Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Critical Threshold of Meningococcal Factor H Binding Protein Expression Is Required for Increased Breadth of Protective Antibodies Elicited by Native Outer Membrane Vesicle Vaccines

ABSTRACT Native outer membrane vesicles (NOMV) (not detergent treated), which are prepared from recombinant strains with attenuated endotoxin activity and overexpressed factor H binding protein (fHbp), elicited broad serum bactericidal antibody responses in mice. The amount of overexpressed fHbp required for optimal immunogenicity is not known. In this study we prepared NOMV vaccines from LpxL1 knockout (ΔLpxL1) mutants with penta-acylated lipooligosaccharide and attenuated endotoxin activity. The recombinant strains had wild-type (1×) fHbp expression or were engineered for 3-fold- or 10-fold-increased fHbp expression (3× or 10× fHbp). Control vaccines included NOMV from ΔLpxL1/ΔfHbp mutants or recombinant fHbp. In mice, only the 10× fHbp NOMV vaccine elicited significantly higher serum IgG anti-fHbp antibody titers than the corresponding 1× fHbp NOMV or recombinant fHbp vaccine. The 10× fHbp NOMV vaccine also elicited higher bactericidal responses (P < 0.05) against five group B strains with heterologous PorA than the recombinant fHbp or 1× fHbp NOMV vaccine. The 3× fHbp NOMV vaccine gave higher bactericidal titers against only one strain. Serum bactericidal titers in mice immunized with the control ΔfHbp NOMV vaccines were <1:10, and bactericidal titers in mice immunized with the 10× fHbp NOMV vaccine were <1:10 after adsorption of anti-fHbp antibodies. Mixing antiserum to NOMV vaccines from fHbp knockout mutants with antiserum to recombinant fHbp did not increase anti-fHbp bactericidal titers. Thus, a critical threshold of increased fHbp expression is required for NOMV vaccines to elicit broad serum bactericidal responses, and the antibodies conferring protection are directed primarily at fHbp.
All Alone with your Emotions : An Analysis of Student Emotions during Effortful Problem Solving Activities

We explored the affective states that students experienced during effortful problem solving activities. We conducted a study where 41 students solved 28 logic problems from the law school admissions test. Participants viewed videos of their interaction history and judged their emotions at different phases in the problem solving process (after new problem is displayed, in the midst of problem solving, after feedback is received). Our results indicated that curiosity, frustration, boredom, confusion, and happiness were the major emotions that students’ experienced, while experiences of contempt, anxiety, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, joy, and surprise were rare. We also explored interactions between the occurrences of the various emotions at the different phases of the problem. Implications of our results for affect-sensitive learning environments are discussed.
Efficacy and safety of liver transplantation in patients with cholangiocarcinoma: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

The aim of our study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of liver transplantation in patients with cholangiocarcinoma. According to the requirements of Cochrane systematic review, a thorough literature search was performed in PubMed/Medline, Embase and Cochrane electronic databases between 1995 and 2009 in terms of the key words “liver transplantation” and “cholangiocarcinoma,” “cholangiocellular carcinoma” or “bile duct cancer,” with restricted articles for the English language. Data were processed for a meta‐analysis by Stata 10 software. Altogether 14 clinical trials containing 605 transplanted patients of bile duct cancers were finally enrolled in our study. The overall 1‐, 3‐ and 5‐year pooled survival rates were 0.73 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.65–0.80], 0.42 (95% CI = 0.33–0.51) and 0.39 (95% CI = 0.28–0.51), respectively. Of note, preoperative adjuvant therapies [orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT)‐PAT group] rendered the transplanted individuals with comparably favorable outcomes with 1‐, 3‐ and 5‐year pooled survival rates of 0.83 (95% CI = 0.57–0.98), 0.57 (95% CI = 0.18–0.92) and 0.65 (95% CI = 0.40–0.87). In addition, the overall pooled incidence of complications was 0.62 (95% CI = 0.44–0.78), among which that of OLT‐PAT group (0.58; 95% CI = 0.20–0.92) was relatively acceptable compared to those of liver transplantation alone (0.61; 95% CI = 0.33–0.85) and liver transplantation with extended bile duct resection (0.78; 95% CI = 0.55–0.94). In comparison to curative resection of cholangiocarcinoma with the 5‐year survival rate reported from 20 to 40%, the role of liver transplantation alone is so limited. In the future, attention will be focused on liver transplantation following neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy, which requires a well‐designed, prospective randomized controlled study.
Delayed osteoblast differentiation and altered inflammatory response around implants placed in incisor sockets of type 2 diabetic rats.

