Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Roles of Ghrelin and Leptin in the Control of Reproductive Function

Reproductive function in mammals, defined as the capacity to generate viable male and female gametes, and to support pregnancy and lactation selectively in the female, is sensitive to the metabolic state of the organism. This contention, long assumed on the basis of intuitive knowledge, became formulated on a scientific basis only recently, with the identification of a number of neuroendocrine signals which crucially participate in the joint control of energy balance and reproduction. A paradigmatic example in this context is the adipocyte-derived hormone, leptin; a satiety factor which signals the amount of body energy (fat) stores not only to the circuits controlling food intake but also to a number of neuroendocrine axes, including the reproductive system. More recently, the reproductive dimension of another metabolic hormone, namely the orexigenic stomach-secreted peptide, ghrelin, has been disclosed by observations on its putative roles in the control of gonadal function and gonadotropin secretion. Of note, leptin and ghrelin have been proposed to act as reciprocal regulators of energy homeostasis. However, their potential interplay in the control of reproduction remains largely unexplored. Based on the comparison of the biological actions of leptin and ghrelin at different levels of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, reviewed in detail herein, we propose that, through concurrent or antagonistic actions, the leptin-ghrelin pair is likely to operate also as modulator of different reproductive functions, thereby contributing to the physiological integration of reproduction and energy balance.
Pixel Unmixing in Hyperspectral Data by Means of Neural Networks

Neural networks (NNs) are recognized as very effective techniques when facing complex retrieval tasks in remote sensing. In this paper, the potential of NNs has been applied in solving the unmixing problem in hyperspectral data. In its complete form, the processing scheme uses an NN architecture consisting of two stages: the first stage reduces the dimension of the input vector, while the second stage performs the mapping from the reduced input vector to the abundance percentages. The dimensionality reduction is performed by the so-called autoassociative NNs, which yield a nonlinear principal component analysis of the data. The evaluation of the whole performance is carried out for different sets of experimental data. The first one is provided by the Airborne Hyperspectral Scanner. The second set consists of images from the Compact High-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer on board the Project for On-Board Autonomy satellite, and it includes multiangle and multitemporal acquisitions. The third set is represented by Airborne Visible/InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer measurements. A quantitative performance analysis has been carried out in terms of effectiveness in the dimensionality reduction phase and in terms of the accuracy in the final estimation. The results obtained, when compared with those produced by appropriate benchmark techniques, show the advantages of this approach.
Regulating Truancy: The Role of the Education Welfare Service

This paper considers the responses made by the Education Welfare Service to school non-attendance, or ‘truancy’. The historical development of the service is examined, along with Victorian discourse on schooling. This discourse provided the rationale for the introduction of compulsory schooling, and contributed to the pathologisation of truancy. The development of a ‘pathology of truancy’ over the past century has involved, firstly, the categorisation of truants, and secondly, the regulation of truants and their families. The dichotomy between ‘care’ and ‘control’ measures is central to an understanding of these two processes of categorisation and regulation. These processes are discussed with reference to the Education Welfare Service in a city in the North Midlands. The article concludes with an exploration of possible future developments within the national service, in the light of the Children Act 1989.
Global norms and local politics: uses and abuses of education gender quotas in Tajikistan

In Central Asia, the post‐Soviet transformation period has been accompanied by significant economic and social costs, including the widening of the gender gaps in politics, economy and the social sphere. Tajikistan, which receives the largest amount of international aid and has the worst record of gender inequity in Central Asia, has quickly responded to the worsening situation by introducing quotas favoring female representation in politics, labor market and education. This article examines the context within which international gender equity norms were introduced in the 1990s as well as the factors that account for the variation in implementation of these policies. By using the case study of Tajikistan, this article suggests that the introduction of policies favoring female participation in political, economic and social life has largely depended on the transfer of international discourses on gender equality, while their implementation has been halted by historical legacies, economic realities and local political factors.
Competition Among Hospitals

We examine competition in the hospital industry, in particular the effect of ownership type (for-profit, not-for-profit, government). We estimate a structural model of demand and pricing in the hospital industry in California, then use the estimates to simulate the effect of a merger. California hospitals in 1995 face an average price elasticity of demand of -4.85. Not-for-profit hospitals face less elastic demand and act as if they have lower marginal costs. Their prices are lower than those of for-profits, but markups are higher. We simulate the effects of the 1997 merger of two hospital chains. In San Luis Obispo County, where the merger creates a near monopoly, prices rise by up to 53%, and the predicted price increase would not be substantially smaller were the chains not-for-profit.
Determining the educational needs of parents of mentally deficient children Zihinsel yetersizliği bulunan çocuk sahibi ebeveynlerin eğitim gereksinimlerinin belirlenmesi

