Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reliability and Stability of Elementary Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) Scores Across Gender, Race, and Grade Level.

The reliability and stability of Elementary Reading A ttitude Survey ( ERAS) scores were examined for the recreational and academic subscales and for the total scale. The responses of 718 students in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades were included in the analyses. A seven-day interval between testings was used. The recreational and academic subscale scores and the total scale scores of the ERAS were analyzed by gender, ethnicity, and grade level. The alpha coefficients suggested adequate internal consistency across gender, ethnicity, and grade level, with all coefficients exceeding . 75. The stability coefficients associated with gender and ethnicity were below . 70 level, ranging from . 48 to . 67. Except for grade six students, the stability of the ERAS scores over the seven-day interval tended to be low.
Design of a 24GHz low phase-noise,wide tuning-range VCO with optimized switches in capacitor array and bias filtering technique

A low phase-noise 24GHz VCO (voltage-controlled oscillator) for mm-wave WLANs (wireless LANs) using IBM 90nm CMOS process is presented. A current source is used to minimize the impact due to the process variation. Biasing filter technique is adopted to improve the phase noise performance. In addition, optimized switches are proposed to prevent phase noise degradation. Simulation shows that −101dBc/Hz phase noise is achieved at 1MHz offset. The tuning range of the VCO spans from 24.2GHz to 29.1GHz. Total power consumption of the VCO core is 2.8mW from 0.8V supply.
Determination of End‐Tidal Sevoflurane Concentration for Tracheal Intubation and Minimum Alveolar Anesthetic Concentration in Adults

The purpose of this study was to determine both the concentration of sevoflurane required for tracheal intubation (MACEI) and its minimum alveolar anesthetic concentration (MAC) in adults. The study group consisted of 86 elective surgical patients, ASA physical status I or II, aged 16–59 yr. There was no premedication administered. For MACEI determination, after establishing and maintaining the predetermined end-tidal concentration for 20 min, tracheal intubation was attempted using a cuffed tracheal tube without muscle relaxant or other adjuvants. Each concentration at which tracheal intubation was attempted was predetermined as follows: 2.5%, 3.0%, 3.5%, 4.0%, 4.5%, 5.0%, 5.5%, 6.0%, 6.5%, and 7.0%. For MAC determination, the patients examined were basically the same as those for MACEI determination, except for those who received muscle relaxant or other adjuvants because they were “not intubated smoothly. ” After establishing and maintaining the predetermined end-tidal concentration at which skin incision was attempted was concentration at which skin incision was attempted was predetermined as follows: 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, 2.0%, 2.5%, and 3.0%. The MACEI of sevoflurane was 4.52% (95% confidence limits, 3.91%-5.21%), and the ED95 for tracheal intubation was 8.07%. The MAC of sevoflurane was 1.58% (95% confidence limits, 1.14%-1.98%), and the AD95 (anesthetic ED95) was 2.96%. The MACEI/ MAC ratio was 2.86 (95% confidence limits, 2.63–3.43). Anesthesia induction followed by tracheal intubation can be accomplished in adults when sevoflurane is administered as a sole anesthetic, but in excess of 8% end-tidal concentration.
Association of dietary intake of fat and fatty acids with risk of breast cancer.

