Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pain is associated with heroin use over time in HIV-infected Russian drinkers.

AIMS To evaluate whether pain was associated with increased risk of using heroin, stimulants or cannabis among HIV-infected drinkers in Russia. DESIGN Secondary analysis of longitudinal data from the HERMITAGE study (HIV's Evolution in Russia-Mitigating Infection Transmission and Alcoholism in a Growing Epidemic), a behavioral randomized controlled trial, with data collected at baseline, 6-month and 12-month visits. SETTING Recruitment occurred at HIV and addiction treatment sites in St Petersburg, Russian Federation. PARTICIPANTS Six hundred and ninety-nine HIV-infected adult drinkers. MEASUREMENTS The primary outcome was past month illicit drug use; secondary outcomes examined each drug (heroin, stimulants and cannabis) separately. The main predictor was pain that interfered at least moderately with daily living. General estimating equations (GEE) logistic regression models were used to evaluate the association between pain and subsequent illicit drug use, adjusting for potential confounders. FINDINGS Participants reporting pain appeared to have higher odds of using illicit drugs, although the results did not reach statistical significance [adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 1.32; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.99, 1.76, P = 0.06]. There was a significant association between pain and heroin use (OR = 1.54; 95% CI = 1.11-2.15, P = 0.01) but not use of other drugs (OR = 0.75; 95% CI =0.40-1.40, P = 0.35 for stimulants and OR = 0.70; 95% CI = 0.45-1.07, P = 0.09 for cannabis). CONCLUSIONS HIV-infected Russian drinkers who report pain are more likely to use heroin over time than HIV-infected Russian drinkers who do not report pain. Pain may be an unrecognized risk factor for persistent heroin use with implications for HIV transmission in Russia.
THE IMPACT OF GENDER DIVERSITY IN THE BOARDROOM ON FIRM PERFORMANCE: A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE

The study employs panel methodology and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) multiple regression to examine the impact of board gender diversity on firm performance for a sample of 137 Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) listed firms during the period 2002 and 2011. The results show that board gender diversity among South African firms have been improving substantially since 2002 when King II came into force. In 2002, the average South African board had only 4 per cent of women and by 2011, this had increased to 13 per cent. Notably, the findings also show that large South African firms have a greater representivity of women on their boards than small firms. By inference this could mean that gender diversity has a positive influence on firm value as findings further show that firm value in large firms is higher than that in small firms. This study contribute to the debate of whether board gender diversity influences firm value and whether the South African government should consider adopting quota legislation such as in Spain, Norway, The Netherlands and France. The findings suggest that there is evidence of a business case to advocate the implementation of quota legislation in South Africa. Empirical findings proceed to confirm that theories of corporate governance such as agency, resource-dependence, signalling and stakeholding surely provide some support to understanding the relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance.
The antibody to GD3 ganglioside, R24, is rapidly endocytosed and recycled to the plasma membrane via the endocytic recycling compartment

Gangliosides are sialic acid‐containing glycosphingolipids present on mammalian plasma membranes, where they participate in cell‐surface events such as modulation of growth factor receptors and cell‐to‐cell and cell‐to‐matrix interactions. Antibodies to gangliosides have been associated with a wide range of clinically identifiable acute and chronic neuropathy syndromes. In addition, antibodies to tumor‐associated gangliosides are being used as therapeutic agents. Their binding to and release from cell membranes and intracellular destinations have not so far been extensively examined. In this study, we characterized in both GD3 ganglioside‐expressing Chinese hamster ovary (CHO)‐K1 and SK‐Mel 28 melanoma cells the intracellular trafficking and subcellular localization of the mouse monoclonal antibody to GD3, R24. By biochemical techniques and detailed confocal microscopic analysis, we demonstrate that the GD3–R24 antibody complex is rapidly and specifically internalized by a dynamin 2‐independent pathway and then accumulates in the endocytic recycling compartment. In addition, we show that the R24 antibody exits the recycling compartment en route to the plasma membrane by a dynamin 2‐dependent pathway sensitive to brefeldin A and monensin. Taken together, our results indicate that the GD3–R24 complex is endocytosed in GD3‐expressing cells, accumulates in the recycling endosome, and is transported back to the plasma membrane via a route that involves clathrin‐coated vesicles.
Analyses of the Factors Led to the Financial Fraud of Listed Companies in Our Country