This study was conducted for the purpose of determining educational needs of parents who have mentally deficient children at the age of 5-10. This study examined the educational needs of parents with mentally deficient children at the age of 5 to 10 as well as analyzing the existence of any differences between parental needs depending on different age groups of children. The sampling, which was formed by random selection, was composed of 364 voluntary parents with mentally disabled children at the age of 5 to 10 and attending a rehabilitation center. , The “Educational Needs Form” was used to identify the subjects about which they desired to receive education The form composed of general information about mental deficiency, legal rights, supporting development of children, education of children, communication and participation of children in social activities and one open-ended question. It was seen that parents in all age groups needed education. When necessities of parents were considered depending on age group of children, it was found that families with 5-6 years old mentally deficient children needed “general information about mental deficiencies" more than parents with children in other age groups. All parents need education on such matters as legal rights, supporting child's development, communication and social activities. Although parents in all age groups need education about children's educational requirements, those with children in 5-6 year group bear a higher rate of necessity. Ozet Bu calisma 5-10 yaslarinda zihinsel yetersizligi bulunan cocuga sahip ebeveynlerin egitim gereksinimlerini belirlemek amaciyla yapilmistir. Arastirma grubunu tesadufi yontemle secilen, rehabilitasyon merkezine devam eden 5-10 yaslarinda zihinsel yetersizligi bulunan cocuga sahip gonullu 364 ebeveyn olusturmustur. Ebeveynlerinin egitim almak istedikleri konulari belirlemek amaciyla “Egitim Gereksinimi Belirleme Formu” kullanilmistir. Form, zihinsel yetersizlikle ilgili genel bilgiler, yasal haklar, cocugun gelisimi destekleme, cocugun egitimi, iletisim ve cocugun sosyal aktivitelere katilimla ilgili konulari iceren ve bir acik uclu sorudan olusmustur. Calismanin siralanan konularda tum yas gruplarindaki ebeveynlerin egitim gereksinimi oldugu gorulmustur. Cocuklarin yas gruplarina gore ebeveynlerin gereksinimleri incelendiginde, 5-6 yaslarinda zihinsel yetersizligi bulunan cocuga sahip ailelerin “zihinsel yetersizlikle ilgili genel bilgilere” diger yas gruplarinda cocugu bulunan ebeveynlere gore daha fazla gereksinim oldugu belirlenmistir. Yasal haklarla, cocugun gelisimini destekleme, ebeveynlerin daha fazla oldugu gorulmektedir.
Mental Computation and Estimation: Past, Present, and Future

buy? 2. A car averages 55 miles per hour on the interstate highway. About how far will it travel in 31/2 hours? 3. The grocery store ticket reports a total of $19.50 for three gallons of milk and two loaves of bread. Is that reasonable? 4. You pay for a purchase of $1.83 with a $5 bill. About how much change should you receive? 5. You receive a restaurant bill for $18.95. About how much should you tip the waiter? 6. The calculator reports the sum of 1,856 and 2,743 to be 5091008. Could that be correct?
Delinquent Readers: a study of the problem in university libraries

The article is concerned with the delinquent reader problem in British university libraries, taking the term "delinquent reader" to mean: a user of the library who overborrows to a high degree; or retains books after they have been recalled; or illegally borrows, steals or mutilates books. It appears that reader delinquency is already serious in some university libraries, and that it is tending to increase. It affects all physical forms of library material, and all subject fields (but especially the social sciences). Three parties are involved when reader delinquency occurs: the library, the delinquent reader, and the mass of other readers. In the library context, many factors—including security, availability of material, photocopying facilities, and sanctions—are interconnected. The librarian must know which of the variables to manipulate, which to maintain unchanged; and if he makes the wrong decisions, he will positively encourage reader delinquency. There are indications that the mass of non-delinquent readers are guilty of encouraging delinquent behaviour, by failing to condemn retention after recall, overborrowing, illegal borrowing, and even, in some universities, stealing. The typical initiator of delinquent behaviour is a habitually selfish person. His attitude is that the library is to be exploited in his personal interests, whatever the cost to others. He does not consider himself dishonest, or think that what he does is wrong.
Optimization of the Jaccard index for image segmentation with the Lovász hinge

