Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The impact of comorbid migraine on quality‐of‐life outcomes after endoscopic sinus surgery

Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) and migraine are common entities with overlapping symptomatology, yet little research exists that investigates the intersection of the two. This study seeks to investigate whether patients with CRS—with and without a migraine history—experience comparable quality‐of‐life (QOL) improvement after endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS).
Les Cahiers de la Chaire Economie du Climat Social Acceptance and Optimal Pollution : CCS or Tax ?

The two main hurdles to a widespread carbon capture and storage (CCS) deployment are: cost and social acceptance issues. Assessing accurately social preferences is thus interesting to determine whether CCS is socially optimal. Unlike most academic papers that have a dichotomous approach and consider either the atmospheric pollution (first source of marginal disutility) or the underground pollution (second source), we consider the problem as a whole: CCS techniques introduce a third source of disutility due to the simultaneous presence of CO2 in the atmosphere and in geological formations. The model and the numerical simulations show that there exist some configurations of social preferences for which CCS grants a higher social welfare provided that public authorities tax the carbon content of fossil fuels and subsidize carbon storage. CCS can even increase simultaneously the social welfare of the country with CCS and the one of the country without. From the perspective of minimizing the decarbonizing costs, we compare the case where each country defines its climate policy and when they are aggregated, in order to assess the transfers required to encourage CCS deployment. JEL Classification Numbers:
Wnt signaling in ovarian tumorigenesis

Data are emerging implicating Wnt signaling in ovarian tumorigenesis. We sought to review the current literature on the subject and discuss the pathway's potential role as a prognostic marker and therapeutic target. We conducted a systematic literature review of studies investigating the association between Wnt signaling and ovarian cancer. Search strategies included online searching of the MEDLINE database and hand searching of relevant publications and reviews. Additional reports were collected by systematically reviewing all references from retrieved papers. Twenty-nine papers were identified that directly investigate Wnt signaling and ovarian cancer. Mutations in the CTNNB1 gene that codes for β-catenin, the key effector in the pathway, are directly linked to carcinogenic transformation but are mostly found in ovarian endometrioid adenocarcinomas, a histologic subtype of epithelial ovarian cancer. These mutations, along with others, lead to deregulation of the pathway and transcription of target genes. Differences in various intra- and extracellular components of the Wnt pathway have been demonstrated between normal ovarian and cancer cell lines and between benign tissue and ovarian cancer. These differences implicate Wnt signaling in the molecular events that lead to ovarian cancer development despite the fact that gene mutations are uncommon. The data suggest that Wnt signaling plays a role in ovarian tumorigenesis. The exact mechanisms by which this occurs need to be further elucidated. Wnt signaling is probably involved via multiple, diverse mechanisms. Further research in this area is warranted.
Language, Identity, and the Ownership of English

This article serves as the introduction to the special-topic issue of the TESOL Quarterly on Language and Identity. In the first section, I discuss my interest in language and identity, drawing on theorists who have been influential in my work. A short vignette illustrates the significant relationship among identity, language learning, and classroom teaching. In the second section, I examine the five articles in the issue, highlighting notable similarities and differences in conceptions of identity. I note, in particular, the different ways in which the authors frame identity: social identity, sociocultural identity, voice, cultural identity, and ethnic identity. I explore these differences with reference to the particular disciplines and research traditions of the authors and the different emphases of their research projects. In the final section, I draw on the issue as a whole to address a prevalent theme in many of the contributions: the ownership of English internationally. The central question addressed is the extent to which English belongs to White native speakers of standard English or to all the people who speak it, irrespective of linguistic and sociocultural history. I conclude with the hope that the issue will help address the current fragmentation in the literature on the relationship between language and identity and encourage further debate and research on a thought-provoking and important topic. Just as, at the level of relations between groups, a language is worth what those who speak it are worth, so too, at the level of interactions between individuals, speech always owes a major part of its value to the value of the person who utters it. (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 652)
Effect of Fillers on Bituminous Paving Mixes

Fillers play an important role on engineering properties of the bituminous paving mixes. Conventionally, cement, lime and stone dust are used as fillers. In this study, an attempt has been made to assess the effects of different types of fillers on the Marshall properties of bituminous paving mixes. All of these materials were tested according to the standard test procedure of AASHTO. The Asphalt Institute recommends the use of 4 to 8% filler in bituminous concrete. The bituminous mixes are properly designed to satisfy the design requirements of the stability and durability. The mixture contains dense grading of coarse aggregate, fine aggregate and mineral filler coated with bitumen binder. The mineral filler passing through 0.075 mm sieve performs some important roles in bituminous mixes. Marshall Stability of bituminous mix increases as the amount of filler increases. The Marshall method of mix design was used for the comparison. The percentage of air voids were found to be decreased with the increase of bitumen content.
Financial Literacy of Young Generation in Changing European Environment: Evidence from Germany and Latvia

