Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clonally Diverse T Cell Homeostasis Is Maintained by a Common Program of Cell-Cycle Control

Lymphopenia induces T cells to undergo cell divisions as part of a homeostatic response mechanism. The clonal response to lymphopenia is extremely diverse, and it is unknown whether this heterogeneity represents distinct mechanisms of cell-cycle control or whether a common mechanism can account for the diversity. We addressed this question by combining in vivo and mathematical modeling of lymphopenia-induced proliferation (LIP) of two distinct T cell clonotypes. OT-I T cells undergo rapid LIP accompanied by differentiation that superficially resembles Ag-induced proliferation, whereas F5 T cells divide slowly and remain naive. Both F5 and OT-I LIP responses were most accurately described by a single stochastic division model where the rate of cell division was exponentially decreased with increasing cell numbers. The model successfully identified key biological parameters of the response and accurately predicted the homeostatic set point of each clone. Significantly, the model was successful in predicting interclonal competition between OT-I and F5 T cells, consistent with competition for the same resource(s) required for homeostatic proliferation. Our results show that diverse and heterogenous clonal T cell responses can be accounted for by a single common model of homeostasis.
Finding and Retaining the Right Advisor for aFamily and Its Family Office

In contrast to the first decade of this century—called by some “The Decade of Excess,” this next decade could be the “Decade of Due Diligence. ” Typically, families and their offices seek new advisors via “word of mouth”—obtaining recommendations from other families, or from their current advisors, particularly lawyers and accountants. There are three serious risks in this method: The right advisor for one family with specific needs and objectives may be inappropriate for another with a different set of needs and objectives. The recommender may also lack knowledge about what it takes to be a great advisor in a particular discipline. Finally, he or she may have a limited circle of possible recommendations that could impact objectivity. This article addresses the essential features of an effective approach to finding the right advisor in any field of discipline and the building blocks to design a successful advisor selection process for families and their family offices.
The Effects of Risk Aversion on Wagering: Point Spread versus Odds

Currently, casinos and bookies use the point-spread method for betting on football games. Since an odds system is used in various other sports, what factors explain the current structure of the betting market? As the bookie's profits are a percentage of the total money wagered, the existence of point-spread betting indicates that the total money wagered under this betting scheme is greater than that generated by odds betting. This paper suggets that the current market structure is a consequence of risk-averse attitudes of bettors.
The expanding role of the endonasal endoscopic approach in pituitary and skull base surgery: A 2014 perspective

Background: The past two decades have been the setting for remarkable advancement in endonasal endoscopic neurosurgery. Refinements in camera definition, surgical instrumentation, navigation, and surgical technique, including the dual surgeon team, have facilitated purely endonasal endoscopic approaches to the majority of the midline skull base that were previously difficult to access through the transsphenoidal microscopic approach. Methods: This review article looks at many of the articles from 2011 to 2014 citing endonasal endoscopic surgery with regard to approaches and reconstructive techniques, pathologies treated and outcomes, and new technologies under consideration. Results: Refinements in approach and closure techniques have reduced the risk of cerebrospinal fluid leak and infection. This has allowed surgeons to more aggressively treat a variety of pathologies. Four main pathologies with outcomes after treatment were identified for discussion: pituitary adenomas, craniopharyngiomas, anterior skull base meningiomas, and chordomas. Within all four of these tumor types, articles have demonstrated the efficacy, and in certain cases, the advantages over more traditional microscope-based techniques, of the endonasal endoscopic technique. Conclusions: The endonasal endoscopic approach is a necessary tool in the modern skull base surgeon's armamentarium. Its efficacy for treatment of a wide variety of skull base pathologies has been repeatedly demonstrated. In the experienced surgeon's hands, this technique may offer the advantage of greater tumor removal with reduced overall complications over traditional craniotomies for select tumor pathologies centered near the midline skull base.
Corporate Communication of Financial Risk

This study provides insights on the Financial Risk Management Disclosure (FRMD) patterns of Australian listed resource companies for the 2002–2006 period leading up to and immediately following adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Regression analysis demonstrates that corporate governance and capital raisings of firms are significant and positively associated with FRMD patterns. In contrast, overseas stock exchange listing of firms is significantly negatively associated with FRMD patterns. The findings show that the introduction of IFRS changes corporation’s willingness to communicate risk information.
Serial Analysis of rRNA Genes and the Unexpected Dominance of Rare Members of Microbial Communities

