Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accumulation of Secretory Vesicles in the Lacrimal Gland Epithelia Is Related to Non-Sjögren's Type Dry Eye in Visual Display Terminal Users

Previous observations in a rat model of a non-Sjögren's syndrome (non-SS) type of dry eye seen in users of visual display terminals (VDT) indicated that secretory vesicle (SV) accumulation in the lacrimal gland epithelia contributes to the condition. Here, to examine this possibility in humans, we compared the lacrimal gland histology and percent SV area in the cytoplasm of acinar epithelial cells using light microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, in patients with VDT work-related non-SS dry-eye (VDT group), SS-induced dry-eye, and autopsied normal controls. In addition, the VAMP8 (vesicle-associated membrane protein 8, an exocrine-pathway molecule) and Rab3D (mature vesicle marker) were histochemically examined in lacrimal gland tissue sections. The lacrimal gland acini were larger in the VDT group than in the SS group, and the percent SV area was significantly higher in the VDT group than in the normal controls (P = 0.021) or SS group (P = 0.004). Immunostaining revealed abnormal distributions of VAMP8 in the VDT and SS groups. Rab3D was more strongly expressed in the cytoplasm of acinar epithelial cells in the VDT group than in that of normal controls. The duration of VDT use was significantly longer in the VDT group than in the other groups. These findings suggest that excessive SV accumulation in the acinar epithelia may contribute to the reduced tear secretion in VDT users.
Evaluating clone detection techniques from a refactoring perspective

In the last decade, several researchers have investigated techniques to automatically detect duplicated code in programs exceeding hundreds of thousands lines of code. All of these techniques have known merits and deficiencies, but as of today, little is known on how these techniques fit into the refactoring process of object-oriented systems. This work compares three representative detection techniques (simple line matching, parameterized matching, and metric fingerprints) by means of five small to medium sized cases and analyses the differences between the reported matches. Based on this comparison, we conclude that (1) simple line matching is best suited for a partial, yet advanced restructuring with little effort; (2) metric fingerprints work best for refactoring a system with minimal effort; (3) parameterized matching demands more effort yet allows a more profound, less obvious restructuring of the code.
The Extended HST Supernova Survey: The Rate of SNe Ia at z > 1.4 Remains Low

We use the HST ACS imaging of the two GOODS fields during Cycles 11, 12, and 13 to derive the Type Ia supernova rate in four redshift intervals in the range 0.2 < z < 1.8. Compared to our previous results based on Cycle 11 observations only, we have increased the coverage of the search by a factor 2.7, making the total area searched equivalent to . The sample now consists of 56 Type Ia supernovae. The rates we derive are consistent with our results based on the Cycle 11 observations. In particular, the small number of supernovae detected at z > 1.4 supports our previous result that there is a drop in the Type Ia supernova rate at high redshift, suggesting a long time delay between the formation of the progenitor star and the explosion of the supernova. If described by a simple one-parameter model, we find a characteristic delay time of 2-3 Gyr. However, a number of recent results based on, e.g., low-redshift supernova samples and supernova host galaxy properties suggest that the supernova delay-time distribution is bimodal. In this model a major fraction of the Type Ia supernova rate are “prompt” and follow the star formation rate, while a smaller fraction of the rate have a long delay time, making this channel proportional to mass. While our results are fully consistent with the bimodal model at low redshifts, the low rate we find at z > 1.4 appears to contradict these results. Models that correct for star formation hidden by dust may explain at least part of the differences. Here we discuss this possibility together with other ways to reconcile data and models.
ON PARALLEL TWO-STAGE METHODS FOR HERMITIAN POSITIVE DEFINITE MATRICES WITH APPLICATIONS TO PRECONDITIONING

Parallel two-stage iterative methods for the solution of linear systems are analyzed. Convergence properties of both block and multisplitting two-stage methods are investigated either when the number of inner iter- ations becomes sufficiently large or when the matrix of the linear system is Hermitian positive definite. Comparison theorems for the parallel two-stage methods, based on the number of inner iterations performed, are given. Compu- tational results of these methods on two parallel computing systems are included to illustrate the theoretical results. Also, the use of these methods as preconditioners is studied from the experimental point of view.
Business Cycles Fact Fallacy And Fantasy

Thank you very much for downloading business cycles fact fallacy and fantasy. As you may know, people have look numerous times for their chosen readings like this business cycles fact fallacy and fantasy, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of coffee in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some malicious bugs inside their desktop computer. business cycles fact fallacy and fantasy is available in our book collection an online access to it is set as public so you can download it instantly. Our books collection spans in multiple countries, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Kindly say, the business cycles fact fallacy and fantasy is universally compatible with any devices to read.
Prediction of disulfide connectivity from protein sequences

