517 research outputs found
Road density, road features, and in-vehicle PM2.5 during daily trips taken by Washington, DC metro area commuters
No full textThis dataset was used to conduct all analyses in the working paper, "Short-term associations of road density and road features with in-vehicle PM2.5 during daily trips" by Jenna R. Krall, Jonathan Thornburg, Ting Zhang, Anna Z. Pollack, Yi-Ching Lee, Michelle McCombs, and Lucas R. F. Henneman (2023+). This dataset is restricted to N=25 commuters with at least 15 minutes of consecutive GPS and air pollution data. Each row corresponds to a one-minute observation for a trip within day within commuter. The data contains 2311 rows and 29 variables. These data are provided as a .csv file, generated using R (v 4.2)
Visualization of the Dirichlet-Voronoi cells in S<sup>2</sup>×R space
No full textThe S2×R geometry can be derived by the direct product of the spherical plane S2 and the real line R. In [1] J. Z. Farkas has classified and given the complete list its space groups. In [6] the second author has studied the geodesic balls and their volumes in S2×R space, moreover he has introduced the notion of geodesic ball packing and its density and have determined the densest geodesic ball packing for generalized Coxeter space groups of S2×R.The aim of this paper to develop a method to study and visualize the Dirichlet-Voronoi cells belonging to a given ball packing. We apply our former results on the equidistant surfaces of the S2×R geometry (see [5]) to determine the D-V cells to locally optimal ball packings belonging to S2×R space groups generated by glide reflections.E. Molnár has shown in [3], that the homogeneous 3-spaces have a unified interpretation in the real projective 3-sphere, in our work we will use this projective model of S2×R geometry. We will use the Wolfram Mathematica software for visualization of the arrangement of a locally optimal geodesic ball packing and its Dirichlet-Voronoi cell of a given glide reflection space group
Principal-Agent Analysis and International Delegation: Red Herrings, Theoretical Clarifications, and Empirical Disputes. Bruges Political Research Papers No. 2, February 2007
No full textThe principal-agent (PA) approach has recently become the dominant approach to the study of delegation in both comparative and international politics. Despite its purported benefits, a growing number of critics have taken exception to both the theoretical assumptions and the empirical claims of PA analysis. Such critiques, it is argued, fall into three groups. The first are the red herrings, the critiques that arise from a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of what PA approaches and their practitioners actually argue. The second and more interesting set of critiques raise the distinction between agents and trustees, questioning applicability of PA analysis to the latter – although it is argued that this distinction needlessly dichotomizes a continuum of agent discretion and a range of motivations for delegation, and strictly defined is of little relevance to the universe of empirical cases that scholars might seek to explain. The third and final group of critiques argues that PA approaches systematically fail to predict correctly either (a) the reasons and the conditions under which political principals delegate powers to agents, or (b) the conditions under which agents enjoy autonomy and influence in domestic and international politics
Intentions And Information In Discourse
No full textThis paper is about the flow of inference between communicative intentions, discourse structure and the domain during discourse processing. We augment a theory of discourse interpretation with a theory of distinct mental attitudes and reasoning about them, in order to provide an account of how the attitudes interact with reasoning about discourse structure. INTRODUCTION The flow of inference between communicative intentions and domain information is often essential to discourse processing. It is well reflected in this discourse from Moore and Pollack (1992): (1)a. George Bush supports big business. b. He's sure to veto House Bill 1711. There are at least three different interpretations. Consider Context 1: in this context the interpreter I believes that the author A wants to convince him that (1b) is true. For example, the context is one in which I has already uttered Bush won't veto any more bills. I reasons that A's linguistic behavior was intentional, and therefore that A believ..