OBJECTIVE Central to the process of osseointegration is the recruitment of mesenchymal progenitor cells to the healing site, their proliferation and differentiation to bone synthesising osteoblasts. The process is under the control of pro-inflammatory cytokines and growth factors. The aim of this study was to monitor these key stages of osseointegration and the signalling milieu during bone healing around implants placed in healthy and diabetic bone. METHODS Implants were placed into the sockets of incisors extracted from the mandibles of normal Wistar and diabetic Goto-Kakizaki rats. Mandibles 1-12 weeks post-insertion of the implant were examined by histochemistry and immunocytochemistry to localise the presence of Stro-1- positive mesenchymal progenitor cells, proliferating cellular nuclear antigen proliferative cells, osteopontin and osteocalcin, macrophages, pro-inflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α and tumour growth factor (TGF)-β1. Image analysis provided a semi-quantification of positively expressing cells. RESULTS Histological staining identified a delay in the formation of mineralised bone around implants placed in diabetic animals. Within the diabetic bone, the migration of Stro-1 mesenchymal cells in the healing tissue appeared to be unaffected. However, in the diabetic healing bone, the onset of cell proliferation and osteoblast differentiation were delayed and subsequently prolonged compared with normal bone. Similar patterns of change were observed in diabetic bone for the presence of IL-1β, TNF-α, macrophages and TGF-β1. CONCLUSION The observed alterations in the extracellular presence of pro-inflammatory cytokines, macrophages and growth factors within diabetic tissues that correlate to changes in the signalling milieu, may affect the proliferation and differentiation of mesenchymal progenitor cells in the osseointegration process.
Blind Speech Dereverberation

Reverberation, a component of any sound generated in a natural environment, can degrade speech intelligibility or more generally the quality of a signal produced within a room. In a typical setup for tele-conferencing, for instance, where the microphones receive both the speech and the reverberation of the surrounding space, it is of interest to have the latter removed from the signal that will be broadcast. A similar need arises for automatic speech recognition systems, where the reverberation decreases the recognition rate. More ambitious applications have addressed the improvement of the acoustics of theatres or even the creation of virtual acoustic environments. In all these cases dereverberation is critical. The process of re-covering the source signal by removing the unwanted reverberation is called dereverberation. Usually only a reverberated instance of the signal is available. As a consequence only a blind approach, that is a more difﬁcult task, is possible. In more precise terms, unsupervised or blind audio de-reverberation is the problem of removing reverberation from an audio signal without having explicit data regarding the system and the input signal. Different approaches have been proposed for blind dereverberation. A possible discrimination into two classes can be accomplished by considering whether or not the inverse acoustic system needs to be estimated. The aim of this paper is to show the leading research directions in blind speech dereverberation, and in particular to discuss the methods based on the explicit estimate of the inverse acoustic system, known as reverberation cancellation techniques . A novel dereverberation structure that improves the speech and reverberation model decoupling is also proposed. Experimental results are provided to conﬁrm the capability of this algorithm to successfully dereverberate speech signals. [DOI:10.12866
Discovery of Sonic hedgehog expression in postnatal growth plate chondrocytes: Differential regulation of Sonic and Indian hedgehog by retinoic acid

