Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Conflict Management with an Deniability Model Authority

When a reasoning system encounters a contra- diction like p&q=>false, it may try to eliminate it by retracting some belief that supports either p or q. This paper addresses the issue of how to determine which of the possible supporting beliefs to retract. The problem is stud- ied in the context of a heterogenous distributed environ- ment in which we can not make assumptions about how agents derive their beliefs. The presented model considers two properties of beliefs: the authority of the agents that provided the belief in the first place and the costs incurred upon other agents that already used the belief (directly or indirectly) for their own decision making or action, if the belief is to be retracted. The model is implemented in an information infrastructure we have created for enterprise integration.
A Sensitivity Analysis of Stent Design Parameters using CFD

It is commonly known that the stent design has a significant influence on the flow topology and therefore on the wall shear stress (WSS) distribution as well. Post- operative complications like in-stent restenosis correlate with alterations in the WSS distribution. In the present com- putational fluid mechanic study the key design parameters of a generic model stent were investigated and the hemodynam- ical efficiency was evaluated by calculating the sensitivity. It can be concluded that the strut thickness is the most signifi- cant design parameter regarding the occurrence of low wall shear stress.
Selective Review of Effects of Discontinuation of Drug Treatment: Some Implications and Problems

The research literature on the effects of discontinuation of drug treatment is reviewed. The implications and problems generated by the increasing body of evidence that the therapeutic effects of ataractic drugs do not transfer to the nondrug state are considered. Effort is also made to elucidate some of the problems which negative effects of drug withdrawal create for drug therapy. Directions are suggested for further research that should lead to increased understanding and knowledge in this area.
A Transmission Problem Across a Fractal Self-Similar Interface

We consider a transmission problem in which the interior domain has infinitely ramified structures. Transmission between the interior and exterior domains occurs only at the fractal component of the interface between the interior and exterior domains. We also consider the sequence of the transmission problems in which the interior domain is obtained by stopping the self-similar construction after a finite number of steps; the transmission condition is then posed on a prefractal approximation of the fractal interface. We prove the convergence in the sense of Mosco of the energy forms associated with these problems to the energy form of the limit problem. In particular, this implies the convergence of the solutions of the approximated problems to the solution of the problem with fractal interface. The proof relies in particular on an extension property. Emphasis is put on the geometry of the ramified domain. The convergence result is obtained when the fractal interface has no self-contact, and in a particular geometry with self-contacts, for which an extension result is proved.
Monthly income and subjective well-being of Croatian citizens.

AIM To examine the differences in subjective well-being among people with different household income. METHOD Data were obtained from the national survey conducted in June 2005, in which a representative sample of 896 participants were administered a questionnaire on several measures of subjective well-being as follows: happiness, life satisfaction, and satisfaction with different life domains (personal and national well-being index). One-way ANOVA was performed to test the differences in subjective well-being measures between participants grouped into six categories according to their monthly income. RESULTS Happiness and life satisfaction ratings, as well as ratings of satisfaction with several life domains differed significantly between groups of people with different monthly income. Respondents with higher income felt happier (P<0.001), more satisfied with their life as a whole (P<0.001), more satisfied with their material status (P<0.001), health (P<0.001), achievement (P<0.001), future security (P=0.001), economic situation (P=0.001), state of the environment (P=0.003), and social conditions in Croatia (P=0.003). However, no significant differences were found between the two groups with the lowest income (0-70 euros and 71-130 euro per person per month), nor between the two groups with the highest income (401-530 euros and 531+ euros per person per month). CONCLUSION Our study showed that income and material wealth had an influence on subjective well-being in contemporary Croatian society, which is undergoing major social and economical changes.
The Myeloid LSECtin Is a DAP12-Coupled Receptor That Is Crucial for Inflammatory Response Induced by Ebola Virus Glycoprotein

