Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular analysis of the HLA-A2 antigen loss by melanoma cells SK-MEL-29.1.22 and SK-MEL-29.1.29.

Due to the potential clinical relevance of HLA class I antigen losses in melanoma cells and the scanty information about the molecular mechanisms underlying these defects, we have characterized the cause of the HLA-A2 antigen loss by autologous melanoma cell lines SK-MEL-29.1. 22 and SK-MEL-29.1. 29. Both cell lines have structural defects of HLA-A2 genes, which cause lack of their transcription. In SK-MEL-29.1. 22 cells the 5'-flanking region, exon 1, intron 1, and a region at the 5' end of exon 2 of the HLA-A2 gene are deleted. The breakpoint of the HLA-A2 gene, which is recombined with a DNA fragment of unknown origin, was localized between two GTTCG sequence repeats at position 101 of exon 2. These repeats may provide the sequence basis for misalignment in the process of DNA deletion. In SK-MEL-29.1. 29 cells, loss of HLA-A2 antigens, as well as of HLA-B44 and HLA-Cw5 alleles, is caused by the loss of one copy of chromosome 6. Down-regulation of the expressed HLA class I alleles in the two HLA-A2 loss variants and in the parental cells was found to be associated with a low TAP1 expression and a reduced function of peptide transporters. Therefore, multiple defects result in loss or down-regulation of HLA class I alleles in SK-MEL-29.1. 22 and SK-MEL-29.1. 29 melanoma cells.
Recent Advances in Cotton Genomics

Genome research promises to promote continued and enhanced plant genetic improvement. As a world's leading crop and a model system for studies of many biological processes, genomics research of cottons has advanced rapidly in the past few years. This article presents a comprehensive review on the recent advances of cotton genomics research. The reviewed areas include DNA markers, genetic maps, mapped genes and QTLs, ESTs, microarrays, gene expression profiling, BAC and BIBAC libraries, physical mapping, genome sequencing, and applications of genomic tools in cotton breeding. Analysis of the current status of each of the genome research areas suggests that the areas of physical mapping, QTL fine mapping, genome sequencing, nonfiber and nonovule EST development, gene expression profiling, and association studies between gene expression and fiber trait performance should be emphasized currently and in near future to accelerate utilization of the genomics research achievements for enhancing cotton genetic improvement.
Continua: The Impact of a Personal Telehealth Ecosystem

The Continua Health Alliance is nearing the first release of its Design Guidelines, an important milestone towards the establishment of a personal telehealth ecosystem. These guidelines address the technical barrier for a personal telehealth ecosystem: interoperability amongst multivendor systems. This paper describes why it is essential to address interoperability, regulatory aspects of multi-vendor systems and reimbursement for establishment of a personal telehealth ecosystem. In addition we elaborate on the impact that Continua has on the development of the personal telehealth domain. First we motivate why the establishment of such an ecosystem is an essential part in addressing the healthcare challenges in society.
A Study of Multi-Agent Based Supply Chain Modeling and Management

Supply Chain Management (SCM) is a management paradigm to understand and analyze the flow of goods, services and the accompanying values reaching to the consumers followed by the processes of purchasing, production and distribution with combining and connecting the whole system. Today, SCM is regarded as an essential strategic factor which has a great deal of influence on earning competitiveness in the abruptly changing global business environment. Multi-agent technology becomes the best candidate for problem solver under these circumstances. An agent performs given tasks automatically using inter-collaboration or negotiation with other agents on behalf of a human on the basis of real-time connectivity. There will be the conflict among the pursuit of the profit of all members of the SCM. In order to maximize the total profit of the SCM, negotiation among all members is necessary. In this research, we propose to find the best negotiation strategy that makes all members of the SCM satisfied in a simple SCM. We suggest a new negotiation algorithm in the SCM environment with using multi-agent technology. The ideas behind the suggested model are negotiation algorithm with a trading agent and we consider multiple factors that are price, review point and delivery time. We created agents with Java Agent Development Framework (JADE) and performed the simulation under JADE and Eclipse environment. The case study denotes that our algorithm gives a better result than the Kasbah system that is a typically well known system where users create autonomous agents that buy and sell goods on their behalf. We’ve used benefit/cost ratio as a performance measure in order to compare our system with the Kasbah system.
Competency, epistemology and pedagogy: curriculums holy trinity

In this era of heightened calls for accountability and standards, clear visions of competence are more necessary than ever and, moreover, these planned products of education need explicit articulation. Such articulation falls within the purview of the formal curriculum and it is with this that the present article concerns itself. It draws on a past Ontario, Canada curricular initiative, The Common Curriculum, as the vehicle through which to examine the difficulties inherent in spelling out a conception of competence. Such difficulties, it is argued, stem from the inextricable link between definitions of competence and their associated epistemological and pedagogical implications.
Photoperiodism in Japanese quail: the termination of seasonal breeding by photorefractoriness