Our country's capital market currently has got rapid development,getting the great achievements.But he attendant in the listed companies in financial fraud phenomenon is more and more serious.This harms the healthy development of the listed company itself,and destroys the capital market resource allocation mechanism system,and makes the company's financial report and the value of the resulting audit report lost the due risk early warning role.We analyze the financial fraud motivation of the listed companies in China on the basis of the conclusion of the original research,and put forward corresponding suggestions to control the financial market in China.
A compact multi-folded patch antenna for UWB application at the UHF band

Patch antennas usually involve a ground plane much larger than the radiating element. To make a patch antenna compact, it is significant to reduce the size of the large ground plane. In this paper, a compact multi-folded patch antenna with a substantially small ground plane for UWB (ultra wideband) application at the UHF (ultrahigh frequency) band is presented. The proposed antenna is derived from an ordinary L-shaped monopole antenna, and with the dimension of only 0. 22λL× 0. 092λL× 0. 091λL (λL is the longest wavelength in the operating bandwidth) after folding the L-shaped radiating patch over the small ground plane. The characteristics such as impedance bandwidth, gain and pattern stability are analyzed and measured. According to the measured results, the antenna has an impedance bandwidth up to 61.5% for VSWR≤2, ranging from 450 MHz to 850 MHz, covering the band of DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial) (470 MHz-862 MHz) and DTV (Digital TV) (470 MHz-806 MHz). Details of the fabricated antenna are described, and a prototype of the design example is constructed and studied.
Overexpression of p53 Protein in Squamous Cell Carcinomas of Head and Neck Without Apparent Gene Mutations

Structural alterations of p53 and overexpression of the p53 protein are found in a large proportion of human cancers. In this study, we examined the frequency of p53 mutations and p53 overexpression in squamous cell carcinomas (SQCC) of head and neck. Expression of p53 was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC) with monoclonal antibodies defining three distinct epitopes: PAb421 (species cross-reactive epitope on normal and mutated p53), PAbl801 (epitope on normal and mutated human p53), and PAb240 (conformational epitope of mutated p53 and denatured normal p53). Genetic alterations of p53 were identified by single-strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP) analysis and DNA sequencing in selected cases. IHC assays revealed nuclear p53 immu-nostaining in 53% of cases (32 of 60) with PAbl801. 38% (23 of 60) with PAb421, and 32% (19 of 60) with PAb240. Cases positive with PAb421 or PAb240 were also positive with PAbl801, whereas PAb421 and PAb240 identified overlapping but distinct tumor subsets. Areas of carcinoma in situ present in the tumor specimens showed nuclear p53 immunostaining in 11 of 26 cases. SSCP analysis for exons 5–9. the most common sites of p53 abnormalities, revealed mutations in 26% (15 of 58) of the evaluable cases. Comparison of the SSCP results with the IHC results for PAbl801 identified 11 cases that were positive by both methods, 4 cases with p53 mutations that were negative by IHC, 20 cases positive by IHC but without detectable p53 mutations, and 23 cases negative by both methods. IHC with PAb240, which is thought to be specific for mutated p53, was positive in 9 cases with demon- strable p53 mutations and in 9 cases with no detectable mutations. DNA sequence analysis of nine tumors identified point mutations, nonsense mutations, and frame-shift mutations. In conclusion, our study shows that p53 overexpression in SQCC of head and neck as detected by IHC is a frequent finding, and that overexpression is associated with common types of p53 mutations in some cases. However, IHC identifies p53 overexpression in some tumors with apparently normal SSCP patterns and, conversely, tumors with nonsense or frameshift mutations may not express any p53 detectable by IHC.
A Compact CPW-fed Planar Ultra-wideband Antenna with a Frequency Notch Characteristic