CONTEXT High intakes of fat and specific fatty acids, including total, animal, saturated, polyunsaturated, and trans-unsaturated fats, have been postulated to increase breast cancer risk. OBJECTIVE To determine whether intakes of fat and fatty acids are associated with breast cancer. DESIGN AND SETTING Cohort study (Nurses' Health Study) conducted in the United States beginning in 1976. PARTICIPANTS A total of 88795 women free of cancer in 1980 and followed up for 14 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Relative risk (RR) of invasive breast cancer for an incremental increase of fat intake, ascertained by food frequency questionnaire in 1980, 1984, 1986, and 1990. RESULTS A total of 2956 women were diagnosed as having breast cancer. Compared with women obtaining 30.1% to 35% of energy from fat, women consuming 20% or less had a multivariate RR of breast cancer of 1.15 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.73-1.80). In multivariate models, the RR (95% CI) for a 5%-of-energy increase was 0.97 (0.94-1.00) for total fat, 0.98 (0.96-1.01) for animal fat, 0.97 (0.93-1.02) for vegetable fat, 0.94 (0.88-1.01) for saturated fat, 0.91 (0.79-1.04) for polyunsaturated fat, and 0.94 (0.88-1.00) for monounsaturated fat. For a 1% increase in energy from trans-unsaturated fat, the values were 0.92 (0.86-0.98), and for a 0.1% increase in energy from omega-3 fat from fish, the values were 1.09 (1.03-1.16). In a model including fat, protein, and energy, the RR for a 5% increase in total fat, which can be interpreted as the risk of substituting this amount of fat for an equal amount of energy from carbohydrate, was 0.96 (95% CI, 0.93-0.99). In similar models, no significant association of risk was evident with any major types of fat. CONCLUSION We found no evidence that lower intake of total fat or specific major types of fat was associated with a decreased risk of breast cancer.
Automatically Inferring the Evolution of Malicious Activity on the Internet

Internet-based services routinely contend with a range of malicious activity (e.g., spam, scans, botnets) that can potentially arise from virtually any part of the global Internet infrastructure and that can shift longitudinally over time. In this paper, we develop the first algorithmic techniques to automatically infer regions of the Internet with shifting security characteristics in an online fashion. Conceptually, our key idea is to model the malicious activity on the Internet as a decision tree over the IP address space, and identify the dynamics of the malicious activity by inferring the dynamics of the decision tree. Our evaluations on large corpuses of mail data and botnet data indicate that our algorithms are fast, can keep up with Internet-scale traffic data, and can extract changes in sources of malicious activity substantially better (a factor of 2.5) than approaches based on using predetermined levels of aggregation such as BGP-based network-aware clusters. Our case studies demonstrate our algorithm’s ability to summarize large shifts in malicious activity to a small number of IP regions (by as much as two orders of magnitude), and thus help focus limited operator resources. Using our algorithms, we find that some regions of the Internet are prone to much faster changes than others, such as a set of small and medium-sized hosting providers that are of particular interest to mail operators.
Tweet Can Be Fit

Wellness is a widely popular concept that is commonly applied to fitness and self-help products or services. Inference of personal wellness--related attributes, such as body mass index (BMI) category or disease tendency, as well as understanding of global dependencies between wellness attributes and users’ behavior, is of crucial importance to various applications in personal and public wellness domains. At the same time, the emergence of social media platforms and wearable sensors makes it feasible to perform wellness profiling for users from multiple perspectives. However, research efforts on wellness profiling and integration of social media and sensor data are relatively sparse. This study represents one of the first attempts in this direction. Specifically, we infer personal wellness attributes by utilizing our proposed multisource multitask wellness profile learning framework—WellMTL—which can handle data incompleteness and perform wellness attributes inference from sensor and social media data simultaneously. To gain insights into the data at a global level, we also examine correlations between first-order data representations and personal wellness attributes. Our experimental results show that the integration of sensor data and multiple social media sources can substantially boost the performance of individual wellness profiling.
Latino Independents and Identity Formation Under Uncertainty

Since the 1950s, there has been roughly a two-fold rise in the proportion of Americans who identify as political Independents. We argue that the ethnic and immigrant experiences of Latinos shed new light on why and how individuals self-identify with a political party. For Latinos, we argue, party identification is defined by social and political identity formation under uncertainty. We argue that for immigrant-based ethnic groups like Latinos, identification as Independent is a rationally adaptive strategy given uncertainty and ambivalence about one’s social group attachments, one’s core political predispositions, and the benefits of political and civic involvement to pursue the individual and group interests of Latinos in the US. Absent home-grown and wellgrooved habits, the category of Independent affords a safe harbor for many Latinos from which to bank experiences and impressions about political life in the US. We test our account using data from 1989-1990 Latino National Politics Study, the 1993-1994 Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality and the American National Election Studies.
Behavioral and Brain Functions

