Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reinforcement learning for reactive power control

This paper presents a Reinforcement Learning (RL) method for network constrained setting of control variables. The RL method formulates the constrained load flow problem as a multistage decision problem. More specifically, the model-free learning algorithm (Q-learning) learns by experience how to adjust a closed-loop control rule mapping states (load flow solutions) to control actions (offline control settings) by means of reward values. Rewards are chosen to express how well control actions cause satisfaction of operating constraints. The Q-learning algorithm is applied to the IEEE 14 busbar and to the IEEE 136 busbar system for constrained reactive power control. The results are compared with those given by the probabilistic constrained load flow based on sensitivity analysis demonstrating the advantages and flexibility of the Q-learning algorithm. Computing times with another heuristic method is also compared.
Learning Through Service: A testimonio on the Pedagogical and Scholarly Benefits of Service Projects Conducted by Teachers of Spanish

This article argues the pedagogical and scholarly benefits to Spanish language faculty who themselves conduct community-engaged service projects in Spanish-speaking communities. The author explores the term “service” as it is understood in higher education in relationship to teaching and scholarship, positing that service projects conducted by faculty constitute engaged scholarship as defined by Boyer (1996), and that foreign language educators are especially well-prepared for this kind of scholarship and intellectual activism. The article includes a testimonio by the author describing how teaching a community poetry class to Latina immigrants has improved her university teaching and shaped her scholarship. Finally, the author suggests that conducting a literature-based project in the community could reinvigorate foreign language educators’ commitment to the humanities during the current so-called “crisis of the humanities. ”
EFFECTS OF TESTOSTERONE, COBALT AND HYPOXIA ON ERYTHROPOIETIN PRODUCTION IN THE ISOLATED PERFUSED DOG KIDNEY *

Hypoxia'" and cobalt5 have been demonstrated to stimulate the release or production of erythropoietin in the isolated perfused kidney. Elevated plasma levels of erythropoietin have also been reported following renal artery constrict i ~ n . ~ J Erythropoietin titers in renal venous blood were also found to be higher than renal arterial blood in dogs following acute hypoxia.8 On the other hand, other workers were unable to stimulate erythropoietin production in isolated kidneys perfused with blood at moderately reduced oxygen tension.9 Testosterone has been shown to stimulate erythropoiesis in polycythemic The erythropoietic effects of testosterone were also found to be more marked in the midly plethoric mouse than in polycythemic mice.12 The present studies were initiated to reassess the role of oxygen levels in blood on erythropoietin production and to study further the effects of cobalt on erythropoietin formation in isolated perfused kidneys. In order to clarify the mechanism by which testosterone stimulates erythropoiesis, the effects of this hormone on erythropoietin production in the isolated perfused kidney was also studied. Materials and Methods
AffectButton: Towards a standard for dynamic affective user feedback

Emotions are an important aspect of life. Persons have emotions while using products and technology. It is becoming more and more important to be able to assess these emotions for multiple reasons: (a) to develop better products, (b) to better understand how the user interacts with products, and (c) because the affective state of the user is of importance to the product itself (e.g., in the case of social software, persuasive computing, recommendation). In general there are two ways of extracting affective user feedback: explicit and implicit. Here we present a new interface component that enables users to give explicit affective feedback in a flexible and dynamic way. We call this component the AffectButton. Based on statistical analysis of affective user input gathered with the AffectButton in three user studies, we present evidence that users can use the button effectively to enter affective feedback. Furthermore, the feedback is reliable and valid.
Reduced neutron spectroscopic factors when using potential geometries constrained by Hartree-Fock calculations