ABSTRACT The accurate description of a microbial community is an important first step in understanding the roles of its components in ecosystem function. A method for surveying microbial communities termed serial analysis of rRNA genes (SARD) is described here. Through a series of molecular cloning steps, short DNA sequence tags are recovered from the fifth variable (V5) region of the prokaryotic 16S rRNA genes from microbial communities. These tags are ligated to form concatemers comprised of 20 to 40 tags which are cloned and identified by DNA sequencing. Four agricultural soil samples were profiled with SARD to assess the method's utility. A total of 37,008 SARD tags comprising 3,127 unique sequences were identified. A comparison of duplicate profiles from one soil genomic DNA preparation revealed that the method was highly reproducible. The large numbers of singleton tags, together with nonparametric richness estimates, indicated that a significant amount of sequence tag diversity remained undetected with this level of sampling. The abundance classes of the observed tags were scale-free and conformed to a power law distribution. Numerically, the majority of the total tags observed belonged to abundance classes that were each present at less than 1% of the community. Over 99% of the unique tags individually made up less than 1% of the community. Therefore, from either a numerical or diversity standpoint, taxa with low abundance comprised a significant proportion of the microbial communities examined and could potentially make a large contribution to ecosystem function. SARD may provide a means to explore the ecological roles of these rare members of microbial communities in qualitative and quantitative terms.
EI trabajo estable mejora la productividad

Trabajo estable o trabajo flexible? Que es lo mejor para la economia? Los autores esclarecen el asunto mediante un analisis de la influencia de la antiguedad en la productividad del trabajo en seis sectores economicos de trece paises europeos. Esta influencia es positiva, excepto en la hipotesis de una antiguedad muy larga, es decir, muy superior a la media. En cambio aparece una relacion inversa entre el promedio de antiguedad y el nivel de empleo de un pais. Para superar este problema, los autores abogan por una "movilidad protegida" en el mercado de trabajo, basada en politicas laborales activas que den medios a los trabajadores para conciliar flexibilidad y estabilidad.
Rural community and leadership in the management of natural resources: Tensions between theory and policy

Abstract Rural communities are increasingly called upon to maximize application of their own resources to solve environmental problems. Many communities have been seen to organize themselves and establish lasting institutions for natural resource management. Leadership, alongside social capital, has been identified by governments as well as the research literature to be an important element in community organization. Policies and programmes have been developed to foster leadership. However, there is a tension between leadership and social capital. This tension and potential contradiction become apparent when the concept of power is introduced. Focusing particularly but not exclusively on Australia, the paper looks at the theory and practice of leadership programmes in relation to the findings of empirical studies of community power relations. It specifies the kinds of leadership appropriate to natural resource management in terms of leader–follower relations, arguing that the leader–follower relationship, rather than the individual characteristics of leaders, should command research and policy attention. Some consideration of factors to be taken into account in designing leadership programmes is offered in conclusion.
National Employment Systems and Job Autonomy: Why Job Autonomy is High in the Nordic Countries and Low in the United States, Canada, and Australia

We present evidence that, across countries, similar jobs carry very different levels of autonomy. Workers in Nordic countries have greater discretion than workers in the United States, Canada, and Australia, all else being equal. This suggests that students of job autonomy, who emphasize task complexity and human capital, should heed the role of the wider institutional environment. We examine three explanations of the link between national location and autonomy. The Taylorism/de-skilling thesis suggests that work control is a zero-sum game between workers and managers, such that in countries where managers exercise great control, workers will exercise little. The collective bargaining thesis suggests that union bargaining strategy is the key: unionists will have high autonomy in `co-determination' countries and low autonomy in `job control' countries. We argue more broadly that national management, training, bargaining, and unemployment systems operate according to different logics. Where they are oriented to rule-governed work, autonomy will be low. Where they are oriented to skill-governed work, autonomy will be high. Detailed data on job autonomy from over seven thousand jobs in seven countries support our contention that national employment systems shape job autonomy.
Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis: Activation of Thymus Lymphocytes against Syngeneic Brain Antigens in vitro

Thymus lymphocytes of normal adult rats were autosensitized in vitro against soluble antigens extracted from the brains of syngeneic rats. Injection of the autosensitized lymphocytes into syngeneic rats led to the development of brain lesions suggestive of autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Injection of control lymphocytes or the antigen extract alone did not cause lesions. Since sensitization in vitro requires the presence of lymphocytes programmed with specific receptors, the results indicate that normal rats have lymphocytes capable of recognizing central nervous system self-antigens. Hence, regulatory mechanisms, inoperative in vitro, probably function in vivo to prevent immune activation of self-recognizing lymphocytes and autoimmunity. This concept suggests a new approach to exploring the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases.
Randomness Enhancement Using Digitalized Modified Logistic Map

