Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
INFLUENCE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION STRATEGY IN PROBLEM FORMULATION ON DESIGN CREATIVITY THROUGH MENTAL STRESS: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS

Problem formulation is an important process in design. A right solution comes from a right problem statement; creative solution may come from a creative problem statement. In this paper, three strategies for collecting information in the problem formulation process are identified: depth-first, breadth-first and hybrid search. How each strategy affects the creativity through its impact on designer’s mental stress is examined. Among the three strategies, the hybrid approach is found to be the best as it allows designers to minimize uncertainty and focus on important design components.
Mining for Contiguous Frequent Itemsets in Transaction Databases

Mining a transaction database for association rules is a particularly popular data mining task, which involves the search for frequent co-occurrences among items. One of the problems often encountered is the large number of weak rules extracted. Item taxonomies, when available, can be used to reduce them to a more usable volume. In this paper we introduce a new data mining paradigm, which involves the discovery of contiguous frequent itemsets. We formulate the problem of mining contiguous frequent itemsets in a transaction database and we present a level-wise algorithm for finding these itemsets. Contiguous frequent itemsets may contain important knowledge about the dataset, that can not be exposed by the use of classic association rule mining approaches. This knowledge may well include serious hints for the generation of a taxonomy for all or part of the items.
Payment history, past returns and the performance of UK zero dividend stocks

Purpose –A growing strand of literature has focused on the returns performance of zero dividend stocks. This paper seeks to provide new evidence on the link between dividend payment and returns history and firms’ subsequent stock market performance. Design/methodology/approach - Prior research draws a distinction between those stocks which have never paid dividends and those which formerly paid dividends but subsequently ceased, implicitly using the latter as a measure of financial distress. The analysis is expanded beyond the role of payment history, and also the importance of earnings and past returns in the performance of UK zero-dividend stocks is considered. Findings -In contrast with the prior US evidence, it was found that payment history is not a significant determinant of returns, while past returns play a far greater role. However, this explanatory power seems to be diminishing over time. Research limitations/implications- The paper extends the existing knowledge about the behaviour of UK zero dividend stocks and establishes a benchmark for future research in the area. Practical implications- The prevalence of zero dividend stocks has grown over time. In the US, the proportion of listed companies paying dividends fell from 66.5 per cent in 1978 to only 20.8 per cent in 1999. In the UK, the proportion of companies omitting dividends rose to 25.2 per cent in 1999, from previous recession-year high points of 16.1 per cent in 1982 and 17.9 per cent in 1992. This paper provides new evidence of practical value to investors in this class of stocks. Originality/value - The paper presents original research in the area of dividend policy and stock returns, which should be of interest to both academic and practitioner audiences.
The effectiveness and efficiency of public spending

This paper shows that the efficiency in public services more generally and in public spending on education and R&D in particular varies significantly between countries. The paper, however, also illustrates the difficulties of measuring efficiency and effectiveness. Progress has been made in developing the necessary measurement techniques, but there is a lack of suitable data to apply those techniques. Â Good quality data are needed because the techniques available to measure efficiency are sensitive to outliers and may be influenced by exogenous factors. Against this background, analyses based upon individual spending areas seem to be a more promising approach to measure efficiency and effectiveness on a cross-country basis.
Epistatic and gene wide effects in YWHA and aromatic amino hydroxylase genes across ADHD and other common neuropsychiatric disorders: Association with YWHAE

