Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social and Economic Research with Consumer Panel Data : proceedings of the First ZUMA Symposium on Consumer Panel Data, 5 and 6 October 1999

Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Papastefanou, G. , Schmidt, P., Börsch-Supan, A. , Lüdtke, H. , & Oltersdorf, U. (Eds.). (2001). Social and economic research with consumer panel data: proceedings of the first ZUMA Symposium on Consumer Panel Data, 5 and 6 October 1999 (ZUMA-Nachrichten Spezial, 7). Mannheim: Zentrum für Umfragen, Methoden und Analysen -ZUMA-. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-50964-2
Stromal Activation by Tumor Cells: An in Vitro Study in Breast Cancer

Background: The tumor microenvironment participates in the regulation of tumor progression and influences treatment sensitivity. In breast cancer, it also may play a role in determining the fate of non-invasive lesions such as ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a non-obligate precursor of invasive diseases, which is aggressively treated despite its indolent nature in many patients since no biomarkers are available to predict the progression of DCIS to invasive disease. In vitro models of stromal activation by breast tumor cells might provide clues as to specific stromal genes crucial for the transition from DCIS to invasive disease. Methods: normal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDF) were treated under serum-free conditions with cell culture media conditioned by breast cancer cell lines (SkBr3, MDA-MB-468, T47D) for 72 h and subjected to gene expression profiling with Illumina platform. Results: TGM2, coding for a tissue transglutaminase, was identified as candidate gene for stromal activation. In public transcriptomic datasets of invasive breast tumors TGM2 expression proved to provide prognostic information. Conversely, its role as an early biosensor of tumor invasiveness needs to be further investigated by in situ analyses. Conclusion: Stromal TGM2 might probably be associated with precancerous evolution at earlier stages compared to DCIS.
Placemaking and climate change adaptation: new qualitative and quantitative considerations for the “Place Diagram”

Abstract Today, although most of the international research community considers climate change adaptation to be essential, there is limited knowledge on its concrete integration with contemporary placemaking. Yet, with the emergence of the adaptation agenda, the effects of urban climatology are continually coercing the need for concrete action to increase the climatic responsiveness of urban environments. This article is constructed upon a “Research for Design” approach, and focuses upon improving urban design guidelines by reviewing existing theoretical/empirical research on how pedestrian comfort levels can be addressed through public space design. The objective is to incorporate such qualitative and quantitative interrogations into a generic tool such as the “Place Diagram” by the PPS. A total of six intangible criteria, and six measurable attributes, are explored and structured in order to introduce new generic design considerations which can contribute to the responsiveness of urban outdoor spaces in an era of expected climate variability.
Comparative Genomics of Helicobacter pylori: Analysis of the Outer Membrane Protein Families

ABSTRACT The two complete genomic sequences of Helicobacter pylori J99 and 26695 were used to compare the paralogous families (related genes within one genome, likely to have related function) of genes predicted to encode outer membrane proteins which were present in each strain. We identified five paralogous gene families ranging in size from 3 to 33 members; two of these families contained members specific for either H. pylori J99 or H. pylori26695. Most orthologous protein pairs (equivalent genes between two genomes, same function) shared considerable identity between the two strains. The unusual set of outer membrane proteins and the specialized outer membrane may be a reflection of the adaptation of H. pylori to the unique gastric environment where it is found. One subfamily of proteins, which contains both channel-forming and adhesin molecules, is extremely highly related at the sequence level and has likely arisen due to ancestral gene duplication. In addition, the largest paralogous family contained two essentially identical pairs of genes in both strains. The presence and genomic organization of these two pairs of duplicated genes were analyzed in a panel of independentH. pylori isolates. While one pair was present in every strain examined, one allele of the other pair appeared partially deleted in several isolates.
Structure of Germline Immunoglobulin Heavy-Chain γ1 Transcripts in Interleukin 4 Treated Mouse Spleen Cells

Antibody class switching is mediated by a DNA recombination event that replaces the Cμ gene with one of the other heavy (H) chain constant region (CH) genes located 3' to the Cμ gene. The regulation of this process is essential to the immune response because different CH regions provide different biological functions. Correlative evidence indicates that the isotype (class) specificity of the switch is determined by the accessibility of specific CH genes as indicated by hypomethylation and transcriptional activity. For example, RNAs transcribed from specific unrearranged CH genes are induced prior to switching under conditions that promote subsequent switching to these same CH genes. The function of transcription of these germline CH genes is unknown. In this report, we describe the structure of RNA transcribed from unrearranged γ1 genes in mouse spleen cells treated with LPS plus . a HeLa cell supernatant containing recombinant interleukin 4. The germline γl RNA is initiated at multiple start sites 5' to the tandem repeats of the γ1 switch (Sγ1) region. As is true for analogous RNAs transcribed from unrearranged γ2b and c genes, the germline γ1 RNA has an exon transcribed from the region 5' to Sγ1 sequences, which is spliced at a unique site to the Cr gene. The germline γ1 RNA has an open-reading frame (ORF) that potentially encodes a small protein 48 amino acid in length.
Cognate Awareness in French Immersion Students: Contributions to Grade 2 Reading Comprehension