The genetic mechanisms involved in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are being studied with considerable success by several centres worldwide. These studies confirm prior hypotheses about the role of genetic variation within genes involved in the regulation of dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin neurotransmission in susceptibility to ADHD. Despite the importance of these findings, uncertainties remain due to the very small effects sizes that are observed. We discuss possible reasons for why the true strength of the associations may have been underestimated in research to date, considering the effects of linkage disequilibrium, allelic heterogeneity, population differences and gene by environment interactions. With the identification of genes associated with ADHD, the goal of ADHD genetics is now shifting from gene discovery towards gene functionality – the study of intermediate phenotypes ('endophenotypes'). We discuss methodological issues relating to quantitative genetic data from twin and family studies on candidate endophenotypes and how such data can inform attempts to link molecular genetic data to cognitive, affective and motivational processes in ADHD. The International Multi-centre ADHD Gene (IMAGE) project exemplifies current collaborative research efforts on the genetics of ADHD. This European multi-site project is well placed to take advantage of the resources that are emerging following the sequencing of the human genome and the development of international resources for whole genome association analysis. As a result of IMAGE and other molecular genetic investigations of ADHD, we envisage a rapid increase in the number of identified genetic variants and the promise of identifying novel gene systems that we are not currently investigating, opening further doors in the study of gene functionality. Background Research into the etiology of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) exemplifies the way that inter-disciplinary research fosters collaboration and opens up new avenues of investigation. International research has established that there is a strong genetically inherited contribution to ADHD and the genetic mechanisms involved are being sorted with considerable success by several centres Published: 03 August 2006 Behavioral and Brain Functions 2006, 2:27 doi:10.1186/1744-9081-2-27 Received: 07 February 2006 Accepted: 03 August 2006 This article is available from: http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions. com/content/2/1/27 © 2006 Kuntsi et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Ovine TRIM5α Can Restrict Visna/Maedi Virus

ABSTRACT The restrictive properties of tripartite motif-containing 5 alpha (TRIM5α) from small ruminant species have not been explored. Here, we identify highly similar TRIM5α sequences in sheep and goats. Cells transduced with ovine TRIM5α effectively restricted the lentivirus visna/maedi virus DNA synthesis. Proteasome inhibition in cells transduced with ovine TRIM5α restored restricted viral DNA synthesis, suggesting a conserved mechanism of restriction. Identification of TRIM5α active molecular species may open new prophylactic strategies against lentiviral infections.
Dual Toxin-Producing Strain of Clostridium botulinum Type Bf Isolated from a California Patient with Infant Botulism

ABSTRACT A retrospective study of Clostridium botulinum strains isolated from patients from California with infant botulism identified the fourth known C. botulinum strain that produces both type B and type F botulinum toxins. This unique strain represented 0.12% of the California infant botulism case isolates from 1976 to 2003. The relative concentrations of type B and F toxins produced were temperature dependent.
Less favourable climates constrain demographic strategies in plants

Abstract Correlative species distribution models are based on the observed relationship between species’ occurrence and macroclimate or other environmental variables. In climates predicted less favourable populations are expected to decline, and in favourable climates they are expected to persist. However, little comparative empirical support exists for a relationship between predicted climate suitability and population performance. We found that the performance of 93 populations of 34 plant species worldwide – as measured by in situ population growth rate, its temporal variation and extinction risk – was not correlated with climate suitability. However, correlations of demographic processes underpinning population performance with climate suitability indicated both resistance and vulnerability pathways of population responses to climate: in less suitable climates, plants experienced greater retrogression (resistance pathway) and greater variability in some demographic rates (vulnerability pathway). While a range of demographic strategies occur within species’ climatic niches, demographic strategies are more constrained in climates predicted to be less suitable.
Distributed Consensus Algorithms in Sensor Networks: Link Failures and Channel Noise