Fatal Ebola virus infection is characterized by a systemic inflammatory response similar to septic shock. Ebola glycoprotein (GP) is involved in this process through activating dendritic cells (DCs) and macrophages. However, the mechanism is unclear. Here, we showed that LSECtin (also known as CLEC4G) plays an important role in GP-mediated inflammatory responses in human DCs. Anti-LSECtin mAb engagement induced TNF-α and IL-6 production in DCs, whereas silencing of LSECtin abrogated this effect. Intriguingly, as a pathogen-derived ligand, Ebola GP could trigger TNF-α and IL-6 release by DCs through LSECtin. Mechanistic investigations revealed that LSECtin initiated signaling via association with a 12-kDa DNAX-activating protein (DAP12) and induced Syk activation. Mutation of key tyrosines in the DAP12 immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif abrogated LSECtin-mediated signaling. Furthermore, Syk inhibitors significantly reduced the GP-triggered cytokine production in DCs. Therefore, our results demonstrate that LSECtin is required for the GP-induced inflammatory response, providing new insights into the EBOV-mediated inflammatory response.
Mycobacterium avium Subsp. avium and Subsp. hominissuis Give Different Cytokine Responses after in vitro Stimulation of Human Blood Mononuclear Cells

Background Mycobacterium avium is the principal etiologic agent of non-tuberculous lymphadenitis in children. It is also a known pathogen for birds and other animals. Genetic typing of M. avium isolates has led to a proposal to expand the set of subspecies to include M. avium subsp. hominissuis. Isolates associated with disease in humans belong to this subspecies. Methodology/Principal Findings Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from six healthy blood donors were stimulated in vitro with ten isolates of M. avium avium and 11 isolates of M. avium hominissuis followed by multiplex bead array quantification of cytokines in supernatants. M. avium hominissuis isolates induced significantly more IL-10 and significantly less IL-12p70, TNF, IFN-γ and IL-17 when compared to M. avium avium isolates. All strains induced high levels of IL-17, but had very low levels of IL-12p70. Conclusion/Significance The strong association between M. avium subsp. hominissuis and disease in humans and the clear differences in the human immune response to M. avium subsp. hominissuis compared to M. avium subsp. avium isolates, as demonstrated in this study, suggest that genetic differences between M. avium isolates play an important role in the pathogenicity in humans.
Lipid biomarkers, hormone therapy and the risk of venous thromboembolism in women

Summary. Background: Published reports of a relationship between lipids and incident venous thromboembolism (VTE) are conflicting. Objectives: To clarify the relationship between lipids and VTE risk in healthy women, including potential effect modification by hormone therapy (HT). Patients/methods: Among 27 081 initially healthy women followed prospectively for incident VTE, we measured a full panel of lipid biomarkers, including total cholesterol, low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL‐C), high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL‐C), triglycerides and apolipoproteins A‐I (apo A‐I) and B100. Results: During a median follow‐up of 11.4 years, VTE occurred in 355 women. We observed no relationship between any of the lipids and VTE risk. However, when unprovoked VTE was considered separately (n = 161), both HDL‐C and apo A‐I were positively associated with risk. Fully adjusted hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for extreme tertiles of HDL‐C and apo A‐I were 1.75 (1.13–2.73) and 1.70 (1.10–2.62), respectively. After stratifying by HT use, this relationship was present only among HT users; the HRs for unprovoked VTE for extreme tertiles of HDL‐C and apo A‐I were 3.58 (1.69–7.58) and 2.88 (1.29–6.42) among users, but only 0.79 (0.39–1.62) and 0.89 (0.50–1.57) among non‐users. The interactions were statistically significant (each Pinteraction <0.05). Conclusions: We observed little evidence that lipid levels predict risk of incident VTE among non‐users of HT. High levels of HDL‐C and apo A‐I associate with unprovoked VTE risk among HT users. This observation likely reflects prothrombotic effects of HT that are concomitant with HDL‐C and apo A‐I levels, rather than direct effects of those lipids.
Spherical wavelets: efficiently representing functions on the sphere