The photoperiodic mechanisms underlying seasonal breeding in male Japanese quail change their characteristics annually, with the result that reproduction is terminated in the late summer rather than the autumn. The reproductive cycle was studied in 4 successive years to determine the critical daylengths for reproductive induction in spring, and for its termination in late summer. In spring luteinizing hormone levels first rise when the daylength has reached 11.9 h but in late summer the first signs of a decrease are detectable when the photoperiod has decreased to 14.7 h and levels are basal when it has reached about 14 h. Thus, quail appear to have evolved a refractoriness to daylengths in late summer that were maximally stimulatory earlier in the year. However, quail are not photorefractory in the ‘classic’ sense as they remain continuously in breeding if held on unchanging long days and can be photostimulated at any time of the year by daylengths in excess of 16 h light:8 h darkness. Their particular form of refractoriness seems to involve a seasonal shift in the critical daylength. Refractoriness can be induced in quail held in the laboratory under a simulated annual photocycle, and, more importantly, it develops in birds exposed to long daylengths of a fixed duration. For example, quail exposed to 20 h light:4 h darkness show a shift in the critical daylength from approximately 12 to 15 h over a period of about 2 months. The time course over which the shift occurs is intriguing and can explain the responses under natural photoperiods. Under fixed daylengths the critical daylength that induces regression depends upon the duration of the stimulatory photoperiod. Female quail also develop refractoriness. The evolution of refractoriness does not depend upon the activity of the hypothalamo-pituitary axis and develops in castrated quail as well as in birds implanted with androgens. Castrated quail show annual cycles in gonadotrophin secretion indistinguishable in timing from those in intact birds. Such results suggest that the physiological basis of refractoriness lies either in the neural circuits regulating neurohormone secretion or in the photoperiodic clock mechanism itself.
Optimal periodic orbits of chaotic systems.

Invariant sets embedded in a chaotic attractor can generate time averages that differ from the average generated by typical orbits on the attractor. Motivated by two different topics (namely, controlling chaos and riddled basins of attraction), we consider the question of which invariant set yields the largest (optimal) value of an average of a given smooth function of the system state. We present numerical evidence and analysis which indicate that the optimal average is typically achieved by a low period unstable periodic orbit embedded in the chaotic attractor.
Consequences of perceived risk: Demand for mitigation

This paper reports an investigation of demand for risk reduction, or risk intolerance. It has often been assumed that risk level is a good, almost self-evident, predictor of demand for risk reduction. However, few previous studies have addressed the issue explicitly. Two empirical studies are reported here. The first is concerned with a mixture of trivial, everyday risks and potentially fatal risks of the kind usually investigated in risk perception work. It was found that some trivial risks were rated to be just as high or higher than fatal risks, e.g. the risk of catching cold compared with the risk of getting AIDS. The level of perceived risk was found to be related mostly to the probability of harm or injury but demand for risk reduction was related mostly to the expected severity of 'consequences', should harm occur. In a study of home insurance customers, these findings were replicated. It is concluded that demand for risk reduction is driven by the severity of consequences, not probability of harm,.
Employing Bayes Classifier for Improving Learner's Proficiency

Improving learner's proficiency is a continuous issue in e-Learning systems. This paper presents a solution for advising the learner regarding the resources he should access and study in order to obtain a required proficiency level. The solution uses a Naive Bayes as classification algorithm with input data represented by learner's performed activities. The performed activities are logged and used as training and testing data. The obtained classifier is used for new students and provides them with necessary information regarding what resources need to access and study.
Childhood and its Regimes of Visibility in Brazil

This article analyses the contribution of the social sciences to the visibility of children’s issues in Brazilian society from the 1960s to the present day. The first regime of visibility considered childhood a relevant structural component of social inequalities, a ‘social problem’, stimulating social scientists to support social policies. Studies of children’s labour and, most importantly, of educational issues stimulated a variety of research directions. The second regime of visibility disclosed the actor behind the child, revealing the child as a social actor and a subject of rights. Childhood studies gained impetus on account of new legislation following the internationalization of children’s rights. Despite the broader scope of issues that social research on childhood has addressed, more sustained investment is needed so that childhood can attain a more equal position vis-a-vis other more salient research topics, and secure, de facto, the role of active participants in social life for children.
Dynamics of Loading the Escherichia coli DNA Polymerase Processivity Clamp