Financial services have become more and more comprehensive over the past decade. In the recent financial crisis of 2009-2011 showed that uninformed consumers become easy targets for financial products that were not appropriate for them, in addition, financial risk was transferred to households. A common tendency in the European Union is insufficient attention to financial education in secondary school programmes. Financial topics are taught in economics classes without linking them to other subjects and everyday situations. The aim of the research is to investigate financial literacy and financial education from theoretical perspective, as well as to evaluate the level of financial literacy of young generation by conducting surveys among secondary school students in Germany and Latvia, and to identify the main directions for financial literacy promotion. In Latvian school system financial literacy topics are included only in a subject Economics, and they are examined rather from a theoretical perspective. In Germany, directives regarding the interdisciplinary integration of financial themes in schools have existed for many years. Nevertheless, in general grammar schools, financial literacy is still not covered sufficiently and also not integrated in lessons. The research results confirmed that the knowledge of the secondary school students is missing in the area of financial literacy. Reasons for this can be found in the congested school curriculum, due to the short time allotment, on the one hand and the lack of financial knowledge of teachers on the other.
Chronic treatment with pioglitazone does not protect obese patients with diabetes mellitus type II from free fatty acid-induced insulin resistance.

CONTEXT Thiazolidinediones increase peripheral insulin sensitivity and decrease plasma free fatty acids (FFA). However, their exact mechanism of action has not been fully elucidated. OBJECTIVE We studied the protective effect of pioglitazone on FFA-induced insulin resistance and the effects on intramyocellular glycosphingolipids. DESIGN We studied glucose metabolism in the basal state and during a hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp by using stable isotopes. Studies were performed at baseline and after 4 months of treatment with pioglitazone. Patients were then studied on a third occasion during infusion of a lipid emulsion to increase plasma FFA to pretreatment levels. All studies were combined with muscle biopsies to measure intramyocellular ceramide and glycosphingolipids. PATIENTS Patients were obese with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus. INTERVENTION Patients were treated with 30 mg pioglitazone once daily. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE The change in peripheral insulin sensitivity after treatment with pioglitazone and during the infusion of the lipid emulsion was the main outcome measure. RESULTS Peripheral glucose uptake (Rd) increased significantly, but returned to baseline levels after increasing plasma FFA to pretreatment levels. Insulin-mediated suppression of FFA was increased significantly. Intramyocellular ceramide concentrations were higher during the hyperinsulinemic clamp after treatment with pioglitazone, but not in the basal state. The intramyocellular content of glycosphingolipids and plasma concentrations of ceramide and glycosphingolipids did not change. CONCLUSIONS Pioglitazone increases Rd and insulin-mediated suppression of plasma FFA, but does not protect patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus from FFA-induced insulin resistance. This effect of pioglitazone is not attained via a decrease in intramyocellular concentrations of ceramide or glycosphingolipids.
The Prevalence And Clinical Significance Of Mutations BRIP 1 , BARD 1 , PALB 2 And NBN Genes In Women With Ovarian Cancer

Several genes functioning in DNA repair pathways confer susceptibility to epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). We evaluated the prevalence of coding sequence mutations in 4 DNA repair genes BRIP1, BARD1, NBN1, and PALB2 in 3,236 invasive EOC cases and 3,431 controls of European ancestry, and in 2,133 BRCA1/BRCA2 negative, unaffected women from the UK Familial Ovarian Cancer Screening Study (UKFOCSS), a clinical screening trial for ovarian cancer. We found significant evidence of an increased frequency of deleterious mutations in BRIP1 in cases (0.9 percent) compared to controls (0.09 percent) (P=0.0001), but no differences in case/control mutation frequency for BARD1 (P=0.39), NBN1 (P=0.61), or PALB2 (P=0.078). We identified a non-random distribution of mutations in the BRIP1 gene (P=0.0085) indicating there is a correlation between mutation location and occurrence of ovarian cancer. BRIP1 mutation carriers tended to be diagnosed at a later age (P=0.072), with highgrade serous disease (P=0.049), and at a later stage (P=0.093) compared to non-carriers. Using data from non-family based case-control studies we estimated the relative risks associated with BRIP1 mutations to be 11 for invasive EOC (95% confidence interval (CI) 3.2 – 34; P = 1 x 10-4) and 14 for high-grade serous ovarian cancer (95% CI 4.0 – 45; P = 2 x 10-5). We also performed segregation analysis using family data from case-control studies and from UKFOCSS, estimating the average relative risks in BRIP1 mutation carriers to be 3.4 (95% CI: 2.1 5.5, p=7×10-7) compared to the UK general population. These data have implications for genetic risk prediction and clinical intervention strategies for the prevention of ovarian cancer.
Distinctive patterns of DNA methylation associated with Parkinson disease

