species were initiated while actively hunting rather than by ambush and this behavior did not change through time. We found evidence for snowshoe hare refugia during winter; hunting success for hares peaked at sites with approximately 3,000 stems/ha, but was lower in more dense vegetation where hare densities were greater. Given this finding and the apparent importance of red squirrels as alternate prey, we suggest that management for lynx in the southern Rocky Mountains, USA, focus on maintenance of mature, uneven-aged Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii)-subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) stands. Such stands naturally provide patches of dense and open habitats juxtaposed closely together that should simultaneously facilitate high hare densities (and refuge from predation) and accessibility to hares by lynx. Mature trees in such stands also provide abundant cone crops to sustain populations of red squirrels for use as alternate prey. © 2016 The Authors. Journal of Wildlife Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Wildlife Society.
The Role of Journalism on YouTube: Audience Engagement with ‘Superbug’ Reporting

Journalism has gradually become ‘normalized into social media’, and most journalists use social media platforms to publish their work (Bruns, 2018). YouTube is an influential social media platform, reaching over a billion users worldwide. Its extensive reach attracts professional and amateur video producers who turn to YouTube to inform, entertain and engage global publics. Focusing on YouTube, this study explores the place for journalism within this media ecology. This study uses a mixed-method approach to examine forms of audience engagement to YouTube videos about antimicrobial resistance (AMR), or so called “superbugs”, caused by overuse and misuse of antibiotics. The analysis focuses on the most viewed YouTube videos about AMR between 2016 and 2018, and compares engagement themes expressed in comments to journalistic videos with popular science videos. The most viewed videos about AMR on YouTube are professionally produced educational popular science videos. The qualitative analysis of 3,049 comments identifies seven main forms of high-level engagement, including expressions of emotions, blame and calls for action. This study shows that journalism plays an important role on YouTube by generating audience discussions about social and political accountability. Our findings demonstrate that journalism videos were associated with propositions for political, economic and social/lifestyle actions, while popular science videos were associated with medicines, scientific or pseudo-scientific, and medical practice changes.
Face recognition and authentication using LBP and BSIF mask detection and elimination

In this paper, a face recognition and authentication method that can detect and eliminate the presence of the mask is proposed. The proposed method utilizes facial features, which are captured locally and globally to distinguish between a mask and a real face. The features employed here are extracted from the whole face as well as the eye and nose regions that are expected to provide a clue on the presence of the mask. Here, Local binary pattern (LBP) and Binarized Statistical Image Features (BSIF) are utilized to extract the texture features of the face for recognition. Then for classification Euclidean distance classifier is used whose scores are fused using the weighted sum rule for making the decision about a real face or a mask attack. 3D mask database 3DMAD is used for testing the algorithm.
Warp propagation for video resizing

This paper presents a video resizing approach that provides both efficiency and temporal coherence. Prior approaches either sacrifice temporal coherence (resulting in jitter), or require expensive spatio-temporal optimization. By assessing the requirements for video resizing we observe a fundamental tradeoff between temporal coherence in the background and shape preservation for the moving objects. Understanding this tradeoff enables us to devise a novel approach that is efficient, because it warps each frame independently, yet can avoid introducing jitter. Like previous approaches, our method warps frames so that the background are distorted similarly to prior frames while avoiding distortion of the moving objects. However, our approach introduces a motion history map that propagates information about the moving objects between frames, allowing for graceful tradeoffs between temporal coherence in the background and shape preservation for the moving objects. The approach can handle scenes with significant camera and object motion and avoid jitter, yet warp each frame sequentially for efficiency. Experiments with a variety of videos demonstrate that our approach can efficiently produce high-quality video resizing results.
The effects of functional electrically stimulated (FES)-arm ergometry on upper limb function and resting cardiovascular outcomes in individuals with tetraplegia: A pilot study

Background: Functional electrically stimulated (FES)-arm ergometry has been shown to increase peak power output and aerobic capacity in individuals with cervical SCI. However, the functional benefits remain unknown. Objective: To determine the effects of FES-arm ergometry on exercise performance, upper limb function and resting cardiovascular function in individuals with tetraplegia. Methods: Five individuals (43.8 ± 15.4 years old) with SCI (C3-C5, AIS C-D, 14.0 ± 11.1 years post-injury) completed 12 weeks FES-arm ergometry. Exercise performance (time and distance to fatigue), perceived upper limb function [Capabilities of Upper Extremity Questionnaire (CUE), short form-Quadriplegia Index of Function Questionnaire (sf-QIF) and Spinal Cord Injury Spasticity Evaluation Tool (SCI-SET)] and resting mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR) were measured pre and post. Results: Following training, MAP significantly decreased (91.1 ± 14.0 to 87.7 ± 14.7 mmHg; p = 0.04), and there was a trend for an increased time to fatigue (804.6 ± 359.4 to 1483.8 ± 1110.2 sec; p = 0.08), distance to fatigue (3508.4 ± 3524.5 to 7412.6 ± 7773.1 m, p = 0.08) and the CUE scores pertaining to hand function (31.6 ± 12.8 to 38.0 ± 17.7; p = 0.07). Conclusion: Twelve-week FES-arm ergometry was associated with decreased resting MAP in individuals with tetraplegia, and may show promise as a means to increase exercise performance and hand function. Further research is required to verify these preliminary findings.
Possible role of acetylcholine in regulating spatial novelty effects on theta rhythm and grid cells