We carry out a systematic analysis of angular distribution measurements for selected ground-state to ground-state (d,p) and (p,d) neutron transfer reactions, including the calcium isotopes. We propose a consistent three-body model reaction methodology in which we constrain the transferred-neutron bound state and nucleon-target optical potential geometries using modern Hartree-Fock calculations. Our deduced neutron spectroscopic factors are found to be suppressed by {approx}30% relative to independent-particle shell-model values, from {sup 40}Ca through {sup 49}Ca. The other nuclei studied, ranging from B to Ti, show similar average suppressions with respect to large-basis shell-model expectations. Our results are consistent with deduced spectroscopic strengths for neutrons and protons from intermediate-energy nucleon knockout reactions and for protons from (e,e{sup '}p) reactions on well-bound nuclei.
The association of serum trans-nonachlor levels with atherosclerosis

ABSTRACT Recent epidemiological studies suggest a strong association between exposure to environmental contaminants, including organochlorine (OC) insecticides or their metabolites, and development of pathologies, such as atherosclerosis, in which oxidative stress plays a significant etiological role. Biomarkers of systemic oxidative stress have the potential to link production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are formed as a result of exposure to xenobiotic toxicants, and underlying pathophysiological states. Measurement of F2-isoprostane concentrations in body fluids is the most accurate and sensitive method currently available for assessing in vivo steady-state oxidative stress levels. In the current study, urinary concentrations of F2-isoprostanes and serum levels of persistent OC compounds p,p’-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethene (DDE), trans-nonachlor (a component of the technical chlordane mixture), and oxychlordane (a chlordane metabolite) were quantified in a cross-sectional study sample and the association of these factors with a clinical diagnosis of atherosclerosis determined. Urinary isoprostane levels were not associated with atherosclerosis or serum concentrations of OC compounds in this study sample. However, occurrence of atherosclerosis was found to be associated with serum trans-nonachlor levels. DDE and oxychlordane were not associated with atherosclerosis. This finding supports current evidence that exposure to environmental factors is a risk factor for atherosclerosis, in addition to other known risk factors.
Potential Synaptic Connectivity of Different Neurons onto Pyramidal Cells in a 3D Reconstruction of the Rat Hippocampus

Most existing connectomic data and ongoing efforts focus either on individual synapses (e.g., with electron microscopy) or on regional connectivity (tract tracing). An individual pyramidal cell (PC) extends thousands of synapses over macroscopic distances (∼cm). The contrasting requirements of high-resolution and large field of view make it too challenging to acquire the entire synaptic connectivity for even a single typical cortical neuron. Light microscopy can image whole neuronal arbors and resolve dendritic branches. Analyzing connectivity in terms of close spatial appositions between axons and dendrites could thus bridge the opposite scales, from synaptic level to whole systems. In the mammalian cortex, structural plasticity of spines and boutons makes these “potential synapses” functionally relevant to learning capability and memory capacity. To date, however, potential synapses have only been mapped in the surrounding of a neuron and relative to its local orientation rather than in a system-level anatomical reference. Here we overcome this limitation by estimating the potential connectivity of different neurons embedded into a detailed 3D reconstruction of the rat hippocampus. Axonal and dendritic trees were oriented with respect to hippocampal cytoarchitecture according to longitudinal and transversal curvatures. We report the potential connectivity onto PC dendrites from the axons of a dentate granule cell, three CA3 PCs, one CA2 PC, and 13 CA3b interneurons. The numbers, densities, and distributions of potential synapses were analyzed in each sub-region (e.g., CA3 vs. CA1), layer (e.g., oriens vs. radiatum), and septo-temporal location (e.g., dorsal vs. ventral). The overall ratio between the numbers of actual and potential synapses was ∼0.20 for the granule and CA3 PCs. All potential connectivity patterns are strikingly dependent on the anatomical location of both pre-synaptic and post-synaptic neurons.
A Machine Learning Approach For Opinion Holder Extraction In Arabic Language