ABSTRACT Cognate awareness is the ability to recognize the cognate relationship between words in two etymologically related languages. The current study examined the development of cognate awareness and its contribution to French (second language) reading comprehension among Canadian French immersion children. Eighty-one students were tested at the end of Grade 1 and again at the end of Grade 2. Children were administered a cognate awareness task in French, in which they were asked to decide whether a French word had a cognate in English. Overall, performance on the cognate awareness task was significantly above chance at both time points, and it improved overtime. Thus, for the majority of the participants, cognate awareness was evident as early as first grade. Regressions revealed that cognate awareness measured in Grades 1 and 2 made a significant contribution to Grade 2 French reading comprehension, beyond multiple controls. The results of the study suggest that cognate awareness is a unique aspect of second-language reading comprehension in young bilingual children.
A computational model of verbal understanding

The long-term goal for computational linguistics is to increase our understanding of linguistic and conceptual structures and to formally describe them so that computers can deal effectively with natural languages in such applications as question answering, stylistic and content analysis, essay writing, automated translation, etc. The eventual realization of this goal requires not only a satisfactory model of linguistic structures, but also models for verbal understanding and verbal meaning. In this paper we outline a theory and a model of verbal understanding and describe Protosynthex III, an experimental implementation of the model in the form of a general-purpose language processing system. The effectiveness of the model in representing the process of verbal understanding is demonstrated in terms of Protosynthex III's capability to disambiguate English sentences, to answer a range of English questions and to derive and generate meaning-preserving paraphrases.
Asymmetric team learning

We generalize the traditional concept of team learning. The success of an asymmetric team in learning some function depends upon the successes of participant machines by an arbitrary nondecreasing Boolean function. Asymmetric team types are ordered accordingly to their learning power by basic reductions. The problem to determine this order for an arbitrary pair of asymmetric teams is shown to be NP-hard. Basic reductions are independent of the properties of any particular definition of learning. Many learning types (e.g. EX, learning with no more than n mindchanges) have additional team order relations which vary from case to case. We define a learning type PINFlN which allows only the basic reductions between its teams. The relation between asymmetric team learning and probabilistic learning is described by a zerosum matrix game.
Workgroup Report: National Toxicology Program Workshop on Hormonally Induced Reproductive Tumors—Relevance of Rodent Bioassays

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) is currently reviewing its research portfolio as part of its efforts to implement the NTP Roadmap to achieve the NTP Vision for the 21st century. This review includes a recent workshop, “Hormonally Induced Reproductive Tumors—Relevance of Rodent Bioassays,” held 22–24 May 2006, that was organized to determine the adequacy and relevance to human disease outcome of rodent models currently used in the 2-year bioassay for four types of hormonally induced reproductive tumors (ovary, mammary gland, prostate, and testis). In brief, none of the workshop’s breakout groups felt the currently used models are sufficient. For some types of tumors such as prostate, no adequate animal models exist, and for others such as ovary, the predominant tumors in humans are of different cellular origins than those induced by chemicals in rodents. This inadequacy of current models also applies to the testis, although our more complete understanding of the responses of Leydig cells to hormonal changes in rats may prove predictive for effects in humans other than cancer. All breakout groups recommended that the NTP consider modifying its testing protocols (i.e., age at exposure, additional end points, etc.) and/or using alternative models (i.e., genetically engineered models, in vitro systems, etc.) to improve sensitivity. In this article we briefly review the workshop’s outcome and outline some next steps forward in pursuing the workshop’s recommendations. Breakout group reports and additional information on the workshop, including participants, presentations, public comments and background materials, are posted on the NTP website.
The Impacts of Knowledge Interaction with Manufacturing Clients on KIBS Firms Innovation Behaviour

Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) have been posited to play a critical role as innovation agent and knowledge broker in the new economy. While a substantial part of the literature on KIBS stresses their function as an innovation agent to their clients’ innovation process and their contributions to knowledge transfer and diffusion in innovation systems, little attention has been paid to the internal innovation dynamics of KIBS firms. However, the interactive service relationship between KIBS firms and their clients is essentially a bilateral learning process that is supposed to also expand the innovation capabilities of KIBS firms. Based on a sample of 181 KIBS firms in Singapore, we investigate the specific impacts of client linkages on KIBS firms’ innovation behaviour. We find that KIBS firms that engage in providing innovation support to manufacturing clients exhibit higher level of innovation behaviour. However, client size is not a significant determinant of KIBS innovation. These results are further confirmed by the importance of social capitals and spatial proximity for KIBS firms’ successful innovation support provision to manufacturing clients.
Design and Experimental Validation for Direct-Drive Fault-Tolerant Permanent-Magnet Vernier Machines

