Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
European Union Actorness in International Institutions: Why the EU is Recognized as an Actor in Some International Institutions, But Not in Others

This article examines why the European Union (EU) is recognized as a relevant actor in some international institutions, but not in others. Drawing on theories of international institutions and corporate action, it develops a theoretical approach toward EU actorness that demonstrates under which conditions third parties gain an interest in recognizing this actor as a relevant party to international institutions and how the EU can become an actor in its own right. The EU is expected to be recognized as a relevant actor in an international institution if it has acquired action capability in the relevant governance area, while formal status plays an inferior role. This hypothesis is subsequently assessed for six international institutions that vary regarding the degree of EU action capability and the EU's formal status, including the WTO and IMF, FAO and WHO as well as two international environmental regimes. Empirical results confirm the fruitfulness of the theoretical approach. © 2013 The Author(s) JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Diagnosing the severity of dry eye: a clear and practical algorithm

Dry eye disease (DED) is a distressing ocular condition. Due to its multifactorial nature, clinical and biological signs of DED can be inconsistent and sometimes discordant with symptomatology. Consequently, no gold-standard model for determining DED severity exists. This can impact treatment decisions and complicate evaluation of disease progression, particularly within the stringent context of clinical trials. The multinational ODISSEY European Consensus Group is comprised of ophthalmologists who contend with ocular surface disease issues on a daily basis. This group convened to establish a clear and practical algorithm for evaluation and diagnosis of severe DED. Using a consensus-based approach, they assessed 14 commonly used DED severity criteria. The panel agreed that following confirmed DED diagnosis, just two criteria, symptom-based assessment and corneal fluorescein staining were sufficient to diagnose the presence of severe DED in the majority of patients. In the event of discordance between signs and symptoms, further evaluation using additional determinant criteria was recommended. This report presents the ODISSEY European Consensus Group recommended algorithm for DED evaluation, which facilitates diagnosis of severe disease even in the event of discordance between signs and symptoms. It is intended that this algorithm will be useful in a clinical and developmental setting.
Cloud Computing for Retailing Industry: An Overview

: Cloud computing is a novel approach which is practicing by many industries in the world, specifically the small and medium scale industries. It has become a talk of the town in computing industry and in business. Its gaining popularity can provide a lot of opportunities for the retailing industry to improve their business. This paper discusses the concept of cloud computing and its importance in retailing industry. Application of cloud computing in retail sector and comparison between traditional retailing and cloud computing retailing are also discussed. Both small and large retailers may be benefited by using cloud computing in cutting costs, segmenting, targeting and positioning the products in the market, and build and maintain relationships with customers in lesser time.
A 100–800 MHz 8-Path Polyphase Transmitter With Mixer Duty-Cycle Control Achieving $<-$40 dBc for ALL Harmonics

Radio transceivers capable of dynamic spectrum access require frequency-agile transmitters with a clean output spectrum. High- Q filters are difficult to implement on chip and have limited tuning range. Transmitters with high linearity and broadband harmonic rejection can be more flexible and require less filtering. However, traditional harmonic rejection mixers suppress only a few harmonics. This paper presents an 8-path polyphase transmitter, which exploits mixer-LO duty-cycle control and a tunable first-order RC low-pass filter to suppress ALL harmonics to below -40 dBc. The optimum duty-cycle theoretically is 43.65% and a resolution of better than 0.1% is required to keep the spread in harmonic rejection within 1 dB. We propose a simple monotonic duty-cycle control circuit and show by design equations and measurements that it achieves the required resolution over three octaves of frequency range. Also, analysis indicates that LO duty-cycle reduction compared with 50% improves power upconverter efficiency. A transmitter realized in 0.16- μm CMOS works from 100 to 800 MHz at a maximum single-tone output power of 10.8 dBm with an efficiency of 8.7%, outperforming previous designs. The OIP3 is >21 dBm, while the LO leakage and image rejection is better than -45 dBc.
Study on power saving for cellular digital packet data over a random error/loss channel

This paper investigates the impact on the power saving mechanism (PSM) of the cellular digital packet data (CDPD) caused by random frame errors and losses. To combat such random frame errors and losses, a selective repeat (SR) protocol of automatic repeat request (ARQ) protocols in charge of recovery of garbled/lost frames is combined with the original PSM of CDPD and then study the enhanced PSM and investigate the effect of channel conditions including bit error rate and frame loss probability as well as frame buffer size and window size of SR-ARQ to the PSM through numerical examples. The results provided in this paper are able to serve as guidelines on system design and parameter setting for CDPD when an imperfect channel is taken into consideration to reflect the realistic situation.
Prefrontal/accumbal catecholamine system processes high motivational salience