Monoamines critically modulate neurophysiological functions affected in several neuropsychiatric disorders. We therefore examined genes encoding key enzymes of catecholamine and serotonin biosynthesis (tyrosine and tryptophan hydroxylases—TH and TPH1/2) as well as their regulatory 14‐3‐3 proteins (encoded by YWHA‐genes). Previous studies have focused mainly on the individual genes, but no analysis spanning this regulatory network has been reported. We explored interactions between these genes in Norwegian patients with adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (aADHD), followed by gene‐complex association tests in four major neuropsychiatric conditions; childhood ADHD (cADHD), bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder. For interaction analyses, we evaluated 55 SNPs across these genes in a sample of 583 aADHD patients and 637 controls. For the gene‐complex tests, we utilized the data from large‐scale studies of The Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC). The four major neuropsychiatric disorders were examined for association with each of the genes individually as well as in three complexes as follows: (1) TPH1 and YWHA‐genes; (2) TH, TPH2 and YWHA‐genes; and (3) all genes together. The results show suggestive epistasis between YWHAE and two other 14‐3‐3‐genes ‐ YWHAZ, YWHAQ ‐ in aADHD (nominal P‐value of 0.0005 and 0.0008, respectively). In PGC data, association between YWHAE and schizophrenia was noted (P = 1.00E‐05), whereas the combination of TPH1 and YWHA‐genes revealed signs of association in cADHD, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. In conclusion, polymorphisms in the YWHA‐genes and their targets may exert a cumulative effect in ADHD and related neuropsychiatric conditions, warranting the need for further investigation of these gene‐complexes. © 2015 The Authors. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A critique of modernization and dependency theories in Africa: critical assessment

The way states and development specialists rationalize how to commit economic resources to development is influenced, to a greater extent by their level of persuasion towards specific development theories. The discourse assesses the influence of modernization and dependency theories on Africa’s development. The conclusion is that both theories have failed to help develop Africa. The discourse pins hope on the African Renaissance theory of development. Key words: Modernization, dependency, rural underdevelopment, African renaissance.
Smoke Signals: The Intergenerational Transmission of Smoking Behavior

In this paper, we investigate the intergenerational transmission of smoking behavior from parents to their children using data from the German Socio- Economic Panel, surveyed in 1999 including 813 youths aged 16 through 19. We find strong evidence, that parental smoking significantly increases the probability that their children likewise become smokers. Youths living in families with both parents smoking are 3.3 times more likely to smoke themselves, while a smoking father raises the probability by the factor 2.8 and a smoking mother by the factor 2.1. Further, we treat single-parent households separately and control for other socioeconomic factors concerning the youths' smoking decision like household income, educational status and working status. Youths' leisure activities and personal attitudes are taken into consideration to test for determinants influencing youth smoking outside from the family context. Thus policies targeted at reducing juvenile smoking may fail, if parents' behavior is not taken into account.
Linear Models for Flux Vacua

We construct worldsheet descriptions of heterotic flux vacua as the IR limits of N=2 gauge theories. Spacetime torsion is incorporated via a 2d Green-Schwarz mechanism in which a doublet of axions cancels a one-loop gauge anomaly. Manifest (0, 2) supersymmetry and the compactness of the gauge theory instanton moduli space suggest that these models, which include Fu-Yau models, are stable against worldsheet instantons, implying that they, like Calabi-Yaus, may be smoothly extended to solutions of the exact beta functions. Since Fu-Yau compactifications are dual to KST-type flux compactifications, this provides a microscopic description of these IIB RR-flux vacua.
Identification of tobacco genes encoding proteins possessing removal activity of 5-methylcytosines from intact tobacco DNA

Cytosines in eukaryotic DNA is often methylated to yield 5-methylcytosines (m 5 C), which play an important role in controlling gene expression. This is referred as DNA methylation, and its status dynamically changes during plant growth by active methylation and demethylation. DNA glycosylases have been known to possess base excision DNA repair activity, and an Arabidopsis enzyme, ROS1 (Repressor of Silencing 1), was recently shown to exhibit m 5 C DNA glycosylase activity. We isolated and characterized four genes encoding ROS1-like proteins from tobacco plants (Nicotiana tabacum), and designated as NtROS1, NtROS2a, NtROS2b and NtROS3, each respectively encoding a polypeptide with 1796, 1673, 1673 and 1662 amino acids. Purified NtROS1 and NtROS2a proteins expressed in Sf9 insect cells clearly exhibited activity of m 5 C removal from tobacco genomic DNA in vitro. GFP fusion assay showed that NtROS1 and NtROS2a were localized in nucleus. Transcripts of NtROS1, NtROS2a and NtROS3 were induced by abiotic stresses, including aluminium, salt and reactive oxygen species. These observations suggested that NtROS proteins function in demethylating process of genomic DNA during plant stress response, thereby maintaining the balance of gene expression in combination with DNA methyltransferases.
PD-L1 and Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes as Prognostic Markers in Resected NSCLC