A compact and simple design of a CPW-fed planar antenna for ultra-wideband application with a band-notch characteristic is presented. The proposed antenna consists of a rectangular metal patch on a printed circuit board fed by a 50-Omega coplanar waveguide (CPW). By cutting a C-shaped slot in the rectangular radiating patch, a frequency band notch will be created. The proposed antenna yields an impedance bandwidth of 3.1-10.6 GHz with VSWR<2, except the bandwidth of 5-6 GHz for WLAN. The bandwidth and central frequency of the notched band can be adjusted with ease by proper selection of C-shaped slot parameters simulated by the electromagnetic software Ansoft HFSS 10. The antenna is successfully simulated, designed, and measured showing broadband matched impedance, stable gain and radiation patterns.
Receptive field organization across multiple electrosensory maps. I. Columnar organization and estimation of receptive field size

The electric fish Apteronotus leptorhynchus emits a high‐frequency electric organ discharge (EOD) sensed by specialized electroreceptors (P‐units). Amplitude modulations (AMs) of the EOD are caused by objects such as prey as well as by social interactions with conspecifics. The firing rate of P‐units is modulated by the AMs due to both objects and communication signals. P‐units trifurcate as they enter the medulla; they terminate topographically with three maps of the electrosensory lateral line lobe (ELL): the centromedial (CMS), centrolateral (CLS), and lateral (LS) segments. Within each map P‐units terminate onto the basal dendrites of pyramidal cells. Anterograde filling of P‐units and retrograde filling of the basal bushes of pyramidal cells were used to estimate their respective spreads and spacing in the three maps. These estimates were used to compute the receptive field structure of the pyramidal cells: receptive fields were small in CMS and very large in LS with intermediate values in CLS. There are several classes of pyramidal cells defined by morphological and functional criteria; these cells are organized into columns such that each column contains one member of each class and all cells within a column receive the same P‐unit input. J. Comp. Neurol. 516:376–393, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
An Access Control Policy for Multi-tenancy Cloud Storage Platform

Cloud Storage is a multi-tenancy shared environment,so achieving data separation between different users effectively in the platform has become one of issues most concerned by users.In this paper,we provide business users a flexible access control policy,which is built on top of RBAC(Role-based Access Control),combined with organization label and a variety of security attributes with logical combinations.First of all,it provides strict inter-enterprise data isolation on cloud storage,ensuring that business users could not access data which doesn't belong to their organization.Moreover,it provides proper separation of organization internal data.Business users could customize the policy flexibly according to their own security requirements,isolating data from different sectors or geographical area.Finally,the policy provides a mechanism for corporations to share data on cloud storage by introducing the concept of "virtual organization",and guarantee companies with the same conflict set of interest could not be allowed to share data through traditional Chinese Wall Policy.This paper presents the design and implementation of a prototype based Hadoop distributed file system(HDFS),including security label,security policy,security decision module,enforcement procedure of security decision and user command interface.Then it analyzes the effectiveness and performance of the security mechanisms with experiments.The result shows that the policy meets the security requirement well and loss of system run-time performance is within an acceptable range.
Computación Evolutiva para Resolución de CSPs

Scheduling problems are a paradigm of CSP. In this paper we present a number of techniques to solve them by means of Genetic Algorithms. Firstly we consider conventional Genetic Algorithms and then we demonstrate that their performance really improves when used together with other techniques such as dispatching rules, probability based heuristics or local search. We report results from an experimental study showing that a local search method is able to improve the performance of a Genetic Algorithm in solving the Job Shop Scheduling problem.
In vitro biological properties of flavonoid conjugates found in vivo