Motivational salience regulates the strength of goal seeking, the amount of risk taken, and the energy invested from mild to extreme. Highly motivational experiences promote highly persistent memories. Although this phenomenon is adaptive in normal conditions, experiences with extremely high levels of motivational salience can promote development of memories that can be re-experienced intrusively for long time resulting in maladaptive outcomes. Neural mechanisms mediating motivational salience attribution are, therefore, very important for individual and species survival and for well-being. However, these neural mechanisms could be implicated in attribution of abnormal motivational salience to different stimuli leading to maladaptive compulsive seeking or avoidance. We have offered the first evidence that prefrontal cortical norepinephrine (NE) transmission is a necessary condition for motivational salience attribution to highly salient stimuli, through modulation of dopamine (DA) in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a brain area involved in all motivated behaviors. Moreover, we have shown that prefrontal-accumbal catecholamine (CA) system determines approach or avoidance responses to both reward- and aversion-related stimuli only when the salience of the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is high enough to induce sustained CA activation, thus affirming that this system processes motivational salience attribution selectively to highly salient events.
Tbr2 Expression in Cajal-Retzius Cells and Intermediate Neuronal Progenitors Is Required for Morphogenesis of the Dentate Gyrus

The dentate gyrus (DG) is a unique cortical region whose protracted development spans the embryonic and early postnatal periods. DG development involves large-scale reorganization of progenitor cell populations, ultimately leading to the establishment of the subgranular zone neurogenic niche. In the developing DG, the T-box transcription factor Tbr2 is expressed in both Cajal-Retzius cells derived from the cortical hem that guide migration of progenitors and neurons to the DG, and intermediate neuronal progenitors born in the dentate neuroepithelium that give rise to granule neurons. Here we show that in mice Tbr2 is required for proper migration of Cajal-Retzius cells to the DG; and, in the absence of Tbr2, formation of the hippocampal fissure is abnormal, leading to aberrant development of the transhilar radial glial scaffold and impaired migration of progenitors and neuroblasts to the developing DG. Furthermore, loss of Tbr2 results in decreased expression of Cxcr4 in migrating cells, leading to a premature burst of granule neurogenesis during early embryonic development accompanied by increased cell death in mutant animals. Formation of the transient subpial neurogenic zone was abnormal in Tbr2 conditional knock-outs, and the stem cell population in the DG was depleted before proper establishment of the subgranular zone. These studies indicate that Tbr2 is explicitly required for morphogenesis of the DG and participates in multiple aspects of the intricate developmental process of this structure.
Stereotactic body radiation therapy for liver metastases and primary hepatocellular carcinoma: normal tissue tolerances and toxicity.

BACKGROUND There is growing interest in stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) as a noninvasive means of treating inoperable hepatic metastases and primary intrahepatic hepatobiliary carcinomas. While initial outcomes are encouraging, the safety of delivering such large, ablative doses is still being studied. METHODS We compiled all dose-volume constraints from seven prospective trials of liver SBRT and linked them to reported toxicities. Dose thresholds were made isoeffective, and grade 3 or higher toxicities for liver and adjacent normal tissues were correlated. RESULTS Four cases of grade 3-5 radiation-induced liver disease (RILD) were identified, including 1 treatment related death, from all patients treated for metastasis. Three of these 4 cases were linked to excessive radiation doses in a large volume of liver. In 56 patients treated for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), 1 case of grade 5 RILD and 2 cases of grade 2 hepatic toxicity were reported. Additionally, a prominent retrospective series reported 3 cases of grade 5 RILD in 9 patients treated for HCC. CONCLUSIONS SBRT appears to be safe for treatment of hepatic metastasis. The use of SBRT for HCC should be undertaken with caution or within the context of a clinical trial. Strict adherence to reported dose-volume constraints is advocated.
Unemployment Insurance and the Business Cycle: Prolong Benefit Entitlements in Bad Times?

The aim of this paper is to study the optimal duration of unemployment benefit entitlement duration across the business cycle. We wonder if the entitlement duration should be prolonged in bad and shortened in good times. Because of consumption smoothing, such a countercyclical policy can be welfare-enhancing as long as it does not affect labor market adjustment too severely or even helps to reduce inefficiencies there. If, however, the labor market is quite inflexible already, procyclical behavior may be preferable. In a calibrated dynamic business cycle framework, we find that countercyclical benefit entitlement duration may be preferable in the US but not in Europe.
ADaCGH: A Parallelized Web-Based Application and R Package for the Analysis of aCGH Data