The difficulties in predicting disulfide connectivity from protein sequences lie in the nonlocal properties of the disulfide bridges that involve cysteine pairs at large sequence separation. Though some progress has been recently made in the prediction of disulfide connectivity, the current methods predict less than half of the disulfide patterns for the data set sharing less than 30% sequence identity. In this report, we use the support vector machines based on sequence features such as the coupling between the local sequence environments of cysteine pair, the cysteines sequence separations, and the global sequence descriptor, such as amino acid content. Our approach is able to predict 55% of the disulfide patterns of proteins with two to five disulfide bridges, which is 11–26% higher than other methods in the literature. Proteins 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Development of Indonesian Online Game Addiction Questionnaire

Online game is an increasingly popular source of entertainment for all ages, with relatively prevalent negative consequences. Addiction is a problem that has received much attention. This research aims to develop a measure of online game addiction for Indonesian children and adolescents. The Indonesian Online Game Addiction Questionnaire draws from earlier theories and research on the internet and game addiction. Its construction is further enriched by including findings from qualitative interviews and field observation to ensure appropriate expression of the items. The measure consists of 7 items with a 5-point Likert Scale. It is validated by testing 1,477 Indonesian junior and senior high school students from several schools in Manado, Medan, Pontianak, and Yogyakarta. The validation evidence is shown by item-total correlation and criterion validity. The Indonesian Online Game Addiction Questionnaire has good item-total correlation (ranging from 0.29 to 0.55) and acceptable reliability (α = 0.73). It is also moderately correlated with the participant's longest time record to play online games (r = 0.39; p<0.01), average days per week in playing online games (ρ = 0.43; p<0.01), average hours per days in playing online games (ρ = 0.41; p<0.01), and monthly expenditure for online games (ρ = 0.30; p<0.01). Furthermore, we created a clinical cut-off estimate by combining criteria and population norm. The clinical cut-off estimate showed that the score of 14 to 21 may indicate mild online game addiction, and the score of 22 and above may indicate online game addiction. Overall, the result shows that Indonesian Online Game Addiction Questionnaire has sufficient psychometric property for research use, as well as limited clinical application.
Modeling emotional effects on decision-making by agents in game-based simulations

Intelligent agents in games tend to exhibit behaviors that do not reflect humanlike qualities. In particular, they do not exhibit human emotional state effects on decision-making behavior in games. Even when emotional behavior is expressed in a few game agent architectures, such behavior is not informed by an underlying theory of emotion, nor is it quantitatively validated using human emotional behavior data. This paper presents a new emotional agent architecture that has both theoretical and experimental underpinnings, and that manifests a range of effects on behavior, especially real-time decision-making behavior. The approach is informed by the appraisal and dimensional theories of emotion, which together ensure that emotionally appraised concepts in memory correspond with the emotional state of the agent, and that such resonance produces multiple realistic effects on the agent's decision-making behavior. The approach is validated in a series of experiments, of increasing sophistication in terms of both scenario and methods employed. The results are correlated against human data from similar cognitive science experiments. The implication of our findings is that lightweight intelligent agents can exhibit realistic humanlike behavior in arbitrarily complex real-time games in various domains.
Cross-Stock Comparisons of the Relative Contribution of Jumps to Total Price Variance

This paper uses high-frequency price data to study the relative contribution of jumps to the total volatility of an equity. In particular, it systematically compares the relative contribution of jumps across a panel of stocks from three different industries by computing the cross-correlation of this statistic for pairs of stocks. We identify a number of empirical regularities in this cross-correlation and compare these observations to predictions from a standard jump-diffusion model for the joint price process of two stocks. A main finding of this paper is that this jump-diffusion model, when calibrated to particular pairs of stocks in the data, cannot replicate some of the empirical patterns observed. The model predictions differ from the empirical observations systematically: predictions for pairs of stocks from the same industry are on the whole much less accurate than predictions for pairs of stocks from different industries. Some possible explanations for this discrepancy are discussed. JEL classification: C5, C52, C58
Statin Effects on Aggression: Results from the UCSD Statin Study, a Randomized Control Trial

