Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact of Enriched environment on Lipid metabolism after Experimental Stroke

Stroke is the major cause of serious long-term disability with a sufficient acute treatment for only a very limited number of patients. Limited recovery of neurological functions occurs and can be elevated by a permissive post-stroke milieu. Housing animals in an enriched environment modulates regenerative mechanisms in the nonischemic peri-infarct area which might be an attractive target for pharmacological treatments to promote recovery. Upon ischemia, cellular lipids are released due to massive cell damage and free lipids significantly contribute to the progression of acute and delayed cell death. The aim of this study was to evalute the effect of enriched environment on lipid metabolism. In particular we characterize the activation of the transcription factor liver X receptor (LXR) in glial scar formation and regulation of cholesterol balance of relevance for functional recovery following stroke. Brain tissues from animals subjected to permanent occlusion of middle cerebral artery (pMCAo) were analysed for LXR and protein expression. We found an upregulation and an increased transcriptional activity of LXR in the peri-infarct area of rats housing in an enriched environment following pMCAO. Our data anticipate that enriched environment may have positive effects on lipid recycling in the ischemic hemisphere following experimental stroke.
Novel topic n-gram count LM incorporating document-based topic distributions and n-gram counts

In this paper, we introduce a novel topic n-gram count language model (NTNCLM) using topic probabilities of training documents and document-based n-gram counts. The topic probabilities for the documents are computed by averaging the topic probabilities of words seen in the documents. The topic probabilities of documents are multiplied by the document-based n-gram counts. The products are then summed-up for all the training documents. The results are used as the counts of the respective topics to create the NTNCLMs. The NTNCLMs are adapted by using the topic probabilities of a development test set that are computed as above. We compare our approach with a recently proposed TNCLM [1], where the long-range information outside of the n-gram events is not encountered. Our approach yields significant perplexity and word error rate (WER) reductions over the other approach using the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) corpus.
An Automated Approach for Structural Test Data Generation Based on Messy GA

Structural testing is one of the basic approaches for identifying test cases. Because of complexity of programming languages and variety of applications, an efficient approach to automated generation of structural test data is to breed search iteratively by profiling of program execution. Based on Messy GA, an automated approach for generating such data is proposed in this paper by solving F(X), a test coverage function of test data set. It utilizes Messy GA’s prominent feature that can optimize complicated problems without prior knowledge about schema arrangement in chromosomes, so that it can improve concurrency level of searching and test coverage. Compared with other approaches based on GA, the experimental results for several typical programs and real-world applications show that it can generate higher quality test data more efficiently, and can be applied to larger applications.
Retirement Wealth of New Zealand Households : An Initial Analysis based on the Household Savings Survey

Statistics New Zealand has recently released the results of a new survey of the assets and liabilities of New Zealand households. This is the first time in New Zealand that a national survey has provided data on the assets and liabilities of households. The objective of this paper is to use this data on the net worth of individuals and couples to make a preliminary assessment of how adequately they have accumulated wealth that could be the basis for income in retirement. There is no unique measure of adequacy. We take as one measure of adequacy of retirement wealth the ability to maintain the level of pre-retirement consumption. After allowing for the income from NZ Superannuation, we estimate what stock of wealth at retirement would be needed to achieve a given level of consumption smoothing. We then estimate the saving rate that would be needed until retirement to achieve that goal. We find there is a wide variability in this prescribed saving rate across both income and wealth levels. However, some limited evidence suggests that the prescribed saving rates are consistent with the actual pattern of saving we observe among households aged 45-55. If consumption smoothing were accepted as one possible indicator of adequacy of retirement wealth together with the implied saving rates necessary to attain that, then we conclude based on a limited comparison with actual rates, that there is no evidence of widespread under-saving by this cohort. However, this does not preclude the possibility that some individuals might be saving at a rate which subsequently they may come to regard as having been too low. New Zealand Superannuation reduces the inequality of retirement wealth and provides for a substantial level of post-retirement consumption relative to its pre-retirement level (the replacement rate) for those in the lowest income deciles. Our results suggest that on average no further saving by the lowest four income deciles would be needed if their objective is to smooth their consumption. J E L C L A S S I F I C A T I O N D31: Personal Income and Wealth Distribution J26: Retirement K E Y W O R D S Household net wealth; retirement; New Zealand The views expressed in this paper are those of the Authors(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the New Zealand Treasury. The paper is presented not as policy, but with a view to inform and stimulate wider debate. The results presented in this study are the work of the author, not Statistics New Zealand. Access to the data used in this study was provided by Statistics New Zealand under conditions designed to give effect to the security and confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act 1975.
Demand Uncertainty and Sales: A Study of Fashion and Markdown Pricing

The theory of clearance sales is expanded and applied to explain why markups, markdowns, and the frequency of sales of merchandise sold by department stores have increased dramatically in recent years and why they differ across merchandise groups. Tha major theme of the paper is that the growing role of fashion and product variety is an important reason for these increases and for the differences between merchandise groups. The growing importance of fashion is illustrated by documenting the declining use of whites and the increasing use of colors and prints. Estimates of the effects of imports, and technological and demographic changes on markups and markdowns, are presented. Copyright 1988 by American Economic Association.
Cohesion of epithelial ion homeostasis: implementing calcium transport with sodium transporters?