Background Copy number alterations (CNAs) in genomic DNA have been associated with complex human diseases, including cancer. One of the most common techniques to detect CNAs is array-based comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH). The availability of aCGH platforms and the need for identification of CNAs has resulted in a wealth of methodological studies. Methodology/Principal Findings ADaCGH is an R package and a web-based application for the analysis of aCGH data. It implements eight methods for detection of CNAs, gains and losses of genomic DNA, including all of the best performing ones from two recent reviews (CBS, GLAD, CGHseg, HMM). For improved speed, we use parallel computing (via MPI). Additional information (GO terms, PubMed citations, KEGG and Reactome pathways) is available for individual genes, and for sets of genes with altered copy numbers. Conclusions/Significance ADaCGH represents a qualitative increase in the standards of these types of applications: a) all of the best performing algorithms are included, not just one or two; b) we do not limit ourselves to providing a thin layer of CGI on top of existing BioConductor packages, but instead carefully use parallelization, examining different schemes, and are able to achieve significant decreases in user waiting time (factors up to 45×); c) we have added functionality not currently available in some methods, to adapt to recent recommendations (e.g., merging of segmentation results in wavelet-based and CGHseg algorithms); d) we incorporate redundancy, fault-tolerance and checkpointing, which are unique among web-based, parallelized applications; e) all of the code is available under open source licenses, allowing to build upon, copy, and adapt our code for other software projects.
Investıgatıon of ABCA1 C69T polymorphısm ın patıents wıth type 2 dıabetes mellıtus

Introduction: Non insulin dependent diabetes mellitus is the most common type of diabetes. Genetic factors, lipid profiles, hypertension are potential risk factors for diabetes mellitus. Adenosine binding cassette transporter proteins 1 (ABCA1) plays a role in cholesterol metabolism, especially high density lipoprotein (HDL-cholesterol). There are multiple mechanisms by which HDL-cholesterol can be atheroprotective, it is clear that the relative activity of ABCA1 plays a major role. We aimed to investigate association of ABCA1 C69T gene polymorphism with lipid levels in Turkish type 2 diabetic patients. Materials and methods: After isolation of DNA by ethanol precipitation we determined ABCA1 gene polymorphism by using polimerase chain reaction - restriction fragment lenght polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method in 107 type 2 diabetic patients and 50 healthy controls. Results: We have observed that the frequency of TT genotype is significantly higher in healthy controls compared to patients (14% vs. 3%; P = 0.008). Also frequency of T allele was higher in controls than in patients (34% vs. 21%; P = 0.020; OR (95% CI) = 0.52 (0.30–0.88)). There was no association of lipid levels and ABCA1 C69T polymorphism subgroups. Conclusion: We have found significantly higher frequency of both T allele and genotype in control group when compared to patients that made us think that T allele may be a protective factor against diabetes mellitus. But, we could not find a relationship between genotypes and lipid concentrations in our two groups. Larger studies will help us to understand the relationship between ABCA1 C69T genotype and lipid parameters in diabetes mellitus.
Multiword Lexical Acquisition and Dictionary Formalization

In this paper, we present the current state of development of a large-scale lexicon built at LabEL for Portuguese. We will concentrate on multiword expressions (MWE), particularly on multiword nouns, (i) illustrating their most relevant morphological features, and (ii) pointing out the methods and techniques adopted to generate the inflected forms from lemmas. Moreover, we describe a corpus-based aproach for the acquisition of new multiword nouns, which led to a significant enlargement of the existing lexicon. Evaluation results concerning lexical coverage in the corpus are also discussed.
Association between Lutein and Zeaxanthin Status and the Risk of Cataract: A Meta-Analysis

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the relationship between blood lutein and zeaxanthin concentration and the risk of age-related cataract (ARC). MEDLINE, EMBASE, ISI and Cochrane Library were searched to identify relevant studies up to April 2013. Meta-analysis was conducted to obtain pooled relative risks (RRs) for the highest-versus-lowest categories of blood lutein and zeaxanthin concentrations. One cohort study and seven cross-sectional studies were included in the meta-analysis. There were significant inverse associations between nuclear cataract and blood lutein and zeaxanthin concentrations, with the pooled RRs ranging from 0.63 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.49, 0.77) for zeaxanthin to 0.73 (95% CI: 0.59, 0.87) for lutein. A stronger association between nuclear cataract and blood zeaxanthin might be noted for the studies conducted in the European Nations. Blood lutein and zeaxanthin were also noted to lead towards a decrease in the risk of cortical cataract and subcapsular cataract; however, these pooled RRs were not statistically significant, with the exception of a marginal association between lutein and subcapsular cataract. Our results suggest that high blood lutein and zeaxanthin are significantly associated with a decrease in the risk of nuclear cataract. However, no significant associations were found for ARC in other regions of the lens.
On Architecture