Introduction Immune checkpoint inhibition has shifted treatment paradigms in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Conflicting results have been reported regarding the immune infiltrate and programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) as a prognostic marker. We correlated the immune infiltrate and PD-L1 expression with clinicopathologic characteristics in a cohort of resected NSCLC. Methods A tissue microarray was constructed using triplicate cores from consecutive resected NSCLC. Immunohistochemistry was performed for CD8, FOXP3 and PD-L1. Strong PD-L1 expression was predefined as greater than 50% tumor cell positivity. Matched nodal samples were assessed for concordance of PD-L1 expression. Results Of 522 patients, 346 were node-negative (N0), 72 N1 and 109 N2; 265 were adenocarcinomas (AC), 182 squamous cell cancers (SCC) and 75 other. Strong PD-L1 expression was found in 24% cases. In the overall cohort, PD-L1 expression was not associated with survival. In patients with N2 disease, strong PD-L1 expression was associated with significantly improved disease-free (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in multivariate analysis (HR 0.49, 95%CI 0.36–0.94, p = 0.031; HR 0.46, 95%CI 0.26–0.80, p = 0.006). In this resected cohort only 5% harboured EGFR mutations, whereas 19% harboured KRAS and 23% other. KRAS mutated tumors were more likely to highly express PD-L1 compared to EGFR (22% vs 3%). A stromal CD8 infiltrate was associated with significantly improved DFS in SCC (HR 0.70, 95%CI 0.50–0.97, p = 0.034), but not AC, whereas FOXP3 was not prognostic. Matched nodal specimens (N = 53) were highly concordant for PD-L1 expression (89%). Conclusion PD-L1 expression was not prognostic in the overall cohort. PD-L1 expression in primary tumor and matched nodal specimens were highly concordant. The observed survival benefit in N2 disease requires confirmation.
Perioperative Intravenous Lidocaine Has Preventive Effects on Postoperative Pain and Morphine Consumption After Major Abdominal Surgery

Sodium channel blockers are approved for IV administration in the treatment of neuropathic pain states. Preclinical studies have suggested antihyperalgesic effects on the peripheral and central nervous system. Our objective in this study was to determine the time course of the analgesic and antihyperalgesic mechanisms of perioperative lidocaine administration. Forty patients undergoing major abdominal surgery participated in this randomized and double-blinded study. Twenty patients received lidocaine 2% (bolus injection of 1.5 mg/kg in 10 min followed by an IV infusion of 1.5 mg · kg−1 · h−1), and 20 patients received saline placebo. The infusion started 30 min before skin incision and was stopped 1 h after the end of surgery. Lidocaine blood concentrations were measured. Postoperative pain ratings (numeric rating scale of 0–10) and morphine consumption (patient-controlled analgesia) were assessed up to 72 h after surgery. Mean lidocaine levels during surgery were 1.9 ± 0.7 &mgr;g/mL. Patient-controlled analgesia with morphine produced good postoperative analgesia (numeric rating scale at rest, ≤3; 90%–95%; no group differences). Patients who received lidocaine reported less pain during movement and needed less morphine during the first 72 h after surgery (103.1 ± 72.0 mg versus 159.0 ± 73.3 mg; Student’s t-test; P < 0.05). Because this opioid-sparing effect was most pronounced on the third postoperative day, IV lidocaine may have a true preventive analgesic activity, most likely by preventing the induction of central hyperalgesia in a clinically relevant manner.
Performance Comparision of Internal and External Rotor Structured Wind Generators Mounted from Same Permanent Magnets on Same Geometry