In this brief, a nonlinear digitalized modified logistic map-based pseudorandom number generator (DMLM-PRNG) is proposed for randomness enhancement. Two techniques, i.e., constant parameter selection and output sequence scrambling, are employed to reduce the computation cost without sacrificing the complexity of the output sequence. Statistical test results show that with only one multiplication, DMLM-PRNG passes all cases in SP800-22. Moreover, it passes most of the cases in Crush, one of the test suites of TesuU01. When compared with solutions based on digitized pseudochaotic maps previously proposed in the literature, in terms of randomness quality, our system is as good as a Rényi-map-based PRNG and better than a logistic-map-based PRNG. Moreover, compared with solutions based on a Rényi-map-based PRNG, DMLM-PRNG is better scalable to high digital resolutions with reasonable area overhead.
Company culture provides competitive edge for Sargento Foods

People and culture are a core element of strategy at the Wisconsin‐based cheese processing and marketing company, Sargento Foods. Its competitive advantage stems from the capabilities and loyalty of its 1,200 employees. Three interrelated business drivers define the company’s core strategy – a focus on cheese products, a commitment to outstanding customer and consumer response, and an economic engine centered on customer profitability. This three‐pronged strategy is guided by the company’s cultural philosophy – people, pride and progress. The culture and the commitment to people is the foundation for all other strategic initiatives. For over 50 years, Sargento has translated their philosophical commitment to people and culture into meaningful long‐term action through several HR programs cited in the article.
StreamNetFlux: birth of transparent integrated CEP-DBs

CEP and Databases have traditionally been viewed as two separate entities, the first one oriented towards real-time event processing and the second one oriented towards long-term management of data. But in fact many real-time data and business intelligence analysis do need to confront streaming data with long-term stored one. For instance, how do today's sales compare with last year's sales for the same day? We demonstrate StreamNetFlux, a new system being commercialized that integrates CEP and databases in a way that is smooth and transparent to the user. Our demonstration will show that the new system is able to process queries that need such capabilities in an integrated fashion and with top efficiency and scalability features. The demonstration will use a Telco case study and will show that not only the system is able to provide integrated processing, as it is also extremely efficient and scalable.
Chinese norms of McNamara's cephalometric analysis.

OBJECTIVE To establish cephalometric norms of McNamara's analysis in young Chinese and compare them to those of a matched young Caucasian sample. MATERIALS AND METHODS The material comprised lateral cephalometric radiographs of a random sample of 200 male and 205 female 12-year-old southern Chinese children, and an additional sample of 43 male and 43 female 12-year-old British Caucasian children in Hong Kong. The radiographs were digitized twice with the CASSOS program. RESULTS The results showed that there were statistically significant gender differences for six out of the 11 cephalometric variables in the Chinese, but for only one variable in the Caucasians. The size of the statistically significant gender differences varied from -0.3 to 0.4 on SD scores. There were statistically significant ethnic differences for eight variables in males and seven variables in females. The size of the observed statistically significant ethnic differences varied from -1.8 to 1.6 on SD scores. CONCLUSION The use of specific standards for Chinese, separate for gender, for McNamara's cephalometric analysis seems to be justified.
Time-Related Issues in Training and Career Development

Several ideas are outlined that help place a focus on time and the way in which it affects many issues relevant to HRM. The concept of time-discounting is introduced, and its relevance to a range of organisational decisions outlined. A brief summary is provided of a series of studies testing time discounting in relation to training and career-related choices. Finally, future research needs are highlighted.
Organization of neural inputs to the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the rat

The circadian timing of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is modulated by its neural inputs. In the present study, we examine the organization of the neural inputs to the rat SCN using both retrograde and anterograde tracing methods. After Fluoro‐Gold injections into the SCN, retrogradely labeled neurons are present in a number of brain areas, including the infralimbic cortex, the lateral septum, the medial preoptic area, the subfornical organ, the paraventricular thalamus, the subparaventricular zone, the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus, the posterior hypothalamic area, the intergeniculate leaflet, the olivary pretectal nucleus, the ventral subiculum, and the median raphe nuclei. In the anterograde tracing experiments, we observe three patterns of afferent termination within the SCN that correspond to the photic/raphe, limbic/hypothalamic, and thalamic inputs. The median raphe projection to the SCN terminates densely within the ventral subdivision and sparsely within the dorsal subdivision. Similarly, areas that receive photic input, such as the retina, the intergeniculate leaflet, and the pretectal area, densely innervate the ventral SCN but provide only minor innervation of the dorsal SCN. A complementary pattern of axonal labeling, with labeled fibers concentrated in the dorsal SCN, is observed after anterograde tracer injections into the hypothalamus and into limbic areas, such as the ventral subiculum and infralimbic cortex. A third, less common pattern of labeling, exemplified by the paraventricular thalamic afferents, consists of diffuse axonal labeling throughout the SCN. Our results show that the SCN afferent connections are topographically organized. These hodological differences may reflect a functional heterogeneity within the SCN. J. Comp. Neurol. 389:508–534, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Global institutional clashes: economic versus environmental regimes