THE ABILITY TO MOVE SOLUTES between the exterior and interior of an organism, between different extracellular compartments, between intracellular and extracellular space, and between organelles and cytoplasm involves a myriad of transport mechanisms; all of which are indispensible for life. Considering the wide variety of solutes that have to be translocated at each of these levels, the precise transport machineries devoted to each solute, and the host of regulatory mechanisms accompanying each of these ensembles, one ponders whether we have enough genes in our genome to achieve these homeostatic feats. The intuitive answer is of course “yes” since we have already succeeded in doing so. While the utilization of multiple proteins to serve the same means bestows redundancy and insurance, the evolution of one protein to execute multiple functions maximizes genetic economy. The fact that one gene product can serve multiple and diverse functions may be a well-known and foregone conclusion to all but is still a remarkable phenomenon to be marveled. Take as an example the most abundant protein in our circulation: hemoglobin. In addition to its known function of carrying O2, hemoglobin also regulates O2 offloading as a metabolic sensor of tissue oxygenation, couples CO2 and nitric oxide transport at the lung and periphery, buffers H, releases vasodilators to directly regulate local blood flow, regulates circadian rhythm of antioxidant, and may even participates in immune surveillance. It is unlikely that this multitasking coevolved completely contemporaneously but was more likely to have done so in tandem, or more likely in “overlapping tandems,” where the needs of one function modulate the evolution of the others. Inherent in this system of serving many masters exist inevitable conflicts that at some point mandate some degree of compromise.
Performance analysis of STBC with multi-user diversity and transmit antenna subset selection in MIMO system

This paper presents performance analysis of STBC scheme with multi-user diversity (MUD) and transmit (TX) antenna subset selection (AnSS) where the user and the antenna subset are adaptively selected in MIMO systems. We derive an analytical expression for the average effective SNR and outage probability, showing that STBC scheme with MUD and Tx-AnSS provides full diversity. We also derive analytical expressions for the STBC scheme with only MUD. Analytical results show that the STBC scheme with MUD and Tx-AnSS obtains an effective SNR gain, while the STBC scheme with only MUD shows a SNR loss over SISO (Single Input Single Output) system. Thus the STBC scheme combining MUD and Tx-AnSS keeps their own benefits and provides outage probability improvement without additional burdens in contrary to the STBC scheme with only MUD. We verify the analytical results through simulations.
Skill acquisition without representation

ABSTRACT A paper in two parts, the first is a critique of the commonly held view among both cognitivist and non-cognitivist sport philosophers that conscious mental representation of knowledge that is a necessary condition for skill acquisition. The second is a defense of a necessary causal condition for skill acquisition, a necessary causal condition that is mimetic, physically embodied, and socially embedded. To make my case I rely throughout on a common thought experiment in and beyond the philosophy of sport literature, the seminal work of Kuhn and Quine counter the representational theory of knowledge, and recent argument in the philosophy of sport related to neurophysiology, cognition, and intentionality. Ultimately I conclude that the failure of a necessary representational condition and its replacement by a necessary casual condition in skill acquisition jeopardizes much of what has been said in the philosophy of sport about not just skill acquisition but the more popular topic of high-level skill. It does, because it challenges the assumption that there is some necessary baseline knowledge that which, according to cognitivists, is brought forward in some way into highly skillful performance or, according to non-cognitivists, is somehow left behind or subsumed into a background in highly skillful performance.
Integrating web-based intelligence retrieval and decision-making from the twitter trends knowledge base

Twitter as a microblogging platform has vast potential to become a collective source of intelligence that can be used to obtain opinions, ideas, facts, and sentiments. This paper addresses the issue on collective intelligence retrieval with activated knowledge-base decision making. Our methodology differs from the existing literature in the sense that we are doing analysis on Twitter microblog messages as opposed to traditional blog analysis in the literature which deals with the conventional 'blogosphere'. Another key difference in our methodology is that we apply visualization techniques in conjunction with artificial intelligence-based data mining methods to classify messages dealing with the trend topic. Our methodology also analyzes demographics of the authors of such Twitter messages and attempt to map a Twitter trend into what's going on in the real world. Our findings reveal a pattern behind trends on Twitter, enabling us to see how it 'ticks' and evolves though visualization methods. Our findings also enable us to understand the underlying characteristics behind the 'trend setters', providing us a new perspective on the contributors of a trend.
1 Choice and Action