ABSTRACT Sliding clamps and clamp loaders are processivity factors required for efficient DNA replication. Sliding clamps are ring-shaped complexes that tether DNA polymerases to DNA to increase the processivity of synthesis. Clamp loaders assemble these ring-shaped clamps onto DNA in an ATP-dependent reaction. The overall process of clamp loading is dynamic in that protein–protein and protein–DNA interactions must actively change in a coordinated fashion to complete the mechanical clamp-loading reaction cycle. The clamp loader must initially have a high affinity for both the clamp and DNA to bring these macromolecules together, but then must release the clamp on DNA for synthesis to begin. Evidence is presented for a mechanism in which the clamp-loading reaction comprises a series of binding reactions to ATP, the clamp, DNA, and ADP, each of which promotes some change in the conformation of the clamp loader that alters interactions with the next component of the pathway. These changes in interactions must be rapid enough to allow the clamp loader to keep pace with replication fork movement. This review focuses on the measurement of dynamic and transient interactions required to assemble the Escherichia coli sliding clamp on DNA.
Transmission of carcinogenic human papillomavirus types from mother to child: a meta-analysis of published studies

Currently, human papillomavirus (HPV) research focuses on HPV infection in adults and sexual transmission. Data on HPV infection in children are slowly becoming available. It is a matter of debate whether mother-to-child transmission of HPV is an important infection route and whether children born to HPV-positive mothers are at a higher risk of HPV infection compared with children born to HPV-negative mothers. The objective of this meta-analysis is to summarize the published literature on the extent to which genital HPV infection is vertically transmitted from mother to child. Medline, Web of Science, and CINAHL were searched for eligible reports published before January 2011. Differences in the risk of HPV infection between newborns from HPV-positive and HPV-negative mothers were pooled using a random-effects model. Twenty eligible studies, including 3128 women/children pairs, fulfilled the selection criteria. High heterogeneity could be found (I2=96%). The overall estimated risk difference was 33% (95% confidence interval: 22–44%). On restricting to high-risk HPV-positive mothers only (n=4; women=231), the difference in risk was 45% (95% confidence interval: 33–56%). The heterogeneity was found to be low (I2=15%). This meta-analysis indicates a significantly higher risk for children born to HPV-positive mothers to become HPV positive themselves. Plausible explanations include vertical transmission of HPV during pregnancy and/or birth or a higher infection rate during early nursing from mother to child. More research is required to gain an insight into the precise mode of transmission and the clinical effects of infection on the child.
Toward application-specific memory reconfiguration for energy efficiency

The end of Dennard scaling has made energy-efficiency a critical challenge in the continued increase of computing performance. An important approach to increasing energy-efficiency is hardware customization. In this study we explore the opportunity for energy-efficiency via memory hierarchy customization and present a methodology to identify application-specific energy efficient configurations. Using a workload of 37 diverse benchmarks, we address three key questions: 1) How much energy saving is possible? , 2) How much reconfiguration is required? , and 3) Can we use application characterization to automatically select an energy-optimal memory hierarchy configuration? Our results show that the potential benefit is large -- average reductions close to 70% in memory hierarchy energy with no performance loss. Further, our results show that the number of configurations need not be large; 13 carefully chosen configurations can deliver 93% of this benefit (64% energy reduction), and even coarse-grain reconfigurations of an existing hierarchy can deliver 81% of this benefit (56% energy reduction), suggesting that reconfigurable hierarchies may be practically realizable. Finally, as a first step towards automatic reconfiguration, we explore application characterization via reuse distance as a guide to select the best memory hierarchy configuration; we show that reuse distance can effectively predict the application-specific configuration which will both maintain performance and deliver energy efficiency.
On redundancy resolution of the human thumb, index and middle fingers in cooperative object translation

SUMMARY Redundancy in motion, and synergy in neuromuscular coordination provides significant versatility to the human fingers while performing coordinated grasping and manipulation tasks in several ways. This paper explores how humans may resolve the redundancy in their thumb, index and middle fingers when these digits flex to cooperatively translate a small object toward the palm. It is observed that humans actively employ a secondary subtask of maximizing instantaneous manipulability that helps determine all intermediate finger configurations when performing the primary subtask of following a tip trajectory. This behavior is accurately captured by an inverse kinematic model based on a redundancy parameter. The joint angles get determined unambiguously though the redundancy parameter is shown to depend on the instantaneous finger configurations and also, to attain negative values. Further, this parameter is noted to vary significantly across subjects performing the same kinematic task. The findings, that are based on the experimental finger motion data garnered from 12 subjects, are reckoned to be of significant importance, especially in reference to the challenges in design and control of finger exoskeletons for cooperative manipulation.
Development of a Neural Network based Algorithm for Multi-Scale Roughness Parameters and Soil Moisture Retrieval