In this study, internal and external rotor radial-flux machine constructions built with surface mounted by applying the same NdFeB were compared according to torque density, vigorous material weight, outer radius, total length and volume, generated power and efficiency. Induced phase voltages and winding currents under load, airgap flux density, output power versus speed and material consumption for internal and external rotor PM generators have been obtained as the results of comparison. It was inferred that external rotor PM machines have a smaller volume, lower output power and efficiency, higher armature thermal load and current density than internal rotor PM machines by applying the same PM geometry and features for a given power rating. Therefore it was seen that the external rotor construction was more suitable to be applied in wind power systems because of external rotor structured PM machines have lower total weight and cost. Ill. 12, bibl. 12 (in English; summaries in English, Russian and Lithuanian).
The Keys to Managing Instruction and Behavior: Considering High Probability Practices

Academics and behavior are inextricably linked, and as such, management of behavior should be considered not as an addition to the teacher’s repertoire of skills but as an integral foundational component of effective instruction. Paradoxically, teachers report that students with challenging behavior are both their greatest challenge and that behavior management is the skill with which they are least prepared in their teacher preparation programs. In this article, the authors first review a rationale for considering high probability practices as those that provide the best probability for student success. Next, they present a set of key teacher-implemented management strategies as an essential part of the curriculum for any prospective teacher.
Advanced glycosylation endproduct-specific receptors on human and rat T- lymphocytes mediate synthesis of interferon gamma: role in tissue remodeling

During normal aging and in chronic diabetes the excessive accumulation of reactive glucose-protein or glucose-lipid adducts known as advanced glycosylation endproducts (AGEs) has been shown to induce tissue dysfunction, in part through interaction with AGE-specific receptors on monocyte/macrophages and other cells. Recognizing that circulating lymphocytes trafficking through tissues interact with tissue AGEs, we searched for the expression of AGE-binding sites on peripheral blood T lymphocytes. Resting rat and human T cells bound 125I-AGE-albumin with an affinity of 7.8 x 10(7) M-1, whereas, after stimulation with phytohemagglutinin (PHA) for 48 h, binding affinity increased to 5.8 x 10(8) M-1. Flow cytometric analysis of resting rat T cells using polyclonal antibodies raised against rat liver AGE-binding proteins (p60 and p90) revealed the constitutive expression of both immunoreactivities. The number of resting CD4+ and CD8+ T cells positive for anti-p60 antibody binding (34.2 and 58.5%, respectively) increased to 92 and 90% of cells after 48-h stimulation with PHA. Exposure of PHA-activated T lymphocytes to AGE-albumin enhanced expression of interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) mRNA 10-fold and induced greater elaboration of the mature protein than did exposure to unmodified protein or PHA treatment alone. These data indicate that T cells contain an inducible system of surface receptors for AGE-modified proteins, and that receptor occupancy is linked to lymphokine production. This T cell AGE-receptor system might serve to target lymphocytes to AGE-rich tissues and involve them in the regulation of tissue homeostasis either by assisting in macrophage-dependent clearance of AGE-proteins, or by exerting direct antiproliferative action on mesenchymal cells. Under conditions of excessive AGE-protein and AGE lipid accumulation (e.g., aging and diabetes), enhanced production of AGE-induced IFN-gamma may accelerate immune responses that contribute to tissue injury.
The effects of service failures and recovery on customer loyalty in e‐services