Background Low/ered cholesterol is linked to aggression in some study designs. Cases/series have reported reproducible aggression increases on statins, but statins also bear mechanisms that could reduce aggression. Usual statin effects on aggression have not been characterized. Methods 1016 adults (692 men, 324 postmenopausal women) underwent double-blind sex-stratified randomization to placebo, simvastatin 20mg, or pravastatin 40mg (6 months). The Overt-Aggression-Scale-Modified–Aggression-Subscale (OASMa) assessed behavioral aggression. A significant sex-statin interaction was deemed to dictate sex-stratified analysis. Exploratory analyses assessed the influence of baseline-aggression, testosterone-change (men), sleep and age. Results The sex-statin interaction was significant (P=0.008). In men, statins tended to decrease aggression, significantly so on pravastatin: difference=-1.0(SE=0.49)P=0.038. Three marked outliers (OASMa-change ≥40 points) offset otherwise strong significance-vs-placebo: statins:-1.3(SE=0.38)P=0.0007; simvastatin:-1.4(SE=0.43)P=0.0011; pravastatin:-1.2(SE=0.45)P=0.0083. Age≤40 predicted greater aggression-decline on statins: difference=-1.4(SE=0.64)P=0.026. Aggression-protection was emphasized in those with low baseline aggression: age<40-and-low-baseline-aggression (N=40) statin-difference-vs-placebo=-2.4(SE=0.71)P=0.0016. Statins (especially simvastatin) lowered testosterone, and increased sleep problems. Testosterone-drop on statins predicted aggression-decline: β=0.64(SE=0.30)P=0.034, particularly on simvastatin: β=1.29(SE=0.49)P=0.009. Sleep-worsening on statins significantly predicted aggression-increase: β=2.2(SE=0.55)P<0.001, particularly on simvastatin (potentially explaining two of the outliers): β=3.3(SE=0.83)P<0.001. Among (postmenopausal) women, a borderline aggression-increase on statins became significant with exclusion of one younger, surgically-menopausal woman (N=310) β=0.70(SE=0.34)P=0.039. The increase was significant, without exclusions, for women of more typical postmenopausal age (≥45): (N=304) β=0.68(SE=0.34)P=0.048 – retaining significance with modified age-cutoffs (≥50 or ≥55). Significance was observed separately for simvastatin. The aggression-increase in women on statins was stronger in those with low baseline aggression (N=175) β=0.84(SE=0.30)P=0.006. No statin effect on whole blood serotonin was observed; and serotonin-change did not predict aggression-change. Conclusion Statin effects on aggression differed by sex and age: Statins generally decreased aggression in men; and generally increased aggression in women. Both findings were selectively prominent in participants with low baseline aggression – bearing lower change-variance, rendering an effect more readily evident. Trial Registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00330980
Mutual Coupling Reduction of a Closely Spaced Four-Element MIMO Antenna System Using Discrete Mushrooms

A methodology of using five discrete mushroomlike loadings to reduce the mutual coupling of a closely spaced four-element multiple-input multiple-output antenna system is presented in this paper. The occurrence of the loadings concentrates part of the near fields of the substrate integrated cavity-backed slot (SICBS) antenna element and changes the near-field distribution between each antenna elements, so that the mutual coupling between the antenna elements can be greatly reduced. The loaded four-element SICBS antenna system with an overall size of 1. 2λ0 × 1. 2λ0 × 0. 11λ0 (λ0 is the free-space wavelength at the 2.4 GHz) realizes the mutual coupling reduction of 14 dB between the antenna elements along the diagonal lines with identical polarization, while keeping the mutual coupling of the orthogonally placed adjacent elements unchanged over the band of 2.4-2.485 GHz. With the mutual coupling lower than -35 dB between each antenna element pair, the envelope correlation coefficient is less than 0.005 across the operating bandwidth of 2.4-2.485 GHz.
M&M: A Passive Toolkit for Measuring, Tracking, and Correlating Path Characteristics

This paper presents M&M , a passive measurement toolkit suitable for large-scale studies of Internet path characteristics. The multiQ tool uses equally-spaced mode gaps in TCP ﬂows’ packet interarrival time distributions to detect multiple bottle-neck capacities and their relative order. Unlike other passive tools, multiQ can discover up to three bottlenecks from the trace of a single ﬂow, and can work with acknowledgment as well as data interarrivals. M&M also contains mystery , a TCP loss and RTT analyzer designed to work in concert with multiQ . The M&M toolkit can measure path characteristics and correlate different types of measurements of the same path, producing new results. Since M&M is passive, it can also use publicly-available traces to track the evolution of measurement results over time. Wevalidate our tools in depth using the RON overlay network, which provides more than 400 heterogeneous, well-understood Internet paths. We compare multiQ with Nettimer and Pathrate, two other capacity measurement tools, in the ﬁrst large-scale wide-area evaluation of capacity measurement techniques. Our results show that multiQ is highly accurate, and though passive, achieves the same accuracy as Pathrate, which is active. Wealso use our toolkit to perform several measurement studies using a large reservoir of traced packets collected by NLANR on backbone links over the last two years. Among the results are that bottleneck capacity on these links has grown by around an order of magnitude from 2002 to 2004. In contrast to expectations, however, fair bandwidth share does not increase much with increased bottleneck capacity.
ESSAYS ON ONLINE REVIEWS: THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN REVIEWERS, REVIEWS, AND PRODUCT SALES, AND THE TEMPORAL PATTERNS OF ONLINE REVIEWS