The paper studies average consensus with random topologies (intermittent links) \emph{and} noisy channels. Consensus with noise in the network links leads to the bias-variance dilemma--running consensus for long reduces the bias of the final average estimate but increases its variance. We present two different compromises to this tradeoff: the $\mathcal{A-ND}$ algorithm modifies conventional consensus by forcing the weights to satisfy a \emph{persistence} condition (slowly decaying to zero); and the $\mathcal{A-NC}$ algorithm where the weights are constant but consensus is run for a fixed number of iterations $\hat{\imath}$, then it is restarted and rerun for a total of $\hat{p}$ runs, and at the end averages the final states of the $\hat{p}$ runs (Monte Carlo averaging). We use controlled Markov processes and stochastic approximation arguments to prove almost sure convergence of $\mathcal{A-ND}$ to the desired average (asymptotic unbiasedness) and compute explicitly the m.s.e. (variance) of the consensus limit. We show that $\mathcal{A-ND}$ represents the best of both worlds--low bias and low variance--at the cost of a slow convergence rate; rescaling the weights.
Promoting role of an endophyte on the growth and contents of kinsenosides and flavonoids of Anoectochilus formosanus Hayata, a rare and threatened medicinal Orchidaceae plant

Anoectochilus formosanus, commonly known as “Jewel Orchid”, is a Chinese folk medicine used to treat hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease. The existence of A. formosanus is currently threatened by habitat loss, human and animal consumption, etc. The highly potent medicinal activity of A. formosanus is due to its secondary metabolites, especially kinsenosides and flavonoids. This orchid also has a unique mycorrhizal relationship. Most adult orchids rely on endophytes for mineral nutrition and have complex interactions with them, which are related to plant growth, yield and changes in secondary metabolites. This study investigated the promoting role of F-23 fungus (genus Mycena) on the biomass and contents of kinsenosides and flavonoids of A. formosanus in pot culture. The following were observed after 10 weeks of symbiotic cultivation: increased shoot height, shoot dry weight, and leaf numbers by 16.6%, 31.3%, and 22.5%, respectively; increased contents of kinsenosides, isorhamnetin-3-O-β-d-rutinoside, and isorhamnetin-3-O-β-d-glucopyranoside by 85.5%, 226.1%, and 196.0%, respectively; some hyphae in epidermal cells dyed red and/or reddish brown by safranine; and, significantly reduced number of starch grains in cortical cells. Moreover, F-23 fungus significantly improved the kinsenoside and flavonoid contents of A. formosanus. These findings supported the reports that endophytes can alter the production of secondary metabolites in their plant hosts, although further physiological, genetic and ecological analyses are warranted.
Backfilling Using System-Generated Predictions Rather than User Runtime Estimates

The most commonly used scheduling algorithm for parallel supercomputers is FCFS with backfilling, as originally introduced in the EASY scheduler. Backfilling means that short jobs are allowed to run ahead of their time provided they do not delay previously queued jobs (or at least the first queued job). However, predictions have not been incorporated into production schedulers, partially due to a misconception (that we resolve) claiming inaccuracy actually improves performance, but mainly because underprediction is technically unacceptable: users will not tolerate jobs being killed just because system predictions were too short. We solve this problem by divorcing kill-time from the runtime prediction and correcting predictions adaptively as needed if they are proved wrong. The end result is a surprisingly simple scheduler, which requires minimal deviations from current practices (e.g., using FCFS as the basis) and behaves exactly like EASY as far as users are concerned; nevertheless, it achieves significant improvements in performance, predictability, and accuracy. Notably, this is based on a very simple runtime predictor that just averages the runtimes of the last two jobs by the same user; counter intuitively, our results indicate that using recent data is more important than mining the history for similar jobs. All the techniques suggested in this paper can be used to enhance any backfilling algorithm and are not limited to EASY
Peripheral Chemoreceptor Hypersensitivity: An Ominous Sign in Patients With Chronic Heart Failure