For some flavonoids such as quercetin, isoflavones and catechins, the pathways of absorption and metabolism are now reasonably well characterised and understood. By definition, for biological activity of flavonoids to be manifest, the target tissue, which includes the blood and vascular system, must respond to the form(s) of flavonoid that it encounters. Bioavailability studies have shown that the circulating form of most flavonoids is as conjugates, with a few notable exceptions. There have been several recent papers on the in vitro biological properties of conjugates that have been found in vivo. This paper reviews the properties of these conjugates. Most of the information currently available is on quercetin glucuronides, but also on isoflavone and catechin conjugates. In addition to the biological properties of the conjugates, the partition coefficients and methods of synthesis are also presented.
Modeling and simulation of EGF-CSF-1 pathway to investigate Glioma - Macrophage interaction in brain tumors

Glioblastoma multiform (GBM) is one of the most lethal forms of brain cancers. The biggest difficulties for diagnostics and treatment of GBM underlie in its dynamic and complex macro and microenvironment. Glioma cells, stromal cells and tumor-associated immune cells (microglia/macrophage-TAMs) become a complex tissue with their physical and chemical communication network. TAMs are the predominant infiltrating immune cells in malignant GBMs and stimulate tumor in- vasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis. The epidermal growth factor (EGF) and colony stimulating factor 1 (CSF-1) paracrine signaling loop plays a key role in communication between glioma cells and TAMs. We developed a mathematical model to investigate macrophage-glioma cell interactions using CSF-1 and EGF paracrine-acting agents. Our model presents change of EGF and CSF-1 concentration both on the surfaces of cells and within a well-defined tumor microenvironment, in a domain, with respect to interaction time and distance between TAMs and glioma cells. Our simulation results confirm that from low-grade glioma to high-grade glioma, concentration of CSF-1 increases both on the surfaces of macrophages and within the domain. Therefore, reproduction and adsorption of CSF-1 correlates with the grade of malignancy in human gliomas, which is a good agreement with recent findings.
The fluoroquinolones: structures, mechanisms of action and resistance, and spectra of activity in vitro

INTRODUCTION During the past 5 to 7 years, much attention has been given to the synthesis of new 4-quinolone-3-carboxylates and to the evaluation of these newly prepared agents for antibacterial activity, a revival of interest generated by the discovery of nalidixic and oxolinic acids mtny years ago. This renewed effort uncovered a. number of 6-fluoro-7piperazino-4-quinolones noteworthy for both the breadth and intensity of their activities against gram-negative bacilli and cocci in vitro and for the capacity to control experimentally induced systemic infections with selected bacteria when administered orally in well-tolerated doses (21). The most active representatives of this compound class, designated fluoroquinolones, include norfloxacin (AM-715, MK-0366), ofloxacin (DL-8280), ciprofloxacin (Bay o 9867), amifloxacin (WIN 49375), enoxacin (AT-2266, CI-919), and pefloxacin (1589-RB). The prim4ary target of nalidixic acid and probably also all the fluoroquinolones is DNA gyrase, an essential bacterial enzyme that maintains superhelical twists in DNA (13, 18, 24). The promise of the fluoroquinoloies led to their prompt evaluation for pharmacokinetics in human volunteers and cautious assessments of therapeutic potential, including tolerability in selected patients. The encouraging results of these early trials, with the burgeoning interest in further studies, have made it desirable to review the status of these agents as revealed in the published English literature. We have attempted this task in a two-part minireview. The first part here considers the structures, mechanisms of action and resistance, and spectra of activity of the six aforementioned fluoroquinolones with reference to nalidixic and oxolonic acids for comparison. The second part will consider pharmacology, clinical activity, and toxicities in humans (D. C. Hooper and J. S. Wolfson, Antimicrob. Agents Chemother., in press). Other quinolones, such as cinoxacin, pipemidic acid, rosoxacin, and flumequine, will not be discussed directly. Several reviews of cinoxacin have recently appeared (28, 63).
Towards Emotion Classification Using Appraisal Modeling