Purpose – Despite having been widely studied in traditional (bricks‐and‐mortar) services, the effect of service failures and recovery (SFR) on customer loyalty has received only limited attention in the context of e‐services. This paper sets out to empirically test the following set of hypotheses in an e‐service setting: H1, service failures have a negative effect on customer loyalty intentions; H2, failure resolution has a positive effect on customer loyalty intentions; H3, satisfaction with the recovery has a positive effect on customer loyalty intentions; H4, outstanding recovery results in loyalty intentions which are more favorable than they would be had no failure occurred (service recovery paradox). Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on an online survey of actual customers of a commercial e‐banking service.Findings – H1‐H3 are supported, suggesting that: the detrimental effects of failures are also present online; problem resolution leads to increased loyalty; despite the challenging n.
SAFE-points: a lightweight algorithm for analyzing remote mobile ECG signals

In this paper, we present our Select All Fiducially Essential points (SAFE-points) algorithm that uses ECG signal images as an approach for achieving highly efficient ECG signal analysis within a mobile environment at a fraction of the associated costs in terms of latency, memory and goodput. We were able to achieve latency, memory and goodput values of about 17%, 25% and 25% respectively when compared with our reference.
Examining the Role of Demographics in Campus Crime Alerts

Colleges and universities are required by the Clery Act to issue crime alerts to members of the campus community. Issuing agencies have significant discretion in the timing and information included in crime alerts, including the perpetrator descriptors. The inclusion of perpetrator/suspect descriptions in the crime alert is intended to maximize public safety. Race descriptors may have negative consequences through the repetition of minority suspect information. To address the issue of demographic use in crime alerts, a mixed method approach was employed. A summary review of several years of crime alerts issued by a large urban university was conducted to assess the role of demographics. Qualitative data were collected through a series of focus groups and interviews addressing the balance of public safety and potential negative perceptions (perpetuated by crime alerts). Reviewed crime alerts indicate that they are largely posted for violent crimes, particularly robbery, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. Perpetrators are overwhelmingly male and largely Black. It is reasonable to question whether repeated descriptions of crime acts committed by Black males could raise, foster, or enhance negative stereotypes. Recommendations for model crime alerts and campus events are included. Consideration of stereotype impacts may influence crime alerts but circumstances and public risk may supersede these concerns.
Link quality aware and content centric data aggregation in lossy wireless networks

In low-power and lossy wireless networks, message delivery could be jeopardized by factors such as channel conditions, noise, interference etc. This can lead to communication retransmissions, resulting in significant energy depletion and consequently consumes limited on-node energy resources. This paper elaborates on a two-pronged approach to improve energy efficiency and reliability of communications: a) the application of content-centric data aggregation (pre-processing of correlated information) at each node to reduce traffic volume, and b) the use of link quality information to estimate local network lifetime while routing traffic. A novel objective function is proposed which ties the two together and findings from a performance evaluation are presented. It is shown that the proposed mechanism is able to achieve significant energy savings and prolongs the network lifetime in energy constrained multi-hop networks with lossy wireless links.
Preferences for Truth-Telling

Private information is at the heart of many economic activities. For decades, economists have assumed that individuals are willing to misreport private information if this maximizes their material payoff. We combine data from 90 experimental studies in economics, psychology, and sociology, and show that, in fact, people lie surprisingly little. We then formalize a wide range of potential explanations for the observed behavior, identify testable predictions that can distinguish between the models, and conduct new experiments to do so. Our empirical evidence suggests that a preference for being seen as honest and a preference for being honest are the main motivations for truth‐telling.
Bayesian robust multivariate linear regression with incomplete data

Abstract The multivariate t distribution and other normal/independent multivariate distributions, such as the multivariate slash distribution and the multivariate contaminated distribution, are used for robust regression with complete or incomplete data. Most previous work focused on the method of maximum likelihood estimation for linear regression using normal/independent distributions. This article considers Bayesian estimation of multivariate linear regression models using normal/independent distributions with fully observed predictor variables and possible missing values from outcome variables. A monotone data augmentation algorithm for posterior simulation of the parameters and missing data imputation is presented. The posterior distributions of functions of the parameters can be obtained using Monte Carlo methods. The monotone data augmentation algorithm can also be used for creating multiple imputations for incomplete data sets. An illustrative example of using the multivariate t is also included.