Background—Peripheral chemoreceptor hypersensitivity is a feature of abnormal cardiorespiratory reflex control in chronic heart failure (CHF) and may contribute to sympathetic overactivity, attenuated baroreflex sensitivity (BRS), and excessive ventilation during exercise. We studied whether augmented peripheral chemosensitivity carries independent prognostic significance. Methods and Results—We assessed peripheral chemosensitivity (ventilatory response to hypoxia using transient inhalation of pure nitrogen) and BRS (phenylephrine and spectral methods) in 80 consecutive CHF patients (age 58±9 years; left ventricular ejection fraction [LVEF] 24±12%; peak oxygen consumption [peak &OV0312;o2] 18±7 mL−1 · min−1). CHF patients demonstrated augmented peripheral chemosensitivity and decreased BRS (all P <0.01 versus reference values). During follow-up (median 41 months, >3 years in all survivors), 37 patients died. High peripheral chemosensitivity (>0.72 L · min−1 · %Sao2−1) predicted impaired survival (hazard ratio 3.2, 95% CI 1.6 to 6.0, P =0.0006). In the 27 patients (34%) with high peripheral chemosensitivity, 3-year survival was 41% (95% CI 22% to 60%) compared with 77% (66% to 89%) in 53 patients with normal chemosensitivity (P =0.0002). In multivariate analyses, augmented chemosensitivity independently predicted death (hazard ratio 2.8, 95% CI 1.5 to 5.5, adjusted for age, peak &OV0312;o2, and &OV0312;e/&OV0312;co2 [P =0.002]; hazard ratio 2.6, 95% CI 1.3 to 5.1, adjusted for age, LVEF, and peak &OV0312;o2 [P =0.008]). Depressed BRS was related to unfavorable prognosis in univariate analysis (P =0.05) but not in multivariate analyses. Conclusions—Hypersensitivity of the peripheral chemoreceptors independently predicts adverse prognosis in ambulatory patients with CHF. This hyperactive excitatory reflex, through its inhibitory effect on the baroreflex, may be the reason for the previously observed prognostic association of the latter.
Elderly age is not a negative predictive factor for virological response to therapy with pegylated interferon‐α and ribavirin in chronic hepatitis C virus patients

Age is frequently discussed as negative host factor to achieve a sustained virological response (SVR) to antiviral therapy of chronic hepatitis C. However, elderly patients often show advanced fibrosis/cirrhosis as known negative predictive factor. The aim of this study was to assess age as an independent predictive factor during antiviral therapy.
Profound Alterations of Intestinal Microbiota following a Single Dose of Clindamycin Results in Sustained Susceptibility to Clostridium difficile-Induced Colitis

ABSTRACT Antibiotic-induced changes in the intestinal microbiota predispose mammalian hosts to infection with antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Clostridium difficile is a Gram-positive intestinal pathogen that causes colitis and diarrhea in patients following antibiotic treatment. Clindamycin predisposes patients to C. difficile colitis. Here, we have used Roche-454 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing to longitudinally characterize the intestinal microbiota of mice following clindamycin treatment in the presence or absence of C. difficile infection. We show that a single dose of clindamycin markedly reduces the diversity of the intestinal microbiota for at least 28 days, with an enduring loss of ca. 90% of normal microbial taxa from the cecum. Loss of microbial complexity results in dramatic sequential expansion and contraction of a subset of bacterial taxa that are minor contributors to the microbial consortium prior to antibiotic treatment. Inoculation of clindamycin-treated mice with C. difficile (VPI 10463) spores results in rapid development of diarrhea and colitis, with a 4- to 5-day period of profound weight loss and an associated 40 to 50% mortality rate. Recovering mice resolve diarrhea and regain weight but remain highly infected with toxin-producing vegetative C. difficile bacteria and, in comparison to the acute stage of infection, have persistent, albeit ameliorated cecal and colonic inflammation. The microbiota of “recovered” mice remains highly restricted, and mice remain susceptible to C. difficile infection at least 10 days following clindamycin, suggesting that resolution of diarrhea and weight gain may result from the activation of mucosal immune defenses.