Opinion mining aims at extracting useful subjective information from reliable amounts of text. Opinion mining holder recognition is a task that has not been considered yet in Arabic Language. This task essentially requires deep understanding of clauses structures. Unfortunately, the lack of a robust, publicly available, Arabic parser further complicates the research. This paper presents a leading research for the opinion holder extraction in Arabic news independent from any lexical parsers. We investigate constructing a comprehensive feature set to compensate the lack of parsing structural outcomes. The proposed feature set is tuned from English previous works coupled with our proposed semantic field and named entities features. Our feature analysis is based on Conditional Random Fields (CRF) and semi-supervised pattern recognition techniques. Different research models are evaluated via cross-validation experiments achieving 54.03 F-measure. We publicly release our own research outcome corpus and lexicon for opinion mining community to encourage further research.
Neuropsychological Deficits Associated with Diffuse Lewy Body Disease

Diffuse Lewy body disease (DLBD), in its pure form, is a neuropathologic condition in demented patients that is characterized by subcortical and diffusely distributed neocortical Lewy bodies with little or no concomitant Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. Clinically, DLBD patients initially present with dementia of insidious onset and subsequently develop mild extrapyramidal motor dysfunction. The present study retrospectively examined the neuropsychological test performance of five patients with DLBD and compared their performance to that of equally demented patients with neuropathologically confirmed "pure" AD. The results showed that the DLBD patients were globally demented with deficits in memory, attention, language, psychomotor performance, and "executive" functions, and a strikingly severe deficit in visuospatial and visuoconstructive abilities. The visuoconstructive and psychomotor impairments of the DLBD patients were significantly worse than those of the AD patients, whereas the memory performance of the AD patients was worse than that of the DLBD patients. These results indicate that DLBD without concomitant AD pathology can produce a global dementia with aspects of both cortical and subcortical dysfunction and suggests that Lewy body pathology contributes importantly to the clinical manifestation of the Lewy body variant of AD.
A technique to increase noise-tolerance in dynamic digital circuits

Dynamic logic style is used in high performance circuit design because of its fast speed and less transistors requirement as compared to CMOS logic style. But it is not widely accepted for all types of circuit implementations due to its less noise tolerance and charge sharing problems. A small noise at the input of the dynamic logic can change the desired output. Domino logic uses one static CMOS inverter at the output of dynamic node which is more noise immune and consuming very less power as compared to other proposed circuit. In this paper we have proposed a novel circuit for domino logic which has less noise at the output node and has very less power-delay product (PDP) as compared to previous reported articles. Low PDP is achieved by using semi-dynamic logic buffer and also reducing leakage current when PDN is not conducting. This paper also analyses the PDP of the circuit at very low voltage and different W/L ratio of the transistors.
Young people’s experience of family therapy for anorexia nervosa: a qualitative meta-synthesis

ABSTRACT Family therapy is a key treatment approach for anorexia nervosa (AN), and family-based treatment (FBT) is now well supported for the treatment of adolescents. Qualitative research exploring treatment for AN from the patient’s perspective has an important role in understanding engagement and stimulating potential augmentations. The aim of this review was to describe patients’ experiences of family interventions for AN. Five databases were searched: PSYCINFO, MEDLINE, SCOPUS, CINAHL, and Web of Science, and a systematic review and meta-synthesis of 15 studies were conducted. Fourteen descriptive themes emerged, which were grouped into four conceptual themes: relinquishing control ambivalently (initial treatment resistance, authoritative care, and recovery not done alone), improved family relationships (increase openness and honesty, decreased conflict, improved intra-family understanding, rectifying structural issues, and externalisation of AN), neglect of underlying issues (cause of AN, issues other than AN, and need for individual work), and failure to address some family issues (focus on surface issues, lack of family engagement, and involvement of siblings). Findings indicated significant concordance with quantitative research regarding strengths of family-based approaches, including support of family understanding and use of the family as a resource for recovery. Addressing a variety of underlying family and individual issues was implicated as an area for improvement.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-induced oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation in relation to immunological alteration