Existing pharmacological and lesion data indicate that acetylcholine plays an important role in memory formation. For example, increased levels of acetylcholine in the hippocampal formation are known to be associated with successful encoding while disruption of the cholinergic system leads to impairments on a range of mnemonic tasks. However, cholinergic signaling from the medial septum also plays a central role in generating and pacing theta-band oscillations throughout the hippocampal formation. Recent experimental results suggest a potential link between these distinct phenomena. Environmental novelty, a condition associated with strong cholinergic drive, has been shown to induce an expansion in the firing pattern of entorhinal grid cells and a reduction in the frequency of theta measured from the LFP. Computational modeling suggests the spatial activity of grid cells is produced by interference between neuronal oscillators; scale being determined by theta-band oscillations impinging on entorhinal stellate cells, the frequency of which is modulated by acetylcholine. Here we propose that increased cholinergic signaling in response to environmental novelty triggers grid expansion by reducing the frequency of the oscillations. Furthermore, we argue that cholinergic induced grid expansion may enhance, or even induce, encoding by producing a mismatch between expanded grid cells and other spatial inputs to the hippocampus, such as boundary vector cells. Indeed, a further source of mismatch is likely to occur between grid cells of different native scales which may expand by different relative amounts.
Transfer Fee Regulations and Player Development

This paper studies the role of transfer fees in professional sports, where players can commit to binding long-term contracts. They cannot switch clubs before their contract expires unless the old club agrees to let them go; the transfer fee is the price of that agreement. Transfer fees have been defended as a necessary incentive for clubs to invest in training their young players. The apparent absence of significant training costs (compared to the level of transfer fees) has undermined this defense. We present a model without training where an industry of clubs with heterogeneous marginal revenue products for player ability and a population of players with various levels of talent and experience match. Transfer fees are needed to allocate scarce playing opportunities efficiently among players of different levels of known and potential ability. We show that total surplus is lower without transfer fees because playing time gets reallocated towards older players with less upside potential. The resulting increase in player salaries exceeds the transfer fee costs for each level of ability. (JEL: J31, J41, K12, L83) (c) 2006 by the European Economic Association.
Replication-Dependent Loss of 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine in Mouse Preimplantation Embryos

The oxidation product of methylated cytosine is passively lost from DNA in the zygote as cell division progresses. Although global erasure of DNA methylation has been observed in zygotes and primordial germ cells, the responsible enzyme(s) have been elusive. The demonstration that members of the Tet (ten eleven translocation) family of proteins are capable of catalyzing conversion of 5-methylcytosine (5mC) of DNA to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) raises the possibility that Tet proteins may participate in this process. Indeed, recent studies have implicated the involvement of Tet3 in the conversion of 5mC to 5hmC in zygotes. This result, combined with the demonstration that Tet proteins can further oxidize 5hmC to 5-carboxylcytosine followed by excision by thymine-DNA glycosylase, raises the possibility that active demethylation may take place in a process that involves Tet3-mediated oxidation followed by base excision repair. We demonstrated by immunostaining of mitotic chromosome spreads of preimplantation embryos that the 5hmC associated with the paternal genome in zygotes is gradually lost during preimplantation development. Our study suggests that, although the conversion of 5mC to 5hmC in zygotes is an enzyme-catalyzed process, loss of 5hmC during preimplantation appears to be a DNA replication–dependent passive process.
Predicting Civic Engagement in Urban High School Students. CIRCLE Working Paper #69.

The landmark Civic Mission of Schools report of 2003 laid out an argument for the role of schools in promoting youth civic engagement and presented a range of promising ideas and practices to accomplish that. In this study we describe the civic engagement outcomes that Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) in Louisville, KY, has chosen to promote in its students. The outcomes constitute a vision of civic engagement that sees youth as well-rounded citizens capable of engaging in civil, political, and problem-solving activities, both individually and socially. In 2007, JCPS revised its annual survey of students to include the above-mentioned civic outcomes and other new measures as part of a whole-child approach to monitoring educational development. Data collected from high school students by this survey in 2008 and 2009 were used to identify and characterize a number of factors which, theory and empirical research suggest, may be important predictors of youth civic engagement. The results show that most of the factors in our models of civic engagement were positively related to youth civic engagement. Using these findings and theoretical considerations, we sorted factors into three levels of importance. Overall, the most important predictors of youth civic engagement in our models were community service, political discussion, and environmental conservation. At an intermediate level of importance were nonsport extracurricular activities, conflict resolution skill, and positive character, as well as personal efficacy, willingness to contact public officials about issues of concern, and intention to vote. Seven other factors were also found to have positive, but somewhat weaker or less-widespread associations with youth civic engagement Using a large sample in an urban school district, this study reinforces claims that community service, discussion of politics, and nonsport extracurricular activities boost civic engagement. These are three of the " promising practices " recommended for schools in the Civic Mission of Schools report, and this study reinforces the importance of providing them. The findings also provide intriguing evidence of the potential value of environmental conservation, conflict resolution skill, and character education as pathways to civic engagement. In 2003, the landmark Civic Mission of Schools report argued forcefully and in detail that schools should play a major role in enhancing the civic engagement of the nation's young people (Carnegie & CIRCLE, 2003). In doing so, the report put forward several ideas about what schools could do to promote youth civic development, such as providing classroom instruction in law, …
The CAPM with Preferences on Relative Consumption: An Explanation to the Home Bias Enigma and Some Price Anomalies