Clopidogrel Administration Impairs Post-Stroke Learning and Memory Recovery in Mice
No full textClopidogrel, which is one of the most prescribed antiplatelet medications in the world, is given to stroke survivors for the prevention of secondary cardiovascular events. Clopidogrel exerts its antiplatelet activity via antagonism of the P2Y12 receptor (P2RY12). Although not widely known or considered during the initial clinical trials for clopidogrel, P2RY12 is also expressed on microglia, which are the brain’s immune cells, where the receptor facilitates chemotactic migration toward sites of cellular damage. If microglial P2RY12 is blocked, microglia lose the ability to migrate to damaged sites and carry out essential repair processes. We aimed to investigate whether administering clopidogrel to mice post-stroke was associated with (i) impaired motor skills and cognitive recovery; (ii) physiological changes, such as survival rate and body weight; (iii) changes in the neurovascular unit, including blood vessels, microglia, and neurons; and (iv) changes in immune cells. Photothrombotic stroke (or sham surgery) was induced in adult male mice. From 24 h post-stroke, mice were treated daily for 14 days with either clopidogrel or a control. Cognitive performance (memory and learning) was assessed using a mouse touchscreen platform (paired associated learning task), while motor impairment was assessed using the cylinder task for paw asymmetry. On day 15, the mice were euthanized and their brains were collected for immunohistochemistry analysis. Clopidogrel administration significantly impaired learning and memory recovery, reduced mouse survival rates, and reduced body weight post-stroke. Furthermore, clopidogrel significantly increased vascular leakage, significantly increased the number and appearance of microglia, and significantly reduced the number of T cells within the peri-infarct region post-stroke. These data suggest that clopidogrel hampers cognitive performance post-stroke. This effect is potentially mediated by an increase in vascular permeability post-stroke, providing a pathway for clopidogrel to access the central nervous system, and thus, interfere in repair and recovery processes.Marina Paul, Jonathan W. Paul, Madeleine Hinwood, Rebecca J. Hood, Kristy Martin, Mahmoud Abdolhoseini, Sarah J. Johnson, Michael Pollack, Michael Nilsson, and Frederick R. Walke
Abstract 4721: Novel lincRNA SLINKY is a prognostic biomarker in kidney cancer
No full textAbstract
Clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCC) show a broad range of clinical behavior, and prognostic biomarkers are needed to stratify patients for appropriate management. We sought to determine whether long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) might predict patient survival. Candidate prognostic lincRNAs were identified by mining The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) transcriptome (RNA-seq) data on 466 ccRCC cases (randomized into discovery and validation sets) annotated for ~21,000 lncRNAs. A previously uncharacterized lincRNA, SLINKY (Survival-predictive LINcRNA in KidneY cancer), was the top-ranked prognostic lincRNA, and validated in an independent University of Tokyo cohort (P=0.004). In multivariable analysis, SLINKY expression predicted overall survival independent of tumor stage and grade [TCGA HR=3.4 (CI, 2.1-5.4), P &lt; 0.001; Tokyo HR=9.2 (CI, 2.2-43), P = 0.003], and by decision tree, ROC and decision curve analysis, added independent prognostic value. In ccRCC cell lines, SLINKY knockdown reduced cancer cell proliferation (with cell-cycle G1 arrest) and induced transcriptome changes enriched for cell proliferation and survival processes. Notably, the genes affected by SLINKY knockdown in cell lines were themselves prognostic and correlated with SLINKY expression in the ccRCC patient samples. From a screen for binding partners, we identified direct binding of SLINKY to Heterogeneous Nuclear Ribonucleoprotein K (HNRNPK), whose knockdown recapitulated SLINKY knockdown phenotypes. Thus, SLINKY is a robust prognostic biomarker in ccRCC, where it functions possibly together with HNRNPK in cancer cell proliferation.
Citation Format: Xue Gong, Zurab Siprashvili, Okyaz Eminaga, Zhewei Shen, Yusuke Sato, Haruki Kume, Yukio Homma, Seishi Ogawa, Paul A. Khavari, Jonathan R. Pollack, James D. Brooks. Novel lincRNA SLINKY is a prognostic biomarker in kidney cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 4721. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-4721</jats:p
"Conflict or Cooperation? Transatlantic Relations in the Environmental Field1"
No full text[From the Introduction]. The US withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol has brought transatlantic differences over environmental issues into the headlines. Since then, climate change politics has been referred to as a prominent example for the development of a transatlantic rift. However, transatlantic differences over environmental policy are anything but new. Many of these conflicts just have been hidden from public view as they are often concerned with technical aspects of regulation and negotiated on the staff level. This paper discusses three recent examples of transatlantic conflict over environmental policy. Climate change, environmental standards for export credit agencies (ECAs), and regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have all proven to be significant sources of transatlantic divergences. This is primarily the case because these topics are not purely environmental issues, but rather cross-cutting policy challenges with substantial impacts on a number of policy areas. These topics entail both complex cost-benefit-assessments and coordination among different domestic and foreign policy bureaucracies. In order to protect the earth’s ecosystem, climate change policy calls for adjustments in energy production, transport, infrastructure, industry and economics; climate change, however, also poses critical questions regarding North-South relations, inter-generational equity, and the future of the capitalist system. Likewise, international environmental standards for ECAs do not only address ecological concerns in international investment decisions, they also create a level playing field for international competition. Finally, the regulation of GMOs aims at minimizing the risks of biotechnology for humans and their environment; at the same time, however, regulations can become non-tariff barriers to trade
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