Sonic hedgehog (Shh) is a key signal protein in early embryological patterning of limb bud development. Its analog, Indian hedgehog (Ihh), primarily expressed during early cartilage development in prehypertrophic chondrocytes, regulates proliferation and suppresses terminal differentiation of postnatal growth plate (GP) chondrocytes. We report here for the first time that both Shh and Ihh mRNA are expressed in the GP of rapidly growing 6‐week‐old broiler‐strain chickens. They are also expressed in other tissues such as articular chondrocytes, kidney, and bone. In situ hybridization and RT‐PCR analyses reveal Shh in all zones of the GP, with peak expression in late hypertrophy. Using primary cultures of GP chondrocytes in serum‐containing medium, we followed the patterns of Shh and Ihh mRNA expression as the cultures matured and mineralized. We find a cyclical expression of both hedgehog genes during the early period of culture development between day 10 and 14; when one is elevated, the other tended to be suppressed, suggesting that the two hedgehogs may play complementary roles during GP development. Retinoic acid (RA), a powerful modulator of gene expression in cell differentiation, stimulates GP chondrocytes toward terminal differentiation, enhancing mineral formation. We find that RA strongly suppresses Ihh, but enhances expression of Shh in this system. While Ihh suppresses maturation of GP chondrocytes to hypertrophy, we hypothesize that Shh acts to push these cells toward hypertrophy. J. Cell. Biochem. 87: 173–187, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
From Brain Decoding To Brain-Driven Computer Vision

Brain driven computer vision includes methods and tools for computer vision inspired by the human brain. Brain driven includes computer vision are brain visual representation decoding, understanding and learning. In this paper, we focus on the brain decoding and review on research in this field. In addition, we review and introduce its main approaches and its application in computer vision.
Optimum design of a modified 3-way Bagley rectangular power divider

A novel 3-way rectangular power divider is proposed which is a modified version of the Bagley power divider. The method of least squares is developed for its design and optimization, which determines the lines ection len gths and widths. The design specifications are made on the desired values of sc attering parameters, which tend to minimize the input reflection coefficient and realize the desired power division ratios. The propose d divide r c onfiguration and the optimum design procedure tend to maximize the isolation among the outputs.
The molecular genetics of Enhancer of split, a gene required for embryonic neural development in Drosophila.

In Drosophila, the very first steps in neurogenesis appear to be controlled by a small group of zygotically acting genes termed the neurogenic loci. Mutations in any of these genes result in a misrouting of epidermal lineages into the neural pathway. Morphological and molecular studies suggest that the correct ectodermal differentiation is mediated by a cell‐cell interaction mechanism and that at least some of the neurogenic loci are involved in this mechanism. The molecular analyses of the neurogenic loci Notch and Delta revealed that the putative gene products are large transmembrane proteins with homology to mammalian epidermal growth factor. We describe here a molecular analysis of Enhancer of split [E(spl)], a third neurogenic locus, which displays striking genetic interactions with both Notch and Delta, suggesting a close functional relationship of the respective gene products. We provide evidence for a single genetic complementation group corresponding to a single transcription unit which is necessary for wild‐type E(spl) function. P‐element‐mediated transformation indicates that this transcription unit includes functions associated with both the dominant E(spl)D mutation and the recessive visible allele groucho, and is necessary for the correct differentiation of the embryonic nervous system.
Validity and Reliability of the Golombok Rust Inventory of Sexual Satisfaction in Couples with Incontinent Partners