The overall objective of this paper is to retrieve soil surfaces parameters namely, roughness and soil moisture related to the dielectric constant by inverting the radar backscattered signal from natural soil surfaces. Because the classical description of roughness using statistical parameters like the correlation length doesn't lead to satisfactory results to predict radar backscattering, we used a multi-scale roughness description using the wavelet transform and the Mallat algorithm. In this description, the surface is considered as a superposition of a finite number of one-dimensional Gaussian processes each having a spatial scale. A second step in this study consisted in adapting a direct model simulating radar backscattering namely the small perturbation model to this multi-scale surface description. We investigated the impact of this description on radar backscattering through a sensitivity analysis of backscattering coefficient to the multi-scale roughness parameters. To perform the inversion of the small perturbation multi-scale scattering model (MLS SPM) we used a multi-layer neural network architecture trained by backpropagation learning rule. The inversion leads to satisfactory results with a relative uncertainty of 8%. Keywords—Remote sensing, rough surfaces, inverse problems, SAR, radar scattering, Neural networks and Fractals.
Conscious and unconscious identification of female anorectic patients in in-patient psychotherapy

Women are up to ten times more likely to develop anorexia nervosa (AN) than men. Psychoanalytic explanations of this disparity generally emphasize female identification problems due to unresolved conflicts with maternal representations. Based on clinical observation, we identify a subtype of AN patients characterized, first, by consistent idealization of the father who needs the patient for the fulfilment of his own narcissistic needs and, second, by the patient's need to be idealized by the father due to suffering in connection with early emotional malnutrition on the part of the mother. To illustrate this hypothesis, we present the case of a well-educated young woman displaying unconscious attachment to patriarchial family patterns and conflicting conscious ‘emancipated’ beliefs regarding sexual equality in terms of competence and rights. In concluding, we discuss our hypothesis and consider consequences for the psychodynamic treatment of such patients.
Normative and Structural Causes of Democratic Peace, 1946–1986

Democratic states are in general about as conflict- and war-prone as nondemocracies, but democracies have rarely clashed with one another in violent conflict. We first show that democracy, as well as other factors, accounts for the relative lack of conflict. Then we examine two explanatory models. The normative model suggests that democracies do not fight each other because norms of compromise and cooperation prevent their conflicts of interest from escalating into violent clashes. The structural model asserts that complex political mobilization processes impose institutional constraints on the leaders of two democracies confronting each other to make violent conflict unfeasible. Using different data sets of international conflict and a multiplicity of indicators, we find that (1) democracy, in and of itself, has a consistent and robust negative effect on the likelihood of conflict or escalation in a dyad; (2) both the normative and structural models are supported by the data; and (3) support for the normative model is more robust and consistent.
The Frog who Croaked Blue. Synesthesia and the Mixing of the Senses

[⇓][1] ! [Figure][2] Synaesthesia is a fascinating phenomenon (or group of phenomena) in which stimulation of one sensory modality apparently leads to sensory experience in another modality (e.g. sounds producing visual experience of colour, as in the example that gives this book its name
The Greening of Enterprise: An Exploration of the (NON) Role of Environmental Accounting and Environmental Accountants in Organizational Change

Abstract This paper is predominantly an empirical investigation which reports upon a part of a continuing project into the "greening of accounting", (Gray, 1990; 1992; Gray et al., Bebbington et al., 1994) In particular, the paper reports upon the field work undertaken to attempt to assess what, if anything, accountants were doing—and could do—to help organizations respond to the environmental agenda. The paper is motivated by Power's (1992) argument that change in accounting can have a significant influence on conceptions of the organization but that the direction of such influence cannot be predicted. The investigation is grounded in Laughlin's (1991) model of organizational change and Llewellyn's (1993) explanations of organizational boundary management. The bulk of the paper attempts to explicate these models in the context of change in the natural environment agenda. The empirical investigation then attempts to link observations about current organizational behaviour with these models. However, it becomes apparent that conventional accounting practice is having little, if any, (positive) influence on this process. We do find evidence of a increase in "environmental account" which, it seems, are playing an important role in both aiding the development of the organizations' environmental agenda and helping negotiate the meaning of "the natural environment" for organizations. Whilst we are more positive about the potential for such accounts—and a potential role for accountants—we do conclude by recognizing that questioning the benign nature of "environmental accounting" is a far from trivial activity, (see, for example, Cooper, 1992).
Fluperlapine - a Potential Successor to Clozapine

The chemical structure. and pharmacological profile of fluperlapine (3-fluoro-6(4-methyl-I-piperazinyl)-IIH-dibenz(b, e)-azepine) is very similar to that of c1ozapine. In animal experiments it shows no inhibition of stereotypies caused by apomorphine or d-amphetamine and no catalepsy. It ac· tivates the dopamine synthesis in the striatum but has only a weak binding capacity to dopamine receptors and a modest stimulating effect on prolactine release. It is asedative, musc1e·relaxing and anticholinergic drug. Based on the results of animal experiments it is probable that fluperlapine could have antipsychotic effects similar to those of c1ozapine.