Objectives We evaluated the association between exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and immunological measurements using blood samples from coke oven workers exposed to high and low PAH levels. Methods A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted from 2008–2009 with coke oven workers and steel-rolling workers as the exposed and control groups, respectively. Questionnaires on basic demographic information were administered. Personal breathing zone and urine samples were collected to quantify personal PAH intake and biological response doses. Immunological and cytokine parameters in serum were analysed. Urinary malondialdehyde (MDA) and 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) were analysed to determine oxidative stress induced by PAHs in relation to altered humoural immunological status. Results Mean levels of serum immunoglobulin A (IgA) and TNF-α were significantly increased in coke oven workers compared to steel-rolling workers who had no or minimal PAH exposure (p=0.0033 and p<0.0001, respectively). There were no significant differences in mean levels of IL-4 and IL-10 between coke oven workers and steel-rolling workers. Moderate activation of lipid peroxidation and oxidative damage as determined by plasma MDA and 8-OHdG levels were detected simultaneously with significant alterations in IgA and IgE levels. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that PAHs with high molecular weights >252 (dibenzo(a,h)anthracene, benzo(a)pyrene, benzo(a)anthracene and/or indeno(1,2,3-cd)pyrene) correlated with IgA and IgE levels. Conclusions This study showed that coke oven workers with chronic exposure to PAHs may develop immunological alteration. Oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation induced by PAHs may partly explain the alteration in immunological parameters.
A Model of Non-Routine Organizational Search: Broadcast Search as an Alternative Knowledge-Sourcing Mechanism in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Combining Cyert and March’s (1963) model of search with foundational concepts from evolutionary theory (Nelson & Winter, 1982), this dissertation scrutinizes the expansion of search and develops a refined framework for organizational search behavior. Special emphasis is put on the aspect of search in organizationally vulnerable areas (Cyert & March, 1963). Considering pressure to innovate as a potential driver, the dissertation develops a conceptual model based on open innovation (Chesbrough, 2003a). Three pre-studies and two main studies illuminate broadcast search in the pharmaceutical industry and test the theoretical model. The pre-studies elucidate the use of broadcast search in the pharmaceutical industry from various angles. One investigation uses public data from an intermediary to test for the uniqueness of pharma-related broadcast search. Findings indicate that pharma-related challenges are frequented less by solvers. Another pre-study administered surveys to managers from pharmaceutical firms interested in open innovation for R&D. Results indicate alignment between the academic literature and practice. The tenor of the pre-studies is that broadcast search in the pharmaceutical industry deserves legitimate consideration. Also, anecdotal evidence supports the notion that broadcast search, at current, is used after other attempts have failed—as a search mechanism at the margin.
Determination of Olanzapine and N-desmethyl-olanzapine in Plasma Using a Reversed-Phase HPLC Coupled with Coulochemical Detection: Correlation of Olanzapine or N-desmethyl-olanzapine Concentration with Metabolic Parameters

Background Olanzapine (OLZ) is one of the most prescribed atypical antipsychotic drugs but its use is associated with unfavorable metabolic abnormalities. N-desmethyl-olanzapine (DMO), one of the OLZ metabolites by CYP1A2, has been reported to have a normalizing action on metabolic abnormalities, but this remains unclear. Our aim was to explore the correlation between the concentrations of OLZ or DMO with various metabolic parameters in schizophrenic patients. Methods The chromatographic analysis was carried out with a solvent delivery system coupled to a Coulochem III coulometric detector to determine OLZ and DMO simultaneously in OLZ-treated patients. The correlation between the concentration of OLZ or DMO and the metabolic parameters was analyzed by the Spearman rank order correlation method (r s). Principal Findings The established analytical method met proper standards for accuracy and reliability and the lower limitation of quantification for each injection of DMO or OLZ was 0.02 ng. The method was successfully used for the analysis of samples from nonsmoking patients (n = 48) treated with OLZ in the dosage range of 5–20 mg per day. There was no correlation between OLZ concentrations and tested metabolic parameters. DMO concentrations were negatively correlated with glucose (r s = –0.45) and DMO concentrations normalized by doses were also negatively correlated with insulin levels (r s = –0.39); however, there was a marginally positive correlation between DMO and homocysteine levels (r s = +0.38). Conclusions The observed negative correlations between levels of DMO and glucose or insulin suggest a metabolic normalization role for DMO regardless of its positive correlation with a known cardiovascular risk factor, homocysteine. Additional studies of the mechanisms underlying DMO’s metabolic effects are warranted.
Use of destained cytology slides for the application of routine special stains.