There is currently no published information on the validity and reliability of the Golombok Rust Inventory of Sexual Satisfaction in the Asian population, specifically in patients with stress urinary incontinence, which limits its use in this region. Our study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of this questionnaire in the Malaysian population. Ten couples were recruited for the pilot testing. The agreement between the English and Chinese or Malay versions were tested using the intraclass correlation coefficients, with results of more than 0.80 for all subscales and overall scores indicating good agreement. Sixty-six couples were included in the subsequent phase. The following data are presented in the order of English, Chinese, and Malay. Cronbach's alphas for the male total score were 0.82, 0.88, and 0.95. For the female total score, Cronbach's alphas were 0.76, 0.78, and 0.88. Intraclass correlation coefficients for the male total score were 0.93, 0.94, and 0.99, while intraclass correlation coefficients for the female total score were 0.89, 0.86, and 0.88. In conclusion, the English, Chinese, and Malay versions each proved to be valid and reliable in our Malaysian population.
Crisis and Italian Households: A Microeconomic Analysis of Mortgage Contracts

Using information on about 2 million house purchase loans to households, this paper analyses the effects of the financial crisis on this portion of the credit market. From 2008 to 2011 the total number and value of new mortgages decreased sharply. The results show that young households and non-EU immigrants have been affected more by the decline of new mortgages. The worsening of the economic cycle and the tightening of the lending standards by banks seem to have had a stronger effect on these types of household. Interest rate increases for different groups of household have been fairly similar, albeit greater for smaller mortgages.
A High-Voltage Dynamic Level Shifter with Current Mirror and Augmented Cross-Coupling Structure for High-Side NMOS Gate Driver

A high-voltage dynamic level shifter with current mirror and augmented cross-coupling structure for high-side NMOS power switch is presented. The proposed circuit includes isolated low voltage transistors, medium voltage transistors and high voltage transistors to shift the low voltage control signal from low voltage domain (VDD～4V) to high voltage power domain (VIN ～ 80V). The circuit has characteristics of low power, high speed and reliability enhanced by adopting current mirror and augmented cross-coupling structure. The circuit is designed and simulated with 0. 35µm high voltage BCD process. Simulation results demonstrate that the rising and falling delay time of proposed level shifter are 4.5ns and 5.5ns respectively, and the turn on and turn off propagation delay time of a high voltage NMOS gate driver with the proposed level shifter are 25ns and 30ns respectively. the circuit can be used to drive high-side NMOS power switch with maximum voltage reaching 80V.
Lysosomal-Mitochondrial Axis in Zoledronic Acid-induced Apoptosis in Human Follicular Lymphoma Cells*

Bisphosphonates (BPs) are potent inhibitors of osteoclast function, widely used to treat excessive bone resorption associated with bone metastases, that also have anti-tumor activity. Zoledronic acid (ZOL) represents a potential chemotherapeutic agent for the treatment of cancer. ZOL is the most potent nitrogen-containing BPs, and it inhibits cell growth and induces apoptosis in a variety of cancer cells. Recently we demonstrated that accumulation of isopentenyl pyrophosphate and the consequent formation of a new type of ATP analog (ApppI) after mevalonate pathway inhibition by nitrogen-containing BPs strongly correlates with ZOL-induced cell death in cancer cells in vitro. In this study we show that ZOL-induced apoptosis in HF28RA human follicular lymphoma cells occurs exclusively via the mitochondrial pathway, involves lysosomes, and is dependent on mevalonate pathway inhibition. To define the exact signaling pathway connecting them, we used modified HF28RA cell lines overexpressing either BclXL or dominant-negative caspase-9. In both mutant cells, mitochondrial and lysosomal membrane permeabilization (MMP and LMP) were totally prevented, indicating signaling between lysosomes and mitochondria and, additionally, an amplification loop for MMP and/or LMP regulated by caspase-9 in association with farnesyl pyrophosphate synthetase inhibition. Additionally, the lysosomal pathway in ZOL-induced apoptosis plays an additional/amplification role of the intrinsic pathway independently of caspase-3 activation. Moreover, we show a potential regulation by Bcl-XL and caspase-9 on cell cycle regulators of S-phase. Our findings provide a molecular basis for new strategies concomitantly targeting cell death pathways from multiple sites.
The Adoption and Usage of Modern Management Control Systems in Chinese State-Owned Enterprises: A Field Study