A fault-tolerant permanent-magnet vernier (FT-PMV) machine is designed for direct-drive applications, incorporating the merits of high torque density and high reliability. Based on the so-called magnetic gearing effect, PMV machines have the ability of high torque density by introducing the flux-modulation poles (FMPs). This paper investigates the fault-tolerant characteristic of PMV machines and provides a design method, which is able to not only meet the fault-tolerant requirements but also keep the ability of high torque density. The operation principle of the proposed machine has been analyzed. The design process and optimization are presented specifically, such as the combination of slots and poles, the winding distribution, and the dimensions of PMs and teeth. By using the time-stepping finite element method (TS-FEM), the machine performances are evaluated. Finally, the FT-PMV machine is manufactured, and the experimental results are presented to validate the theoretical analysis.
Improving electronic guidebook interfaces using a task-oriented design approach

Item selection is a key problem in electronic guidebook design. Many systems do not apply so-called context-awareness technologies to infer user interest, placing the entire burden of selection on the user. Conversely, to make selection easier, many systems automatically eliminate information that they infer is not of interest to the user. However, such systems often eliminate too much information, preventing the user from finding what they want. To realize the full potential of electronic guidebooks, designers must strike the right balance between automatic context-based inference and manual selection. In this paper, we introduce a task-oriented model of item selection for electronic guidebooks to help designers explore this continuum. We argue that item selection contains three sub-tasks and that these sub-tasks should be considered explicitly in system design. We apply our model to existing systems, demonstrating pitfalls of combining sub-tasks, and discuss how our model has improved the design of our own guidebook prototype.
Open and Closed String Worldsheets from Free Large N Gauge Theories with Adjoint and Fundamental Matter

We extend Gopakumar's prescription for constructing closed string worldsheets from free field theory diagrams with adjoint matter to open and closed string worldsheets arising from free field theories with fundamental matter. We describe the extension of the gluing mechanism and the electrical circuit analogy to fundamental matter. We discuss the generalization of the existence and uniqueness theorem of Strebel differentials to open Riemann surfaces. Two examples are computed of correlators containing fundamental matter, and the resulting worldsheet OPE's are computed. Generic properties of Gopakumar's construction are discussed.
RAID6L: A log-assisted RAID6 storage architecture with improved write performance

The RAID6 architecture is playing an increasingly important role in modern storage systems due to its provision of very high reliability. However, its high write penalty, because of the double-parity-update overheads upon each write operation, has been a persistent performance bottleneck of the RAID6 systems. In this paper, we propose a log-assisted RAID6 architecture, called RAID6L, to boost the write performance of the RAID6 systems. RAID6L integrates a log disk into the traditional RAID6 architecture, and alleviates its write penalty by simplifying the processing steps to service a write request. On the other hand, RAID6L also guarantees that the accelerated RAID6 systems can still recover from double disk failures. The Parity Logging scheme was originally proposed to accelerate the XOR based RAID5, and we propose a method to make it also applicable to the Reed-Solomon based RAID6. We present a detailed comparison between RAID6L and Parity Logging, and show that RAID6L has several advantages over Parity Logging. Experimental results show that RAID6L significantly increases the data transfer rate and decreases the request response time when compared with the traditional RAID6 and Parity Logging systems.
Radiation alone for solid tumors and the questionable development of therapy-related myelodysplastic syndromes.

not be as leukemogenic as combined modality treatment or total body irradiation—an important hypothesis worthy of testing when considering the increased number of cancer survivors after RT. Before rushing to the conclusion that RT alone is free of leukemogenic potential, it is important to address the question from the direction of a solid-tumor patient. Up until this point, oncologists studied t-MN incidence by first finding t-MN patients and then parsing their characteristics based on prior therapy (RT vs chemotherapy vs combined modality vs surgery). In these retrospective analyses, the potential for selection bias is large. In contrast, the real questions are 1) whether solid tumor patients treated with RT alone go on to develop t-MNs at a rate higher than radiation-free counterparts and 2) how post-RT t-MN pathobiology and clinical outcomes compare with those of radiation-free cohorts. Both of these questions require a forward perspective starting from the
A study on cross-language knowledge integration in Mandarin LVCSR

We present a cross-language knowledge integration framework to improve the performance in large vocabulary continuous speech recognition. Two types of knowledge sources, manner attribute and prosodic structure, are incorporated. For manner of articulation, cross-lingual attribute detectors trained with an American English corpus (WSJ0) are utilized to verify and rescore hypothesized Mandarin syllables in word lattices obtained with state-of-the-art systems. For the prosodic structure, models trained with an unsupervised joint prosody labeling and modeling technique using a Mandarin corpus (TCC300) are used in lattice rescoring. Experimental results on Mandarin syllable, character and word recognition with the TCC300 corpus show that the proposed approach significantly outperforms the baseline system that does not use articulatory and prosodic information. It also demonstrates a potential of utilizing results from cross-lingual attribute detectors as a language-universal frontend for automatic speech recognition.
An electrophysiological study of the tentacle-regulating potentials in Noctiluca.