The paper derives a version of the CAPM in which the preferences of each investor over the set of portfolio returns depend only on the mean and variance of the ratio between the return and a reference return. The reference return is specific to the investor, and is interpreted as a proxy to the consumption of his neighbors. That is, investors in our economy care, not on how much they consume, but on how much they consume relative to their neighbors. This model provides a rational explanation to the home bias enigma and some price anomalies that occur in cases where it is reasonable to assume preferences as above.
Using Tobin ' s Q Ratio To Assess the Strategy of Repurchasing Shares

Does the implementation of a share repurchase strategy create long-run firm value? Do companies initiating a strategy of repurchasing shares outperform companies not implementing this strategy? These two questions provide the foundation for this empirical study. An objective of the study is to use Tobin's Q ratio to determine if there is a change in the pre and post performance of companies with stock repurchase programs. A second objective is to determine if companies that repurchase shares outperform companies that do not repurchase shares, based on the performance of Tobin's Q ratio. A large sample of repurchasing companies is compared to a matched sample of companies not repurchasing shares. The sample data covers the period 1976 through 1995. The findings weakly support the hypothesis that a repurchasing strategy resulted in an improvement in firm performance, as reflected in a higher Tobin's Q ratio. This finding is contrary to a recent study. The results did not support the hypothesis that firms repurchasing shares would have a higher Tobin's Q ratio than firms not repurchasing shares. In response to the two fundamental questions posed in the opening statement, we conclude that the study provides very weak support for the signalling hypothesis. We also conclude that companies implementing repurchase strategies do not outperform non-repurchasing companies. JEL classification: G320
Parallel simulated annealing: an adaptive approach

This paper analyses alternatives for the parallelization of the Simulated Annealing algorithm when applied to the placement of modules in a VLSI circuit considering the use of PVM on an Ethernet cluster of workstations. It is shown that different parallelization approaches have to be used for high and low temperature values of the annealing process. The algorithm used for low temperatures is an adaptive version of the speculative algorithm proposed in the literature. Within this adaptive algorithm, the number of processors allocated to the solution of the placement problem and the number of moves evaluated per processor between synchronization points change with the temperature. At high temperatures, an algorithm based on the parallel evaluation of independent chains of moves has been adopted. It is shown that results with the same quality of those produced by the serial version can be obtained when shorter length chains are used in the parallel implementation.
Imputation-Based Analysis of Association Studies: Candidate Regions and Quantitative Traits

We introduce a new framework for the analysis of association studies, designed to allow untyped variants to be more effectively and directly tested for association with a phenotype. The idea is to combine knowledge on patterns of correlation among SNPs (e.g., from the International HapMap project or resequencing data in a candidate region of interest) with genotype data at tag SNPs collected on a phenotyped study sample, to estimate (“impute”) unmeasured genotypes, and then assess association between the phenotype and these estimated genotypes. Compared with standard single-SNP tests, this approach results in increased power to detect association, even in cases in which the causal variant is typed, with the greatest gain occurring when multiple causal variants are present. It also provides more interpretable explanations for observed associations, including assessing, for each SNP, the strength of the evidence that it (rather than another correlated SNP) is causal. Although we focus on association studies with quantitative phenotype and a relatively restricted region (e.g., a candidate gene), the framework is applicable and computationally practical for whole genome association studies. Methods described here are implemented in a software package, Bim-Bam, available from the Stephens Lab website http://stephenslab.uchicago. edu/software.html.
Immersive graph navigation using direct manipulation and gestures

An immersive graph visualization and navigation system is proposed. Its visualization is based on a multiple-focus layout technique using heat models. Virtual temperatures influence the graph layout. The navigation uses a combination of the layout technique and hand gestures. The system allows one to have multiple-focus nodes and to move a focus by direct manipulation and hand gestures dynamically. Direct manipulation by hand can arrange nodes and choose focus nodes. Hand gestures can control a focus area using a spotlight-like heat radiation, A forefinger points the direction of the spotlight and an angle between the forefinger and the thumb controls a spread angle of the spotlight. This technique enables one to navigate a graph in an immersive virtual space.
Comments on stability analysis for two-dimensional systems via a Lyapunov approach

Some necessary and sufficient conditions are given for stability analysis of two-dimensional (2-D) systems based on a Lyapunov approach. The study was carried out using the Roesser state-space model, which when combined with the Lyapunov theory provides the new checkable tests for stability. Also, the results lead to techniques for selecting stabilizing state feedback gain matrices for the 2-D systems.