The Jaccard loss, commonly referred to as the intersection-over-union loss, is commonly employed in the evaluation of segmentation quality due to its better perceptual quality and scale invariance, which lends appropriate relevance to small objects compared with per-pixel losses. We present a method for direct optimization of the per-image intersection-over-union loss in neural networks, in the context of semantic image segmentation, based on a convex surrogate: the Lov\'asz hinge. The loss is shown to perform better with respect to the Jaccard index measure than other losses traditionally used in the context of semantic segmentation; such as cross-entropy. We develop a specialized optimization method, based on an efficient computation of the proximal operator of the Lov\'asz hinge, yielding reliably faster and more stable optimization than alternatives. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method by showing substantially improved intersection-overunion segmentation scores on the Pascal VOC dataset using a state-of-the-art deep learning segmentation architecture.
W.E.B. Du Bois's Talented Tenth

The Talented Tenth is the moniker that W.E. B. Du Bois bestowed on the cadre of college-educated African Americans whom he charged with providing leadership for the African American community during the post-Reconstruction era. According to Du Bois's original theoretical formulation, the Talented Tenth were to sacrifice their personal interests and endeavors to provide leadership for the African American community. Following in Du Bois's footsteps, this inquiry uses the National Black Politics Study to examine the attitudes of today's Talented Tenth concerning their responsibilities as leaders of their respective communities. Multivariate findings indicate that among other things, the Talented Tenth report being more politically active and more involved in their communities and are suspect of the motives of the Black middle class. The authors' results suggest that the Talented Tenth are fulfilling the charge placed before them by W.E. B. Du Bois.
Sex Differences in Correlates of Political Activity Among the Aged

given to change in the level ot participation through the life cycle, attitudes toward the poliical system, interest in politics, ana the development of agea-based political organizations (Campbell, 1971, Crittenden, 1962, 1963; Cutler, 1973i Cutler and Schmidhauser, 1975; Glen and Grimes, Z96b; havignurst, 1960; Pratt, 1974, Riley and Foner, 1968). Little attention, however, has been given to contrasting factors which may foster political involvement among older men and women. This study considers the differential effects of life changes occurring in late adulthood and demograpahic characteristics on the political participation of older men and
Consensus development conference on antipsychotic drugs and obesity and diabetes: response to consensus statement.

We of course welcome the fact that the issue of obesity and diabetes in the management of psychosis is taken seriously by the disciplines represented in this conference (1). However, as clinical psychiatrists we are concerned that some of the matters raised may give an unintentionally misleading message. We are far from sure, for example, that the evidence supports the view that there is so much disparity in the incidence of obesity and diabetes among first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs) and second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs). Furthermore, there is no evidence, for that matter, of disparity …
Factors influencing the adoption of interactive TV in Hong Kong: Implications for advertising

Digitalization and signal compression technologies have led to an explosive growth of new media products and services with the characteristics of mobility, connectivity, interactivity, and expanded choice. This study attempts to shed light on adoption patterns of new media technologies by focusing on interactive TV—a service launched in Hong Kong as the first of its kind in January 1998. Using a probability sample, a telephone survey was conducted in November 1997 to assess attitudes and other factors affecting subscription intention, the findings of which have important implications for advertising strategies in Cultural China.
Fast Partitioning of Vector-Valued Images

We propose a fast splitting approach to the classical variational formulation of the image partitioning problem, which is frequently referred to as the Potts or piecewise constant Mumford--Shah model. For vector-valued images, our approach is significantly faster than the methods based on graph cuts and convex relaxations of the Potts model which are presently the state-of-the-art. The computational costs of our algorithm only grow linearly with the dimension of the data space which contrasts the exponential growth of the state-of-the-art methods. This allows us to process images with high-dimensional codomains such as multispectral images. Our approach produces results of a quality comparable with that of graph cuts and the convex relaxation strategies, and we do not need an a priori discretization of the label space. Furthermore, the number of partitions has almost no influence on the computational costs, which makes our algorithm also suitable for the reconstruction of piecewise constant (color or vect.
Invasive Haemophilus influenzae type b disease in England and Wales: who is at risk after 2 decades of routine childhood vaccination?