For the past two years, the author has been working to create a handbook of software architecture (www.booch.com/architecture) and will continue to work on it for another two to three years. The handbook’s primary goal is to codify the architecture of 100 interesting software-intensive systems, presenting them in a manner that exposes their essential patterns and permits comparisons across domains and architectural styles. In this ongoing column, Booch will share some of his experiences as he continues his research.
Capacity constraints in developing countries: A need for more e-learning space? The case of Nigeria

More often than not, economic growth and social development demands educational expansion. However, capacity building for higher education in developing countries is being thwarted by seemingly long-lived constraints of brain drain, political unrest, access, finance, quality, governance, efficiency, human capital and so on. It is becoming apparent that higher education reform cannot take place without paying attention to Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in support of teaching, research, and lifelong learning. This paper reviewed potential constraints affecting the capacity of the Nigerian higher education system to accommodate more students. Given the several opportunities and promises of ICTs in addressing some of these challenges; it suggested the strategic use of ICT in Nigerian higher education to increase its capacity.
A novel current-fed parallel-loaded resonant converter with ZVS for low-power energy conversion

This work presents a novel current-fed parallel-loaded resonant converter that operates under the zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) condition. The circuit configuration is obtained by integrating the class-E resonant inverter into the parallel-loaded resonant converter. With suitably set circuit parameters, only one power switch can exhibit ZVS condition. Thus, high energy conversion efficiency is achieved. A prototype of the novel converter, designed to provide a 25W output power at an operating frequency of 42kHz, was constructed and tested to demonstrate the relevant theoretical predictions. The measured efficiency of the proposed novel current-fed parallel-loaded resonant converter reached 94.9%. The laboratory results reveal the satisfactory performance of low-power energy conversion applicationsthe proposed topology, which is especially well suited to low-power energy conversion applications.
Altered Gene Expression Pattern in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells in Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction

Background Despite a substantial progress in diagnosis and therapy, acute myocardial infarction (MI) is a major cause of mortality in the general population. A novel insight into the pathophysiology of myocardial infarction obtained by studying gene expression should help to discover novel biomarkers of MI and to suggest novel strategies of therapy. The aim of our study was to establish gene expression patterns in leukocytes from acute myocardial infarction patients. Methods and Results Twenty-eight patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) were included. The blood was collected on the 1st day of myocardial infarction, after 4–6 days, and after 6 months. Control group comprised 14 patients with stable coronary artery disease, without history of myocardial infarction. Gene expression analysis was performed with Affymetrix Human Gene 1.0 ST microarrays and GCS3000 TG system. Lists of genes showing altered expression levels (fold change >1.5, p<0.05) were submitted to Ingenuity Pathway Analysis. Gene lists from each group were examined for canonical pathways and molecular and cellular functions. Comparing acute phase of MI with the same patients after 6 months (stable phase) and with control group we found 24 genes with changed expression. In canonical analysis three pathways were highlighted: signaling of PPAR (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor), IL-10 and IL-6 (interleukin 10 and 6). Conclusions In the acute phase of STEMI, dozens of genes from several pathways linked with lipid/glucose metabolism, platelet function and atherosclerotic plaque stability show altered expression. Up-regulation of SOCS3 and FAM20 genes in the first days of myocardial infarction is observed in the vast majority of patients.
Putting One's Money Where One's Mouth is: Increasing Saliency in the Field

We present a novel approach to address differences between stated and paid choices by incentivizing stated choices in a randomized field experiment. The treatment increases consequentiality in the field by making each decision financially relevant. Our results show that the treatment effect is small in aggregate. However, we find that the treatment increases estimates of the marginal utility of income, especially among low-income households. The treatment also affects estimates of preferences for specific attributes by reducing willingness to pay for attributes with indirect benefits. Respondents with greater self-reported environmental preferences are more susceptible to the treatment in attribute space.
SNPTracker: A Swift Tool for Comprehensive Tracking and Unifying dbSNP rs IDs and Genomic Coordinates of Massive Sequence Variants

The reference single nucleotide polymorphism (rs) ID in dbSNP (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/SNP/) is a key resource identifier, which is widely used in human genetics and genomics studies. However, its application is often complicated by the varied IDs of different versions. Here, we developed a user-friendly tool, SNPTracker, for comprehensively tracking and unifying the rs IDs and genomic coordinates of massive sequence variants at a time. It worked perfectly, and had much higher accuracy and capacity than two alternative utilities in our proof-of-principle examples. SNPTracker will greatly facilitate genetic data exchange and integration in the postgenome-wide association study era.