Wavelets have proven to be powerful bases for use in numerical analysis and signal processing. Their power lies in the fact that they only require a small number of coefficients to represent general functions and large data sets accurately. This allows compression and efficient computations. Classical constructions have been limited to simple domains such as intervals and rectangles. In this paper we present a wavelet construction for scalar functions defined on the sphere. We show how biorthogonal wavelets with custom properties can be constructed with the lifting scheme. The bases are extremely easy to implement and allow fully adaptive subdivisions. We give examples of functions defined on the sphere, such as topographic data, bidirectional reflection distribution functions, and illumination, and show how they can be efficiently represented with spherical wavelets. CR
Composing graphical models with neural networks for structured representations and fast inference

We propose a general modeling and inference framework that composes probabilistic graphical models with deep learning methods and combines their respective strengths. Our model family augments graphical structure in latent variables with neural network observation models. For inference, we extend variational autoencoders to use graphical model approximating distributions with recognition networks that output conjugate potentials. All components of these models are learned simultaneously with a single objective, giving a scalable algorithm that leverages stochastic variational inference, natural gradients, graphical model message passing, and the reparameterization trick. We illustrate this framework with several example models and an application to mouse behavioral phenotyping.
An experimental study of mechanical behavior of brittle rock-like specimens with multi-non-persistent joints under uniaxial compression and damage analysis

The mechanical behavior of jointed rock masses significantly affects the stability of rock engineering applications. In this paper, the peak strength, Young's modulus and failure patterns of brittle rock-like specimens with multi-non-persistent joints under uniaxial compression are investigated. The joint geometry is defined by four factors: joint angle, spacing, joint length, and rock bridge length. The experiment results show that the joint angle has the greatest influence on the peak strength and Young's modulus of specimens, followed by joint length. A damage mechanical theory is adopted which deals with some sets of joints distributed in rock masses. Based on the geometrical distribution of joints, a macro damage model which considers the influence of the normal vector and area density of joints is used to describe the joints. The peak strength and Young's modulus of jointed specimens predicted by the damage mechanics method reflect the trend of the experimental results, which proves the influence of initial geometric damage of joints on the peak strength and Young's modulus of jointed specimens. The initial geometric damage of joints is mainly induced by the joint area density. Finally, from the micro damage aspect, to analyze the damage evolution and strain softening process of jointed rock masses, a modified numerical model (damage strainsofting model) on the basis of secondary development in fast Lagrangian analysis of Continua is proposed to simulate the fracture development of jointed rock masses. The peak strengths, Young's modulus and failure modes of rock specimens with non-persistent joints under uniaxial compressions are simulated and compared with the results obtained from the lab experiments indicating that the model is capable to replicate the physical processes.
Prevention of Ulceration, Amputation, and Reduction of Hospitalization: Outcomes of a Prospective Multicenter Trial of Tibial Neurolysis in Patients with Diabetic Neuropathy

Abstract This is the first multicenter prospective study of outcomes of tibial neurolysis in diabetics with neuropathy and chronic compression of the tibial nerve in the tarsal tunnels. A total of 38 surgeons enrolled 628 patients using the same technique for diagnosis of compression, neurolysis of four medial ankle tunnels, and objective outcomes: ulceration, amputation, and hospitalization for foot infection. Contralateral limb tibial neurolysis occurred in 211 patients for a total of 839 operated limbs. Kaplan–Meier proportional hazards were used for analysis. New ulcerations occurred in 2 (0.2%) of 782 patients with no previous ulceration history, recurrent ulcerations in 2 (3.8%) of 57 patients with a previous ulcer history, and amputations in 1 (0.2%) of 839 at risk limbs. Admission to the hospital for foot infections was 0.6%. In patients with diabetic neuropathy and chronic tibial nerve compression, neurolysis can result in prevention of ulceration and amputation, and decrease in hospitalization for foot infection.
Adoption of Business Intelligence & Analytics in Organizations - An Empirical Study of Antecedents