SUMMARY Most globalization scholars identify negative consequences for the environment in the neo-liberal orientation in current economic globalization processes. But at the same time, we can witness constant efforts at the supra-national level to institutionalize environmental interests and considerations in new institutions, arrangements and regimes. Many of the multilateral environmental arrangements give evidence of such developments. This paper aims to analyze the nature, substance and place of institutional clashes that take place between these emerging environmental institutions and the more established economic institutions linked to liberalization of trade and investment. The paper finds that (i) current globalization processes cannot be defined as giving only leeway to capital without taking care of the environment, (ii) the clashes between the economic and environmental institutions are more than only a clash between economic priorities versus environmental interests, and (iii) the pacification of these clashes will not happen in a fortnight, as the environmental advocates especially are unlikely to move towards an integration of the two kind of institutions in the short term.
Transmission of Bordetella holmesii during Pertussis Outbreak, Japan

We describe the epidemiology of a pertussis outbreak in Japan in 2010–2011 and Bordetella holmesii transmission. Six patients were infected; 4 patients were students and a teacher at the same junior high school. Epidemiologic links were found between 5 patients. B. holmesii may have been transmitted from person to person.
Optimal trajectory planning based on bidirectional spline-RRT∗ for wheeled mobile robot

This paper proposes a trajectory planning of a mobile robot using bidirectional-Rapidly-exploring Random Tree star [RRT star] algorithm with spline technique. In the proposed method, the basic bidirectional-RRT star algorithm is combined with the spline technique to generate smooth trajectories, which are important for curved path navigation of a wheeled mobile robot. The bidirectional-RRT star tree structure is extended by using a spline method based on a cubic Ferguson's curve. Trajectories that are been generated using the proposed bidirectional spline-RRT star algorithm satisfies direction constraints approach on both source and target positions. This makes the proposed algorithm remarkably unlike from other trajectory planning algorithms. As a result, the paths produced by the mobile robots are sub-optimal, dynamically and geometrically feasible, and satisfy direction constraints approaches. Simulation results that are performed affirm these bidirectional spline-RRT star algorithm properties and show the validity of the proposed algorithm, implying that it can be efficiently applied to trajectory planning of wheeled mobile robot operating in real-time environments.
The possible evolution and future of CO2-concentrating mechanisms

CO2-concentrating mechanisms (CCMs), based either on active transport of inorganic carbon (biophysical CCMs) or on biochemistry involving supplementary carbon fixation into C4 acids (C4 and CAM), play a major role in global primary productivity. However, the ubiquitous CO2-fixing enzyme in autotrophs, Rubisco, evolved at a time when atmospheric CO2 levels were very much higher than today and O2 was very low and, as CO2 and O2 approached (by no means monotonically), today's levels, at some time subsequently many organisms evolved a CCM that increased the supply of CO2 and decreased Rubisco oxygenase activity. Given that CO2 levels and other environmental factors have altered considerably between when autotrophs evolved and the present day, and are predicted to continue to change into the future, we here examine the drivers for, and possible timing of, evolution of CCMs. CCMs probably evolved when CO2 fell to 2-16 times the present atmospheric level, depending on Rubisco kinetics. We also assess the effects of other key environmental factors such as temperature and nutrient levels on CCM activity and examine the evidence for evolutionary changes in CCM activity and related cellular processes as well as limitations on continuity of CCMs through environmental variations.
Tourism in Antarctica: Activities, Impacts, and Management

This research examines tourism in Antarctica, one of the world's last tourism fron tiers. The article provides an overview of the development of tourism in Antarctica, visitor activity, and the impacts of sea, air, and land-based tourism. The article indicates that a number of management options are available but the legal and policy dimensions surround ing Antarctica demand the establishment of an international Antarctic tourism convention.
A máscara sorridente da América Latina

O artigo trata dos aspectos socioculturais das democracias latino-americanas, e mostra as dificuldades dos processos de consolidacao dos varios paises quanto aos problemas institucionais e politicos: a organizacao dos partidos, a construcao da estabilidade, a solucao da crise economica. Os dados que embasam as analises sao extraidos do Latinobarometro, realizado em 8 paises em 1995, e focalizam os tracos comuns da cultura politica na regiao.