Interpersonal conversation, or word-of-mouth (WOM), is one of the important factors in affecting product sales (e.g. Herr et al. 1991, Laczniak et al. 2001). Potential buyers can gather information on the quality of the product through other consumers' WOM. WOM can not only increase product awareness among potential buyers but can also affect their buying decisions. With the development of online review systems, consumers can express personal opinions on a particular product freely online without being limited to face-to-face interactions. This new form of WOM, such as online reviews, has generated great interest to companies and researchers since more and more consumers are engaging in the online review systems. For example, a best seller book, such as one in the Harry Potter series, or a popular movie, such as one in the Star Wars series, can generate hundreds even thousands of online reviews. Studies have shown that those online reviews are significantly associated with consequent product sales (e.g. Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006, Liu 2006). In this proposal, we outline two studies to first investigate the relationships between reviewers and their reviews and between reviews and product sales and second examine the temporal patterns of review ratings and content. 2 Study 1 empirically examines the relationships between reviewer characteristics, such as their identity and reputation, and their reviews and between different review dimensions in terms of the volume, valence, quality, and position of reviews and the product sales of different product types. We use data from Amazon.com regarding information on books, reviews, and reviewers. To better capture the impact of reviews on product sales, we collect data from the release date of each book in our sample. Since studies have found that reviews at early stage tend to be more powerful on product sales than reviews at later stage (e.g. Liu 2006), our data enables us to observe such influence from the very first review. This study first analyzes how various reviewers provide reviews differently. Specifically, it focuses on contrasting reviews from anonymous or identified reviewers and high or low ranking reviewers. Second, it studies the impact of different review dimensions on the sales of popular or obscure products. This study has at least two unique contributions. First, it considers the impact of the information source on the impact of reviews. It studies the influence of reviewers' characteristics on their reviews which have not been considered in the previous studies. Second, …
Determinants of tourist satisfaction with national park guides and facilities in the Galápagos

Abstract Galápagos National Park is iconic for its biodiversity, its role in evolutionary science and as a tourist destination. Over 200,000 tourists visit per year, leading to tension between development and environmental protection. One way to alleviate tourist pressure is to increase visitor understanding for conservation through environmental education, delivered through national park guides and interpretation centres. This study investigated tourist satisfaction with official national park guides and park facilities. A latent class model of nearly 9000 tourists indicated that older women on cruise tours who had planned their trips well in advance were most satisfied with both. Younger men on short, spontaneous land-based visits were more likely not to be satisfied. However, while creating tourist products to satisfy young men could provide short-term economic benefits, such strategies could have long-term disadvantages if they threaten the Galápagos wildlife that gives the islands a competitive advantage over other sites.
Chemical transformations in organic aerosol from biomass burning

Fine aerosol particles were collected separately during daytime and nighttime at a tropical pasture site in Rondonia, Brazil, during the burning and dry-to-wet transition period in 2002. Total carbon (TC) and water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) were measured by evolved gas analysis (EGA). Based on the thermochemical properties of the fine aerosol, the relative amounts of the low and higher molecular weight compounds were estimated. It was found that the thermally refractory (possibly higher molecular weight) compounds dominated the TC composition. Their contribution to TC was higher in the daytime samples than in the nighttime ones. The relative share of WSOC also showed a statistically significant diel variation and so did its refractory fraction. Anhydrosugars and phenolic acids were determined by GC-MS and their diel variation was studied. Based on the decrease of their relative concentrations between the biomass burning and transition periods and their distinctly different diel variations, we suggest that the phenolic acids may undergo chemical transformations in the aerosol phase, possibly towards more refractory compounds (humic-like substances, HULIS), as has been suggested previously. These conclusions are supported by the results of the thermally assisted hydrolysis and methylation gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of the same filter samples.