1. The duration and frequency of tentacle-regulating potentials (TRPs) recorded from the vacuole of Noctiluca miliaris were modified by both steady and abrupt changes in the vacuolar potential. The spike frequency increased linearly with an increase in the vacuolar negativity over the range of 0 to -50 mV. 2. A transient decrease of impedance across the soma occurs coincidentally with the negative-going TR spike recorded from the vacuole. Local measurements of impedance changes as well as local surface potential recordings indicate that the TR spike does not propagate over the remainder of the cell from its region of origin near the base of the tentacle. Specimens without visible tentacles exhibited TRPs of normal shape. 3. Concurrent potential recordings from the vacuole and the perinuclear cytoplasm indicate that the vacuolar membrane bordering that portion of the cell is inactive. Except for a relatively more pronounced post-spike hyperpolarization the TRP shape and polarity in the perinuclear cytoplasm, referred to the sea-water bath, are similar to those recorded from the vacuole, but are of smaller amplitude. 4. The TRP appears to consist of a pre-spike pacemaker potential and an action potential having a prolonged post-spike plateau, the pattern recorded from the vacuole being the approximate inverse of that which would be recorded if a microelectrode could be introduced into the cytoplasm adjacent to the electrically active portion of membrane. Several of the findings indicate that the active membrane faces the vacuole and is electrotonically isolated from the perinuclear cytoplasm except through the vacuole.
Comparison of Bayesian Discriminative and Generative Models for Dialogue State Tracking

In this paper, we describe two dialogue state tracking models competing in the 2012 Dialogue State Tracking Challenge (DSTC). First, we detail a novel discriminative dialogue state tracker which directly estimates slot-level beliefs using deterministic state transition probability distribution. Second, we present a generative model employing a simple dependency structure to achieve fast inference. The models are evaluated on the DSTC data, and both significantly outperform the baseline DSTC tracker.
Nonexistence of Graphs with Cyclic Defect

In this note we consider graphs of maximum degree $\Delta$, diameter $D$ and order ${\rm M}(\Delta,D) - 2$, where ${\rm M}(\Delta,D)$ is the Moore bound , that is, graphs of defect 2. Delorme and Pineda-Villavicencio conjectured that such graphs do not exist for $D\geq 3$ if they have the so called 'cyclic defect'. Here we prove that this conjecture holds.
Systematic assessment of difficult-to-treat asthma

Five per cent of asthmatics remain symptomatic despite high-dose treatment. The aim of the study was to investigate how often such difficult-to-treat asthma is due to intractable asthma, misdiagnosis, non-adherence with therapy, or psychiatric problems. Difficult asthma was defined as persistence of symptoms despite treatment at step 4 of British guidelines or requirement for long-term oral glucocorticoids (step 5). One-hundred patients with a respiratory physician diagnosis of asthma were investigated in a single tertiary respiratory unit in an open and descriptive study. Twelve of the patients studied did not have asthma and a further seven had additional diagnoses. Of the remainder, 55 had an asthma diagnosis confirmed by demonstration of reversible airflow narrowing or peak flow variability, whilst 20 did not. Noncompliance with prednisolone therapy was more frequent in the 55 with confirmed asthma (nine of 18 prescribed oral prednisolone at a dose of ≥15 mg·day−1) and was not detected in the “unconfirmed asthma” group. There were no other significant differences between these groups. A major psychiatric component was detected in 10 patients. Systematic evaluation of difficult asthma is useful as it can identify alternative or additional diagnoses, psychiatric illness or nonconcordance with therapy in a substantial proportion of cases (32% in the present series).
Predicting Fault-prone Software Module Using Data Mining Technique and Fuzzy Logic

This paper discusses a new model towards reliability and quality improvement of software systems by predicting fault-prone module before testing. Model utilizes the classification capability of data mining techniques and knowledge stored in software metrics to classify the software module as fault-prone or not fault-prone. A decision tree is constructed using ID3 algorithm for existing project data in order to gain information for the purpose of decision making whether a particular module id fault-prone or not. The gained information is converted into fuzzy rules and integrated with fuzzy inference system to predict fault-prone or not fault-prone software module for target data. The model is also able to predict fault-proneness degree of faulty module. The goal is to help software manager to concentrate their testing efforts to fault-prone modules in order to improve the reliability and quality of the software system. We used NASA projects data set from the PROMOSE repository to validate the predictive accuracy of the model.