In this essay, we argue that rational choice (RC) provides an inadequate foundation for a theory of economic action. After defining RC sufficiently broadly to encompass much of the bounded rationality literature as well as neoclassical optimization theory, we present three principal arguments against RC. The first is cognitive: economic actors are experts at what they do, and the cognitive processes that underlie expertise are not consistent with RC, descriptively, prescriptively or positively. The second argument begins with the observation that economic action takes place in and through relationships between agents, and these relationships may generate actions that cannot be localized to individual agents. We argue that these generative relationships are essential to understanding such fundamental economic phenomena as innovation, and the actions that result from them are not amenable to analysis from a RC perspective. Finally, we argue that most economic agents lack the judgement and execution coherence required by RC. In a companion paper, we propose an alternative foundation for a theory of economic action that builds on the critique of RC presented in this paper. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We would like to thank the Santa Fe Institute and CNR (Italy) for support for our research. We benefited from discussions around the ideas presented here, as well as detailed comments and criticisms on previous drafts, from many people, including especially Brian Arthur, Michael Cohen, Jim Dickey, Stuart Dreyfus, Walter Fontana, Dick Nelson, John Padgett and Jim Pelkey. * Lane, Department of Political Economy, University of Modena (lane@c220.unimo.it); Maxfield, Department of Engineering and Economic Systems, Stanford University (maxfield@leland.stanford.edu); Malerba and Orsenigo, Institute of Political Economy, Bocconi University (econ2l@uni-bocconi.it).
Adaptabilty of a GP Based IDS on Wireless Networks

Security and Intrusion detection in WiFi networks is currently an active area of research where WiFi specific Data Link layer attacks are an area of focus; particularly recent work has focused on producing machine learning based IDSs for these WiFi specific attacks. These proposed machine learning based IDSs come in addition to the already deployed signatures which are already in use in conventional intrusion detection systems like Snort-Wireless and Kismet. In this paper, we compare the detection capability of Snort-Wireless and a Genetic Programming (GP) based intrusion detector, based on the ability to adapt to modified attacks, ability to adapt to similar unknown attacks and infrastructure independent detection. Our results show that the GP based detection system is much more robust against modified attacks compared to Snort-Wireless. Moreover, by focusing on the method(s) used in feature preprocessing for presentation to learning algorithms, GP based IDSs can achieve infrastructure independent detection and can adapt to similar unknown attacks too. On the other hand, even though Snort-Wireless is an infrastructure independent detector, it cannot adapt to unknown attacks even if they are similar to others for which it has signatures on.
Defects in Conidiophore Development and Conidium-Macrophage Interactions in a Dioxygenase Mutant of Aspergillus fumigatus

ABSTRACT Oxygenated fatty acids, or oxylipins, play an essential role in physiological signaling and developmental processes in animals, plants, and fungi. Previous characterization of three Aspergillus fumigatus dioxygenases (PpoA, PpoB, and PpoC), similar in sequence to mammalian cyclooxygenases, showed that PpoA is responsible for the production of the oxylipins 8R-hydroperoxyoctadecadienoic acid and 5S,8R-dihydroxy-9Z,12Z-octadecadienoic acid and that PpoC is responsible for 10R-hydroxy-8E,12Z-hydroperoxyoctadecadienoic acid. Here, Δppo mutants were characterized to elucidate the role of fungal dioxygenases in A. fumigatus development and host interactions. The ΔppoC strain displayed distinct phenotypes compared to those of other Δppo mutants and the wild type, including altered conidium size, germination, and tolerance to oxidative stress as well as increased uptake and killing by primary alveolar macrophages. These experiments implicate oxylipins in pathogen development and suggest that ΔppoC represents a useful model for studying the A. fumigatus-host interaction.
Capture of MicroRNA–Bound mRNAs Identifies the Tumor Suppressor miR-34a as a Regulator of Growth Factor Signaling