BACKGROUND The introduction of the Haemophilus influenzae serotype b (Hib) conjugate vaccine into national immunization has led to rapid and sustained declines in invasive Hib disease incidence across all age groups. In industrialized countries with established Hib vaccination programs, however, little is known about individuals who develop invasive Hib disease. This study describes the epidemiology of invasive Hib disease in England and Wales during 2000-2012 and the clinical characteristics of laboratory-confirmed Hib cases diagnosed during 2009-2012. METHODS Public Health England (PHE) conducts enhanced national surveillance of invasive Hib disease in England and Wales. Detailed clinical information was obtained for all laboratory-confirmed Hib cases diagnosed during 2009-2012. RESULTS Invasive Hib disease in England and Wales has been declining since 2002, reaching its lowest incidence of 0.02 per 100 000 (14 cases) in 2012. In children aged <5 years of age, Hib incidence was 0.06 per 100 000 (2 cases), compared with 35.5 per 100 000 prior to routine Hib vaccination. Follow-up of all 106 case patients over the 4-year period revealed that most cases occurred in adults (73%) who often had preexisting medical conditions (77%) and presented with pneumonia (56%). The Hib-associated case fatality rate was 9.4% (10/106 cases). CONCLUSIONS Control of Hib disease in England and Wales is currently the best that has been achieved since the introduction of routine Hib vaccination in 1992. Invasive Hib disease is no longer a major cause of acute bacterial meningitis in children but, instead, cases are more likely to present as pneumonia in older adults with comorbidities, similar to the less virulent nonencapsulated H. influenzae.
Communication Stereotypes

If Blacks and Whites are ever to engage in genuine communication, many barriers or obstacles must be removed. One of the more pervasive hindrances to authentic interracial relations is stereotyping. Blacks and Whites hold a variety of stereotypes of each other, often negative, and these racial stereotypes have generally remained unchanged over the years. Katz and Braly (1933) tackled the question of racial stereotypes early. They asked 100 White college students to choose from a prepared list of traits those that characterized certain racial groups. These-Princeton University students characterized "Negroes" as superstitious, lazy, happy-go-lucky, ignorant, musical, ostentatious, very religious, stupid, physically dirty, naive, slovenly, and unreliable. Eight years after the Katz and Braly study, Bayton (1946) suggested that, although several studies had been conducted in which White students were asked to assign traits to Blacks and other racial groups, few studies investigated how Blacks and other racial minorities viewed Whites. His study, conducted at Virginia State College, a Black school, questioned 100 students using the Katz and Braly list of traits. Bayton found that Black students characterized Whites as intelligent, industrious, scientifically minded, progressive, ambitious, peace loving, sportsmanlike, sophisticated, conceited, and neat. He also found that Black students shared many of the White stereotypes of Negroes. The Black students attributed traits to themselves such as musical, superstitious, very religious, happy-go-lucky, loud, lazy, progressive, imitative, intelligent, and
A comparison of label‐based review and ALE meta‐analysis in the Stroop task

Meta‐analysis is an important tool for interpreting results of functional neuroimaging studies and is highly influential in predicting and testing new outcomes. Although traditional label‐based review can be used to search for agreement across multiple studies, a new function‐location meta‐analysis technique called activation likelihood estimation (ALE) offers great improvements over conventional methods. In ALE, reported foci are modeled as Gaussian functions and pooled to create a statistical whole‐brain image. ALE meta‐analysis and the label‐based review were used to investigate the Stroop task in normal subjects, a paradigm known for its effect of producing conflict and response inhibition due to subjects' tendency to perform word reading as opposed to color naming. Both methods yielded similar activation patterns that were dominated by response in the anterior cingulate and the inferior frontal gyrus. ALE showed greater involvement of the anterior cingulate as compared to that in the label‐based technique; however, this was likely due to the increased spatial level of distinction allowed with the ALE method. With ALE, further analysis of the anterior cingulate revealed evidence for somatotopic mapping within the rostral and caudal cingulate zones, an issue that has been the source of some conflict in previous reviews of the anterior cingulate cortex. Hum Brain Mapp 25:6–21, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
What Are Principals Expected to Do? Congruence Between Principal Evaluation and Performance Standards

This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods of content analysis to examine principal evaluation instruments, and state and professional standards for principals in school districts located in a Mid-Atlantic state in the United States. The purposes of this study were to (a) determine the degrees of emphasis that are placed on leadership and management behaviors expected of school principals, (b) explore the congruence of principal evaluation instruments to instructional leadership and management attributes, and (c) explore the congruence of principal evaluation instruments with state and professional standards. Findings revealed school districts focused on instructional leadership, organizational management, and community relations as responsibilities for school principals. Principal evaluation instruments reflected common expectations for principals among school districts and state and professional standards.
Making sense of social studies

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