BACKGROUND Special stains to demonstrate microorganisms or intra- and extracellular substances have not been evaluated in detail regarding their applicability and usefulness in destained cytologic specimens. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study is to compare the results of routine special stains on destained slides previously stained with Hemacolor and on fresh (unstained) specimens. METHODS Archival Hemacolor-stained fine needle aspirate specimens of inflammation with infectious agents (bacterial, mycobacterial, and fungal infections), neoplasia (melanoma, myxosarcoma, and mammary adenocarcinoma), and hemorrhage (pericardial effusion) from 14 dogs and 7 cats were selected. Cells in a minimum of 4 fields were photographed and 5 slides from each case were then destained by different methods (alcohol acid or microwave). Seven special stains were applied selectively to the destained slides, depending on the cytologic findings: periodic acid Schiff, Grocott-Gomori methenamine silver, Gram's, Ziehl-Neelsen, Alcian blue, Fontana-Masson, and Prussian blue. The same fields were rephotographed and 2 observers evaluated the slides qualitatively, with comparison to fresh cytologic specimens from similar lesions. RESULTS Special stains applied to destained slides demonstrated the expected cellular and extracellular material or organisms independent of the destaining method. Staining intensity, nonspecific staining (background), cell morphology, and nuclear counterstaining results were similar to those of special stains applied to fresh unstained slides. CONCLUSIONS Destaining does not appear to affect the results of routine special staining for cytologic specimens. Destaining before special stains may be a valuable diagnostic strategy when few slides are present or only stained slides are available.
Optimization of non-convex multiband cooperative sensing

This paper proposes a pattern search (PS) based algorithm to optimize non-convex multi-band cooperative sensing problem. We present a two-step PS-based solution: The first step uses uniformly distributed random sets of input points to find a solution. The set of points that gives the maximum throughput is chosen as input to the second step, which consists of solving the problem using PS algorithm. We give numerical examples that show the improvement of our method over existing algorithms.
Crossing the Cordillera: Immigrant Attributes and Chilean Attitudes

Are individuals opposed to immigration because of perceived job competition with immigrants? Despite almost two decades of research, the literature on immigration attitudes continues to struggle for a clear answer. This study is designed to evaluate the labor competition hypothesis in an alternative and important immigration context, Chile. The cultural proximity of natives and immigrants in Chile mitigates the issue of cultural threat and thus permits a focused appraisal of the role of economic competition. Also, the prevalence of both high- and low-skilled immigrant labor may generate competition in diverse employment sectors in Chile. Using data from an original Internet survey experiment, I test how an immigrant’s skill level, country of origin, and ethnicity influence Chilean attitudes toward immigration. The results suggest that individual immigration attitudes are not influenced by concerns over job competition but rather evaluations as to the broader economic effects of certain types of immigrants. Well-educated Chileans, like their European and American counterparts, prefer immigrants who pursue high-skill employment.
The Situation of Youth and Children in Kibera

is an independent, non-profit research institution and a major international centre in policy-oriented and applied development research. Focus is on development and human rights issues and on international conditions that affect such issues. The geographical focus is Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern and Central Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. CMI combines applied and theoretical research. CMI research intends to assist policy formulation, improve the basis for decision-making and promote public debate on international development issues.