Parkinson disease (PD) is a multifactorial neurodegenerative disorder with high incidence in the elderly, where environmental and genetic factors are involved in etiology. In addition, epigenetic mechanisms, including deregulation of DNA methylation have been recently associated to PD. As accurate diagnosis cannot be achieved pre-mortem, identification of early pathological changes is crucial to enable therapeutic interventions before major neuropathological damage occurs. Here we investigated genome-wide DNA methylation in brain and blood samples from PD patients and observed a distinctive pattern of methylation involving many genes previously associated to PD, therefore supporting the role of epigenetic alterations as a molecular mechanism in neurodegeneration. Importantly, we identified concordant methylation alterations in brain and blood, suggesting that blood might hold promise as a surrogate for brain tissue to detect DNA methylation in PD and as a source for biomarker discovery.
Functional role of GABA in cat primary somatosensory cortex: shaping receptive fields of cortical neurons.

Extracellular recordings of 209 neurons were obtained with carbon fiber-containing multibarrel micropipettes. The cells were isolated in the primary somatosensory cortex of cats anesthetized with barbiturate and classified according to the nature of their response to natural stimuli, the nature of the surrounding multiunit responses to the same stimuli, the response to thalamic stimulation, and their depth in the cortex. To study factors controlling the excitability of somatosensory neurons, their receptive fields were examined in the presence of iontophoretically administered gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamate, and bicuculline methiodide (BMI). Even when the neurons were depolarized to perithreshold levels with glutamate, or when local inhibitory influences mediated by GABA were antagonized by BMI, the apparent specificity for one class of afferent input was maintained. Neurons responding to stimulation of either cutaneous or deep receptors maintained their modality specificity, and neurons in cutaneous rapidly adapting regions never took on slowly adapting properties. When ejected at currents that did not elicit action potentials, glutamate lowered the threshold for activation by cutaneous stimuli but did not enlarge the receptive field. With larger ejecting currents, the neurons developed an on-going discharge, but even at these higher doses, glutamate did not produce an increase in the receptive-field size. Some neurons in regions of cortex exhibiting slowly adapting multiunit responses were relatively insensitive to glutamate. These cells required four to five times more glutamate to evoke discharges than did most neurons. Other cells, previously unresponsive to somatic stimuli, could be shown to possess distinct cutaneous receptive fields when either glutamate or BMI was ejected in their vicinity. Iontophoretically administered BMI altered the firing pattern of somatosensory neurons, causing them to discharge in bursts of 3-15 impulses. BMI enlarged the receptive-field size of neurons in regions displaying rapidly adapting multiunit background discharges but not in those regions with slowly adapting multiunit discharges. This differential effect of BMI, suggesting that GABA controls receptive-field size in rapidly adapting regions, also indicates that neurons in rapidly adapting regions differ pharmacologically from those in other submodality regions. In all cortical regions, BMI blocked the poststimulus inhibitory period that normally followed thalamic stimulation. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Tamoxifen-stimulated growth of breast cancer due to p21 loss

Tamoxifen is widely used for the treatment of hormonally responsive breast cancers. However, some resistant breast cancers develop a growth proliferative response to this drug, as evidenced by tumor regression upon its withdrawal. To elucidate the molecular mediators of this paradox, tissue samples from a patient with tamoxifen-stimulated breast cancer were analyzed. These studies revealed that loss of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21 was associated with a tamoxifen growth-inducing phenotype. Immortalized human breast epithelial cells with somatic deletion of the p21 gene were then generated and displayed a growth proliferative response to tamoxifen, whereas p21 wild-type cells demonstrated growth inhibition upon tamoxifen exposure. Mutational and biochemical analyses revealed that loss of p21's cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitory property results in hyperphosphorylation of estrogen receptor-α, with subsequent increased gene expression of estrogen receptor-regulated genes. These data reveal a previously uncharacterized molecular mechanism of tamoxifen resistance and have potential clinical implications for the management of tamoxifen-resistant breast cancers.
Parkinsonian bradykinesia is due to depression in the rate of rise of muscle activity

Parkinsonian bradykinesia is defined by a slowness in the execution of movement. We studied the pathophysiology of this symptom in rapid arm‐reaching movements to a visual target carried out in a reaction‐time task. The major cause of bradykinesia was found to be depression in the rate of rise of electromyographic activity. The amplitude of the peak of this activity did not change significantly. There was no change either in the sequential activation of muscles, in the amount of co‐contraction activity, in the accurary of aim toward the visual target, or in the movement trajectory.
Membrane topology and mutational analysis of the TolQ protein of Escherichia coli required for the uptake of macromolecules and cell envelope integrity