The adoption and Usage of Modern Management Control Systems is a hot topic in Chinese managerial accounting research. The management control system is not only technical issues, but also a piece of art which represents the underlying cultural factors. Thus, Chinese firms need to localize the management control tools to tailor them to the firms' specific needs. However, the existing research in Chinese managerial accounting focuses on introduction of theories and cases from US companies, but rarely attempts to do on site research in Chinese firms. This paper examines four big Chinese State-owned Enterprises from different industries, including the biggest metals trading company, the biggest military products manufacturing firm, the second largest oil company, and one very successful diversified Hong Kong company. We try to analyze the adoption of management control systems in Chinese firms and to draw some commonalities among them.
Assessing the prediction accuracy of a cure model for censored survival data with long-term survivors: Application to breast cancer data

ABSTRACT The Cox proportional hazards cure model is a survival model incorporating a cure rate with the assumption that the population contains both uncured and cured individuals. It contains a logistic regression for the cure rate, and a Cox regression to estimate the hazard for uncured patients. A single predictive model for both the cure and hazard can be developed by using a cure model that simultaneously predicts the cure rate and hazards for uncured patients; however, model selection is a challenge because of the lack of a measure for quantifying the predictive accuracy of a cure model. Recently, we developed an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for determining the cure rate in a cure model (Asano et al., 2014), but the hazards measure for uncured patients was not resolved. In this article, we propose novel C-statistics that are weighted by the patients’ cure status (i.e., cured, uncured, or censored cases) for the cure model. The operating characteristics of the proposed C-statistics and their confidence interval were examined by simulation analyses. We also illustrate methods for predictive model selection and for further interpretation of variables using the proposed AUCs and C-statistics via application to breast cancer data.
Modeling and Coordination in Interorganizational Workflow

The goal of this thesis is to develop a framework to enable interorganizational workflow collaboration, considering the requirements of workflow design and support of different knowledge backgrounds of organizations. With the global expansion of Internet and distributed computing environments, computer mediated collaboration has been rapidly increasing among different organizations. In these collaboration environments, organizations cooperate with one another with resources that each owns to achieve some common goals. Collaboration processes that involve multiple organizations can be modeled as interorganizational workflows, with challenges in some aspects. First, different organizations have different cultural and knowledge backgrounds, which might have great impact on the way that the collaboration is conducted. Therefore, when considering interorganizational workflow, many problems occur due to disagreements on views regarding the collaboration processes. Moreover, though cooperation of organizations needs some visible interactions and data sharing, it is also important for organizations to consider the requirements of workflow design as much as possible during the collaboration, such as privacy preservation, flexibility support of local processes, workflow reuse and so on. In this thesis, with respect to the above points, we address following issues on interorganizational workflow collaboration framework including modeling, coordination, execution and implementation approaches. 1. Interorganizational Workflow Modeling and Coordination In interorganizational environments, due to different cultural back-
Executive Pay with Observable Decisions

We propose a model of delegated expertise designed to analyze executive compensation. An expert has to pick one of two possible decisions. By exerting effort the expert can obtain private information on these decisions. The expert’s decision and its ultimate performance realization are publicly observed, but the expert’s information is not. In other words, the principal observes the expert’s decision and its realization, but does not know whether the expert expended effort to obtain information and whether he made an efficient decision conditional on the information he received. We characterize the optimal compensation contract among those that give the expert incentives to obtain information to determine the efficient decision and to make the decision that is efficient contingent on the obtained information. We show that: 1) It is generically optimal to make pay contingent on the decision made by the expert, not only on performance; 2) The expert is often rewarded for choosing alternatives that are ex-ante inefficient. 3) When decisions differ in their complexity, optimal pay-performance may be zero if the expert chooses the complex alternative. Our model highlights novel factors that should be considered in the design of executive compensation contracts, sheds light on existing compensation practices, such as rewarding executives for acquisitions, and suggests mechanisms to promote managerial innovation.