Although Business Intelligence& Analytics (BIA) systems are increasingly seen as a source of competitive advantage, limited research, to our knowledge, has examined the factors driving their organizational adoption. Drawing on TechnologyOrganization-Environment framework, we present a theoretical model of factors associated with the extent of organizational adoption of BIA technologies and test it with a large cross-sectional sample. We find that an organization’s perceived benefits, technology sophistication in terms of data infrastructure and organization size are positively associated with the extent of BIA adoption. In addition, we find that firms in knowledge-intensive industries are likely to more extensively adopt BIA and the lack of industry standards hinders adoption. This study can inform researchers and practitioners on the enabling conditions in organizations that drive the adoption of BIA technologies.
Structural and adhesion properties of poly(ethyl 2-cyanoacrylate) post-cured at different temperatures and times

Abstract The structure and properties of poly(ethyl 2-cyanoacrylate)s (pECNs) cured at 25 °C during 24 hours, and post-cured at different temperatures (45-90 °C) and times (2-6 hours) were studied. Irrespective of the post-cure conditions, pECN was not fully polymerized and two different structures of different molecular weights and topographies were obtained. The post-cure decreased the shear strength values in joints made with aluminum and ethyl cyanoacrylate due to the decrease in the percentage of higher molecular weight polymeric chains and the formation of new short polymeric chains by unzipping de-polymerization mechanism, both contributed to decrease the mechanical properties. On the other hand, the post-cure changed the morphology of pECN because of nano-spheres were produced by curing at 25 °C which were not present after post-cure at 90 °C.
Asymmetric Dental Development Investigated by Cone-Beam Computed Tomography in Patients with Unilateral Cleft Lip and Alveolus

Objective To investigate a possible delay in dental development of cleft-side teeth compared with the contralateral teeth in patients with unilateral cleft lip and alveolus with or without cleft palate (UCLA ± CP) and to correlate this delay to developmental stages of the corresponding teeth. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting Cleft Lip and Palate Care Center of Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai, China. Patients Forty Chinese patients with UCLA ± CP. Main outcome Measure Crown height (CH), root length (RL), and full length (FL) of permanent incisors, canines, premolars, and first molars were measured using cone-beam computed tomography and compared between cleft and noncleft sides. Discrepancies in tooth length between sides during different developmental stages of delayed teeth were also compared. Results There were no statistically significant differences in tooth length between sides in the mandible, except for RL of lateral incisors and RL and FL of the second premolars. In the maxilla, CH, RL and FL of cleft-side incisors, as well as RL and FL of cleft-side canines and first premolars, were all significantly shorter than those on the noncleft side (P ≤ .05). The lateral incisors showed the highest reductions in RL and FL (47% and 29%). Moreover, reduction of RL of cleft-side maxillary central incisors was most evident in the early developmental stage (23%) and decreased with dental maturation (5%). Conclusions Asymmetric dental development was presented in both jaws but mainly in maxillary anterior region. The RL deficiency of cleft-side central incisors differed at different developmental stages.
Origamizer: A Practical Algorithm for Folding Any Polyhedron

It was established at SoCG'99 that every polyhedral complex can be folded from a sufficiently large square of paper, but the known algorithms are extremely impractical, wasting most of the material and making folds through many layers of paper. At a deeper level, these foldings get the topology wrong, introducing many gaps (boundaries) in the surface, which results in flimsy foldings in practice. We develop a new algorithm designed specifically for the practical folding of real paper into complicated polyhedral models. We prove that the algorithm correctly folds any oriented polyhedral manifold, plus an arbitrarily small amount of additional structure on one side of the surface (so for closed manifolds, inside the model). This algorithm is the first to attain the watertight property: for a specified cutting of the manifold into a topological disk with boundary, the folding maps the boundary of the paper to within epsilon of the specified boundary of the surface (in Frechet distance). Our foldings also have the geometric feature that every convex face is folded seamlessly, i.e., as one unfolded convex polygon of the piece of paper. This work provides the theoretical underpinnings for Origamizer, freely available software written by the second author, which has enabled practical folding of many complex polyhedral models such as the Stanford bunny.
Duloxetine Is Effective in Treating Depression in Multiple Sclerosis Patients: An Open-Label Multicenter Study