A simple biochemical method to isolate mRNAs pulled down with a transfected, biotinylated microRNA was used to identify direct target genes of miR-34a, a tumor suppressor gene. The method reidentified most of the known miR-34a regulated genes expressed in K562 and HCT116 cancer cell lines. Transcripts for 982 genes were enriched in the pull-down with miR-34a in both cell lines. Despite this large number, validation experiments suggested that ∼90% of the genes identified in both cell lines can be directly regulated by miR-34a. Thus miR-34a is capable of regulating hundreds of genes. The transcripts pulled down with miR-34a were highly enriched for their roles in growth factor signaling and cell cycle progression. These genes form a dense network of interacting gene products that regulate multiple signal transduction pathways that orchestrate the proliferative response to external growth stimuli. Multiple candidate miR-34a–regulated genes participate in RAS-RAF-MAPK signaling. Ectopic miR-34a expression reduced basal ERK and AKT phosphorylation and enhanced sensitivity to serum growth factor withdrawal, while cells genetically deficient in miR-34a were less sensitive. Fourteen new direct targets of miR-34a were experimentally validated, including genes that participate in growth factor signaling (ARAF and PIK3R2) as well as genes that regulate cell cycle progression at various phases of the cell cycle (cyclins D3 and G2, MCM2 and MCM5, PLK1 and SMAD4). Thus miR-34a tempers the proliferative and pro-survival effect of growth factor stimulation by interfering with growth factor signal transduction and downstream pathways required for cell division.
Nonlinear ideal observation and recurrent preprocessing in perceptual learning

Residual micro-saccades, tremor and fixation errors imply that, on different trials in visual tasks, stimulus arrays are inevitably presented at different positions on the retina. Positional variation is likely to be specially important for tasks involving visual hyperacuity, because of the severe demands that these tasks impose on spatial resolution. In this paper, we show that small positional variations lead to a structural change in the nature of the ideal observer's solution to a hyperacuity-like visual discrimination task such that the optimal discriminator depends quadratically rather than linearly on noisy neural activities. Motivated by recurrent models of early visual processing, we show how a recurrent preprocessor of the noisy activities can produce outputs which, when passed through a linear discriminator, lead to better discrimination even when the positional variations are much larger than the threshold acuity of the task. Since, psychophysically, hyperacuity typically improves greatly over the course of perceptual learning, we discuss our model in the light of results on the speed and nature of learning.
Assessing the Systemic Risk of a Heterogeneous Portfolio of Banks during the Recent Financial Crisis

This paper extends the approach of measuring and stress-testing the systemic risk of a banking sector in Huang, Zhou, and Zhu (2009) to identifying various sources of financial instability and to allocating systemic risk to individual financial institutions. The systemic risk measure, defined as the insurance cost to protect against distressed losses in a banking system, is a risk-neutral concept of capital based on publicly available information that can be appropriately aggregated across different subsets. An application of our methodology to a portfolio of twenty-two major banks in Asia and the Pacific illustrates the dynamics of the spillover effects of the global financial crisis to the region. The increase in the perceived systemic risk, particularly after the failure of Lehman Brothers, was mainly driven by the heightened risk aversion and the squeezed liquidity. The analysis on the marginal contribution of individual banks to the systemic risk suggests that ``too-big-to-fail" is a valid concern from a macroprudential perspective of bank regulation.
Stochastic bus traffic modelling and validation using smart card fare collection data

This paper provides guidelines for designing bus transit simulations and justifies the need of a qualitatively and quantitatively correct model that is validated and can serve as a benchmark testing platform for the numerous optimisation strategies that researchers present. It describes and comments on some of the most important contributions regarding bus transportation control and optimisation from a modelling perspective. Furthermore, a case study concerning a bus line in Singapore is conducted where smart card data is used to extract the parameters needed in order to construct the model, while discussing the methods and challenges of this process. Consequently, the simulation is calibrated and validated in order to ensure maximum accuracy of its outputs.
Management of human cytomegalovirus infection and disease after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection and disease remain a major cause of morbidity and mortality after bone marrow transplantation. HCMV disease, especially pneumonitis, may be treated with ganciclovir and immunoglobulin but even so the outcome is poor with mortality rates of 30-70%. It is therefore imperative to treat HCMV infection before it develops into disease. The aim of this article is to describe the main strategies used to prevent HCMV infection and to improve the survival after CMV disease in bone marrow transplant recipients. INFORMATION SOURCES In the present review, we examined personal papers in this field and articles published in journals covered by the Science Citation Index and Medline. STATE OF THE ART Major advances have been made in preventing HCMV infection and disease through two different approaches, both of which reduce HCMV induced morbidity and mortality: In pre-emptive therapy, patients are given ganciclovir when HCMV infection is first identified and this is continued 3-4 months after transplantation; in prophylactic therapy ganciclovir is given to all patients at risk of HCMV disease from engraftment up to 3-4 months post transplantation. Each strategy has advantages and disadvantages and there is no evidence for the superiority of one over the other since the overall survival is the same and the incidence of death from HCMV disease is similar. PERSPECTIVES The use of more sensitive tests such as HCMV PCR or antigenemia may improve the outcome but probably will not eradicate all HCMV disease. Future possible strategies could include adoptive transfer of CD8+ HCMV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes clones derived from the donor marrow or boosting donor or patient immunity using subunit anti-HCMV vaccines such as gB or pp65.