TolQ is a 230-amino-acid protein required to maintain the integrity of the bacterial envelope and to facilitate the import of both filamentous bacteriophage and group A colicins. Cellular fractionation experiments showed TolQ to be localized to the cytoplasmic membrane. Bacteria expressing a series of TolQ-beta-galactosidase and TolQ-alkaline phosphatase fusion proteins were analyzed for the appropriate enzyme activity, membrane location, and sensitivity to exogenously added protease. The results are consistent with TolQ being an integral cytoplasmic membrane protein with three membrane-spanning regions. The amino-terminal 19 residues as well as a small loop in the 155 to 170 residue region appear exposed in the periplasm, while the carboxy terminus and a large loop after the first transmembrane region are cytoplasmic. Amino-terminal sequence analysis of TolQ purified from the membrane revealed the presence of the initiating formyl methionine group, suggesting a rapid translocation of the amino-terminal region across the cytoplasmic membrane. Analysis of various tolQ mutant strains suggests that the third transmembrane region as well as parts of the large cytoplasmic loop are necessary for activity.
Enabling Customer-Centricity Using Wikis and the Wiki Way

Customer-centric business makes the needs and resources of individual customers the starting point for planning new products and services or improving existing ones. While customer-centricity has received recent attention in the marketing literature, technologies to enable customer-centricity have been largely ignored in research and theory development. In this paper, we describe one enabling technology—wikis. Wiki is a Web-based collaboration technology designed to allow anyone to update any information posted to a wiki-based Web site. As such, wikis can be used to enable customers to not only access but also change the organization's Web presence, creating previously unheard of opportunities for joint content development and "peer production" of Web content. At the same time, such openness may make the organization vulnerable to Web site defacing, destruction of intellectual property, and general chaos. In this zone of tension—between opportunity and possible failure—an increasing number of organizations are experimenting with the use of wikis and the wiki way to engage customers. Three cases of organizations using wikis to foster customer-centricity are described, with each case representing an ever-increasing level of customer engagement. An examination of the three cases reveals six characteristics that affect customer engagement—community custodianship, goal alignment among contributors, value-adding processes, emerging layers of participation, critical mass of management and monitoring activity, and technologies in which features are matched to assumptions about how the community collaborates. Parallels between our findings and those evolving in studies of the open source software movement are drawn.
Characterization of novel TiN/HfO2 metal insulator semiconductor stack for 32nm eDRAM

In this paper, we describe the unique scaling challenges, critical sources of variation, and the potential trench leakage mechanisms of 32nm trench capacitors that utilize high-к/metal electrode materials. This is the first eDRAM technology that has successfully integrated high-к and metal films as part of the trench capacitor. In addition, these films are found to be fully compatible with front-end of line (FEOL) thermal budgets. We explore sources of variation and illustrate process mitigation techniques, including the targeting of key capacitor properties, and reduction in trench leakage. Finally, we illustrate that systematic and random variations do not pose as insurmountable barriers, and that the trench technology is scalable to the 22nm trench and beyond.
Anomalous Diffusion in Biomolecular Systems from the Perspective of Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics

This contribution gives a short introduction into the theory of anomalous diffusion and relaxation with illustrations from computer simulations of biomolecular systems. The theory is presented from the perspective of the non-equilibrium statistical physics, confronting stochastic models with exact results which have been recently obtained on the basis of asymptotic analysis. In this context, conditions for anomalous diffusion will be discussed and the Kubo relations for the fractional diffusion and relaxation constant will be derived.
Rapid Recruitment of Virus-Specific CD8 T Cells Restructures Immunodominance during Protective Secondary Responses

ABSTRACT In this study we investigate the attributes of virus-specific memory CD8 T cells which most effectively control secondary infections. By rechallenging mice that had cleared primary lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infections, we revealed that the secondary response is remarkably swift. Within 6 h following secondary infection, the production of gamma interferon becomes detectable directly ex vivo. During this protective phase of the secondary response, a very early elaboration of effector activities is preferentially exhibited by T cells specific for the viral NP396 epitope. This wave of activation contains the infection primarily before the initiation of the proliferative phase of the secondary response. Marked expansion is observed, but its magnitude differs depending on the epitope specificity of the responding cells; between 42 and 48 h following infection, ∼70% of NP396-specific memory cells are in the S phase of the cell cycle, as assessed by bromodeoxyuridine incorporation studies. Epitope-dependent differences during the proliferative phase of the secondary response were confirmed by adoptive transfer studies with CFSE-labeled T cells. Although NP396-specific T cells typically dominate secondary responses, the broader multiepitope-specific population of antiviral T cells is beneficial for controlling a variant virus with an escape mutation in this epitope. These findings indicate that the induction and maintenance of a focused response contribute to the clearance of secondary infections; however, a more diverse pool of antiviral T cells facilitates long-term immunity to mutable pathogens.