Objectives Duloxetine hydrochloride, a dual reuptake inhibitor of serotonin and norepinephrine, was evaluated for its therapeutic efficacy, safety, and tolerability in the treatment of depression in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Lifetime depression prevalence approaches 50% in MS patients. The aim of the study was to assess the safety and efficacy of duloxetine for treatment of depression in MS patients. Methods An open-label study evaluated the efficacy of 12 weeks of duloxetine administration (maximal dose = 60 mg/d) in MS patients with clinical depression. The Beck scale score variation after 4 (T1) and 12 (T2) weeks of treatment was used for the primary outcome measurement, whereas secondary outcome was measured using the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale. Safety was evaluated by recording treatment-related adverse events, monitoring vital signs, and recording frequency and reasons for interruption or discontinuation of treatment. Results Seventy-five patients were enrolled in the study. Sixty-three patients completed the study by continuing duloxetine treatment for 12 weeks (T2). Twelve subjects dropped out of the study because of adverse effects or noncompliance. Nausea was the most common adverse event reported. A significant reduction in the Beck Depression Inventory and Modified Fatigue Impact Scale scores, after both 4 and 12 weeks of therapy, was observed. Conclusions The results suggest that duloxetine is well tolerated, safe, and effective in reducing depression and fatigue in MS patients.
Dissociable Effects of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Attention during Episodic Encoding

It is well established that the formation of memories for life's experiences—episodic memory—is influenced by how we attend to those experiences, yet the neural mechanisms by which attention shapes episodic encoding are still unclear. We investigated how top-down and bottom-up attention contribute to memory encoding of visual objects in humans by manipulating both types of attention during fMRI of episodic memory formation. We show that dorsal parietal cortex—specifically, intraparietal sulcus (IPS)—was engaged during top-down attention and was also recruited during the successful formation of episodic memories. By contrast, bottom-up attention engaged ventral parietal cortex—specifically, temporoparietal junction (TPJ)—and was also more active during encoding failure. Functional connectivity analyses revealed further dissociations in how top-down and bottom-up attention influenced encoding: while both IPS and TPJ influenced activity in perceptual cortices thought to represent the information being encoded (fusiform/lateral occipital cortex), they each exerted opposite effects on memory encoding. Specifically, during a preparatory period preceding stimulus presentation, a stronger drive from IPS was associated with a higher likelihood that the subsequently attended stimulus would be encoded. By contrast, during stimulus processing, stronger connectivity with TPJ was associated with a lower likelihood the stimulus would be successfully encoded. These findings suggest that during encoding of visual objects into episodic memory, top-down and bottom-up attention can have opposite influences on perceptual areas that subserve visual object representation, suggesting that one manner in which attention modulates memory is by altering the perceptual processing of to-be-encoded stimuli.
trans complementation by RNA of defective foot-and-mouth disease virus internal ribosome entry site elements

A region of about 435 bases from the 5' noncoding region of foot-and-mouth disease virus RNA directs internal initiation of protein synthesis. This region, termed the internal ribosome entry site (IRES), is predicted to contain extensive secondary structure. Precise deletion of five predicted secondary structure features has been performed. The mutant IRES elements have been constructed into vectors which express bicistronic mRNAs and assayed within cells. Each of the modified IRES elements was defective in directing internal initiation when assayed alone. However, coexpression of an intact foot-and-mouth disease virus IRES complemented four of these defective elements to an efficiency of up to 80% of wild-type activity. No complementation was observed with the structurally analogous element from encephalomyocarditis virus. The role of RNA-RNA interactions in the function of the picornavirus IRES is discussed.