The authors studied whether a two-step approach based on appraisal modeling could help in improving performance of emotion classification from sensor data that is typically executed in a one-stage approach in which sensor data is directly classified into a discrete emotion label. The proposed intermediate step is inspired by appraisal models in which emotions are characterized using appraisal dimensions, and subdivides the task in a person-dependent and person-independent stage. In this paper, the authors assessed feasibility of this second stage: the classification of emotion from appraisal data. They applied a variety of machine learning techniques and used visualization techniques to gain further insight into the classification task. Appraisal theory assumes the second step to be independent of the individual. Results obtained are promising, but do indicate that not all emotions can be equally well classified, perhaps indicating that the second stage is not as person-independent as proposed in the literature.
RBiomirGS: an all-in-one miRNA gene set analysis solution featuring target mRNA mapping and expression profile integration

Background With the continuous discovery of microRNA’s (miRNA) association with a wide range of biological and cellular processes, expression profile-based functional characterization of such post-transcriptional regulation is crucial for revealing its significance behind particular phenotypes. Profound advancement in bioinformatics has been made to enable in depth investigation of miRNA’s role in regulating cellular and molecular events, resulting in a huge quantity of software packages covering different aspects of miRNA functional analysis. Therefore, an all-in-one software solution is in demand for a comprehensive yet highly efficient workflow. Here we present RBiomirGS, an R package for a miRNA gene set (GS) analysis. Methods The package utilizes multiple databases for target mRNA mapping, estimates miRNA effect on the target mRNAs through miRNA expression profile and conducts a logistic regression-based GS enrichment. Additionally, human ortholog Entrez ID conversion functionality is included for target mRNAs. Results By incorporating all the core steps into one package, RBiomirGS eliminates the need for switching between different software packages. The modular structure of RBiomirGS enables various access points to the analysis, with which users can choose the most relevant functionalities for their workflow. Conclusions With RBiomirGS, users are able to assess the functional significance of the miRNA expression profile under the corresponding experimental condition by minimal input and intervention. Accordingly, RBiomirGS encompasses an all-in-one solution for miRNA GS analysis. RBiomirGS is available on GitHub (http://github.com/jzhangc/RBiomirGS). More information including instruction and examples can be found on website (http://kenstoreylab.com/? page_id=2865).
Coping with Health-Care Costs: Implications for the Measurement of Catastrophic Expenditures and Poverty

In the absence of formal health insurance, we argue that the strategies households adopt to finance health care have important implications for the measurement and interpretation of how health payments impact on consumption and poverty. Given data on source of finance, we propose to (a) approximate the relative impact of health payments on current consumption with a 'coping'-adjusted health expenditure ratio, (b) uncover poverty that is 'hidden' because total household expenditure is inflated by financial coping strategies and (c) identify poverty that is 'transient' because necessary consumption is temporarily sacrificed to pay for health care. Measures that ignore coping strategies not only overstate the risk to current consumption and exaggerate the scale of catastrophic payments but also overlook the long-run burden of health payments. Nationally representative data from India reveal that coping strategies finance as much as three-quarters of the cost of inpatient care. Payments for inpatient care exceed 10% of total household expenditure for around 30% of hospitalized households but less than 4% sacrifice more than 10% of current consumption to accommodate this spending.Ignoring health payments leads to underestimate poverty by 7-8% points among hospitalized households; 80% of this adjustment is hidden poverty due to coping.
The Effect of the 2007/2008 Financial Crisis on Enterprise Risk Management Disclosure of Top US Banks

We document the effect of the 2007/2008 financial crisis on the volume and the quality of enterprise risk management (ERM) disclosure in the annual reports of the largest US banks, and analyze its determinants. Using a content analysis approach of the annual reports form 10-K for the years 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, we find that the ERM disclosure is significantly and positively associated with the crisis, bank size, board independence, duality and significantly and negatively associated with profitability, leverage, and board size. This paper seeks to fill a gap in the literature by investigating the effect of the crisis on ERM disclosure in the US banking sector context, and gives an insight into the factors affecting risk disclosure practices during the financial crisis.